Page 13 of Small Sacrifices

Reid does know. He did that just yesterday. But he still doesn't believe her. It can't be that easy. "I should probably just tell Mr. Wright that—"

A warm hand on his interrupts his train of thought. "No," Marisol says.

Reid doesn't know what to do with that. But thankfully, Marisol seems unbothered by the resulting stare. Instead, she just smiles at him.

"If Mr. Wright says to do it, you do it. And you can do it, I know you can. You just need to take the leap."

"I wasn't hired to make phone calls," Reid complains. "I explicitly said I was bad at them in my interview. I'm just supposed to write press releases and help manage social media accounts."

Marisol gives him a stern look, which would probably be hilarious under different circumstances. Stern isn't part of her usual repertoire. It doesn't go with the little lace ruffle on her blouse. "Well, now you're gonna make phone calls. You have to learn sometime. Us millennials get a bad rap for not wanting tocall people, but it's actually not that bad once you get the hang of it. We just never really learned."

Somehow, that makes it worse. Because it reminds him of how young he is. "I'm not a millennial." Is he even qualified to work for the governor? On his first few days, he was scared that he would come in and Mr. Wright would tell him they made some hilarious mistake and actually, he should leave again, please and thank you.

But Marisol doesn't make a habit of attending his pity parties. "Even better, then! Show them you can do it. They can stick their generational stereotypes up their asses."

Reid doesn't think that sort of language is appropriate in the workplace. But either no one heard them or no one cares. And Marisol certainly doesn't. She's just grinning.

"You think so?" he asks.

She clicks her tongue again. "Of course! But I do kind of need to get back to work. How about you just write down what you would say to them? If you want, I can take a look at it before you make your first call."

"Thank you so much."

Reid isn’t a stranger to planning out his conversations in advance—especially when he has reason to believe there’s going to be a confrontation. Pre-planning a conversation about a grade feels very different from whatever this is, though.

There are so many variables. Some of the parents still think this is a horrible accident while others have full-on bought into the conspiracy theories about a deliberate cover-up. Beyond that, their children’s health conditions span from mild rashes to severe gastrointestinal issues. Taking all of that into account is quite the task.

While he works, he forgets to drink. First thing after handing his pages of notes to Marisol, he makes himself a tea and tries toignore the dull pulse in his temples. It doesn’t get easier when he returns to his desk to find Marisol already frowning at him.

"This is a lot."

He’s about to apologize, but she isn’t done yet. "I think you overprepared. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’ll be able to work with this. But you didn’t need to write all this down. If you get hung up on these notes and stop a conversation to find something, that’s the same thing as hesitating because you can’t think of the right thing to say."

"But I’m not good at phone calls." And he doesn’t have a filter. What if he gets flustered enough that apologizes or does something equally undesirable?

"You don’t have practice," Marisol says with a kind smile on her face. "But you’re going to need to do it at some point. And you won’t always have two hours to prepare."

The thought of that is anxiety-inducing. But she’s right. Reid doesn’t even want to know what his father would say if he could see him now. Having to make phone calls probably doesn’t even count as a sacrifice in his books. He wants to say something about that, but the words won’t come.

Marisol rubs her nose. "Do you already know who you wanna try it out on first?"

Oh. Given that so far, he's only researched Stephanie Greene, it would probably be best to have her be the first attempt. Especially because she might be hard to convince and might require several phone calls. He says as much, and Marisol snorts.

"So what you're saying is, you wanna do one of the more difficult ones first?" she asks. "I mean, sure. If you think that's a good idea."

It likely isn’t. The problem is that he has momentum now. If he stops to research the parents, he not only could get lost in that for the rest of the day, but might also build up even more of asense of dread surrounding the phone calls. He needs to prove to himself that it's not that bad.

So, he heads back to his desk, plugs in his earphones, and flips through the printouts he prepared yesterday. Someone had thoughtlessly posted a picture of a telephone tree in a public Facebook group to illustrate the extent of the affected children, their names circled in pink highlighter. The phones must be ringing off the hook by now.

He dials the number under the nameRobin Greene.It's a bit difficult. He still hasn't gotten used to the minuscule buttons on the cordless phone on his desk. But using his private mobile phone for this would be a very bad idea. He doesn't want to open himself up to midnight calls from angry parents.

To his surprise, Ms. Greene picks up on the third ring.

"You have five seconds to convince me I actually want to speak to you, or I swear to God—"

"I'm calling from Governor Mackenzie's office!" Reid interrupts her. Immediately, he wants to hit himself. Way to go. Teachers love being interrupted. But he powers through, because if he's already leaving a poor impression, he may as well do it thoroughly. "My name is Reid Maxwell, and I work with the Department of Public Relations. We’re making preparations for the governor to visit Chesterton next week. Could I ask you a few questions?"

"Most of the relevant questions are answered by that article. I assume you've read it." Her voice is a mix of steely resolve and exhaustion. Reid can sense her anger and fatigue through the phone. It must be exhausting to manage a sick child, let alone advocate for their needs during such a crisis.

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