Free Domestic Affairs by Bridget Siegel

other place she wanted to be.
    Together Aubrey and Landon were an unstoppable force, just as she planned. Landon organized the volunteers, adding legions of his students to the workforce, then managed the crews with a roll-up-your-sleeves-together motivation. Aubrey had tapped into her social address book, inviting everyone with a name or a checkbook to the “Raise the Roof Party” she had put together on the open field next to one of the houses Landon was building.
    By the time the first event kicked off, Aubrey had over five hundred people at the tented affair, all of them happily snacking on canapés arranged on pieces of lumber and Georgia peach pies on decorative step stools. She had raised more than five times the organization’s entirebudget. She had astounded even herself with the speed and ease with which she and Landon took it over. In the third month of planning, with half the money already raised and the Taylors footing all the bills, the founder, a minister they knew well, insisted they list themselves prestigiously on the invitation as the group’s chairs.
    â€œOnly if it’s helpful to the organization,” Aubrey had said, probably with her usual absurdly fake sweetness. She added in the next breath how “wonderfully perfect” Landon would be as the emcee.
    Taylor, then an unassuming adjunct law professor, was indeed the perfect emcee. He gave a rousing speech, saying, as Billy would recite verbatim, “We live in a world where we have taught our children to pick up litter off the street, but we have left them unconcerned with the man, the woman, the child on the street. It’s time to re-instill in the new generation the idea that the purpose of life is not just to enjoy the world they were left, but to leave that world in a better place for those around them and those to come.”
    Now, nearly two decades later, Jacob looked back over at Billy, who seemed to emphasize his own earnestness by nodding along with the parts of Landon’s speech he had written or just really enjoyed. Jacob wondered how Billy could still find fresh emotion in any of the speech. It was unquestionably one of the good ones in Taylor’s repertoire but Jacob could recite it himself, and Billy had to have heard it at least fifty more times.
    Billy turned his head and gave Jacob one of his typical knowing, fatherly looks. Jacob smiled and mouthed the words as the governor said them.
    â€œI may have stumbled across Habitat for Humanity, but Aubrey put it on the map.”
    Billy conceded a smile when Jacob mimed a hand wave and tilted his head, exactly mimicking Taylor.

FOUR
    T he day of tryout meetings with Governor Taylor came more quickly than Olivia wanted. She felt like she needed a month to plan for it. And at least another week after that to plan out her look. She slipped on her black Theory dress, which fit perfectly around her waist and hips and had a high scoop neck and knee-length hem that made it suitable for business. Her black Christian Louboutin stilettos, with their signature red soles that made Jimmy Choos seem cheap, finished out her look. She had gotten them in exchange for a scarf that Aaron and Angela, two of her favorite donors, had given her one holiday. She still couldn’t believe a pair of plain black shoes could cost $590. She could barely pay her rent.
    It was exchange only. And the shoes do make every outfit so much better.
    Of course, she probably shouldn’t have worn them as much as she did. Okay, she probably shouldn’t have run in them as much as she did. Her first boss in politics, Gabrielle, had taught her, among other things, Campaign Lesson #6: Always have walking shoes and standing shoes. Flats to walk in and Louboutins to stand in. It was actually brilliant in theory and Olivia really tried to do it, but the number of times she was running late, literally running late in the heels, far outweighed the times she was prepared enough to have the