Close to You by Kara Isaac

with until she went to university, met Grant, and “reinvented” herself.
    â€œAllison.”
    Susie, aka. Mrs. Susannah Shire-Thorpe, sounded more like their mother with every passing day. The tinge of dis­appointment with which she managed to imbue those mere three syllables was almost pitch-perfect. Man, she missed her real sister. The one who was fun and could laugh at herself. The one she’d had before Susie hitched her wagon to a guy with political aspirations almost as high as his ridiculous bouffant hair.
    She liked to think her real sister was still there, underneath the perfectly polished veneer of social perfection, but she had her doubts given how long it had been since there’d been any evidence of it.
    She flopped down on her bed and pressed the phone to her ear. Make an effort, Allie. She’s still your sister. “How are you?”
    â€œWe’re great.”
    Allie resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the royal “we.” That never would have come out of the mouth of the old Susie. It was like when she’d gotten married she’d ceased to exist as an individual and had simply become a subsidiary of a plural.
    â€œI was calling to let you know that tonight Grant was officially selected as the candidate for Western Bays.”
    Allie stifled a sigh. The news was not unexpected, given that Grant and her sister had spent the last six years positioning him for selection when the incumbent retired, but she’d held on to a tiny flicker of hope that something might derail the seemingly inevitable.
    Her brother-in-law would now become a member of Parliament at the next election. The seat was so safe it was a standing joke that the people of Western Bays would vote for a piece of furniture to be their MP if it wore an orange rosette.
    â€œThat’s great. Congratulations. You must be thrilled.” The fact that she managed to imbue the words with any tinge of enthusiasm was a credit to her finely honed acting skills.
    â€œOf course, but honestly, it wasn’t as if any other nominee could come close to Grant’s pedigree. Between his distinguished career, commitment to the party, and blemish-free personal rec­ord, it really was a no-brainer.”
    Translation—her brother-in-law was possibly the dullest human being you could ever hope to find with a pulse. Allie was pretty sure he hadn’t so much as chosen a brand of toothpaste since he was sixteen without thinking about how it would poll.
    Lying back against a pillow, she waited for Susannah to get to the point of the phone call. Her sister hadn’t called to chat in months and certainly not since the so-called scandal that she’d taken as personally as if Allie had caused it solely to derail her sister’s social climbing.
    â€œSo we’ll be having a campaign launch sometime in the next few months. And of course we’d love for you to be there.” Her sister’s tone clearly communicated that what they would love was anything but. “However, we were thinking that, with your history, it might be difficult for you, and we wouldn’t want to put you in an awkward position, so we totally understand if you decide not to come.”
    Allie sat upright and wedged herself against the headboard. She would rather eat a bowl of ghost peppers while dancing across shards of broken glass than go to anything related toGrant’s campaign, but she wasn’t going to accept the insinuation that they were inviting-but-not-inviting her out of some kind of thoughtfulness to her.
    â€œOh, I don’t know. It’s been two years. Surely everyone has moved on by now, even in your circles.” Highly unlikely, given that some of her mother’s friends still liked to bring up social scandals from the seventies, but if her sister didn’t want her to come, she was at least going to make her be honest enough to admit it. “It might be good for me to be there if it fits