Chapter two
Donovan
Israinonpress conference days like rain on wedding days?I wonder as I look out the office window. Maybe that will bring me some good luck today. With the shitty weather and the shit my brother seems to always find himself in, this is shaping up to be one hell of a Monday. Head in the game, Hayes, I think to myself. I was born for this. I spent years working for my father during his congressional career to prepare for this. I will not be derailed by bullshit today.
My mother, Susan, walks up behind me, brushing her hands across my shoulders and down the back of my jacket.
“You look very handsome, Son. You make your father and me so proud. Here, turn around and let me check your tie.” She gently spins me to face her.
“Mom, my tie is fine. I’m a grown man and have been perfectly capable of dressing myself for quite some time,” I reply.
She just laughs and shakes her head. “I know. I just can’t help but be a little nervous. This is the first time you’re going to be speaking as a senatorial candidate. Sue me for wanting to make sure everything is perfect,” she tells me while straitening my tie despite it already being flawless.
“Get used to it, Donovan. She’s been looking after me all these years. Now it’s your turn,” my father tells me. He would know. Not a hair has been out of place or a tie left slightly askew during his entire career as a congressman. He credits my mother with always looking his best. Even after his heart attack and subsequent retirement from politics three years ago, she still keeps him impeccably presentable.
“Oh yes, Donovan, you look absolutely perfect,” my brother says from the wingback leather chair he’s sitting in comfortably while nursing a scotch on the rocks at ten o’clock in the morning. My mother looks at him with a disapproving eye while my father just shakes his head.
“Little early in the morning, don’t you think, Jackson?” my father asks, raising his eyebrow in Jackson’s direction.
“Or late in the evening, depending on what time zone you’re in, Dad,” he replies. My father shoots Jackson a look he often finds himself on the receiving end of.
“Now, boys, let’s not squabble on Donovan’s big day,” my mother tells them. Always the peacemaker, that one. No matter what my father and brother have to say to each other, it won’t derail my focus. I’m going to go out there and nail every question and every talking point I have. This is the day I’m announcing my run for senate and the first time I’ll be speaking to the press outside of the few red carpet events I’ve had to attend throughout the years.
Even though my family may have our issues behind closed doors, the Hayes clan sticks together in public. We are a united front to any outsider, and my brother damn well knows it. His after-hours activities will never stop because I’m always there making sure nothing gets out to the prying eyes of the public. The Hayes family has never had to endure a public scandal, and I’ll be damned if we ever will. My mother will never leave her baby boy out to dry. Therefore, neither will I, nor my father.
While I look around my father’s study, I’m reminded of a time when Jackson and I used to play hide-and-seek, taking turns curling under my father’s giant executive desk. We would hide behind the deep green drapes, the dark mahogany bookshelves, and the rich leather chairs my mother had designed for the room. In later years, we would steal the scotch my father kept in his bar and act like the lords of industry we imagined ourselves to be one day. We were always careful to stay out of his cigar collection, though. That was the one thing Gerald would not tolerate. I can still smell the faint scent of cigar smoke in here. It was the one vice my father refused to give up for my mother. At least until his heart attack. After that, if Susan Hayes even smelled a waft of cigar smoke, there would be hell to pay.
That was when I was the brother Jackson looked up to. That was before I decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and go into politics, and Jackson decided to do, well, whatever Jackson pleases. I became the responsible one and he became the one you could count on for a party.
We both attended UPenn because it was my father’s alma mater, but that was where our paths took different courses. I thrived in school. My classes kept me busy until all hours of the night, while Jackson kept himself busy all night, not studying. He decided that being the one up for a party anytime would get him the connections he needed after graduation to make his mark on the world and to make his own fortune. Although many of his connections tended to be more of the kids who had money to burn variety. He has always insisted that the relationships he was building through his fraternity would pay off. After all, these were the guys who would take over the family companies one day. That usually meant he knew where the best parties and clubs were with the most beautiful women. He has done a decent job of keeping his extracurriculars out of the press, I’ll give him that. It keeps my security detail on their toes, though, that’s for damn sure.
“Come on, Gerald, we have to go make sure the staff has everything they need for today,” my mother says.
“Susan, the day you don’t have everything prepared down to the last detail is the day I really do die of a heart attack,” he jokes. She just gives him a withering look as they leave the room.
“Too soon, Dad, too soon,” Jackson calls after him. My brother may not mind riling our dad occasionally, but any talk of his mortality doesn’t sit well with Jackson. Despite Jackson’s faults?—which are plenty?—he loves both our parents as much as any son, and our father’s heart attack did a number on him. On all of us really, but that was the first time he realized that life isn’t one big party, and his parents wouldn’t be there to bail him out of everything he got himself into. Instead, that responsibility has fallen to me.
After our parents leave, Jackson stands and makes his way to the door.
“Hey, not so fast,” I tell him. “We have something that needs to be discussed.”
“Shouldn’t this wait until later?” he replies, obviously bored with this conversation before it starts.
“I don’t want other ears around for this and I don’t know when I’ll have time later.”
“Ooh, sounds ominous, Donovan,” he jokes. Always with the jokes.