“I didn’t say I agreed, Marianne. I don’t agree. Tad Tucker is a pious scumbag and a dirty crook. Whatever advantages GWGW provides, it doesn’t make up for association with this guy.”

“I mean, embryonic personhood!” Marianne said. “It’s not even remotely constitutional. It goes against everything I believe in. And de-funding community colleges? I didn’t mean for a school we started to take things away from anyone.”

“Money from Christians,” Eric said quietly. “I think you said you wanted to take that away from them.”

“That was different—that was a joke! And you put me up to it.”

But he was right. They had cynically and deceptively created these jobs for themselves, almost a year ago, just as GWGW was cynically investing in issues that would lead to better profits. The only difference was the scale of their success.

“Look,” Eric said. “I’m talking to the GWGW people, and then I’m talking to Mark. If they won’t dissociate themselves from Tucker, I’m getting us out of this. I’ll be back by the weekend, and we can figure it all out then. Okay?”

“But your aunt—”

“Frances? What about her?”

“Mark said something about a fall. Did she fall?”

“Not that I know of.”

“He said she was one fall away from a Medicare facility—or Medicaid? Basically he said she was poor and old, or about to be poor and old.”

Eric laughed softly—at her? At his aunt and her impending homelessness? Marianne could feel her blood pressure spiking. “Mark just worries about money, basically it’s all he thinks about. He wants to make sure she’s taken care of in her old age. But she wouldn’t want this. Not Tad Tucker. I’ll take care of it, okay? I promise.”

Marianne exhaled, long and slow. Of course Eric was on her side. Of course Eric was coming back to her. A few weeks with an attractive and flattering marketing person could not have changed the man he was, deep down.

13

All afternoon, Marianne waited for the protesters to leave and for Eric to arrive. Dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and sandals the color and shape of baked potatoes, the handful of women looked like a group of eager tourists or museumgoers waiting on an air-conditioned charter bus or a trolley with padded seats. When Marianne first spotted them she assumed they were lost, perhaps looking for the shady marsh walk that was a quarter mile down the road, or maybe for the public beach. It was hot, even for Florida, the past week a consistent punishment of still, humid, hundred-degree days. There was no breeze to rustle the stiff live oak leaves or sway the brittle clumps of Spanish moss.