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I think about skipping the meeting. Then I noticed something odd about my desk. Everything was in place but something, something was off. I looked around then I found it, a sticky note on top of my files, a handwritten one, from Holden.
Can we please talk?It says in his carefully crafted cursive handwriting.
He was here? I was definitely not going to skip that meeting. I needed a distraction.
“You should really listen to Ryan, you look scary.” A person speaks. A person I hadn’t noticed till now.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” He bites back. What the hell? What was a kid doing in the mayor-aide’s office? A sassy kid who thought I looked scary? Come on universe I thought we were on the same side?
“Uh… Where are your parents?” I ask making my tone placative. Sizing him up he looked to be between nine and eleven years.
“My mum is dead.” He says it so bluntly I almost thought it was a joke.
“What about your dad?”
“He’s at work right now.”
“Where does he work?”
“Why are you asking me so many questions?”
“You shouldn’t be here!” I say in exasperation. Why was everyone in this town so difficult?
“You can’t tell me what to do.” He says and storms out of the room. I go after him, following him till I realize where he’s going. He walks into the board room without any caution and the adults don’t notice, or they’re just not concerned with a child walking into a meeting with the mayor. He finds his way to a seat at a corner and starts to use his tablet. That was when I noticed the resemblance. He was Luca’s son. I found a seat next to Ryan.
“I accept your apology.” He whispers in singsong voice.
“I’m sorry Ryan, I haven’t really been in the best place mentally.” I knew it wasn’t an excuse to be mean. I was just glad he could tolerate my shitty attitude.
“You’re forgiven. I see you’ve gotten acquainted with Matteo. He was what I was trying to warn you about.”
“I should’ve listened.”
Everyone suddenly quietened down, Luca was about to speak.
“Since we’ve settled all of that let’s move on to the next agenda of this meeting. The fundraiser.”
Everyone started murmuring again.
“Just so you know, the fundraiser is an Annual event and it’s very important to him as the mayor, the whole town too but mostly him. And, you’re going to do major work in planning.” He pauses as of to size me up. “Can you handle it?” He asks, his voice so sincere that it made my eyes want to water because he was genuinely worried about me even though I had been a brat.
“I can handle it. Thank you.” I squeeze his knee in solidarity with the sibling-ship that was forming between us.
Luca looked at our direction and asked “Are there any questions, concerns or contributions?”
Ryan stands up to speak. “There are concerns.”
He brings out his work tablet and after a few nervous seconds of scrolling and tapping pass, he speaks again.
“Watch the screen.”
Everybody’s attention focuses on the screen at the other end of the room. On the first slide is a tweet by an anonymous user. The profile literally says anonymous_user44. The tweet says ‘Mayor who?’ Posted along with a picture of Luca with his face blurred out and a big red question mark over him. The tweet could’ve passed as regular discrepancies in politics but this single tweet unfolds into a thread of many tweets. All of them made in the same format and posted on progressive dates with different pictures of Luca edited the same way. The room falls quiet quickly, digesting the information Ryan had just passed. From the looks on their faces you could tell that none of them knew. So nobody used social media here? Damn. I hadn’t even known that there was an official account for the mayor across all social media. We had to do something about this. I mean I had to do something about this. I was the mayor-aide after all and although my job had no proper description, I felt a sense of clarity resolving in my mind to take up the task of rebranding the mayors social media handles.’
I wasn’t surprised when Luca dismissed Ryan’s concern. Typical Macho masculine ‘I can take care of myself’Luca.
* * *
