“Have you ever told your father what you told me?”
Dre flopped into a chair, finally relaxing a little for the first time since we’d been locked in the greenroom. “He asked me before he ran if I was okay with it.”
That came as a surprise, and I couldn’t hide my shock. “He did?”
Dre nodded. “Yup. Told me he had a shot, mostly because of the attention he got as the AG working on those immigration cases, but that he’d wait until after I graduated high school if I wanted.”
“Why didn’t you ask him to wait, then?”
“Because I didn’t think he had a chance in hell!” Dre’s wild laugh was unsettling. The stress seemed to be getting to him, and I was starting to wonder if I might be safer out in the hall, but we were each dealing with the stressful situation in our own way. “I told him to go for it because I figured he’d flame out during the primaries. Who was gonna vote for my dad, right?”
“Quite a lot of people, as it turns out,” I said.
Dre’s laughter dissolved; his smile faded. “Yeah. When that little kid died after being separated from his parents at the border, and my dad made that speech, I was like, ‘Oh shit. He’s got a real chance.’”
“I remember the speech. It was a good one.” It had been better than good. The speech had galvanized the Democratic Party behind Rosario and had helped him stand out from the other candidates and secure the nomination.
“After that, I wished I’d asked him to wait,” Dre said. “But it’s not like I could change my mind without being a total ass.”
“Is it the attention that bothers you?” I asked.
Dre shrugged. “Partly. I mean, I know I’m graduating next year and going to college, but I can’t do anything without everyone watching and judging and offering snarky commentary.”
“You were famous before anyone knew who your father was,” I said. “How is this different?”
“The people who knew me from Dreadful Dressup didn’t care about me. They only cared about whether Mel and I were gonna do some zombie shit for our next video or go in a creepy Cthulhu direction. Now it’s like I can’t do anything without someone thinking I’m making a statement. People I’ve never met want to know everything about me. I’m not into changing the world; I just wanna do monster makeup.”
“Oh.” It seemed silly to have that kind of platform and not want to help people with it, but I didn’t press Dre about it. “What’s the other part?”
“What?”
“You said ‘partly.’ So what’s the other part?”
Dre’s shoulders slumped. “I know this is gonna sound silly, but I miss my dad. He was, like, my best friend, and now he’s never around.” There was a moment where it looked like Dre was going to tear up, but then he shook it off. “Anyway, I want my dad to win because he’s my dad and he’d be the first Mexican American president and I think he’d actually be good at the job, but I kind of want him to lose because I’m selfish and I liked my life the way it was before.”
“I get it.”
“You do?” Dre’s eyebrows were drawn together, and he wore this shocked look like I’d admitted to secretly believing in socialized medicine. “I figured you’d be all about it. Like you’ve probably got campaign stickers in your locker at school and already know how you’re gonna decorate your bedroom in the White House.”
I shrugged and nodded. “Those things are true, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live a normal life. Before I was the Republican presidential candidate’s son, I was the governor’s son, and before that I was the war hero’s kid. I don’t even know what it’s like to not live under the spotlight. To not have to worry about how I dress or what I say.
“People make fun of me for being so reserved, but it’s better than having them mock me for getting in trouble or embarrassing my family. Not doing either of those things is pretty important to me, though it comes with a price.” I’d never admitted any of that before, not even to my friends, but Dre might have been the only person in the world at that moment capable of understanding.
Dre’s eyes were wide, somewhere between surprise and pity. “Of all the stuff to have in common, I never figured this would be one.”
“You’re lucky your dad asked you, though,” I said. “My mother never gave me a choice.”
Dre
TALKING TO DEAN like he was a normal person and not the button-down shirt–wearing antithesis of everything I believed in was weird. I might’ve once bet Mel that Dean slept hanging upside down in his closet and had underwear labeled for each day of the week, but he was different from what I’d expected, and talking to him was the only thing keeping me from tearing the door off the hinges and forcing the agent outside to tell me what the hell was going on. Even weirder was that talking to Dean was kind of okay.
Maybe I should have been reassured that I hadn’t heard anyone yelling outside the door or felt the ground shake from an explosion, but my overactive mind filled in the blanks. I was sure that what I was imagining was worse than the reality, but I couldn’t help myself. I don’t know what I would’ve done if Dean hadn’t been in the greenroom with me. Talking and arguing with him kept me from fully panicking.
“But you had to know she was gonna run, right?” I said. “Your mom’s practically been campaigning since the start of her second term as governor.” Whereas my dad’s candidacy had felt like a long shot, Governor Arnault’s had felt inevitable.
Dean was sitting on the couch, twisting and untwisting the cap on his water bottle. He had the best posture of anyone I’d ever seen, but I wondered if he ever relaxed. Not that this was a relaxing situation.
“Sure,” Dean said. “I knew. Everyone knew. It still would have been nice if she had asked me, though.”
The longer I spent with Dean, the more I realized he was more complex than I had originally given him credit for. He wasn’t quiet because he had nothing to say, he was just more reserved than me. Okay, compared to me, everyone was more reserved. But I was starting to pick up on his tells. The twitch of his lip meant he thought something was funny; he flared his nostrils when he was thinking about something he didn’t like; his eyebrows dipped in the middle when he was talking about his mom.
“I would have said yes, of course,” he added.
“Of course,” I echoed. But the way Dean narrowed his eyes made me wonder if he would have wanted to say yes.
Dean cleared his throat. “Either way, it’s going to be interesting for whoever winds up in the White House.”
“‘Interesting’ hardly covers it,” I said. “Like, am I gonna have any privacy at all? I’ll have to move to DC and start a new school for the last five months of senior year. How am I gonna make friends when everyone I meet’ll have to be cleared by Secret Service agents? And it’s not like I’ll be able to sneak out to go to parties.”
“You seem like you’re pretty good at making friends,” Dean said. “I’m sure you’ll be okay.”