Chapter 2 #2
As the din grew louder, Harper somehow managed to continue on with her presentation covering how she’d moved to Mudville and wrote her first small town romance fiction—with emphasis on the word fiction—that soon became a fan favorite.
“Um, excuse me! I’d like to ask who gave you permission to write about us? That’s illegal. I can sue,” Douglas Pompinou, real estate agent and one of Harper’s least favorite people, interrupted loudly.
Liam rubbed his palms together. “Here we go.”
He had no idea how right he was.
The rude man was Pompous Doug, as Harper had privately dubbed the recent transplant who’d swooped into town, joined the planning board and thought he’d force change even of things that didn’t need changing.
The real-life opinionated blow hard, who acted like he was always the smartest person in the room, was the inspiration for the very character Harper had killed off so creatively in her book Cry Me a Muddy River, an top ten bestseller for two weeks straight.
In the story one farmer’s pigs had gotten down to the riverbank and ate the unfortunately unconscious real estate agent and planning board member Dougal Payne, who’d slipped on a wet rock while fishing. Payne, as in pain in the neck and other areas, Harper had explained to Natalie laughingly.
There was no way Doug could have missed the similarities to Dougal in the book. And he wasn’t the type of guy to let a slight like that pass unaddressed.
Natalie glanced sideways at Liam, who was still inappropriately excited about the situation. “Hey, this thing turns into a brawl, you’re going to have to break it up.”
“Brawl? This guy is at least seventy-five with obvious COPD. He’s not going after Harper physically. Though Harper’s fiancé might go after him.” Liam glanced around. “Where is Stone anyway?”
“Budget meeting at the firehouse,” Gabe answered, having swooped over to sit in Harper’s vacant chair and join the conversation.
“Were you at the lab right before this trying to scare me?” Natalie turned to accuse him without even passing along Gabe’s answer about Stone’s absence to Liam.
“No. I was here for the past half hour. I walked over when Harper and Agnes did.”
“Liar. I didn’t see you,” Natalie accused.
“Hi, Gabe,” Liam said flatly from Natalie’s other side.
It wasn’t hard for Liam to figure out Gabe had arrived since Natalie was talking to an empty chair. She did seem to be making Margaret Trout uncomfortable though as the woman elbowed her husband in the side and they both moved their folding chairs over a good foot.
Ignoring the Trouts’ behavior, Gabe scowled at Natalie. “Fine. I was here in the kitchen sniffing the old, buttered popcorn someone had thrown in the garbage after last night’s movie screening. Okay? Happy? Yes, I sniff trash now. If I can’t eat buttered popcorn, I’m going to at least smell it.”
Natalie somehow controlled her smile. “Okay. Sorry.”
“Why did you think I was in the lab trying to scare you?” Gabe asked, looking curious in addition to angry.
“Tell you later.” Things were heating up and she wanted to hear.
Apparently as Harper tried to explain that her books were complete fiction and she only took very broad-sweeping general inspiration from Mudville and its residents, the attendees weren’t having it. And they were responding vocally.
“It’s supposed to be a parody,” Harper explained.
“A parody!”
“Oh, so we’re just a joke to you, are we?”
Liam leaned in. “Told you. This is definitely popcorn-worthy.”
“I wish he’d stop talking about popcorn. Some of us can’t eat, you know.” Gabe scowled.
Ignoring Gabe’s comment Natalie turned to Liam and saw how delighted he looked at how the proceedings had devolved.
“Schadenfreude,” she said in his direction with a scowl.
“Schadenfreude?” he repeated.
“Schadenfreude,” she said again with a definitive nod.
“Are you having a bout of some sort of German-language Tourette syndrome?” he asked.
“No. It means taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune,” she explained.
“I know what it means. I just never expected the word to come spontaneously shooting out of my girlfriend’s mouth.”
“It’s not spontaneous. It’s you. Here. Now. Taking pleasure in Harper’s misfortune,” she said softly but with fervor.
“Oh, come on. Tell me your bestie Gabe over there isn’t enjoying this display of Mudville insanity at its finest.”
Turning to look, she saw it looked as though Gabe was indeed deeply enjoying the melee too.
What was wrong with these men? She was surrounded by male idiocy.
When she didn’t answer him, Liam followed up with, “I’ll take your silence as confirmation that Gabe too finds this display ridiculous? Ha! I knew it. Come on, Nat. Just admit it. This is entertaining.”
“For once I completely agree with the big guy. Tell him that for me,” Gabe said.
“No,” Natalie answered Gabe, refusing to be his living interpreter. “And where is Millie anyway? Why are you here alone?”
If Millie were here, she and Gabe combined had the power to be heard by all livings, freeing Natalie from having to act as go between.
“New episode of Real Housewives,” Gabe said, without taking his eyes off Harper and her renewed verbal sparring battle with Pompous Doug.
“Why is Millie not here?” Liam asked, as always looking annoyed when he could only hear Natalie’s half of the conversation.
“New Real Housewives is on,” she answered.
Liam’s brow furrowed. “Jeezus. That girl lived a happy afterlife for a hundred and five years without the benefit of train-wreck television. One year of being exposed to you, Gabe and Harper and now she’s a television-obsessed couch potato.”
“Hey! Watch what you’re saying over there, buddy,” an insulted Gabe leaned forward to say over Natalie, even though Liam couldn’t hear or see him.
“Stop. Both of you.” These men! It was like refereeing children. And Natalie wasn’t even getting paid to babysit them.
Another intense, “Shhh!” from Alice helped to silence the boys in men’s bodies and finally the two quieted. Only then could Natalie concentrate on following the conversation…if it could be called that. It had become less presentation and more free-for-all as the minutes ticked by.
“None of the characters are actually any of you,” Harper tried to say over the noise.
“The sexy neighbor is obviously me. Though I never flirted with the UPS driver like you wrote.”
“No, it was the delivery guy instead!” someone shouted from the back.
“That’s not as bad as what she said about me. She wrote I made everyone sick at the church dinner with my cooking.”
“That wasn’t about you. I needed a scene in the book for comic relief.”
"You were horribly critical about some of the library's policies.”
“That was just a plot device to build tension—”
“She called our town bar a dive!”
“As I’ve explained, it’s fiction!” Harper tried again and again to defend herself but the comments came faster from even the quieter among them.
"It's not fiction when your fans come to town and locate us and our businesses based on your books."
Harper’s head whipped up at that comment and she got a determined expression on her face.
“Yes, let’s talk about that. When my books bring visitors to this village, Laney’s bar gets more business.
Morgan Farm Market gets more business. Red’s Resale gets more business.
Ruby’s Salon gets more business. So what are you all complaining about? You should be thanking me!”
“Ooo. Harper’s mad.” Gabe chuckled at the same time as Liam.
Meanwhile, the Rotary president had picked up the gavel. She banged the table, shouting, “Order! Order!”
When the room finally, mostly quieted, she said, “I’d like to keep on schedule. Thank you, Harper, for uh joining us tonight and sharing your… uh, thank you.”
Red-faced from the confrontation, Harper nodded and mumbled, “Thanks for having me.”
“Well that delivered even more than expected,” Liam said.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Natalie began as she watched the President visually sweep the room and look relieved when her gaze landed on Liam.
“Now for our second speaker…”
As the President began the introduction, Natalie turned to smile at Liam, “Because you’re up next.”
His eyes widened in what could only be described as an oh, shit expression that had Gabe laughing so hard he doubled over, which luckily Liam neither heard nor saw.
Harper stood at the end of the row, waiting for Liam to get up. When he finally stood, Harper said, “Have fun.”
Looking grumpy once again, Liam said low and with a definite undercurrent of sarcasm and misery, “Yeah, thanks.”
The status quo had been restored.