“Why shouldn’t you? Don’t you pay attention to anything except Jake?”
“Hey, watch it,” Robin said. “Listen, Dad’s on the other line—”
“Shit!” Rebecca moaned. “Don’t tell him it’s me, okay?”
“I won’t, just let me get him off the phone,” Robin said, clicking over Rebecca’s moan. “Dad? I need to go.”
“Who is it?”
“It is someone for me,” she said primly. “I really have to go, but listen, call Rachel. She was talking to Mom a couple of weeks ago, even thinking of going to L.A.” Rachel would be pissed that Robin was sharing the love.
“She was?” Dad asked, his voice hopeful.
Robin bit her lip; Rachel was going to kill her for sure.
“All right, I’ll call her. But when you next talk to your mother, you tell her I’d appreciate a phone call.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye, Dad.” She clicked over. “Rebecca?”
“I’m here. Is he gone?”
“Yep. Listen, the next time you talk to Mom, will you please ask her to call him before he drives us all to jump off a cliff?”
“Okay . . . but she is not going to call him.”
“I know.” Robin sighed.
“Listen Robbie, I need your help.” Rebecca said. “I’ve gotten myself into a big mess.”
Rebecca in a mess? Impossible. She was too perfect to get in anything even remotely resembling a mess. Robin and Rachel, on the other hand, could, and often did. But not Rebecca. Never Rebecca. “Really?” Robin asked excitedly, causing Jake to look up again. “So tell me!”
“Okay. It’s sort of a long story, but you know I signed up to work on Tom Masters’s campaign, right? I went to my first meeting, but it was so obvious that I didn’t know anything, and there was this . . . this guy who pretty much thought he knew every little thing, and I got mad, and I sort of mouthed off about strip mining, for Chrissakes, and—”
“Strip mining?” Robin couldn’t help it; she laughed out loud.
“Do you mind?” Rebecca said testily. “So anyway, at the next meeting I had done my homework, and I came ready to tackle all the campaign issues.” She paused there to draw an unusually long and tortured breath, which Robin found fascinating. Of the three of them, Rebecca was the one Robin and Rachel always clung to in a crisis, because she was always so calm and cool and collected. “Well, I said, the Silver Panthers—they’re a group of politically active senior citizens and they’re having their annual convention this month, and why don’t we do some early fundraising?” Rebecca continued.
“Okay . . . so? That sounds like a good idea.”
“Yes, it does. In theory! But practically speaking, it’s a ridiculous idea!”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t get in!” Rebecca exclaimed angrily. “Can you believe that? I can’t get in!”
Robin stood, began to roam the room. “Well . . . if you can’t get in, can’t you just put it off for a while? I mean, the election isn’t until November, right? It can’t be that critical—”
“Yes! YES. IT IS. THAT CRITICAL!” Rebecca shouted.
“Jesus,” Robin exclaimed.
“Oh . . . just fuck it,” Rebecca muttered.
Just what? Robin gasped out loud, pulled the phone away and gaped at it. Rebecca never, ever cursed—it was not befitting her spun gold aura. “Rebecca! Why is this such a huge deal? I mean, are you going to get fired or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m only a volunteer.”
“Then what is the big deal?” Robin asked again.
There was a long, silent pause on the other end.
“Hello?”
Rebecca sighed loudly. “Okay. This is going to sound really stupid. Just really . . . stupid. But, Robin, I have sent out résumé after résumé, and no one wants me for anything, not even to clean toilets. I can’t convince them to even let me answer the phones. I’m about as employable as a doorknob, and then, I just stumble into this thing with sheer dumb luck, and it’s really a great opportunity for me! I might be able to turn this into a job somewhere, at least use it as real experience. But I have to do it right, and I already sort of blew it with the strip mining thing, and so the Silver Panthers event was something I was sure I could do. But I can’t!” She paused again, sighed with much exasperation. “And there is this guy . . .”
A guy she had mentioned twice now, thank you. “You mean . . . a guy you like?” Robin asked carefully.
“Like? Come on, Robin, you know me better than that. I’m off guys, especially guys with huge egos.”