I admit. “Speech toast is not good.”
“You’ll be great, bubalah. I have no doubt.”
“I have doubt. Doubts. Plural. Lots of doubts.”
“Jamie, you have to stop doing that.” Mom looks up again. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You’re so convinced you’re going to screw up, you end up sabotaging yourself with that negative self-talk.”
“It’s not negative self-talk if it’s true.”
“It’s not—”
“Mom. I’m a catastrophically terrible speaker. That is an objective fact.”
Grandma pats my shoulder.
Mom frowns. “Sweetie, is this about the interview? You have to let that go. I know it sucked. No one’s pretending it didn’t. But you’re still getting to work in politics. It’s just a different side of the experience.”
“You’re missing the point.”
I think she thinks I’m bitter. Or that I resent having to make spreadsheets and run errands for my cousin all summer, rather than marching up and down marble staircases in the state capitol. But it’s not the lack of marble staircases that depresses me. And I don’t mind the errands. I mean, that’s what I’d have been doing for Senator Mathews anyway.
It’s more the I-suck factor. The I-couldn’t-even-make-nepotism-work-for-me factor. The a-sitting-state-senator-created-an-internship-just-for-me-and-I-totally-choked factor.
I mean, I literally choked. I don’t know how to explain this without being gross, but a lump of phlegm lodged in my throat, and I panicked, which made me start gagging, and then that turned to puking, and I spent about an hour in the bathroom, and needless to say, I did not get the job.
Which doesn’t exactly bode well for my half-baked dream of running for office one day. Let’s face it. Some people are meant to change history. And some people are meant to change out of their vomity interview clothes.
“You just have to keep practicing,” Mom continues. “Speaking to strangers is a skill. It’s like a muscle, you know? You keep exercising it, and you’ll see. One day it’s going to be second nature. It’ll feel just like talking to Drew and Felipe.”
I scratch Boomer’s ears. “Right.”
“You can even work on it tonight at the Rossum event. What if you made it your goal to chat with five people? Just casual everyday stuff, quick and painless. Or even just one good conversation. It would be such a great step for you.”
“Does Siri count as people?”
“No, Siri doesn’t count.” She smiles wryly. “You have a clean button-down shirt, right?”
“I was gonna wear a dirty one. With no buttons.”
“Very funny.”
What’s actually funny is that Mom thinks I don’t know by now what to wear to these things. I’ve been to more than two dozen Rossum events. Which she should know—she’s the one who forces me to go to every single one of them, even when she can’t make it.
Grandma ruffles my hair. “It won’t be so bad. I’ll pop in for the first bit. We’ll hang out. We’ll mingle.”
I hate that word. Mingle. I mean, the word itself is fine; I just hate the concept. When has anyone in the history of earth ever made a meaningful connection while mingling? It’s like, hey, let’s have only the worst parts of a conversation—the approach, the small talk, the trying-to-figure-out-when-and-how-to-disengage part. It’s not that I dislike being around people. I just wish we could skip to the sitting-in-comfortable-silence part, or the inside-jokes part, or even the we-both-love-The-Office-so-let’s-overanalyze-it part.
“You should invite Felipe and Drew,” Grandma suggests.
“Highly doubt they’d come to a campaign event.”
“Never hurts to ask,” Grandma says. “Which reminds me . . .” She stands and crosses over to the counter, and Boomer leaps up, ready to follow her to the end of the earth. But all she does is pluck her phone out of her purse, setting it before me on the table. “What do you know about adding links to Instagram Stories?”
“I’ve never done it,” I say, taking her phone. “I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Can you? Thank you so much, lovey. I swear, being verified is a whole new world.”
I tap into the app, biting back a smile. Grandma’s blue check mark arrived two weeks ago, and she humblebrags about it at every opportunity. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen Sophie visibly impressed by a family accomplishment.
I mean, the last thing any of us expected was for Grandma’s Instagram to go viral. She started it after Grandpa died, mostly to take pictures of her and Boomer visiting Grandpa’s favorite local spots. But then Creative Loafing did a feature on her, which led to a few YouTuber shout-outs. I wouldn’t say she’s famous or anything, but lots of local people know about