“That’s okay,” the girl said, sounding completely undeterred. “Is there another adult in the home I could speak with?”
He thought one more time of Keith at the station the other night: you’re eighteen, Colby. “I’m an adult,” he heard himself say.
“Great!” the girl exclaimed. “This is Meg with WeCount. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with this evening?”
Colby made a face at his reflection in the microwave. Who even talked like that? She sounded about eleven years old. “This is Colby,” he said, opening the fridge and pulling out the Styrofoam carton of eggs and a stick of butter.
“Are you a registered voter, Colby?”
“Uh,” Colby said again, “nope.”
“Well, that’s okay!” Meg said, in a voice like possibly he’d just told her he didn’t know how to read or wasn’t toilet-trained. “WeCount is a nonpartisan organization that works to empower Americans through voter registration. Voting is an essential way to defend our democracy and build a nation with liberty and justice for all. I’d love to help you get registered so that you’re ready to make your voice heard on Election Day.”
Colby dug a couple of bread butts out of the bag on the counter, wondering how many times per night she had to read that little speech, or if possibly she’d committed it to memory. “I’ll pass, thanks. Have a good night.”
“Are you sure?” Meg asked quickly. “If you’ve got access to a computer, I can talk you through it right now over the phone. It’ll just take a couple of minutes.”
If he had access to a computer? Jesus Christ. Colby rolled his eyes. He could just picture this girl in New York or Boston or wherever the hell she was, imagining she was calling him at his one-room shack. “What about the electoral college?” Colby asked.
Meg from WeCount hesitated, just for a moment—surprised, probably, that he’d even had time to learn what the electoral college was, considering his busy schedule of chewing toothpicks and shooting beer cans off fence posts. “I’m sorry?” she asked. “What about it?”
“Well,” Colby said, turning the stove on and knocking a spoonful of butter into the pan, not entirely sure why he hadn’t already hung up on her. “I mean, tell me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t the loser of the popular vote become president twice in the last two decades?”
“I mean, that’s technically true,” she admitted. “But that’s no reason not to—”
“It kind of seems like a great reason not to.” Colby cracked two eggs into the pan and tossed the shells into the garbage, starting to enjoy himself a little bit. “And if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s always government corruption, super PACs, and basically the whole entire history of Congress.”
“Well, the system isn’t perfect,” Meg allowed, a bit of an edge creeping into her voice, “but it’s our privilege and responsibility as citizens to engage with it. We need to vote like our rights depend on it, Colby—because they do.”
Ooh, a name drop. Colby wondered if that was in her manual or what. “Can I ask you a question, Meg?” he said. “Like, I’m not trying to be rude, and if you get some kind of bonus for me signing up, then you can go ahead and tell your boss I did it, but do you really think you’re changing the world here? Like, calling people up one by one and trying to sell them on their civic obligation?”
“Well, I certainly don’t think apathy is going to get us anywhere,” Meg snapped.
Colby felt his eyes narrow; she’d cut a little close to the bone. “Is that the problem?” he asked. “My apathy?”
“I’m sorry,” Meg said. “I didn’t mean—”
“Look,” he interrupted. This whole thing was hugely annoying all of a sudden, the idea of some shiny new college grad sitting in a climate-controlled cubicle pestering people at dinnertime. His eggs, he realized, had begun to burn. “If people want to vote, they’ll vote. They don’t need you calling them up trying to save them from themselves.”
“I’m not trying to save anybody,” Meg protested, “I just—” She broke off. “Okay,” she said, and Colby could hear her taking a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Obviously, we got off on the wrong foot here. But if you could just let David Moran know that I called, then—”
“Dave Moran hung himself in our garage ten months ago,” Colby said, the words coming out before he’d even had time to think them. “So I don’t think he’ll be calling you back. You have a good night, though. Thanks anyway.”
He hung up the phone without waiting for her to answer. He dumped the ruined eggs in the trash.
Five
Meg
For a moment, Meg stared down at her handset like she’d never seen it before, like it was an artifact from an alien planet dropped unceremoniously from the sky. She set it carefully back in its cradle, her eyes flicking around the office instinctively to see if anyone had been listening. She could taste her own heart at the back of her throat.
“Everything okay?” Lillian asked, her head popping up over the half wall that separated their cubicles. The overhead lights reflected off her glossy black bob.
“Um,” Meg said, her whole body stinging, hot and humiliated. Normally, Lillian was exactly the kind of person she’d tell about something like this; Lillian had trained her to begin with and had foolproof strategies for dealing with all kinds of unsavory phone characters, from yellers to bigots to the occasional perv. “Yep.” She wasn’t sure who she was trying to protect.
Lillian nodded and went back to her call sheet. Meg tugged on her bottom lip. There were strict rules against calling back if someone hung up on you—technically, it counted as harassment, to the point where if you were working off a computer and not a paper call sheet, the system deleted the numbers as they were dialed, just in case—but the urge to defend herself, just to clarify, was so strong it was nearly unbearable. It was like trying not to think of a purple elephant. It was like trying to hold back a cough.
She blew out a breath and dialed the next number on her printout, a not-in-service, then left cheery-sounding messages for the following two. She took a bathroom break, staring at herself in the greenish light above the mirror. She ate a churro from the box in the kitchenette.
Then she sat back down at her station and dialed Colby again.
This time the call went to voice mail, which wasn’t surprising. Meg didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved. A man’s voice—not Colby, but someone older, a person Meg thought she was probably imagining sounded just a little bit sad—explained that the Morans weren’t available, but that if she left a message somebody would get back to her as soon as possible.
“Um, hi,” she said after the beep, glancing furtively in Lillian’s direction. “This message is for Colby?” She cleared her throat. “Colby, this is Meg from WeCount. You and I spoke on the phone a minute ago. I just wanted to apologize for . . .” She trailed off. For what, exactly? Pressuring him about the importance of the electoral process? Growing up in a liberal bubble? Not somehow magically intuiting that his dad had died from suicide? “I just wanted to apologize for our conversation earlier. So. Um. I’m sorry.” They were not, under any circumstances, supposed to give out their private phone numbers, but hers was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Just, like, if you want to call me back or anything.” God, she was definitely going to get fired. “Okay. Um. Have a good night.”