Danielle Steel - Malice

She reminded herself of it constandy the day of the interview. It had all been carefully staged, and Charles's P.R. people had reviewed the questions, or so they thought. Mysteriously, the questions they'd approved for the interview had disappeared, and Grace found herself asked, first off, what it had meant to her to have sex with her father.

“Meant to me?” She looked at her interviewer in amazement. “Meant to me? Have you ever worked with victims of abuse? Have you ever seen what child abusers do to children? They rape them, they mutilate them … they kill them … they torture them, they put cigarettes out on their little arms and faces … they fry them on radiators … they do a lot of very ugly things … have you ever asked any of them what it meant to them to have boiling water poured on their face, or their arm nearly ripped out of its socket? It means a lot to children when people do things like that to them. It means that no one loves them, that they're in constant danger … it means living with terror every moment of the day. That's what it means … that's what it meant to me.” It was a powerful statement, and the interviewer looked taken aback as Grace fell silent.

“Actually I … we … I'm sure that all your supporters have been wondering how you feel about your prison record being revealed to the public.”

“Sad … sorry … I was the victim of some terrible crimes, committed within the sanctity of the family. And I in turn did a terrible thing, killing my father. But I had paid for it before, and I paid for it after. I think revealing it, in this way, scandalizing it, sensationalizing the agony that our family went through, and tormenting my children and my husband now, serves no purpose. It's done in such a way as to embarrass us, and not to inform the public.” She talked then about the people giving interviews, claiming to know her, whom she had never even seen before, and the lies they told to make themselves important. She didn't mention the tabloid by name, but she said that one of them had told shocking lies in all of their headlines. And the interviewer smiled at that.

“You can't expect people to believe what they read in tabloids, Mrs. Mackenzie.”

“Then why print it?” Grace said firmly.

The interviewer asked a thousand unfortunate questions, but eventually she asked Grace to tell them about “Help Kids!” and her work with the victims of child abuse. She told them about St. Mary's and Saint Andrew's, and “Help Kids!” She made a plea for children everywhere that they never had to go through what she had gone through. Despite their probing and the lack of sympathy with which they had handled much of it, and the spuriousness, she had turned it into a deeply moving and very sympathetic interview, and everyone congratulated her afterwards. Charles was particularly proud of her, and they spent a quiet evening after the cameras had left, and talked about all that had happened. It had been a terrible time for Grace, but at least she had said her piece now.

They spent her birthday at home, and Abigail had friends over that night. But only because her parents had insisted. It was her birthday too. And Grace was very quiet as she sat at the pool with Charles. She was still feeling shaken and withdrawn, and she hated going anywhere. People were still harassing her, even in bank lines and public rest rooms. She was happier at home, behind her walls, and she dreaded going out, even with Charles. In spite of his campaign, it was a very quiet summer.

But by August, finally, everything seemed to be back to normal. There were no more photographers camped outside, and she hadn't been on the cover of the tabloids in weeks.

“I guess you're just not popular anymore,” Charles teased. He actually managed to take a week off to be with her, and he was glad he had. Her asthma had gotten bad again, for the first time in years, and she was feeling ill. He was sure it was stress, but this time she suspected what it was before he did. She was pregnant.

“In the middle of all this furor? How did you manage that?” He was shocked at first, but he was happy too. Their children were what brought them the most joy in all their years together. He worried about her during the campaign though. The baby was due in March, and she was two months pregnant, which meant that she'd be campaigning all through the early months. She'd be five months pregnant at the election. He wanted her to take it easy, and try not to wear herself out too much, or get too upset over the press when they went back to Washington. And then he groaned as he thought of it. “I'll be fifty-nine years old when this baby is born, I'll be eighty when he or she graduates from college. Oh my God, Grace.” He smiled ruefully, and she scolded him.

“Oh shut up. I'm starting to look like the older woman in your life, so don't complain to me. You look like you're thirty.” He nearly did too. Not thirty, but forty easily. He had barely been touched by the hands of time, but at thirty-nine she didn't look bad either.

In September, they moved back to Washington. In spite of his campaign, they had had a quiet summer. They had only gone out with close friends in Greenwich, and because of the furor she'd caused in June, and her early pregnancy, he had done all of his campaigning without her.

Abigail started high school that year. Andrew went into his second year, and he had a new girlfriend, her father was the French ambassador. And Matt started third grade with all the usual commotion of new backpacks, school supplies, whether to have hot lunch or bring his own. For Matt, every day was still a big adventure.

They hadn't told them about the baby yet, Grace thought it was too soon. She was just three months pregnant, and they had decided to wait until after Matt's birthday in September. Grace had planned a party for him. And little by little, she started going out with Charles again. It was hard being seen again, knowing that her ugly past had become part of everyone's dinner conversation. But there hadn't been anything written about her in weeks, and she was feeling guilty about not campaigning with her husband.

It was a hot September Saturday afternoon, the day before Matthew's party, and Grace was buying some things they needed at Sutton Place Gourmet, like ice cream and plastic knives and forks and sodas. And as she stood at the checkout stand, waiting to pay, she almost fainted when she saw it. The latest edition of the tabloid Thrill had just been set out, and Charles hadn't been warned this time. There was a photograph of her nude, with her head thrown back and her eyes closed, right on the cover. There were two black boxes covering her breasts and her pubic area, and other than that, the photograph left nothing to the imagination. Her legs were spread wide, and she looked like she was in the throes of passion. The headline read “Senator's Wife Did Porno in Chicago.” She thought she was going to throw up as she gathered them up, and held a hundred-dollar bill out with a trembling hand. For a moment she didn't know what she was doing.

“You want all of them?” The young clerk looked surprised as she nodded. She was almost breathless. But her inhaler was her constant friend now.

“Do you have more?” she said hoarsely to him. And he nodded.

“Sure. In the back. You want them too?”

“Yes.” She bought fifty copies of Thrill , and the groceries she needed for Matt, and ran to her car, as though she had just bought the only copies in existence and she was going to hide them. And as she drove home, crying behind the wheel, she realized how stupid she had been. You couldn't buy them all up. It was like emptying the ocean with a teacup.

She ran into the house as soon as she stopped the car, but Charles was sitting in the kitchen looking stunned, holding a copy of the tabloid in his hands. His chief aide had just seen it and brought it to him. They had never warned them. The aide saw the look on Grace's face, and left immediately, and Charles looked at her with real shock for the first time. She had never seen him look as betrayed or as weary, and seeing him that way almost killed her.