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My mother stood in the middle of the crowd, holding a clipboard and directing the action. A chilly breeze stirred the hem of her long, red cashmere coat, but her blonde bob did not sway one inch. At her side stood a balding man with a camera—no doubt the photographer Violet had hired—and the poor guy already looked harried and exhausted. I felt for him.
“Ah, Trent!” She waved at my father from two feet away like he was a solider coming home from war, and the photographer dutifully stepped back to capture their joyful reunion. “And Reagan, darling.” She cupped my cheek with one hand and beamed at me lovingly. “You didn’t even try to make time for a haircut, did you?” she said, voice low and reproving. “Tsk. What’s done is done, I suppose.”
When the camera shutter stopped clicking, she stepped back. “Doesn’t everything look particularly lovely this year? I do think we’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations. Now, where will we begin? We want to get some shots of the Senator interacting with the townsfolk,” she instructed the photographer. “But we’ll want to be careful about where we go first. The Senator’s endorsement is bound to draw attention.”
“Oh! There’s Willow Honeycutt,” I said, waving at Flynn’s mother, who was decked out in a colorful, hand-knit hat, scarf, and mittens. “Why not start there? They’re practically family now.”
“Darling, while I have accepted that your brother’s inamorata may become a Wellbridge at some point in the future, let’s not be too hasty in using the f-word when describing Willow’s brood, hmm?”
I fought not to roll my eyes. “Right. Of course not.”
“Besides, she’s on that Clean Waterways committee that’s looking to clean up Lake Wellbridge,” my father pointed out.
“Hmph. As though the water needs protecting now that the beavers are gone,” Mother scoffed. She touched a hand to her perfect hair. “Oh, look, Trent. There’s Justine with a group of young mothers. That would be a perfectly wholesome photo op.”
My cousin Justine waved from where she sat in a folding chair, attempting to nurse her newest baby while preventing her other two kids from knocking down a folding table and using it as a snowball shield. I grinned and waved back.
“Indeed.” My father smoothed his coat and checked that his lapel pin was straight before heading us in that direction. “Nothing says family values like mothers and their precious babies.”
The photographer and I stood back and shared a look that clearly said, I’m not telling him, YOU tell him. Apparently, sharing the Senator’s DNA meant I’d drawn the short straw.
“Uh, Dad? I do think this could make for an awesome photo, but since the women are here representing the La Leche League, we’re going to have to stage the photos a certain way?—”
“The what?” My father stopped dead. “What’s that?”
My mother seemed to be equally mystified, though I wasn’t sure how that was possible.
“It’s a group that advocates for breastfeeding mothers—” I began.
“Oh, my word.” My mother grabbed my father’s arm and wrenched him away. “Under no circumstances will the Senator be photographed while those women…”
“Feed their precious babies?” I finished, deadpan. “It’s simple biology, Mother.”
“Exactly,” she exclaimed, scandalized. “Reagan, avert your eyes. It’s inappropriate.”
I rubbed the spot between my eyes where a headache was beginning to form. “What would be appropriate, then?” I demanded, unable to hide my impatience.
The four of us—if I included the hapless photographer—turned in a slow circle, surveying the various clusters of Honeybridgers, but my parents found a reason to quickly and quietly veto each, from the local organic farmers’ guild (“It’s not that I don’t support organic farmers; it’s just that I don’t know if I do support them.”), to a troop of lollipop-selling Wild Explorer Girls (“Do we really want to encourage wildness in our youth?”), to a bake sale to benefit the Senior Center (“Trent, you cannot be photographed with Ernest Chandler and his fig bars after what he said about my hibiscus lemonade at the Arbor Day Foliage Fiesta.”)
Finally, at the end of the row of stalls, my father found a group he approved of.
“The Box Day Committee?” I asked, trying not so successfully to hide my disgust. “Are you serious? That’s Mother’s committee.”
“So it is,” my mother approved. “And look, Tommy Strickland is manning the table. He’s on the town council,” she reminded my father unnecessarily. “And his brother-in-law?—”
“Represents the teacher’s union,” they recited in perfect harmony, smiling at one another.
This time, I was the one scandalized. “No,” I said firmly. “Dad, you cannot take pictures with a man who tried to get his wife to organize a boycott of Alden’s salon simply because the man displayed a Safe Space sticker on the door?—”
“That was not why,” my mother sniffed. “It was because he hired Oona Frank to sweep floors when she was underage?—”
“Two weeks underage, and only because she needed the money to help her mom pay the electric bill,” I pointed out. “And since the boycott didn’t come up until months later, I highly doubt the two were related, no matter what Tommy claimed after the boycott failed.”
“Well. We’ll never really know, will we?” But my mother bit her lip in an uncharacteristic show of indecision.
I laid a hand on her arm. “Mother, you go to Alden’s salon religiously. You said he was one of the most gifted hairstylists you’ve ever come across. Surely you don’t need to be photographed with the person who tried to destroy his business for no other reason than because Alden wants to support gay youth. For heaven’s sake, your own beloved eldest son is?—”
“Reagan, modulate your voice, please,” she interrupted. She adopted a pleasant smile and raised a hand in greeting to a woman passing by. “I believe I told you how many reporters there are here, dear. Some from national news organizations?—”
