Young Jane Young(51)

Ruby averted her eyes.

“Well, yes. Well, my point is it could be very bad for the congressman the week before an election.”

Ruby considered this. She took off her glasses and she wiped them on her T-shirt. “It’s so hot here,” she said. “My hair has never in my whole life been this frizzy.”

“Tell me about it,” said Embeth. “This can’t be your first time in Florida?”

“It is,” Ruby said. “We live in Maine, which is the Pine Tree State.”

Maine. For whatever reason, the thought of Aviva Grossman in Maine amused Embeth. Damned to eternal winter.

“Did you have cancer?” Ruby asked casually.

“Why? Do I look like I have cancer?”

“My mom does a lot of benefits for people with cancer. You look like you have cancer, or you had cancer, I guess. You don’t have any eyebrows,” said Ruby. “You might have overplucked them. That sometimes happens with brides.”

“No, I’m not a bride. I haven’t been a bride for a very long time. I do have cancer,” Embeth said. “Usually I draw my brows on, if I think of it. They say they’ll grow back, but mine seem determined not to.”

“It’s weird that you call your husband ‘the congressman,’” Ruby said.

“It probably is,” Embeth said. “But I’ve been doing it so long, I don’t even know I’m doing it. He is my husband, but he is also the representative for my district. So he is actually my congressman and my husband.” There had been times when Aaron had let her down as a husband, but she could honestly say he had never let her down as a congressman. As a politician, he was honest and he never made promises he couldn’t keep.

“I never thought about it that way,” said Ruby. “Have you voted for him every time he ran?”

“Yes,” said Embeth.

“Would you ever not vote for him?”

“Probably not,” said Embeth. “We feel the same way on all of the most important issues, and I believe in his judgment and his vision.”

“What do you mean by ‘judgment’?”

What did Embeth mean by ‘judgment’? She had been saying the same lines for so long she barely knew what she meant. “He’s careful about who he takes money from, and he cares about his constituents more than his donors, and he cares about his conscience even more than his constituents. This is to say, he cares about doing the right thing more than getting elected. That’s what I mean by judgment.”

Ruby nodded slowly, but she did not look convinced.

Embeth tried to read Ruby’s expression. She imagined Ruby was thinking about Aaron’s judgment when it came to sleeping with young women like Ruby’s own mother. Embeth’s special power was what Jorge referred to as “negative empathy” – she could always imagine the worst thing a person might be thinking.

Ruby put her iPad in her backpack. “You asked me if I knew what an election was. I do. I mean, I have for years. Since I was little. My mom took me to Washington, D.C., to see Barack Obama get sworn in. I know about elections. It’s not the reason I’m here, but it is the reason I found out about the congressman.”

Embeth asked her to clarify.

“My mom’s running for mayor of Allison Springs. That’s my town. It was named for Captain Eliezer Allison, who was a great captain but a bad husband and father. Isn’t it interesting how people can be good at some things and bad at others?”

“So, how did you find out about the congressman?” Embeth tried to conceal her impatience.

“My mom is running against Wes West, who is a Realtor. Wes West whispered ‘Aviva’ at the debate, and that made me google some things, and that’s when I decided to go to Miami.”

“Wes West sounds like a douchebag,” Embeth said.

Ruby laughed. “Mrs. Morgan says people shouldn’t use ‘douchebag’ in a negative way, because it turns a feminine hygiene product into a bad word. She says there’s nothing wrong with a douchebag except that douching itself creates an unhealthy climate for a vagina.”

“Who’s Mrs. Morgan?” The alarm on Embeth’s phone went off. She dug through her purse to find it.

“Mrs. Morgan is a woman who is now my enemy. Why do you think Wes West is a douchebag?” Ruby asked.

“When the congressman and I are running against someone, we decide what we’re going to use against him or her, though usually it’s a him, and what we aren’t. We never half use a thing, because that’s cheap. That’s what Wes West did when he whispered ‘Aviva.’ He did it to bother her, to silence her in the moment. And that shows a weak and undisciplined candidate who probably wouldn’t be a good mayor, even of some podunk town like Allison Springs, no offense.” Embeth silenced her phone. “Damn it,” she said. “I have to go speak at this luncheon thing in about twenty minutes. And Aaron’s in D.C. right now.”

The girl’s face looked hopeless. “I should have thought of that.”

“He’ll be back tonight. It isn’t as bad as all of that, but I’m not sure what to do with you in the meantime.”

Ruby picked at a string on her cuff. “I could come with you?”

“It’s going to be intensely boring,” said Embeth.