The Christmas Pundit (Laurel Holidays #2) - V.L. Locey Page 0,7
his glasses again. He did that on a weekly basis. Dr. Ruth, the town optometrist, must be making his mortgage payments solely off the sales of new glasses to Aubrey. “Okay, well wow, there’s a lot.”
“Read to me while we drive. We’re already ten minutes late meeting with the wastewater people.”
“Well that’s shitty of us,” he tossed out. I sniggered softly, eased out of our parking slot, and crept out of the school parking lot. “Okay, well, you don’t need to know his childhood stuff.”
“No, I’m quite familiar with his childhood stuff.” I could probably call up the taste of playground dirt Gideon had rubbed my face in if I tried hard enough. Suddenly, I was thirsty, so I pulled into the drive-thru of the only fast food place in Cedarburg and ordered two milkshakes. Both swirls. The kid who took my money was dying to make some sort of asinine comment, I could see him holding it back. Wisely, he just handed me my change and our milkshakes and closed his damn little window. “The town thinks we’re lovers.”
Aubrey grunted. It was nothing new to him, the gossip. Even though he was straight as my grandfather’s part, everyone assumed that someone who worked that closely with a Nelly boy had to be gay too.
“Whatever. If that’s the worst thing they can call me I’m fine with that. Okay, so…oh thanks.” He took his shake then pierced the lid with a straw. “You’re going to bitch about this later today,” he warned before sucking so hard to get the shake up his straw his eyeballs bulged.
“Yeah, I know.” My lactose intolerance would roar to life before evening but to hell with the gas and bloating. Sometimes a man needed a damn milkshake.
“Okay, long as you’re willing to suffer. So, what we have is that he moved to Seattle at the age of eleven with his mother. Father dead by suicide.” I nodded silently, my shake between my thighs as there were no cupholders in Bettina Sue. My balls would be frozen solid by the time we got to the wastewater facility. “Moved to LA at the age of eighteen. Lots of odd jobs…uhm, ticket sales at a theater, dishwasher, janitorial, that kind of thing. At the age of twenty-one, he was working at a gas station when he met Glenn Goldberg.”
“The Glenn Goldberg?” I asked, pulling off Main Street onto Simmers Run Road, which would lead us out of the town proper and toward the wastewater plant.
“Yeah, the Glenn Goldberg.” He threw me a look that screamed out how impressed he was. I was as well. Glenn Goldberg had been one of the most popular conservative pundits on talk radio. He’d written numerous books and appeared on all the major news networks before his death six or seven years ago. “Seems they got to talking politics when Gideon was filling up his car and that was where the idea for Pierce Papers was born.”
“What are the Pierce Papers?”
“The name of his blog. Just a small thing at first, citing his views which, by what I can see, are pretty conservative in the fiscal matters…reduction of government spending and lowering the national debt, the free market, keeping the minimum wage low, hampering a wider home ownership base, the typical stuff. Over time they picked up more readers, and eventually he was approached to be a syndicated columnist and that was when his name, and his blog, really took off. Seems he’s all kinds of big shit on the West Coast, where he’s been haranguing the governor of California since he took office. He’s known for picking apart fiscal matters and propositions to show his readers how foolish most liberal budgets and money-making decisions are.”
“Yuck,” I said, and it wasn’t in reply to my milkshake which I’d still not touched. I shifted down to ease us onto the road that would take us to the wastewater plant. “Why do they not realize that a higher minimum wage will see an infusion of cash as people will have more money to spend on luxury items? You can’t buy that new TV if you’re living hand to mouth.”
“Preaching to the choir, Mayor.”
“Sorry.” I blushed a little. I did tend to pull out my soapbox at the drop of a hat.
“But, and this is interesting, while he considers himself a fiscal conservative he does break from the conservative mainstream when it comes to gay rights, climate change, women’s rights to choose, and the crime of