Mirror Image

She squirmed with pleasure at the thought, but a frown of consternation soon replaced her expression of bliss. First she had to cure him of his hang-up over the gap in their ages. Then she’d have to help him get over the fact that she was his best friend’s niece. Eddy hadn’t come right out and said that’s why he was resistant, but Fancy couldn’t think of any other reason he would avoid the blatant invitation in her eyes every time she looked at him.

Everybody in the family had been tickled to death when she had volunteered to work at campaign headquarters. Grandpa had given her a hug that had nearly wrung the breath out of her. Grandma had smiled that vapid, ladylike smile Fancy detested and said in her soft, tepid voice, “How wonderful, dear.” Daddy had stammered his surprised approval. Mama had even sobered up long enough to tell her she was glad she was doing something useful for a change.

Fancy had hoped Eddy’s response would be equally as enthusiastic, but he had only appeared amused. All he had said was, “We need all the help down there we can get. By the way, can you type?”

Screw you, she had wanted to say. She didn’t because her grandparents would have gone into cardiac arrest and because Eddy probably knew that’s exactly what she was dying to say and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.

So she had looked up at him with proper respect and said earnestly, “I do my best at whatever I undertake, Eddy.”

The high-performance Mustang convertible sent up a cloud of dust as she wheeled up to the front door of the ranch house and cut the engine. She had hoped to get to the wing she shared with her parents without encountering anyone, but no such luck. As soon as she closed the door, her grandfather called out from the living room. “Who’s that?”

“It’s me, Grandpa.”

He intercepted her in the hallway. “Hi, baby.” He bent down to kiss her cheek. Fancy knew that he was sneakily checking her breath for alcohol. In preparation for that, she had consumed three breath mints on the way home to cover the smell of the cheap wine and strong pot.

He pulled away, satisfied. “Where’d you go tonight?”

“To the movies,” she lied blithely. “How’s Aunt Carole? Did the surgery go okay?”

“The doctor says it went fine. It’ll be hard to tell for a week or so.”

“God, it’s just awful what happened to her face, isn’t it?” Fancy pulled her own lovely face into a suitably sad frown. When she wanted to, she could bat her long lashes over her big blue eyes and look positively angelic. “I hope it turns out okay.”

“I’m sure it will.”

She could tell by his gentle smile that her concern had touched him. “Well, I’m tired. The movie was so boring, I nearly fell asleep in it. ’Night, Grandpa.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and mentally cringed. He would horsewhip her if he knew how her lips had been occupied barely

an hour ago.

She moved along the central hallway and turned left into another. Through wide double doors at the end of it, she entered the wing of the house that she shared with her mother and father. She had her hand on the door to her room and was about to open it when Jack poked his head through his bedroom door.

“Fancy?”

“Hi, Daddy,” she said with a sweet smile.

“Hi.”

He didn’t ask where she’d been because he didn’t really want to know. That’s why she told him. “I was at a… friend’s.” Her pause was deliberate, strategic, and rewarded by a pinched look that came to her father’s mouth and eyes. “Where’s Mama?”

He glanced over his shoulder into the room. “Sleeping.”

Even from where she stood, Fancy could hear her mother’s resonant snores. She wasn’t just “sleeping,” she was sleeping it off.

“Well, good night,” Fancy said, edging into her bedroom.

He detained her. “How’s it going down at headquarters?”

“Fine.”

“You enjoying the work?”

“It’s okay. Something to do.”

“You could go back to college.”

“Fuck that.”

He winced but didn’t chide. She had known he wouldn’t. “Well, good night, Fancy.”