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Auggie’s eyebrows shot up. “Hold on, do you have photos? Because a lot of people would pay good money for that.”
“Oh, I’ve got millions of photos. One time, he was waiting in line at McDonald’s, and he bumped this other minivan in front of him, and she got out of her van and wanted North to get out of his van, only he wouldn’t, so she kept asking if he was afraid—”
Then some sort of en-strangulation curse started to happen. It took Shaw an oxygen-deprived moment to realize North was twisting the collar of his shirt. A moment later, the passenger window hummed back up, cutting off the sound of Theo and Auggie’s laughter.
North released Shaw, and Shaw gulped in air. “Thank God,” Shaw said, “the strangulatus curse—”
“There was no curse, bird brain! Stop talking. And no more stories or explaining or questions or talking. Did I mention talking?”
Shaw nodded.
North looked like he was trying to let it go, but the words tore their way out of him. “She was pregnant, for fuck’s sake. What did you want me to do?”
“She offered to give you a free punch.”
North was making a high-pitched noise as he got out of the car.
By the time Shaw followed North onto the sidewalk, Theo and Auggie were already waiting at the door to Brey’s office.
Theo was in the middle of saying, “—didn’t think state representatives had offices.”
“They do if they’re going to run for Congress,” Auggie said. “At least, this one does. You should have heard his assistant—you would have thought I’d called the White House. The vibe I’m getting is they all take themselves very seriously.”
“We’re doing the talking,” North said. “You, try to look like you’re under forty.”
“I am under forty,” Theo said.
“You, try to look like you’re not expired goods.”
“What’s going on?” Auggie asked. “Is it my clothes? Is it my eyes, because I only get bags like this when I don’t get enough sleep. When is twink death?”
“Honey,” Shaw said, his voice full of sympathy. “If you have to ask.”
Auggie’s eyes got really wide, but before Shaw could explain all the opportunities that awaited him in his post-twink life, North opened the door, and they headed inside.
It was an office suite in an aging strip mall in a city called Auburn, Missouri, which was one way for Shaw to make sense of all the clashing shades of blue that had been used: navy blue carpet, royal blue paint on the walls, some sort of blue approaching teal for the chair rail. A curved desk sat immediately in front of the entrance, where a bright-eyed young woman was typing at a computer. Farther back, the office opened up: a central area with cubicles, presumably for volunteers, and then what appeared to be a suite of offices for Brey and his aides or assistants or whatever you wanted to call them. An enormous picture of the governor took up most of one wall, and everything else had been decorated with American flags.
“May I help you?” the young woman asked as Auggie and North stepped forward at the same time.
“Yeah—” North began.
“Hi, Marcy,” Auggie said. He shook hands with her, smiling. “Paul. We spoke on the phone, the Watchdogs for Information meeting with Mr. Brey.”
“Oh my gosh, Paul, yes.” She was smiling right back. Shaw was smiling too because smiling was definitely contagious. North, he noticed, was not smiling. “I’ll let Mr. Brey know you’re here. Would you like anything while you wait? A water?”
“I thought we had an appointment,” North said.
Marcy turned the smile down a few degrees and looked at North.
“We’re fine, thanks,” Auggie said. “We’ll wait right here.”
“What wait?” North muttered as Auggie herded him away from the desk. “What’s the point of an appointment if you still have to wait?”
“He’s cranky,” Shaw said in answer to the unasked question on Auggie’s face. “He’s tired, and he either had too much sex and not enough cheese, or too much cheese and not enough sex. It’s a tricky formula, getting the ratios right. Oh, and you’re stealing his thunder. What I do when he’s in a mood is sometimes I come up with a way for North to do something that I know will make him feel all manly and tough and proud, like maybe I’m just standing there and all of a sudden I say, ‘Oh my God, my espadrille fell down this well,’ and North says, ‘We don’t have a well, that’s the storm drain,’ and—”
“Does Marcy have any complimentary aspirin?” Theo asked.
“I don’t have aspirin,” Shaw said, patting himself down, “but sometimes I carry shredded willow bark—”
