Page 104 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
To her credit, Penelope laughs, and it’s the first time I’ve witnessed such a thing. If it weren’t for the two glasses of wine, I might not notice anything amiss. Her dark blond hair is pulled back into a chignon and her suit jacket is carefully draped over the back of her chair to avoid creasing.
“I am sorry about this debacle,” I sweetly lie through my teeth.
She waves her hand like she’s clearing the air of a bad smell. “Oh, I did my job. I got the dolt elected. His grandfather always said the Wade genes became more and more diluted with every birth. It only makes sense that little baby Wade would be the dullest of them all. He didn’t even have the soundness of mind to use a fake billing address, if you can believe it.”
“Wow. So I’m guessing the cheating wasn’t a onetime thing, then?”
She frowns. “That depends on how you look at it. Some political wives don’t count physical interactions with sex workers as cheating. For their own sanity, of course.”
Oh god, that makes me cringe. “Well, I’m still sorry you have to clean this up.”
She takes a swig of the white and chases it with the red. “Oh, there’s nothing to clean up. The elder Wade is about to release a statement condemning Gentry’s behavior. The family will urge him to step down or face retaliation. If he has any bit of sense, he will, and the best Gentry can hope for is ten years on the charity circuit in the lead-up to a comeback campaign one day.”
“That is very satisfying.”
She nods. “I do like being right, so yes, in a way it is.”
“Where are you off to?” I ask.
“Taking a little vacation back to the Midwest to visit family in Iowa. I need a fucking break from the coast. Just stuff me full of potatoes and feed me some salads that are free of vegetables and full of mayonnaise.”
“Amen to that,” I say, and hold a dumpling up tocheers.
She returns the sentiment with her glass of red. “Maddie, I don’t often apologize, but I don’t take pride in how we let you go.”
She says it like I was laid off from a job, and I guess I sort of was.
“I hear Veronica Balentine is absolutely smitten with you. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
“Good to know.”
She throws back the rest of her red and starts digging through her overstuffed Hermès bag before coming up with her wallet. “I don’t know how you do it,” she tells me. “Kids like Gentry are made for this. The personality is practically bred out of them, but being a normy and then putting yourself out there for the public to pick apart and consume after someone like me has already ruthlessly done so... it takes thick skin, Maddie. You’re made of some strong stuff.”
My lips twitch into a smile. “It’s the Midwest in me.”
She guzzles the rest of her white. “I couldn’t take it. It’s why I dish it out instead. I don’t want to be the person in charge. Just the one who pulls their strings.” She shivers greedily at the thought. “Yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me.”
Yep, Penelope Pike is shit-faced. But more surprisingly, I think I might like the woman just a little bit.
She stands and holds her hands out for a moment and checks her balance. “Yup,” she says proudly. “Good to go.”
“Have a safe flight,” I tell her, “and if you do fly the plane drunk, just don’t get caught.”
She thinks about that for a minute. “That really is shit advice, isn’t it?” She tugs on her blazer and throws an extra twenty on the counter after I already noticed her tipping 30 percent on the app as she closed out her tab. Good tippers can’t be entirely monstrous, right?
She points at me, her finger focused more at the artwork of a panda on the wall behind me. “And if you ever want to throw your name out in California, I think we would make an absolutely gruesome twosome.”
To my shock and slight horror, she throws her arms around my shoulders and kisses each of my cheeks before whispering, “The world could use a few less Gentrys and a few more Maddies, if you ask me.”
She pulls back, noticing my cactus for the first time. “What’s with the plant?”
I open my mouth to answer, but then with a slightly sloppy shrug she adds, “Never mind. I don’t actually care. See you around, Maddie!”
As she expertly (and impressively) weaves through the crowd, I watch her go with an unexpected smile on my face.
I sit there for the next two hours and help myself to a celebratory, overpriced cocktail as I watch the breaking-news ticker scroll across the page. Two other reporters in new time slots give the same report on Gentry along with a rundown of all his family’s prior scandals and their own hot takes. Unfortunately for the Wade family, it’s a slow news day.
I want to feel warm and fuzzy and satisfied, but the only person I want to talk to about all of this is in Mount Astra, Kansas, probably chasing down a frog, a dog, and three girls as he gets them ready to go back to school after the holiday.
