I started to object but Chester chimed in with, "That was the ultimate drag and you played it so cool. Like it was an accident."
They hooted with laughter and clinked their mason jars together because they believed I'd planned this disaster. They believed I'd orchestrated this to knock Timbrooks out of the presidential race.
They believed I could manipulate at that mastermind level, that I'd even sacrifice myself to the cause. I wasn't sure I wanted to examine what that said about me.
"I think about taking down out-of-touch, two-faced elected officials all the time but I'd never considered the suicide bomber route," Slater added. "It's so fucking genius."
I flinched and froze the way I did every time someone spoke of suicide in a glib way but the group didn't notice. They were busy agreeing with each other over my tactical brilliance.
"It's genius but it's also a little dangerous," Saylor said with a laugh. "I mean"—she lifted a shoulder, gave an uncomfortable smile—"it could've really backfired on you, right?"
It did, Saylor. It did.
When I didn't respond immediately, she added, "I'm just saying it could've looked like a personal implosion—and some of the networks did run with that angle, if I recall correctly—rather than an intentional character assassination, and that could've really screwed things up for you."
You don't know how right you are, Saylor.
"Who did you work with on this?" Chester asked. "Not to say you couldn't pull it off yourself—we've admired your work for the past few years and I have to say, it is A-plus—but that kind of coordination requires more than a lone gunman."
"Or gunwoman," Saylor said with the kind of stretched canvas smile that told me she made those remarks often and they tended to fall on deaf ears.
I focused on this because reading between the gender politics lines was less painful than the implication I'd conspired to kneecap my boss on cable news. Not only that, I'd conspired and I'd kneecapped and these people admired those choices. They wanted me because I was nightmarish and manipulative and willing to play dirtier than anyone else. Anything else I brought to the table was a bonus so long as I brought the lead pipe I'd used to take out Timbrooks.
A deep voice in my head asked, How long have you hated your job?
And that was the first time I had a specific answer to his question. I'd hated it since the work stopped being about the possibility of positive change and making good trouble—about the idealism of it all—and started being about tricks and games and manufactured scandals. When the people turned into an afterthought. When the senator's votes turned into commodities available for sale. When I placed winning above all else.
I smiled but it felt wrong. Forced, like I was wearing those horrible wax lips people gave out at Halloween. Those were terrible Halloween treats. I didn't know why anyone did that to children but I shook all of this away, saying, "A strategist never reveals her secrets."
"Not for free," Dino chirped, and the group erupted in laughter.
Again, that deep voice said to me, It's not a badge of honor, you know.
Yeah. I understood that now. I finally understood.
After another round of glass-clinking, Slater said, "And that's why you're here now. As I hope Dino explained, we want to get you on board and put some of those secrets to work remaking the local scene."
Saylor nodded while subtly gesturing to the nearby tables. "We shouldn't talk about this here but Slater's right. The only way we'll unseat some of the problems in this region is by getting messy."
They went around the table, echoing this sentiment with various metaphors in case I was somehow confused—gloves off, mudslinging, take no prisoners, hills to die on, and such. They wanted to declare war on some of the elected officials in this part of the state and they didn't mind slashing and burning everything in their path to claim victory.
In one sense, I had to give them credit for calling me. My work history was exactly what they needed to accomplish their goals. In another sense, I was working hard at not sliding off the bench and wishing myself away from this conversation because oh my god, I hated this breed of politics.
I hated this and yet it was the only thing I knew how to do. It didn't matter whether I was skilled in policy or voter enfranchisement or even fundraising, every operation's big bugaboo. It didn't matter because I could make an on-air accident look like a strategic fire set from inside the house.
As they talked, I kept my wax-lipped smile in place and nodded at the correct moments, and I stopped feeling sorry for my former self. I stopped aching for all the things I'd lost in the last few months and I allowed cold, sinking numbness to fill that space. I listened though I felt like I was observing this conversation from the bottom of a deep pool, the shadows of figures at the surface moving over me, moving on without me.
I was here, such a great distance from the surface, and I was alone and empty because I told myself this was better. This was what I wanted.
28
Linden
There were a few routes I could drive without thinking. It was some form of muscle memory where I knew where I was going and could get there on autopilot, without much recollection of the trip. It always bothered my brother when I said anything to that effect since he found driving with anything short of undivided attention to be the height of recklessness.
I didn't set my autopilot to his Boston apartment because he asked too many damn questions and he always expected concrete answers to those questions, though I did point myself in the direction of New Bedford. The only place it made sense to go was home to my parents.
Before I did that, I stopped at a sports bar where I nursed one and a half beers and a burger I didn't taste. A football game claimed the majority of the patrons' interest and energy, and on most occasions, that much noise would've bothered me. I didn't care about it now. I just wanted to drop into all that noise and distraction, and forget that I'd given Jasper everything I thought she'd needed but none of it mattered because she was leaving.
It was stupid of me to get attached. It was stupid to think we could be—well, that we could be anything. It was stupid of me to try. There was never any chance of this arrangement lasting. And it was an arrangement, by no means a real relationship. We'd only known each other a handful of months and we didn't even like each other very much.
I don't hate you.
Fuck. Just…fuck.
But Jasper had been stuck here. Trapped, really. Now she had a way out and only a fool would pass that up. Jasper was a lot of contradictory things but she was no fool.
When the game was over and the burger felt like concrete in my stomach, I drove to my parents' house. I'd constructed a half-truth about an early appointment in Dartmouth and wanting to avoid morning traffic on 495, and my mother had texted back an emoji-heavy response that promised fresh sheets in my childhood bedroom.
I made a point of arriving there too late for anything more than a quick hello, good to see you, good night, and promptly closed myself in the room I used to share with Ash. It was a guest room now, stripped of its boyish blues and browns, and refined in a way it'd never been when we were kids.