“It doesn’t. I mean your campaign.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Look, I made a traffic stop the other night. Car driving real slow across Wilson Bridge, and some kid walking next to it, right in the middle of the road. Really weird kid. Never seen him before. Didn’t seem to know what year it was. I was going to bring him in, but then the other kid, the one driving the car, she vouched for him. Said he was her cousin visiting from out of town, and that he’d gotten light-headed. So I let them both go with a warning.”
He took a step closer to her, bending down so he could lower his voice. “Ronnie, it was one of Diane’s kids. Rose. I don’t know who the boy is, but I don’t think he’s her cousin. And I don’t think her parents know he even exists.”
Veronica closed her eyes for a moment, collecting her thoughts. This was the last thing she needed. One of Diane’s kids sneaking out with some mystery boy, lying to her parents right before the debate. If the press got wind of this, they’d have a field day. “Why are you telling me this? What’s in it for you?”
Kenny sighed again, looking at her with a slightly sad expression. “Ronnie, I know you’ve made me into some sort of villain in your head, but I don’t want all your hard work to go to waste because of some stupid kids.” He stepped closer, his eyes soft. “I still care about you, you know.”
She leaned away from him. “Does your dad know?”
He shook his head, giving her a fraction more space. “I haven’t told him, and I didn’t log the stop on Saturday either, although maybe I should have. That’s why I came here before my shift today. I thought you’d want to deal with it privately.” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets, giving her a small smile. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Ronnie. I didn’t have to tell you, but I actually am a decent person, believe it or not.”
There it was. The fishing for credit. He just couldn’t resist.
“Thanks for telling me,” she said, her mind already whirling through ways to approach this new development.
“You’re welcome.” He seemed a little disappointed, probably because she hadn’t dropped what she was doing to throw him a parade. But she just did not have the energy to stroke his ego right now.
“Well, if there’s nothing else . . . ?” She raised an eyebrow, one hand on the front door handle, eager to get back inside so she could figure out her next step.
“Nope, nothing else,” Kenny said, slipping on his sunglasses. “But I’ll tell you what—if I find out anything else on this kid, I’ll let you know.”
“Great,” Veronica said.
He smiled. “Kinda nice, isn’t it? You and me, working together on something again? Like it used to be.”
Veronica opened the front door. “Thanks for your help,” she said, her voice measured. “But it’s not like it used to be. And it never will be.” With that, she shut the door, locking him out.
Chapter Thirty-One
LISA
“Mama? Can we talk?”
Lisa tied her fingers into knots in her lap, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She stared into the dregs of milk at the bottom of her cereal bowl, heart hammering.
“Hmm? Sure, baby, what is it?” Her mother’s eyes didn’t lift from the newspaper she had spread across the table beside her mug of coffee. She was still in her bathrobe, her face bare of makeup. One finger absently twirled the end of the silk scarf wrapped snugly around her hair.
Lisa fidgeted in her seat, searching for just the right opening words. If she was going to make things right with Charlene, she had to tell someone the truth. And her mother would love her no matter what, right? Even if it might make the campaign harder?
Of course I will, she could almost hear her mother say.
She took a deep breath. “Mama, I—”
“Morning, ladies,” Jim said, shuffling into the kitchen with a pajama-clad Emmie on his hip. She was the only one who looked truly awake, kicking her chubby legs gleefully as her daddy attempted to stuff her into her high chair. “Ba ba ba!” she chanted urgently, pointing at Lisa’s empty bowl.
“I hear you, Emmie-girl. I’m getting there,” Jim said patiently, clipping on the plastic tray. As far as Lisa could tell, none of Emmie’s noises actually meant anything yet—right now, ba seemed to mean breakfast, but later it could just as easily mean diaper or milk or car—but her mom and Jim always talked to her as if they knew exactly what she was trying to say.
He picked up the Cheerios box and shook it. “Gotta get to the store soon,” he muttered to no one in particular, shaking a smattering of o’s onto Emmie’s tray before glancing at the table. “Is Rose still in bed?” he asked, sounding surprised.
Lisa swallowed thickly, her face hot. She picked up her bowl and empty glass and walked them to the sink. “I’ll go check.”
“Hang on, baby,” her mom said, catching her arm as she passed by the table. “What did you want to talk about?”
Diane tore her eyes from the paper, from a story that Lisa now saw contained the brunch photo they’d taken on Saturday. The headline read, Lewis-Yin’s Lavish Lifestyle: Living Large as Polling Plummets.
Lisa’s heart sank. “I thought it was going to be a good article,” she said softly.
“We all did, sweetheart,” Jim said, patting her shoulder as he passed behind her on his way to his seat. “This is just how it goes, sometimes.”
Lisa looked from her mother to Jim, wondering how they were both so calm. If it were her, she’d be furious. She was furious. “Is there something we can do? Tell people that they’re lying?”
“How?” Diane said. “Make a statement to the paper?”
Lisa shook her head, sinking back down into her seat, rage boiling inside her. It wasn’t right that the newspaper, whose owners played golf with Franklin Gibson every weekend, could just print complete lies about her mother—about their family—and they had no choice but to sit there and take it. “It shouldn’t be like this,” she muttered, glaring at the paper.
Her mom looked tired, more tired than she’d seemed in years, but she still managed a smile. She leaned forward, taking Lisa’s face between her hands. “This is just the road, baby. We knew when we started that it would be bumpy.”
“It’s not bumpy for him,” Lisa grumbled.
“Maybe not,” her mom said, “but if we can just stay on it through to the end, maybe we can smooth out some of these bumps for the people walking after us.” She smiled at Emmie in her high chair, shoving handfuls of Cheerios into her mouth with her stubby fingers. When she noticed her mom looking at her, Emmie grinned, her brown button nose crinkling, bits of saliva-soaked cereal flecking her lips.
“It’s not fair,” Lisa said quietly, leaning over to wipe Emmie’s mouth with a napkin. Emmie twisted her face, arching away from the napkin and swatting at her sister’s hand. Lisa looked at Emmie’s wispy, dark curls, at the slight crescent shape of her eyes, and a simultaneous wave of envy and fierce protectiveness washed over her. Emmie didn’t know yet how hard it was to be different, and Lisa wished she could keep her from ever finding out.