Page 38 of Darling Beasts

Who are you voting for in the primary?

Do you need help filling out a voter registration form?

What’s your plan for getting to the polls?

Anything a voter said, even and especially if they complained, I was supposed to work Dad’s name into it.Marston Gunn would agree with a lot of that. It sounds like you and Marston Gunn share a lot of the same values.

“Got it, got it,” I said. My eyes drifted toward Dad and—jump scare. He was standing around with his wetsuit open and unzipped to the waist, his saggy old-man pecs on display for all to see. Normally I wouldn’t have cared—live and let live and all that—but the stakes felt higher than usual. Dad was running for political office, and I’d invited my professional contacts to the event. Granted, this included one hundred news outlets who’d ghosted me plus Raj and Dr. dos Santos, but Dad was not presenting himself as a serious candidate, and for some reason, I was taking it personally.

“As soon as he finishes his opening remarks,” Talia said, “grab a trash-picker-upper and a bag and mingle. It’s good you brought the Jindo.” Her eyes skipped over to Frosty. “Dogs are great ice breakers. Even if yours is a bit mangy.”

“Hey!”

“And don’t forget to ask for contact information,” Talia said. “We’re establishing relationships so we can help people across the finish line in March.”

“March. Right. Because we’ll still be here then.”

Talia glowered. “Anyway. If you don’t mind, check on Dad every once in a while. Make sure he has enough water and breath mints.”

With that, Talia marched off, kicking up sand as she went. She wasn’t wearing clogs today, but even her sneakers were suspiciously thick-soled. Why was she always doing athingwith her shoes? I never would’ve guessed someone who was five-foot-six could have such hang-ups about her height.

Eventually people filtered down from the parking lot. After sending Sydney a selfie, I scrolled through my text messages, alarmed by how far I had to go to reach Ozzie’s name. Admittedly, I’d had to text a lot of random people lately, and he should’ve been pinned, but I’d never needed to do that before.

He had to be fine, right? Ozzie made gobs of money with his sponcon and loved to brag about having invested in theDuolingo IPO. Also, he had something Talia and I did not—his settlement cash. The whole thing was terrible, and he deserved the money, but windfalls were windfalls, however you got them.

Talia’s voice crackled from the speakers. “Hello, everyone!” she said. “Thank you for coming to the first Meet Marston event. If you can gather over here, he’d like to say a few words before we start the cleanup.”

I sighed and returned the phone to my back pocket.

***

Forty minutes later, Frosty and I meandered along the shoreline, on the search for constituents to bother and trash to retrieve but not finding much of either. Talia’s awkward questions weren’t the conversation starters she’d promised and Frosty hated eye contact and being petted and was so afraid of water that he kept running into people to escape the gently encroaching tide.

We ventured all the way down the beach, turning back once we hit the river mouth. Kids were in school, and the morning fog hadn’t burned off, so it was quiet, with only our volunteers, some surfers, and a contingent of walkers and dogs. This felt like a failure, and I worried Talia would take it too much to heart.

As we approached the tent, I spotted the TikTok girls hanging around by the sign-in sheets. We were the same age, but something about them made me feel old and uncool like a boomer, or worse, a millennial. When Montana waved, I blushed through every layer of skin. I was over here in myGUNNING FOR YOU!shirt and frog socks while those two looked ready to shoot content. Today, Montana’s hair was long and loose, reaching all the way to her waist. Bea’s was scooped up into a ponytail and dyed blond underneath. Bea wore a maxiskirt and Montana had on shorts, which showed off the thick bands of triangles and other shapes encircling her left thigh. The tattoos seemed important, like they could be a family story handed down, and I suddenly felt quite silly about my animals.

I returned a feeble, bashful smile and began to walk toward them. Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. I spun around. Behind me stood a fortyish woman in high-waisted leggings and a cropped shirt. “Hello!” I said brightly. “My name is Gabby. Thanks for coming.”

“I didn’tmeanto come,” she said. “I was here to jog.”

“Oh. Nice. Well. Looks like you’ve picked up one of our fliers,” I said, gesturing to the crumpled piece of paper in her hand. “Do you know your polling location?”

She scrunched her face. “Polling location? Your candidate ruined my whole routine. Marston Gunn will make some noise? What does that even mean?”

“I’m glad you asked,” I said. “Marston Gunn feels like Californians are ignored. We have the good laws—”

“I’m sorry,the good laws?” The woman let her mouth hang.

Sensing danger, Frosty tried to drag me away. He might’ve been old, but Jindos were strong and very stubborn, and I used every bit of my admittedly lacking core strength just to keep us in place.

“We have the fifth largest economy in the world,” I continued, “but it’s like, people focus on Pennsylvania or whatever and assume we’ve got it handled over here.”

The woman snorted. “Has Marston Gunn met our governor?”

“I don’t know. Probably?” The woman blinked. I smiled. Frosty jerked again. I scanned the list of talking points but didn’t feel I could make the case forMarston Gunn sharing a lot of your values!

“Here’s a question.” The woman re-crumpled the paper and tossed it onto the sand. At least I had a piece of trash to pick up.“What is Mr. Gunn going to do about all the homeless people? Cardiff isteemingwith them.”

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