Chapter Seven
As the Walnut County Chamber of Commerce meeting is called to order, I find myself playing a stealthy game of peekaboo with the fifty or so business owners in attendance.
Most I don’t recognize, either because they’re from Falls Point, the only other town in Walnut County, or because I’ve been gone too long to know who lives in Greenstead anymore.
But there, in the fifth row, sits Tim Cooper, the man who baked all my birthday cakes growing up.
He looks the same in some ways, tall and dark-skinned, always dressed in plaid, even in the summer.
But his neatly trimmed mustache is gray now, and extra lines crease the corners of his eyes.
I wonder how he’ll react when he sees me here, how I’ve grown from the little girl who loved corner brownies into a Ryser shill.
Then he yawns into the crook of his elbow and his head shifts a few degrees my way, and I turn sharply to face another direction.
“What?” asks Marina when I accidentally jostle her in the process.
“Nothing.”
She gives me an odd look but returns her attention to the front.
At the head of the room, six Chamber of Commerce board members sit at a long folding table, five sleepily listening while one recites extremely detailed minutes from last month’s meeting.
I’m sitting with Marina and the Ryser Cares group in the seats designated for presenters, uncomfortable wooden chairs lined along the side wall.
As the secretary drones on about a discussion regarding what type of ribbon to use at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new smoothie shop in Falls Point, I roll the dice and peek at the audience again.
I spot Meg Gordon, a short white woman with a pink pixie cut who owns the one pretzel shop in town.
My family didn’t frequent her shop as much as we did Cooper Cakes.
She might not remember me. She might not call me a traitor.
I blink to attention when the secretary finishes speaking and another person, a Black man in a cream-colored cardigan, introduces himself as Ben, the president of the Walnut County Chamber of Commerce, and begins running through the agenda.
We’re last on the docket, which gives me about one second of relief before I realize that just means I get to be nervous until it’s our turn.
“First up, Jaclyn Haynes?” Ben says.
An older woman slowly rises from her front-row seat. It’s not until she starts speaking that I recognize her. “My daughter thinks selling CBD oil in my boutique will help me bring in new customers.”
That croaky voice transports me back to being ten years old and boredly following my mom around as she shopped in Jaclyn’s body care boutique, a cramped place that smelled like what would happen if a pine tree rolled around in baby powder and cinnamon before falling into a vat of vanilla extract.
While Jaclyn chatted to my mother about lavender body butter, I’d sniffed shelf after shelf of sample lotions until I had a sneezing fit.
“Okay,” Ben replies warily.
“I don’t sell a product unless I’ve tried it. I’ve never done…you know…before.” Her hand nervously toys with the hem of her floral blouse.
“CBD oil?”
Her voice drops to a whisper. “Drugs.”
“CBD oil is not drugs,” interjects a woman beside Ben. She’s dressed more casually than the other board members, in a knit, halter-style crop top.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” Jaclyn waves her off. “Anyway, everything I’ve read on experimenting with drugs says you should do it with a more experienced person who can keep you safe. I believe it’s called a ‘trip sitter.’”
A few seats down from me, Arun lets out an exhale that sounds suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. Randy nudges him with his elbow.
“How is this Chamber of Commerce business?” Ben asks with a sigh.
“I can’t sell it in my store until I’ve tried it. My daughter moved to Atlanta, and my husband’s never done it. This is my first drug experience, and I need someone to guide me through it.”
I can see the wheels turning in Ben’s head as he considers Jaclyn’s request. The reluctance in his eyes suggests he wants no part in entertaining this, but his features soften as he looks at her. “All right. Who wants to watch Jaclyn do drugs?”
“I got you, Jaclyn,” says the crop top woman.
“Thank you, dear.” Satisfied, Jaclyn takes her seat.
“Elise will watch Jaclyn do drugs,” the secretary recites slowly as he types the meeting minutes into his ancient laptop.
Arun strangles another laugh. Then a few others express interest in trying CBD oil, and before long Elise has turned it into an open-invitation house party. Jen raises her hand and adds herself to the list while Arun and Tessa share looks of amusement.
Once the secretary enters the details of Elise’s house party into the record, the agenda moves on down the list, putting me one step closer to standing before these people and opening myself up to their judgment.
They’ll be the ones to decide my fate, whether I’ll be moving forward with the festival and making progress toward returning to my old life in DC—or if I’ll be doomed to waste away in Greenstead for all eternity.
The next item concerns a grand opening for a new olive oil shop in Falls Point, leading a few Greensteaders to gripe about Falls Point’s annoyingly stable economy and wonder whether anyone really needs a store that sells nothing but olive oil.
The Falls Pointers accept these comments with polite annoyance.
Next up, Ben calls on Jess Kang. A tall, tan-skinned Asian person with an artfully messy mop of dark hair stands and makes their way past us.
I think they’re staring at me as they pass, until I realize they’re actually looking at Marina.
Marina pointedly averts her gaze, but as soon as they pass us and head up to the front, Marina lets herself stare.
When Jess stands to face the room and clears their throat, their eyes go to Marina, and Marina shifts in her seat.
I feel a fleeting impulse to lean over and whisper to Marina that Jess must clearly be a Jordan, but I let it wither.
She probably doesn’t remember our language anymore.
“I wanted to talk to you about a proposal,” Jess begins. I’m not sure why there’s an edge of dread in their voice until they say, fast like ripping off a Band-Aid, “From Solar Summit.”
At once, several loud groans ring throughout the room.
I bite back a smile. Some things never change.
Solar Summit, an amusement park in Falls Point, makes so many people here furious.
I’ve never understood the hate. I loved going to Solar Summit as a kid.
Finally growing tall enough to ride the Avalanche, its flagship coaster that boasts five inversions and speeds of sixty-plus miles per hour, was truly one of the greatest accomplishments of my childhood.
Marina and I went to its adjacent water park, Splash Planet, multiple times every summer. Solar Summit is a Virginia staple.
But a lot of Greenstead residents, especially the older generations, wax on about how much better life was before Solar Summit came along.
They said the Industrial Expressway, the one road in and out of town, used to be wide open and accessible instead of clogged with enough tourists to make commuting a living nightmare.
They said the fields along the expressway used to be pristine rather than covered in litter from road-tripping tourists who couldn’t be bothered to dispose of their garbage properly.
Personally, I’ve always thought they just can’t stand the idea of Falls Point being so successful when Greenstead is anything but.
“Solar Summit,” Jess says, raising their voice to be heard over the groans, “has proposed building a resort hotel in West Greenstead, and I think it’s a great idea.
” Amid the grumbles, Jess outlines the resort features Solar Summit is planning on: a mini-golf park, an arcade, a movie theater, a shopping center.
It certainly sounds like an improvement to me.
I’d probably have been happier growing up in Greenstead if there were more places like this, somewhere with a little more life than a bowling alley where half the lanes were always out of order.
And giving more people a reason to come to Greenstead sounds like an automatic win.
Jess explains that Solar Summit would even provide a service to shuttle tourists to and from the amusement park—which should, they say pointedly, help cut down on the traffic everyone loves complaining about.
“It would also bring a lot of tourists to Greenstead,” Jess says.
“Which I think we can all agree would be beneficial.”
“We don’t need their tourists,” says Jaclyn.
“I think you’d be lucky to have our tourists, actually,” says a blond woman sitting next to her. “Isn’t that why you want to start selling CBD oil? So you can bring in more business?”
Jaclyn crosses her arms. “That’s different.”
“How is that different? More business is more business.”
“It’s different,” says Tim Cooper, sitting up straighter, “because bringing in Solar Summit means once again being overly reliant on someone else, which sets us up to fail if something goes wrong. We loved the jobs Ryser’s mustard factory brought to Greenstead, didn’t we? And what happened there?”
The woman falls silent. Once someone’s pulled the mustard card, it’s hard to argue back.
“I’m not sure we should let fear hold us back from something that could really benefit us,” Jess says carefully.
“I’d rather be afraid than covered in mustard,” says Elise, and a few Greensteaders break into scattered applause at this nonsensical statement. Someone suggests turning it into a bumper sticker. The secretary adds this to the agenda for next month’s meeting.