Page 25 of Where There's Smoke

She nodded and took out her phone. “Goddamn.” She looked at Jesse. “You’re going to be busy.”

He laughed. “Well, I didn’t exactly expect this to be a cakewalk.”

“She’s right, though,” I said. “The next week is going to be busy as fuck. And it’s not going to let up until after the election.”

“So what’s on the agenda?” Jesse asked.

I took a breath. “Tomorrow morning you’ve got reshoots for one of the ads we filmed last week. In the afternoon, you’re shooting an interview with Dale Maret ofBay Area Nightly, and a panel discussion withCapitol Round Table. Be ready for that panel. Those fuckers are goddamned piranhas, especially when it comes to Democrats.”

Jesse responded with a subtle nod. He glanced at Ranya. “You getting all this?”

“Already have it.” She gestured with the planner. “Anthony and I went over it all earlier.”

“Good.” He looked at me. “Anyway, go on.”

“All right, after the panel, you’ve got a dinner, and you’re going to need to bow out of that one early because we’ve got a plane to catch to the Bay Area and an early morning the next day. You’re visiting a few Democratic groups in San Francisco and Oakland, there’s a rally in the afternoon, and then we’re going to have to haul ass back to the airport to catch an eight o’clock flight down to San Diego.”

Another subtle nod. Not even fazed. I may as well have been telling him the latest major league baseball scores for all the concern he mustered.

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you even paying attention to this?”

“Of course I am.” He shrugged. “We’re reshooting ads tomorrow, plus an interview and a panel discussion, and then a dinner that I have to bow out of so we can fly out to the Bay Area for a rally, some Democratic group visits, and another flight to San Diego.” He looked at Ranya. “I miss anything?”

“Nope. You’ve got it covered.”

He turned to me again, eyebrows up as if to saywell?

“Mm-hmm.” I tapped my fingers on the armrest beside me. “And you’re not in the least bit flustered.”

Another shrug. “There’s a schedule. I’m happy.”

“Yeah well,” I muttered. “Just wait until this schedule gets shot to shit, and it’s cancel, reschedule, double book, cancel, reschedule.”

“You’re handling that part, right?”

I nodded. “Well, the part about telling you where to be and when to be there, anyway.”

“Good. We’ll get along just fine.”

I watched him for a moment. “Does anything fluster you, Jesse?”

“Should it?”

“Well, it would behoove me to know if something does. You know, before I do something to set you off.”

“So you can avoid it?”

“No. Just so I know.”

Jesse chuckled, but he didn’t elaborate on what flustered him.

Beside him, Simone looked up from her phone and smothered a laugh behind her hand. She glanced first at Jesse, then at me. Then she just shook her head and focused on her phone again. Jesse and Ranya slipped back into their conversation, and Simone and Dean took playful jabs at each other while she, I assumed, played a game.

I shifted my gaze back and forth between Jesse and Simone. Those two unnerved me. It wasn’t unusual for public figures to put on an exaggerated show of love and unity for the cameras, but something about this pair didn’t sit well. They were like two actors on a set. Onstage they were Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Cameron, the fairy-tale couple with the enviable marriage. Backstage they were Jesse Cameron and Simone Lancaster, two separate entities who didn’t even seem to exist on the same plane half the time. They flipped like a damned switch. They had the public facade down to an art form. Backstage, though, when they didn’t realize I was looking, they did nothing but set off red flags in my head.

I might have bought their display if they cold-shouldered each other in private. When Roger’s second marriage was on the rocks, they’d put on a show for the public, but as soon as they were in private, they either avoidedeach other like the plague or fought. Hot or cold. No middle ground. By contrast, when he and Janet appeared together, they put on a deliriously happy front before retiring backstage and interacting with the mellow dullness that comes with the end of the honeymoon phase.

Out of the public eye, Jesse and Simone reverted to something that was neither icy distance nor marital boredom. Simone was about as cozy with Dean as she was with Jesse, or Jesse was with Ranya. The two of them interacted sometimes, and still seemed to enjoy each other’s company, but struck me as something closer to roommates. Or “you’re like a brother to me” friends.

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