Sandra Wallage stood behind the podium on top of a wooden box so her five-foot-three frame could be seen above the microphone into which she was about to speak to the auditorium full of parents. This was her first major address since being elected as president of the parent-teacher association. She had been working on her speech all week, crossing out paragraphs, rewriting whole chunks, obsessing over every word that she planned to utter in order to avoid any unnecessary conflict or controversy, which wasn’t easy when it came to the South Portland High School PTA.
There was also her innate fear of public speaking that took hold way back in high school, when she was named valedictorian of her class and was tasked with speaking on behalf of the entire student body. She opened her mouth to start her speech and burped.
Loudly.
Right into the microphone.
Damn that plate of nachos she had devoured with her girlfriends, in their caps and gowns, an hour earlier at the Mexican restaurant down the street from their school.
Everyone in the audience burst into uproarious laughter. Students, teachers, parents, everyone. It was her most humiliating moment up to that point in her young adolescent life. After they had all managed to calm down, Sandra was able to mutter her way through her speech, ignoring the titters from her fellow students, and, yes, even a few insensitive adults, and then as she stepped down off the stage, she vowed then and there that she would never put her fragile self-esteem at risk like that ever again.
But now, all these years later, public speaking should have been second nature to her. She was the wife of a United States senator representing the great state of Maine. She had attended hundreds of luncheons and fund-raisers where she was almost always expected to say at least a few words. But she found that it never got any easier for her. She had tried every trick in the book, even picturing the whole audience in their underwear to calm her nerves and make the ordeal a little bit easier, as her son once casually suggested. But that never really worked either. Nothing ever worked. She felt nauseous every time she was asked to step in front of a microphone.
And yet here she was, one more time, standing in front of two hundred people, all ready to hang on her every word, and all she could think about was the run in her stocking. She had noticed it right before the school principal, the dashing John Hicks, had introduced her. She couldn’t help but glance down at it now, the small almost imperceptible imperfection. She always worked so hard to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect PTA president, and for the most part, she certainly looked the part. Her freshly pressed designer white skirt suit from Nordstrom, her elegant matching Salvatore Ferragamo bow pump shoes, her impeccable coiffured blond hair, everything, all of it was working.
Except for that ignoble, irritating run in her stocking.
Sandra took a deep breath.
Just because you always expect to be perfect doesn’t mean everybody else does.
She smiled out at the audience.
You can do this.
“Good afternoon. Thank you, Principal Hicks, for that warm and gracious introduction. Parents, teachers, students, welcome to our first PTA meeting of the fall semester at South Portland High School!”
The applause gave her the opportunity to glance down at the stack of index cards she was holding in her hands.
There was a lot to cover.
Parent involvement.
Budget approval.
Fund-raising ideas.
She then commenced to plow through them all, covering every topic on her agenda, telling herself to slow down as she raced to get through to the end.
She stumbled a couple of times, tripping over a word here, a word there, looking up, red-faced, only to be met with friendly, understanding smiles. That relaxed her a bit. Then, down went her head again, eyes fixed on her index cards until she was holding the last one in her hand.
“So in conclusion, let’s all work together to make this year at SoPo High the best one yet!”
The auditorium erupted in applause.
That was it.
She was almost done.
Just a five-minute question and answer session and then she would be home free.
The first question was an easy one about the new football uniforms.
“I’m happy to report the uniforms have been ordered and will arrive before the homecoming game in October,” Sandra reported, smiling.
Next, a breathlessly excited mother shot her hand up in the air with an inquiry about the fall musical. “I heard they might do Hello, Dolly! Is that true? I love that musical, and although I’m biased, I think my daughter, Jana, would be the perfect Dolly Levi!”
Sandra caught a few eye rolls from the other parents.
She had to suppress a smile.
“I’m not sure our director, the ridiculously talented Georgina Callis, has selected which musical the theater department will be staging this fall, but please keep checking the school’s web page for updates.”
Sandra resisted the urge to check her watch.
She was eager to get out of there but didn’t want to let on that she was in too much of a rush to wrap things up. She wanted to give the parents all the time they needed.
A father stood and asked if there was going to be a spring trip to Paris for the French class after what happened last year with the temporary detainment of one student for attempting to draw a mustache on Mona Lisa at the Louvre with a magic marker.
“That was an isolated incident, so I see no reason why this year’s class should be punished. . . .”
Suddenly Sandra heard a bunch of cell phone alerts ringing from all over the auditorium. She hadn’t seen this many phones going off since she and her husband were at their son’s Little League game way back in 2010 when word went out all over the world that a SEAL team had nailed Bin Laden. Whatever the news was, it sounded awfully important.
There was a lot of urgent whispering and murmurs as people looked down at their phones. Sandra was now dying of curiosity and wanted to step off the stage and fish her own phone out of her bag to see what had everyone buzzing.
“If there are no more questions . . .”
A woman, with bright red hair and a color-print blouse that was so loud it practically screamed, solemnly stood from her chair with her hand raised.
“Yes, I have one.”
Sandra waited expectantly as the woman took a deep breath and glanced down at her phone, which she clutched in her right hand. “Would you like to address the latest headline on Dirty Laundry?”
Sandra sighed.
She was quite familiar with Dirty Laundry, a gossipy website that had popped up recently, solely focused on salacious scandals relating to people involved with SoPo High—students, teachers, coaches, even parents. It was a no-holds-barred trash bin full of rumors and innuendos, none of it backed up with any meaningful evidence. And despite the school’s best efforts to unmask the identity of the site’s creator, so far they had had zero luck.
Sandra didn’t want to give this putrid site any more oxygen, but as she gazed across the auditorium at the shocked faces of the parents in attendance, she couldn’t help but finally ask, “What are they saying now?”
The redhead with the ugly blouse cleared her throat, swaying from side to side uncomfortably as she gathered up her courage to speak. “If you don’t mind me just reading the headline . . . ?”
Sandra nodded.
Permission granted.
“‘New PTA President’s Senator Husband Uses Taxpayer Money to Hush Up Blockbuster Sex Scandal.’”
Sandra grabbed both edges of the podium with her hands to keep from falling.
The words were like a gut punch.
The whispers and murmurs stopped.
Two hundred people stared at her, waiting for her reaction.
She opened her mouth to speak.
But nothing came out.
She had absolutely no idea how to respond.
She just felt her face flush with embarrassment. Her knees were so wobbly she wasn’t sure if she would even be able to walk out of there.
“I . . . I . . . ,” Sandra stammered.
Finally, knowing it was a lost cause, she leaned down into the microphone, and through deafening scratchy feedback, managed to get out, “I’m sorry. . . . Excuse me. . . .”
She fled to the wings of the theater and out a side door as she heard the principal, John Hicks, speaking into the microphone she had just deserted. “Thank you all for coming . . .”
Sandra stumbled out of the building and directly into the large, sprawling high school parking lot. It was dusk with limited visibility as the sun dipped and disappeared in the west. She squinted at the rows and rows of cars parked all around her and couldn’t immediately spot her silver Audi A6 sedan. Sandra frantically rummaged through her purse for her car keys, finally managing to extract them and press down on the remote to unlock her car. She heard a chirp just a few rows away and followed the sound till she mercifully saw the flashing red lights on her Audi as she pressed down on the remote again a few more times with her thumb.
Her head was still spinning from the shock of the lurid Dirty Laundry headline, and she felt dizzy, but she fought to remain calm in order to get herself home and out of public view. She was a U.S. senator’s wife. It was critical she maintain her dignity and not collapse to the ground, weeping uncontrollably. It was exactly what she wanted to do at the moment, but alas, that was just not an option.
As she reached for the car door handle, she suddenly stopped. Behind her, she heard shouting. She spun around to see the assistant principal, Maisie Portman, having a loud argument with another woman. Maisie was small in stature, a real spitfire, and her round freckled face always seemed to be on the verge of anger no matter what the topic she happened to be discussing at the time. Her abundance of black curls always seemed to be bobbing up and down as she spoke. If anything, Maisie was a loyal soldier to her boss, Principal Hicks, which was why Sandra was surprised Maisie wasn’t inside the school at the moment, by his side, ready to jump to his defense if need be.
No, she was outside, yelling at a woman Sandra didn’t recognize. Perhaps she did know her, but it was almost completely dark now with the sun already below the horizon, so it was a miracle Sandra could even make out Maisie. Sandra watched the two women going at it for a few seconds, not quite sure if she should make her presence known, but then the unidentified woman violently shoved Maisie up against the side of a parked van, and her hands wrapped around Maisie’s throat. Maisie struggled to push the woman away, but she was too tiny; the woman was about a foot and a half taller than she was.
Sandra rushed forward. “Stop it! Let her go!”
The instant the woman heard Sandra, she released her grip on Maisie. Maisie, embarrassed, glanced over at Sandra, who was fast approaching them, and quickly exchanged a look with her assailant. Maisie stepped forward, in front of the other woman, and her mouth broke into a friendly smile.
“Good evening, Mrs. Wallage. So nice to see you,” Maisie said in a calm, reassuring tone.
“Is everything all right, Maisie?” Sandra asked, suspiciously eyeing the woman behind Maisie, who was trying to slink away and disappear into the darkness.
“Oh, yes, everything’s fine. No problem at all. We just got into a heated discussion about something silly really, nothing important.”
Sandra stepped closer toward them, trying to get a good look at the woman. “Hello, I’m Sandra Wallage.”
“Nice to meet you,” the woman muttered. “I better go. I’ll see you later, Maisie.”
And then she scurried away without introducing herself.
“Who was that?” Sandra asked, turning back to Maisie.
“You don’t know her. I better get back inside in case John needs me,” Maisie said, running off, her black curls bobbing.
Sandra considered chasing after her in order to find out exactly why that woman had her hands around Maisie’s throat, but then she caught sight of dozens of parents pouring out of the school and into the parking lot. The PTA meeting had officially been adjourned, and she was about to be surrounded by curious busybodies all eager to hear what she had to say about the latest Dirty Laundry claim.
Sandra dashed back to her car, jumped in, and roared away. When she was safely off school property, she pulled into a vacant lot next to a closed warehouse where she could have some privacy and shifted the gear into park. She grabbed her phone off the passenger seat and scrolled down the Dirty Laundry article about her husband’s alleged sexual harassment scandal. As she suspected, it was short on facts and long on gossipy innuendo and unsubstantiated speculation. Still, the fact that the mere suggestion was out there was not good. She decided it was time to call her husband, who she knew was in Washington, DC, probably in the senate chamber at the moment.
After a few rings, she heard a man answer gruffly. “Yes?”
It wasn’t Stephen.
It was his young aide Preston Lambert.
Sandra couldn’t stand the kid. He was smug, overly ambitious, and as her kids liked to call him, “A real slimeball.” But for some reason, he was indispensable to Stephen, who refused to fire him despite his off-putting and cloying personality. What Sandra hated about him the most, however, was just how irritatingly patronizing he was to her.
“Hi, Preston, it’s Sandra. I need to speak to Stephen right away.”
“Well, hello, Mrs. Wallage. It’s so nice to hear your sweet, friendly voice this evening.”
Liar.
He knew damn well Sandra wasn’t sweet or friendly when it came to him.
She hated him.
“It’s an emergency,” Sandra said coldly.
“What kind of emergency?” Preston gasped, playing along.
“I’d really rather discuss it with Stephen, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course. I understand,” he said.
She could picture him sneering on the other end of the line.
“The only problem is,” Preston drawled, trying his damnedest to be sympathetic and understanding but failing miserably. “He’s down the hall just a few seconds away from being interviewed by CNN on the floor vote.”
“I don’t care, Preston. I need to speak to him right now. Put him on,” Sandra demanded.
“Oops, there he goes. He’s on live right now with Anderson Cooper. You don’t want me to interrupt him while he’s talking to Anderson Cooper, do you?”
Sandra sighed. “How long is it going to take?”
“Shouldn’t be more than five minutes. They have to cut to a commercial at some point, right? Just hold on. We’ll wait together.”
Preston let a few moments go by before attempting a little small talk. “How are the boys?”
“They’re fine,” Sandra said, refusing to offer any more.
“Stephen showed me pictures. I can’t believe how much they’ve grown! They’re young men now!”
“Yes,” Sandra said through gritted teeth.
Preston finally got the message and stopped trying to engage her in a conversation. After a few more minutes of awkward silence, Preston said cheerily, “He just wrapped up. Sit tight. I’ll put him on.”
Sandra waited just a few seconds before she heard the laconic, soothing voice of her husband, Stephen.
“Hey, honey, what’s up?”
“Have you heard about what Dirty Laundry is saying about you?”
“Wait . . . hold up. Dirty what?”
“Dirty Laundry . . . I told you about it when you were home a couple of weekends ago. It’s that awful site that targets people connected to the high school, putting out clickbait by drumming up scandals and headlines, some true, some fake.”
“Right. I remember. So what are they saying?”
Sandra clicked over to the site and read her husband the headline.
There was a long silence.
“Are you still there?” Sandra asked.
He let loose with a hearty laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me . . .”
“No, I’m not. It says so right here in front of me.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. There is not a shred of truth to it.”
Sandra believed him.
She had to believe him.
Otherwise, then where would she be?
“It came out while I was delivering my welcome speech as the new PTA president. It really threw me. I didn’t know what to say, so I got out of there. I’m sure Principal Hicks is furious with me for bailing, but I just had to talk to you and get your reaction.”
“And you got it. Don’t sweat it, babe. Even if the mainstream media somehow picks it up, once people figure out it’s all lies, they’ll move on to something else. It won’t even last a full news cycle.”
“Well, is there some sort of recourse we can take? Get whomever posted it to take it down?”
“Don’t waste your energy,” Stephen said. “Like you said, most of what pops up on that site is fake news, so I don’t expect too many people to take it seriously, okay?”
“Okay,” Sandra said.
“Now, I have to get back inside. They’re about to take a vote,” Stephen said. “Stop worrying, Sandra.”
“I will,” Sandra promised.
“No, you won’t. I know you. This is nothing, believe me.”
“I love you,” Sandra whispered.
“I love you too, sweetheart. I’ll call you to say good night when I get back to my apartment later.”
And then he hung up.
Sandra felt better.
That’s what Stephen was so good at.
Making people feel better.
Which was why he was a two-term senator who sailed to victory in his last election by a whopping twenty-two points.
Sandra pushed the gear of her Audi into drive and drove home to her upscale residential neighborhood and her nineteenth-century New England–style colonial house that she and Stephen had recently restored to its original glory. As she rounded the corner, she instinctively slammed on the brakes, screeching to a stop in the middle of the road. Just ahead, camped out on her front lawn, was a swarm of reporters and cameras and harsh lights and a long line of news vans parked all the way down the street. And one thing was crystal clear in her mind. They were all waiting for her.
Sandra took a deep breath and continued driving down the street, taking a sharp right turn into her driveway. The throng of reporters surged forward, trampling her front lawn and surrounding her car. She reached up and pressed the button to open the garage, but the door didn’t open. She tried again. And then again. Nothing. The door remained firmly closed. The battery in the remote had been giving her trouble the last few weeks. She knew she should’ve gotten the battery changed. But she kept putting it off, and now the damn thing was kaput. She was going to have to get out of the car and fight her way into the house through the front door.
She grabbed her purse and mentally prepared herself for the ordeal of pushing and shoving her way past the cluster of reporters who would jostle around her to get some kind of statement.
Do not engage with them.
She said it to herself a few more times until she was ready.
And then, she pushed open the door and stepped out of the car. She kept her head down as the reporters descended upon her, excitedly shouting questions.
“What do you have to say about your husband using taxpayer money to squash a sexual harassment claim against him?”
“Do you know your husband’s accuser?”
“Is there more than one woman? Do you have a number? Three? Six? More than a dozen?”
“Were you aware of this claim against your husband?”
“Mrs. Wallage, have you filed for divorce?”
She got knocked in the head with a microphone. One overly aggressive female reporter grabbed a fistful of her white suit jacket and tugged on it, trying to slow her down as she struggled to make it to her front door. Sandra yanked free and kept pushing forward, and then, with the enormity of it all overcoming her, she felt tears welling up in her eyes.
Don’t cry.
For heaven’s sake, don’t cry.
She raised an arm to cover her face, not to protect herself from the flashing lights and prying camera lenses, but to hide the fact that tears were now streaming down her cheeks.
She wasn’t going to make it.
The front door still seemed miles away, and the reporters, who didn’t seem to care that they were on private property, kept blocking her path, shouting insulting question after insulting question.
She was ready to collapse on the lawn and curl up in a ball when the female reporter who had so rudely grabbed her screamed. Everyone stopped for a moment to look at her. She was soaking wet, her hair matted and her clothes drenched.
Nobody knew what had just happened.
And then, Sandra caught sight of a yellow blur sailing through the air, nailing a reporter from the local NBC affiliate right in the head and exploding, splashing him with water.
A cameraman from FOX News got it next as a purple balloon shot out of nowhere and blasted him in the chest, soaking him.
Everyone looked toward the Wallage house and could clearly see two shadowy figures in a second-floor window hurling water bombs down at the reporters.
There was pandemonium as the news crews rushed to protect their expensive equipment. During the chaos, Sandra, sensing an opportunity, bolted for the house. A few reporters chased after her, but she outran. . .
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