Challenge #02093-E269: Start of a Beautiful Friendship
"Wait were you flirting with me? Shit! I should have said something way cooler." -- OohLookShiny
She couldn't help but smile. Sanderson wasn't aloof and cold. He was just dim. Socially speaking, he was thicker than a sack of bricks. Which sort of made up for him being just about everything else. It was hard not to like the guy. Friendly, outgoing, talented, politely outspoken, and smart. He had won a scholarship with his muscles, but he was using his brains once he got it.
Well. Most of his brains. Grace dredged some words out of her brain rather than just laugh at him. "Yeah, I was flirting. Thanks for noticing." She couldn't help teasing him a little. "Guess this is why you're headed for valedictorian. Mind on the game."
He laughed. "More like I can't let a good chance go, you know? A good education's the only way to get out of the ghetto." Sanderson shrugged. "Sports careers don't last. I need something good that I can fall back on."
Grace hadn't been aware that ghettos were still a thing. Like all stains on the history of humanity, they were supposed to have been extinct before her grandmother was born. "I thought they were improving things in those districts.
He had that same sympathetic look that she'd been crushing on for some time. "Don't get me started about gentrification," he said. Only now did she realise that it was pity.
He wasn't the only one who could be ignorant about things. Instead of challenging him about the veracity of his statements, like so many of the entitled had done, she did what he did with those he didn't share perspectives with: ask reasonable questions and listen to the answers. Really listen. This was, after all, a place of learning.
Grace learned a lot. Neighbourhoods weren't rejuvenated, they were 'cleansed' of the previous populace. Closing down laundromats in favour of cupcake stores did nothing to help the residents already there. It closed off avenues for them to clean their clothes, forcing them to spend more money -one way or another- on staying at least clean and respectable. Meanwhile, other necessary businesses were bought out by expensive places for white hipsters. The rent increased with the general property values, and the disadvantaged had to move out or be homeless while hostile architecture overtook everywhere like weeds.
The better thing to do was actually fix up the existing places instead of letting them go to rot. Pay employees a decent wage and give them health insurance that was actually useful. Leaving the poor to struggle helped nobody. Sanderson had an entire economic theory based on helping out the disadvantaged. More awe-inspiring was the fact that places that did those things prospered.
She could listen to him talk about anything, to be honest. Getting to know him was an education. Him getting to know her was... a surprising change. Most guys talked about themselves all the time, but Sanderson talked about everyone. He was interesting, but he was also interested. That was what made him so darn charismatic.
With her resources and his sensibility, they had half a chance at growing a third party from a difficult start. Gathering support from those disillusioned by the other two. Gathering people willing to run for elected positions. They would take over the senate and the house in a few short decades.
By then, Grace was the vice president. Not his wife. He had a husband, and he was happy. She was glad, all the same.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Mathier]
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Now why can't we have real politicians like that.
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