Free Born to Run by John M. Green Page B

upper lip. Normally, she’d never reveal a work secret.
    “That’s it? That’s the big deal? That he’s Chilean? Who the fuck cares…they’re all Latinos, right?” he joked. Though he was sure the detail was
important, he didn’t understand why.
    “Shit, Simon,” she said. “Madeleine Albright … remember her? Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State? I don’t think she just toasted ‘mazeltov’ when
she was leading the Middle East peace talks and she suddenly discovered her parents had been Czech Jews, not the Catholics she’d always believed.”
    “Albright, shmalbright.”
    “If you’d spent your whole life believing that your dad, who you’d never met, was a Bolivian businessman but, live on national TV, you get ambushed and get told for the first
time that he was actually a high-ranking Chilean diplomat, don’t you think it might matter to you?”
    Simon ignored her glare and joined her on the sofa. ‘He is dead, right? He’s not gonna turn up on your show like it’s This Is Your Life or something?”
    “He’s definitely dead,” Elia said, pushing back a bang of her black hair that had escaped her elastic. “He died a month after Isabel was born.”
    “After?”
    “Apparently.”
    “You think you should tell her this live?”
    “My opinion isn’t worth shit. It’s Mandrake who wants to spring it on her, in front of millions. And the bastard’s got something else… he won’t tell me what
it is… but he says it’s huge, and he’s dangling it out there like…”
    “I hope the fucker chokes on himself.”

 
15
    L ITTLE DAVEY LOANE was definitely his dead mother’s son, and Ed was sick of people tactlessly reminding him of it. Davey’s thick blond
hair flopped just like Jane’s used to and his open blue eyes lit up with her same buoyant optimism. But adore his son as he did, it meant occasionally… in a certain light… if
Davey walked or ran in a particular way… his mere presence could reignite Ed’s rage. Fury at the infidelity that led to Jane’s death, and contempt for the man who caused it,
often refuelled the suspicion that perhaps Davey was not his son at all. He’d thought about tests, but he didn’t really want to know.
    This Saturday morning, Isabel was at home for a rare lazy family breakfast. The house was way over the top for Isabel, but Ed loved it, more for its memories than anything else, so she had
forced aside her discomfort over it. The six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion had been described in the realtor’s ad Ed saw when Davey was born as “renowned and admired for over eighty
years as one of the most important houses in the Hamptons, Long Island. It took the eminent Manhattan firm of Polhemus & Coffin seven years to build the home, which is listed at over 7,000
square feet and located on eight acres overlooking Shinnecock Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.” Why three people plus help needed so much space was not something Isabel could answer. Not even Ed
liked entertaining or throwing big parties, but he did fish, so at least it had that going for it. And it was private.
    George Hicks, Isabel’s substitute father, had flown over from California to stay a few weeks to help with Davey while the campaign was in full swing. Ed wasn’t thrilled about it, but
tolerated him, which was not exactly hard in this house. Ed and George didn’t see eye-to-eye on anything, apart from Isabel. And Davey.
    Working his hands in American Sign Language, Davey had been begging George to cook up some of his famous ricotta hotcakes with honey. It was Davey’s favourite BBB breakfast treat, which
George falsely claimed he’d invented at the original Big Bad Burgers diner even before Isabel had walked in on the scene. Unlike Ed, who had mastered ASL, and Isabel who was adequate, George
was totally inept so the boy turned his request into a kind of charades.
    Davey loved it when George laughed—his teeth stuck out even further and his wiry grey ponytail flailed