Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
HARMONY
Harmony marched into the Brookville town council chambers and surveyed the scene.
Seven high-backed leather seats ranged before a large mural of the local farmland and countryside at the front of the assembly room, raised above a few wooden tables with office placards for regular non-council meeting attendants: secretary, sheriff’s deputy, school board rep, associated student body president from the town’s one high school. These all faced the rows of stackable padded chairs already filling with Brookville residents.
She noted the main contingents present in the overwhelmingly white crowd. Business owners. Chatty retirees. The helicopter parents with already-bored-looking kids and teens beside them, most of them doing homework in their laps or on phones. Granola parents with babies in wraps, amber necklaces, and fancy water bottles. Here for the agenda item about pesticide use at the local parks, no doubt. These were her vanguard, to be called up in service to her plan first.
Making her way toward the back, Harmony’s attention snagged on someone in a rich brown corduroy sports coat, long legs escaping into the aisle next to where he sat. “Nerd alert,” she sang under her breath. She couldn’t believe her luck. Well, she could, because she prided herself on cultivating a charmed existence. Still, she was delighted she’d caught him here. Two birds, one Harmony.
“Just who I needed to talk to!” she exclaimed. She was wearing a coral flared blazer over a black jumpsuit with a thin patent-leather belt and her highest aqua heels. So when she leaned in nearer, clutching the leather folio case she carried tightly with both arms, even with the man’s height her plunging surplice neckline was right at his eye level.
At her words, Preston Jones stopped shuffling the stack of notecards propped against one bouncing knee and looked directly into her cleavage.
Let’s see him ignore me now.
She kept an innocent look plastered on her face as his mouth fell open a gratifying amount—probably not gay—before he lurched back, almost into the lap of his neighbor. He looked up at her, and, behind the fluorescent gleams cutting across his glasses, she swore he rolled his eyes. Through a clenched jaw, he told her, “If you want to yell at me, you’ll have to wait until your scheduled turn.”
Huh. She was getting distinct weirdo vibes off of this guy. He looked stressed. His thick hair was parted with wicked precision but tousled as if he’d just run one of his fidgety hands through it. She stayed near, pitching her voice low. “But I really just need to inform you—”
“Yes, yes,” he hissed back. “I peddle pornography, I’m the devil, books are more dangerous than gun violence or climate change, please won’t someone think of the children?” He snatched up his notecards and squeezed past the next few seats, toward the middle of the chambers.
Yikes. So he was deeply chaotic. Almost as outrageous as she could be. She straightened and made for a seat in the center back. She really might need to reassess her charm-and-disarm strategy. But now it was time to put the rest of Brookville under her spell.
The town council, some of whom had been chatting with constituents or the people at the front tables, filed into their seats behind a large shared desk. They unbuttoned suit jackets or adjusted the little mics set before each of them. Mayor Weaver, taking his place in the center chair, called the meeting to order.
Harmony had kept tabs on him online, but it was the first time she’d seen the man in person for—damn, well over a decade. His hair was still light brown—dyed, clearly—but his hairline was drawing higher, especially on the sides, like holiday bunting festooned above his tanned, punchable face. He had that well-moisturized, easy look of someone absolutely comfortable in his skin and in the world.
God, she was going to enjoy crushing him.
She took a seat and texted Alice, already planted on the far side of the audience. Everything set?
Yup. Accessed display controls. That would allow them to take charge of this meeting—literally, altering the agenda projected on a flatscreen mounted to one side above the mural—whenever Harmony found the most promising moment to jump in with her festival pitch. Something’s hinky with the sound system, don’t know that I can lower mic volume if they try to cut you off.
There were always a few bumps on the road to glory. Then I’ll just have to be louder than them.
Alice replied with three megaphone emojis. Harmony smirked and sat patiently through the council’s opening procedures and discussions of old business, addressing items down that displayed agenda. To pass time during a discussion of the local fraternal brotherhood’s donation to the senior center, she squinted hard at the back of Preston’s head, easily visible above the people behind him, wondering if she could psychically implant the impulse to not say strange things and then run away the next time she tried talking to him. Be nice to Harmony and agree to give her everything she wants. She sat up a little straighter when Cheryl Weaver stood to address the council, including her husband and his smug little smile.
Cheryl minced up to the podium in her black suede booties and smoothed down her Ann Taylor belted tunic before speaking, pink lipsticked mouth pursed. She was entirely what Harmony had expected from her Facebook and Instagram and occasional appearances in regional media—a woman pleased with herself and with holding the audience’s attention hostage to her self-satisfaction. “As you know,” she said, turning her blonde head to address one side of the chambers and then the other slowly, “the Brookville Ladies’ Association has been working to bring enriching, enlivening experiences to the children of our town for many years, and we’re proud to announce our sponsorship of Brookville’s fifth annual Earth Day celebration. This event will allow Brookville youth to participate in crafts, learn about the environment, and enjoy outdoor fun.”
She paused, inviting a smattering of polite applause. Harmony noted the group of well-dressed women who clapped the loudest. Power players in the town hierarchy. She’d need to spend some up-close-and-personal time soon with the Real Housewives of Brookville.
Like a bad beauty pageant contestant, Cheryl gestured to a portion of the mural along the back wall, where the town motto flowed across a golden ribbon twining between olive tree branches. “Thanks to the association, our children can enjoy all that’s brotherly and beautiful in Brookville.”
The mayor’s wife continued her stilted recitation patting herself on the back, but another noise began rising through the chambers. Barely perceptible at first, a song played through the speakers mounted on the walls, gradually overtaking Cheryl’s projected voice. Harmony glanced over at Alice—had she somehow messed up with the sound system?—but she was looking around just as confused, brows drawn together sharply; this wasn’t them. Kids giggled as the lyrics of Nicholas Fraser’s “Why You Always Lying?” blasted. Parents gave up hushing them as the music grew in volume. Cheryl, eyes and nostrils flaring, tried to carry on with her speech until she was practically shouting and finally threw up her hands, waving her bright pink nails in the air and letting out a little huff.
The music blared louder. Preston’s head ducked between hunched shoulders as he crashed a palm to one ear. Travis banged his gavel, adding to the cacophony. “What is that? Where is that coming from?”
Harmony, bemused, could only sit back and drink in the chaos as a text popped up from Alice: I KNEW someone else was in the system!!!! Apparently, they were not the only ones with nefarious designs on this meeting. Respect where it was due. The music had completely disrupted things—sending the sheriff’s deputy jolting up from his seat and looking around bewildered, half the audience shouting pointlessly, and most of the teens sitting to one side near their ASB prez laughing. Harmony was enjoying the increasingly dark shades of red Travis’s face was turning. She bopped her head in time with the song.
Then, from the fringe of the group of teens, a dark-haired Latina girl in a black tee and jeans shot up from her seat. She punched a button on a remote, and the music cut off.
Travis’s frown carved deeper. “Jordan DaCosta, what the hell—excuse me—what do you think you’re doing? This is not the place for your juvenile delinquent behavior! This isn’t funny.”
The girl opened and closed her mouth, arms crossing and then falling to her sides stiffly. At last she blurted, “No, this is a protest . The women’s association is participating in the destruction of the environment with their hypocritical event.”
“Excuse me,” Cheryl said, breath puffing harshly off the mic she adjusted nearer. “We are fostering a love of the outdoors and personal responsibility. Teaching how to reduce your carbon footstep.”
“Foot print .”
Cheryl ignored her. “And if you don’t think that’s a worthwhile and nice thing for our kids, maybe you’re the problem.”
The deputy marched up to Jordan and confiscated her remote, but she came back at Cheryl. “Running bounce houses off gas generators and handing out coloring sheets sponsored by a multinational oil corporation is not helping the environment or the kids of Brookville.” A cloud of anger and discomfort shadowed the teen’s face. “It’s going to take more than a few of us choosing paper straws and reusable bags to save the planet. My generation needs real action now if we want anything beautiful left for when we’re adults. Everyone knows you’re gonna cut down a bunch of our trees to build houses. Since climate change disproportionately affects minorities, it’s like no one cares —”
Cheryl’s fingers clawed against the side of the podium. “Are you calling me racist ? We’re just trying to create a nice day for the children .” She circled one hand in front of herself, with an air of being unfairly put upon yet generously obliging. “We’ll do a carbon offset.”
“You own half the town, why don’t you actually protect the local environment instead of just talking out of your—”
Travis roared into his mic. “That’s enough!”
Harmony fought back a grin. That Jordan had given her quite a present, letting her see the Weavers so upset before she’d even begun her own campaign. The kid reminded Harmony of herself when she was a teen, after her father died. Clearly a natural at brewing up trouble, but angry and lacking the skills to effectively direct it so it didn’t rebound on herself. And none of her classmates were standing with Jordan; only the ASB president shot her a small pained smile, while the others tilted their blonde heads together to giggle and whisper or leaned away like they couldn’t even see Jordan.
Harmony knew the type. When she’d stolen an address to send herself to a top public arts high school across the city, those rich kids had ignored her an entire semester. But all Harmony had wanted then was to escape being the girl at her old school whose dad had died. She hadn’t yet taken on their costume, learned how to wear the right labels—their passwords were tragically easy to guess, their bank accounts too flush to notice light skimming—and drop the right names of vacation spots and semi-famous friends. It really was a good education she’d gotten there—nothing like already being rich to get people to give you things for free, to let you charge things to random rooms in hotels, to let every eccentricity from a chaotic upbringing and outsize personality slide.
But Harmony had been doing this a long time now, so she was also reading the heightened energy in the room, like static dancing through the air just waiting to be harnessed. She’d planned to take control of the meeting later, when people were worn out and more malleable, but when opportunity presented itself, you had to be ready to swoop in.
And Jordan clearly needed some help. Travis was studying the confiscated remote and saying something about cybercrime, and when one of the council members laughed like she thought he was joking, he actually called the deputy to arrest Jordan so they could move on to discussing the library.
Cheryl plopped back into her seat, nodding to the friend at her side wrapping one well-toned and braceleted arm around her in support. “That’s the kind of kid who goes to those new library programs. Wasn’t I saying that?”
Harmony caught sight of Preston’s shoulders tensing before she texted Alice: Now. She couldn’t let all these volatile feelings stay focused on Jordan or fall next on the library of all things. Not when she could use them, nudged toward the right target—Travis’s new business—to make her festival proposal even more attractive. As she leaned down to where she’d tucked her purse at her feet, she muttered, just loud enough for the people sitting near her to hear, “That’s rich, coming from the owners of a cybersex arcade.” Slipping a pair of thin black frames from her bag, she straightened, blinked innocently at her neighbor, and listened as if rapt.
But her work on social media must have paid off because a woman sitting in front of her with a baby in her lap called out, “Why are we discussing the library when the mayor’s opened a cybersex shop in our town?”
Travis turned positively crimson, peering into the crowd. “My business is not —” He looked from the rest of the crowd to Jordan and back, like a particularly foolish tennis fan. “First, we have to deal with her—”
“It was just a prank,” his colleague beside him said. “Let’s get back to the agenda so we’re not here till midnight.”
Jordan scowled. “It wasn’t, I told you, I’m protesting—”
The councilor who’d laughed about the mention of cybercrime shrugged. “Free speech. I think removal from the meeting should suffice for speaking out of turn.”
One nudge more should do it. Harmony pitched her voice just beyond the general murmur of the audience reacting to the drama unfolding. “More than enough. Get on with business.” Soon there was a swell of agreement urging the council to move on.
Travis let out a sigh. “Give someone an inch and they’ll take the shirt off your back.” But he gestured at the deputy. “Escort her out. We’ll be calling your mother, young lady.”
Jordan asked sullenly, “Can I have my remote back?”
Harmony savored the way Travis looked like he nearly choked before declaring, “No, you may not have your remote back!”
Jordan raised her chin defiantly as she left with the deputy in her wake, to some admonishing looks—Cheryl was shooting her daggers—but also laughter from the teens and some adults too.
Travis banged his gavel again, for absolutely no reason, and said, “Now, we’re meant to hear from Mrs. Weaver about the library next—”
Several people in the audience murmured in protest and pointed up at the digitally displayed agenda, which—thanks to Alice—now showed an open comment period after the Ladies’ Association announcement. Travis frowned down at his desk, shuffling through papers, while the woman in front of Harmony declared, “Looks like we have plenty of time to get back to this arcade where people plug themselves into computers all day doing god knows what.”
Another parent joined in, echoing one of Harmony’s social media posts. “Yeah, I heard kids have been hooked in for hours after school!” Hooked was good—it would make parents think of drugs.
Harmony perched her frames on the bridge of her nose. Anticipation crackled under her skin. She loved this part. She’d always done theater at the schools she’d moved around to and for a little while afterward in L.A., but grifting was even more of an immediate performance. Visceral. Electric.
The orchestra was warming up, the curtain rising—if the work she’d done the last few days had truly taken root, and her own disruption of this meeting didn’t fizzle out.
One of the crunchy-granola parents cast a disgusted look at their neighbor. “I’d never let my children have that much screentime.”
“Letting perverts raise your kids,” another said with a sage nod. “Picking up ten kinds of gender.”
Yeesh, this was getting out of hand. One thing you could always trust was that people could always be uglier than you expected.
The first parent leaned over, a hard look in her eyes. “We all know your kid is probably in some anti-feminist chat room right now, Patricia.”
People assumed all Californians were open-minded hippies, but there were plenty of haters here, especially in its smaller towns. Could make for some powerful fireworks between them, but Harmony needed all that aimed in the direction she chose right now.
Fortunately, an Asian woman in a pantsuit with a teen sitting next to her turned to the council and demanded, “What’s going to happen this summer? We don’t have enough city rec programs; kids are going to end up doing nothing but video games.”
“Sucking money out of my bank account,” added another parent closer to Harmony. He leaned toward the people next to him. “Did you hear about that kid that spent three hundred dollars in one day on that stuff?”
“Forget that, did you hear about the child who was human trafficked after being on there?”
The meeting erupted again in a racket of concerned comments and demands that the council address them. Amid it all, Harmony rose from her seat.
Showtime.