Empire (Empire 1)

He tossed her a creamsicle and kept the fudgesicle for himself. “Do you ever wonder,” he said as he unwrapped it, “what it would feel like to smear this all over your body?”

Cecily made the connection. “You didn’t happen to say that to J.P., did you?”

“His fudgesicle was dripping all over his hand and he was getting all frantic about it.”

“He was in the back yard?”

“He turns doorknobs just fine, Mom. Didn’t you know that?”

“So you said, ‘Wonder what it would feel like to smear this all over?’ ”

“I told him he was already halfway covered in fudgesicle, he might as well take his clothes off and finish the job.”

“And you didn’t think to watch him to make sure he didn’t?”

Nick looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would I do that? It was funny watching him wipe his butt with a fudgesicle.”

“Oh, yes,” said Cecily nastily. “You read comic fantasies.”

“What’s the point of having a little brother if you can’t talk him into doing stupid things?”

“Nick, please don’t do that again. J.P. is not your toy.”

“He’s your toy. But aren’t you supposed to share?”

“You know I’m very angry with you.”

“Not very,” he said, reverting to their old game.

“Very very,” she said.

“Not very very very.”

“Very very very very very very very veriver vy. Very,” she said.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I cannot say ‘very’ that many times in a row without stumbling.”

“Come on, Mom, you speak a language that has no vowels.”

“Croatian has vowels. We just don’t need them in every syllable.”

Then everybody trooped down from upstairs and the private conversation was over.

Cecily didn’t get a chance to be alone with Reuben until dusk, when they went out and sat on the glider on the patio. Cecily told him about talking to the President and declining his job offer. Reuben told her about talking to Leighton Fuller at The Post. “And Cole telephoned me,” said Reuben. “General Alton is planning a coup. Keep Nielson as a figurehead. Maybe it’ll happen. Alton’s always been a big talker. But there are people who see the world his way. Maybe he has support. Maybe people will go along with him.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” asked Cecily.

“Keep my head down,” said Reuben. “There are things that a major in the United States Army doesn’t have the power to do. If they really do it, though, I’m resigning my commission. I signed on to serve the United States of America, not some committee of generals who think they have the right to decide how the country should go.”

“It won’t happen,” she said. “It can’t happen. That’s . . . it’s so Latin American. So Turkish. It doesn’t happen here.”

“Until it does,” said Reuben. “Something else Cole said.”

“What?”

“He quoted something General Alton said to him. Quoted to him. What he remembers Alton saying is, ‘Soldiers want to get paid and not die. Civilians want to be left alone. We’ll pay the soldiers and we won’t ask them to die. We’ll leave the civilians alone.’ ”