“Now to see if they’ll actually open the door,” Jamie says. “I’m going to guess no.”
“I’ll go with yes.”
“Loser gets the winner donuts on the way back!” He hops up the steps.
Still fasting, Jamie! I’m about to call out, just as he rings the doorbell. Seriously, though—first the Goldfish crackers in the car, and now this. I guess I could take the donuts to go if I win and eat them this evening. My stomach grumbles. Donuts sound really good right now.
But thoughts of fasting or donuts-to-go take a backseat when the door parts open. It’s a man. He looks a bit older than my dad. He’s balding and has on a blue T-shirt with a picture of a white swordfish across his belly.
He’s staring at us.
More like glaring at us.
At me.
And just like that, all the lightness from moments earlier vanishes.
Jamie must feel it too. He hasn’t said a word either.
“Well?” The man glances at both of us. “What do you want?”
“Oh, sorry.” Jamie clears his throat. “Um. Are you . . .” He glances down at his paper and then back up at the man. “Are you Jonathon Hyde?”
“That’s my landlord. Hasn’t lived here in years. What do you want with him?”
“We’re campaigning on behalf of Jordan Rossum. He’s running for state senate in the special election,” I say quickly. I’ve got the words down pat, I realize, since I can say them through my racing heart. “He’s running on the promise of hope and change in our district, and every person who can come out to vote will make a difference. I have more information here if you’d like it.” I hold out the flyer toward him.
He looks down at the flyer. He doesn’t touch it.
“This guy’s a Democrat, right?” He says it like it’s a bad word, like it physically tastes bad on his tongue. “Does the fact that you two are here interrupting my day mean I’m renting from a Democrat?”
“Well, we’re targeting Independents and Democrats,” Jamie says in a hesitant voice. “Would you like a flyer to read over?”
He stares at us, his hand resting on the door. I glance at Jamie. Why is he waiting for a response? This guy is obviously not voting for Rossum. We can cross this house off the list with a resounding no and get on with our day.
“Look,” the man finally says. “I don’t mean to be offensive or nothing. I just tell it like it is. Do you really think you’re going to get anyone around here to vote for your candidate when they’ve got her knocking on doors?” He raises a hairy finger and points it toward me.
He doesn’t touch me.
He is a good two feet away on the other side of the door.
But I feel punched.
“Think about it.” He turns his attention to Jamie. “You really need to do a better job keeping this agenda hidden.” He nods toward me. “Being politically correct is fine and all, but it won’t get him votes. Not in this district. May want to pass that tip on to your Rossum person. We do want change out here, but not the kind he’s promising.”
Before either of us can say another word, the door slams in our faces.
Jamie looks exactly like a squirrel my mom almost hit when she was dropping me off super early to school last year. She had to slam the brakes, because even though the squirrel was pretty much looking death in the eye, it seemed like it was so scared it couldn’t move.
I know people feel the way this guy does. But to say it to my face as casually as if he’s discussing the weather? I’ve gotten racist stuff here and there, especially when I’m with my mom, who wears hijab. The mumbling as someone passes us, or a look by the cashier you know is saying something without saying it. I’m used to that. But this?
I have to get out of here. Before the man opens the door again. Before he does something worse. I study the door and breathe in. It’s a deep mahogany, this door. I can see the grains of wood. The doorknob is faded brass, worn at the edges.
“Hey.” Jamie’s voice floats in and out. “Maya, can you hear me?”
I turn my head toward him. He’s looking at me. How long has he been calling my name?
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod numbly. He gently takes me by the elbow, and together we get off the stoop and step back onto the sidewalk.
“Listen,” he says. “That guy . . . he was . . . he was a total monster. And you know what I think? I think we should . . .” He looks at me. He hesitates.
Oh God, Jamie, I think, biting my lip to push back the tears. Please don’t tell me you’re planning to knock on this dude’s door and try to say something on my behalf. I’m pretty sure I can predict how a confrontation between him and that man would go.
But that’s not what he says.
What he says next is something so unexpected, it’s just the thing to shake me from my weirdly catatonic state.
“Target?”
“What?” I blink.
“It’s on the way back to the campaign office,” he says quickly. “Have you seen the patio section lately? It’s got blue lights overhead and everything. It’s like being at the weirdest garden party ever. Want to check it out?”
I look into his worried eyes. Anywhere that isn’t here sounds really good right now.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
Jamie
I should have said something.
I keep replaying the moment in my head. The way that racist dude looked at Maya with death-ray eyes. The drop of spittle in the corner of his mouth. And the sound of the door slamming in our faces. The whole time the guy was speaking, it was like I’d stepped out of my brain. It felt like I was watching it all happen in a movie.
And then, afterward, the way Maya stared at that door without blinking. The sheer blankness of her expression made my stomach lurch. She was clearly as shocked as I was. More than shocked. She looked like the ground had given way beneath her.
This just wasn’t supposed to happen.
That’s the thought that plays on a loop in my brain, all the way to Target.
“The Rossum campaign needs to update their system,” I say at a red light on Roswell Road, glancing toward Maya.
She nods. “Yeah.”
“That can’t happen. It’s ridiculous. We’re in Sandy Springs, not, like, middle of nowhere Georgia. It’s just not okay.”
“Wouldn’t have been okay in the middle of nowhere either,” Maya says.
I blush. “Right.”
The Target patio section is so underrated. I mean, yeah, Target’s Wi-Fi is the worst, which would normally make me twitchy—and my phone doesn’t even get cell service here. But when I’m in the patio section, it’s like it doesn’t even matter. It’s my favorite place to sit and think.
“I don’t know if you want to test out different chairs or anything,” I tell Maya. “But I will say I’m kind of a patio expert these days.”
“A patio expert?” She smiles.
“I mean, I know my way around the patio section, and I’ll just leave it at that.”
Maya peers up at me for a moment, still smiling, and I get this flutter in my stomach. “Okay,” she says. “So if you’re the expert, what chairs are the best?”