Fern is in the laundry room shoving wet sheets into the dryer when she hears cable news announce that Carlton Willis is running for Senate. In response, she slams her finger in the latch.
“Shit!”
She hustles into the next room, nursing the wound in her mouth and cursing herself for putting off her appointment at the hearing-aid place. Carlton Willis? That can’t be right. She’d be less shocked to see her neighbor’s pug, Priscilla, on the ballot.
But sure enough, there he is, larger than life on the bedroom TV. The man she knew in her twenties has gone gray—and, dammit, if he doesn’t look better for it. He’s shaking hands with the employees that everyone in the state of California knows he underpays and overworks. In the edited footage, they act as if they’re meeting the Pope.
Carlton cofounded a company that makes tax preparation software. There’s a TaxAware accounting suite and a TaxAware app. Come January, temporary TaxAware offices pop up in every strip mall across the country where minimally certified tax preparers will file your returns using Carlton’s software in exchange for a generous slice of your refund. Their motto: Tax Know-How for Every American.
Irony of ironies, he’s also made a name for himself on social media by bloviating in favor of eliminating the IRS, calling it unconstitutional in a republic governed by and for its citizens.
Fern shouts at him, “Your suit is too well tailored to be seen as a man of the people, dumbass!”
He turns to face her. Obviously, she knows he’s facing the camera, but she and Carlton have a history. She’d say the same thing to him in person.
“I’ll bring the productivity and profitability mindset we’ve developed at TaxAware to Washington, where it’s needed now more than ever. Let’s be honest. We need less dysfunction at the federal level. And Californians have seen me turn a messy regulation-burdened chore into a streamlined, job-producing global enterprise. If I can do it here, I can certainly bring the same know-how to the Senate.”
Fern responds by blowing thhbbbbfffftt! until her tongue goes dry.
It’s not until that night when she’s lying in bed that she realizes she hasn’t discussed the development with Andi, Carolina, or Emma. She spent the last several hours lecturing Mack as to why Carlton’s announcement is a “master class in egotism,” and watched as countless local and national talking heads debated the likelihood of his electoral success.
Now, in the quiet, she’s even more unsettled. The friends’ text chain has gone eerily quiet.
Cue the four horses of the apocalypse.