extended part sure is,” Jolie said, winking at Sam, who was beginning to feel he was a spectator at a tennis match.
“Did you see the interview she did with that poor Willie somebody-or-other?”
“Cartwright,” Jessica said, turning the name into a dirty word. “New York’s own Willie Cartwright. And I only asked him a few questions.”
“She asked him questions, all right, Sam. But how? she kept asking him whenever he said what he would do if he’s elected to the U.S. senate. He’d clean up crime in the streets. But how? Jess asked. He’d secure our borders. But how, Jess pushed him. He’d balance the budget, reduce the trade deficit, improve education, provide health care for all. But how? How? How you gonna do that, sir? She kept at him and at him until I thought the poor guy was going to have a stroke—Jade sent me a tape of the whole thing. And then—bam—our little Barbie doll zings him with a quick question about some by-the-hour motel just across the line into Jersey and how he was seen there the previous week with a woman not his wife.”
“So what’s the big deal? The guy deserved it.” Jessica gave her hair another flip. “He was using my airtime to make a campaign speech, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. I wouldn’t have zinged him if he hadn’t been so damn determined to stay on his talking points and not say anything concrete. That’s all. Who knew he’d go so ballistic with my bosses?”
“Right,” Jade said from the open doorway. “Shame, shame on poor old Willie. And it’s really not her fault, Sam, she’s right about that. Most times the men she interviews take one look at that hair, that face—the girls—and say oh, please, please, let me tell you all of my most embarrassing secrets.”
“I’ll have you know, Jade, I don’t appreciate you saying that the only reason I’m on-air is because of my hair and face.”
“And the girls. Don’t forget the girls.”
Sam might have been embarrassed, except he’d heard all of this before, a dozen times. They’d soon be doing a verbal tag-team match, with everyone changing sides every few minutes just because it was fun. He looked to Jolie, waiting for her to chime in, wondering whose side she’d take. But she just held up her hands in a sort of surrender and shook her head. She’d taken her shot, bringing up Willie Cartwright, and now she’d retired to her corner.
Jessica appealed to him, explaining, “Jade’s chest somehow missed out on puberty, and she thinks it’s my fault that I got her share. Isn’t that right, Jade? Hey, you want help with those briefcases?”
“No, I don’t,” Jade said tersely, and Sam belatedly noticed that her trip back to the car had been to retrieve two ancient, battered tan briefcases, the sort that actually had straps on them to hold them closed.
“Good,” Jessica said, “because I wasn’t planning on helping you anyway. Bar still in the same place, Sam?”
“Straight ahead and then to your left,” he told her before helping Jade by taking the briefcases from her. “Wow, you brought me bricks, Jade? Really, you shouldn’t have.”
Jolie seemed to have changed allies and was now targeting Jade. “You’re right, Sam. She really, really shouldn’t have. Jade, this could have waited until tomorrow, when we’re back home.”
“Not really, sis,” Jade told her as they all headed for the living room. “If nothing else, we had to bring Rockne over to see you. He still hasn’t eaten anything, although he did drink some water—thank God—so we might want to take him outside later if he starts looking for doors.”
Jolie bent down to give the setter a hug. “Why don’t you and I go into the kitchen and see if there’s anything there you want to eat, hmm?”
“We’ve offered him everything from cold spaghetti to doughnuts, Jolie—he won’t eat. You can try again later, all right? The sooner we get started, the sooner we clear Teddy’s name. Jess,” she called out as she headed for the large round-topped coffee table flanked by curved tapestry couches done in the Empire style, “get me a soda, too, while you’re at it. Diet, please. And ask Jolie and Sam what they’d like to drink.”
“Jessica is right,” Sam said, grinning. “Jade really does give orders.”
“She’s the oldest, remember, even though she and I are Irish twins, only eleven months apart. After our mother took a hike, Jade elected herself mama duck, with Jess and me as the baby ducklings she had to keep marching all in a row. That, and she’s just basically bossy. Court used to tell her she’d make a fine prison warden,” Jolie told him as Rockne nuzzled his head against her knee, nearly knocking her over.
“I saw him last week, you know, in London,” Sam told her, referring to his cousin, Courtland Becket, once Jade’s husband. Sam, for his sins, had introduced them. The marriage had lasted less than six months. But Court still should be told about Teddy. “Damn, I should have called him as soon as I heard about your dad.”
Jessica approached carrying a tray with ice-filled glasses and cans of soda on it, offering them their choice. “Court? Oh, he whose name cannot be spoken? What’s he doing in England?”
Sam chose a glass and a can of ginger ale. “Thanks. Visiting our relatives at the ancestral manor, I guess you’d call it. Becket Hall. It’s a huge old pile located in Romney Marsh, right on the Channel. Our cousin Morgan got in touch with him a few months ago about something, and he decided to accept the invitation to come see the place.”
“Morgan? Yet another handsome guy, right? Nice to know there’s one left for me to romance and then toss away,” Jessica said, toasting Jolie with a can of Coke.
“Children should be seen and not heard,” Jolie warned her tightly.
“Sorry, Jessica,” Sam told her. “Morgan’s a girl. Morgan Becket Eastwood. Her branch of the Beckets has been living at Becket Hall since a bunch of the family emigrated to America nearly two hundred years ago. Court and I had a bet going as to how drafty the old pile has to be.”
“If it’s two hundred years old, it probably has a bunch of ghosts, too,” Jessica said, raising her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you didn’t go with Court. Even if there aren’t ghosts, think of all that moldy old furniture. You’d have been in heaven.”
“I thought about it, but as it turns out, I’m glad I decided to come home instead,” Sam said, looking at Jolie. “At any rate, I really should go call him. He should know about your father, decide whether or not he wants to cut short his vacation.”
“Jade won’t thank you for it,” Jolie pointed out. “And Court will go nuclear when he hears what Jade and Jess and I are going to do.”
“Yes, what you three are going to do,” Sam said, looking across the room to see Jade unloading fat manila file folders on his antique table—after pushing a delicate Sevres porcelain bowl to within a half inch of the edge. He wasn’t a stickler, he really wasn’t. Still…“Jolie? Pretend I’m Jade, issuing orders. Rescue that bowl, find coasters for your glasses in that drawer next to the couch Jade’s sitting on and let me go call Court. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Well, that settled it. He was now officially old. And boring. Although he hadn’t been all that old and boring an hour ago, upstairs. Maybe there was hope for him yet…
