Political Science 101

Chapter Eighty-Three

MIDNIGHT WAS approaching; Ana was still awake. For what felt like hours, she'd been sitting on her living room couch, staring at her cell phone. The number she wanted to call was already keyed-in, and all she had to do was press the green button. But she could only stare at it. Her phone screen turned off after two minutes, so she'd been touching the screen to illuminate it whenever it went blank, just so that she could continue to stare at the little green button. She wasn't certain what kept her from pressing the green button and making the call. She'd called this number hundreds of times. It wasn't who she was calling that filled her with anxiety, it was what she planned on saying.

Sometimes, life brings us to a crossroads; and sometimes, we create the crossroads ourselves.

For Ana, this crossroads needed to be created. She could easily have kept lying as she had been, before Mitch. Before Mitch, she lived comfortably, waiting tables part-time at an array of restaurants and sports bars, making a fair living from that, but mostly living off the generous allowance from her well-to-do Aunt Lenore.

Both of Ana's parents died before she graduated from high school and Lenore agreed to take her in, raising her as a member of her own family. But the more Ana thought about it, the more she felt like Lenore hadn't spent those years raising a niece (and surrogate daughter, as Ana felt), but rather, she'd been raising Ana to be a dependent employee — or worse yet, a low-level accomplice. Ana felt cheap, like a common street con artist doing nothing more than playing an expensive game of Three-Card Monte. Ana felt used. Ana felt fake.

She tapped the screen of her iPhone and the screen illuminated again. The clock read 12:07AM. It was getting late; it was getting early. So before she had the chance to second-guess herself anymore, she reached down and pressed the green button. And the phone rang. She hoped perhaps it was too late and no one would answer.

No such luck.

Someone answered.

"Hello?" a woman's voice answered, sounding awake, not at all reflective of the late hour.

"Amber?" Ana said with a somber cheer in her voice.

"Ana?" Amber replied.

"Yes," Ana replied. The line on both sides was momentarily silent — it was the sound of mutual confusion.

"What can I do for you?" Amber asked.

"Well," Ana said, a little surprised that Amber hadn't commented about the late hour. "I need to talk about this whole Ray Doyle / Mitch Bradley thing."

"Um," Amber said, her voice suddenly hardening. "There's nothing to talk about."

"There is," Ana replied quickly, but gently.

"No," Amber said, piercing the niceties like a verbal harpoon. "I'm not working for Doyle anymore and you're not dating Bradley, so as far as we are concerned, it's all done. I'm on something new and you should find something too. Just let it go."

"I—" Ana said, unsure how to complete her retort. "Is your new job something your mom has you doing?"

"Yes," Amber replied callously in an all-business tone-of-voice. "I'm working on Mom's contingency. Don't worry about it."

"Contingency?" Ana asked. "I thought your work with Doyle was the contingency."

"Don't worry about it," Amber said again.

"Contingency for what?" Ana asked, now pressing for a real answer.

"Don't' worry about it," Amber said, this slower and more sternly.

"What does she have you doing?" Ana became insistent.

"Don't worry about it!" Amber said in a tone just below a shout.

Click.

Something else was going on. Something was happening. And Ana knew, with Lenore Sable, the wheels were already turning.