Page 2 of The Runaway
She takes a deep breath and opens the door.
There, in the pantry, with their hair and shirts disheveled, hands pushed under fabric and bodies pressed together in a passionate clinch, is Peter, panting heavily in the ear of the White House’s head chef.
“Oh my God!” Sunday jumps back and puts a hand over her eyes, though the scene is not graphic enough to warrant true horror. Still, it’s a shock to the system to see your husband rubbing his cheek against the neck of another man as they move together in a heated embrace—even if it isn’t the first time you’ve seen it. “Peter, what in the—“
Peter jumps back from Adam, the chef, tugging at his unbuttoned shirt. He looks guilty. Caught. For once, he actually looks scared of Sunday.
"Sunday," Peter says, hastily buttoning his shirt as Adam tugs at the waistband of his own pants, which have been twisted sideways. "You shouldn't have come looking for me."
"I..." she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "I shouldn't have come looking for you? It's Easter, Peter. We're supposed to be on the South Lawn right now, and you're in here with..." She gestures at Adam, unsure of what words will come out of her mouth if she keeps talking.
"Adam," the chef says, looking sheepish and avoiding the Second Lady's gaze.
"Oh, I know your name," Sunday says, putting her fingertips to her temples. Her hands are starting to shake. "Peter," she says, taking a deep, cleansing breath and looking him straight in the eye. "This is the last time I'm going to be humiliated by you. There isn't a man in Washington you haven't locked yourself in a pantry with at this point. When your term is up here in the White House,ourterm is up."
Peter runs his hands through his hair and shakes his head. "What?"
"You heard me: after we leave the White House, I'm divorcing you."
Sunday
The Easter that Sunday found Peter in a compromising position with the chef is now just a fading memory. Since then, they’ve survived the unexpected death of the President at the very end of his first term, and then their consequential departure from the White House. Normally Peter would have been an immediate shoo-in to the Oval Office following the President’s death, but given that his term was just ending when Jack Hudson died, it had left Peter and Sunday to decide whether Peter should run for President himself, or if they should consider a different angle.
In the end, the Vice President’s advisors had suggested that he not make his own bid for the White House, given that his popularity rating was much lower than his opponent’s, and true to her word, Sunday had filed for divorce.
A quick trip down to Shipwreck Key with Helen Pullman, former Chief of Staff to President Hudson, had convinced Sunday that what she really needed to do was to start over on the tropical island with her close friend, Ruby Hudson—the former First Lady—as her neighbor. So far, Ruby has been on Shipwreck Key for a total of three months, and she’s never been happier.
“Mama?” Olive, Sunday’s daughter, who was adopted from China as a newborn, is deep in Sunday’s closet, digging for a specific dress. “Do you think you left it in storage?”
Sunday is laying on her bed—a giant, fluffy confection of a bed piled high with pillows in every shade of gray imaginable—and she’s nibbling on Wheat Thins straight out of the box with her bare feet propped up on a furry pillow.
“I’m not sure, sweets,” Sunday says, tipping the cracker box so that she can shove her hand in further. “Do you really needthatdress, or can we just get you a different one?” The dress in question is a midnight blue shantung sheath dress that hits just above the knee and has spaghetti straps made of rhinestones. Olive has asked to borrow it for a wedding where the bridesmaids have been told to wear any shade of blue they like.
“I remember trying it on when I was a teenager, and I just loved it so much,” Olive says, poking her head out of the closet. She’s standing there in just a bra and underwear, ready to try on the blue dress when she finds it. “Do you have anything similar that I haven’t seen yet?”
Sunday shrugs and eats another salty cracker. “Dunno. I think I gave away a ton of stuff before I came down here. Maybe I got rid of the blue dress after all.”
“Mom! No, don’t say that! Remember how good you looked in that?”
Does Sunday remember? She looks out her bedroom window at the slice of sky that’s visible above the ocean right outside of her house. Of course she remembers wearing that dress. She and Peter had gone to a fundraising event in the Hamptons one summer evening, and she’d shown up wearing that gorgeously cut dress with a pair of earrings that looked like diamond-encrusted stars. Her nails were a glossy red, and on her feet she wore a pair of navy blue Manolo Blahnik strappy heels that made her legs look a thousand miles long. It’s one of the only times that Sunday remembers feeling truly beautiful on Peter’s arm.
In fact, that night she’d caught him gazing at her across the lawn of the gorgeous old mansion in Sag Harbor as she’d laughed and sipped champagne with a group of women she knew from various charities she’d worked with, and as their eyes locked, Sunday felt for a split second that she’d made the absolute right decision in marrying Peter. Of course that feeling had dissipated by the time they were in the back of their chauffeured car, as Sunday had seen Peter standing by the pool as the sun set, talking closely with one of the many men he’d been rumored to have carried on affairs with over the years, but for a brief moment she’d felt like a wife who was both cherished and admired by her husband.
“I remember sitting on your bed with Cameron while you got ready that night,” Olive says now, leaning against the doorframe of the closet and watching her mom wistfully. “You looked like Princess Di.”
Sunday sets the half-empty box of Wheat Thins on her nightstand and sits up, brushing her hands together to get the salty crumbs off. “Yeah, I was in Princess Di-level shape at that point of my life,” she agrees, reaching for a can of La Croix to wash down the crackers. Cameron, her other daughter, was adopted from Guatemala the same year that Sunday and Peter adopted Olive, though Cameron was already three at the time. The girls are such bright lights in Sunday’s life that they alone make her feel as if marrying Peter was the right thing to do. The rightness of their existence in her life is the only thing she’s never once questioned—even if Cameron is currently not speaking to her.
“You’re still in great shape, Mom,” Olive says, turning back to the closet and disappearing again. “You could have any guy you want,” she calls out.
Sunday laughs. “I don’t know about that, Ollie, and I’m not even sure I want one at this point. They’re a lot of work.”
“Mom,” Olive says, poking her head out again. This time she’s holding a black zip-up bag on a hanger in her hands. “Do you think this might be it?”
“Open it. Let’s find out.” Sunday climbs off her bed and stretches her arms overhead.
“Oh,” Olive says, sounding reverent as she unzips the bag. Inside is the fabled blue dress. “It’s still as beautiful as I remember.”
“Yes,” Sunday says, reaching out and unzipping the bag the rest of the way. She pulls out the dress and takes it off the hanger, holding it out for her daughter. “Believe it or not, a dress worn once and stored properly can hold up quite nicely. Here you go, babe.” She hands it to Olive. “Let’s see you in it.”