Mean Woman Blues

it was his stock-in-trade. There was no doubt in his mind he could pull this thing off.
    He breathed deeply till showtime, and then he went out and knocked their socks off. He could tell by the audience reaction, by the applause. And it fed him.
    He loved that applause. The more of it he heard, the better at his job he got. He damn near convinced himself that little Miss Prissy Whittaker was a saint who’d been wronged.
    Karen was in the front row tonight. Strange. She hadn’t told him she was coming. Tracie’d probably invited her, because it was such a big fucking show, the biggest since Karen’s own. Damn, what they could do with the IRS now! They were just getting started when Karen walked in with her precious gift, and even as it was— kind of half-assed, compared to tonight’s extravaganza— it had caused a statewide sensation. Of course, he realized in retrospect, a lot of it had to do with who Karen was.
    He had to do twice as good a job with Karen there. He focused deeply on getting the thing done, and he knew he did it well. Better than well. Better than any talk-show host in America could have. If he had a network show today, he’d be halfway to the presidency. Just look at the way people stood up to applaud; look at the way they parted with their money— dollars, too, not just coins; look at the way the women practically swooned. That was one of the best byproducts of this whole thing. Tonight he could probably have any woman in the whole studio, and his stupid wife had picked this night of all nights to show up!
    Easy there. Settle down
, he told himself. He knew that was crazy. Karen was the only woman in his life now. He was thinking like he used to.
    After the show, he headed for the men’s room to wash his face. He had to have a moment alone to piece things together. On the way there, he began to feel nauseated, and in fact he just barely made it, throwing up before he even got the toilet seat up. He sat on the floor, recovering, and it was only a moment before the nausea came back.
Shit!
He was going to puke again. How the hell could that happen to him?
    The second time was almost worse; there was very little left, so it was mostly heaving. God, it was painful. His throat hurt, his stomach hurt, his breath was something out of a rhino. Jesus, who had done this to him?
    He was sitting there on the cold tile, when it came to him what had just happened. He had focused on the wrong fucking thing. He should have staged a fainting fit or something. A heart attack. Christ, why couldn’t he have thrown up like this in his damn office?
    What he should have done was stay off the air no matter what it cost him. Because if the girl was who she said she was, Isaac would watch the show.
    He tried to tell himself it was no big deal. He and Isaac had had practically no contact in recent years. Once, he’d wanted his whole family together so badly he’d actually sent his son Dan to take his granddaughter forcibly from her college campus. But he hadn’t even tried to get Isaac.
    Isaac was barely a Jacomine at all— at any rate, not like the others. He and Rosemarie had made Dan, and Dan and Jacqueline had made Lovelace. Isaac was Irene’s boy— plain, tired, stupid Irene whom he had rechristened Tourmaline, just to give her a little style. Hell, he had no fucking idea why he’d ever married her, and he wished to hell he hadn’t. She was about as far from Rosemarie and Karen as Mamie Eisenhower was from Nancy Reagan. No style, no savvy, no nothing. She’d birthed a son who might as well be from another planet, he was so peculiar.
    Errol had tried like hell to love him, even turned him into a preacher for a while. In those days the kid was a pleaser, a sad little thing always looking for attention, a child who’d do anything if he thought it was going to get him some brownie points. That was what gave Errol the idea; he thought if the kid tried that hard with his own parents, he’d probably be great with an audience. He was also a cute little bugger who, after a little coaching, would probably be pretty good at making the folks turn loose of their dollars. So Errol invested his good time and energy into teaching the little bastard to preach. Wouldn’t you know, he picked that one thing to say no to? He was shy, the little coward. Hated getting up in front of the crowds. His father had had to beat some sense into him.
    It took a long damn time, but dear little Isaac finally came around. Turned