Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change (9 page)

“Oh, I took the 405,” Brock said casually. “Got off at—”

“I meant—uh, who invited you?” Scott asked. “Not to be rude.”

“Oh, that’s not rude, I just didn’t understand you,” Brock said, patting him warmly on the shoulder. “I always get invited to the president’s fundraisers in LA.”

Scott’s eyebrows crept toward the ceiling. “This is a fundraiser?”

“I know, I know,” Brock said, “this close to the election? But with our man Harmon trailing Foreman in the polls, he needs some cash to dump on swing states—”

“I meant I didn’t know the president was—” Scott felt himself seize internally, like machinery encountering resistance within. “President Harmon is here?”

“Why yes, he is,” Brock said with that same grin, motioning toward a passage into what looked like the kitchen. “He just came through a minute before you did, in fact. Would you like me to arrange an introduction?”

“Whoa, no,” Scott said, holding up his hands in front of him as if to defend himself from the prospect of just such an introduction. “I’m one of the simple folk, not a presidential hand-shaker. Under the radar, that’s where I live.”

Brock grinned. “If that’s so, you’re at the wrong party, friend.” He pulled a hand around expansively. “I mean, just look at what we’re dealing with here. Starlets, power-brokers, directors—I think I even saw Joss Whedon earlier.”

“Ooh,” Scott said, looking around, “him I’d like to meet.”

“I think it’s about time I moseyed on,” Brock said, lifting his arms. One of the women with him slid her thin shoulders underneath and he lowered it to protectively encompass her. “I’m sure a young man like you understands.” He cast a look back at the other young woman. “You staying, then?” She made a little face and his smirk grew even wider. “All right.” Brock extended a hand to Scott and Scott took it, getting a firm handshake in return. “You think about what we talked about. Chew it over with your dad and let me know what you come up with.”

“Will do,” Scott said, and made way for the big man to thread his way through the crowded living room toward the door. He waited until Brock had walked out the front door before he spoke again. “Now there’s a man living the high life.”

“Ewww,” the woman Brock had left behind said in reply, shuddering as she stood and walked away. Scott watched her go. He didn’t need to do too much imagining to figure out exactly what she was talking about.

The party was buzzing, but the lack of cameras left Kat feeling a little cold in spite of the warm air in the backyard, where she stood in a small circle of her friends.

“Did you see the dress Caitlynn Courie was wearing?” Anna Vargas asked, running a diamond-crusted hand over her face to show off her newest rock. The girl did like to shop.

“No,” Kat gasped, pushing herself into the conversation. She was suppressing some minor irritation because Steven Clayton had ditched her as soon as she’d rescued him from Sienna, making some excuse about needing to powder his nose. He’d even said exactly that, and what was she going to do? Tell him not to go do a line? That would have been rude. “What did it look like?”

“You’ll probably see it on the red carpet in a few weeks,” Flannery Steiner said, holding a champagne goblet in front of puckered, amused lips. “Along with the sides, top and bottom of her tits.” Flannery was a former Disney Channel star who had left her childhood image behind in a squeal of tires from a high-speed chase that had resulted in her eighteenth arrest for possession of a controlled substance. The chase was the consequence of her having sex with her boyfriend in a public place and then running from the cops when they’d pulled up behind her while she still on the young man’s lap. The tabloid headlines had been exposure that had made Taggert wonder if Kat should feign a drug habit—or even pick up a real one for a bit. It’s not like track marks would be a problem for her; they’d heal overnight. The public indecency thing would be a little harder for her to stomach, but Taggert was pushing it, especially if she could get the right setup and partner.

“I’m so jealous of that dress,” Anna said, taking a sip of her drink, a pink concoction in a martini glass. “Who is it?”

“Chanel, I think?” Bree Lancer said, brushing her long auburn hair back carefully so as not to disturb her well-designed coif. It was a distinctive look that left a little hair hanging over her eyes.

“By the way,” Anna Vargas said, lowering her voice, “I heard what happened to you this afternoon, Kat. That’s so terrible. My thoughts are with you.”

“Oh, yes,” Flannery agreed, putting a hand across her chest. “Just awful, what happened to your bodyguards. I sent you a tweet of support and RT’d Jenny Kline’s Tumblr post. So glad you’re okay.”

“Ooh, I saw Jenny’s Tumblr post,” Bree said, sucking in a breath that disturbed her hanging hair. “I thought it was, like, so on the nose.” She looked to Kat. “So sorry. How are you holding up?”

Kat froze. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say in this case. “I’m … I’m okay.”

“At least you’re getting a ton of attention over it,” Anna said, a little jealously. “And I saw your new bodyguard. Whoever this disgusting vagrant guy that’s after you is, I doubt he’ll mess with Sienna Nealon.”

“Ohmigosh,” Bree said, “Sienna Nealon is here?”

“Is that who that was?” Flannery whipped her head around to look back at the house. “Z-O-M-G, ratings. Nice move, Taggert.” She turned to look at Kat. “You’re so lucky Taggert is working on your show. He’s a genius. Meanwhile, I’m sinking in share by the episode.” Her eyelids drooped and she puckered her lips frightfully. “You don’t think he’d want to try and turn things around for me, do you?”

“If Taggert takes on any other projects, I want him on mine,” Anna said in a huff.

Kat forced a brittle smile. “He’s good.”

“He’s brilliant,” Bree said. “The only way I’d consider a reality TV project was if Taggert came to me with it.” She cast her eyes skyward in thought. “What do you suppose it’d cost to get something like that off the ground?”

A little dignity and all your self-respect,
said a little voice in the back of Kat’s mind. “It’s easier than you think,” was what she said to them, though.

“Hey, did you guys meet the president yet?” Anna asked, looking back toward the house. “It’s so cool to be at a party where the president is, can you believe it?”

“Yeah,” Bree said, puffing up a little. “I mean, look at the people here. It kinda makes you feel important, doesn’t it?”

There was a small chorus of agreement that descended into a conversation that Kat mostly missed. In her head, she was retreating into a circle of thoughts that she didn’t want to entertain but felt like she couldn’t escape, like the worst houseguest in history.

Does it make you feel important, being here at a party with all these famous people?

Does brushing up against people who are known make you feel good about yourself?

No.

Well, then why are you working so damned hard to do it?

The answer she had didn’t satisfy, but instead of delving deeper she pulled away and smiled and listened along to a conversation about Givenchy while those damned houseguests in her head tried their hardest to make her feel like shit about the life she’d worked so hard to build.

“You’re a dick,” I said to the president of the United States as he raised an eyebrow sharply in amusement. “You said to tell you myself, so …” I waited for a thunderous response, for some hint of darkening around his eyes, for the Secret Service to yank me offstage with one of those hooked canes, but nothing came. The president seemed genial and good-natured, his light-brown hair streaked with hints of grey—but surprisingly few considering that he was in his sixties.

“And so you did,” Gerard “Gerry” Harmon said with a nod and that hint of a smile.

“You seem strangely unmoved by it, though,” I said.

“Well, it really burned me up the first time you said it, when your back was still turned to me. Probably lost most of its impact in the interval between.” He kept his lips in a flat line, deadpan. “Or maybe it lost its sting when I ran for governor of Massachusetts that first time and stupidly wandered into an internet message board where they called me ever-so-much worse.” He smiled. When he spoke, his words came out infused with so much personality that I almost felt like I needed to take a step back. “What brings you to the state of California tonight, Ms. Nealon?”

I tried to find an answer that was somewhat appropriate given that I was speaking to the man at the top of the pyramid and I’d already called him a dick and he’d forgiven me. Don’t get me wrong, I had a feeling my days on the job were limited, but I wasn’t in a hurry to hasten my departure from government service. “Well, there was an incident …”

“There frequently is when you’re involved,” Harmon said with a touch of good humor. “Would this be the meta attack against your friend Ms. Forrest earlier?”

“You heard about that, huh?” I asked, feeling a little nervous suddenly.

“I get informed of quite a bit,” President Harmon said. “Something about the job I’m in, I suppose. I think people might hesitate to vote for a president who doesn’t know a damned thing. They like to save that for senators, see.”

“Nice,” I said, admiring the shot he’d just taken at his opponent. Senator Robb Foreman of Tennessee had been an ally—maybe kindasorta a friend?—during the war.

“Oh, I think you might have taken that the wrong way,” Harmon said with a smile that told me I hadn’t. “I didn’t mean to insult your friend, especially since he’s done so much for you.”

I hadn’t seen Robb Foreman since early in the summer, when he’d given me a little assistance on a case I was struggling with in Atlanta. That had been just before he’d won his party’s nomination in a big, glorious ceremony in the middle of an arena in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. I’d caught the replay; Foreman knew how to play to a crowd. Which had been of real help to him when he’d rolled into the first debate with Gerry Harmon a few weeks later and given the president a drubbing unlike the man had ever received in his entire political career. I’d watched that, too, until it had gotten too painful and I’d had to turn it off.

Yeah. It was so bad that I—yes, me—had felt it was an unfair, lopsided, brutal contest and had changed the channel to watch
Agents of S.H.I.E.LD.
instead. The second debate had been marginally better for Harmon, but not exactly a win. Fortunately for him, there was not a third, but he lost ten points in the polls and was heading into election week at a rather significant disadvantage.

He watched me carefully. “If what I hear about you is true, I think can almost sense the sarcasm going on behind your eyes.”

“Admire my restraint,” I said with some regret. “It’s a thing I’m working on.”

“And I appreciate that,” he said with a little irony. “Why, it’s been something like ninety days since you last embarrassed my administration, and don’t think we haven’t noticed. If you make it to a hundred twenty, I’ll send you a fruit basket.”

“Ooh, something to look forward to.”

“Mr. President.” One of the secret service guys strode up. “We’re running a little behind schedule.”

“Right,” Gerry Harmon said, shifting his attention back to me. “I think this is where I leave you, Ms. Nealon.” He offered me a hand, and I considered it for a second before I took it. His fingers were a little damp from perspiration, but probably not as damp as mine were. It’s not every day I accidentally and then intentionally insulted the leader of the free world.

“You didn’t say anything like, ‘I hope I can count on your vote,’” I observed as he turned away.

He looked back in slight surprise. “Let’s be honest; even if you weren’t voting for your friend, you live in Minnesota.” He smiled. “It’s not exactly a swing state.”

“I certainly feel motivated to join your cause now,” I said sardonically.

“Well, I don’t really need your vote, but it doesn’t mean I couldn’t use your help—remember, there’s a fruit basket in it for you.” His eyes flashed in amusement at the inside joke the two of us now shared, and he walked away with a Secret Service detail surrounding him.

“You really are a dick,” I said, once I was sure he was out of earshot. And I meant it.

I turned around to find Taggert had apparently disappeared sometime between the first time I called the president of the United States a dick and the last one, and I couldn’t have been happier. There was a circle that had formed in the kitchen during my exchange with him, and I caught a few scandalized looks from people who’d heard my last observation. Weak-kneed pansies.

I looked for Kat but didn’t see her, or Scott, and since I was sick of people wearing formalwear that cost more than I made in a year looking horrified at me, I decided to leave the kitchen. I spun and started away and promptly ran into someone standing a little too close to me.

“Ow,” Steven Clayton said, barely catching himself before he was linebackered over the island in the middle of the kitchen.

“Dude,” I said, “you keep getting in my personal bubble. It’s not a safe space.”

He stretched cautiously. “I’m getting that, believe me. I never even got checked like that when I played hockey.” He opened his mouth and I heard his jaw pop.

“You have a surprising number of your teeth remaining considering you played hockey,” I said. In Minnesota, playing hockey is almost a religion. I’m not entirely sure, but hockey fans might edge out Lutherans, population-wise.

“I played for like, a season,” he said, fully regaining his balance. His classic tux looked … uh, classically good on him. He wore it well. “Switched to football. The hits were more manageable, and there were fewer games.”

“Couldn’t handle all the fighting, huh?”

“Oh, I could handle the fighting,” he said with a glint in his eye, “but the first time I got a black eye it sort of messed with my ability to play Hamlet in the winter production, so I had to make a difficult choice.”

I tried to imagine him playing Hamlet, all tortured and kinda broody and whatnot. It was not a bad daydream. “Right,” I said, coming back from that. “Well, sorry I ran into you—twice.”