“A good evening to you, too,” he said, stalling for time, trying to gauge the wisdom of answering Katherine’s inelegant question truthfully. He glanced over at Carine, saw that she was leaving the room, and was relieved.
“It’s not funny, Anton. We were getting worried,” Katherine said. “Brad said he hadn’t heard from you since morning. He’s apoplectic. So are you on your way home or not?”
He sighed. Facing all of them—and yes, to his great surprise and sadness, he associated Katherine with them—was the last thing he wanted to do. He knew this as surely as he had ever known anything. “I’m gonna spend the night here, okay, baby?” he said. “I’m exhausted. It’s been a very long day.”
“Where are you?” she asked again.
“I pulled off the road,” he lied. “And I’m gonna check in to a motel in a few minutes.”
Katherine exhaled. “Okay. That’s probably a good idea. You’ve got to be dead-tired.” She cleared her throat. “So, how’d it go? With your mom?”
He shut his eyes. “It’s a long story, honey. I’ll tell you when I’m home. But it went pretty okay.”
“Oh, good. I’m so relieved. So what time are you coming home tomorrow?”
He hesitated, unsure of what to say. Because the truth was, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Carine yet. He’d check in to a nearby motel tonight, and then—if she wasn’t tied up tomorrow—he wanted to come back to this pretty house for breakfast. To meet her kids. To tell her about his birth mom. He didn’t know when he’d ever see Carine again, and now that he knew she was happily married, he felt safe being alone with her, didn’t feel like he was cheating on Katherine. He would have to explain everything to Katherine when he returned home, of course, and he knew he was digging a trap for himself by lying to her now, but he couldn’t do any better tonight. Not when he was too tired to think straight. Not when Carine could walk back into the room at any minute. Not when there was a pretty good chance that Katherine would freak out at the truth.
“Well,” he began, but there was a voice at the other end and he heard Katherine say, “Here, you talk to him,” and then he heard Brad’s voice, hot and urgent in his ear, “You dickhead. Where did you disappear?”
Despite himself, Anton began to laugh. “I’ve been gone one freakin’ day,” he said. “You guys are acting like I’ve gone AWOL or something.”
He expected Bradley to come back at him with a soft curse, but there was nothing. “Hello?” Anton said cautiously. “Brad?”
“Listen,” Brad said, “you get some rest tonight. I’ll try and fend off your mother and the press for a few more hours until you get your ass back into town tomorrow. But if you still want me to run your goddamn campaign, you better start picking up the phone when I call. Or you can find yourself a new manager. Now go to bed, asshole. And for your sake, I hope you have the sense to pay for your room with cash.”
“You should’ve listened to me when I told you to spread the word we were leaving town for the weekend,” Anton teased and then waited for Brad to cuss him out. But there was no response. Anton stared at his phone in disbelief. They had both hung up on him? He was a grown man in his thirties and he hadn’t earned the right to take off for one day without them tracking him like a dog on a leash? He had never heard Brad so bent out of shape, not even when Anton had kept flubbing his lines during the practice session for the first debate against Johnny Newman. He felt a sudden dread at the realization that his life would only get more constrained if he became governor. Hell, if even Brad and Katherine couldn’t appreciate why he sometimes needed to disappear, what hope was there for the media and the public to be more forgiving? He felt a heaviness clamp down on him. I don’t want this, he thought, I can’t live like this. But the thought was so treacherous, so much a negation of everybody’s efforts on his behalf, that he dismissed it as abruptly as he had allowed it to seep into his mind. You’re tired, he said to himself. Just go find a motel and everything will seem clearer in the morning. Hell, you can be home by tomorrow afternoon if you catch that plane in the morning.
He went out into the hallway and saw that Carine was sitting by herself in the kitchen. She looked up when he walked in. “Everything okay?” she said.
He nodded. “Yup.” He rocked on his heels, the reason why he’d really stopped by here tonight dawning on him. “Listen. I know it’s late. But—something happened today. I mean, something else. Something I found out. I . . . I just need to process it with a friend. If you’re too tired, I’ll under—”
“Anton.” Carine gave an exasperated hiss. “Stop talking in riddles and come sit down. What is it?”
He told her. All of it. Including his conversation with David in which the older man had refused to apologize. Anton could see the tears glinting in her eyes when he got done, but she sat there, not moving, staring silently at him. “It’s unbelievable,” she whispered at long last. “It’s not possible.” She shook her head as if to untangle the knot of images forming there. “So what’re you going to do?”
He shrugged, meeting her eyes, resenting the pity he saw there, but forcing himself to not look away. “Nothing. What can I do? There’s nothing to do. He’s my father. It’s not like I can disown him. You know? I mean, I’m still in shock, but I know that he meant well.” He stifled a yawn. “Tonight I’ll check in to a motel. Get some sleep. And tomorrow I’ll get up early and take the plane home. Or meet you for breakfast and then go home.”
“That’s it? You’ll just put it behind you? You can do that?”
Now he heard the anger in Carine’s voice, and it made him half wish he hadn’t confided in her. “I’ll go see her,” he mumbled. “After the election.”
“Ah, the election. The friggin’ all-important election.” Before he could reply and tell her how many people had worked their hearts out for him to win, she swung her legs around and hopped off the stool. “And don’t be an ass about going to a motel,” she said. “I just made up the guest bedroom. While you were on the phone.”
He stared after her dumbly, his resentment at her dig tempered by his gratitude at her matter-of-fact friendship and hospitality. He knew spending the night here would complicate things with Katherine—and he realized he didn’t care. He really didn’t want to be alone in a motel tonight, not after the kind of day he’d had. The thought of spending a little more time with Carine cheered him. Already the sharp lust that he had felt for her when he’d shown up was easing into a deep affection, blunted by the fact of her marriage and her obvious love for her husband. And it was this knowledge that made him feel right about replying with a simple “You did? Bless you.”
She eyed his duffel bag. “You bring any PJs with you? Or I could loan you Mike’s.”