Mirror Image

“You know where he grew up, same as I do. Some podunk town in the Panhandle. He didn’t have any family, remember? Except for a grandma who died while he and Uncle Tate were still at UT.”
    “What did he do before he came to work for Tate?”
    Fancy had already grown impatient with the questions. “Look, we screw, okay? We don’t talk. I mean, he’s a real private person.”
    “For instance?”
    “He doesn’t like me going through his stuff. One night I was searching in his drawers for a shirt to put on and he got really pissed, said for me not to meddle in his stuff again, so I don’t. I don’t pry, period. We all need our privacy, you know.”
    “He’s never mentioned what he did between Vietnam and when he came back to Texas?”
    “All I’ve ever asked was if he’d been married. He told me he hadn’t. He said he’d spent a lot of time finding himself. I said, ‘Were you lost?’ I meant it like a joke, but Eddy got this funny look on his face and said something like, ‘Yeah, for a while there, I was.’ ”
    “What do you think he meant by that?”
    “Oh, I suspect he freaked after the war,” Fancy said with breezy unconcern.
    “Why?”
    “Probably because of Uncle Tate saving his life after their plane crashed. I guess Eddy relives bailing out, being wounded, and having Uncle Tate carry him around in the jungle until a chopper could pick them up. If you’ve ever seen him naked, you must’ve noticed the scar on his back. Pretty gruesome, huh?
    “He must’ve been scared shitless they were gonna get captured by the Cong. Eddy begged Uncle Tate to leave him to die, you know, but Uncle Tate wouldn’t.”
    “Surely he didn’t think Tate would,” Avery exclaimed.
    “Well, you know the fighter pilots’ motto—‘Better dead than look bad.’ Eddy must’ve taken it to heart more than most. Uncle Tate was the hero. Eddy was just another casualty. That must still play on his mind.”
    “How do you know all this, Fancy?”
    “Are you kidding? Haven’t you heard Grandpa tell it often enough?”
    “Oh, sure, of course. You just seem to know so many of the fine details.”
    “No more than you. Look, I’m going out to the pool. Do you mind?”
    Inhospitably, she walked to the door and pulled it open. Avery joined her there. “Fancy, the next time you want to use something of mine, just ask.” She rolled her eyes, but Avery ignored her insolence. Touching the girl’s shoulder briefly, she added, “And be careful.”
    “Of what?”
    “Of Eddy.”
    * * *
    “She said for me to be careful of you.”
    The motel room was cheap, dusty, and dank. But as Fancy bit into a fried chicken drumstick, she didn’t seem to notice or mind. She’d become accustomed to the shabby surroundings in the last several weeks.
    She would rather have had her trysts with Eddy in a more elegant hotel, but the Sidewinder Inn was located on the interstate between campaign headquarters and the ranch, so it was a convenient place for them to meet before going home. The motel catered to illicit lovers. Rooms were rented by the hour. The staff was discreet—out of indifference, not empathy.
    Because they had worked through the dinner hour this evening, Fancy and Eddy were sharing their time together with a bucket of Colonel Sanders’s best. Naked, they were sitting amid the rumpled sheets, eating fried chicken and discussing Carole Rutledge.
    “Careful of me?” Eddy asked. “Why?”
    “She said I shouldn’t be getting involved with a man so much older,” Fancy said, tearing off a bite of meat. “But I don’t think that’s the real reason.”
    Eddy broke apart a chicken wing. “What’s the real reason?”
    “The real reason is because she’s eaten up with jealousy. See, she wants to play the good wife for Uncle Tate, just in case he wins and goes to Washington. But in case he doesn’t, she wants to have someone waiting in the wings. Even though she pretends not to, I know Aunt Carole craves your body.” Playfully, she tapped his chest with the drumstick.
    Eddy didn’t respond. He was staring absently into space, frowning. “I still wish she didn’t know about you and me.”
    “Let’s not have another fight about that, okay? I couldn’t help it. I walked out of your room and there she was, clutching that stupid ice bucket to her chest and looking like she’d just swallowed her tongue.”
    “Has she told Tate?”
    “I doubt it.” A piece of golden-brown crust fell onto her bare belly. She