Kiss the Girl (25 page)

“
So
?”  Karl leaned back in the matching chair on Nixie’s right.  “Tell us about this clinic.”

She watched with interest as Nixie
bit her lip, a sure sign her
chronically honest little
girl was about to play fast and loose with the truth. 
How entertaining.  Sloan exchanged a glance with Karl and settled in for the show.
 

Nixie hesitated
, gnawing her lip
. 
I’m a receptionist
didn’t have quite the gravitas of
I’m fostering peace in the M
iddle
E
ast
.  Karl was going to blow a gask
et.

Erik said, “
We’re a medical clinic based in Anacostia. 
Nixie’s
been
--”

“
Named
Director of Outreach!”  She nodded vigorously.  “I’m spearheading a project to
build awareness around poverty-
related diseases.”  She was silent for a moment, in awe of her own lie.  Nobody spoke, so she cleared her throat and said, “The focus is on childhood asthma.  It’s practically an epidemic in the local projects.” 

Karl tapped thick fingers against his knees.
He glanced at Erik, who stared
at Nixie in bemusement.  She shrugged.  She was a desperate woman. 
She didn’t care
what
global disaster Karl wanted her back for, she was not going to suck up her pride and trot after Sloan like a kicked puppy. 

Besides, the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of
tackling
the asthma epidemic in Anacostia.  Mama Mel would be a killer ambassador for the cause.  She was making a mental list of reporters and legislators to contact when Karl finally spoke.

“
Dr. Larsen, i
s there anything in your Personnel and Policy Handbook that would preclude a relationship between a board member and a benefacto
r of Nixie’s stature
?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Erik said, still frowning at Nixie.

“We’re not having a relationship,” Nixie put in.  “It was just a kiss.  Now about this asthma project--”

“Because if there were some kind of regulation against such a relationship, it would be easy enough to spin the photos into a severance of the clinic project.”

“
There aren’t any photos
,” Nixie said.

“There are always photos,” Karl said without glancing her way.  He
stroked his beard and gazed into the middle distance. 
Sloan curled her legs into the chair and smiled at Erik, who cleared his throat and glanced
warily
at Nixie
, one hand going to the back of his head
. 

“
I don’t want to sever the clinic project.  Besides, there are no photos
,” Nixie said.  Nobody responded, and a familiar sense of futility descended on her.  “Hello?  No photos.  No relationship.  No rule against one even if there were.”

Nothing.  Nixie looked at Erik.  “Will you please tell them?”

He lifted his shoulders.  “I can try.”  He leaned against the arm of the couch, made a face and straightened up again. 

“Listen, Karl,” he said.  “There’s nothing on the books that would preclude me from kissing Nixie into next week if I wanted to.”  Nixie closed her eyes.  This was not going well.  “But you can rest assured that I’m not going to do that.  It was just lunch.  A couple burgers and an impulsive kiss.”  

The silence that followed was long and grim. 

“I don’t believe this,”
Sloan
said
, a
slow
smile curving her lips
. 

Karl just stared. 
“Nixie, have you been eating
meat
?”

CHAPT
ER FOUR
TEEN

Erik blinked at
Karl
in fascination.  “You say
meat
exactly like
somebody else
might say
toxic waste
,” he said.

Nixie’s advisor raked a paw through that wiry halo of hair and looked grim.  
Sloan smiled her sly, cat-like smile. 
Nixie looked like she was praying for deliverance.

“Oh, come on,” Erik said, glancing from face to face.  “It was just a burger.”

“Did anybody see you?” Karl asked.  Nixie sank into the couch and Karl turned accusing eyes on Erik.

“Everybody in Steve-O’s, I imagine,” Erik told him.

“Nixie, we’re still under contract to PETA,” Karl said.  “Do you have any idea what kind of damage this could do your credibility?  The credibility of
y
our brand?”

“I know,” she moaned, flopping back against the couch.  She winced and sat up again.  Erik sympathized.  That couch was like a mirage.  It only
looked
like a comfortable place to sit down.  “I can’t explain it.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”  Karl shook his head.  “
I’m
ashamed of you, Phoenix.”

Nixie flinched and bowed her head.  She looked small, defeated, and it was...wrong somehow.  Nixie was never defeated.  She was bold and charming and outrageous.  She tal
ked her way into unsuitable outings
and mopped up puke and
beat down
teenaged punks
who tried to snatch her off the street
.  Was she really going to let this self-satisfied talking head shame her? 

“It was a
burger
,” Erik said to Karl.  “Not Armageddon.”

“Have you ever pissed off the PETA people, Dr. Larsen?” 
Sloan
asked.  “It’s a lot more like Armageddon than you’d imagine.”

Erik turned back to Nixie.  “And you.  Where’s your spine, huh?  Where’s the woman who sweet talked a Senator into a little breaking and entering, then spent the rest of the morning dodging killer dogs and El Caminos without turning a hair?”

Sloan
’s
smile grew
.  “
Yeah, she sounds like fun.  Where are you keeping
her
, Nixie?”

“Breaking and entering?”  Karl finally looked alarmed.  “Which Senator?”

“Oh
, calm down,” Nixie said.  “All
of you.”  She stood up, clapped her hands together decisively and said, “Okay, here’s the deal.  Erik, you’re right.  I’m being a wimp.  Thanks for the reminder.”  She smiled at him and Erik’s stomach did a weird little flip.  She turned to her advisor.  “However, Karl’s also right
to be
ashamed of me right now
.  But not
for eating a stupid burger
. 
He ought to be ashamed of me
for letting other people
--
PETA included
--
tell me what I believe.  What I want.  What I am.” 

Sloan looped thin arms around her knees and said, “Hallelujah.  There’s some of me in the
old
girl after all.
  How
did
you like that burger, Nixie?
”

Nixie shot her mother a poisonous look,
and Erik suddenly realized that Nixie wasn’t a vegetarian becau
se of Sloan.  Sloan probably ingested
anything that landed in front of her, from a handful of rice to a couple lines of coke.  No, Karl was the evangelical vegetarian. 
 

“Nixie,
come on
.
”
 
Karl stood up, put a hand on Nixie’s arm.  “
I would never be so hard on you if I wasn’t absolutely sure that we believe
d
the same things.  The same things
we’ve been working and fighting for all your life
.”

“I know that, Karl,” she said, and patted his hand.  Erik sat on the arm of the couch and shook his head.  He was losing track of the score. 
Was Karl winning?  Was Nixie?  Sloan seemed wearily amused by the whole thing, as if she’d been hearing the same argument for years.  She probably had.  He wondered who usually won.

Not that it mattered to him.  The bottom line was that Nixie had baggage
--
big, heaping piles of it, excellent for squashing any lingering traces of an inconvenient lust.  His stomach settled nicely at the thought. 

“We do believe the same things,” Nixie told Karl.  “Fate smiled on me in a big way, in terms of wealth and fame.  And that means I’ve got an enormous responsibility toward people who haven’t been so lucky.  But
it’s dishonest and patronizing to pretend I know what people need to rebuild their homes, their
lives
, when I’ve never had either one.”

Karl
took up her hands.  “
You’re a good kid, Nixie.  Truly.”

“But?”

“But
we don’t have time for an existential crisis right now
.” 

“I should have known.”  Nixie frowned at him.  “You wouldn’t show up a month early for nothing.  What’s happened?”

He squeezed her hands, a smile cracking the habitual soberness of his round face.  “
Aribi
fina
lly died.”

“
What?”

He
spun her around in an impulsive little two-step.  “We got word this morning. 
Aribi’s
dead, Nixie!” 

Erik figured he spoke for ninety-eight percent of his countrymen when he said, “Who?” 

But Nixie knew.  One look at her face told him that.  She was like a wooden doll in Karl’s big hands.  He stopped dancing, took her by the shoulders and said, “We need to be in
Bumani
by morning if we’re going to catch the best action. 
We’re in talks
with HBO to send a documentary film crew with us, and
I’ve already
sold the initial photography rights
to
Chat Magazine
.  Women and children are dancing in the streets, Nixie, and
Sloan’s
going to
lead
th
e party.  And then it’ll be your turn.  You can b
uild a few schools, educate some little girls.  You can have all the clinics you want after we bury this bastard.”