by Nina Bocci
We were quiet for a second before he popped in one more tidbit. “You know, I don’t worry about you because you’re stronger than I ever was. You’re such an incredible woman, Em. I’m so proud of you.” I could see he was getting misty-eyed.
I gave him a watery smile. “I love you, Dad,” I whispered, rifling through my purse for a tissue.
“I love you, too, and I know things will work out. I have faith.”
We were quiet as he turned onto the gravel drive leading up to the house. We were met by another family of deer. After he tooted the horn once, they scurried back into the woods and we continued rumbling up the drive. My dad gave my hand a squeeze.
“No matter what I’ve done as mayor, kiddo, you’re my most crowning achievement. Never forget that.”
• • •
WHEN WE FINALLY ARRIVED AT the house, my mother was in the front garden, wrapping burlap around the shrubs in her favorite gardening outfit: shoes with heels so high that they sank into the muddy earth when she walked and her favorite zebra-print pants, which were currently covered in dirt. An interesting wardrobe choice, but “they had enough give” for her to be able to bend over. Her low-cut top wasn’t what she called “church attire,” because she had a fear of angel heads turning, but it was fine for gardening. No coat, because she hated them, but she did have a chic scarf tossed around her shoulders for “warmth.”
“My darling,” she cooed, pulling me into a crushing hug. “You look depressed.”
Holding me out at arms’ length, she examined my outfit with a critical eye. I knew I wasn’t winning any fashion awards with yoga pants and a hoodie, but really, did it matter?
“Mother, I’m—” I began, but she smothered me into her ample chest again. “Moffah,” I mumbled.
She patted my head and jiggled her boobs just enough that I couldn’t help but laugh. It was like being repeatedly slapped in the face with raw chicken cutlets. “There, there now. Mamma made you some special soup to help you feel better.”
My ears perked up, and I stepped away for a much-needed breath that wasn’t laced with Chanel. “You made pastina?”
Nodding, she beamed at her job well done.
“Thanks, Mom.” I hugged her and darted up the steps into the kitchen, then skidded to a stop.
The room smelled like she had been cooking all day. It reminded me of when I was a kid and she was expecting a crowd to come over. When my father had first run for mayor, they hadn’t wanted to have the fancy dinners and schmoozy benefactor parties most politicians did. They wanted to be of the people and for the people, so my mother and her friends had hosted them at our house. You’d never have known that the events weren’t catered by some huge company in Barreton.
Today it was a similar setup. It smelled like she was making sauce and meatballs, of course, but also pierogi with onions and butter. Those must have been for the church ladies’ meeting tomorrow night. Her famous rum bundt cake was on a rack cooling in the center of the island.
It looked every bit like a well-loved home. Varying-size pots were washed and drying next to the sink. One was still simmering away on the stove. I wagered that that was my soup. I grabbed a bowl and spoon and served up a hearty dish of it as my parents walked in.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said gratefully. The warm broth and soft pasta would improve my miserable mood, at least a little bit.
“Anytime, Em, you know that,” Mom said. She pulled up a stool to sit beside me and gave me crackers for my soup. “You’ve got that look.” She crossed her arms and stared at me for a moment. “Something is up, and it’s not just the Jacksons being fools.”
I took another scoop, thinking that the more comfort food I ate, the more comfortable I would feel. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way.
“The Jacksons aren’t being fools, though, that’s what sucks,” I admitted, dropping a cracker into my soup. “I would have done the same thing.”
She sighed. “My girl. Always so levelheaded.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Why can’t Kirby do something monumentally stupid like embezzle money from his campaign or pick up a hooker?” I sighed. “Just one wrong move from him, and this would all go away.”
I dropped my head into my hands, feeling the nausea from earlier bubbling up again. In an effort not to be tempted to look or comment, I had deleted Facebook and Twitter from my iPhone. The regular email alerts from the newspaper were sent immediately to the deleted folder. My television hadn’t been turned on since the incident.
“Emma, this doesn’t have to be your problem anymore,” Dad said, moving to stand next to my mother. With her crazy heels kicked off, she was the perfect height for him to rest his arm over her shoulders. “Social media is, of course, the worst, but we revealed the uncropped image to the public so quickly that it’s actually not that bad. Maybe the deflection to Kirby is working. I would love it if this backfired on him.” My mom nodded in agreement.
Dad lifted her hand and kissed the top of her knuckles. It was something he often did when he was feeling anxious. She was his anchor, the shoulder he leaned on, and vice versa. As often as I teased them about being lovey-dovey in front of me, it was a great benchmark to have for a relationship. If I had someone who looked at me half as lovingly as they looked at each other, I would be happy.
“Besides,” Dad said, keeping his voice even, “Whitney is here. She seems to have a good head on her shoulders. And she obviously cares about Cooper.”
Mom looked miffed. From day one, she had not liked Whitney. They had first met when my parents had been moving me into my freshman-year dorm, while Whitney’s family had one of their staff there setting up her room for her. Instead of helping her get acclimated, her parents were dining with the president of the college. We had been diametrically different in every possible way, and even on that first day, it had shown. We’d had opposite takes on everything, from appearance to wealth to views on the world. She probably would have lived in the apartment the family had purchased for her, but it was a rule that freshmen had to live in the dorms if they weren’t close enough to live at home.
“Sweetheart,” my mother said gently. “You don’t have to clean up for Cooper anymore. She’s here now—so let her worry about him.” She said it in that mom tone, the one that let you know that she knew what you were thinking but wouldn’t dare say it because it would likely hurt you too much. Her eyes were swimming with sympathy, and I wanted desperately to change the subject.
“Em, it’s one thing for you to help with the campaign, but this—this seems like it’s going above and beyond.”
Mom and Charlotte, the younger Dr. Bishop’s daughter and one of my very best female friends, were the only two who knew what had happened between me and Whitney all those years ago.
Knowing that they’d had sex in my dorm room after I had just confided in Whitney about my potential feelings for Cooper had felt like the greatest slap in the face I could have received. It was one that I had clearly never recovered from. Even all these years later, the nagging feeling in my gut resurfaced whenever I thought of them together.
“This is a project. A job. As I said before, I’ve never looked at this as helping him. It’s for the benefit of the town. So that the rest of Hope Lake doesn’t suffer.”
I gathered up my bowl and spoon and set both into the farmhouse sink.
When I faced my parents again, they were having a silent argument. Their eyes spoke volumes, even if they weren’t saying anything.
“You’re going to have to talk to him, Emma,” my mother said slowly, taking my hand in hers. “Make him listen to you about things.” She slid a glance toward my clueless father.
I nodded. “We’re going to have to have a conversation. I’m going to have to eat some crow for flying off the handle the way I did, and maybe I’ll bring up Whitney. No guarantees.”
My father rapped his knuckles on the table. Two quick knocks against the sleek marble. “That’s my girl. Backb
one of steel.”
If only he knew.
With a pair of awkward hugs, I made a quick escape. I was on the porch getting coated in a fine mist before I remembered that I had ridden here in my dad’s car and I had no way to get home besides a chilly walk in the unexpected rain.
Just as I was about to turn around to ask for a ride, my mother was bouncing down the stairs, dangling keys. “I thought I could drive so we could talk? Unless you’d rather your dad take you back to town?”
Shaking my head, I walked silently to the car, chewing my lip anxiously. What she had to say must have been important. My mother hated driving. If Hope Lake had been big enough for more than one Uber or Lyft driver, she’d have been thrilled. But we had only the one, and he was a hot commodity with the senior circuit, so he was almost impossible to book. So in lieu of that convenience, she had my father drive her everywhere. Her barely used Subaru sat in their garage until an occasion like this presented itself.
It took a few moments for her to remember how the windshield wipers turned on and where the headlights were. A part of me wanted to shove her into the passenger seat so I could drive, but I figured she needed the practice. As if to prove my point, it took her ten minutes to back down the driveway with her herky-jerky brake work.
“When I come back, maybe I’ll back it into the garage to make it easier,” she suggested, smiling over at me.
I winced before I could catch myself. She saw it thanks to the bright dash lighting. “Okay,” she huffed. “Maybe I’ll just go for it.”
Once we finally made it out of the driveway, she hovered just under the speed limit—but unlike my father, it was not so she could wave to constituents. Instead, it was out of the fear that we would probably die if she started speeding.
“I know this whole Cooper thing is hard, dear,” she said. “But he’s a good man.” Her eyes never wavered from the road. I didn’t know if that was to avoid looking at me or if she was genuinely worried about her driving, but either way when I tried to interrupt, she shushed me. “You’ll have time to volley a counterargument in a moment, but for now let me finish.”
She paused, shifting in her seat until she could see better over the wheel. “He is a good man,” she repeated. “He may not always show it or even believe it himself, but he is. He’s not lost, he’s just taking his own sweet time figuring himself out. And you have to let him. You can’t be the one to help Cooper find himself, because that’s his job. And if you don’t let him do it, you’ll have put yourself through the wringer for nothing.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I hated that I sounded unsure, but I was. I felt like a tornado spinning through a field. Confused and apprehensive weren’t feelings that I was used to—certainly not ones that I projected in front of my mother. She’d raised me to be strong and independent and to make decisions with conviction. She’d bought me my first bra in fourth grade because I’d skipped the training phase and gone right into B cup. At sixteen, after she’d caught Jason Bell and me dry humping after a swim meet, she’d enrolled me in sex ed classes and had me volunteering at the church. She had taught me how to take care of myself and to be proud of who I was.
Basically, to take no shit.
But at what point should I say “Screw the big picture and have a little self-preservation”?
“You have to decide what’s important to you. Your feelings about him, whatever they may be, and you don’t need to tell me what they are. Or him winning. None of it is important if you’re lost. You can’t put him first if you’re going to lose sight of yourself. His feelings are no more important than yours. You come first. Period. If you decide that this isn’t something you can handle, you find another way around it. Make him clean up his act in another way.”
I picked at fuzz on my shirt, unwilling to glance over at her. I didn’t want to see the worry on her face. Hearing it in her voice was enough.
“But what if I back out and he loses?”
“Then he loses, Emma. His mistakes aren’t your fault.”
She was so matter-of-fact it was unnerving. My mother was always a flurry of bold emotion: anger, sorrow, and happiness were usually turned up to ten. This, her being so black and white, was hard to process. Especially when my stomach felt like churning waves crashing over spiky rocks.
She jerked the car to a stop in front of my building. The brief misty rain had ended just as we’d crossed over the old covered bridge into the town proper. The sidewalks were still wet, though, the last vestiges of day-care chalk drawings running in rainbow tracks and disappearing into the tree lawn.
“Emma,” my mother said quietly, tucking her finger under my chin to give me no choice but to look at her. She’d turned her body to face me, her leg pulled up on the seat much as I’d done earlier with my dad.
There was no escaping her sympathetic gaze.
We looked so similar, it was unnerving. Aside from the clothing choices, we were mirror images: petite and curvy with a side of just a bit too top-heavy. The differences, though, were staggering.
She had been easygoing, fun, and almost always cheery. I admired, and was jealous of, her ability to go with the flow instead of planning everything five steps ahead like I did.
“Despite what you said,” I told her, “you know I have to help. If he loses, I and the town lose, too, and it’s not a risk I’m willing to take. In a way, I am putting myself first. I’m using him to get what I want, which is someone like Dad in office again.”
She nodded solemnly. “I won’t pretend to understand what this will be like for you. But I can tell you this with complete certainty.” She paused, pulling my hand over the center console to squeeze it. “You’re so much stronger than I ever was. But this seems like too much heartache for even the strongest of wills.”
That very idea was part of my struggle with it. The last thing I wanted to do was focus on how bad this would turn out for me. Both possible endings left me in varying levels of screwed with a side of pulverized heart. He loses, years of progress potentially go down the drain. He wins, at least we keep the progress alive.
Either way, I wondered what would happen to the dynamic of Nick, Henry, Cooper, and me? Or even just Cooper and me?
“This isn’t going to be easy,” I whispered, leaning in for a hug.
“The best things never are.”
21
* * *
A few days later I groaned aloud as I reached my landing. “Oh, look, another inflammatory article left conveniently on my doorstep. Surprise.” Rogers’s latest campaign plan was printed in bold across the front page. Apparently he wasn’t interested in just slashing funding from my department, the seniors, and the children’s programs, he was now also going after teachers. Because really, what else was left for him to strip from Hope Lake?
ROGERS TAKES AIM AT FAILING HOPE LAKE SCHOOLS, PROMISES SWEEPING CHANGES
Hope Lake had a pocket of three small schools that were in no way failing. In fact, they were thriving thanks to a couple after-school programs that Mayor Dad had sought and received funding for with the help of the CDO. Our district had some issues, as all did, but the schools were generally very good. Cooper even had the idea of using the Hope Lake model to encourage the district to mirror it across all schools. State records proved it was working, so why not spread the ideas around? Apparently no one had read that in the paper. I jumped on my phone, pulling up the site. The comments section online was once again a pit of vicious remarks that made me wonder where the people were from. The anger they harbored was unlike anything I’d seen from a Hope Lake resident.
The only real bright side in Kirby’s harried campaign strategy was that his focus was on literally everything. Instead of capitalizing on one aspect and developing a clear, concise agenda—as he should have—he was throwing a bunch of irons into the fire. The whole thing was disjointed—and frankly stupid on his campaign manager’s part. Thankfully, with all the balls in the air, the fascination with the Mrs. Jackson fiasco had died down qui
ckly. Still, we were reeling from its impact.
Each headline and lie of Kirby’s chipped away at Cooper’s likability and lead. There was just too much fodder against him. All the little digs had started adding up in people’s minds. Even the people we’d thought were a lock for voting for him were beginning to distance themselves. We couldn’t book him for certain events anymore. Speaking engagements were being canceled, yard signs were disappearing, and even the seniors’ bingo afternoons had a new caller.
I shuffled into the apartment carrying everything as best I could, leaving the paper and the flowers I’d bought from the grocery store on the half-moon table next to the door.
Cooper and I hadn’t spoken in what felt like forever, but it was really only a couple days. That had been my choice, and he had respected it. There was a suffocating amount of guilty feelings that I couldn’t explain away, and I wasn’t ready to confront them yet.
Everything campaign-related was now being handled via email or text or through intermediaries such as Mrs. Mancini or the elder Dr. Bishop. Even my father had taken to delivering messages. Removing myself from the campaign had been necessary for my own peace of mind.
Dropping my keys into the bowl, I kicked off my shoes. As I began to close the door, a familiar loafer stopped it.
“Excuse me?” I snapped, kicking the foot and pushing the door closed.
“We have to talk, Emmanuelle,” Cooper called through the door.
I whipped it open. “Em-ma. E-M-M-A.”
“We can argue over your name and what I call you after you hear me out!” he barked, sliding into my apartment before I could close the door on him again.
