On the Corner of Love and Hate Read online

  “It slipped my mind, Em. Your mom was supposed to tell you.”

  “Way to throw her under the bus.” I laughed and dug out my phone from my back pocket. Upon seeing her texts, my stomach sank.

  Damn it. I shouldn’t have ignored her.

  MOTHER: Em, Wonderful news! Cooper is staying for dinner.

  MOTHER: You don’t mind, right?

  MOTHER: Dad is a bit sauced. It’s hysterical. I’m watching him try and take off his shoes. It’s been ten minutes and he can’t figure out the laces! They’re already untied.

  MOTHER: Speaking of sauced, we’re having pasta since your father is here. No shrimp

  MOTHER: Cooper brought me chocolates! He knows how much I love my sweets.

  MOTHER: Cooper should always wear blue, it brings out the color in his eyes. I still think you two would . . .

  I didn’t bother to finish reading because I knew where it was going. If I had encouraged her crazy notions about me and Cooper, the same ones that she’d been entertaining for years, we’d have been married with babies by now.

  So I wouldn’t tell her that I secretly agreed with her: he should always wear blue. And wait . . . the chocolates had been for her? Damn conclusions.

  Taking another look at my dad still smiling, leaning on the door frame, and my mother hugging Cooper for the millionth time that evening, I sighed, defeated. “Let’s get this over with.” And with that I headed off into the kitchen.

  • • •

  DINNER WITH COOPER is actually enjoyable.

  No matter how many times I repeated it or pinched myself, I didn’t quite believe that I was actually thinking it. It hadn’t started that way. Before my parents had brought out the meal, it had been slightly awkward because they had left us alone in the dining room while they “finished plating.”

  All that meant was that my mom had cleavage showing and my dad was a little more toasted than I realized. It doesn’t matter what age you or your parents are—hearing them giggling and flirting was still enough to make me want to crawl under the table.

  Cooper had sat quietly as we waited, working furiously on his iPhone. I’d watched him work. He looked stressed. More than I’d seen him look in ages. His skin was a bit purple beneath his eyes, his hair wasn’t done up like it usually was—styled within an inch of its life. And . . . was his shirt wrinkled? What was going on?

  “Cooper, are you all right?” I asked when the silence from his side was too much to bear. Usually it was easy to ignore each other versus bickering, but that was at work. At my parents’ house, it was awkward.

  “The meeting for Monday morning was changed to eight fifteen. In case you didn’t see it,” he said, keeping his head down.

  “Thanks, I got Nancy’s email.”

  A few seconds of silence passed as he kept typing. His fingers were flying so fast over the keys, I wasn’t sure he’d even heard me. “Cooper, are you okay?”

  “Huh?” He looked up from his phone, startled. “Oh, sorry. Yeah. Just trying to remember if I called someone earlier. I didn’t check it off the list.” He turned his phone to show me a detailed checklist full of reminders. Most of which weren’t cleared.

  He looked positively ragged. “You still have all of that stuff to do?” I asked, shocked to see a list of at least a dozen items. When I had given Cooper a hard time last night about forgetting everything, I’d assumed it was because he was preoccupied with his date. But it looked like that wasn’t the only thing occupying his mind. “I hadn’t realized how much you had on your plate.”

  Nodding, he glanced at his watch. “Yep, and not much time to do it.” He paused, running his eyes over his checklist again. “Am I supposed to do anything for the theater project this weekend? It’s on my list, but I thought I saw the theater paperwork signed today when I ran into the office.”

  I wanted to say, No, I told you at least twice that I did it on Friday night because the council meeting is first thing Monday morning and you weren’t going to meet the deadline, but after seeing how exhausted he looked, I decided to give him a break. “Nope, already handled. You’ve got a lot to focus on here, Cooper.”

  He smothered a yawn. “Yeah. I mean, I think I can juggle everything, though.”

  Good Lord, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Was that really how he wanted to measure his success nowadays? Not awful at campaigning + so-so at work = a win?

  “Cooper?” I began, but when his eyes met mine, I paused. I was going to suggest he take a break—maybe some vacation time from the CDO just so he could focus—but that was me butting in where I probably wasn’t wanted. So I decided to change the subject.

  “You should make sure you get all your messages in before my dad comes out,” I teased. My dad was notorious for how much he hated “tech at the table.” I slid my own phone back into my pocket.

  Cooper smiled. “I remember.” He shut off his phone’s ringer and slipped it into his pants pocket.

  Once the four of us were seated, my attitude toward Cooper defrosted further. Having my parents present meant that the two of us were forced to be on our best behavior. Add in Cooper being too exhausted to be his normal annoying self, and we weren’t as aggressively antagonistic with each other.

  My parents’ opinion of Cooper had grown over the years—even as so many people had cut him off because of his teenage antics. Since returning to Hope Lake after college, he had fallen back into his groove with them.

  “Cooper, how is your mother? She hasn’t been back here in ages,” my mother said. “I have to call her, catch up.”

  When we were kids, with his mother so busy with work, my parents had been sort of adoptive parents for him. He would come home with us after church for milk and pastries that we would pick up from town. Afterward, Cooper would spend time helping my father figure out his technology when his computer or phone was on the fritz. When that was done, he would play cards with my mother before the nanny or someone else from the house staff would pick him up. So out of respect for my parents, I tended to curb the judgment I usually lobbed at him whenever we were in their presence.

  “She’s good. Always busy. She’s in Pittsburgh? No, wait, Philadelphia? I can’t remember.” He laughed and took a sip of water. “I’ll tell her you asked about her. I know she misses you both.”

  The dinner was almost fun because my parents were master storytellers. They looked forward to any time they got to regale interested listeners with their crazy stories. One of my father’s favorite things was to engage people in discussion, banter, arguments—anything that allowed him to share his ideas with someone else.

  That was why my dad had devoted his life to small-town government all these years. Sophia Peroni, too, was no slouch. She was on every town event staff and service organization and still volunteered for the Hope Lake Elementary School PTA even though I was twenty-eight years old and had long since graduated. I believe it was an immigrant trait that I respected so much. Their parents had come to town with almost nothing, and it was their way of giving back to the town that had welcomed them.

  “Emma, what are you thinking so hard about?” my mother asked, smiling.

  “Nothing specific, just thoughts,” I lied, tamping down the thoughts about my running for public office like my father. While those ventures weren’t in my future, as I preferred to work behind the scenes, my dad was grooming Cooper to follow in his footsteps.

  Whereas I was happy writing grant applications, chairing safety commissions, and doing whatever else I could do to help the wizard behind the green curtain, so to speak.

  I zoned out listening to their conversation. My mother was prattling on about how Cooper was the best choice. That he had always yearned for the brass ring and that this campaign would be the golden circle for him.

  “Emma?” my mom shouted, startling me and causing my fork to splatter sauce across my white top.

  “Shit!” I dipped my napkin in the water glass and rubbed, but the sauce was all over me. “Sorry, what did you sa
y?”

  “Honey, are you okay? You were staring at Cooper and not saying anything. Even when we said your name,” my father said, his lips twitching as he fought back a smile. It was when I looked at Cooper that I realized what he’d said.

  You were staring at Cooper.

  “Sorry, sorry. I was zoned out thinking about . . . stuff,” I lied, trying to eat quickly since everyone else was nearly done. Just how long had I been sitting and staring?

  Judging by Cooper’s grin, it had been a while. The dimple was front and center.

  “Carry on. I’ll catch up,” I mumbled around a mouthful of pasta.

  “Cooper, have you thought any more about what we discussed with your dating life?” my father asked brusquely. He didn’t get angry or irked with Cooper often, but this subject seemed to be the straw that always broke the camel’s back.

  Cooper sighed, picking up his napkin and blotting his lips. Placing it on the table next to his plate, he folded his hands in a move that showed his annoyance all too well. Gone were the easy posture and quirky smile. He was rigid and stern, neither of which was a good look.

  “I’m still considering it.”

  “What’s ‘it’?” I asked, looking from my father to Cooper and back again. “Is there something going on that I don’t know about?”

  “It,” my father began, “is how Cooper’s extracurricular activities are affecting his campaign.”

  An unsettling feeling began building in my stomach. “Oh,” I said, feeling the heat in my face rise. I hoped that it wasn’t noticeable, but judging by the knowing grin on my mother’s face, it was.

  Cooper cleared his throat. “Enrico feels that some of the time I spend outside of work alienates voters, since they might see me as, you know—”

  “A playboy? A lothario? An unrepentant Casanova?”

  Cooper waved me off. “Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it.”

  “Exactly why he needs a wife,” my father announced.

  I turned my head to him. “Hold up there, Mr. 1950s Mentality. He doesn’t need a wife.” I surprised myself with the comment. I backtracked. “I mean, he just needs someone who’s not quite as . . . disposable.”

  “Like a friend?” Cooper suggested, earning approving nods from my parents.

  I shrugged. “I suppose.”

  Cooper crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m considering my options.”

  “As a third party uninvolved in the campaign, and as a voter, I think you should do more than consider it.”

  “I know why your father thinks this is a good idea, but why do you?” Cooper asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

  I sighed and mirrored his position. Arms crossed, back rigid, all business. “The last few press events have had questions from journalists regarding your private life, and it’s only going to get worse the closer we get to the election. Giving them a nonstory, like, say, you having a steady girlfriend, might be what you need to get a decent margin over Kirby. He’s going to exploit the fact that he’s got the wife and two point five kiddos, blah, blah. Might as well beat him to the punch by also being ‘a model citizen.’ ” I added the air quotes for emphasis. It seemed ridiculous that you needed to have a family to be the right person for the job, but that was life. “Control the narrative around what seems to make you an easy target for scrutiny. Think about what happened in the bar in Barreton. If that photo had stayed online, Cooper, it would have been appallingly bad.”

  My father blew out an irritated breath. “Do I even want to know?”

  Cooper shook his head. “You don’t, and I already explained that to you, Emma. It was a dare. I didn’t seek her out or anything.”

  Holding up my hand, I waved him off and kept going. “I believe you, but do you think my opinion is the only one that matters? Do you think Kirby or his crack team of investigators care about things like the truth? If they had the photo, they would have used it to prove that you’re flighty, flaky, and incapable of settling down. They could’ve spun it to their advantage.”

  I looked over to Mayor Dad, whose face was turning an unpleasant shade of purple. “Dad, don’t worry about it. Cooper took care of it.” In reality, Cooper should have worried about it.

  “What I’m getting from both of you,” Cooper interrupted, “is that I need someone to make me appear to be what? Off the market?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re not a house, Cooper. Having a girlfriend—”

  “—or a wife!” my mother chimed in.

  “Mother. Back on topic. Having a girlfriend makes you appear settled down. Able to be counted on because you’ve got someone you depend on and vice versa. People tend to see political men as reliable when they’re attached to someone. Why do you think all the presidents have been married?”

  “Not all!” Cooper exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “I said, not all. James Buchanan wasn’t married.”

  “Okay, that’s one president who wasn’t married, a thousand apologies,” I said, laughing when his eyes went wide. “I can and will apologize when I’m wrong, Cooper.”

  “He was also the only one from Pennsylvania.”

  “It’s like you want me to argue with you.”

  “Now, now, you two. You sound like an old married couple,” my mother interrupted, standing and going around to Cooper’s seat. She placed her hands on his shoulders, unable to keep the smile from her face. “Not that anyone asked my opinion, but, Cooper, I agree with Enrico and my Emma. You need to save face here.”

  I knew it would happen before it did. She pinched his cheek like she had done when he was a little boy who had scraped his knee while running through her garden. “I love you like my own, but you’re only making things worse by not settling down or at least appearing to be settling down.”

  Cooper looked properly chastised, his cheeks pinking in the dim lighting of the dining room. It was one thing for my father to suggest it, or even me, but for Sophia Peroni to tell you to quit being a Casanova—I guess that was the ticket to getting him to agree.

  “It needs to be someone familiar,” he finally said quietly. He looked across the table to me.

  I nodded. “Sure, that would help. A shorthand, you could say.”

  Cooper’s face grew redder. It wasn’t very warm in the room and my mom hadn’t continued pinching his cheek. I leaned forward, focusing on his face and trying to get a read on what was going through his head, because his eyes were twinkling and the dimple was deepening. I was about to speak when he uttered the words I’d never thought would leave Cooper’s lips.

  “Are you interested?”

  9

  * * *

  I was having a stroke.

  There wasn’t the smell of burning toast, though. Wasn’t that the first sign? Something burning? Oh, wait—that was my face. And there was sweat. Great, now I was sweating, but why?

  EMMA THOUGHT: Maybe I need to get my hearing checked. I must be hearing things.

  My head felt like it was going to sizzle and pop right off my shoulders in all its red-faced glory, then roll over to my shocked parents and confused Cooper with my stunned expression immortalized forevermore because what the hell had just happened?

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  Cooper’s face, unlike mine, wasn’t turning red but paling. Fast. Prior to my reaction it had been full of light and hope with that damnable dimple showing, and now . . . well, now he looked like someone had kicked his puppy and I was the kicker.

  I didn’t like it.

  But I also had no idea what was going on.

  “Judging by the fact that you look like you ate something bad and it’s about to come shooting out Exorcist-style,” Cooper said slowly, “I don’t know if I’ll be repeating the question.”

  Though I heard his words, I still didn’t quite grasp what he’d just asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I guess I’m a cross between shocked and stupefied, considering our less-than-amicable history. I’m surpri
sed you’d even suggest this.”

  “Emma,” my father gently warned.

  “No, no, Enrico. She’s right. I just thought—never mind. It was a bad idea. Sorry I asked.”

  “I’m sorry—I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just genuinely in a state of confusion.”

  Cooper held up his hand as if to show it was no big deal. I could tell he was bothered by my reaction, but what did that matter? This was insane.

  Right?

  EMMA THOUGHT: Right.

  “Anyway, where were we?” Cooper asked, rolling his shoulders back as if to shake the whole thing off. “I’ll think about it more and we can move on, okay? Okay.” He grabbed a forkful of now-cold pasta and started chewing aggressively.

  That was another thing about Cooper that would forever drive me bananas. Once he was done discussing a topic, that was it. No one else could chime in.

  There was a sense of awkwardness that hung over the table like a cloud, even as my parents launched into telling us where they planned on going after the election was over and the new mayor was sworn in.

  With the wife-or-girlfriend subject essentially dropped for now, my father turned to pull up some wrapped posters that were leaning against the table at his feet. I’d been so lost in thought that I’d missed my mother and Cooper clearing the table and his helping her bring out dessert and coffee and place them on the sideboard. My father hauled up the signage to the table.

  “Emma, do you have any thoughts on these?” he asked, holding up two sign mock-ups.

  The first one was a run-of-the-mill political yard sign. ENDICOTT FOR MAYOR was printed in red, with white and blue stars and stripes in the background. It was fine, but if I had been an average townsperson, I would have just driven past it without giving it a second look.

  “Boring.” I stood, walking over to take the poster from my father. “It’s something you’d see anywhere in America for any government position, from school board to county clerk. Same for the other one,” I said, pointing to the one held just behind the first. It was similar, just a few color changes. “Meh. You don’t want meh for anything.”