Page 50 of Darling Beasts

Talia

She began with a text.Hey, it’s Talia Gunn. From the Gunn campaign?

It’d been two weeks since they met, and Raj would likely think she was overreaching, but Dad’s campaign needed direction. While Gabby popped off to reporters and Ozzie did Lord only knew what (working with the TikTokers, supposedly), Talia was determined to get shit done.

Could I join you the next time you volunteer at LASD? I have a law degree, so I promise to be somewhat useful!

Useful was debatable, but Talia had to come up with something.

Absolutely!Raj texted back right away.Can you meet me downtown at 9 o’clock Tuesday morning?

Talia could and she did, and after forty-five minutes at LASD, she still struggled to digest all she’d heard. Qualifying for housing assistance was merely the first step in a very long and convoluted process. More than 70,000 people sat on San Diego’s waitlist, and it took decades to get off it.

One woman—Nina was her name—was approved for Section 8 twelve years ago as a mother of two. Now she had four children, and the whole family was still couch surfing and occasionally sleeping in their car. When Nina said a person wasnotified they’d made it off the waitlist byUnited States post, Talia almost screamed. I’m sorry, but actual mail? To reach someone who didn’t have a permanent address?

The waitlist only grew, and funds and units shrank, and because vouchers were so hard to come by people who needed them ignored illegal rent hikes and other treachery. The situation felt dire, borderline hopeless. By the time Raj and Talia said goodbye to everyone and stepped outside, Talia had sweated through her suit.

“Are you okay?” Raj asked, handing her a napkin.

Talia nodded and dabbed her forehead. “I knew there was a problem, but not that it was this bad. The rent hikes are criminal.” One man’s rent jumped from $1,000 per month to $1,950 ina single year, and a family’s current $1,400 was about to more than double to $3,200. “Why aren’t there rules against this kind of thing?”

“There are, but the rules aren’t always followed,” Raj said, passing her another napkin. “I’m working with a group on a lawsuit against the San Diego Housing Commission right now.” California had a ten percent rent cap, Raj explained, but the local Commission claimed Section 8 was a federal program, and thus the rent cap didn’t apply. The logic made no sense and was unbearably cruel.

“How can it continue without society collapsing into itself?” Talia said as they stood on the noisy street, cars whipping past, an unhoused man pushing a shopping cart on the other side of the road. “Ihaveto make my dad care about this. Despite the gruff exterior, he does have a heart. Maybe you can go with me to the Ranch and tell him everything you know?”

Raj replied with a grim chuckle. “That’d be a brief conversation.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. It was oddly comforting considering they’d just met, and he was Gabby’s (random, mysterious) friend. “It’s an incredibly overwhelming situation, and I sympathize with the urge to act. It’s why Ido this.” He gestured to the building behind them. “You can’t change the system, but you can help the person in front of you. The trick is taking small bites.”

“But it needs to be more! With your knowledge and my dad’s platform, we could do something on a larger scale. He wouldn’t even need to win to wake people up.” Her mind was spinning, but Raj appeared skeptical, already checked out.

“What?” she said. “What is that look? You think I’m naive.”

“I love the ambition,” he said. “By all means, encourage your dad to discuss the problem. The more people who understand it, the better. But you can’t expect him to fix everything.”

“Come work on the campaign.” The words came out so quickly and with such force it nearly knocked the wind out of her.

Raj made a face as he digested the offer. Weirdly, he seemed a little pissed?

“I’m sorry, did I say something offensive?”

“You and your sister really see the world as a pool of potential employees.”

“Huh?” Talia jiggled her head. “I literally have no idea what you’re talking about, and whatever Gabby’s done... trust that we rarely seeanythingthe same way. From my point of view, your insight is invaluable, and my dad would listen to youmuchmore readily than he’d listen to me. Instead of helping in small ways, you could take bigger bites. That’s what I’m suggesting. You can even stay at the Ranch.”

Raj’s brow darkened again.

“I could probably get you a salary,” Talia added hastily, unsure how she kept veering off course. “And that’s good, right? My sister mentioned you weren’t working now?”

“FYI, people usually don’t like to be reminded of that sort of thing.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize it...” Talia swallowed. When Gabby said Raj was “between jobs,” it hadn’t occurred to her he might’vebeen fired. She didn’t know this guy and, maybe, somewhere in San Diego, the West Coast version of Talia Gunn was settling his harassment suit. She started to panic. “Okay, well, never mind...”

“I take it your sister didn’t tell you why I left my job?” Raj said.

“She doesn’t tell me anything.”

Raj sighed, and all prior tension slid from his face. “I wasn’t fired, if that’s what you’re thinking. I mean, it was inevitable, but I quit before they could do it.”

“Why were you assuming you’d be fired?” Talia asked, somehow managing to stop herself from pointing out he probably should’velethimself be fired in order to collect unemployment.

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