Chapter 3 #2
“It wouldn’t have to be a big commitment,” the mayor added. “Just a few hours here and there. You’d be doing the town a real favor.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
The mayor didn’t push, but her expression made it clear she wasn’t giving up. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. Here, let me put my number in your phone.”
She reluctantly handed over her phone. The mayor typed in her number and sent her a message. “So, you’ll have my phone number too,” the mayor said as she handed back the phone.
Cassidy nodded and turned toward the door. Winnie followed her out.
They walked in silence for half a block before Winnie spoke. “You didn’t have to say no.”
“I’m on vacation. I’m supposed to be resting.”
“Resting doesn’t mean doing nothing.”
Cassidy stopped walking and turned to face her. “I can’t take on someone else’s problem right now. I have enough of my own.”
Winnie met her gaze, calm and steady. “Sometimes working on someone else’s problem is easier than sitting alone with your own.”
“That’s avoidance.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a way to remember what you’re good at while you figure out what comes next.”
She looked away. “I don’t know what comes next.”
“That’s okay.” Winnie’s voice was gentle. “You don’t have to know yet. You just have to take the next step.”
“And you think the next step is running a small-town festival?”
“I think the next step is whatever keeps you from disappearing into that cottage and mulling over your problems.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.
Winnie touched her arm briefly. “You don’t have to decide now. Just think about it.”
She walked away, leaving Cassidy standing on the sidewalk with the uncomfortable sensation that Winnie saw straight through her.
Cassidy spent the rest of the morning walking the town, this time with a different lens.
She noticed things she’d missed before, like the faded paint on the dress shop sign and the empty storefronts at the south end of Main Street. The tourist families who wandered through quickly, bought ice cream, and left.
No one stayed long.
There was no reason to.
She found herself standing in front of a community bulletin board outside the post office, scanning the flyers.
Harbor Festival – July 12-14
Lighthouse Tours · Local Vendors · Live Music
Family Fun on the Waterfront!
Similar to the flyer she’d seen yesterday. The design was dated, with no clear call to action and no sense of what made this festival different from any other small-town summer event.
She pulled out her phone and took a picture.
Then she put the phone away, annoyed with herself.
This was not her problem. How many times did she have to repeat that? And hadn’t she just turned down the mayor?
She walked back to the cottage and sat at the table with her laptop.
Opened a blank document.
Stared at it, then typed: Starlight Harbor Festival. A Preliminary Assessment.
She stared at that, then deleted it and closed the laptop.
Her phone buzzed with a message from her mom: How are you doing? Maybe you should come home for a bit.
Home.
A town smaller than this one. A house that still had her high school photos on the wall. A mother who’d never understood why Cassidy worked sixty-hour weeks, why she couldn’t just relax, why she needed the promotions, recognition, and the proof that she was worth something.
She had left at eighteen and never looked back.
And now she was forty-two, sitting in a cottage a thousand miles from her apartment, with no job to go to and no idea who she was if she wasn’t the woman who delivered results, exceeded expectations, and made things happen.
Well, she sure wasn’t going home, that was for sure.
She opened her phone, pulled up the photo of the festival flyer, then spread out the paper flyer she’d picked up yesterday.
She could do this. A basic audit, just to see what they were working with. It wouldn’t take more than an hour. She wouldn’t commit to anything. She’d just... look.
She opened the laptop again and started typing. By the time the sun started to set, she had three pages of notes.
Target audience profiles. Messaging frameworks. Partnership opportunities. A rough content calendar for a six-week pre-event campaign.
She sat back and looked at the screen.
This was what she did. What she was good at. She took something broken and figured out how to make it work.
Her phone buzzed with a text from the mayor: No pressure, but if you want to sit in on our next planning meeting, it’s Thursday at 10. Bayview General Store back room. Coffee’s on me.
She stared at the message.
She should say no. She should delete it and go back to doing whatever people on mandatory sabbaticals were supposed to do.
But the document on her screen was the first thing she’d felt even remotely competent doing since HR had forced a sabbatical on her.
Winnie’s words about working on someone else’s problem being easier than sitting with your own kept echoing in her head.
She typed a reply: I’ll think about it.
Sent it before she could change her mind.
Then she closed the laptop, walked to the sunroom door, and opened it.
The light was fading and washed the room in soft gold. The chair by the window looked inviting. The bookshelves were full of titles she didn’t recognize.
It still felt like someone else’s space, but maybe that was the point. A new space.
She stepped inside, sat in the chair, and looked out at the water.