The Media Candidate by Paul Dueweke

drub.”
    Second Girl: “Why don’t you, like, meet me at my
sister’s place tonight? She’s total cool.”
    First Girl: “Okay, but we have to be, like,
total prude. I told you what my brother or my father might do to me
if they found out I was dishonoring the family.”
    Second Girl: “But you know I'm not religious.
”
    First Girl: “That's even worse. It would be
better even if you were, like, Christian. They hate Infidels
plenty, but if you're, like, atheist, that's even worse. I told you
what they can do to girls that dishonor their family. ”
    Second Girl: “But there are, like, laws, you
know. They can't just, you know, totally kill you. Or whatever.
”
    First Girl: “Ha. You just don't get it. My
brother says the cops are afraid of us now. You've seen all those
riots and stuff on TV. My brother says the president, or somebody,
makes them say, like, they're sorry or something if they butt into
anything religious. He says there's this law that says nobody can
say, like, anything bad about any religion. So he can frag the cops
and do anything he wants, as long as it's for our religion. Because
nobody, like, dares to say anything against him. ”
    Second Girl: “Well, don’t worry about my sister.
She's, like, totally prude for me. She'd never say anything”
    Sherwood played that part over repeatedly and
propped up color printouts of Fatima and her lover from his shower
collection. The pictures motivated his greatest espionage adventure
yet.
    The next day he implemented the plan. His mother
would be gone that evening, so the opportunity window was open. It
wasn’t easy because he so rarely talked to girls, least of all like
Fatima. But as he approached her to a safe distance, something else
took charge. Fear retreated. It was replaced by hunter
instinct.
    Fatima stood under a tree while Sherwood watched
for the right moment. Her dark hair teased an amber neck. A single
earring dangled from her left ear. She talked to another girl whose
animated gestures didn’t detract his attention from his prey. The
two girls laughed, their notes radiating in unison; but he was
tuned to just one. Then the second girl began to back away from
Fatima, talking then listening, then talking again. Laughter rang
once more. The second girl walked away.
    He approached Fatima with eyes fixed. Short,
regular steps brought him efficiently and discreetly to engagement
range. He’d always found it easier to talk to someone if he
imagined himself on an espionage mission. At last, he didn’t have
to pretend.
    “Hello, Fatima.”
    A smile spread over her face as she turned
around. As the inertia of the dark strands carried them beyond her
turn, she reached up to sweep them aside, and saw it was Sherwood.
The smile immediately evaporated. Registering a look of
disappointment, contrived grace appeared and triumphed. “Hi.”
    “How are your soirees with Sara at her sister’s
place?”
    Fatima’s jaw dropped, and she could do nothing
more than simply stare at Sherwood. Then her legs automatically
retreated a step, and a swallow went down hard as the amber quality
of her skin turned chalky.
    “Is she still better than Gary?”
    “What … Where did you—?” Fatima stammered,
retreating another step.
    “Is she still major gris?”
    Breathing stopped as her eyes glazed over. Then
she willed air back into her lungs. Her next breath was labored and
raucous. “What do you want?”
    “Do not be alarmed, Fatima, I can keep secrets.”
A grin just began to unfold.
    She turned her head sideways, biting her lips.
“How’d you find out?”
    “Suppose you come over to my house this evening,
and we can discuss it.”
    “Why should …” She stopped and turned back
toward him. The same fragment of a grin greeted her again. “You
want me to—”
    His mouth curved slightly upward as his eyes
wandered toward the canopy of leaves above them. With the snap of a
whip, they rotated back to hers, the incipient grin still pursuing.
“Then we