Page 12 of You Say It First

She rolled her eyes. “In your world, maybe.”

“And what world is that?”

Shit. “I don’t know.”

“No, I’m serious,” Colby said. She thought he might have been smiling, though it was hard to tell over the phone. “When you call us swing state folk to try and persuade us to do our civic duty, what exactly are you picturing?”

“I don’t know!” Meg said again. Ugh, he was flustering her, just like he had the other night at work. The truth was she’d barely spent any time in Ohio, even though it was right next door; her vague impression was one of, like, cornfields and a racist baseball mascot, though somehow she didn’t think mentioning either of those would win her any points with Colby. “Pennsylvania is a swing state, too, PS.”

“Not the part you live in.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, like she was six years old and standing on the playground with her hands on her hips. “And what part is that?”

“The rich part,” Colby said immediately.

“Seriously?” Meg bristled, though it wasn’t like he was wrong, exactly. Her parents fought about money all the time, especially now, but Meg had always gotten the sense it was more for sport—or spite—than because either one of them was really afraid of there not being enough to go around. “How would you know?”

“Just a guess.”

“Well, I’m just saying, if you don’t want me making assumptions about you, then you shouldn’t make assumptions about me, either.”

“You know,” Colby said, “fair enough.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Both of them were quiet for another long minute. Meg looked out the window at the moon. It seemed like a natural place for the conversation to end, though for some reason she was suddenly reluctant to be the one to end it. It was just so unexpected to be talking to him in the first place, she guessed; it was like turning the corner in the upstairs hallway and finding a room she’d never seen before.

“They let you work there in high school?” Colby asked finally, instead of the okay, have a good night she’d been expecting. “We All Count, or whatever?”

“WeCount,” Meg corrected, faintly relieved and not 100 percent sure why. “And I turned eighteen in September. I’m a little old for my grade.” She fussed with the quilt for a moment, dragging the corner of it under her thumbnail. “How old are you?” she asked, even though she already knew.

“Eighteen, too,” he said immediately. Meg felt herself exhale. She knew it was an embarrassingly low bar—and more than that, she knew it didn’t actually matter, considering she was never going to talk to this person again after tonight—but she was glad he hadn’t lied. “But I graduated last year.”

“Are you in college?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“What do you do?”

“What do you think?”

“Uh-uh,” Meg said immediately. “No way.”

“No way, what?”

“No way, I’m not guessing.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Well, that’s not an answer.”

“I don’t think you’re exactly in a position to be complaining about answers, do you?”

Colby laughed at that. “Fair enough,” he said again, but he also didn’t volunteer any more information; she wondered if he did something sketchy, or if maybe he didn’t work at all. “Sorry about the college thing,” he finally said.

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