Chapter 22
Linden
"What are you supposed to be?"
I turned away from filling the candy bowl and found Jasper crossing between our yards. I gestured to my black and red flannel shirt and red suspenders. "Isn't it obvious? I'm a lumberjack."
Her shoulders slumped as she sighed. "How is that a costume? You wore that shirt last week."
"I just said you needed a costume. I never said it had to be a complicated one." I eyed her black and white dress and cherry red heels. "Tell me about this."
"Since I thought I had to really dive in, as you'd suggested on several occasions, I went for the Cruella de Vil vibe.
" She ran a hand over the spiked red headband.
"People always ask me if I'm trying to look like Cruella or Moira Rose when I wear this dress.
That's why I hardly ever wear it. It's not like I need any reminders, you know, but I thought it would work.
If I'd known I could've gotten away with something else—"
"Nope, nope. You're fine. Don't question it."
I turned back to the candy bowl because two things were happening to me right now.
One, Jasper looked hot as hell. She was winning the shit out of the sexy Halloween costume thing and she wasn't even trying.
I wanted to drag her inside and do terrible things to her while she wore nothing but those heels.
And two, I hated the self-deprecating comments she made.
Hated them. I didn't know how this woman could be both a bone-crushing kraken queen who had more power in her little finger than most people could conjure in a lifetime, and the source of her own poison.
It didn't make any sense to me though it did make me irrationally furious.
I wanted to slap the shit out of the people who put that garbage in her head.
"You're going to need a coat," I said over my shoulder. "It's getting down into the low forties tonight."
There was a pause that stretched long enough to tell me I should've found a way to say something nice. She was trying and it was Halloween. I didn't have to focus on the negative simply because it knocked me upside the head.
"Yeah. I'll be right back," she said.
I dumped another bag of candy into the bowl. "For fuck's sake," I muttered to myself.
Abandoning the candy, I headed inside to grab the items I'd prepared for tonight. Trick-or-treating ran two hours past sunset, and while we didn't get too many kids coming this far down the street, I liked to have all my bases covered.
When I returned to the driveway, Jasper was there in a long, creamy white coat and black gloves trimmed with faux fur. If it didn't feel so wrong and harmful to me, I would've told her she made one fine Cruella.
Instead, I said, "Those shoes, Peach."
She popped one leg. "What about them?"
I glanced at the street, checking for early trick-or-treaters. Empty. "Can I get them over my shoulders? Or digging into my ass? Because…damn, babe, you make them look good."
"Why, thank you." She glanced at the bowl. "How does this work? What do we do?"
"We hand out candy, Jasper. It's Halloween."
"Oh, I know that," she replied. "But it's clear you have a strategy in place. You have a system. You might even have trade secrets. I don't know. I'm new to all this."
I handed her the box I'd brought out from the kitchen.
"Stay right here." I headed into the garage, grabbed the beach chairs stored there, and returned to the driveway.
"Here's the trade secret. We fill the bowl, set up the chairs, and kick back with a cocktail.
" I pulled the insulated drink bottles from the box.
"My first Halloween in this house, I'd forgotten all about trick-or-treaters but Midge covered for me.
She also had the beverages covered. White Russians. "
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me."
I laughed. "She didn't let me forget about the candy after that."
"Why do I suspect she didn't let you forget the drinks either?"
"That lady kept a strict cocktail schedule. Nothing got in the way." I held out my hands. "That's the system. That's the strategy."
"And the secrets." She clutched the insulated bottle to her chest. "Let's do it."
We stationed ourselves at the end of the drive, candy propped on the overturned box and blankets draped over our laps because it was fucking freezing now that the sun was past the horizon.
"I got an email from Preston this morning," she said, her gaze fixed on her blanket.
Since I had no patience for the ex-husband, no patience whatsoever, I heaved out an irritated breath. "What does that fucking guy need now?"
Still occupied with straightening the blanket, she replied, "That fucking guy used to be my best friend in D.C."
"Best friends treat each other better than he treated you. So do husbands. It's a damn good thing he's on the other side of the ocean." When she shrugged like that wasn't the cold, hard truth, I asked, "What did he have to say for himself?"
"He forwarded a job he thought I might want to explore."
I waited for her to elaborate but she didn't. "Do you?"
"I'm not sure. It's interesting but it's different.
" I motioned for her to continue. "He knows some people who put together an organization that identifies regions with the highest levels of voter suppression and engages in extensive community activism to move the needle.
What's fascinating to me is they've taken a fully non-partisan approach—or, as nonpartisan as possible, considering the intentions behind suppression efforts—and they've found some positive results.
" She lifted a shoulder. "Preston said they want to double the number of regions in which they work this year and he thought it might be a good fit for me. "
"Am I right to think this sounds very different from your last gig?"
"Yeah, for sure. Completely different. The goal of this organization is increasing access for all voters.
They don't take a stand on candidates or issues aside from those specifically tied to voter suppression.
" She tucked a wisp of hair over her ear.
"I mean, it sounds great but, if I went that direction, it would be an enormous change. "
"Would that be so bad?"
"I don't know what it would be other than a massive shift from working on a senator's Capitol staff to being fully removed from the Beltway. That could be nice, considering D.C. is not real life and has no connection to the needs and priorities of real people."
She was a bit breathless as she spoke, as if she couldn't get the words out quickly enough. There was a lilt to her voice, the same one I'd heard when she talked about toast and her problems with the local highway system. "You sound excited."
"I might be? Maybe? I'm not sure."
"You're allowed to be excited," I said.
"I'm aware of that, Linden."
I had to smile at the snap in her tone. God, I loved it when she was brutal. "You can see yourself doing this."
"Again, maybe. It could be good or it could be the most boring, dead-end thing in the world.
All I know for sure is it won't lead to me being anyone's chief of staff and I probably won't work on another major campaign if I wander down the nonpartisan rabbit hole but—" she held up her hands—"I'm not headed in that direction anymore, am I?
It's been two months. There have been other scandals.
My hot-mic moment isn't a relevant news story anymore.
I'm not getting any calls because no one wants to call me. "
"You've gotten plenty of calls. You've rejected them all."
"Yeah but that was different," she replied. "It was media and political privateering."
"You're allowed to be excited," I repeated. "And you don't have to view this as a last resort."
"That remains to be seen." She glanced up the street.
"What's the deal with this town and Halloween?
There was the Spooky Stroll at the elementary school last weekend and the jack-o'-lantern gallery in the town center, plus the two thousand pumpkins or so on the lawn outside the town hall.
And all of that is on top of the actual event. That's a lot, right?"
Okay. Moving right along and away from Jasper and her next steps.
"Even though Salem gets all the attention, this whole region is witchy and haunted as hell. Gotta lean into it."
"Fair enough."
After a family dressed as the feelings from Inside Out headed back up the street, Jasper turned to me with a strange smile. "I bet you and your siblings had some precious group costumes when you were kids."
"My mother always tried to make that happen but there was only one time when we were old enough to know what was going on and still allowed it.
" I took a sip from my bottle. I didn't care much for Kahlua or vodka but tradition was tradition, and I honored that shit.
"For reasons I still don't understand, she made vegetable costumes for us.
Magnolia was a green cabbage, Ash was a beet, and I was a purple onion. "
"Bless her earthy-crunchy heart," Jasper said, laughing. "That is just preciously bizarre."
"What about you? Any wild costumes?"
The brightness in her smile dimmed by a million watts and she turned her gaze to the street. "There's only one Halloween I remember as a kid. It was when we were living in Japan."
"You…lived in Japan."
"I was born there." She didn't look at me as she said this.
"My father was stationed at Misawa and we lived there, on Honshu, until I was five.
He was in the Air Force." She twisted the cap on her bottle—open, closed, open, closed.
"Halloween in Japan isn't anything like it is here.
Or it wasn't when I was there thirty years ago.
The base still had some fun with it though and we did a family costume that everyone loved.
I've tried to remember what it was but I keep coming up empty.
I just know it was great and that was a good year for us. "