It would be great. I'd missed working with an eager new team where everyone was obsessed with the possibilities ahead rather than choking on jaded bile. It would be hard though, and a ton of work. Long days, long weeks. But it would be great.
There was a lot to love about fresh starts. I'd have to learn everything about the region and figure it out on the fly but I'd done all that before. And I loved a challenge. Who wanted the same old same old? Not this girl.
I didn't know anyone in California, not anyone I'd consider a friend rather than a contact, but that was fine. I could make new friends. That was part of the adventure. New places, new people, new experiences. I'd find a community for myself. It would be fine.
Out of nowhere, I flashed back to Sunday dinner with Linden's family. They were such a strong unit, their lives woven together in more ways than I'd ever be able to parse. They were a community all of their own but they didn't exclude anyone. They sucked you in with tight embraces and marmalade and inside jokes. They were wonderful.
Too bad Linden hadn't asked me to stay.
He hadn't even hinted at that. Of all the things Linden said to me yesterday, not a single one of them involved passing up this opportunity because it meant moving to the other side of the country and the end of our relationship as we knew it.
He hadn't even mentioned us and that told me everything I needed to know. It was fine. It didn't matter. I didn't need him or his lumberbear vibes. I didn't need anything at all.
It wasn't like I expected him to fight for me or anything like that. God, no. How ridiculous. As if he'd have a grand speech about how much he wanted me in his life. Of course not. That didn't happen to real people. It just didn't happen. We'd had a fling and now it was over. I expected nothing from him. Moving right along.
Even if he had asked me to stay, it wasn't like I would. Please. I couldn't. I couldn't dawdle around a quiet Boston suburb while a moody beast of a man encouraged me to find my passion in life, all else be damned. That didn't happen to real people either. Real people pulled themselves together, worked their asses off, and knew no one was going to help them.
This stop was never meant to be permanent. Nothing was permanent and I'd do well to keep that in mind.
Dino and his colleagues met me at a restaurant that served everything in mason jars or on rustic bread boards. The menu was scrawled on a great chalkboard covering the top half of one wall and the patrons sat at mismatched picnic tables. The music was loud yet mellow.
It was real nice. It was charming, when I gave it a minute. I didn't even mind the awkward bench straddle I had to do with one hand plastering the front of my skirt down, the other on the back because, for the first time in months, I knew how to work this situation.
Nonetheless, I couldn't stop myself from wondering what Linden would think about this place. Would he hate the just-so-ishness of it? Would he love the vibe but hate wedging himself into a damn picnic table? Would he stare at me from across the table, a slow smirk filling his face as he said, "You look good, Peach. You look real good."
I shook myself back into the conversation, murmuring and nodding as Dino, Chester, Slater, and Saylor recounted an effort to get younger voters to the polls in the last election cycle. They loved their work, that much was plain to see, and it reminded me of my early days with Timbrooks.
I'd loved that little campaign family and it was a family. There was always a mom and a dad, little brothers, middle sisters, weird uncles, crazy aunts, cousins for whom we couldn't trace the bloodline, stepsiblings who came to us through concession speeches and endorsements. It wasn't a strict gender paradigm, of course. There were female dads, male middle sisters, nonbinary cousins.
Much like my own identity, it was about minds and hearts, not parts.
For me, I was always the bossy big sister, the one who got shit done and made sure everyone else got theirs done too.
I'd always angled for the dad role though I was never the mom.
The moms were essential to campaign life—someone had to manage the advance team and get in the weeds with the inch-tall details about matching or contrasting balloon strings and hotel room assignments—but they were never the stars. No one received recognition for the work of having the flags staged appropriately behind the podium at a press conference or moving the senator briskly through a rope line. You couldn't hold everyone together and be a star shining bright enough to stand out at the same time.
Saylor wasn't the mom of this operation. She had more of the youngest child essence, the one who stood out because she was new and that meant all her stories started with "Since this was my first election cycle…" and "At my previous gig…" Of course, that meant Dino, Chester, and Slater had to follow those moments with recaps of events before she joined the team.
Tons of big brother energy.
They all wanted to be the dad but that required them to stop having experiences where someone slept in someone else's bathtub after a raucous party attended by other coworkers.
The problem wasn't the party or even the bathtub. It was that Dino couldn't be Slater's boss and drink enough with his direct reports to find an apartment tub suitable for a night's sleep. He could but that never worked out too well for anyone and I didn't get the impression he'd come to that realization on his own.
The big sister would have to sit him down and explain the stakes of carrying on like a frat boy in the evenings while attempting to sway public opinion toward equity and access during the day. That was how it was for the big sisters.
Not that I minded. I was good at this sort of thing. Eerily good, actually. I could engage in the types of difficult conversations that left most people hyperventilating as easily as I could place my coffee order. Ultimately, it didn't matter to me whether I was liked. I didn't have to be liked. I had to be effective and capable.
Being liked was the priority of the moms—but only when everyone was fed—and the middle children—because no one ever noticed them. That was the same reason neither of those groups lasted long in this kind of work. They let the churn of campaigns and then the outrage-and-fundraise cycles exhaust and demoralize them. They didn't get the love and attention they needed to flourish.
I didn't need love or attention. I didn't need anyone coddling me with reminders about how much they wanted me on their staff. I didn't need anything. Didn't need anyone. Didn't need a family or a Sunday supper tradition. Didn't need a pair of semi-sisters to laugh a weekend lunch away with or an extra mom to drag me into a community. Didn't need a cozy cottage in the forest or people to call my own.
I was a goddamn professional and I didn't need anyone but myself.
"Okay, real talk," Slater said, dropping his elbows to the table. "I have to ask, Jasper, how did you pull it off?"
Since I was busy bulleting out the convo I'd have with Dino in six to nine months and the redirection I'd give Saylor in a year or two—because those would be the hurdles ahead for me, nothing else—I missed the lead-in to this question. I blinked at him for a long moment, smiling just a touch to keep it pleasant. "What did I pull off?"
He snicker-laughed and shot an are y'all with me on this? glance to his colleagues. "Taking down Timbrooks."