Chapter Nine
L iv barely managed to make it out the door and to town hall before her phone rang. “Hello?”
“So you were showing the fixer around town?”
Judith. Of course. Her meddling first cousin. And even though Liv desperately wanted to snap, Judith deserved to be answered. “I was doing my job. Don’t you have a wedding to plan?”
“My wedding is being planned,” Judith replied with a laugh. “But what about the jacket?”
Liv blinked. “What about the jacket?”
“You were wearing a jacket that was significantly larger…”
“It was cold, I didn’t bring one,” she said, annoyed that this conversation was even happening. She’d reluctantly returned the jacket to Artur the night before, and having made the mistake of almost kissing him.
Mistake.
Not to mention, she’d been in public wearing Artur’s Jacket on MONDAY. This was three days later. And not everybody was Jerry McManus. However, the whole McManus incident had exploited the bad side of being a single woman, who was also the mayor of the small town she grew up in. Everywhere she went, there were eyes.
Ugh.
But the worst part of it was the fact that her trustable, dependable cousin was asking these questions. Judith had been a lock box for secrets and advice for years. But since she drank the Kool-Aid about relationships and got deeper into Briarwood circles, her cousin had changed. “Is this middle school?”
“You’re the mayor,” Judith said. “He’s the fixer who been sent to clean up the very public mess made by the people who are employing him. Who apparently made waves in town the day before you took your very public walk.”
Now it was time for the reality check. “Have you decided to become a town gossip in your spare time?”
“No,” Judith replied, as nonchalantly as possible, except for the fact that something in her cousin’s tone told Liv she wasn’t done speaking. “I’m marrying him.”
Which made sense. Ash, her fiancé, was personable; everybody loved him, and he had chosen to spend his post-hockey-playing life in Briarwood, including basing his foundation and mentorship program in the town’s business improvement district. Of course, some of the town gossip had started to flow his way.
Just to be sure, she needed to know what her cousin’s future husband had been told. “So he put you up to this?”
“Not so much put me up,” Judith said, “but more specifically, asked me to ask you a few questions when I spoke to you.”
She shook her head. “Why didn’t he just call me?”
“Who knows,” Judith sighed. “But I think he didn’t want anything to be considered formal or directly coming from him until, you know, some kind of formal conversation.”
She blinked, but then again people were sometimes weird that way with her. Talking with her about town projects was either a conversation that was exciting or fearful, where people didn’t want to get signed up to help with something or couldn’t wait to tell her how they wanted to get involved.
It was a balancing act for sure. Which is why Ash was using Judith as a messenger or go-between. All the same she wanted to know what was going on. “What did he say?”
“He wanted to know three things.”
“Three?”
She was ridiculously proud of not making the Passover joke she wanted to.
“Four questions are now our little hockey playing niece Ramona’s responsibility now, because I could hear the hesitation.”
Liv snickered; the four questions were always the responsibility of the youngest person at the Passover seder and that had been the perfect joke. Which is why Judith didn’t let the opportunity slip to make it even if Liv had. But time was precious, and she knew that questions were coming even if she didn’t want them to. “Come on already; ask because I need to leave.”
“Fine,” Judith said, “Ash wanted to know what kind of guy he was and whether you wanted him involved in the situation on the immediate level or the Hanukkah event in general.”
Which was something she and Artur had spoken about, but Judith didn’t need to know that. “About the latter, I’ll let him know when I need him; about the former, he’s a good guy I think. But I take it someone approached him?”
“No,” Judith said. “You can come over and ask him yourself about the gossip at the Cupcake Stop tonight. Come for dinner.”
And that’s what Judith really wanted. And because it made sense, Liv said, “Sure.”
*
Artur was exhausted on meeting day. He’d blame his tiredness on the fact that he hadn’t wanted to leave Liv the night before. Not to mention, the main character in the hybrid dream/nightmare he was having was the jacket that sat on the couch. Usually he’d throw it on without a thought as he headed out.
But now?
He wanted to treat it like a pickle.
Sweet, beloved. Preserved just as it was.
Nope.
It was absolutely ridiculous to treat a warm, comfortable jacket he’d had for millennia like a cucumber.
Forcing himself to put on the jacket and NOT focus on how much like Liv it smelled, he took another visit to the library’s media center. He found an empty station and cued up the footage of special sessions taken from the local cable stations, notebook and coffee in hand. After he’d watched hours of footage, he had copious notes and a game plan.
Next, in search of lunch and conversation, he took Paul Levitan’s advice and called Briarwood Tales to see if Carol, the owner, was there.
Luckily, she was in the store, and over more coffee and a sandwich, she informed him that he had her support. “Just so you know,” she’d said, “this is a great place to strategize for things if you need the space. And, some of my best people know how to throw a really good Hanukkah party.”
Which was the reminder that he had to ask Batya for Sarah’s information. If he was going to go and fix a Hanukkah event, it behooved him to have the number of the person who made them a part of life in the Hudson Valley. And that was Batya’s friend Sarah.
Speaking of friends, he also needed to poke Leo about the drama surrounding McManus’s Pub…
“And the sculptor…”
Had he turned out for a second? Had she moved on to a conversation about something else? “Wait…what?”
“The guy who’s making this dreidl. Max Ellison.”
Right. Which made sense; granted he still wondered how Carol got the information when he hadn’t gotten it yet. But all he said was, “Okay?”
“Anyway,” Carol continued, as an entire dish of sour cream arrived. “My friend in Hollowville has an art gallery and she’s met this guy. Weird. Not like Sarah’s Isaac—who, by the way, is not only a brilliant metal Sculptor, he’s also working in wood these days.”
“Can I have her number? The gallery owner?” he asked, aware he needed to check all sources and information when he was prepping to fix trouble.
“Absolutely.”
Shortly thereafter, Carol left to take care of other business in the store. “Make yourself at home,” she’d said.
After browsing the comic section for a signed copy of one of the new Mr. Shadow origin books, he came back to the café area and called Molly Concannon, owner of the Hollowville art gallery.
“Yeah,” Molly said after he’d introduced himself, explained who’d sent him and what he was after, “if you had the number of someone who could possibly fix the sculpture, it would be a good thing.”
He blinked. “Why? What’s wrong with the sculptor or his art?”
“Max Ellison is a nice guy,” she confirmed. “Very talented. But the man wouldn’t know a good adhesive if it hit him in the face. A breath of air would knock it down.”
Another reason to get Sarah’s number from Batya; Hanukkah consultations and access to someone who might step in and fix the dreidl if there was an emergency…in one place.
And when he ended the call, he headed out to his car.
But there were still questions to ask and answer; on the way back to Rivertown, he called Emily Gould-Smythe. After he told her what he’d found and what he’d planned to do, she reassured him that the Empires were willing to follow his lead. “That’s why we hired you,” she said. “Whatever you say, whatever you organize, we will do.”
“Good to hear,” he said.
“Let us know how tonight goes; we can strategize from that point.”
“Will do,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot of Geirowitz’s kosher mart, the home of what was becoming his favorite babka. And the key to dinner at Abe’s.