Crawdad Creek Chapter Two

Patricia Davis meets the future Senator in law school and succumbs to his charms.

Crawdad Creek Chapter Two

            The Harwood Ranch, Crawdad Creek’s one claim to fame, sprawled some twenty miles west of town. It wasn’t so much a ranch in the traditional sense �" no sheep or cattle or bison �" as it was a getaway for the Harwood family on congressional breaks, and a claim to residency for purposes of eligibility for office. Using his family’s oil money, Langston Harwood’s father, George, had purchased the fifteen hundred odd acres as a young man for that very purpose, to run for office, first as a state senator, then U.S. Representative, and finally U.S. Senate, the same daddy’s footsteps his son would follow. The land had been in the family for over fifty years by the time Patricia Harwood, née Davis, found herself stranded there by cruel fate with her remaining child.

Only the remaining child didn’t feel stranded at all. Shelby’s fondest memories growing up were of summers on the ranch, riding horses and fishing in the pond. She hated Washington D.C., and private school, and all the stuck-up rich kids of politicians. To her it was a silver lining to learn that she was moving to Crawdad Creek to stay, and enrolling in public school, after her brother died. Shelby took to the town and school like easing into an old porch swing. She hadn’t inherited her parents’ loftier intellects or ambitions. At heart, Shelby was just a small-town girl with the sweetest little drawl and a hankerin’ for the boys, much to her mother’s dismay.

Patricia Harwood wanted out. She put the ranch up for sale as soon as the dust settled on her divorce, and Langston went off to prison. The problem was no one else wanted to live in the middle of nowhere on a ranch with no income potential. There were no budding politicians in the wings who wanted to sully their reputations by taking on the tainted and arguably cursed ranch. By the time Sawyer moved to town the following summer, Patricia had slipped into a Chardonnay coma, even as she watched her daughter thrive. If she ever did succeed in selling the ranch, her plan was to move back to Boston, where she was born, maybe dust off the old law degree, even if it would be like prying her crying daughter’s fingers away from an old beloved family dog that had to be put down. The girl didn’t even want to go away to college. After she found her “soul mate,” Shelby announced that upon graduation, she and Glen intended to work full time at the Tastee Freez, and move into their very own double-wide at Hidden Acres. The whole idea made Patricia sick.

A double-wide?

Patricia had loved being a senator’s wife and proud mother in Washington D.C. for the past fifteen years. She flourished at all the parties and galas, the fundraisers and campaign rallies. She cultivated a solid group of female friends, some fellow political spouses and others themselves members of Congress. She had put her own law career on the back burner, instead channeling her intellect into non-profit and charity work for good causes of every stripe. At their height, she and Langston had both been real power players, with all the requisite trips to exotic locales and appearances on the talk show circuit.

Then Langston burned it all to the ground. She sincerely wished he had been the one who died in the wreck, instead of her poor boy, and seriously thought about finishing the job when he got out of prison in just a few years. Manslaughter didn’t begin to provide the exquisite level of torture he deserved for what he had done to her and her family. Langston claimed he had swerved to avoid hitting a dog that night, but what he couldn’t avoid was the horror of killing his own child while driving double the legal limit. The authorities could only look away so far, and the days of Chappaquiddick were long gone.

Patricia had managed to look the other way through Langston’s years of boozing, and philandering with interns, and playing fast and loose with campaign funds, the usual political high jinx. She had even considered running for office herself, but now her adopted name was stained, and no one had heard of Patricia Davis. She wished she had found a way to stay in D.C., but learned during her divorce that she couldn’t afford it. Langston had also managed to squander the family’s net worth through a series of financial misadventures, leaving her drowned by Langston’s river of charm, buried beneath his mountain of debt. All she and Shelby had left in the world that was somehow free and clear was the family ranch, so they stayed on after the funeral and the scandal were in the rear-view mirror.

 

 It had been over twenty years since Shelby’s parents had met at Yale Law School. Patricia was a very dedicated student. Her parents were basically a couple of hippies, for all intents and purposes, scratching out a living with arts and crafts and music. They didn’t place any particular emphasis on academics, neither encouraging or discouraging their daughter, but Patricia excelled in school. She annihilated the SAT’s, got a Phi Beta Kappa key in English at Princeton, and an honor scholarship at Yale. She was going places where her parents could only set up a stand on the sidewalk. Her ultimate downfall, perhaps, was her stunning good looks, the kind of looks that would attract the attention of an entitled senator’s son on the prowl. Patricia did nothing to encourage the young rake, but that only served to raise the stakes and her allure. If she was going to be hard to get, then he had to have her.

Langston did not excel at academics. His rise to enrollment at Yale Law School was explained by two basic factors �" he was the son of U.S. Senator George Harwood, and it was the United States of America for crying out loud. He could go to school wherever he wanted. He wasn’t half bad looking either, and he had the gift of schmooze.  The man could charm the socks off the shoeless, the ears off a blind man. He would have made a great used car salesman or president, both professions to a large degree drawing on the same set of skills. Patricia could see his crooked smile coming a mile away and was not impressed. He was going to have to wear her down, and as it turned out, Langston could be very patient. Plus, he wasn’t used to hearing “no” as an answer, especially to the question “will you go out with me?”

Langston started hitting on Patricia the very first week of school in their civil procedure class. Patricia jumped right in answering the professor’s questions, over-achiever that she was, but it wasn’t her brain that was attracting Langston’s attention. He lingered after class one day and tried to engage her in casual conversation. Patricia was not one for chit chat.

“You sure know your stuff,” Langston said.

“Excuse me,” Patricia said. She was not used to boys approaching her, having cultivated an aura of superiority that told most of them to back off. “Do I know you?”

“We haven’t been formally introduced, if that’s what you mean. Name’s Langston.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” Patricia said. “You’re Senator Harwood’s son.”

Langston beamed slightly with pride. “That’s right.”

“Your reputation precedes you,” Patricia said.

Langston was taken aback. He realized it probably wasn’t a compliment. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” he smirked.

“Can I help you with something?” Patricia said.

“Can’t a fella talk to the prettiest girl in class?” Langston said, letting out his trademark chuckle.

“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Patricia said.

“No mistake,” Langston said. “Sorry if I offended you, but let’s not beat around the bush. You and I both know you’re beautiful.”

Patricia glared at her misguided suitor. “And we both know you’re way out of my league. I think I saw a lonely heiress sitting just a few chairs away from you in your row. I’ll bet she would be quite enthused to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m not interested in talking to anyone else,” Langston said.

“Look, I’m sure you’re a nice person, but I came here for an education, nothing else.”

“I can see that,” Langston said, a little shaken but not deterred. “But it doesn’t hurt to make a few friends along the way, does it?”

“Is that what you want, to be friends?” Patricia asked, skeptically.

“Sure, why not?” Langston said.

“I don’t think we run in the same social circles,” Patricia said.

“We both got into Yale,” Langston said. “I’d say that’s a pretty small circle.”

Patricia understood perfectly well why Langston had gotten into Yale Law School. She could hardly believe she was even having the conversation. On first impression, she didn’t want anything to do with this would-be JFK, but she didn’t want to make enemies in high places on her first week.

“You’ve got me there,” Patricia said, rolling her eyes slightly, enough to give her some satisfaction, but hopefully not enough to bruise a fragile ego. “Don’t we both have another class to get to?”

Thus ended round one of the whirlwind romance in Langston’s mind. With practically any other girl, he would have already lined up a first date, but clearly Patricia was a challenge. Still, somewhere in the grandiosity of his brain, Langston already had them in the White House together. For the time being, Patricia was certain there was zero chance she could be romanced by the likes of Langston Harwood, but even for a driven and serious-minded young woman, it was somehow a little pleasing to know she was wanted. Langston was smart enough to know he would have to play the long game if he had any chance of winning his First Lady. He played it very cool during the rest of their first year. “Hey, Davis,” he would say to her with a wink while passing in the hallway. He even discouraged an heiress or two along the way, dialed down his drinking, and took up actually reading the case law. The law school itself could be its own sort of small town, and Langston didn’t want any further reputational damage to get in his way. He would behave himself in pursuit of his long-term goal, winning the heart and mind of Patricia Davis. As far as Langston was concerned, the whole affair would play out like a typical rom com, and those always ended with the guy and girl living happily ever after.

He was smitten.

 

Langston spent his holidays at the ranch and his first summer off clerking for elite law firms in Washington D.C., positions he somehow obtained despite being near the bottom of his class. They didn’t really expect any work from him, so much as high-profile clients thrown their way by his senator father. Again, it was America. You know the drill. His parents would ask him when he was going to bring home a suitable princess to extend their lineage. He would tell them how he had his eye on the smartest and prettiest girl in law school. They would gently explain to him that someone like that was probably out of his league. Dumb and rich was what they had in mind. But nothing was going to deter the young prince.

Patricia returned home on breaks to stay at her parents’ beaded commune in Boston Trailer Park. That’s right, she had grown up in a mobile home. It’s what her parents could afford, and it was exactly what she was so desperate to escape. Hence, her consternation when Shelby expressed her highest ambition was to go live in one. She had done her best to shelter her children from the humble reality of her parents. They never actually visited their grandparents at the trailer. She would arrange for her parents to travel to D.C. or the ranch to visit their grandchildren, and on a few trips to Boston over the years, the grandparents would come for visits by the hotel pool. Burton and Mindy Davis knew their daughter was basically ashamed of them, and they did their best to tone down the Bohemia on visits. When they would ask Patricia if she was seeing anyone in law school, she told them she was being pursued by a senator’s son, which somehow made her feel upwardly mobile, even though she hadn’t even gone on a first date. That feeling of upward mobility, which Patricia craved above everything else, also partly explained how her resolve to avoid Langston began slowly but surely to melt like an ice sculpture as school progressed.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, over time Patricia started to succumb to Langston’s considerable charms. He had come on so strong when they first met, she totally expected she was going to be batting him away like a gnat for the next three years. His intentions could not have been clearer, and yet he treated her like one of the guys, except for the occasional wink to let her know she was still in his sights. He appeared to be taking law school seriously too, even though he was always out of his depth when called on in class. His reputation for partying and womanizing as an undergrad was being replaced by actual respectability. To be clear, he would inevitably slip back into his old ways once he joined the good old boys club in the political arena, but somehow, he knew instinctively what it was going to take to win his bride of choice. And small town that the law school was, Patricia definitely knew via grapevine that a certain future senator still only had eyes for her.

It wasn’t until second year that the two star crossed law students had a first date of sorts. Patricia was eating lunch alone in a student lounge one day when Langston and his loaded backpack just plopped down beside her with a huff.

“Rough day?” Patricia asked.

“What makes you say that?” Langston said.

“Woman’s intuition,” Patricia said.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Langston said. “You’re always right on top of things. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m really cut out for law school.”

“And yet here you are,” Patricia said.

“Yep, here I am,” Langston echoed. “I wish I had some of your smarts. I don’t know how you do it, Patti, you’ve always got the right answer for everything.”

Patricia gave Langston a quizzical look. He had been calling her “Davis” ever since first year, and had never called her by her first name, much less shortened it so familiarly. No one had called her Patti since high school, not that anyone called her Davis either. She had always gone around presenting herself as Patricia, both to ward off such familiarity, and to somehow rise above the more casual world. Yet somehow, she liked the sound of it coming from him.

“Poor baby,” Patricia said. “Somehow I think you’re going to find a way to rise above it and make five times as much as me when we graduate.”

“That sounds about right, even though I won’t deserve it,” Langston said. “No matter where I land, I’m going to tell them they couldn’t do any better than to hire you.”

Patricia felt herself slightly blush. “That’s nice of you to say, but I’m sure you’ll forget all about me once you get out of here and the world beckons.”

“Not on your life,” Langston said. “You won’t even need my help. You’ll probably be clerking for the Supreme Court as soon as you graduate.”

“Then we’ll both land on our feet,” Patricia said. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, you know. You’ve got something I’ll never have, a certain way with people.”

“You don’t have to try to make me feel better,” Langston said. “I’m a big boy.”

“No, really,” Patricia said. “I mean look at you, a senator’s son, all rich, white and male, and handsome and charming. Anyone can see you’re going places. You won’t even have to lift a finger. The country is just going to hand you the keys.”

“Doesn’t that piss you off?” Langston said.

“You’re damn right it does,” Patricia said. “That’s why I have to work three times as hard.”

“Well, you sure make it look easy,” Langston said.

“Trust me, it’s not,” Patricia said. “I work around the clock, and I don’t stop until I’m sure I do have all the answers.”

“It shows,” Langston said. “And it’s not just me. Everyone thinks you’re the smartest in the class.”

Patricia blushed some more. Her body instinctively knew what her mind was only coming to grips with. She wasn’t entirely disgusted by the idea of dating Langston Harwood. She realized all of her hard work meant she quite possibly could land a spot clerking for the Supreme Court, but hitching her wagon to Langston was practically a guarantee for success at the highest level. Her ambition for advancement, forged in the kiln of her mother’s lowly craft shop, trumped all other considerations. She could hardly believe the words coming from her mouth.

“I’d settle for hardest worker over smartest any day,” Patricia said.

The two sat in silence for a brief moment, until Langston realized the golden opportunity that had just been dumped right in his lap. It was time to swing for the fence.

“So, you think I’m handsome?” Langston said.

“You heard that, did you?” Patricia said.

“And charming?” Langston said.

“Don’t let it go to your head. It might explode.”

“We should hang out some time,” Langston said.

“Are you asking me on a date?”  Patricia said.

“That depends,” Langston said. “Are you telling me you’d be okay with that? I mean, don’t think I forgot how offended you were last year when I said you were beautiful.”

“I guess I could overlook it,” Patricia said.

And that was that. Patricia Davis and Langston Harwood started dating and never looked back. The move surprised absolutely no one in their law school class. They always figured Langston was going to get whoever he wanted, and for over a year they had witnessed Patricia slowly lowering the drawbridge to let him in.

 

Author’s note: If you are enjoying my writing, you can check out the opening chapters of my first published novel at Divertir Publishing.