“Great, Samira said you’d be here!” says Ryan.
“Ryan, what’s the news?” I say as Jackie is back, covering my hair in a plastic wrap and nodding that I can move over to the sofa.
“Hey, Ash,” Ryan says, a single upward jerk of the head in his direction. “Star and Anchor later?”
“Yep,” he says, nodding.
I roll my eyes. Is there no social loop that cannot be closed in this fucking town?
“Yes, the polling is not great, I’m afraid,” he says, running his fingers down his phone. The two boys behind him grimace. “Lynn is doing very well among under-thirties, obviously, LGBT community also obviously, Marvel Universe fans, very online liberals, renters, and Gen Z’s who won’t shut up about the nineties.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “So what’s the problem?”
“She seems to have lost older, more conservative people,” says Ryan.
“Lucky Lynn,” says Jackie under her breath.
“They don’t know her like they know the other candidate. Not that a single person could name even one of his policies.”
“Everybody knows Lynn,” I say, folding my arms. “She’s involved in almost everything in this bloody town. You can’t join a society or a class without her hovering around in the background suggesting you make a badge for it.”
“Speaking of which,” Ryan says, nodding to one of the other lifeguards, “these arrived today. I thought we could give them out.”
He pulls a little tin out of his pocket and opens it. Inside are little badges that readPINS FOR LYNN, with her smiling face. I almost melt into the floor with the sweetness of it. “Ryan, this is amazing,” I say, pulling one out and fixing it to my sweater.
“She needed to have a pin,” he says, as if it was obvious, and so I hug him, and Jackie flaps about trying to keep my plastic-covered dye away from Ryan’sbeautiful natural hair.
“Nobody knows Lynn as a politician,” Ash says, joining us. “You know, like if I point to Lynn across the street, she’s the woman whohosts the bingo or whatever, but you don’t think,There goes Lynn, the next Jacinda Ardern.”
“But what can we do? There’s, like, seven days until the election,” I say.
Until this point, I had thought her popularity would carry her. But that seems very unlikely now. Everyone looks at one another, their faces grim with disappointment. But then I have an idea.
“There is a way,” I say. “But we’ll need to be busy. I mean,reallybusy for the next week. We need to reach people on the level where they’re really going to listen.”
Jackie and Ash both look at each other, confused.
“We’ve got to tap into the strongest force this town has and tell a story so compelling, so real, so illicit, that nobody will be able to resist sharing the details,” I say, grinning.
“Gossip!” gasps Jackie.
“Genius,” Ash says. “This town could win an Olympic gold medal in gossip.”
“Samira, your time has come. We need all you boys too,” I say, pointing at the semi-naked lifeguards.
“What’s the strategy, though?” says Ash. “You can’t just go around telling people she’ll make a good councilor.”
I swallow. “I have something on Lynn that could help. It’s definitely gossip, and it definitely shows her in a good light, but I’m not sure she’ll be happy with me.”
“Does she want to save the lido?”
“Yes.”
“Will whatever the gossip is make her sympathetic? It’s not too personal?”
“Yes, and no, not too personal. I don’t think.”
“Well?” Jackie is standing next to me now.
