The Juliette Society (22 page)

‘He drove those girls to suicide, Charmaine,’ says Sachs, and he’s looking down at his notes nonchalantly as he says it, because he knows he’s so fucking good at this that he could do it in his sleep. And I wonder if someone is paid to write this stuff or whether he does it himself.

‘No,’ she says, ‘No.’

And this time it’s because she really can’t think of anything else to say. You can tell Sachs isn’t really interested in what she has to say anyway. That, to him, her answers are immaterial. Just dead air while he takes a breath before tossing out another volley of slander posing as inquiry, because this has all been scripted in advance. To make Forrester Sachs seem like the hero, the big man who’s standing up for all the little people in the world. He’s an anchorman with a Messiah complex in a Tom Ford suit, with arms so big they could embrace all the victims of the world.

When, really, he’s just perpetuating the cycle, victimizing them in death as much as they were in life. Airing everybody’s dirty laundry without any regard for the consequences. Sacrificing his subjects on the altar of his vanity. I wonder how he sleeps at night, I really do.

‘What do you want to say to your son, Charmaine,’ Sachs says. ‘Now that you know what he’s done. Now that you know that people have died.’

And now Sachs is looking for the big pay-off, that killer piece of footage that will end up being syndicated to every news show on every single TV channel, where it will run near-continuously as a two-second soundbite to trailer the story.

They cut to Charmaine and she’s looking straight into the camera, or rather where she thinks she should be looking. She’s looking at the cameraman, addressing him and not the camera, and so it seems on TV like she’s staring off into the middle distance, like she’s not really with it, not really there at all. And her glassy eyes are welling up with tears, her lips are quaking like she’s about to cry, and she says, in a voice cracked with emotion:

‘Mommy loves you, Bundy. Mommy loves you.’

You can almost see the smirk on Sachs’ face because he knows he’s got what he’s wanted. And as I’m watching all this unfold, I realize it’s turning into one of those tragedies you see on TV but never ever think you’ll play any part in. Blanket coverage, round-the-clock, day-in, day-out. These lives, or deaths, celebrated for a brief moment in the frenzy of a news cycle. Or if they’re really lucky, maybe three or four. Maybe celebrated isn’t quite the right word – fetishized. Then just as quickly forgotten. Becoming just another nameless, faceless victim of a tragedy that probably could have been avoided in the first place.

And, at this point, I decide I’ve had enough too. I tell Jack to change the channel and he’s all too happy to oblige. We catch the end of the same campaign ad for Bob DeVille again, and Bob’s still talking about how he wants people to see the real him.

‘Bob’s invited us to spend a weekend at his house,’ Jack says, his attention still fixed on the screen, on Bob.

‘He has?’ I say, surprised, but delighted.

‘I thought we could spend some time together there,’ he says.

I’m beaming inside. It sounds like an olive branch, like he’s giving us another go.

‘I’d like that – when?’

‘This weekend,’ he says.

And I’m secretly delighted because it’s Columbus Day weekend – a long weekend, the last public holiday before the election – and we’ll be together for an extended period of time. And I’d do anything for that, even if it means playing the dutiful girlfriend to Jack in front of his boss.

18

During the journey up to the DeVilles, it feels like Jack and I are driving away from all our troubles and heading towards a new horizon, and I want to put everything behind me and start afresh. A few times, I even catch him glancing over at me when he thinks I’m not looking.

Bob DeVille and his wife Gena live in this magnificent open plan, split-level ranch house built onto a hillside, with a terraced garden, acres and acres of land, a deck and a swimming pool that overlook a long, lush valley with a river running along the bottom and mountains in the distance. All you can see from the deck is this vast landscape that seems to stretch on uninterrupted for miles with just a handful of other houses visible to the naked eye.

When Bob takes us out on the deck to show us the view, soon after we’ve arrived, I’m overwhelmed.

‘I want to live here,’ I whisper to Jack.

‘Here?’ he says.

‘A place just like it,’ I say. ‘Just you and me, isolated by beauty.’

‘I guess I need to make something of myself, then,’ he smiles.

I don’t doubt he will and I want to be with him when he does.

‘This place is incredible,’ I add. ‘I knew Bob was wealthy but I didn’t realize he was that wealthy.’

‘He’s good at his job,’ says Jack. ‘One of the best. He litigates for oil companies.’

This is the first time I’ve actually met Bob in person. The closest I’ve ever got to him before are those photos of him on the giant campaign placards that plaster the front of the office. Posters that look like commercials for a hygiene product. Airbrushed to perfection. And Bob, he looks rugged and handsome and slick – as if the Marlboro Man was advertising Crest – but it’s all image, because he’s not at all like that in person. He’s so stiff that he’s kind of goofy and he’s a bit of a klutz as well and it makes me warm to him a little bit more.

Gena is a Southern Belle with a gentle grace and bearing that could only have been the product of a private education. She looks like a relic of ’60s glamour; her blonde hair is styled in a flip, as if it never went out of fashion. She’s wearing a turquoise pantsuit, the kind of thing you always see Hilary Clinton wear, a look that’s distinguished and stylish at the same time.

Just before we sit down for lunch, I’m scanning the photos arranged on the mantle and I’m drawn to one old black-and-white photo of Gena.

I figure she must have been about my age when that photo was taken. She looks like Ingrid Bergman in
Voyage to Italy
. That beautiful, that sophisticated. But it’s her eyes that draw me in, filled with a mesmerizing yearning and warmth.

‘What beautiful eyes,’ I say aloud as I pick up the picture, to no one in particular, not realizing that Gena is standing behind me.

‘Why, thank you,’ she says. ‘Bob always tells me, it was my eyes that stole his heart and he had to marry me to win it back.’

And as she says it, I look from the photo into her eyes, and realize that they’re not the same eyes. Gena’s eyes are clouded, as if she’s on too many conflicting prescription meds, and her mouth is bent out of shape at the corners, the way a nail kinks if you don’t hit it straight on the head with the hammer when it’s already halfway in the wall.

And I wonder what it was that hit Gena that way to bend her out of shape. I look at her now and she looks kind of crazy and lost. But, I have to say, she’s putting on a good front.

Jack doesn’t see any of this. He doesn’t see the little cracks. He’s not ready to look past the facade that Bob and Gena are putting out. He’s too wrapped up in the Bob thing.

Jack’s a smart guy, perceptive. But sometimes I despair. It’s not that he can’t see through people. He just doesn’t want to. He needs to believe in them too much, to reinforce his idea of who he is and what his place is in the world. In Jack’s eyes, Bob can do no wrong.

Now I see them together, I get the feeling that Bob sees Jack in a similar way, as the kind of guy who’s got a great future ahead of him. The kind of guy he could use, and more. That’s the other thing I realize now that I see them together: Bob sees Jack as the son he never had.

They don’t have children of their own, Bob and Gena, which is kind of odd when I think about it because I can’t think of a politician that doesn’t. Even the ones that are still in the closet, who eventually get caught with their pants around their ankles, having their asses reamed in their office on Capitol Hill by some hot piece of male fluff they picked up in a gay bar and then bent the rules to employ as their private secretary. Even those guys have a wife and kids at home.

Bob and Gena don’t have kids, they have a dog instead. Some kind of terrier. And they’ve given it the name of the child they never had. They’ve named it Sebastian. And they treat it like a child too. Because this is a special occasion and they have guests, Gena has dressed it up in a doggie bow tie and tux.

Some people are cat people, some are dog people. I’m both. I love dogs. But not small dogs. And definitely not this small dog.

This dog thinks it’s cute. When it really isn’t. It’s just a compulsive attention-seeker. Its favorite toy is a plastic dog. Same breed, same coloring, just smaller. Like a replica of itself rendered as a cartoon character. A plastic dog that squeaks. And its favorite pastime is to trot around the house like it owns it, carrying the plastic dog in its mouth and biting down every few seconds so it squeaks. It drops the drool-covered plastic version of itself at my feet and waits there expectantly until I pick it up and throw it. I throw it and within ten seconds it’s come back for more and the plastic toy is back at my feet again, covered in even more drool.

Bob and Jack are sitting on the couch having a man-to-man talk about politics and the state of the world, Gena’s in the kitchen and I’m left playing fetch with this stupid dog and its plastic doppelgänger. After three or four rounds of this, I’m already bored. The toy is a ball of drool with plastic inside and I’m loath to pick it up because I don’t know where this dog has been. Thankfully, at that point, Gena calls us all in for lunch.

We’re sitting at a beautiful turn of the century antique oak dining table with lion’s paws for feet. It’s far too big for four people. Bob sits at one end, Gena at the other, Jack and I opposite each other in the middle, and it feels like there’s a yawning space between us.

The table is laid with china plates and sterling silver cutlery, and laden with pewter dishes that have been in Bob’s family for generations. We’re about to tuck into a traditional Columbus Day meal that Gena’s prepared for us. Salted cod, sardines, anchovies, rice and beans. I never even knew there was traditional meal for Columbus Day, except meatballs and spaghetti, but apparently there is – fisherman’s food, the way they ate on the
Santa Maria
.

Bob is saying grace at the head of the table with his hands clasped in front of him and his head bowed in prayer. I have my head bowed too, but I’m peeking above my hands, like you do as a kid when you go through the motions but you don’t really get it and you don’t really believe. It’s a habit, I’ve never grown out of that habit. Pretending to say grace.

My family are Catholic so it’s not like I didn’t have plenty of practice, but I always felt like such fraud at family dinners for faking and not believing. I’d bow my head but mumble the words so I didn’t feel like I had to commit to them and sneak a peek at everyone else at the table to see if I could catch them out doing the same. My brother always did it right. But my elder sister was just like me, rebellious, and while everyone else was giving thanks to the Lord, we’d compete to see who could stick out their tongue the furthest and for the longest without getting caught. And later, when we were old enough to work out what it meant, we’d flash each other the finger as well.

I look up and around the table. Bob is saying grace the way he speaks in those TV commercials of his. Gena has her head bent in supplication, her eyes tightly shut, and this strange pained expression on her face as she repeats after Bob. And Jack, he’s doing the same as me and when our eyes meet across the table, he grins.

While we’re eating, the dog, who’s already been fed, is trotting around and around the table with the squeaky toy in its mouth, stopping off at each place around the table, dropping the toy and looking up expectantly, waiting for playtime. When one person doesn’t show any interest, it moves onto the next. At some point, it decides it’s not getting the attention it deserves and the toy isn’t having the desired effect.

So instead, this dog, Sebastian, it takes a dump on the edge of the dining room. It leaves a perfect little turd sitting right in the middle of this beautiful imported Moroccan rug, so that it almost looks like part of the design and it’s virtually invisible.

This is this dog’s idea of being cute. Leaving a turd in the middle of the room as a conversation piece. Like the canine Marquis de Sade. It takes a dump, without making a fuss or a scene, while we’re eating – Jack and Bob and Gena and I – not five feet away, and not one of us notices. Not until Bob gets up to refill our drinks, steps right in it, skids like he stepped on a banana skin and falls flat on his ass. And it’s so comical that I almost burst into hysterics, were it not for the fact that Bob explodes in a such a rage that Gena has to take him off to another part of the house to calm him down. And Jack and I are left to finish the meal on our own, feeling awkward and embarrassed as if we’ve seen a part of him that we weren’t really meant to see. Eventually Gena reappears.

‘Bob’s just having a rest,’ she says, explaining that the campaign has really pushed Bob to the limit, because he’s given it his all. ‘That’s really not like him at all,’ she says, apologetically.