Chapter 9 Linden #4
"No worries. My brother knows all these IRS forms and UCOA classifications, and it still baffles me how he can come up with that shit like it's nothing.
" I grazed my hand across her shoulders because I couldn't be here with her and stay fully apart.
"I'm sure there's something you know from your work that baffles other people. "
"There're a few." She barked out a laugh.
"I can name every congressional district in every state.
Where it is, what it's known for, who has been elected to the seat.
Governors and senators too. All the counties in every swing state and their voter registration deadlines.
Every secretary of state and when they're up for reelection. "
"I take it you work in elections, then."
"Mmhmm. Something like that."
I gestured toward the woods. "I have the trees. You have that metric fuckton of information. Everyone has their thing, their bag of tricks."
"Why are you being so agreeable?" she said suddenly. "Why aren't you screaming at me about using appliances or nearly setting the whole house on fire? Why aren't you freaking out on me right now?"
I lifted my shoulders, let them drop. "Because I really need you to explain to me why your husband left you for a job overseas, and yelling about the old, wonky wiring in that house—which is not stable enough to run an oven and a night-light at the same time—isn't going to get me that information.
And I gotta tell you, Jasper, I can't think about the fire for more than a second without also thinking about forbidding you from staying there alone ever again.
Since I doubt you want to revisit that discussion, I'm letting you tell me about the random shit you know. "
Jasper stayed silent as we traveled deeper into the woodland. I didn't mind. I didn't interpret lulls in conversation as awkward, and since I spent much of my days alone, I didn't find the quiet bothersome. Even if Jasper was stewing over my comments.
Then, "I told you. His boss was appointed Special Envoy to Northern Ireland last year."
"Yeah, you said that. You also said your work can't pick up and move there. Why did he leave if he knew you couldn't follow?"
Jasper stopped walking, scanned the stand of trees around us, and settled her hands on her hips.
"Haven't you ever married your best work friend because you hooked up one time after moving out of your ex-girlfriend's apartment?
And that one time seemed like something you'd want to do on a permanent basis?
And haven't you ever realized your best work friend is the last person you should've married because living together and sharing household chores is not nearly as entertaining as texting each other at midnight to complain about congressional aides?
And haven't you ever stayed in something too long because ending it would be irrevocable, even if it was inevitable? "
"I haven't," I said slowly. "But I have ended a relationship with a woman and promptly moved onto one with a man, so I get that piece."
She laughed a bit, saying, "I like people. The anatomy comes second."
"Same." I shoved my hands in my pockets.
It was difficult to stand here like this, holding myself separate and distant while Jasper unpacked her baggage.
This wasn't the time to reach for her, even to offer comfort.
She had to empty this particular bag before I could offer anything. "And now he's engaged."
Her rueful smile pinged my chest. "Sure is.
We didn't even make it two years." She dragged the toe of her running shoe over a rock.
"He asked for a divorce last month. Sent the papers last week.
Right before you came over and hollered about my box-hauling technique.
" She laughed at that. "I knew it was coming but I wasn't prepared for it then. Not on top of everything else."
I fisted my hands. I couldn't touch her the way I wanted to while she traced the perimeters of her marriage. "On top of what else?"
"Well, I came here because I got fired. That's another one of my current problems."
I blinked. "And the other problems?"
She kept her gaze trained on the forest floor. "I was terminated in an inglorious manner so the majority of my issues revolve around that."
It was the wrong reaction but I laughed out loud. "What does that mean?"
"I was fired on television."
"What do you mean? Like, a reality show?"
She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes.
"Some people like to treat American politics like it's reality TV but no, that's not what happened.
I was on a cable news program to discuss voter suppression efforts across the South.
I didn't get to touch on any of that because, before the segment was due to start, my mic was broadcasting on-air and I didn't know it.
" She dropped her hands and started walking, saying, "They caught me talking to a staffer at the day's campaign stop.
I was complaining to her because my boss gorged on ice cream during a photo op. "
I caught up to her with two strides. "Ice cream?"
"He's lactose intolerant and yet he can't be a responsible human being and simply take one or two licks from the obligatory cone and smile for the cameras.
He has to eat the whole damn thing and then guzzle a milkshake too, and later board the tour bus and digest all that dairy while the rest of us try not to asphyxiate. "
I stopped, a laugh spinning through me, and leaned against a tree for support as I doubled over. I could barely catch my breath as I howled. "You—you said that. On television."
"Mmhmm. Yes. Then I switched gears and told her how my boss likes to get his daily briefings in his briefs while chain-smoking and gulping black coffee."
"Oh, shit." I clutched my sides. It was too much.
She hummed in agreement. "And when she asked whether she ought to continue putting all her energy into running the local campaign office when it seemed like my boss might not make it past the early primary races, I told her not to waste her time, especially not for the lucrative salary of zero dollars.
I said he didn't have an ice cream cone's chance in hell but it didn't really matter because the presidential bid was primarily focused on raising his progressive street cred and elevating his status as a power player in the Senate.
" She tossed her hands up. "I spilled the house secrets live on-air.
Before I fully understood what'd happened, the host informed me that the campaign tweeted out a statement and I was no longer on staff.
" She glanced at me, smirking as I struggled and failed to contain my laughter.
"It's kind of amazing you had no idea about any of this.
I'm a meme, a punchline, a cautionary tale. "
"I don't watch television." I sobered a bit. "And social media is too noisy for me so I miss all that." I closed my hand around her wrist, drawing her to a stop. "But even if I hadn't missed it, I wouldn't give a fuck."
"I see we've returned to you manhandling me."
"Can you back up a few paces and explain what you do? You're on TV and you're briefing a chain-smoker in his underwear and there's enough dirt in your vent session to bring down a presidential candidate? Who the hell are you, Jasper-Anne Cleary?"
She gave a flippant little shrug, saying, "I'm the special advisor to Senator Tyson Timbrooks of Georgia."
"And…what does a special advisor do?"
"During campaign cycles, I drive the strategic agenda. In the off years, I fix problems. Basically, I play a really fucked-up game of chess."
"Yeah." I studied her for a moment. I never would've guessed any of this but it fit. Jasper was nothing if not unstoppable and I bet she fixed the hell out of those problems, but there was no missing the bitterness in her tone. The hardness. "Yeah, that sounds right."
"Once upon a time it did. No one in Washington wants to be within fifty feet of me right now. The campaign has blacklisted me everywhere. The only people returning my calls are reporters and TV hosts, and campaigns that want to pump me for free opposition research."
Now it all made sense. "That's why you're here. Why you're staying in Midge's cottage."
She reached down to run her fingers over a fern, again missing my eyes. "Only place left to go."
"What happens next?"
She looked up at the canopy, squinted at the dappled sunlight streaming in.
"I meet with an attorney tomorrow morning to review the terms of the divorce and sign the papers so Preston can marry this new gal of his.
After that, I keep fixing up the house and hope I'm freed from this exile eventually.
I can't see the Beltway gang permanently banning me.
That only happened to Nixon. Everyone else bounces back. "
Fuck. I wanted to hug the stuffing out of her. What a fucking horrible time she was having—and I kept criticizing her baking. It was objectively terrible but she needed to catch a break somewhere. I could've faked it for someone suffering through this much personal garbage.
"Do you want to bounce back?"
Her head snapped up, her eyes hot. "Of course I do."
"If you say so." I gestured to the trees ahead as we walked. "How did you get this job in the first place?"
"I started working for Timbrooks in high school. My senior year U.S. government class required everyone to volunteer with a campaign, and since my family is flat-earth, dinosaurs-are-a-myth conservative, I chose the most progressive candidate in all the races."
"Nice." I chuckled. "Spite is an undervalued motivation."
"I worked on his first U.S. Senate bid that year and managed the local campaign office after graduation."
"Of course you did. Of course you went from intern to manager in—what was it? A month? Two?"
"Eight months," she replied, giving me her first true laugh of the afternoon. "But that only happened because he was a long-shot, no-name candidate and there was no support from the party."
"But he won."
"He did." I could hear the satisfaction in those two words.
I could lick that pride right off her. "I worked for the senator through college.
Mostly get-out-the-vote initiatives, voter registration drives, setting up small, community-based fundraisers, and organizing phone bank centers. Basic stuff like that."
"You ran a grassroots senate campaign while you were in college. That's a big deal. I lasted one summer as a bartender. That's what I did in college."
"It kept my family mad, so yeah, I kept doing it."
"As good a reason as any," I murmured.
"When I was finishing my last year at University of Georgia, the senator lost a bunch of his top staffers to other opportunities.
It happens like that when an elected official comes in with a fresh new class of staffers.
They lose a good chunk of them after three or four years because few people can handle the pace for much longer than a sprint.
" She pulled the sleeves of her shirt down over her fingers, closed her hands around the fabric.
It was adorable. "I was hired as the deputy state director, which basically meant I kept the wheels turning in Timbrooks's office back home in Georgia.
Scheduling appearances and coordinating locations, fundraisers and phone banks. "
"Same things you did in college," I said.
"Yeah but you don't complain about it when you're working for an upstart underdog. You do whatever it takes to get the job done."
"When did you become the fixer of the problems?"
"When I started fixing the problems," she replied with that no bullshit, I can kill you with my words tone.
"When the chief of staff in D.C. botched the handling of an event and I cleaned up the mess before it became a public-facing mess.
I moved to D.C. that year and took over as deputy chief of staff.
I've been fixing and cleaning for Timbrooks—and anyone he loans me out to—ever since.
The titles have changed but it's all the same.
Make the problems go away. Even better if they're gone before anyone notices them.
Invent ways to avoid problems—or pass them off to someone else. Do whatever it takes."
I stopped in front of the maple I'd come here to see. Studying the stressed-out tree was a good diversion from the stressed-out woman beside me and the cold hollowness of her words. It was that fake smile all over again. Did she even know she did it?
Perhaps the tree wasn't a distraction at all, seeing as I could only focus on Jasper and the discontent radiating out from her. "And how long have you hated your job?"