Chapter Twenty-Two
It may have taken half the night, but I have transformed Marina’s house into an elegant venue fit for our guests, Mayor Bradley, and Martha Stewart herself.
With velvet curtains and a tension rod, I’ve blocked off the entrance to the kitchen to prevent our guests from catching a glimpse of the discolored wall with the missing cabinets.
I put down a colorful Persian carpet runner in the foyer to cover up the chipped floorboards.
I cleared out the wall hanging aisle of a home decor shop in Falls Point, and now the living room’s drywall holes are covered with framed decorative signage—including three identical LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE signs. It’s a little bizarre, but it works.
When the plumber Jess found finished fixing the leaky pipe in the dining room ceiling, I asked him to take a look at the downstairs bathroom Marina deemed scary.
He fixed the issue by replacing the toilet—another expense on my tired credit card, but at least now the downstairs bathroom is usable, clean, and smelling like the apple-and-clove potpourri I’ve placed inside.
The hole in the dining room ceiling is…larger, after the plumber had to cut into more of the drywall to fix the pipe.
And none of the wall decor I bought was suitable for a ceiling.
But I dug around in a box of classroom supplies in Marina’s closet and found a poster to cover the hole.
Now, anyone who sits at the dining room table and looks up will be greeted with the smiling face of Daveed Diggs holding a book, with the word READ displayed above him in large block letters.
The dining room ceiling is, admittedly, an odd place to promote literacy. But it’s better than a hole.
Randy volunteers to help out, which I’m grateful for. While he handles the appetizers in the kitchen with Marina, I stand in the living room and watch the door, ready to play host.
The first guest to arrive is Jaclyn, who I remember seeing at the Chamber of Commerce meeting.
She’d signed up for a booth at the festival to sell items from her body boutique shop.
I’m tempted to ask her how her mission to try CBD oil is going, but I’m not sure I could manage the question without laughing.
Tim Cooper greets me with a hug and hands off a pink box of cupcakes. I’m used to seeing him behind the counter of his bakery in a flour-dusted apron, but tonight he looks distinguished in a plaid blue flannel shirt and dark jeans.
Meg arrives with Elise, who serves on the Chamber of Commerce committee and owns a successful candle business.
Today, Elise wears not a crop top but a long, flowy dress.
I compliment the shiny purple crystal Elise is wearing around her neck, which leads her to launch into its healing properties.
Meg listens with interest, but Walt, an older man who will be running the history of Greenstead booth, gives a skeptical hum.
Elise pauses briefly but carries on talking, though a flash of annoyance crosses her face.
Next to show up is Sera, who runs a barbecue food truck.
She’s half Black like me, maybe a few years older.
I recall her having a bubbly personality when I got lunch at her truck last month, but tonight her eyes are watery, her nose is red, and she disappears into the bathroom to have a sneezing fit. Which doesn’t seem like a great sign.
After everything I’ve heard about Mayor Bradley, I expected a nervous, wild-eyed person, hair unkempt, wearing unusual clothes from centuries past, skin pale from hiding away in attics or whatever it is Mayor Bradley gets up to when he’s not fulfilling his mayorly duties.
(It’s possible I might have been picturing Edward Scissorhands.) But the man who shows up with Jess looks mayoral enough, a dark-skinned Black man in a blazer and jeans.
Though his smile is tight and forced as he thrusts a bottle of wine in my direction.
As he steps into the foyer, he glances down at his watch and fiddles with it. It gives a soft beep, and I peer over to see that it’s begun counting down from two hours.
Catching my eye, Jess leans in to whisper, “He has a strict two-hour limit for social situations.”
Mayor Bradley maneuvers past us, hugging the wall as he sneaks into the living room like a spy.
“What happens when the two hours are up?” I ask.
Except I don’t get an answer, because Jess disappears into the kitchen to find Marina.
I’m left to stare in dismay at my two-hour time bomb.
He’s now tucked himself into the corner of the living room, pretending to study a KEEP CALM AND DRINK WINE sign as if it’s a treasured historical document.
The guests zero in on him immediately, plying him with complaints about permits and taxes, showering him with questions about how his community development project is going.
He stands there looking like a hostage, nodding and grimacing his way through the conversation.
It makes me wonder how this people-averse man was ever elected to office, though I suppose not many are up for the job of trying to keep a dying town going.
Greenstead probably takes what it can get.
By the time Marina comes out with a tray of goat cheese crostini, Mayor Bradley has at least become verbal.
With Jess standing at his side fielding questions on his behalf, Mayor Bradley takes a crostini and mutters into his watch that Pretzel in Paradise has become the cornerstone of Greenstead’s community.
Meg glows with pride, and I notice her comments about his tax policy are suddenly more neutral.
I take a breath when Ted and Lucy from Solar Summit arrive.
They look around the living room with interest, but not in the home-inspector way Marina feared.
Lucy hands Marina a box of chocolates and says her home is lovely, and Marina visibly relaxes, melting into a smile and thanking her sincerely.
The rest of the guests, however, are less civil.
“What makes you so interested in Greenstead?” asks Tim.
“We think it’s a wonderful location,” Ted says. “Lots of open space, great view of the Blue Ridge Mountains by the Echo Hill Overlook.”
“Yeah, until you put in a roller coaster factory, and then suddenly a roller coaster flood takes over the town,” shoots back Elise.
Her remark elicits titters from the other guests, loudest of all from Jaclyn. Sera is the only one who doesn’t laugh, perhaps because she’s from Falls Point. She just sneezes into the crook of her arm and excuses herself for a tissue.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Lucy whispers into her cup.
“What was that?” Elise takes a step closer. It’s hard to imagine Elise intimidating anyone. There’s nothing intimidating about her soft voice or her casual paisley dress. But she’s about a head taller than Lucy, and her height coupled with the intensity of her disapproval is enough to startle her.
“Nothing,” Lucy says, stepping back. “I just… We have no interest in stepping on any toes. We’d like to work with you.”
The others won’t hear of it. They grumble and shoot her distrustful looks until I change the subject by asking Walt about his history booth.
Walt’s response quickly turns into a monologue about interesting facts he’s gathered in his research.
The others start to shuffle impatiently, but boredom is better than a brawl.
I have to stifle my sigh of relief when Randy interrupts Walt to announce that dinner is ready to serve.
I lead the way, directing our guests to the dining room.
I’ve arranged the seating so that the Solar Summit folks sit at one end of the table, far from the Greenstead vendors, with Jess, Marina, and me serving as buffers between them.
Despite the fall-inspired centerpiece I’ve placed in the middle of Marina’s table—decorative mini-pumpkins and fake leaves—every guest who trickles into the dining room cranes their neck to gaze at Daveed Diggs on the ceiling.
“Reading is so important,” I say to Mayor Bradley, who’s still staring at the poster.
Mayor Bradley lowers his eyes to rest on me. “Right,” he agrees, looking bemused. Behind him, Jess covers their laugh with a cough.
The first surprise of the night comes when the doorbell rings partway through the soup course. I lift my head at the sound of it, meeting Marina’s eyes across the table.
“Are we expecting anyone else?” she asks. I shake my head, and she stands to answer the door. Moments later, a high-pitched voice tells me everything I need to know.
Nancy Fletcher has decided to crash our dinner party.
I should have known, of course. It’s exactly what she did to Wyatt and Deb’s one-on-one date on Love Quest .
While the other contestants kept a respectful distance from Wyatt and Deb enjoying a candlelit meal on the back patio of the Love Quest house, Nancy pulled up a chair next to them and squealed that she hadn’t gotten a chance to see Wyatt all day.
Nancy is an expert in making everything about her, even someone else’s date.
And, evidently, someone else’s dinner party.
“When I heard you were gathering influential figures, I figured my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail,” Nancy says, draping herself in the doorway to the dining room.
She must think she looks cool standing like this, her hip jutted out at one angle, one hand pressed against the doorframe.
But really, it just makes her look like she’s bracing for an earthquake.
“I thought you were avoiding ‘Queasy Lauryn’ until your hazmat suit arrives,” I say through clenched teeth. “Isn’t that what you’ve been saying on your show?”
“I believe everyone deserves a second chance,” Nancy says sweetly, and I want to pull a page out of her Love Quest repertoire and throw my drink in her face.
Marina, however, doesn’t let Nancy rattle her out of her polite host role. “Why don’t you take a seat right over there?” she suggests, pointing to the chair she’s been sitting in.