Read Online Domestic Affairs by Bridget Siegel - Free Book Online Page B

crowd listening intently. It was like an old rock band playing a thirty-year-old hit song live. They could do it in their sleep, but the crowd still loved it, and so did they.
    Billy, who met Taylor at that first event, explained the scene to every interviewee that stepped into Taylor’s offices, including Jacob, as if describing a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. “It was a cool Georgia day unsuspecting of its imminent importance,” he would say. The high school quarterback, now the matured law professor, was at the podium with his beautiful wife by his side. Her blond hair blew in the subtle wind as she looked intently at him, nodding as if he were preaching her life’s religion. The half-built house in the background and the hammer that Taylor had accidentally taken up with him and clumsily placed on the podium as he was speaking seemed unprofessional to Aubrey, who apparently later scolded, “Can’t you juuuust fuckin’ keep it together at least for the pictures?” Billy never told that part. To him the scene was “directly analogous to the country’s house—desperately needed, but only half-built—and Taylor held the hammer to get it done.”
    Billy, then in his late twenties, was the legislative assistant to an elderly congressman whom Aubrey, a young, self-proclaimed trophy wife, just a year out of UGA, had convinced to be the featured guest speaker of her event. Aubrey could convince anyone of anything without their even realizing they had been convinced. As far as Jacob could tell, even before she won the Miss Georgia crown, the spotlight seemed to follow her around. The universe is probably under direct orders never to let the light dim , Jacob thought, recognizing he had spent more time than he cared to admit trying to figure out what it was that made her unacceptable behavior so acceptable to everyone else.
    He was sure that it was more than just her pretty face framed by locks of always-perfectly-sculpted blond hair, though neither of those things hurt. It was something inherent in her personality. When she demanded things, people treated her as if she were doing them a favor. And as far as Jacob could tell, it was a talent she was born with.
    â€œShe kept me working!” Aubrey’s mother was known to say. Which was actually fact, he had found out, not just a cute phrase. Aubrey’smom had once told Jacob that she planned on being a stay-at-home mom but went back to work because when Aubrey was in the second grade, she had marched downstairs, one hand on the hip of her frilly beauty-queen dress, and announced that she would “no longer put up with a public school education.”
    â€œCharming!” people would say when the story was recounted by Aubrey or her mom. Spoiled and obnoxious seemed more like it to Jacob. But like all things Aubrey-related, that was not something one said aloud. He sometimes wondered if it was an emperor’s-new-clothes kind of thing.
    Habitat for Humanity, Aubrey admitted to Jacob on the way to an event years ago, was her least favorite of the social organizations.
    â€œI prefer anything with less dirt. But Landon really enjoys it.”
    And with that Aubrey had lasered in on the potential. The cause would have great mass appeal and the group was new enough that the Taylors could be a significant part in its growth, giving them the public platform they needed to get press coverage. Jacob wasn’t sure how certain Aubrey had been that she had found the perfect building block for a gubernatorial or even a presidential campaign, but Jacob was sure that selfish motivation was the driving force. Any alpha girl knew that you couldn’t reach the socialite apex without demonstrating real leadership, if not ownership, of a philanthropic organization. So Habitat it would be, and Aubrey walked into the organization just as she had entered the world of private schools: with the understanding that there was no