On the Corner of Love and Hate

by Nina Bocci

  “Go home, Ms. Drew, I’ll finish.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked quickly, packing up her bags and collecting Larry before I could answer. She smoothed her red hair back into a clip and mumbled a delirious good-bye.

  I yawn-laughed as she headed out the door. “Yeah, I got this. See you tomorrow.”

  After she left, I quickly crossed the chilly hardwood floor into my bedroom. Pulling a quilt from my closet, I snuggled up on my wide-seat leather chair. I had won the simple patterned blanket at church bingo a few years back, and it was the perfect antidote for whenever I was feeling a bit off-kilter. Pulling the soft quilt up around me, I tucked it under my chin and tried to shut my brain off. I felt both feverish and freezing, which meant I was definitely going to be downing vitamin C in the morning.

  EMMA THOUGHT: Take better care of yourself. Quit the work and head to bed.

  Which I would. After I checked Facebook.

  Scrolling through my feed, I caught up on the local and national news, messaged my friend Charlotte, and sent my daily Happy Birthday messages to everyone celebrating. Just as I was about to shut down for the night, I spied Cooper’s name toward the bottom of my screen.

  Someone I didn’t recognize had tagged him in a photo posted just a few minutes before. I glanced at the time—it was almost 2:30. Nothing good showed up on Facebook at that time in the morning.

  Before scrolling down, I steeled myself for what was to come. Did I want to see what he was up to? No, of course not, but if he was dumb enough to get tagged on Facebook, that meant I wasn’t the only one who would see it. Voters waking up and perusing social media with their early-morning coffee would be seeing it, too. Which meant it would likely lead to trouble.

  Cooper had a love/hate relationship with how social life had become. Spending time in the public eye, I’m sure, had disillusioned him about the idea of social media documenting his every move, despite the benefits of it. He refused to have a personal Facebook or Instagram account. Everything was done using the campaign page. Having Mayor Dad as a government figure certainly made me overly cautious of what got posted where, but it was how I kept in touch with old friends and classmates.

  His mother, Governor Clare Campbell, had been smoothing over Cooper’s antics for years. Probably even more important, and more stressful for Cooper, was that Governor Campbell’s ancestor had founded Hope Lake in the 1700s. They had a legacy and reputation to protect. All of this meant that Cooper should have toed the line when it came to public—or shouldn’t-be-so-public—behavior.

  Yet he didn’t.

  Thankfully there was no sex tape. Yet.

  But there had been plenty of drunken behavior, a myriad of women, and appallingly poor decisions made by the only child of Governor Clare and Sebastian Endicott, Esquire. At one point in time, you couldn’t turn a page in the Hope Lake Journal without seeing Cooper’s face plastered across the Entertainment section. But as he got older, he toned the antics down. A bit. With the election heating up, I’d been hopeful that any residual bad-boy Cooper behavior would be shown the door.

  But now this shows up. Whatever it was, I had a feeling it was going to be bad. Son of a bitch.

  I shouldn’t care. But that was the crux of my dilemma in dealing with Cooper. If he lost the election because of his antics, everything would change.

  If Kirby won because Cooper couldn’t keep li’l Cooper in his pants, well, let’s just say that I couldn’t be trusted with scissors, or anything else sharp, around him.

  With a nervous swallow, I scrolled down to look at the post. Within a half a second, I was sorry that I didn’t have the willpower to just shut it down and go to sleep. The photo had been taken at a bar in Barreton, one that I recognized easily.

  The first photo was innocent enough. Cooper had his arm slung around a guy at the bar, clinking glasses. He looked relaxed, happy, and very, very drunk. I rolled my eyes.

  At some point, we all did it—got out of the confines of Hope Lake for a night or two and let loose—but Cooper really should have known better. Everything always found its way back into the Hope Lake gossip circles.

  I clicked through to the next photo, and there it was—the damning photo I was afraid of.

  I knew it was him immediately. He was dressed in the same outfit as the first picture, but his hair was now really mussed. He was in a lip-lock with a gorgeous woman. Her long blond hair was pulled up and topped with a plastic crown.

  And a BRIDE TO BE sash was dangling at her side.

  6

  * * *

  On Saturday morning, I woke with a crick in my neck and my dead phone clutched in my hand.

  Of all mornings for this to happen.

  Jumping up from the warmth of my queen-size bed, I lifted the shade just enough to see that the town had come alive without me. Rumbling up the sidewalk was a road crew vehicle, the back filled with thick split branches. Must have been quite the storm that I slept through.

  Plugging in my phone, I cursed the dead battery symbol that appeared. Sliding à la Tom Cruise in Risky Business–style into my kitchen, where the only battery-powered clock hung, I took one look and felt my heart freeze.

  “Holy shit!”

  It was 8:48, which meant I had less than fifteen minutes to throw on clothes and some makeup and get across the street to the Borough Building for the nine o’clock press junket.

  Thank goodness I had a clean, pressed pair of capris at the ready. After the fastest shower of all time, I threw on my mustard pants and a blue-and-white-striped shirt, not knowing how cold it was outside. I didn’t have time to run out to check or throw on the news. The priority was getting across the street, and I’d be doing it without knowing if Cooper had seen, or cared about, my message that I had sent him after seeing the Facebook post.

  ME: Hey, the campaign page is tagged on Facebook. You + woman with an engagement ring = lost election.

  And no response last night or this morning. No surprise there.

  Bursting out the front door of my apartment building, I shivered. The air hadn’t warmed up after last night’s wild rainstorm. I must have really been out of it, because I had apparently slept through a tree partially coming down next door and hitting the power lines.

  Well, at least that explained the power outage.

  “Good morning, Emma.”

  Matt and Nate from the road department were in front of my building with lawn bags and rakes, pulling out the fallen leaves from the sewer grates.

  “Cooper mentioned these were pretty backed up. We’ll take care of it right away. Let us know next time you’re ankle-deep in water,” Matt said, smiling.

  “Thank you,” I muttered, equally annoyed and grateful that Cooper had managed to follow through on his promise from last night before he went and stuck his tongue down an almost-married-woman’s throat.

  Speak of the Devil, I paused at the sight of Cooper across the street. My breath did the opposite of what I thought it would upon seeing that he was there, looking cavalier with his aviators on and dressed in a sharp navy suit: it quickened instead of calmed. The longer I stood watching him, the more enraged I got. The problem was, I couldn’t place the root of the anger, just that I was feeling it and he was the recipient.

  He was pacing in circles around the hearty trunk of my favorite tree in Hope Lake: a colossal weeping willow that generations of children had climbed, broken limbs in on the way down, and kissed each other beneath its drooping branches.

  I took a calming breath and stared up at the oldest and probably my favorite building in town: Borough Building. It always reminded me of the building in Back to the Future that got electrocuted to send Michael J. Fox back to his own time. It filled me with a sense of contentment.

  As I stepped onto the curb, calmer than I had been just a minute before, Cooper came toward me, sliding his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head. He looked ragged—and more than from just a sleepless night. Thinking back to his companion, I squeezed the strap of my bag.
The urge to swing it over my head and hit him with it was strong.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he asked, his breath tinged with coffee. As I got closer to him, I could see that his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Funny, I was going to ask you the same question. Where’s the bride-to-be? Sleeping the bender off at your house?” I quipped, trying to sound nonchalant, but the statement hung between us, heavy and telling. He looked like I’d slapped him with the accusation, which made me feel like I’d been stung by it myself.

  Seeing that a crowd was gathering, he steered us behind the tree. Once, when we were in elementary school and the best of friends, we’d gotten married behind this tree during a field trip. The memory brought a brief smile to my face, but I quickly tamped it down. This was not the time for a walk down memory lane.

  “I’ve been ringing your doorbell, calling, and banging on your door for almost an hour!” Cooper said through gritted teeth.

  Oh, now you want to talk. When it’s convenient for you.

  Rolling my shoulders back, I inhaled, the cool air filling my lungs. “First of all, get over yourself, Cooper. I tried to warn you last night that there was photographic evidence of your run as what, a male escort? Stripper? I hope they paid you well.”

  The thought of him doing Lord knows what the night before had my blood pressure spiking. “I shouldn’t even have bothered trying to help you. It’s evident that you have jack shit for self-control.”

  “Will you hold on a second? Christ, it was just a bachelorette dare. I wasn’t . . . they picked me! It’s not like I went looking for trouble. The picture was never supposed to go up online!” he said, looking over his shoulder to be sure no one was paying attention. “Once I saw your message, I got them to take it down!”

  “Uh-huh, sure, Cooper. You made a ‘mistake,’ ” I said, using air quotes. “Is it the same mistake like Angie Carmichael? Or maybe something akin to Megan Dunleavy? Or, oh, wait, I know—what about Rachel Baker? Should I go on? Or are we done here? What kind of mistake was this one?”

  With each name I tossed out, there had to be another twelve that I could have thrown back in his face. Normally Cooper was unapologetic for his callous romantic decisions, which was—believe it or not—something that I had a mild respect for. He was what he was, and if you didn’t like it, he didn’t have time for you. But now, with the election looming and votes in the air, he needed to at least act like a man who didn’t sleep with every woman who crossed his path.

  “I don’t recognize those names. Should I?” he asked sincerely, and if there hadn’t been a crowd of people milling about the lawn, I’d have knocked his head into the tree trunk.

  “You’re kidding,” I said in disbelief. “What about the UPS driver last month? The new waitress at the country club at your mom’s Fourth of July party? What about the substitute teacher that Henry was thinking of asking out?”

  His look of bewilderment spoke volumes.

  “You’re disgusting. I don’t want to see you screw up like you did with Haley Jackson and take this town down with you.”

  He didn’t respond except for his face paling.

  This time when I walked away, he let me go.

  • • •

  KIRBY ROGERS REMINDED ME of how movies in the seventies depicted used-car salesmen: swarmy, cocky, and dressed in a suit that was too big, as if he were trying to fill the loose fabric with fake confidence. Plus he had a ridiculous comb-over that you could probably spot from space. He carried himself like he owned the world, and people reacted to it. Whether positively or not, Kirby made an impression.

  “Emma, you look so good,” he said, extending his hand.

  Mindful of the cameras around me, I gave him my most genuine-looking fake smile. When I clasped his hand, he tried using the momentum to pull me in for a hug, but I sidestepped him just in time. His wife padded up behind him, wearing an expression on her face that was cold as ice. “Ms. Peroni.”

  “Mrs. Rogers,” I said just as coolly.

  I didn’t understand where her dislike for me stemmed from, but did it really matter? They knew I was in Cooper’s corner—albeit grudgingly—but you didn’t hate someone just because of her political affiliations, did you?

  Apparently so.

  We turned together when someone tapped the microphone. Cooper was standing off to the side to take some questions from the press, and I couldn’t miss the way Mrs. Rogers checked him out when her husband wasn’t paying attention.

  Cooper laughed at something that one of the female reporters said as she touched his shoulder. Kirby noticed. Turning to his wife, he loudly whispered, “I’ll never understand why Enrico is putting all of his eggs in that guy’s basket. Especially when there’s a giant hole in it.” At that a handful of nearby onlookers chuckled.

  I rolled my eyes. This was going to be a long morning.

  The press had gathered on the front lawn, cameras and microphones at the ready. It wasn’t just the Hope Lake Journal covering the shoot. The Barreton Leader and Mount Hazel Gazette from neighboring towns had sent someone to cover it as well, because Cooper was a big draw. Photographers from around the state were in town to capture the first side-by-side photo of Cooper and his opponent to run in their own papers. More than half of Pennsylvania’s cities had probably never heard of Hope Lake before today, but they would now. The governor’s son starting his own (potentially) historic political career? That made for quite the story.

  One of the male reporters tapped his recorder to get started. I inched forward just to catch a little of what he was saying.

  “Good morning, this is Hudson Louis from 6ABC in Philadelphia. We’re here today in Hope Lake, a blip of a town in the northern tier of the state. Although you might know it for its outdoor tourism, what you might not know is that it’s also the birthplace of the Honorable Governor Clare Eugenia Campbell. This is, quite literally, the town that Campbell built. Governor Campbell’s family has resided here for generations, and today her only child, Cooper Campbell-Endicott, is following in the footsteps of his family’s political dynasty.”

  Another journalist was just starting up. The logo on his mic broadcasted that he was from a radio station out of Erie. “On some level, a Campbell has run for public office since first arriving in the country,” he said. “Now, some three hundred years later, a new generation of Campbells . . .”

  Each journalist, whether from radio, television, or newspaper, had a similar spiel. Given the sheer number of counties they represented, it was obvious that this press conference was a big deal—yet Cooper had spent the night before with a bride-to-be dangling from his arm. Either he didn’t understand the magnitude of the situation, or he was too wrapped up in himself to care.

  I was wagering it was the latter.

  Cooper and Kirby were taking their places on the front steps of Borough Building. It was male posturing at its purest form. Cooper had a few inches on Kirby, and Kirby knew it. Adjusting his back, he would puff out his chest just before a photo was taken. Cooper, on the other hand, looked at ease. It was more GQ than Washington Post, but it worked. The press was eating it up, and Kirby, well, he was steaming.

  “Kirby, can you tell us anything about what your plans are for the coming months? How do you plan on coming out ahead of Cooper?”

  Like a shark, Kirby bared his teeth before he launched into his attack. “There’s more to politics and governing than being a showman,” he said with a sneer, sliding a glance over at Cooper, who appeared unaffected. Instead, he looked like he was one autograph away from signing cleavage. There was a stark contrast between the people surrounding each candidate. Cooper was swarmed by women, both press and fans alike. Kirby had a much smaller, conservative crowd whose opinion used to hold a great deal of weight around town.

  That alone should have made Cooper nervous—that was a crowd whose votes held huge sway. The lack of attention on their end didn’t sit well with me.

  “Isn’t anyone going to ask Cooper anything?
” Nancy asked from beside me. It was so noisy, I hadn’t heard her approach.

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t look like they’re asking him anything of substance.”

  “Unless it’s his phone number,” she mumbled.

  As if the reporter heard her comment, the gentleman from Barreton lobbed out a zinger. “Cooper, how’s the singles scene here in Hope Lake? Is there anyone left in town that you haven’t dated?”

  Cooper, thankfully, didn’t miss a beat.

  I, on the other hand, felt my face burn. Me! I should have shouted. Nancy! I could have said. There had to be more women he hadn’t charmed out of their pants.

  I hoped.

  “While I appreciate the interest in my social life, no matter how boring it is, I’d rather we focus on the matters at hand,” Cooper started smoothly, carrying on about his idea for a rail biking system to take over the abandoned railroad tracks.

  “That’s worrisome, don’t you think?” I asked, lowering my voice. We were surrounded by the crowd: Cooper and Kirby supporters alike. The idea of the wrong person eavesdropping made the hair on my arms stand up.

  “What is?”

  “That they kept focusing on his social life.”

  Nancy shrugged, pointing to where the Journal crew was looking bored and chatting among themselves. “If anyone asks Cooper anything of substance, I’d have thought they would.”

  Finally Cooper had another question thrown his way.

  “Mr. Endicott, what does your mother think about your efforts to become mayor of her hometown?” the reporter from Philly asked, holding up the recording device toward Cooper.

  Cooper flashed a smile, and a couple of the women full-on swooned. One even began fanning herself. Good Lord.

  “Hope Lake means so much to my family, especially my mother, whose relative Montgomery Campbell founded it in the late 1700s. We have always had roots here, and I hope it continues on for many generations. My mother couldn’t be prouder of my decision to run. I’m grateful to the residents of Hope Lake for many things, but having the platform to continue Enrico’s work and vision is at the top of that list,” Cooper said, smoothing a hand through his hair. As he continued singing his own praises, I watched as he pulled out every trick from his playbook.