“Now, Mom,” Ali said. “Let’s not resort to name-calling this early in the process. In fact, let’s not resort to it at all. What were the reactions from the audience?”
“Three people came up to me afterward and offered to host coffee hours for me. I have their names and numbers.”
“You gave those to Jessica?”
Jessica Townley, a recent graduate from Sedona High School, was this year’s winner of the Amelia Dougherty Scholarship, a program Ali personally administered. In the fall, Jessica would be attending Arizona State University on a full-ride scholarship. Since her intention was to major in political science, she had volunteered to spend the summer working as an unpaid intern in Edie Larson’s campaign.
“Yes, I did,” Edie answered. “Do you want her to wait until you get back to schedule something?”
“That’s not necessary,” Ali said. “Jessica has access to your campaign schedule, and she’s perfectly capable of setting up events. When people say yes to something like that, it’s important to follow up with them right away. So have her call. If she has any problems, she knows she can always call me for backup. And now that you know Harlan is going to go after you on the age issue, we need to strategize on how to disarm that attack the next time you run into it. The best way to do it is turn it into a joke instead of getting all bent out of shape about it.”
“All right,” Edie agreed grudgingly. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“And give yourself the rest of the afternoon off,” Ali suggested.
“Can’t do that,” Edie replied. “I have a whole afternoon’s worth of doorbelling to do. Jessica said she’ll ride along on that, too.”
“Don’t overdo,” Ali advised.
“What?” Edie retorted. “Because I’m too old?”
“No,” Ali said, “because it’s a long campaign, and you need to pace yourself.”
When Ali hung up, Lynn Martinson was looking at her questioningly.
“My mother,” Ali explained. “She’s running for office for the first time-mayor of Sedona. She was at an event this afternoon, and her opponent is a young guy who thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
“I hope she wins,” Lynn said. “I’ve met a few guys like that in my time, and it’s fun to see them get taken down a peg.”
The door to the greenroom opened, and a tiny black-haired woman bounded through it. “All right,” she said. “I’m Carol, Scene of the Crime’s producer. We’re ready to rumble. Ms. Martinson, how about if we take you first?”
“Sure,” Lynn said, rising to her feet. “Is my makeup all right?”
Carol gave Lynn an appraising look. “We’ll do a few additions and corrections before we turn on the cameras, but you look all right to me.”
As Carol led Lynn out of the room, Ali turned on her iPad and switched over to her downloaded copy of A Tale of Two Cities. It was the latest in her self-imposed task of reading some of the classics-all those books she had heard about in school over the years but had never read. It was either that or sit there and worry about her mother’s political campaign.
Right that minute, reading seemed like a more productive use of her time-better than worrying. Either Edie would be tough enough to survive in the ego-bruising world of small-town politics, or she wouldn’t. However it went, there wasn’t much Ali could do about it.
2
Standing at the gas pumps at the 7-Eleven on Camelback, A. J. Sanders felt conspicuous as he pumped twenty bucks’ worth of regular into his Camry. He kept waiting for someone to ask him why he wasn’t in school. It seemed obvious to him that he was ditching school, and he waited for someone to notice, but the clerk took his money without so much as a raised eyebrow. There were two patrol cars sitting side by side at the far end of the parking lot, but the cops paid no attention to him as he pulled onto the street and merged into traffic.
He might have felt less self-conscious if he had done it before, but he hadn’t. Halfway through the first semester of his senior year, this was the first time ever he had ditched school. He sincerely hoped he’d get away with it. Other kids did it all the time. Why not him?
A.J. already had a note from his mother-one he had carefully forged-folded up and waiting in his wallet for him to turn in to the office tomorrow morning when he returned to Phoenix’s North High. As long as he was back in town this afternoon in time to make it to his four o’clock shift as a stocker at Walgreens, he’d be fine.
The school probably wouldn’t call his mother to check on him, but the manager of the Walgreens, Madeline Wurth, was his mother’s best friend from the time they were in grade school. If he missed a shift, Madeline would be on the phone to Sylvia, A.J.’s mother, before he could blink an eye. That was how he had gotten the job-Maddy and Sylvia were friends-but Madeline ran a tight ship. She didn’t tolerate unexplained absences or tardiness. The one time A.J. had shown up fifteen minutes late because someone had a tire-slashing spree in the North High parking lot, Madeline had called his mom before he had a chance to change the tire, change his clothes, and get to work.
So, yes, he could most likely get away with missing school, but he wouldn’t ever get away with missing work, because if Madeline called Sylvia, the jig would be up. His mother would find out he’d been lying to her for a very long time. That was the last thing he wanted-for his mother to find out about the lies. He didn’t want her to know, because if she did, he was certain it would break her heart.
A.J. got onto the 51 and then drove north to the 101 and finally onto I-17 again heading north. His father had given him simple directions. Take I-17 north to General Crook Trail. Take that exit west for six tenths of a mile. Walk north approximately fifty yards. Find the boulder with the heart painted on it. Dig there, behind the boulder.
His father. That was the problem. A.J. had an ongoing relationship with his father, and his mother had no idea.
Until a little over a year ago, it had been just the two of them-A.J. and his mom. His mother’s favorite song, the one she had played and sung to him for as long as he could remember, was Helen Reddy’s “You and Me Against the World.” She had played it when he was tiny and she was driving him back and forth to the babysitter’s. Later, when he was old enough to learn the words, they both sang along. A.J. and his mommy-the two of them and nobody else.
When he was in first grade, A.J. noticed that other kids had both a mommy and a daddy, and he had started asking the big question: Where is my daddy? Sylvia never said anything particularly bad about A.J.’s father. The worst thing she ever said was that he was “unreliable.” When A.J. was six, the closest he could come to sorting it out was that you couldn’t count on his father to do what he said he would do or be where he said he would be. Still, that didn’t seem like a good enough reason not to have a daddy.
In Sunday school he found out that the Virgin Mary was Baby Jesus’ mother, but Joseph wasn’t exactly His father. Somebody called the Holy Spirit was. For a while A.J. thought that might be the case with him, too. Maybe his father was some kind of ghost, and that’s why no one could see him and why there weren’t any pictures of him.
By then he had a friend, a kid named Andrew who lived down the street. He didn’t have a daddy, either. Andrew said that was because his parents were divorced, but he had a picture of his father that he kept in the drawer of his bedside table. A.J. wished with all his heart that he had a picture in his drawer, too. Not that he didn’t love his mommy, but he had this feeling that something important was missing from his life, and he wanted it with all his heart.