Realization smacks me hard, but I barely have time to process because Tim keeps going.
“He’s all about the photo ops too. Yesterday it was some poor bastard who lost both legs in Afghanistan coming stateside. Clay was on the spot, makin’ sure Gracie got a half-page spread in the Stony Bay Bugle kissing him hello.” Tim jams his hands into his pockets, pacing around the room as he talks. “Then we go to some day-care center where he gets Grace’s photo taken with six cute blond kids piled around her. He practically shoved this girl with one of those big red birthmarks on her face outta the way. I mean, he’s good at what he does. It’s amazing watching him work. But somehow, frickin’ scary too. And your Mom…she just says nothin’, Samantha. She snaps to attention like she’s working for him. What the fuck’s up with that?”
It’s not as though I haven’t thought all these things. But when Tim says them, I feel defensive. Besides, who is Tim to talk?
“Look,” I say. “It may seem like he’s the boss, but Mom would never back off completely like that. She loves this job and she’s totally committed to winning and this is a tough race…” I trail off. I sound like her.
“Yeah, and she’s ahead in all our internal polling. Even with the margin of error. Close, but ahead. But of course, that’s not enough for Clay. Clay has to hedge his bets. Clay has to have his little November surprise in the works, so he makes abso-friggin’-lutely sure that not only does she win, but her opponent fucking loses. Big. Not just the race. His whole career.”
Jase is absently sliding the palm of his left hand up and down my side, while still pulling plastic packs of nails out of the cardboard box. “And he’s doing this by…?”
“Digging up dirt that doesn’t matter. Making sure it matters. And sticks.”
We both stare at Tim.
“Ben Christopher, who’s running against Grace? He has two DUIs,” he says. “The first was from thirty years ago, high school. The second was twenty-six years ago. He did his service, paid his fines. I see the dude in meetings. He’s seriously decent. He’s done everything he can to make up for it. But old Clay’s already got it lined up to make sure you can never keep your past in the past. He knows from his little pet spy that the Christopher campaign is shitting bricks about it coming out. And he’s gonna have old Gracie do a rally with some asshole there who’s going to let it all slip. Three days before the election.”
“Where are you in all this?” Jase asks.
Tim looks at us pleadingly. “I don’t know. Clay Tucker thinks I walk on water. For some reason, every damn thing I do impresses this jerk-off. Today he complimented me on how I collated papers, for Christ’s sake. No one has ever been this impressed with me. Not even when I was faking my ass off. I’m not now. I’m actually good at this crap. Plus, I need the recommendation.” His voice rises a few octaves. “‘The hardware store is all very well, Timothy, but it’s your campaign experience, and what the state senator says about you that’ll go a long way toward repairing the damage you’ve done yourself.’”
“Your mom?” I ask.
“Natch. There’s not a person on the planet who would say as many nice things about me as Clay Tucker. And of course, my luck, he has to ruin a good man along the way.”
At this point the store gets a sudden run of customers. A hassled-looking woman with her teenage daughter chooses paint chips. An elderly woman wants a leaf blower that doesn’t take any muscle to run. A clueless-looking bearded guy tells Tim he wants “One of those things you fix stuff with, like on TV.” After five minutes of Tim offering him everything from spackle to a DustBuster to a Ginzu knife, Jase finally figures out it’s a tool kit. The guy trots off, looking satisfied.
“So, what are you going to do?” I ask.
“Hell, hell, hell,” Tim responds, reaching for his shirt pocket where his cigarettes still reside, then letting his hand drop away, empty. No smoking in the building. He closes his eyes, looking as though someone’s pounding a nail through his temple, then opens them and looks no better. He smacks his fist against the counter, sending a plastic container of pens jumping. “I just can’t make myself quit. I’ve screwed up so much already. This will look like more of the same…even though it’s not.” He bends forward over the cash register, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. Is he crying?
“You could tell him what you think of his tactics,” Jase points out. “Tell him they’re wrong.”
“Like he’ll care. I hate this. I hate knowing the right thing to do and not having the balls to do it. This sucks. This is payback, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve done, the tests I’ve cheated on, the rules I’ve broken, the times I’ve fucked up, the people I’ve screwed over.”
“Oh knock it off already, man, with the ‘nobody knows the horrors I’ve seen’ routine. It’s getting really old,” Jase snaps.
I take a deep breath like I’m going to say something—what, I have no idea—but he continues before I can. “It’s not like you murdered newborns and drank their blood. You screwed up at prep school. Don’t overrate yourself.”
Tim’s eyebrows have shot to his hairline. Neither Tim nor I have ever seen Jase lose his temper.
“It’s not the moral dilemma of the century.” Jase runs his fingers through his hair. “It’s not whether to develop the atom bomb. It’s just whether you’re going to do a decent thing or keep doing shitty things. So choose. Just stop whining about it.”
Tim gives a little nod, an upward jerk of his chin, then turns his attention to the register as though the numbers and symbols on it are the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. His face has been so much more expressive lately than usual, but now he’s assumed that bland mask that I had come to think of as his real face. “I should go to the stockroom,” he mutters, and heads down the hallway.
Jase pours the last plastic bag full of nails into the plastic container. The clatter breaks the silence.
“That didn’t sound like you,” I offer quietly, still standing beside him.
Jase looks embarrassed. “Kinda just came out. It’s…it makes me feel…I get tired of…” His hand rubs the back of his neck, then slides all the way across his face to cover his eyes. “I like Tim. He’s a good guy…” He pulls his hand down to smile at me. “But I can’t say I wouldn’t appreciate a crack at all those choices—chances—Tim had. And when he acts like he’s under this curse or something…” He shakes his head, as though brushing the thought off, turns and looks at me, then nods at the clock. “I told Dad I’d stay late tonight and make out some reorder forms.” He reaches for a few strands of my hair, twining them around his finger. “You busy later?”
“I was supposed to go to a meet-and-greet in Fairport with Mom, but I told her I needed to study for SATs.”
“She believed this? It’s summer, Sam.”
“Nan’s got me signed up for this crazy prep simulation. And…I might have told Mom when she was a little distracted.”
“But not intentionally, of course.”
“Of course not,” I say.
“So if I were to come see you after eight, you’d be studying.”
“Absolutely. But I might want a…study buddy. Because I might be grappling with some really tough problems.”
“Grappling, huh?”
“Tussling with,” I say. “Wrestling. Handling.”
“Gotcha. Sounds like I should bring protective gear to study with you.” Jase grins at me.
“You’re pretty tough. You’ll be fine.”
Chapter Thirty-four
I’ve just gotten in the door when my cell phone starts up.
“So, because we have to get such an early start in the morning…The factory opens at five, can you imagine…really makes more sense…see you when you get back from school.” My cell gets perfect reception, but the tinny voice spilling out of it seems to come and go, as though I’m having problems tuning in to a certain radio frequency. Because this voice saying she’ll be gone all night because she has an early-morning meet-and-greet at a factory way up in the western corner of the state…this just can’t be Station Grace Reed. I must have tuned in to an alternative program. Or universe. But she concludes, “We’re halfway there already and it doesn’t make sense to drive all the way home. Clay’s found us a gorgeous hotel room. You’ll be fine, right?”