The boy's heart stopped.
"Doctor, he coded!"
The boy named Jesus had come through surgery fine-until now. Cardiac arrest. The doctor sat on the stool suturing the boy's chest wall. He dropped the sutures then took the stethoscope and listened to the boy's heart. He grabbed a portable defibrillator. He applied the electrodes to the boy's chest but didn't yell "Clear!" as the doctors had in the ER. He just looked at her. She held up her hands to show that she was clear of the patient. She didn't need a seven-hundred-fifty-volt shock. The boy's body twitched with the electric shock. She put the stethoscope to his chest.
Nothing.
Lindsay recalled the big man's words: Do not let him die, Doctor. It would not be good for any of us. She felt sweat beads on her forehead. She said a quick prayer. The doctor shocked him again. The boy's body twitched harder this time, then he coughed. She checked his heart.
"He's back!"
Lindsay let out the breath she had been holding. The doctor resumed his suturing, as calmly as if he had been interrupted only by a phone call from a pharmaceutical rep.
"Where's Mom?"
"Laredo. Probably having a margarita with lunch right about now."
"What's she doing in Laredo?"
"Trying to get Mexicans counted for the census."
Bode gave Becca, his eighteen-year-old daughter, a big bear hug. He had wanted a boy-William Bode Bonner, Jr.-but he had gotten a girl-Rebecca Bodelia Bonner. She couldn't play football, but she was tall and athletic like her old man, she was tough and fiercely competitive like her old man, and she liked girls like her old man. His daughter was a lesbian.
"You feeling okay, honey? You look a bit peaked."
In fact, she looked like hell.
"Oh, we're just hung over. We went to the music festival last night, over on Sixth Street. It was wild."
Every March the South by Southwest Film and Music Festival took over downtown. Thousands of young folks from across the country descended upon Austin hoping their band or film might get discovered by a record or movie studio. Best Bode could tell, they spent most of the nine days getting drunk and stoned and raising hell on Sixth Street. No event did a better job than SXSW of promoting the city's official slogan: "Keep Austin Weird."
"You're not supposed to tell your old man you're hung over."
"Oh." She giggled. "Then we stayed in our dorm and studied."
"You're also not supposed to act like your old man's a moron who didn't go to the same college."
"You're a hard man to please."
"That's what I hear." He gave her a little kiss on her forehead. "You might be in college now, but you're still my little gal."
She kissed him on the cheek. Then Darcy kissed him on the other cheek.
"And I'm your gal's pal."
Becca had brought Darcy Daniels over to the Mansion for Thanksgiving dinner and announced during dessert that she was a lesbian and Darcy was her lover. Bode damn near spit out his pumpkin pie. He hoped the lesbian thing was just a college fad, like voting Democrat, and she would grow out of it, so he hadn't made a big deal about it, especially after the Professor said it would help with the Independent voters. She made a face.
"Daddy, you gotta lose the hair spray. Go natural, like me and Darcy."
"You don't use hair spray?"
"Or shave."
"Your legs?"
"Our girl parts."
"Your girl parts?"
"All the sorority girls, they get Brazilian wax jobs. Not us. We go natural."
"And I needed to know that because…?"
She giggled again, which Bode liked, and they sat. They'd always had more of a father-son relationship where they could talk about anything, but Brazilian wax jobs were a bit much even for this father. The waitress came, and Bode ordered the peanut butter pancakes.
"Oh, Daddy, congratulations."
"For what?"
" Duh… Winning the primary."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks."
"You don't seem happy about it."
Bode shrugged. "Uncontested."
"And you like a contest."
"So do you."
"Like father like daughter."
They fist-bumped.
"So what've you been doing this morning?" she asked.
"Reading to kindergartners."
Becca laughed. "Why?"
" 'Cause your mother bailed for margaritas on the border."
They were having lunch at Kerbey Lane Cafe on the Drag right across from the University of Texas campus. It was noisy and busy and colorful with college kids and body art. Kerbey's was an institution in Austin, known for the tattooed wait staff and great pancakes. They had lunch together every week-same day, same time, same place-a standing reservation for the governor of Texas at the same table on the raised section fronting the plate glass window and Guadalupe Street just an arm's length beyond. The sidewalk ran right outside the window, so students walking by could see him and wave at him, although most waved with only one finger. Democrats-at least until they graduate, get a job, and start paying taxes. Becca sniffed the air and made a stinky face then leaned in and whispered.
"Hank's wearing that yukky aftershave again."
"At least he showered this morning-and shaved."
Hank Williams, Bode's Texas Ranger bodyguard, stood at attention behind them. His daddy had named him after the country-western singer. Senior, not Junior. Hank was even bigger than Bode and wore the khaki western-style Texas Ranger uniform complete with a cowboy hat and boots and a wide tan leather holster packing a nine-millimeter handgun, cuffs, Mace, and a fifty-thousand-volt Taser-and his sunglasses so he could check out the coeds without appearing obvious. Not much else for the governor's bodyguard to do. It wasn't as if a UT sophomore was suddenly going to jump up from her booth, pull an AK-47 from under her Spandex short-shorts, and shoot the governor of Texas dead. A loud crash of plates and glasses and silverware caused Hank to slap leather. Bode chuckled.
"Easy there, Hank. No need to draw your weapon. Waiter just dropped a tray."
Jim Bob sat at the next table. His head was down, and his fingers were fiddling with that fucking phone again. Mandy never came to Bode's lunches with Becca. Call him old-fashioned, but it just didn't seem right to bring his mistress to lunch with his daughter, particularly since his daughter was the spitting image of his wife. Becca had inherited her mother's looks and red hair and Bode's height and athletic ability and penchant for rebellious acts in college, like turning lesbian her first semester.
Which reminded him.
"Jim Bob, give me that photo."
Without looking up from the phone, the Professor reached inside his coat and pulled out a newspaper clipping then held it out to Bode. He took it and unfolded it on the table and gave his daughter a look that said, "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" She glanced at the photo and giggled.
"Daddy, they're just boobs. And it's legal."
The photo was of Becca and Darcy sunning topless at Barton Springs Pool, which was in fact legal in Austin. They were not named in the caption: "An Austin tradition."
"No. They're the governor's daughter's boobs."
"And the governor's daughter's partner's boobs," Darcy said. "They're nice, don't you think, Governor?"
Darcy was being a smart-ass, but Bode had to admit it, her boobs were nice. In the photo and in person. Both girls were wearing biker shorts and tube tops with no bras. Bode pulled his eyes off Darcy's boobs and regained his derailed train of thought.
"Becca, I'm trying to get reelected. If someone recognized you, I might've lost the evangelical vote."
"Oh, so it's not about me going nekkid in public, it's just about politics."
" Just? Honey, when you're the governor of Texas, everything's about politics."
She abruptly jumped up with a big grin, as if she had a straight-A report card to show her dad.
"Look what we did."
Having a lesbian daughter wasn't nearly as traumatic as Bode thought it would be when she had first broken the news. At least he didn't have to worry about her getting knocked up by some dope-smoking hippie. Sitting across the table from these two girls, both young and beautiful, tall and lean, you'd figure them for athletes, not lesbians. But they were both. Athletes and lesbians. They played on the UT girls' volleyball team. They were now pulling up the legs of their shorts to display their muscular buttocks and matching heart tattoos-which didn't elicit even a raised eyebrow in Kerbey's, except perhaps from Ranger Hank.
"You're not supposed to show your butt tattoo to your old man."
But he smiled. She was a chip off the old block. She had been hell on a horse, and she would've been hell on a football field, if she'd been a boy. Bode Bonner had wanted a boy but had gotten a daughter. And he loved her with all his heart, even if she was a lesbian.