The Coyote Pushes Her Agenda
SARI
These people are supposed to support me!
Five minutes ago, they were collectively nodding, sighing in sympathy, and damn near tripping over themselves to defend Safe Haven. The first round of questions was what they really gave a shit about, so now I can practically feel them recalibrating to their default spineless positions.
I have to do everything my goddamn self when Wilde or Belle aren’t here.
The script we gave them was unambiguous, and they should be following it. I am the aggrieved, the wronged party—the magnetic center of tonight’s little morality play. They should be my Greek chorus, echoing my grievances in a harmony of clucks and gasps. Instead, any time I glance out at the assembled faces, I catch them glancing at each other, doing that thing people do where they’re silently negotiating whether it’s time to turn on you.
What kind of shitty audience plants are they?
No one told them to think for themselves, yet I can’t get them to say their lines. They keep going silent until I prod them with a pointed question or a targeted sigh, at which point they offer the barest minimum of engagement. It’s like watching a row of potted plants decide to unionize. I want to snap my finger to remind them I am both the director and the star, but I settle for knocking my glass against the table instead, hoping the sound will jolt them back into the proper frame of mind.
The startled looks I get from the sheep tell me I may have at least gotten their attention again.
And don’t even get me started on that table incident, by the way. The unusually wobbled and unrepaired piece-of-shit round that jolted in the wind is not how Hex keeps this house. If I had been a little less distracted by my failing coup, I might have caught that before she could use it. Now everyone is pretending not to watch the damp spot on my jeans while I try to understand how she accomplished her little trick. When Wilde and I practically lived here, the Maison was kept in shape like a fucking show home, so I know this was planned.
It was fucking sabotage, and I make a mental note to mention this later, as further proof that I am—if nothing else—the only person here who was forced to sit with a sticky lap when she could have offered a change of clothes from her blocked off poolhouse. It will play in my favor because everyone knows this place keeps spare sets of clothing for messes.
The catmay have handed me another weapon, so I guess I’ll let it slide for now.
By the time I finish blotting myself with a cocktail napkin, the entire group is watching me. None of them are helping, which is exactly the opposite of what every etiquette book says you’resupposed to do in this situation. I feel the wheels spinning, but I know I have enough raw charisma to get momentum back on my side.
It’s just a matter of finding the right thread to yank.
Talia is the obvious choice; she’s the established villain, if not by me then certainly by her own actions. All I need is to set her up to blow and let the group dynamics do the rest. So I turn in my chair, directing my full attention to her.
“What if,” I say, letting my voice cut through the brittle hush, “the person you have a ‘community issue’ with explicitly instructs you not to speak with them at all? What happens then?” I gesture to the rest of the group, inviting their input while keeping my eyes locked on Talia. She blinks. If she had planned a response, it has short-circuited, and now she’s just processing.
“It depends,” Lily says after a beat. “What’s the context?”
I smile thinly. “The context is that someone here has told me in writing never to speak to her, directly or indirectly, and to deliver all communication through a third party.” I sense the group perking up, and several heads tilt in anticipation. “But then she goes out of her way to make my life harder, and when I try to resolve things through the proper channels, I get accused of ‘creating a hostile environment.’”
“Did you actually create one?” says Marina, who has spoken little all night but is apparently feeling bold.
“Not unless you consider asking someone to do their job an act of violence,” I shoot back. Nervous laughter echoes around the circle. “What I’m asking is… if someone refuses to even talk to you, how are you supposed to fix the problem?”
Talia shrugs, but it’s a defensive move, not a philosophical one. “If they’ve set a firm boundary, maybe you should fucking respect it? Doesn’t seem hard to me.”
“What if their refusal to communicate is preventing you from enjoying the community and its functions?” I lean forward, unwilling to let go of the point. “I’m not asking for a continuous dialogue, mind you. I’m asking for basic cooperation and communication to resolve things so I can feel safe in the community I’ve lived in for years now.”
“I don’t know,” Deli says as she gives me an uncomfortable look. “I’d try to understand that not everyone owes you forgiveness, their ears, or closure. Sometimes, we have to make do with what we get and move on, Sari. That’s not just a saying; I’ve certainly had to do it in my tenure in The Rift. We all have.”
I pounce on her reluctance to shoot back like I know she wants to. The cat is an easier mark when she’s emotional, and her upset will trigger Talia. “That’s exactly what I’ve done. I have not spoken to her, not so much as a syllable, and yet every time something goes wrong here, it’s magickally my fault. Because I’m the ‘problem’, even though I’m the only one who actually follows the rules regarding public behavior.”
Of course, I skirt them like a ballet dancer to stay just on the edge, but that’s not the point.
Suddenly, from the other end of the table, Tamara says, “That sounds… exhausting.”
A murmur of agreement ripples around the circle, and I sense I have them back. But want to bury Talia, to reduce her into a cautionary tale for the rest of them. I need them to pity me evenmore, and I’ll use everything I know to do so, even if it wasn’t ever meant to see the light of day.
“That’s what gets me,” I say, lowering my voice pitifully. “The people who make the rules are never the ones who have to live with them. They don’t care what happens as long as everyone pretends to get along.” I shoot Talia a look, forcing her to absorb the implication. “They care about performative punishment, not actual justice.”
Talia opens her mouth, and then closes it. Her expression is pensive, so I wonder if she’ll say anything at all, but she surprises me. “Have you considered that maybe it’s just… you?” she says with a smirk. “Perhaps this problem and all the cumbersome emotions it makes you feel aren’t something the entire community needs to solve. This story feels like a toddler who’s been told ‘no’, and can’t abide that they aren’t getting what they want, so they’re making everyone suffer.”
I let the silence hang after she speaks, frowning sadly as it does the work for me. The group’s sympathy swings back in my direction, faster this time, like a pendulum gaining speed. They don’t trust Talia and blame her for taking the cat away from us. Nothing she says will make them side with her, so her reply only reinforces their belief in me. I sniff a little, looking down so they think I’m fighting tears.
