“But what’s he like? What do you like about him on a personal level?” I asked, not willing to give up. I thought about my mom’s boyfriends, thousands of them, and how each one had been a mystery to me, why my mom thought he added anything to her life. I thought about my own boyfriends, the way I mostly wanted them to just be in the same room with me, the way I didn’t expect anything from them. I thought about Senator Roberts. The pictures of him that I’d seen made him look handsome enough, silver hair and ice-blue eyes, but old enough that I would have left him for dead.
“He’s intense. He’s not Southern in the way that makes you embarrassed. You know, at Vanderbilt, there was a kind of boy who wore pastel shorts and boat shoes. They wore seersucker, like they were racist lawyers from the forties. I hated them. They seemed like children but they already looked like middle-aged men. I called them Mint Julep Boys, like they missed the Old South because, even if there was horrible racism, it was worth it if it meant that they could be important by default.”
“It sounds like you’re describing your brothers,” I said. Madison sometimes wrote about them, all of them bankers or CEOs. She always said that nothing she did was ever treated by her parents with the same enthusiasm as her brothers’ accomplishments, even though the brothers were functioning alcoholics, all divorced and remarried.
“Yeah, like my brothers. Mint Julep Boys, like they would drink a mint julep on a regular day and they wouldn’t think it was weird. I don’t know. I’m rambling. I’m not talking about Jasper. I don’t know how to describe him. He’s quiet and principled and he’s intense. He understands people and that makes him slightly impatient with them, like they’re too stupid to protect themselves, so he has to do it for them. He’s not funny, but he has a good sense of humor.”
“Why did you marry him?” I asked.
“Because he wanted to marry me,” she said. “He wanted me, and he was older and experienced, and I liked that he’d already fucked up with the heiress and leaving his family. I liked that he was flawed but still principled. I guess that was important to me.”
“I’m scared to meet him,” I admitted.
“I’m a little scared for you to meet him,” she said. “I hope you don’t hate him.”
I didn’t say anything because I was pretty sure that, just on principle, I was going to hate him. I didn’t like men all that much, found them tiring. But I was willing to give him a chance. I was open to new things, I guessed. If it meant living in that house, I could handle talking to the senator every once in a while. I mean, his job required him to serve my interests, since I was a resident of his state. I didn’t vote, but he didn’t have to know that.
While Madison went to pick up Timothy from day care, I showered and then changed into new clothes, leaving my old ratty stuff in a hamper that I knew would be spirited away when I wasn’t looking, my clothes laundered and folded and then returned with maybe even a ribbon tied around them. I put on some of the perfume Madison had picked out for me, which smelled like old silver and honeysuckle. When I finally went downstairs, I saw Timothy standing there, no sign of any adults. “Where’s your mom?” I asked, and he simply turned away and started walking down the hallway. I followed him, and we ended up in his room, which I hadn’t seen earlier that day. His bed was bigger than any bed I’d ever owned, so fluffy that I wondered how he didn’t suffocate instantly when he got into it. “So this is your room?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you want to see my stuffed animals?”
“I mean, I guess,” I said. “Sure.”
There was a big chest and, with some effort, he lifted the lid. And then, like clowns from a VW Bug, out came so many stuffed animals that I felt like I’d dropped acid. Timothy pulled out a red fox with a bow tie. “This is Geoffrey,” he said, no emotion on his face.
“Hello, Geoffrey,” I said.
He pulled out an elephant with a thick pair of black eyeglasses. “This is Bartholomew.”
“Oh, okay; hi, Bartholomew.”
He pulled out a frog with a crown on its head. “This is Calvin,” he said, presenting him to me.
“Are you sure his name’s not Froggy?” I asked.
“It’s Calvin,” he said.
“Well, jeez; hey, Calvin.”
There was a teddy bear with a pink dress on. “This is Emily,” he said.