Mirror Image

hell you are.”
    Breathless, she rushed across the room and gingerly lowered herself to the edge of the bed. Mandy was sleeping, but there were tear tracks on her cheeks. “I’m sorry. Zee told me she had another nightmare.” Tate’s mother had been waiting for her in the hall when she came in.
    Tate appeared even more agitated than Zee had been. His face was drawn and haggard, his hair uncombed. “It happened about an hour ago, shortly after she’d fallen asleep.”
    “Did she remember anything?” she asked, looking up at him hopefully.
    “No,” he replied in a clipped voice. “Her own screams woke her up.”
    Avery smoothed back Mandy’s hair and murmured, “I should have been here.”
    “You damn sure should have. She cried for you. Where were you?”
    “I had errands to run.” His imperative tone of voice grated on her, but she was presently more interested in the child than in arguing with Tate. “I’ll stay with her now.”
    “You can’t. The men from Wakely and Foster are here.”
    “Who?”
    “The consultants we hired to oversee the campaign. Our meeting was interrupted by Mandy’s nightmare, and their time is expensive. We’ve kept them waiting long enough.”
    He propelled her from Mandy’s bedroom and toward one of the doors that opened onto the central courtyard. Avery dug in her heels. “What are you most upset over, Tate—your daughter’s nightmare, or keeping the bigwigs waiting?”
    “Don’t test my temper now, Carole,” he said, straining the words through clenched teeth. “I was here to comfort her, not you.”
    She conceded him the argument by guiltily glancing away. “I thought you were against using professional consultants for your campaign.”
    “I changed my mind.”
    “Eddy and Jack changed it for you.”
    “They had their input, but I made the final decision. Anyway, they’re here, waiting to talk strategy with us.”
    “Tate, wait a minute,” she said, laying a restraining hand on his chest when he made to move past her. “If you don’t feel right about this, just say no to them. Up till now, your campaign has been based on
you
—who you are and what you stand for. What if these so-called experts try to change you? Won’t you feel diluted? Homogenized? Even the best advisers can be wrong. Please don’t be pressured into doing something you don’t want to do.”
    He removed her hand from the front of his shirt. “If I could be pressured into doing something, Carole, I would have divorced you a long time ago. That’s what I was advised to do.”
    * * *
    The following morning she stepped out of her tub and loosely wrapped a bath sheet around herself. As she stood in front of the mirror, towel-drying her hair, she thought she saw movement in the bedroom through the partially opened door. Her first thought was that it might be Fancy. She flung open the door, but rapidly recoiled.
    “Jack!”
    “I’m sorry, Carole. I thought you heard my knock.”
    He was standing well beyond the door to her room. If he had knocked, she certainly wouldn’t have given him permission to come in. He was lying. He hadn’t knocked. More angry than embarrassed, she drew the bath sheet tighter around her.
    “What do you want, Jack?”
    “Uh, the guys left this for you.”
    Without taking his eyes off her, he tossed a plastic binder on her bed. His intense gaze made her very uncomfortable. It was prurient, but it was also incisive. The bath sheet left her legs and shoulders bare. Could he detect the difference in her body from Carole’s? Did he know what Carole’s body had looked like?
    “What guys?” she asked, trying not to let her discomfort show.
    “From Wakely and Foster. They didn’t have a chance to give it to you last night before you stormed out of the meeting.”
    “I didn’t storm out of the meeting. I came inside to check on Mandy.”
    “And stayed until after they’d left.” She offered no apology or denial. “You didn’t like them, did you?”
    “Since you asked, no. I’m surprised you do.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’re usurping your position.”
    “They work for us, not the other way around.”
    “That’s not what it sounded like to me,” she said. “They were autocratic and mandatory. I don’t respond to that kind of high-handedness, and I’ll be amazed if Tate tolerates it for any significant length of time.”
    Jack laughed. “Feeling as you do about them and their high-handed advice, you’re going to have a tough time