Newport Cove Listserv Digest
*Re: Dog Poop
Just wanted to add to the discussion that for only $20, I picked up a little gizmo called an “ornament grabber,” I guess for those hard-to-reach ornaments on the top branches of your Christmas tree! Anyhoo, I use it to reach down and grab the little bags of poop if they get stuck to the bottom of my trash can. Once you tuck the bag of doggie leavings into a larger trash bag, our collectors will carry it away—no problem! —Jenny McMahon, Daisy Way
*Seeking Used Car
Does anyone have a used, sturdy car they’re willing to sell? My teenaged son just totaled mine. Will consider a trade: my son for your car. —Liza Edelstein, Iris Lane
*Re: Seeking Used Car
Will also throw in one or more of my five boys, free of charge! —Reece Harmon, Daisy Way
• • •
Gigi’s stomach muscles clenched up when the doorbell rang.
Strangers swarmed into the house—Joe’s campaign manager and press secretary and the image consultant, along with the photographer and his assistant and another guy whose role wasn’t entirely clear to Gigi. Everyone immediately began to order everyone else around.
The photographer positioned them all on the front porch steps, an American flag billowing in the holder over Joe’s head. Zach, the campaign manager, who looked about twenty-two years old, told the press secretary, who appeared to be even younger, to move a pot of red geraniums and put it next to Joe. “Too busy,” sniffed the image consultant, who demanded that the geraniums be moved to the other side of the steps. The photographer’s assistant sprang forward to pluck a brown blossom from the plant at her boss’s directive. Someone adjusted Gigi’s shoulders from behind, tilting her closer to her family. Someone else dusted imaginary lint off Joe’s suit lapel.
“Smile!” the photographer finally commanded. He snapped a few shots, then began issuing commands.
“Joe, sit up a little straighter. Megan, can you put your hand on your father’s shoulder?”
“It’s Melanie,” Gigi corrected, before wondering if Melanie would be irritated she hadn’t let her daughter speak for herself. This was how women in abusive relationships felt, wasn’t it—all the second-guessing, the fear of missteps?
But Melanie showed remarkable restraint, at least for a few minutes. Then the photographer said something in a low tone to his assistant, who ran off and came back with a makeup bag.
“Just a little touch-up,” she said, pulling out a tube of pink lipstick and moving in toward Melanie.
“But I don’t like makeup,” Melanie said, leaning back. Gigi wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Melanie’s eyes flick toward Zach, who was a very handsome young man, with sun-streaked hair and broad shoulders. He looked like he’d be more at home on a surfboard than volunteering on a congressional campaign.
“You’ll look really washed out in the photos otherwise,” the photographer said. “Even your dad has some on!”
Before Melanie could respond, the assistant said, “At least let me cover up this blemish.”
“This is so stupid!” Melanie shouted, leaping up and running into the house and slamming the door.
“Did you have to say that?” Gigi snapped at the assistant.
She looked at Joe. She wondered if one of them should go after Melanie. She wondered if Joe really did have on makeup.
“I can probably Photoshop her in,” the photographer said. “Maybe use a filter to give her a little color wash.”
“Fine,” Joe said. “Let’s give her a minute to cool down and I’ll go talk to her.”
Was Joe’s congressional campaign going to harm their already fragile family? Gigi wondered.
When their congressman had been indicted for the phone sex incident dubbed Tootsie Takedown (the congressman spent much of the secretly videotaped hotel room encounter discussing his fetish) and Joe had floated the idea of running in the special election, Gigi had nearly laughed out loud. Joe, a politician? Sure, he’d served on the Newport Cove council for a few terms. He’d even run for the school board, and lost by such a narrow margin it had almost felt like a victory. But this would be a sea change.
“Do you really want this?” Gigi had asked. They’d just finished making love on a lazy Saturday morning—their sex life had always been zesty—and they were lying in bed together, her sweaty leg draped over his. One of the things that Gigi adored about Joe was that he never rolled over and fell asleep afterward. Some of their most intimate talks had been postcoital.
“Yeah,” he’d said. He’d nodded, as if to confirm his decision. “I do.”
Gigi had known Joe was frustrated with his law firm job for an environmental organization. He believed in the cause, but his boss was a control freak and the organization felt stagnant. He wanted to do more. Maybe this campaign was his destiny. Joe’s mother had been a huge fan of the Kennedy family even before she married a man who shared the common surname, and she’d named her son after Joe, the oldest of the four Kennedy boys—brother to John F., Robert, and Ted. Joe had been the one his parents had pinned their hopes on to be president, but he was killed in World War II.
Joe wasn’t the only one who wanted his life to feel more meaningful. Since moving to the suburbs and having kids, Gigi had felt a little . . . watered down. She’d been working as a part-time art teacher at the community center, which helped fill her days, but Gigi had found it more and more difficult to suppress her yearning for her old self, the woman who had marched in support of Planned Parenthood and who had helped stage a sit-in to save an ancient redwood tree near her childhood home in California.
This would be Joe’s campaign, but she would stake a claim in it. They’d always worked well as a team. This would be their next adventure together.
Gigi had rolled over and kissed him. “Okay,” she’d said. “I’m in.”
She was the first voter he’d had to sway, and he’d done it effortlessly.
The primary would be held in November, at the same time as the general congressional elections. If Joe won the Democratic nomination, he’d proceed to the special election against the Republican candidate in the spring. It felt like a long way away, but already Joe’s calendar was filling up with events, as was hers: ribbon cutting ceremonies and Rotary Club meetings, school fairs and fund-raising dinners.
To Gigi’s surprise, early reaction to Joe had been even more positive than he’d hoped. He was running on the promise of reform. He’d be one of the negotiators in Congress, a fresh face with real-world experience who would break down the gridlock and actually get things done. At least that’s what his candidacy statement promised.
What Gigi hadn’t expected, though, was the intrusion of so many other people in their lives, the constant honing and shaping of not just Joe’s message, but of Joe himself. Of their family.
“Chin up, Gigi,” the photographer called.
And so they left an empty space in their family portrait for Melanie, a little hollow corner on the edge of the steps where she’d once sat and played patty-cake with Gigi, near the garden where Melanie had long ago planted sweet peas with her adorable miniature trowel. The warm earth under their bare feet, the taste of sweet, tart lemonade, Gigi’s belly, beautifully swollen with her second daughter . . . Gigi could still see Melanie tugging at the hem of her shorts, her brown eyes shining with delight over her pudgy cheeks as she tended to her plants. “Mama! They growed!”
Gigi felt a touch on her shoulder. Julia. She covered Julia’s hand with her own, blinking back grateful tears. At least I still have one, she thought.
Maybe, she thought as the camera clicked again and again, the photographer could work a little magic on her, too. Erase the sorrow from her eyes and the tightness from her smile. Add a smiling Melanie to the shot and make them a picture-perfect family, at least for one frozen moment.