“I’ll live in hope, then.” Tim drains his glass and plunks it down. “Do you have anything like plain carrots or celery or apples? Everything in our fridge has some kind of crap in it.”
“It’s true,” Nan says. “I bit into a perfectly ordinary-looking plum this afternoon and it had some weird blue-cheese filling. It’s that thing Mommy got from QVC.”
“The Pumper. It injects tasty filling deep into the heart of all your favorite foods,” Tim quotes in a Moviefone voice.
Just then the doorbell rings again. It’s Jase this time. He’s wearing a faded gray T-shirt and jeans—must have come straight from work.
“Hi!” Nan says brightly. “In case you didn’t figure this out last night, I’m Nan, Samantha’s best friend. I’d love to say I’ve heard all about you, but actually, she hasn’t said a word. My brother says he knows you, though.” She extends her hand to Jase. After a beat, he takes it, shakes it, looking over at me with a slightly nonplussed expression.
“Hullo Nan. Mason.” His voice gets an edge as he greets Tim, and I see Tim’s jaw muscles clench. Then Jase moves to my side and slips an arm tight around my waist.
We wind up in the backyard, because everything inside my house is so hard and formal, no comfortable place to sit and lounge. Jase lies on his back in the grass on our sloping lawn, and I lie, crossways, with my head on his stomach, ignoring the occasional flick of Nan’s eyes.
We don’t talk much for a while. Jase and Tim idly discuss people they knew from soccer in middle school. I find myself studying the boys together, wondering what my mother would see. There’s Jase with his olive skin and broad shoulders, his air of being older than seventeen, nearly a man. Then there’s Tim, so pale, dark circles under his eyes, freckles standing out in strong relief, rangy skinny legs cross-legged, his face handsome but pale and angular. Jase’s jeans are stained with grease, and his T-shirt is frayed at the collar, stretched out of shape. Tim’s in crisp khakis, with a blue-striped oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves. If Mom was asked who was “dangerous,” she would immediately point to Jase, who fixes things, and saves animals, and saves me. Not Tim, who, as I watch, is casually crushing a daddy longlegs.
Wiping his hand on the grass, Tim says, “I need to get my GED, or I’ll either be shipped to the foreign legion by my parents, or spend the rest of my life—which will then be very short—living in their basement.”
“My dad did that—got a GED,” Jase offers, playing with my hair. “You could talk to him.”
“Your sister Alice didn’t do it too, by any chance?”
Jase’s lips twitch. “Nope.”
“Bummer. I also need a job so I don’t have to spend my days at home with Ma, watching her figure out new uses for the Pumper.”
“There’s an opening at Mom’s campaign,” I say. “She needs all the help she can get now that she’s totally distracted by Clay Tucker.”
“Who the hell’s Clay Tucker?”
“The…” Nan lowers her voice, even though all she says is: “…younger man Samantha’s mother’s dating.”
“Your ma’s dating?” Tim looks shocked. “I thought she pretty much confined herself to a vibrator and the shower nozzle since your dad screwed her over.”
“Timmy.” Nan turns scarlet.
“There’s always a job to do at my dad’s store.” Jase stretches and yawns, unfazed. “Restocking, placing orders. Nothing too exciting, but—”
“Right.” Tim’s eyes are cast down as he tears at a hangnail on his thumb. “I’m sure that’s just what your pop needs—a plastered dropout stock boy with a jones for illegal substances.”
Jase props himself up on one elbow, looking squarely at him. “Well, provided that stock boy isn’t still drinking, et cetera, taking my girlfriend on a joyride when he’s hammered. Ever again.” His voice is flat. He watches Tim for another moment, then lies back down.
Tim turns, if possible, slightly paler, then flushes. “Uh…Well…I…uh…” He glances at me, at Nan, then returns his attention to the hangnail. Silence.
“Well, restocking and stuff might not be thrilling, but that’s probably a good thing,” Nan says after a minute or two. “What do you think, Timmy?”
Tim’s still focusing on his thumb. Finally, he looks up. “Unless Alice does restocking too, preferably spending most of her time on a ladder in those little short-shorts, I’m thinking I’ll talk to gorgeous Grace about politics. I like politics. You get to manipulate people and lie and cheat and it’s all good.”
“From what I read, Samantha’s mom prefers to think of it as working for the common weal.” Jase stretches his arms over his head, yawning. I sit up, surprised to hear Jase recite Mom’s last campaign slogan, the one Clay Tucker mocked so mercilessly. Jase and I never mention politics. But he must have been paying attention to hers all along.
“Cool. Sign me up. I’ll be a cog in the common weal. With my track record, I’ll probably be able to screw up all three branches of government in about a week and a half,” Tim says. “Does hot Alice have any interest in politics?”
Mom gets back early, luckily after Nan and Tim have trudged home and Jase is again training. She has a meet-and-greet in East Stonehill tonight and wants me to come along. “Clay says that since I’m focusing on family, we really need to see more of mine.” I stand next to her at Moose Hall for approximately eight thousand years, repeating “Yes, I’m so proud of my mother. Please vote for her,” while she shakes hand after hand after hand.
When she first got elected, this was kind of fun and exciting. All these people I’d never met who seemed to know me, happy to meet us. Now it just seems surreal. I listen hard to Mom’s speech, trying to analyze how things have changed. She’s much more assured, with all these new hand gestures—chopping the air, arms outspread in appeal, hands crossed over her heart…but it’s more than that. Last time, it was mostly local issues Mom talked about, and mildly. But now she’s taking on federal spending and the size of government, and the unfair taxation of the wealthy, who create all the jobs…“You’re not smiling,” Clay Tucker says, bumping up next to me. “So I figured you were hungry. These hors d’oeuvres are amazing. I’ll take over while you eat a few.” He hands me a plate of shrimp cocktail and stuffed clams.
“How much longer does this go on?” I ask, dunking a shrimp.
“Till the last handshake, whenever that is, Samantha.” He gestures at my mom with a toothpick. “Look at Grace. You’d never know she’d been doing this for two hours and her shoes probably hurt and she might need to visit the little girls’ room. She’s a pro, your mama.”
Mom does indeed look fresh and calm and cool. She’s bending her head to listen to an old man as though he’s the most important thing in her world. Somehow I’ve never seen her ability to fake it as a strength but right now, I guess it is.
“You gonna eat that?” Clay asks, spearing a scallop before I can answer.
Chapter Twenty-four
Late that night, I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, fresh out of the shower, wearing a white nightgown I’ve had since I was eight. It used to be romantically long; now it clings to my thighs.
Mom’s finally admitted exhaustion and has gone to bed in her suite. For the first time I find myself wondering if Clay’s ever spent the night here. I wouldn’t even know if he had—her rooms are on the other side of the house and there are stairs from the yard. Ugh, don’t think about that.
There’s a tap at my window, and I look over to find a hand splayed on the glass. Jase. Seeing him is like that feeling you get when you’ve gotten the wind knocked out of you and then can, at last, draw a deep, full breath. I go over, put my hand against his, then push up the window.
“Hey. Can I come in?”
He does, gracefully, legs planting themselves firmly, while ducking carefully under the transom, as though he’s done this a thousand times before. Then he looks around the room and smiles at me. “It’s so tidy, Sam. I’ve gotta do this.”