Bitter Blood

Not ready for this, she thought. Really not ready. It reminded her of what her mother had said, so prophetically, last night on the phone. Are you sure you’re not moving too fast?

She hated it when her mom was right.

“Okay, clearly, this is crazy talk anyway,” Shane said, in a deliberately blow-off tone. “Let us never speak of it again. Wrestle you for dibs on the shower after Eve gets done with it.”

“You take it,” Claire said. Her lips felt numb. She drank coffee, but that was just to have something to do; she didn’t taste it, and her brain felt overwhelmed with all the surges of emotion. Too many things were happening too quickly, none of them in tune. “I’ll wait.”

“Okay.” He wanted to say something else, and even opened his mouth to do it, but whatever it was, his courage failed. He covered up by drinking, and Claire stared at the purple cartoon bats on his cup and wondered if somehow she could reset the morning back to the kissing. The kissing had been so wonderful.

But as Shane had pointed out, that moment was gone, and it apparently wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

After an awkward few moments, with the coffee cups drained, Shane finally ventured, “I made up more posters.”

“Good,” Claire said. “Let’s get them up.”

She thought they were both relieved to have something to do.

Shane must have made up twenty posters, which was definitely overkill in a town like Morganville. Claire and Eve both had giggle fits over the variety of pictures—mostly wildly unflattering—that Shane had chosen.

“Gotta give it up for Monica,” he said, admiring his handiwork. “That girl has a Photobucket album you would not believe. I think it runs to fifteen pages of pics. Even the Kardashians would say it was too much. Lucky for me she likes taking drunk pics.”

“Isn’t the idea to actually get her elected?” Eve finally managed to wheeze out, then broke out into another uncontrolled burst of laughter. “Oh, my God, this one. This is my favorite.” She tugged one poster out and set it on top. It had Monica in her trademark tight-and-short, standing posed with her hands on her hips, puckering her lips into a duckface. “So many things wrong with this.”

“This won’t stop her from getting elected,” Shane said. “Stupider people get elected all the time. It’s America. We love the sleazy. And the crazy.”

“I would like to think better of us,” Claire said, “but yeah. You’re right.”

He offered a high five, which she reluctantly accepted, and then they split up the posters between them. They were heavier than Claire had imagined, and she oofed a little under the weight. Shane, without asking, redistributed, taking on the rest, and winked at Eve. “Wanna go with?”

“Somebody has to work around here,” she said. “I suppose that turns out to be me. Again.”

“Have fun with that day-job thing.”

“Slacker!”

“And proud of it, wage slave.”

Out on the sidewalk, Shane juggled the heavy cardboard until Claire caught up, with her backpack settled on her shoulder. “Did you bring the stapler?”

“Got it,” she said. The stapler in question was a giant, ancient, industrial kind of thing, heavy steel that probably could fire its fastener through a car if it had to. “Also brought some stakes in case we need to put things on lawns.”

“Like, say, this one?” Shane gazed longingly at the front yard of the Glass House, and Claire laughed out loud. She opened up her backpack and handed him a stake (funny, these had so not been meant for putting up signs). He hammered it into the ground and stapled the poster to it, and they stepped back to admire the effect. “A thing of beauty.”

Eve opened up the window in the front room and peered out suspiciously. “Hey! You crazy kids, what are you doing?”

“You forgot to say ‘Get off my lawn!’” Shane called back.

“Oh no, you didn’t put that thing out there!”

“Relax—I used your favorite photo.” Shane said to Claire as she zipped up her backpack, “We’d better make a moving target.”

The first three signs went up without incident. At the fourth telephone pole, in Morganville’s very sparse shopping district, Claire was stapling the sign in place when she heard the squeal of brakes on the street, and then the blare of a car horn. She turned and saw a bright red convertible and a blur of movement as the driver bailed out. Objectively, it was impressive that Monica could maintain her balance on those heels while moving that fast.

“What in the hell are you doing?” she asked, and shoved Claire out of the way as she faced the bright neon poster, which was flapping a bit in the wind. Her face went blank. Not angry, just…blank. “What is this?”

“What does it look like?” Shane asked. He took the stapler from Claire and finished fastening the poster to the pole, then spun the thing like a very awkward six-gun as he admired the effect from a few feet back. “Looks like you’re running for mayor.”

Monica’s glossy lips parted, and she just…stared. As if she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Wait for it, Claire thought, and readied herself for the inevitable attack. Monica was about to achieve thermonuclear critical mass, and she intended to get to minimum safe distance before she blew.

But instead, a soft, delighted smile curled around Monica’s lips, and she said, “Wait a minute. You did this?”

“Claire did,” Shane said. “I’m just the incredibly awesome graphic designer. Also, head of the entertainment committee. Every campaign needs one of those.”

“That’s…incredible,” Monica said. “I don’t know—okay, well, you know, nobody’s probably voting for me. I mean, I’m not Richard. I haven’t gone out of my way to be responsible or anything.”

“You’re a Morrell,” Shane said. “Lots of people figure that’s in your blood. Three generations of mayors in your family, right?”

“Well, they’d be wrong.”

“We know that,” Shane said cheerfully. “But hey, you’ll make a hell of a seat-filler, and I know you love a good photo op, being such a big fan of yourself.” He lost his smile, and all the levity that went with it. “All this comes with one condition, you know,” he said. “You do what’s good for humans. Not what the vamps say.”

Monica arched a single well-plucked eyebrow. “You have that backward, Collins. I don’t do what you say. You do what I say. After all, I’ll be the one with the fancy nameplate on the door.”

“As long as you don’t dance puppet for the vamps, I don’t really care,” Shane said. “But as to us doing what you say…Yeah. Good luck with that.”

Monica’s attention went back to the poster, and her eyes narrowed. “Wait a second. Is that one of my Facebook photos?”

“Maybe.”

“Hmmm.” She cocked her head, lips pursed. “Could have picked a better one.”

“You always said you can’t take a bad picture,” he said, straight-faced.

“True.” She gave the poster a slow, wicked smile, and said, “Okay, then. Just so long as I don’t have to pay for anything, or show up for a lot of meetings. Oh, and make sure people know I can be bribed.”

“Deal.”

She stared at him for a second, then at Claire. “What exactly are you up to? Don’t even pretend that you’re into this, because you don’t think that much of me.”

“We’re not,” Claire said. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t concern you. All that concerns you is making sure you act nice and wave to people. Pretend it’s a popularity contest, because that’s what it is.”

“You don’t win popularity contests by being nice,” Monica said. “You win them by making people scared to vote against you. So consider this one in the bag.”

She walked back to her illegally parked car, climbed in, and was gone. Claire shook her head as she watched the red convertible screech around the corner, and said, “Only Monica could think Vote for me or I’ll