I’d been hoping she’d offer. “Really?” I say. “That would be amazing. All I need is a lead—a name, a location. I can do the rest.”
“Your mom must be loving this,” she says.
I sigh into the phone and stare out the window. “She’s constantly at me, texting suggestions, and offers to read pages. When I told her I was going undercover, she practically had kittens.”
Jenna laughs. “She means well.”
I know Jenna is right, but it runs deeper than that with my mother. The expectations I always seem to fall short of, the disappointment that my big break at the LA Times resulted in a career writing piecework while my grad school friends have gone on to write for major outlets. When Jenna got hired by the New York Times, instead of being happy for Jenna, the first thing my mother said was Why didn’t you go for that job yourself?
“Other than worrying about you, how’s Scott?” Jenna asks.
“He’s doing well,” I say.
“When are you guys going to set a date?” she asks. “I want to make sure I put in for time off.”
“I don’t know. We’re both so busy. Maybe after I sell this Meg story, we can sit down and get something calendared.”
“You make it sound like you’re booking a gynecologist appointment. Try to be a little excited.”
I laugh. “I’m excited. I just have a lot to do. I’m basically working two jobs.”
Jenna’s silent for a minute, as if she’s weighing my words. “Just make sure that’s all it is. I know I’ve said it before, but there’s no shame in changing your mind.”
“Scott’s been doing great,” I tell her. “Working the program. All is well, I promise.”
Jenna waits a beat before saying, “I gotta run. Call me this weekend?”
“Will do.”
After we hang up, I stare at the phone. I miss having a friend. Someone to meet for lunch or a quick coffee. Someone I don’t have to always be on guard around, looking for lies and manipulation slipped into conversations. All the pretending, all the role-playing takes an emotional toll. I think back again to Scott’s undercover friend, to what he’d always say. After a while, if you’re not careful, you can lose sight of the line. You no longer think in terms of me or them and only in terms of us.
Meg
July
Fifteen Weeks before the Election
Six weeks into the job and I will admit, I’m starting to worry. I’ve never had a deadline like the one I have with the election, and like any deadline that starts to loom…the closer you get to it, the more you begin to panic that the pieces might not come together in time.
And I can’t help but wonder if I’ve got a blind spot. Never before has a job been so personal. So raw. Never before have I had so much invested in the outcome. This is my magnum opus, and I am flat-out stalled.
I’ve got Kat, bless her heart, keeping us busy with properties Ron might like. If she thought this job was going to be mostly yoga and lunches with a few contracts here and there, she’s got another thing coming. I actually need her to work.
I’m out with Ron at least three times a week, carving out an hour here, an hour there from his busy campaign schedule, ostensibly looking for the perfect property to add to his portfolio. But my real job is to keep him talking. I can’t execute the first part of my plan—the one that centers around Canyon Drive—until I know for sure what decisions Ron will make in the second half.
Despite all the apartments and duplexes we’ve seen, I have no intention of selling him anything. But this entire job hinges on Ron’s belief that I will.