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“Fair enough.” I drain the rest of my drink and run a hand through my hair. “It’s such a shame I can’t run. I would be able to fund my entire campaign myself.”
Charlie blinks several times as she stares at me. “I’m not sure if what I’m about to say crosses a line, and honestly, I mean no disrespect.”
I’m certain what she’s about to say won’t offend me. “Right now, I’m not your boss since I’m on leave. So please, speak freely.”
She smiles as she sits on the stool to my left and straightens her spine, summoning the courage. “Just because you’re white and rich doesn’t mean you should run for office.”
“But how am I expected to make meaningful changes in this town?”
“Easy,” she says. “Throw your money at the people in the community who are already doing the work, who genuinely care about making Sudbury better, and who would kill for a chance to be elected to local office.”
“Okay, like who?”
She takes a moment to consider her answer. “Teachers, government employees, volunteers––there are plenty of people you could support if they ran.”
Something from her resume pops into my head. “Aren’t you a teacher?”
“I’m a part-time music teacher at the elementary school, and I teach beginner guitar to adults one night a week,” she explains. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“I’ll look deeper into potential candidates within the community,” she explains. “There are usually groups who vet potential candidates, even for small, local roles, so part of the process might already be done.”
“Whoever you deem best suited for the job, I shall fund their campaign.”
Her eyes widen when they glance down at her phone. “Shit, I need to get home. I promised my daughter I’d make homemade mac and cheese with her.”
That certainly gets my attention. “You have a daughter?”
“Yes, her name’s Nia,” she says casually. “Have I not mentioned her?”
“Aww, I love that name,” Samantha adds.
“No, I’m certain I would have remembered the fact that you created a tiny version of yourself that lives in your house.”
“Wow, you chose the most complicated way to describe having a child,” Charlie says. “I’m impressed.”
I offer her a mock-salute, and she laughs as she leaves.
More people filter into Tipsy’s the later into the afternoon it gets, and at some point, Samantha says she has to meet her siblings back at her house. Our goodbye is awkward, and the heat between us remains. I decide to stay a bit longer if only to give my painfully obvious erection time to go down.
Every stool at the bar is full by the time I finish my fourth mojito and I hear the grating voice of Councilman Grady as he requests a beer. I recognize the tone from the few clips I watched when he won his position on the council. Unfortunately, we have never met in person. He takes a seat at the other end of the bar, but with my heightened senses, I can hear every word he says to the man next to him.
They get into a conversation about how drag shows don’t fit with this town and that the people of Sudbury want a place where they can sit and have a beer without worrying if a man in a dress is about to hit on them. And “Jesus knows what they get up to in the restroom.”
Izzy and I exchange a look of emotional exhaustion tinged with fear. It seems Officer Burton’s reign isn’t the only one we need to be worried about.
CHAPTER 19
SAM
It took a week for the library to reopen, and two more for Mylo to be reinstated as head librarian, and that’s only because of the story the Chronicle published on Mylo’s arrest followed by the adorable slideshow of handmade cards that the story-hour kids mailed to the library, telling Mylo how much they missed him and how eager they were to see the library back up and running. City council folded like a cheap table when some of the story-hour parents showed up to their public forum demanding that Mylo get his job back.
Not even that was enough to press pause on my quest to bring Officer Burton down. I convinced my editor at the Chronicle to set up an anonymous tip line for anyone who wants to share abuses of power they’ve witnessed by the Sudbury police force, and almost all the tips we received were about Officer Burton. Cross-referencing the tips with public arrest records, the Chronicle published an opinion piece written by my editor, questioning if it’s time to retire Burton’s reputation as a highly respected officer, and hold him accountable for the monstrous acts he’s committed over the years.
Several books were taken out of the library to be evaluated by city council, and we have no idea how long it’ll take to get them back.
But victory came this morning when my editor texted me saying he’d heard that Officer Burton had been temporarily suspended with pay while an investigation into his past behavior is taking place. The fact that he is suspended with pay makes me want to crack skulls because he was essentially given a vacation for being a homophobic prick.
