Free Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison

“Who’s your friend?”
    She wanted to ask him if he was drawn over by the fact that she was talking to another man or the fact that the other man had a camera with which he could, potentially, record Jim’s ascension to higher office, but instead she just gave what she thought of as her Political Wife Smile and said, “This is Gerald Parks. He’s a photographer.”
    “So I gathered.” Jim nodded at the camera and tightened his grip on Helene’s waist. “Covering the power brokers or the wives?”
    “Some of the power brokers are wives,” Helene pointed out, wishing she had another glass of champagne since somehow the one she’d just taken was empty.
    Jim chuckled. “You’re right, you got me.” He gave Gerald Parks an old boy nod of the head and added, “And nurses and stewardesses can be men.”
    “Stewards.”
    Jim’s smile froze. “What?”
    “If men are stewardesses,” Helene said, “they’re stewards.” She heard the awkward sentence structure, but once it was out, she wasn’t sure how to correct it.
    It was time to go home and go to bed.
    Jim gave a big laugh. “Touché, hon. You’re hot tonight. Do me a favor, would you? Could you get me a Scotch?”
    She was being dismissed. She’d gone one or two glasses of wine over the embarrassment line, and Jim wanted to get her away from anyone who could identify her with anything that wasn’t perfectly middle-of-the-road acceptable.
    Unfortunately, she knew he was right. She was two glasses past politely ignoring farts and about one away from karaoke singing. Since there was no way for her to sober up instantly, she agreed that she should remove herself from the situation.
    “Of course,” she said, removing his arm from her waist with a fraction more force than she needed to. She turned her smile to Gerald and met his eyes, feeling almost as if they’d just shared a tryst she didn’t want her husband to know about. “Excuse me, Mr. Parks.”
    He nodded, and Helene noticed his finger twitched on the shutter of his camera, but he didn’t take a picture.
    She took that as a secret gesture between the two of them.
    God, she was drunk.
    She made her way to the bar and asked for a glass of wine, a chaser to the champagne she’d just downed. Jim didn’t want a Scotch. Hell, he didn’t even drink when he was at these functions. He just liked to look like he had a drink, so no one could accuse him of being a recovering alcoholic or, worse, not masculine enough. The John Wayne act had worked great for Ronald Reagan, and by God, it was going to work for Jim Zaharis as well.
    She took a sip of her wine and looked around for someone bearable to talk to. Right off the bat she saw about ten people she’d like to avoid, so when Jim’s young administrative assistant, Pam Corder, walked by, Helene snagged her.
    “Pam!”
    Pam stopped, turned to Helene, and seemed to go a shade pale. “Mrs. Zaharis.”
    Helene took Pam by the arm and said, “You’ve got to save me from these people. I mean, I know you work for my husband, but if you could get me out of another conversation with Carter Tarleton about fishing in Maine, I would be forever grateful.”
    Pam looked around uncertainly. “Um. Okay.”
    The girl was completely devoid of personality. Sure, she was cute, but she didn’t seem to have much intelligence. Helene often wondered why Jim kept her on board instead of hiring someone more capable, more of a Betty Currie instead of Betty Boop.
    “So.” Helene took another sip of wine. Actually, talking to Pam might be more difficult than listening to an exaggerated catch-of-the-day story from Carter. “How’s everything going?”
    Pam took a barely perceptible step backwards. Barely perceptible, that was, unless you were a political wife hoping people didn’t notice you were drunk. Helene’s first thought was that Pam was recoiling from her alcohol-lit breath.
    That was followed quickly by her second thought, though, which was that Pam had