Page 20 of Walking Wounded

“I saw your picture in the library. Though I take it you’ve had a makeover since then.”

Another smile, still unhappy. “Yeah. For the better.”

In the photo, she’s the older of the two, in a yellow sweater set, pearls that must be borrowed from her mother, hair pushed back behind a matching headband. But now, beside him, she wears second-skin leather leggings, a clinging black top that shows too much cleavage, denim jacket, Doc Martens. Her makeup is all blacks and deep purples, dramatic, overdone, but flawless all the same. Black nails. Red lips. Hair died blue-black, still damp from the shower, curling against her shoulders.

“Someone should have told you the nineties ended a while ago,” he quips.

“They’re back in, haven’t you heard?” Her cat eyes flick to his cigarette. “Got another one of those?”

“Dunno. There cameras on us?”

“Ha.” She opens her hand and wiggles her fingers. “No. Come on.”

“I think I’m here for the wrong story,” he says. “Senator Maddox’s Wild Child: Vice and Regrettable Throwback Fashion on Capitol Hill.”

She snorts and sticks the cig between her lips like a pro, leans forward to accept the light he’s got cupped in his palm. Inhales, straightens, exhales through her nose. “No wonder no one’s ever heard of you.”

He wants to be offended, he really does, but she’s young, and wearing too much lipstick, and so he says, “You must have heard of me, to know I was the reporter.”

“Thought you were a writer instead.”

“Is everyone in your family a pain in the ass?”

She grins, a true grin, and sticks out her right hand. “I’m Tara.”

“Luke.” He takes her hand; her grip is firm.

“So you’re interviewing my grandpa, huh?” She withdraws and turns to the business of smoking.

“Kinda. He doesn’t seem to want to say much.”

“He never does.”

Luke works on his Marlboro and thinks about what he wants to say. He ought to be careful – senator’s daughter and all that. But he’s too curious, so he says, “You don’t happen to have any scoop on why he hit that protestor, do you?”

She shakes her head and exhales again. “Gramps has serious anger issues. Always has, long as I can remember.”

“You ever ask him about them?”

“No.”

A squirrel barks in a crabapple tree in the garden, crawls halfway down the trunk, lashing its tail. There’s always nature in the city, small, hearty clingers-on amidst all the concrete and steel. Most days, Luke feels a bit like one of those creatures, forcing his way into a world he doesn’t belong to.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he drawls, “but you’re not exactly dressed like the sort of person who’s up this early.”

“No, I’m not,” she agrees. “I snuck in a half hour ago. Mom doesn’t know.”

“You sure about that?”

“Trust me, with Dad and Gramps, and looking good” – she snorts – “she’s got plenty to keep her distracted.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Isn’t there some kinda journalist code? Like a psychiatrist or something?”

“No.”

She shrugs. “Whatever. No one would believe you anyway.”

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