“We all knew this could happen.” Regret filled Ram’s voice. “If it was just her, you know, we could spin that. But my friend—she said that someone spotted Rob going to your office.”
“Seriously? Does no one in this town have anything better to do than spy on other people?” Cole couldn’t believe this. “Calypso Falls is not a major metropolis. We don’t even qualify as a city. Since when does a race for mayor of this place deserve this kind of attention?”
“Yeah, well, ever since the mall started going downhill, nobody has had much else to do but gossip. Nonny has a line of people waiting to hear the latest.”
“And what does Nonny say about this?”
“The same thing as me,” Ram replied. “Rob is the game changer.”
“Let me point out that he didn’t have an appointment when he came to my office, but he did have a legitimate issue to discuss. A follow-up to his question at the debate, if you must know.”
“We believe you.” Ram attempted a smile. “But you’ve already got our vote.”
“Cole.” Allison had that sad-but-firm thing down. “Jenna has to go.”
He knew it was coming. Knew Allison was going to say it. But still, it hit him hard in the gut. Knowing that it was inevitable didn’t make the reality any easier.
He stared out the window, watching cars pull in and out of the parking lot. Watching their headlights, really. Darkness was coming earlier and earlier these days. Just in time for Halloween.
“We need to get some candy,” he said out of the blue. “In case any trick-or-treaters stop by.”
“Already in the break room, along with bumper stickers for their mommies and daddies.” Allison didn’t sound the least bit fazed by his topic jump. That was probably just normal life when you had three kids under the age of twelve.
“I know you don’t want to do this,” Allison continued. “I thought . . . here.” She handed him her tablet. “I wrote a statement. You don’t have to use it, obviously, but I thought it might be easier . . .”
Her voice faded away. Cole drummed his fingers on the side of the car seat, took a breath, and made himself read.
It has come to my attention that there is some concern over the presence of Ms. Jenna Elias on my staff. While her actions have been completely aboveboard and commendable, it is easy to understand how people could have questions, given her family history.
Ms. Elias has been a valuable volunteer who has made significant contributions of time and talent to the campaign. However, in the interest of ensuring there be no questions about anyone’s integrity, she feels it will be better for all concerned if she steps down from her duties. I, and everyone on my staff, regret the fact that she feels compelled to take this action, but we reluctantly understand. She has been a great asset to our work. Her absence will be keenly felt.
Cole read it through a second time. He hated it. Every god damned word of it.
But they had to do this.
“Does she know yet?” He handed the tablet back to Allison, who shook her head.
“No. We didn’t know if you . . . I’ll tell her, if you wish. It might be easier coming from me.”
“No.” He wasn’t handing this one off to anyone else. “I’m the one who invited her in the first place. I’ll tell her.”
Allison nodded.
“Sorry, man.” Ram reached back and gave Cole’s knee a bracing slap. “It sucks.”
Yeah. It did.
“I guess we should go back inside.” Allison glanced toward the plate-glass windows, where the rest of the crew was answering phones and typing on laptops. Cole looked at them, picking out faces. Aubrey. Tim. All those people who trusted him to do the right thing. All those folks who had worked too hard and given him too much for him to hand Tadeson the ultimate Win the Election Free card.
“I’ll go over to the coffee shop,” he said. “See if she’s working tonight.”
Stupid thing to say, really. They all knew she worked the morning shift. But it was the only way he could think to explain why he would go over there without spelling out that he not only knew where she lived, he also knew the security code and had a toothbrush stashed in her bathroom.
Allison nodded and clicked the remote. The door slid open. Cole inhaled the night air—so much better than the scent of stale apple juice—and grimaced at the irony of being free to go but feeling more shackled than before.
He hopped out, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started across the parking lot. In a moment Ram fell into step beside him.
“For God’s sake, Ram. I don’t need a keeper to make sure I go through with it.”
“I know you’ll tell her about the campaign. But Cole—you understand that it has to go further than that. You can’t be seen anywhere near her. No texts, no visits, nothing.”
“Yeah.” The words were heavy and bitter in his mouth. “I know.”
“I figured you did, but I didn’t want to say anything in front of Allison.”
“Thanks for that.”
Ram slapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Ram was two steps away when Cole stopped.
“Hey, Ram.”
“Yeah?”
“The press release—there’s a mistake in it. Her last name isn’t Elias any more. It’s Carpenter.”
“Sorry, bro.” Ram smiled sadly. “Not in this town, it isn’t.”
***
Cole let himself into Jenna’s apartment and climbed the stairs, his mind blank and numb. He knew what he had to say. The first parts, at least. He knew she would understand. This had been a real possibility all along, and he doubted she would be surprised. She understood elections better than he did in some ways. At least this hadn’t happened until after the interview. At least he could say that he’d helped her with that.
It was the nonelection part of the conversation that had him wondering what the hell he was supposed to say. His brain wouldn’t let him go there. Every time he thought about this being the end, it was like rounding a corner and barreling straight toward a stalled tractor trailer. He kept slamming on the mental brakes and turning away in a desperate attempt to avoid crashing.
“Hey.” She poked her head over the railing, worry evident in the twist of her mouth. No wonder, given the terseness of the text he’d sent to make sure she was home. “Is everything okay?”
“Afraid not.” He made it to the top of the stairs and glanced into the living room. “Is your sister out of town again?”
“No. I told her she had to go to the grocery store.”
Despite himself, he wanted to grin. “She didn’t find that suspicious?”
“Of course she did. But when Ben—her fiancé—is here, I get sent on all kinds of errands. I figure turnabout is fair play.” She eyed him up and down. “Except I have the feeling there’s no playing involved this time.”
He shook his head and dropped to the sofa, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “Jenna—”
“I have to stop working with you.”
He almost wished she hadn’t beat him to the words. He should have been the one to say it. Doing so would have felt like some kind of penance, or punishment. A lot more justified than her carefully matter-of-fact statement.
“Yeah.”
She sat beside him, her warmth seeming to wrap around him. “Tadeson found out?”
“Not that I know of. But people at the Leader are sniffing around.”
“I’m surprised it took them this long.”
He squeezed her hand. “There’s a reason most people call it the Loser.”
She sat in silence. He wanted to say more, but she deserved the time she needed.
“Do you think my father told them?”
“Allison thinks someone saw you at the debate, and saw him, and put two and two together.”
>
“The fucker. I knew he was going to cause trouble the minute I saw him there. He’s incapable of doing anything else.”
It was the sadness behind the words that hit him the most. No anger. No bitterness. Just a quiet resignation that he had never heard from her before. It wasn’t like her.
But of course it wasn’t. He wasn’t hearing the response of a woman who had fought her way back. He was hearing the sad voice of a little girl whose father had thrown her world out the window.
And now Cole had to make it even worse.
“Well,” she said at last, “we knew the odds were against us getting away with this. I can’t really say I’m surprised.”
“I guess not.” He pulled her hand between his, filling himself with this small bit of her. “But Jen—there’s more.”
The clenching of her muscles came and went so fast that he would have missed it if he hadn’t been expecting it.
“Let me guess. Allison said that to be on the safe side, there should be no further contact.”
There it was. One semi, dead ahead.
“Actually, it was Ram. Allison has never come out and asked about us.”
Why the hell did the first time he talked about us also have to be the last?
“Ah. That makes sense.”
Again, she didn’t say anything else. Probably because she had grabbed his face between her hands and was kissing him with a desperation that told him she didn’t like this any more than he did.
“Jenna . . .” he cradled her face against his shoulder, stroking her back in long, memorizing caresses. “Jen, listen. We don’t have to . . .”
“We do. I refuse to be the reason you lose the election.”
“But we don’t. . . . Jen. Brockport isn’t that far, really. Neither is Rochester, if you end up—”
She made a small sound, a tiny note of remembrance.
“What?” he asked.
“I got the job.” For a second, happiness hovered at the edge of her voice. “They called today. I was planning to tell you . . . Well. Probably in a couple of hours.”
And the sorrow returned.
“I knew you would get it.” He squeezed her hands. “They called yesterday. I had Allison talk to them, just to be on the up-and-up, but she ran everything past me first. You might not know it, but you have a fan. She raved about your work. “
“Imagine that.”
“Yeah.” He breathed in, trying to stop the progress of the jitters trying to spread through his body. “Jenna. Listen. We don’t have to end this now. I don’t want to. I don’t know what we’ve got between us, but I do know that it’s good. I don’t want to let go yet.”
“I don’t, either. You’re kind of habit-forming, you know?” She bumped up against his shoulder. It could have been like a joke, if not for the way she leaned in just a second too long. “But . . . look. Let’s be grown-ups about this. We knew this was coming. Maybe it’s . . . maybe it’s better this way. Stop things now before we get in any deeper. Because—well. Like I said. Habit-forming.”
Hadn’t she heard anything he’d said? “But we could keep going. We could still have weekends. We don’t have to let go.”
“But you just said—”
“Right. We’d have to call a halt for now. Just for a couple of weeks.” The more he talked, the more he warmed to the idea. “Jenna, you’re— Look, I know it’s only been a couple of months, but I have this feeling that there could be something here. Something between us. Being with you is different from anything I’ve felt with anyone else, and I can’t—I mean, you’ll be here until after Christmas, and after that, two hours isn’t too far to go for a weekend. I think we shouldn’t pack this away. Not yet. Not until we have the chance to see what could come next.”
He knew he’d been right to say it the moment he finished. He felt raw and scared and exultant, all at once, both terrified and excited. But right. So right. Like nothing in the world could be more right than having more time with Jenna.
She laced her fingers in her lap and bowed her head. He heard the steady pattern of her breathing. It was steady. Deliberate. Like she was—
Like she was trying to calm herself down. The way she had calmed herself when he told her about Rob coming to his office. But why would she—
“Let me get this straight.” Her voice was low, but urgent. “I want to be clear about what I’m hearing. You want us to continue in some kind of relationship. Even after I move.”
“Right.”
“But you want us to pretend to not be involved until after the election.”
Oh, hell. When she put it that way . . .
“Jenna. I’m not trying—”
“Is this what you’re proposing, or is it not?”
He flopped back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “You’re making it sound worse than it is.”
“I’m making it sound worse? Me? I’m not the one saying, ‘Oh, guess what babe, you’ve been a great help but now you’re too much of a threat.’ Not that I would blame you for that one, because, right, I know, my father, the whole shitstorm. But to say that you want to hide me away like some dirty secret that you can pick up again after the election? Do you have any idea how insulting that is?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to—”
“And forget about me.” She pushed up from the sofa and turned on him, eyes narrowed and snapping. “You know something, Cole? I believed in you. I went into this election stuff feeling pretty jaded about the whole process. I figured, oh yeah, politicians, they’ll say and do anything to get elected. Anything to get a little power, you know?”
“Jenna—”
“But then I listened to you. And watched what you did. And one little piece at a time, I started to think you were different. You talked about openness and honesty and transparency, and you followed through. You didn’t make the promises that would sound good. When you knew you couldn’t do something, you said so right up front, and I respected that. Despite everything I know about this whole system, I started to think you were the exception. You were the one I could believe.”
“I have never lied to you, Jenna. Never.”
“True. And you still aren’t. I’ll give you that. It’s the voters that you’re lying to now.”
“What . . .”
But she was right. He knew by the sinking in his gut, the bitter recognition in his mouth.
“How dare you go out there and promise people that they can believe in you, then turn around and say, ‘Hey, let’s just lie low until I get what I want, and then we’ll pick up where we left off’?” She stood, paced a couple of steps, stopped, and faced the wall. “Damn it, Cole. I’m not some slimy secret that you have to hide.”
“Obviously I didn’t think about it from that perspective. I just don’t want to lose you. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“Not if you were honest about it. But you can’t have it both ways. You either go out there and say, yeah, Rob Elias’s daughter is on my staff and I don’t care because I trust the voters of Calypso Falls to know that daughters don’t have to repeat the sins of their fathers, or you end it now. You can’t tuck me under a rock for two weeks and then drag me out again.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think . . .” He shook his head. “Yeah. I didn’t think.”
Her answer was to walk to the stairs. Waiting for him to leave.
“I’m not going to make this into a me or them thing,” she said. “I know how much this election means to you. I know that choosing it doesn’t mean you don’t want me.” She swallowed. “But even though I refuse to be the reason you lose, I also refuse to be the reason you turn into just another goddamned politician.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jenna woke the next morning and, for a minute, thought she must have stumbled across her own personal time-traveling DeLorean durin
g the night. Unfamiliar bed . . . half-dressed . . . pounding head made infinitely worse by the churning in her gut . . .
Good God, she was back in her first college career.
She opened her eyes, determined to figure out where she was and what the hell had happened, but the bitch sun had put on all her bling this morning, shining straight into Jenna’s eyes. She squeezed them shut, groaned, and let out a curse that would have made a rock star blush.
“Good morning to you, too.”
Bree’s voice. Aha. A clue.
Bits and pieces of the night before swam through Jenna’s bleary mind, all out of order. She remembered driving to Bree’s. Stopping at the liquor store. Hunting for orange juice and saying something about needing it in three minutes or she would have to get it herself, which made Bree grab her purse and . . . wait . . .
“Did you really lock me in the bathroom last night?”
“Technically, it was this morning. About one or so.”
Ah. That would explain why Bree sounded like Mom always had when one of them was up sick all night.
“And I had to do it. You were raving about juice. I couldn’t take a chance.” A warm hand settled on Jenna’s forehead. “We almost lost you once, jackass. If I had to lock you in the bathroom to make sure it didn’t happen again, then, you know. Sucks to be you.”
“Thanks.” Jenna risked another attempt at opening her eyes, this time shifting first to be sure she was facing away from the sun. One . . . two . . .
“Oh God.”
“Here.” Bree shoved a bucket in her direction, followed in short order by two pills and a glass of water. “I imagine you need these.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” It took a couple of attempts but she finally got the pills into her mouth and down her throat, though she wasn’t making any promises about how long they would stay there. The pounding in her head was getting worse. Not because of the Revenge of the Vodka, but something else that she had a feeling she didn’t want to remember, but was pretty sure she had to.
She was at Bree’s. Right. Because . . . wait, she never had sleepovers here, so there had to have been a reason. A hell of a horrible reason, if it had sent her back to the arms of her old pal vodka.
Life of the Party Page 21
