Page 34 of Notorious

I burst out laughing.

“What is it, sugar?”

“It’s all just hitting me. That I’m married to you. That I have to figure out a way to salvage my campaign. That we need to fix things for your mom. And you.”

“You’re a fixer, eh?” Johnny asks.

“Yeah.”

“Well, good luck fixing me.”

“I don’t think you need to be fixed, exactly,” I say. “More like help you to be a little healthier. You’re not broken. You just have something going on that’s got you off course.”

That reminds me that I need to get things set up for when we get to LA. Right now, Johnny may look like he’s functioning fine, but he had a plan in place to carry out his own death just a few hours ago. I can’t let his charming demeanor make me forget that. He needs help.

I log into my job’s employee site and download the benefit forms on my phone, and when we stop for gas and snacks, I ask Johnny to get our marriage certificate out of his bag so I can snap a photo of it to upload with the application. I’m glad he can get automatically enrolled right away even though it’s Sunday. Next, I start searching for mental health treatment centers.

I’m sure the reason it’s so important to me to help him is only partly about Andrei and partly about my longtime crush on Johnny, but whatever. I can have crushes. I am worried about what will happen when we ultimately have to disentangle ourselves, but it’ll be fine.

I hope I’m not violating the honesty thing that we agreed on when I tell myself that.

“Johnny?” I ask. “I need some information so I can put you on my health insurance.”

“Y’all don’t have to?—”

I hold up a hand. “We talked about this: You need care. I can make it possible for you to get it. Please let me help. I think my work insurance will cover most of your treatment, and even if it doesn’t, what do I have money for if it isn’t to do the right thing? My parents invested in a little company named Amazon in the late nineties. They’re set for life, and they created a trust fund for me. While I try not to dip into it too much, this seems like the perfect reason to.”

Johnny’s quiet for a moment. Then he tells me his birth date and other personal info, and I upload it to the benefits portal. I also enter his cell number in my phone, trying not to sigh audibly at having OMG Velvet the Cowboy’s number. Instead, I keep searching for possible treatment options—I want him to get the best care. I make a tentative appointment with a therapist with great credentials whose online scheduling says she’s available tomorrow and bookmark sites to discuss with Johnny when we get to my house.

I don’t know why I care so much, given that I just met him. I feel like I know him to some degree, I suppose, having watched him on the screen. Maybe it’s, again, that false sense of familiarity. I feel it with him the way others feel it with me and my momther and Sam and Jules.

But I also feel … possessive. He’s my husband. I’m going to take care of him.

He’s mine.

After I accomplish all those administrative tasks—which takes up quite a bit of the drive—I make the mistake of checking social media.

Herb Santangelo, our incumbent senator and my opponent, says on his social media account:

“Kurt Delmont wants people to think he’s an upstanding, trustworthy candidate—but his drunken antics in Las Vegas aren’t the kind of leadership California needs. Check the photos and decide for yourself. Vote Santangelo.”

And from one of my mom’s rivals:

“Melissa Delmont is now the mother-in-law of a GAY PORN STAR. Keep her out of the White House.”

Shit.

CHAPTER 12

Johnny

The apprehension in my belly’s like a sidewinder slithering over hot red dirt, getting more wiggly the closer and closer we get to Kurt’s house.

The farther I get from Vegas, the more my problems seem to pile up without any solutions in sight. Mama’s still sick, and now I don’t have any real plan to get her the transplant. Kurt says he’ll help fundraise, but will that work? How long will it take? Will she make it? The possibility of her … not … is unacceptable. And I can’t take his money, no matter how much he says he has.

I’m married to a man I don’t know. Sure, he’s cute (and pushy), but I probably should’ve left him at the hotel bar last night. I feel like a street urchin adopted by the local moneybags, and that’s not me. I don’t wanna rely on anyone else.

If I was gonna stay alive, I shouldn’t have done that retirement speech. Now I’ve got no money and no prospects. I’m a five-cent head wearing a ten-dollar Stetson. Well, it cost more than ten dollars, but you get my drift. It’s not like I have many skills. I’ve only been a porn star and worked on a ranch. No schooling past eleventh grade.

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