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Sullivan sat in the living room that evening, happy to be showered and away from the ATVs.

Kia, Deja, and about a dozen other people were clustered around the kitchen island, eating Kia’s Pop Rocks–crusted bacon caramel corn and talking like revolutionaries.

Sullivan picked up her phone and dialed Aubrey’s number.

She still had it memorized. A few weeks ago, that might have felt significant.

Now Aubrey was just an acquaintance whose number she happened to have, and Sullivan needed a favor.

“Do you have contacts at any environmental protection group?” Sullivan asked after a quick hello. “Someplace who could help stop a development that’s going to destroy an important habitat? Maybe the only habitat for this species?”

“The tree snake,” Aubrey said with so much love and sadness. “Remember when we went looking for one? It was in the fall. It was getting cold. We thought we’d figured out where they might be and we got binoculars?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.” She almost wished she did so they could have a moment of nostalgia and then get off the phone, but she really didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Sullivan.” Aubrey’s voice broke.

“Love Sullivan n Aubs was the worst mistake of my life. I got addicted. People say that now. Social media addiction is like gambling addiction. You get hooked on the endorphins every time a post goes viral.” Aubrey paused.

“I know it’s not fair to ask you to forgive me, but I need you to know, I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t hooked.

It was like getting a hit of a drug or taking a drag off a cigarette.

And when I didn’t get likes or when another influencer got more, I felt this…

” She seemed to struggle for words. “It was like, What good am I? I should quit everything. I suck, and there’s nothing I can do about it except make another video.

A better one. Funnier. Sexier. And you are so fucking photogenic.

How could I not put you online? But I hurt you with my addiction.

I used you to make myself feel good. It was wrong. ” Aubrey choked back a sob.

Aubrey’s tears elicited only a vague human sympathy. Sullivan didn’t want anyone to be sad… well, maybe everyone who ran Mega Eats. She didn’t want Aubrey to suffer, but she wanted the conversation to jump over this part.

“It’s okay,” Sullivan said. “Um… thanks. Don’t worry about it.

” They had more important things to talk about.

“Mega Eats wants to cut down the Bois. If we can get someone’s attention, we can get an injunction, get the judge to stop them until we find out if we can protect the land for the tree snake. Do you know anyone who can help?”

“Yes. Yes! Of course.” Aubrey cleared her throat, jumping at the chance to help.

Nina would say it was useful to have an ex who was racked with guilt.

“I got a job with Portland Metro Conservation.” She hesitated, probably remembering that she’d quit her day job when she started making money online.

“That’s great,” Sullivan said before Aubrey started apologizing again. “So you said you know some people?”

Aubrey started listing off names and organizations.

“I can call all these people today,” Aubrey promised. “And I’ll text you their numbers so you can call them too.”

“Thank you.”

Sullivan was already taking the phone from her ear when Aubrey said, “I went to therapy. I know that doesn’t take away what I did to you. But I worked on myself a lot.”

Sullivan’s attention wandered to the kitchen full of activists. They let out a cheer that Aubrey almost certainly heard on her end.

“I know we can’t… couldn’t just pick up where we were, but would you… would you like to—”

Sullivan could feel Aubrey working up her courage to finish the sentence.

“Go on a date with me? Maybe we could give it another try.”

A really good person wouldn’t have felt a rush of satisfaction as she spoke the next words, but Sullivan wasn’t quite that good.

“Oh, Aubrey, you didn’t hear? I’m married.”

The rally transformed the grange hall parking lot. The weather had cleared and the sky was a perfect shade, shaming every paint chip ever labeled sky blue .

Kia heard one of Deja’s friends explaining, “If Mega Eats shows up, we’re going to do a call-and-response. He cupped his hands around his mouth. I say, Savor local flavor .”

The people around him answered, “Reject Mega Eats!”

Someone walked by with a sign reading MEGA EATS: GREASE IS THE WORD .

Kia had already opened the Diva. Her own face beamed from the LED screen on the side of the truck.

The four other food trucks that Kia had invited lined the parking lot: Me’shell’s Soul Food, a Mexican-Thai fusion, a truck called K-Pop Corn Dog, and a classic American burger truck with the name MAN BUN BURGERS emblazoned on the side.

The food truck staff were running around, passing cords and sparking pilot lights.

Miss Brenda was helping at Me’shell’s truck.

Opal was chopping cilantro at the Mexican-Thai fusion truck, trying to talk the owners into joining the She-Pack.

Several people in green tights were fitting themselves into a green snake puppet reminiscent of a Lunar New Year dragon.

The White People with Woke Water Bottles were walking around shaking hands.

It seemed like every environmental organization in Portland had a booth or spokesperson handing out flyers.

Nina had apologized; she could only stop by for a moment.

She had a meeting with a client about tracking down the wealthy absentee mother of his two children and relieving her of several million in past due child support.

But Nina had made Sullivan an authorized user on a platinum credit card and told her to buy whatever she needed for the rally.

When she’d asked Nina how much she could spend, Nina had looked miffed and said, You don’t have to ask, because I can afford it .

With all the support from the community, they didn’t need much, but Sullivan had a screen printing company print SAVE THE SNAKE on a hundred thrift store T-shirts, in the same glittery script as Kia’s LET’S GET GOURMAZING! tees. Kia sported one proudly.

Everyone was taking selfies and live streaming, even Sullivan.

“I have to cook,” Kia said. “But I’ll sneak away when I can for our speech.”

Sullivan put an arm around Kia’s waist, holding her back for a moment.

“It’s beautiful,” Sullivan said. “I see what you want. I see how good it is.”

“And I see why we have to protect that.” Kia turned toward the woods that lined the parking lot and spread her arms. She wanted to say something about how it felt like the forest held them, but she couldn’t find the words, and the tursnickens wouldn’t deep-fry themselves.

But if they survived the lawsuit and she got to run a food truck again, she’d be buying only free-range turkeys.

“Before you get to work,” Sullivan said. “I want to show you something.” Sullivan took out her phone and held it out shyly. “I still think social media is problematic, but you showed me you can reach a lot of people.”

The screen showed an Instagram profile with three posts and one reel.

The profile picture featured a selfie of Sullivan.

The handle was @servetheworldPDX. She clicked on the reel.

Sullivan stood in her vegetable garden looking awkward like she’d never seen a cell phone camera before.

She waited a beat before speaking. A lot of people feel like they can’t grow their own food because they don’t have space or time or they don’t know how, but there are a few simple vegetables you can start with.

The video went on longer than any social media post should, but it didn’t matter because Kia could have watched another hour of Sullivan outlining how to fertilize tomatoes with old banana peels.

Sullivan looked dapper and outdoorsy. A couple of times she said, My wife is going to tease me about this , then held up a slug or some other hideous garden pest.

“This is beautiful,” Kia said.

“I’ll never be good at it like you are.”

“You’re passionate about this. Part of having a good channel is finding something you can talk about all day, every day. You know a ton. And you’re smokin’ hot, which never hurts on social media.”

Sullivan rolled her eyes.

“I want to teach people about organic slug control, not be smokin’ hot.”

Kia clicked on the last picture and stopped.

Kia at her food truck. It must have been at the fair when they kissed in the Love Tunnel.

The lights of her truck set off the dark sky.

Kia was in the window, leaning out as she handed a plate of food to a customer.

Her hair glowed. In the caption, Sullivan had written my beautiful wife .

The colors were cheerful and the picture captured nostalgia, like the photo was saying, This is going to be a long time ago someday, so appreciate it now .

Kia raised up and placed a kiss on Sullivan’s lips.

“This is brilliant. You have to do this.”

Later in the evening, Kia and Sullivan took the stage for their speech.

“Thank you all for coming today.” Sullivan held the mic close to her lips, and her voice resonated across the parking lot, soft despite the amplification, as though she had pitched it so as not to disturb the wildlife tucking itself in for the night. “I know that not everyone loves snakes.”

Kia gave a dramatic shiver to illustrate, and the crowd laughed.

“But I think everyone here appreciates how important it is to protect our environment. Behind me is the Bois. Mega Eats wants to build here.”

The man who’d explained call-and-response called out, “Savor local flavor.”

His compatriots answered, “Reject Mega Eats.”

“So often the default is build ,” Sullivan went on. “Cut it down unless a bunch of obnoxious environmentalists tie themselves to the trees.”

Someone called out, “I’m an obnoxious environmentalist!”

“But what if we change it around? Let us be conservationists in the truest sense of the word. Let us conserve . Let the default be to save it for the next generation and the next and the next. There is a Mega Eats complex thirteen and a half miles from here. We can live without one here. Let us ask, Must we develop? rather than, Where can we develop? ”

She was everything Kia had adored in school and more. Not just confident but dignified. Not just strong but strong despite her insecurities and vulnerabilities. Real strength wasn’t being fearless; it was walking forward into fear because you believed in your cause.

“Doesn’t this snake thing help you?” The Mega Eats woman had appeared out of nowhere. Beside her sat a golden retriever, blameless in the whole snake–Mega Eats conflict, its tongue lolling to the side. “You own a restaurant next to the Bois.”

“It does help me. And it hurts my wife. And that’s not fair,” Sullivan said.

“But we both believe that this is the right thing for Portland,” Kia added.

“Your wife.” The woman strolled closer to the stage.

“Didn’t you get married a few weeks ago?

” She turned to face the crowd, commanding their attention although not quite bold enough to walk onstage.

“Kia Jackson and Alice Sullivan got married so she could take advantage of a legacy clause prioritizing existing legacy owners with the first right of purchase for the Bois.”

The crowd quieted.

“When that didn’t work, they invented the miniature Oregon tree snake. Has anyone even seen a miniature Oregon tree snake?”

“We haven’t because it’s endangered ,” someone answered.

Near the front of the crowd, a little girl in a gunnysack dress let go of her mother’s hand.

“I caught one. And I wanted to put it in my dollhouse, but my mom said wild things stay in the wild.”

Kia could see the Mega Eats woman hesitate. You couldn’t shut down an adorable girl in pigtails.

“I’m sure you’re very good at catching snakes,” she said with the syrupy sweetness people used on children when they didn’t understand children were actually people.

“No. I need you to use your ears and listen right now.” The girl’s cadence was perfect. Some adult in her life said that frequently. “I said I caught one. It’s little, and it has a little smile on its face. Its tongue goes like this.” The girl flicked her tongue.

“I think that’s all snakes,” the woman said.

The girl’s face hardened. “They’re not all little. The green anaconda is five hundred fifty pounds and—”

The girl’s mother pulled her back into the crowd.

“The point is,” the woman went on, “this marriage is a fraud. You barely know each other, and, from what I’ve heard, you don’t even like each other.”

“I absolutely do know Sullivan,” Kia said.

“I know she grew up in these woods and that her grandfather taught her about the forest. I know she can catch a newt, and she knows way too much about the mating habits of slugs. I know she talks to her food while she’s cooking and grows squash.

I’ve tasted her coq au vin, her stuffed salmon, her handmade pasta.

I know she can make an anchovy-cornichon vinaigrette that will change your life and a crème br?lée that will make you cry it’s so good.

She drinks her wine too young, and her hair looks like a tornado in a wheat field in the morning.

And I was jealous of every guy she dated when we were in school. ”

Sullivan took the microphone from Kia.

“And I know Kia grew up on a yacht and read Sappho off the coast of Greece. I know she had a spaniel named Julia Child. I know she makes every place she visits better, and when she serves people at her food truck—which she calls the Diva—she cares about every one of them. I know she spent years looking for a 1968 Wind Searcher Pop-Up Pavilion to go with her RV. I know she’s afraid of snakes, and she’s still here today.

She’s that kind of person. She’s brave, and she’s confident, but she doesn’t put herself in front of everyone or everything else.

And I know she can cook things with Pop Rocks that should never touch candy, and that whatever she makes tastes like love itself. ”

The crowd cheered. The giant snake puppet undulated.

Someone yelled, “Boooo Mega Eats.” The woman checked her watch, and in the most anticlimactic response to an impassioned speech, she said, “I don’t get paid enough for this.

We’re not union,” and walked off, her dog snagging a stray french fry on its way out.