“How is this my life?”I shrieked as I walked back to the campaign office to pick up my car.
Kate:Fucking Karen!
Kate:I can’t believe Hunter hired her.
Allie:He’s doing it to fuck with you.
Allie:Don’t let them get in your head. Kate is a way better manager than Miss Thirsty Unemployed Lawyer.
Kate:Yeah, she worked at my dad’s old firm. As I recall, he thought highly of her. And my father is an awful, terrible person, ergo, so is Karen.
Allie:Focus on the debate tomorrow night. Go for the jugular. Clearly, Hunter is.
Meg:I don’t know if I can be that terrible.
Kate:You don’t have to be a cunt, just be a bitch!
Allie:Call him out on all his shitty things he’s done, and hammer him any time he makes a grandiose statement.
Meg:I think I’m going to need a lot more practice tomorrow.
I nervously snuck a few pieces of shrimp out of the takeout bag. I was anxious about the debate. I had done public speaking, yes, but that was at town halls or just out and around Harrogate. That had been low stakes. This was a real, big, grown-up political debate. It was going to be televised. What if I looked stupid? What if I—
I blinked, not believing what I was seeing. My car, which I had parked in front of the campaign office, was being towed down the street!
“Hey!” I screamed, starting to run. “Hey!” Gasping for breath, I cut across the park, trying to catch up with the tow truck that was stealing my car.
“That’s my car!That’s my car!”
The driver slowed down and stopped as I huffed up to him. I had lost my shoes in the grass, and I hobbled over the rough concrete sidewalk to his open window.
“That’s my car!” I gasped, out of breath.Really should have ordered a salad.“I am a city official. I can park there.”
“It’s not the parking, Deputy Mayor,” he said, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable. “Your car is being repossessed for unpaid bills.”
“But… but…” I said in shock. “Barry gave me that car! He said… he said it was somehow paid for by the city…” I sucked in another breath then remembered the state of the finances. “That freaking lying—”
“I’m sorry,” the tow truck operator said. “I just work for the towing company; the bank sends us to repo the cars.”
“Of course they do,” I said in shock.
“You can take your stuff out if you want,” he offered.
He helped me pop the trunk so I could take out a trash bag of dirty laundry and some of my paperwork.
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to cry.
He patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “Good luck at the debate tomorrow.”
I trudged back across the park to the campaign office, hunting for my shoes in the dark. I could only find one. My feet were dirty and grass stained as I hobbled down the street to my apartment.
I wiped away furious tears as I unlocked the door. “Why is my life so unfair?”
18
Hunter
“You’re going to kill at this debate,” Karen said happily after our prep session in the conference room. She had also somehow managed to dig up a lot of dirt on Meg.
