Her parents were going to go ballistic!
The Governor was probably going to sack her!
But, and it was a big proviso, she was not going to cry!
The flash bulbs exploded in her face, the barrage of questions buffeted her remorselessly. She sat very still, her pale white hands clasped on the desk before her, waiting. Waiting patiently, knowing intuitively that if she said a single word in her own defense she would be damned forever and that a dignified — or rather, as dignified as possible — silence was her only hope until the worst of the storm had blown over.
The only thing she had got right was to warn Dwayne John to stay away.
‘This is a briefing from the Governor’s Office,’ she had determined and Dwayne John knew her well enough by now not to argue with her when she had that particular look in her eyes. Like many men built like a man mountain there was a quirk in his soul that instantly recognized and responded to, a strong woman’s resolve. ‘You,’ she had continued, ‘don’t work for the Governor. I do!’
Miranda had leavened the severity of her message by planting a pecking kiss on the big man’s cheek, as often she did these days because it seemed like the most natural thing. The disorientating experience of being drawn back into her old life had simply nudged her closer to Dwayne, and he to her. In fact, she did not know how she would have got through the last few days without ‘the big guy’ beside her, constantly ready to catch her at a moment’s notice if she stumbled.
She blinked serenely into the flashing lights.
Although this press call was without doubt a disaster and would most likely result in her losing her job — which incidentally she liked a lot — in the bigger picture it was as nothing to the prospect of introducing Dwayne to her parents.
Miranda had not told the big guy about that yet.
She sighed long and hard and raised her right hand, open palm to her tormentors. It had been easier breaking Sam Brenckmann out of that nightmare concentration camp in San Bernardino than fighting her way past these jackals on the steps of the Capitol Building. She probably would not have got into the building at all if she had not had a bunch of FBI Special Agents at her shoulder. The trouble was a girl could not always count on Federal law enforcement officers always being there when she needed them because it was not as if she lived in a police state. Not unless you were unfortunate enough to be a person of color in Alabama, or Georgia, or the Carolinas or anywhere else in the old Confederate South where those hideous Jim Crow laws still prevailed.
Perhaps, she would wait a while before she introduced Dwayne to her parents; the poor darlings were still in shock — positively traumatized — about Gregory and Darlene. She had to hand it to her brother. She had always had him down as a loveable, charming klutz but the way he had marched into the lounge of the Sequoyah Golf and Country Club with Darlene in tow and: firstly, announced their impending nuptials; secondly, invited mother and father to the wedding in Sausalito of all places on the second Saturday of March; and thirdly (and this was the really cool thing) demanded not asked for an interest free loan to buy a boat (an old yacht), still had Miranda involuntarily succumbing to periodic mild giggling fits.
That was two days ago, her mother’s sixty-first birthday; a big family affair organized by Aunt Molly and her Uncle Harvey at which an apparently endless stream of local notables and minor celebrities had breezed in and out to pay their respects to the birthday girl.
Superficially, her mother had taken the unexpected development — the news about Gregory and Darlene — quite well in a rictus-smile sort of way. However, as soon as the happy couple left the room she had looked at Uncle Harvey and Aunt Molly as if it was their fault and later interrogated Miranda very much in the manner of an angry police detective interviewing a mob hit man who has just been caught red-handed within minutes of shooting dead his partner.
Thinking about it, it had been the frankest exchange of views Miranda had ever had with her mother, and vice versa. Afterwards, they had both been…a little surprised. Miranda had found herself confessing that yes, I knew about it’ but ‘no, it wasn’t any of your business’. Her mother had accused her of being a ‘selfish girl’ and of ‘not caring about her brother’s future happiness’. Miranda had practically gone toe to toe with her mother and then, as if passing thundercloud had suddenly passed overhead and the sun had come out again, mother and daughter had found themselves looking at each other trying not to laugh out aloud.
Miranda’s father who had hovered uncomfortably in the background while the two women had conducted their shouting match in front of the packed lounge of the Sequoyah Golf and Country Club, had taken the opportunity of the fleeting break in hostilities to step between mother and daughter.
With an arm around both of the women in his life he looked around the room, a smile playing on his handsome face. Like the old ham actor he was he had defused the unpleasantness in a moment.
‘Margaret,’ he had declared. ‘I’m blowed if I’m going to lend the boy a single cent. WE are going to buy him that bloody boat! At least that way we know the blasted thing won’t sink!’
He had sniffed the air, daring anybody to contradict him.
‘And even if we must go all the way over to Sausalito for the wedding,’ he concluded, ‘we’re paying for that too. And that’s all that I have to say about the matter.’
He had kissed Miranda on the top of her head, his wife on her brow and drawn the two women close.
Everybody in the lounge of the Sequoyah Golf and Country Club had started clapping and cheering…
Nobody in the small room on the ground floor of the California State Capitol Building had paid any attention whatsoever to Miranda’s raised hand.
She picked up one of the mimeographed copies of the list of planned meetings of the CCRF over the next three months and waved this, not really thinking it would make a great deal of difference.
She was right; it did not make any difference.
Collecting Sam Brenckmann from the hospital had been weird.
Dwayne had practically had to carry Sam Brenckmann from the car into Gretsky’s when eventually they had arrived back in Laurel Canyon last Thursday afternoon.
Typically, Sabrina Henschal had looked the big guy up and down like a cat sizing up her next meal. She and Sabrina had never got on, never seen eye to eye about anything really. Miranda had taken Sam away from her before she was ready to let go on him but it was more than that; Miranda did not like Sabrina, or Gretsky’s and the feeling was entirely mutual. She had been surprised — disarmed in fact — by how genuinely friendly and openly grateful Judy Dorfmann had been. It might have been because she was the one bringing the father of her six week old daughter back to her; either that or Sam’s girlfriend was just a really nice person. Judy was plain, very tired and utterly devoted to Sam and they had not let go of each other apart to make a fuss of Tabatha Christa in all the time Miranda and Dwayne had been at Gretsky’s. When she and the big guy had made their excuses and turned to leave Sam had given Miranda a hug — he had felt like a bag of bones — and done likewise with Dwayne. Judy had tried to hug and kiss the big guy, a physical impossibility until he had sheepishly bowed his head.
‘Don’t be strangers, people,” Sam had grinned lopsidedly, his voice still sore and hoarse from the tubes the hospital had stuffed down his throat when he had reacted badly to Vincent Meredith’s Mickey Finn.
‘Nice people,’ Dwayne had offered as they drove away into the dusk.