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Kat
July
Scott’s reaction is predictable. “You have no idea how hard undercover work can be. It’s 24/7. We still have bills to pay.”
What he’s not saying: How will we be able to live and pay down my debt if you’re not cranking out six or seven shit articles a week? I swallow down a sharp reply. “I’ll work in the evenings. Carve out pockets of time when I’m not with Meg. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to write one thousand words about the power of positive thinking, or to come up with five new moves to super-sculpt your abs. Besides, Meg is going to pay me.”
He rolls his eyes. “She’s not going to pay you to hang out with her. It’ll be twenty hours of actual work a week, if you’re lucky.”
“We can economize. Eat out less often. Stay home more. It’s only for a couple months,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
But I do. Meg isn’t back in Los Angeles to sell real estate to people like Veronica and her friends. I’m almost certain she’s after the Canyon Drive house, and she’s using the distraction of the election as cover. Taking advantage of a time when Ron can’t possibly be as focused as he should be.
“It’ll be over by Thanksgiving,” I hedge. “Four months. And if it’s not, I’ll step away and get some paying work.”
Scott nods and I pull him into a tight hug. By the new year, everything will be different. I can feel it.
***
The job turns out to be mostly property searches for clients Meg supposedly picks up from Veronica or her friends. I use the MLS—the Multiple Listing Service—which is a real estate database that has every house for sale, along with its purchase history. I can look up any property in Los Angeles and see all the buyers and sellers, going back decades.
The first thing I did was look up the Canyon Drive property. But it didn’t show me anything I didn’t already know. Bought in 1954 by Rupert and Emily Williams, refinanced in 1986 and again in 1993. Default on the loan in 2004, and a quitclaim deed to Ron Ashton that same year.
***
I’d worried that Meg might want to keep me separate from Ron, the better to shield whatever she has planned for him. But shortly after I start, she invites me along on a showing with him. He enters the Apex office in a wave of cologne and importance.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Ashton,” I say, hoping to head off any indication this is the first time we’ve met. In my experience, politicians will never admit to not remembering someone, and Ron proves no different.
“You too,” he says, his eyes lingering a little too long on my chest. I cross my arms and plaster a smile on my face.
“I’m taking you to see a multiunit property that’s USC-adjacent,” Meg says as we walk toward the Apex parking garage.
“That’s real estate speak for low-income,” Ron says, making a beeline for Meg’s front seat.
I’d always intended to sit in the back—not just in my role as assistant, but to better view the two of them side by side. But the fact that he didn’t even make a show of offering the front seat to me tells me that Ron is here as a consumer, and he plans to consume everything.
I buckle in and say, “What exactly are you in the market for, Mr. Ashton?”
Ron doesn’t bother looking at me as he responds. “My dream scenario is to find something in need of repair—I’m a developer and contractor at heart—evict the welfare queens and drug addicts, do a quick and cheap rehab, double the rents, and lease to college students too dumb or drunk to know better.” He laughs. “David, my campaign manager, would kill me if he knew I just said that out loud. ‘Optics are everything.’ I’m not even allowed to compliment Meg’s outfit or tell her she has the best set of legs I’ve seen in twenty years. Because once the media gets ahold of something, it’s impossible to walk it back.”
I don’t know if it’s Ron’s tone, or the casual way he objectifies Meg, but it yanks me back in time, images like a broken filmstrip flashing through my mind. The way Nate looked at me, his eyes rakingup and down my body. The way his knee pressed against mine under the table. A hand on my lower back, guiding me toward a dark car, the smell of his expensive leather seats so similar to the smell of Meg’s car I almost vomit.
I crack my window, quietly practicing the breathing technique that helps to regulate these attacks before they can take hold. I haven’t had an episode in over a year, and as I breathe, I remind myself that I’m safe. That as awful as Ron might be, I’m not alone with him. He’s not Nate.
“Running for public office means you have to follow the rules,” Meg teases, unaware of my growing anxiety.
We ride in silence for a little while, but when we reach a freeway underpass with several homeless tents under it, Ron has to comment. “These encampments are everywhere,” he says. “Druggies, rapists, crazies.”
Meg glances at him. “What’s your plan for that?” she asks.
He sighs. “Since we can’t scoop them up and dump them somewhere else—like out in the desert—my plan is to let the mayor and city council deal with it.”
“What, no social service platform?” she asks.
“We’ve got the bare bones of one,” he admits. “But only because we have to. I’m big business; that’s why people are going to vote for me. Oh sure, LA is a liberal enclave, but a majority of the residents in Malibu, Brentwood, and the Palisades are in the top 1 percent income bracket. While they like to put signs up in their yards about ‘Black lives matter’ and ‘Love is love,’ they don’t actually want to fund those initiatives if it will cost them more in tax dollars. Los Angeles is the capital of lip service and illusion.”
