The Hopefuls(71)

“Right,” I said. “How do you think that’ll go over?”

Jimmy shrugged. “She can’t be more pissed than she is now.”

An elderly couple passed us, and Jimmy smiled at them. “How’re y’all doing today?” he asked, and they smiled back and said they were doing just fine. I could tell that they thought we were married, that they assumed Jimmy was my husband from the way they looked at us, which of course made sense—we were both wearing wedding rings and shopping at Costco together on a weekday afternoon.

“You should appreciate this,” Jimmy said, as the couple moved down the aisle ahead of us. “This is what’s so great about Texas. Giant stores with giant carts where you can buy huge bottles of whiskey and a seventy-two-pack of frozen taquitos.”

“You know they have Costco everywhere, right? There was one in DC.”

“It’s not the same,” he said. He looked at me out of the corners of his eyes. “So, how’s things? You’re going home next weekend, right?”

“Yeah, just to see my parents for a couple of days. I haven’t been back since Thanksgiving so I thought it would be nice.”

“It must be so strange to have two nice parents,” Jimmy said, taking a bag of party mix off the shelf and then returning it.

“You have two nice parents,” I said.

“Beth, please. You don’t have to pretend. We both know my father is a giant dick.” My face must have looked shocked, because he laughed and said, “Calm down. I said he is a giant dick not has a giant dick.”

“Good God,” I said. The couple who had just moments ago smiled at us like we were adorable turned around with disapproving looks on their faces. “Maybe you can say dick louder so the whole store can hear you,” I suggested. Jimmy opened his mouth like he was going to scream, and I hit his arm. “Don’t. I was kidding.” We walked a little farther and I said, “I’m not agreeing with you, but I can see how he’s hard on you.”

“Hard is one word for it. He actually just really doesn’t like most people. But he is enamored with your boy-wonder husband.”

“They really do seem to get along, don’t they?”

“Like gangbusters.”

“It’s weird. I feel like lately Matt’s more excited to spend time with your dad than with anyone else.”

Jimmy looked at me seriously for a few seconds, and I thought he was going to say something more about Matt, but he just put his arm back around my shoulders and said, “Come on. Let’s get you a giant tub of animal crackers.”

—

Ash was perfectly pleasant on Viv’s birthday, but she did dress the baby in a T-shirt that said BIRTHDAY GIRL on the front and told every person we met at the gumbo festival that Viv’s first birthday party had been delayed for the campaign. “But we don’t mind,” she said, smiling and squishing Viv’s cheeks. “We just want to show our support for Daddy, don’t we, baby girl?”

—

I talked to Colleen at least a few times a week—she was back at work and called me when she was walking to and from the Metro or out grabbing lunch. We talked about nothing really, which was sort of our specialty. (We’d spent so many hours of our lives in conversation with each other that a disappointing salad she’d ordered from Sweetgreen could give us twenty minutes of discussion material.)

It was weird, but when I spoke to her she felt so far away, farther than she really was. It reminded me of junior year, when we were both studying abroad—she was in London and I was in Cork—and when we’d call each other, it felt like she was living a made-up life, because I didn’t know anything or anyone she talked about. “Describe your room to me,” I said to her on one of these calls. After living in the same space with her for so long, it didn’t seem right that I couldn’t picture where she was sleeping at night.

And that’s how it felt when I talked to her in Texas—I wanted so badly for her to understand what it was like there, and I’d tell her about the weird towns we’d visit, would describe the Dillons’ house, repeat the things that Ash said about her friends.

But I might as well have been telling her a fairy tale, and even though she’d respond by saying, “Wow” or “That’s so interesting,” I knew she had no idea what I was talking about, that no matter how much I explained, she’d never really understand my life in Texas.

—

It looked as though Jimmy had a good chance of winning the primary—he was up against an eighty-year-old man who had run for the commission (and lost) three times already. But still, Matt wasn’t taking anything for granted. “You never know,” he kept saying, like he didn’t want to get his own hopes up.

The primary would be the easy part—or at least much easier than the general, but it still wasn’t certain. “I can’t imagine losing and just having this whole thing be over so quickly,” Matt said one night. He was lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, which was a habit he’d picked up since moving to Texas.

“That would be awful,” I said, thinking about packing ourselves right back up after basically just getting there.

“I know,” Matt said, sounding almost irritated, like he hadn’t been the one to bring up the possibility of Jimmy losing in the first place.