CHAPTER 1
Harper
“More?” Lily gasps. “You did more than last year?”
“I did. We had painted signs around town, DJ passed out fliers and stood on the corner in a cupid costume. And I added a second Photo Booth area and multiple new items on the Valentine’s Menu. It helped, but still didn’t get me in the black.”
She exhales a long breath, then bounces back.
“Why don’t you reach out to the billionaires again?” My sister asks shamelessly.
I wince, “Can you not call them that? This is Janie we’re talking about.”
“Exactly, your childhood best friend. She’s seen your record books.
Tell her you need help,” Lily explains, as if it’s that simple.
My older sister is a force to be reckoned with.
She’d probably have The Roasted Chestnut franchised and making Panera nervous by now, if she was in charge. If she hadn’t left. Just like ev…
Nope! You’re blooming, here, Harper!
“She already helped,” I try.
“She adjusted your profit margins from failing to almost failing, sis. You need more help than that.” Then why don’t you come give it to me?! She asks, “Did all of their PR stunts for their big fake marriage help the town?”
I gulp, “Not really. We didn’t realize we were on death’s doorjamb before the holidays, and they gave us a bump to just stay afloat through the holidays.”
“Door step. And Yikes.” Lily grimaces, I think, on the other end. She gets it, having lived here her whole childhood, just like me. The holidays are all Juniper Falls has. The rest of the year we’re basically a ghost city.
“Yeah, well, thanks for listening!” I wrap up the call with false cheer.
I have to exit my car and enter the building in front of me at some point.
I normally enjoy a town council meeting but this one is an emergency session.
I foolishly hoped that a call to my super smart sister might hold some miracle cure for us, for the town.
But she’s just been away too long now. I think she’s crossed over from townie to city folk.
I’m not sure if I’m sad, happy or jealous about that.
Knock!
Blue-ish hair, bright eyes and a deeply frowning, disturbingly pale forehead appear beside my window. Aunt Bobbie.
“You comin’ in or you gonna lollygag out here till the meeting is over?” she grouses. She’s as lovely as ever tonight.
I smile in response and tell my sister, “Been caught by the aunts, gotta go inside now.”
“Okay, hang in there! You guys will figure something out!” She says as I mumble a goodbye and quickly stow my phone. Aunt Bobbie, and her almost-equally-grumpy best friend Aunt Kim, behind her, will just stand and keep knocking if I don’t hurry up.
I smile and nod and listen to them complain about the weather as we cross the few steps from the abandoned lot we use for parking to the abandoned church we use as our town hall.
The meeting is already underway in the dusty building. The pews are filled with maybe a hundred of the true townies, everyone who’s lived here the longest. People do move here, inspired over the holidays, or trying to get close to Cedar Point schools at a lower price, but they don’t stay here.
I slip into my usual spot at the edge of one of the first few rows. All the local business owners, which includes me now, fill the front seats. And do most of the talking.
“Why didn’t anyone say it was this bad?” Shelly, the normally bubbly owner of Shelly’s Drug & Dime, asks tentatively from the second row. Her sad expression doesn’t match her yellow-blonde hair, bright patterned jogger set, and heavy, also colorful eye shadow.
“I did, honey! I said it was bad!” Steven replies, not at all calm. “The realtors always know what’s up!”
“Tell them, Dad, we’re cooked,” Braxton says to Assistant Mayor Chappell at the podium.
Gary—who probably just reminded the room that he is actually our duly-elected mayor (just forced to play second violin to a mythical local reindeer, of course)—nods at his son once.
The two could almost be twins, tall, brown-haired burly guys, only now one’s balding and no longer playing sports. “Brax is right, unfortunately.”
“What does that mean?” I whisper. I’m not the only one.
“Cooked! It means we’re screwed! Done-for, stick a fork in—” Steven starts, but Miles, his longtime boyfriend, and pillar of sanity around here, holds up a hand to stop the dramatics.
“He means outta money, I believe,” Tyrone murmurs next to me in his deep, Jamaican accent.
“No,” I try to square my shoulders and say to him, “We all know what cooked means. I meant what does that mean for the town?”
“Heyo, Gary!” Tyrone pipes up over everyone and asks for me, “Whadathat mean, bankrupt, exactly?”
“Mr. Mayor, please,” Gary corrects Tyrone and adjusts his tie before going on, “Well, we can’t keep the lights on.
Literally,” he pales and his brow begins to glisten from nerves.
“We can’t keep up the fire station, maintaining the parks, the roads, not even…
” he braces for a reaction, “garbage collection.”
The reaction arrives, voices on top of each other, some hysterical.
“Collection...you mean no garbage trucks!”
“My trash?”
“Where will we take it, then? Do we burn it?”
“That’ll smell somethin’ fierce.”
“But there’s that pothole outside my house, you promised it would get fixed!”
“Forget the road, if we don’t have the parks for fall and Christmas, no one will visit.”
“Visit?! Did you miss the part about the garbage!” Steven is up pacing now, “Trash! Just trash bins overflowing in the street? How can I sell that big property up the hill with trash blowing down the road like those…what are they called?”
“Tumblewoods,” I mumble.
“Tumbleweeds,” someone says loudly.
“Wait now,” Mr. Newman stands up with the use of his cane a few pews behind me. He and his wife look like very thin versions of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Everyone bugs him to play Santa each year but he always refuses. He says deliberately, “The fire stations oversee the salt trucks.”
His voice is soft, but his point hits like a sledgehammer.
The room goes silent. Without salt on the roads here, people die.
We haven’t had any elderly stranded at home in decades, or a fall that resulted in death, but nearby towns have had that and more.
And our town sees multiple car accidents every winter, even with our plows and salt trucks.
Gary clears his throat, “Snow removal and management will be our number one priority until the spring, but one last big storm could completely deplete our funds.”
As everyone gulps, sighs, or whispers expletives under their breath, Miles stands. The murmurs grow tenfold.
“Miles? What…what are you doing?” Steven almost whispers, surely the lowest volume his voice reaches, in shock.
Miles never participates in these meeting shenanigans.
Never even asks questions or weighs in. He works in real estate to make money, but at heart he’s a musician and a poet.
A true artist. He looks it too, tall, thin, dark and disheveled.
He usually just quietly observes all of us.
The only thing more shocking would be if I was the one standing and talking. So, understandably, we stare and wait.
He holds up a piece of paper and says, “I may have a solution,”
“What! Are you secretly wealthy? Did you get an inheritance? Oh, please, be secretly filthy rich!” Steven squeals, but Miles gives him a pleading look. The expression says please let me actually finish my thought and I bet he shoots that glare ten times a day, at least.
“As the realtor for most of the listed commercial properties, I was just notified of a substantial offer we’ve received.”
“Offer? For which property?” Steven asks. The crowd gets a little rowdy again, wondering aloud about the possibilities.
There are quite a few forgotten parts of town up for sale. Some are owned privately but most have long since been left behind, of course. When the owners defaulted, the town took ownership of the properties. Pretty sure I just parked my car in one of them.
“Miles? Miles!” Gary says loudly, calming the room. “Which property?”
“Um, all of them.”
WHAT!
“What!”
The room is no longer calmed. People are shouting questions, a small group is cheering, Gary can’t regain control. Steven may have actually fainted this time.
“Well, I was ready to retire anyway,” Tyrone says.
“Retire?” I turn and frown at him.
His huge brown eyes soften, “Honey, if they gonna buy the whole town, they gonna tear it down.”
No, surely not.
I may not love every second here, stuck sweating behind the counter of the store, or schlepping decorations around from October to January, but it’s home. My home. Where I’ve put down my roots. Where I’m determined to blossom into…someone.
Who could just come in and wipe it out?
“Everybody! Shut up!” Steven finally calls. Then he raises his brows at Miles and gestures for him to go on.
“I, I haven’t had time to sort through all the paperwork but it says the buyer has a vested interest in the town and it’s…it’s millions of dollars. We’d be saved.”
The room erupts again. Tyrone, and many others, are convinced this means the worst, the town will be razed and turned into a resort. A large overjoyed group at the back, not composed of business owners, thinks this may be our ticket to finally get an AmeriMart in town.
A small group is hopeful that vested interest means someone who lives here, someone who cares. With money. Which really leaves one person.
Benedict Clark.
But…Janie would have told me if her billionaire husband was going to buy our whole town.
But maybe a friend of his? Maybe one of the Cantons, Benedict’s family-in-law who own Canton Cards, the big gift store chain…
Yes, that’s got to be it.
Some Sweetheart friend of theirs has decided to take their extra investment money, or maybe even their charitable giving budget, and send it our way.
“They want to close next week,” Gary says, reading over Miles’ shoulder.
The room continues to spin around me, everyone arguing and talking over each other.
Except for me and Miles, who’s trying to read the documents.
I’m just smiling to myself. A huge weight was just lifted off my chest. I don’t have to save The Roasted Chestnut for Dad after all.
Some knight in shimmering armor is coming to do that for me.
Our meeting adjourns soon after Miles’ big news, and I drive myself back across town. I try to fight the dread that builds with each turn. This is home. This is your happy place, Harp!
I remind myself of that as I reach our street.
A few more lights are on, I notice. I bristle at first, because more lights means a new group of people, strangers passing through.
But I’m happy for Mr. Newman. He must have snagged another spring break rental.
It’s early yet but there are always a few rich college kids eager to jump into their break a little early.
I hope they don’t completely ruin the house…
and or yard…and or the whole street during their short stay. Right next to my…house.
Happy place. Happy place.
I feel a bit ashamed that I have to repeat the mantra in my mind. But the house isn’t the same, and the person inside isn’t who he used to be. But he’s still my dad. And home is in those walls, somewhere. These days it’s just getting harder and harder to find.
But I can do it.
And everything will get easier when I’m not drowning in past due bills.
I nod to myself as I pull into the garage.
I kill the engine, grateful for another day where the car is still functioning. I gather my stuff and trudge to the backdoor. I take a cleansing breath and grin, ready to be a positive light. I open the door and say, “Hey I’m—”
Squish
I step directly into…is that? Yup. That’s poo. Inside the house.
Whoever my white knight is, they cannot come soon enough.