Free The Department of Lost & Found by Allison Winn Scotch Page B

be done. Fine. If you don’t want to fabricate cancer donations, you need to launch a full-scale attack on Taylor’s record. Call Larry Davis: Get anything you can (other than the hooker stuff ) and put it out there to demonstrate that he’s a shit decision maker.
    Once people see that the hookers are just one of his many bad choices, the polls will swing back in our favor. If I don’t 76
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    hear back from you by this afternoon, I’ll be in the office tomorrow. Don’t make me come down there.
    —Nat
    From: Richardson, Kyle
    To: Miller,
    Natalie
    Re:
    I heard you the first time
    Natalie,
    Chill out. Your incessant messages and e-mails aren’t helping. I’m under a bit of pressure here, you know. The senator told me directly not to retaliate to Taylor, despite his increasing numbers. She thinks that we botched the hooker thing so badly—and thanks so much, it’s been a lovely few weeks here dealing with the fallout—that she doesn’t want to touch another thing.
    Btw, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I’m truly sorry to hear about your diagnosis. So really, shouldn’t you be focused on something other than this right now?
    KR
    I sat at my desk, struck by his comment. I remembered that Janice had not so subtly intimated something similar to Kyle’s remarks at our last session.
    “Being kind to yourself and taking time to enjoy that kindness is very important right now,” she said, lacing her hands in front of her and leaning forward toward me as if to make her point.
    I rubbed my temples and told her that I wasn’t sure if I were cut out for this therapy thing; that the only reason I was there to begin with was that I’d checked the “counseling” box on my forms (when The Department of Lost & Found
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    I was clearly not in my right mind), then answered her introduc-tory phone call at the precise moment when I felt like throwing myself out the window, not because I really gave any thought to the counseling or even believed in it much.
    She nodded the way that I assume all therapists do—it must be something they teach them when they get their degree—and told me that anything I chose to do with myself during this ailing time was acceptable. “As long as it’s done out of a kind place,” she added. And then she urged me once again to find someone else to be kind to me: a survivor’s group (as if ), a website (I’d rather watch TV), my mom (ha!).
    I reclined in my desk chair and closed my eyes to try and ward off the oncoming chemo headache that I felt leaking into my cra-nium. Kind . I snorted out loud. Clearly Janice didn’t understand my line of work. Or what sort of armor you had to build to succeed in it . I mulled over what to say back to Kyle, whether or not to make the kind choice, the one over which Janice would award me a figurative gold star, much like the literal gold stars my mom tacked on the fridge when I’d bring home an A in elementary school. And then I decided, much like I suspected back when I was seven, gold stars are overrated.
    From: Miller, Natalie
    To: Richardson,
    Kyle
    Re: Big
    mistake
    K—
    I appreciate your concern, but I’m doing just fine. With all due respect to Dupris, she’s acting like an idiot. What’s the first thing we learned on this job? Protect yourself above ev-78
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    erything else. And what’s she doing? Leaving herself open to be shot. Taylor is within nipping range of the polling margin of error. Do something. Now.
    —Nat
    From: Richardson, Kyle
    To: Miller,
    Natalie
    Re: No
    go
    Nat,
    I agree. But this is the senator’s choice and I’m not going above her. Maybe you would: I wouldn’t put anything by you (no offense . . . okay, maybe a little). But I won’t on something as important as this.
    Just go vote, isn’t that the mantra—“use your voice to be heard at the polls” (or something ridiculous like that), and hopefully, we’ll all still be employed at this time