Chapter 5 Sun’s out, buns out #2
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It’s a stupid law. I’m not enforcing it.”
“Thank you for your comment, Emilie. I’ll add ordinance fifty-seven, subsection L, to the list of ordinances to be repealed this year,” Darius said.
“But it’s the law now,” she insisted. “Laws should be enforced.”
A potato sailed through the air and hit Emilie in the shoulder. It exploded on contact and hit the floor with a dull thump. A low rumble of laughter spread through the crowd.
“I still don’t get the whole potato thing,” I whispered to Billie.
“Potatoing is an acceptable form of punishment reserved for citizens who have committed crimes against the town. Potatoes must be baked and no bigger than six inches long,” she instructed as she reached into her tote and pulled out an actual baked potato.
Billie winged it in Emilie’s direction and hit her squarely on the left butt cheek.
“See? It’s a safe and entertaining way to show your displeasure.
Also it’s a great way to use up extra potatoes before they go bad. ”
On another wave of boos, the defeated, mashed Emilie returned to her seat next to her husband, who looked as though he’d like to be removed from the situation via trapdoor.
“I almost kind of feel sorry for her,” I said, cringing in secondhand embarrassment. “Maybe she just made a mistake?”
“You don’t accidentally try to dismantle your own town just so you can rise to power,” Gage said dryly.
But there was something about Emilie’s “square peg in a round hole” situation that struck a chord with me.
I’d heard she was the mediocre middle sister in an extraordinary sibling sandwich and could empathize.
My older sister was the light of my parents’ life.
I was the punch line to the joke that started, “We should have stopped at one kid.”
Laura, Gage’s sister, raised her hand from the front row where she sat next to her parents. “I’d like to make a motion that only citizens who haven’t committed treason against the town are allowed to speak at town meetings.”
“Thank you for that motion, Laura,” Darius said. “I’ll add it to the list of motions for our town attorney to review.”
Beside me, Gage heaved an irritated sigh as the crowd murmured their agreement.
“You’re the town attorney, aren’t you?” I asked him.
“Yep.”
“You Bishops sure commit to the community involvement thing,” I noted.
“This town has given us a lot. It’s our turn to give back,” he said, sounding defensive.
“Relax, Mr. Rogers. It was a positive observation, not a criticism.”
Gage took a long breath, then blew it out, but he didn’t answer. His two fingers tapped out a beat on his thigh, telling me I’d once again managed to irritate him just by breathing in his vicinity. I chalked it up as another win for me.
“Moving on,” Darius continued from the front. “We have town publicist Zoey Moody making her first presentation. So put the potatoes down, folks.”
“Good luck,” Billie whispered as I crawled over her.
“Thanks. Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me.”
I made it to the aisle without breaking anyone’s toes and only tripping twice. I straightened my blazer and made sure my skirt wasn’t hiked up in the back.
“All set?” I whispered to funeral home director and audiovisual queen Lacresha on my way to the microphone. I’d emailed her my presentation before I left.
“Can’t wait to see what speech goes with those slides,” she said, giving me a toothy grin and a thumbs-up.
I’d basically been planning to read what was on the slides, which were pretty self-explanatory, so her comment made me nervous. But I turned to address the council anyway. “Uh, thank you, Mayor Oglethorpe. For those of you who don’t know me—”
“We all know who you are, Zoey. Skip to the good stuff,” the grizzled, tow-truck-driving Gator Johnson called from the second row. His elegant wife, Lang, elbowed him in the ribs and gave me an encouraging smile.
“Uh, right. Okay. So I’m here to discuss a town-wide education initiative—”
“I don’t like education! School’s for fools,” bellowed a man on a mobility scooter and wearing a shirt that read I farted. Just my luck, it was Grumpy George from the bookstore.
“You might not hate this since it could make it easier for you to get to all those Western novels you like so much, George. So I suggest you temporarily zip it and save your comments for the end. Otherwise, I’ll lose track every time you interrupt me and have to start over. We’ll be here all night,” I warned.
He harrumphed but shut his piehole.
I signaled Lacresha to cue up the presentation. “Now, as you can see here, Dominion attracts tourists who are mainly in their twenties and thirties. They’re often unmarried recreational drinkers looking for action-packed adventures.”
A general chuckle rose up, punctuated by a few wolf whistles.
I turned around to face the screen and immediately joined Emilie’s husband in wishing for a trapdoor.
This wasn’t my presentation. These were my beach vacation photos from three years ago.
I’d grabbed the wrong drive, and now everyone in town was staring at me in a hot-pink bikini, holding a margarita the size of an aquarium.
“Oh my God,” I squeaked.
“I stand corrected. Education ain’t so bad,” George shouted.
I frantically stabbed buttons on the remote, looking for a way to turn it off, but only succeeded in flipping through several more photos before a video of me showing off my sunburned butt cheeks in a thong appeared.
The whistles got louder, and my face cheeks burned brighter than the ones on-screen.
“For the love of God, Lacresha, turn it off!” I yelped.
The screen went blank, and the crowd applauded. “Whatever it is you’re selling, we’re in,” joked Quaid, our resident bodybuilder.
“For the record, that was not my presentation,” I said into the microphone.
“Well, you’ve certainly got everyone’s attention,” Darius said, eyes still averted. “Please continue.”
“Okay. All right. Let me just…organize my thoughts.” I closed my eyes for a beat and tried to think my way through the embarrassment. At least no one had thrown a potato at me. Why was I here? What were the ideas I’d crammed into the slide deck? Education. Right. I could do this.
“You got this, Zoey,” Billie called.
Scattered applause broke out, and I opened my eyes. “Look, the bottom line—ha—is Dominion sucks.”
The applause was louder, more organized now, and people were nodding. My eyes locked on Gage, who gave me a grudging nod.
“They think just because they have the market on tourism cornered that they can push Story Lake around. But they can’t. I’ve seen firsthand Story Lake pushing Dominion right back.”
“Yeah, right off the dock,” Laura crowed from the front row.
“Shit waffle!” someone shouted.
It was Hazel’s turn to go bright red. She was the one who had shoved Dominion’s mayor off the dock into the lake last summer and coined the term shit waffle. It had become Story Lake’s unofficial town insult.
“Exactly. Well, I want to talk to you about pushing back harder. There are a lot of people out there who want a lake vacation without the poor-quality food, expensive drinks, and unfriendly atmosphere of Dominion. With a little education and some help here and there, you can find a way to welcome everyone that Dominion excludes. Families with young kids, people over the age of thirty-five, retirees, book clubs,” I said, pointing at Hazel.
She grinned. “My brilliant best friend who writes novels you all should be reading was on the right track with Summer Fest. Story Lake isn’t some diesel-fueled, Jet Ski–propelled spring break rager.
You’re better than that, and it’s time tourists took notice. ”
The applause gave me the confidence of a late-night talk show host with a captive audience.
“So let’s talk about how you do that,” I continued.
“I’m proposing Story Lake schedules a series of educational…
” I glanced at George, who looked like he was about to complain again.
“Er, parties,” I continued. “There will be food and drinks and official speakers who can help you implement town-wide initiatives like autism-friendly protocols, sign language lessons, accessibility plans to make your retail and restaurant spaces safer and more convenient for people with mobility issues. You’ve already done a lot of work to provide access.
Now you just need to turn that access into welcome.
Everyone who gets excluded in Dominion will be welcome here. ”
“Who’s gonna do this educating?” someone asked.
“And how are we going to get people to show up?” another townsperson asked.
“I’ve got some ideas about both of those things. Starting with putting up billboards of my vacation photos. I’m absolutely just kidding.”
“You were awesome,” Billie said, hugging me around the neck as I returned to my seat. “Is this what you’ve been working on downstairs in the bar every night?”
“That and my alcohol tolerance,” I joked.
My heart was thumping like I’d just run a 5k uphill, and I had a waterfall of sweat sluicing down my back, but I’d done it.
I’d recovered from catastrophe, winged my presentation, and gotten a unanimous yes from the council to proceed with my plans.
As a bonus, hardly anyone had fallen asleep, I hadn’t gotten pelted with cooked vegetables, and George had no complaints after I’d finished presenting.
To be fair, he’d been one of the sleepers. But I still counted it as a win.
“By the way, your butt looked amazing in that video. I’m saying that as a friend, not just as a member of the LGBTQ community,” Billie said, offering me an open bag of marshmallows.
“Thanks.” I spared a glance in Gage’s direction. “What did you think?”
“I think you didn’t blow it,” he said, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “You were smart and entertaining. You didn’t just get the buy-in. You got everyone excited about it.”
“I meant about my butt.”
For a brief, shining second, he grinned, still not looking at me. “That was pretty impressive too, Disaster.”
I’d had worse nicknames.
I was flirting. It was a bad idea for a variety of reasons, but I was riding high, and he’d grudgingly called me smart. Which meant I’d really earned it. It felt good. I felt good.
I was just about to jam a marshmallow into my mouth before I could say anything too risqué when I saw Laura leave her spot in the front row. Her face was ashen as she wheeled herself out of the room. Frank and Pep Bishop watched her go with twin looks of concern. “Is your sister okay?”
“Why?” Gage asked with a frown.
“She just left in a hurry. Your parents look worried.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. The screen was already lit with some kind of alert that I couldn’t quite read without climbing into his lap.
Gage lifted his gaze to me. His green eyes locked on my face, though I could tell his thoughts were already far away.
“I gotta go.” He rose and worked his way to the aisle.
A moment later, his parents followed. Cam scowled from his seat on the dais and showed his phone to Hazel, who looked like she was going to be sick.
I twisted in my seat and noticed Levi was gone from his spot at the back of the room.
No one else appeared to be paying attention to the fact that nearly every single Bishop had vacated the room. But I felt consumed with an inexplicable tension. Cam was getting antsier by the second, and Hazel was rubbing his leg under the table.
I suffered through another ten minutes of “town business” before Dr. Ace called to adjourn the meeting.
“Second,” Cam said, springing to his feet. He gave Hazel a possessive squeeze, then bolted for the door just as the motion passed.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I finally threaded my way through the crowd to Hazel.
She shook her head again and grabbed my arm. “Not here.”
We ducked out into the lobby, and since half the town was exiting the building at the same time, Hazel pulled me through a door marked Private. It turned out to be a small staff kitchen with death-related magnets decorating the refrigerator.
She closed the door and leaned against it.
“What? Is one of the kids sick?” Laura had three teenagers who were the center of her world.
Hazel scraped her hands over her face. “No. They’re fine. The driver who hit Laura and her husband, Miller, was finally charged.”