It’s a ten-minute ride to our assigned neighborhood, but Maya doesn’t say a word the whole way there. Hard to tell if she’s listening to the NPR station my radio’s stuck on, or just feeling as painfully tongue-tied as I am. But when I pull up and park along the curb, she sighs, pressing her hands to her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” I ask, startled. I’ve never seen Maya look quite so uneasy. “Are you nervous?”
“No.”
“Oh—”
“I mean, yeah. Kind of. I don’t know. I just don’t want to do this.” She slides her hands down, peering up at me. “Like, we don’t even know if they’re going to listen to us. Or they might be angry we’re taking their time. They might hate Rossum. They might be total jerks in general. They might—”
“I know.” I meet her eyes, for just a moment, but then I look away quickly. “But if it helps to know this, they’re only having us knock for Democrats and Independents. Who can be jerks, yeah. But it’s not like . . . you know.”
“Yeah.” She presses her lips together. “Yeah.” For a minute, she stares moodily out the window.
Then, suddenly, she unbuckles her seat belt.
“Are we—”
“Come on, let’s just get this over with. Okay? What house are we starting with?” She opens her door, stepping onto the curb.
I scramble out behind her, scrolling frantically through the app. “Okay. Uh. Two thirty-six. This brick one, right there with the—okay, yup, that one.”
Already, she’s halfway up the driveway.
So now I’m standing on a stranger’s doorstep with my hand hovering over the doorbell. “You ready?”
Maya crosses her arms and nods. I ring the doorbell, and immediately, there’s a frenzy of dogs yipping and footsteps and even muffled voices. But no one answers.
Maya and I exchange glances. “They’re definitely in there,” she says.
“Do you think they’re ignoring us?”
“Looks like it.”
“Maybe they’re showering or something? In separate showers,” I add quickly. “Not like a big group shower. Unless that’s their thing, which is fine—”
“Come on.” Maya grabs a walk piece and shoves it next to the doorknob. “We’ll get the next house.”
But we don’t.
And we don’t get the house after that either. Turns out, nobody’s even answering their doors. And it’s after six. I guarantee at least half these people are home. There are cars parked in almost every driveway. I keep marking everyone down as not home, but I feel gross about it. It’s hard not to take it personally.
“I get it,” Maya says as we approach the next house. “We’re interrupting everyone’s Friday evening. I hate when people knock on my door.”
I glance up—there’s a mezuzah on the door frame. “Yeah, they may be getting ready for Sha—wait, is someone coming?”
“Whaaat.” Maya’s jaw drops, just for a moment, but then she quickly collects herself, standing up straight. “Okay. Okay! It’s happening.”
The door creaks open, revealing an elderly white woman—at least a decade older than Grandma—wearing a blue quilted pajama shirt, jeans, and white sneakers. “Why, hello,” she says. “Who do we have here?”
Maya springs into action, beaming so brightly, I almost stumble backward from the shock of it. It’s the first time I’ve seen Maya smile all day. And okay, I’m not saying Maya’s general face is heinous or anything. But when she’s smiling? It’s next-level not heinous. She’s just so—
Yeah. I’m not going to go there. Literally no point in going there.
“Great. Hi!” Maya says. “I’m Maya, and this is Jamie, and we’re here with the Jordan Rossum cam—”
“Well, isn’t that a nice surprise. Y’all can come right on in. I’m Barbara.” She turns, gesturing for us to follow.
Okay, so. Following old ladies into their houses? Not in our script. Not part of the game plan. And I don’t want to say for sure that we’re getting kidnapped, but I’m pretty sure we’re getting kidnapped.
Maya and I exchange panicked glances.
I clear my throat. “Uh. We were just—”
“What are you waiting for? Come on in.”
I look helplessly at Maya, who’s clutching the stack of walk pieces like they might fly away. Actually, Maya looks like she wants to fly away with them. But Barbara’s still standing in the foyer, expectantly.
I take a deep breath and cross the threshold.
“Now what can I get you? Lemonade? Sweet tea?”
Maya shakes her head. “I’m okay, thanks.”
“Nothing? Well. I’ll just make a little plate of cookies. Won’t take me but a second. And you can just have a seat right there on that couch.”
I settle in, and Maya sits beside me, so close to the edge that she’s barely sitting at all. “This is like a fairy tale,” she whispers. “But in a bad way.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“I think she’s coming back. Okay, what’s our—hi!” Maya’s whole tone and expression shifts the minute Barbara walks back in, and I have to kind of marvel at that. I barely know how to be myself, and here she is turning into an entirely new person, mid-sentence.
“Now please help yourselves,” Barbara says firmly, setting a plate of dusty-looking cookies in front of us. And of course my stomach growls enthusiastically, which pretty much locks me into taking one. I guess they don’t look that dusty. I go for a vanilla-looking one with a Hershey’s Kiss pressed into the middle, taking a tiny nibble off the edge. Maya looks on in horror, but the cookie isn’t so bad. A little stale, but it’s edible.
Barbara settles into an armchair, facing us, and Maya leans forward to hand her a walk piece. “Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us,” she says brightly. “Like I said, we’re here with the Jordan Rossum campaign—”
“Oh, isn’t he handsome,” Barbara says, peering through her glasses at Rossum’s headshot. She turns to me. “This young man looks quite a bit like you!”
“Uh . . . thank you?”
Okay, I’m pretty sure we just slipped into some strange alternate universe. I look like Rossum? I mean, we’re both white Jews with dark hair, but that’s about it. He’s a candidate for the state senate, and I’m . . . me. I glance sideways at Maya, who’s clearly trying very hard to keep a straight face. When I catch her eye, a grin breaks through, and she claps a hand over her mouth.
Barbara looks back and forth from Maya to me, smiling. “Well, aren’t you two the cutest couple I ever saw.”
Maya’s hand falls. “Couple?”
“But here’s my advice. You can take it from an old lady who knows a thing or two about relationships. Now, I’m not going to tell you to see other people, but don’t be in a rush to settle down. Take your time and get to know each other before taking the final step.”
Awesome. So much for me ever making eye contact with Maya again. Random ladies think we’re dating? And not just dating. They think we’re dating so seriously that we need to be cautioned against settling down. What?