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“Everyone was speeding.”
“Were you driving your bright red McLaren?”
“Actually, I was driving a plain old Maserati.”
“You’re just a suspicious-looking son of a bitch then.”
Bridget seems to have hung on our every word. She asks JD, “What’s a McLaren?”
“A British car.”
JD goes back to texting on his phone. A few minutes of silence passes.
“Are you guys good friends with Eric Drumm?” Bridget asks.
“You know him?” I ask.
“I know his father’s running for president.”
“You voting for him?”
“No.”
I usually don’t talk politics, but her answer was so blunt, I’m curious. “Why not?”
“As governor of Florida, he underfunded the state’s public health agency, cutting the budget by half. It’s one of the reasons the state was caught flat-footed with that new virus several winters ago. And he axed a school program intended to teach children about nutrition and better food choices even though the state’s obesity rate hit an all-time high.”
“Sounds like you should run for president.”
We pass beneath a streetlight in time for me to see her cheeks color.
“I’m not old enough to,” she replies.
“Would you want to if you could?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t have the stomach for politics.”
I’m not sure I believe her. She had to have a certain thickness of skin to wear that ugly sweater of hers. Though being clueless or lacking a fashion sense might have contributed to the choice in the first place, once it became obvious how others viewed the sweater, she hadn’t appeared too abashed by it.
“Why not?” I ask.
“For one, I’d have to deal with people like Eric Drumm all the time.”
JD pops his head up. “What do you have against Eric Drumm? His family’s a household name. They’ve made billions of dollars developing resorts, condos, and offices all over the world.”
“I wouldn’t want to work with hypocrites. They blast immigrants, but their resorts hire undocumented workers all the time.”
“You can’t believe everything you read in the news.”
“Like how he once said he only hires women who are ‘easy on the eyes?’”
“What’s wrong with that?”
I silently groan. That’s not the sort of response you give to someone like Bridget.
“So if a woman was smart and capable, unless she’s good-looking, you won’t hire her?” Bridget challenges.
“Nobody wants to admit it, but looks play a very important role. In everything. Who wants to hire an ugly-ass secretary when they can hire a pretty secretary?”
