Chapter Five
T here was more information flow in the transition meeting than Liv remembered from her own meetings with the mayor she succeeded at the beginning of her first term. But time was a strange thing and Terry Fields-Kramer only seemed to have more questions than Liv could answer in two lifetimes, let alone the hours each week she set aside for the transition conversations.
Not to mention every single time Liv would get frustrated, she’d remember how close the beginning of her own Board of Legislators orientation was. The size of the manual and the questions she already had about it were much, much more than the information Terry would have to know.
But there was a knock at the door while she was starting to describe the digitization project she was doing her best to finish. “Come in,” she said.
The receptionist at town hall wasn’t her secretary, but every once in a while, the kindly gentleman would have to answer the mayor’s phone. “Mayor Nachman,” Burton Squires said, his typical orange bow tie and matching suspenders brightening the room as he walked into it, “Its Jennifer Cohen on the line.”
“I need to take this,” Liv said. Which meant a rapid ending to the meeting, which was par for the course. Except this time, Liv was the one grabbing a phone call and ending a meeting that had already eaten through her allotted lunchtime.
“No worries,” Mayor-Elect Fields-Kramer said as she began to gather her things. “I’ll see you next week.”
Liv felt horrible, but duty called and this time it was calling loudly. After taking a second to compose herself, she answered the call. “Hello, Jennifer, how are you?”
“I’m good, Mayor Nachman,” Jennifer said. “Things have been busy here, but I wanted to know how things are proceeding with the fixer.”
“Good,” she said. “He’s surprising. But good.”
“Interesting.” Jennifer paused, and if the older woman wasn’t trying to play matchmaker, Liv would eat her socks. “Peter swears he met the guy a few years ago…maybe at Comic Con when he was running around with one of Tyler’s now teammates.”
“I can’t verify or deny that,” Liv replied, “considering I only met the man on Monday. But I can say with reasonable certainty after spending most of Monday with him that he now has a good grasp of what he’s been thrown into.”
“Very good to hear,” Jennifer replied. “The reports I heard from the temple yesterday morning were mixed. But I think that’s just Marjorie being Marjorie. They liked him better at the library yesterday.”
Marjorie. The temple administrator who acted like she’d been given the kingdom itself, as opposed to just its schedule, at times. “What did Rabbi Leibowitz say?”
“The rabbi was impressed, but is waiting to see what happens at the meeting on Thursday,” Jennifer replied.
Which made sense.
“And who did you talk to at the library?”
“Ellen—she’s in charge of the information archives in the reference section. She said he was lovely.”
“Did she like Flaire?”
“Flaire brought soda into the archives.”
Which, if Liv remembered, was a problem for Ellen. “Right.”
“Anyway,” Jennifer continued, “you sat with him…the fixer on Monday, made sure he understands what he’s up against? And the story that needs to be told?”
“He knows the story,” she said. “That I can tell you.”
“Good,” Jennifer replied, sounding slightly mollified. “But I have a more important question.”
“Which is?”
“Is there a plan to fix this? Because way too often people tend to have opinions about a situation but not a solution. More importantly than the man himself, does he have a strategy? A plan?”
Jennifer was nervous, and rightfully so. This was the second employee the Empires had sent to facilitate this event, and way too much had gone wrong already.
Liv understood this particular mind-set all too well; it was something that sprinted through her own mind. Which is why she answered the question as well as she could. “His strategy seems to be not to have one,” she said. “I will admit it sounds strange, but actually I think it works.”
There was a pause. “Interesting.”
Good interesting? Bad interesting? She wasn’t sure, but there was something in Jennifer Cohen’s tone that made it clear the other woman wasn’t done. “I need to meet him.”
It was a reasonable request, and she wondered why the other woman hadn’t made it sooner.
“Maybe we can have a meeting,” Liv offered. “Town hall, tomorrow before the special session?”
“No,” she said. “That’s too close, and I need to see if we’re going to survive tomorrow’s meeting with our dignity intact.”
“Fair enough,” Liv said, though she believed the other woman was being slightly dramatic despite how high the stakes were for her. “Name the time, and I’ll be there.”
“What about tonight?”
“What?” It was a surprise, but Liv had to recover quickly. Clearly tomorrow was out of the question so tonight was the best answer. “Here at town hall?”
“No,” Jennifer replied.
In the silence that followed, Liv heard finger-nails…Jenni-fer’s or hers or someone’s, tapping against a wooden desk.
“I’ve got an idea,” Jennifer broke the silence with a bit of enthusiasm. “How about the two of you come for dinner?”
Once again, Jennifer’s solution was…interesting. “Impress him with your potato kugel and then see if you think he’s ready?”
Jennifer laughed, but Liv knew there was a degree of confirmation. Liv knew the other woman well enough at this point: temple sisterhood president, friend of the Briarwood synagogue gardening club. She wasn’t awful, just…involved.
“Oh I know it’s last minute,” she continued, as if Liv hadn’t said anything, “but having the two of you for dinner would be lovely. Roast beef, yes, maybe some blintzes, but no sour cream…some lovely bread…potato kugel of course.”
Which, judging by the tone, was what she’d wanted in the first place. Her, Artur, Peter and Jennifer, eating a menu she’d clearly already planned out. Strategizing or something.
And despite the other plans she’d had to prepare for the meeting, when duty called, she had to answer. “Sure,” she said. “Thank you for asking me. I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Jennifer said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let the fixer know as well; the idea of having his number within Peter’s reach is not…something I’d like. You understand.”
She did. Peter was a lovely man, not so involved in his son’s hockey career as to be a pest, but…someone with enough interest and involvement in things to make Jennifer nervous. “I do,” she said. “I absolutely do.”
“Good. Looking forward to meeting him and hearing your plans, Mayor.”
“Of course,” she said, reminding herself who this was. “I’m looking forward to it too.”
“Good to hear,” Jennifer replied. “See you at seven.”
Seven it was. And at seven, she’d show up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for anything that could be thrown her way.
Including the fixer she was about to call with a dinner invitation he probably wasn’t expecting.
*
It was cold in Briarwood. Abe’s jacket still wasn’t warm enough and thinking of the mayor wearing his jacket was the first step in a slippery slope of dangerously emotional thoughts that would keep Artur off balance.
But there was a larger problem.
His stomach was rumbling, and the friend who, under pressure, had not only promised him lunch but also promised him information was late.
Leo.
He’d known the man since they were ten, and he was trying not chop off his nose to spite his stomach. So as his friend walked toward him, Artur shook his head in admonishment. “I cannot believe I heard about your restaurant’s good behavior from someone else.”
Leo, of course, shrugged, seemingly unrepentant. “Well if you had told me you needed contacts here, instead of making Abe tell us you were skipping our sacred dinner because you need to prepare to come on an assignment here, I would have mentioned things .”
He raised an eyebrow. Leo was not cagey, not usually. But this time he was, holding back a bunch of random information and it was absolutely herring. “And if I’d asked, you would have told me you gave Paul Levitan the lead on the deli location?”
Leo shrugged. “Nobody wants that information because nobody in this town likes to mention the very quick demise of McManus’s Pub after the last Briarwood mayoral election.”
Pay dirt.
What the heck was going on in Briarwood? What was the story with McManus’s? But all he said was simply: “What?”
Leo shook his head. “Not here,” he said. “We’ll talk tomorrow night at dinner. Remind me.”
He would, but Leo would probably forget halfway through dinner on Thursday night. Either way, he followed his friend into the Pasta Station.
“Leo…”
And then it was sudden silence as the guy who’d initially greeted Leo so warmly turned slightly. “Him?”
“Stop being a buffoon, Maricelli,” Leo said with a shake of his head. “I’ve known this guy since he was ten and if you have trouble with him, you have trouble with me.”
Which was definitive and weird and…
“But you were with the mayor on Monday. Being…public with her.”
Leo raised an eyebrow as scenes from Monday afternoon ran through Artur’s head; had the guy who was glaring at him been part of the crowd who stared as he and Liv walked through the square, or was he one of the people who had to be dragged away?
“Am I in fifth grade again or have I walked into an alternative universe?” Leo interjected, incredulous. “The man is working with the mayor.”
“Artur Rabinovitch,” he said, deciding to introduce himself. “Rivertown High Graduate, friend and man hired to fix the mess made of the Hanukkah event here in Briarwood.”
The gentleman raised an eyebrow and looked back at Leo. “This guy? This guy is…”
“ The man is good at his job,” Leo said, clearly ready to brawl right in the middle of Briarwood. “And if you’re not letting us in, Frank, then I’ll just leave and go back to Rivertown.”
“No,” Frank said, as if he’d suddenly been reminded of the stakes of the situation. “No. I’ll reserve my judgment of your friend’s job skills until tomorrow’s meeting. But now?” he said. “Let me feed you lunch.”
And as they headed to the back of the Pasta Station, Artur found himself more curious about McManus’s Pub and it’s connections to the town, as well as why Frank Maricelli was so concerned about what he’d been doing with Liv…the mayor, on Monday.
*
Liv caught a glance of the clock on the wall and groaned at the time when she lifted her head from the pile of work she’d been handling. The time had flown and she needed to make a phone call.
Immediately.
Which meant she had to dig into the email she’d received from John Stevens and the chain that followed, alerting her to Artur’s arrival.
Nine numbers, a deep breath and then…
“Artur Rabinovitch.”
It sounded like he was in the middle of a wind tunnel, and there were random noises every so often.
Was he going somewhere?
“Hey, it’s Liv Nachman,” she said. “You sound busy…is this a good time?”
There was a short pause and what sounded like the squeak of a door opening. “It’s fine, Mayor,” he said. “I’m always busy. How can I help?”
Having found her answer and found herself in the middle of a dead end, she had to push forward. “I just got a call from Jennifer Cohen inviting us to dinner.”
There was a long pause and she felt ridiculously guilty about having waited so long to call him; as the pause continued, alarm bells went off in her head. Could he have made other plans?
“Right,” he said, cutting through the silence. “I was wondering when they were going to reach out.”
Relief. Sweet relief.
He’d been waiting for the call.
“That’s what I was thinking when she called me,” she said before deciding it was better to make sure. “You good for dinner?”
“Calendar is open,” he replied, sounding to her ears as if he’d been smiling. “Anything in particular I should bring?”
This was the tricky part. “Bring a parve dessert. That’s what they’ll want; they’re kosher but they don’t talk about it, so don’t ask.”
“Someone did?”
There wasn’t silence, not even a pause. “Yep.”
This time there was silence. “What did they say, if you know?”
Explaining this was going to be tricky, but she’d done it at least once before. “Someone said something extolling traditional values, or whatever, at some point in front of Peter and Jennifer, in a way that made it obvious they didn’t consider keeping kosher in line with those traditional values. And so the Cohens continued to keep kosher but stopped talking about it.”
“Which is not the solution I’d advise or take,” Artur bit out, before pausing again. What was going through his head? Why was he so angry?
“But,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to her thoughts, “it’s not my house and I wouldn’t be the one explaining why I have two sets of everything in my kitchen, separated by different color labels, and don’t put butter on my mashed potatoes…to someone who’s convinced ‘traditional holidays’ don’t include Yom Kippur, Shabbat, and Passover.”
Sore spot. Bad advice given to a Jewish couple. Right.
“Pretty much,” she said. But apparently now her goal was to make sure that he didn’t ride in with sword drawn for dinner. “Anyway, the damage has been done, so despite the fact the Jewish Hockey Players Association exists and Tyler is involved, they still refuse to admit to being kosher in public.”
“Wait,” he said, “the head of the JHPA is in Briarwood? Do we want to involve them?”
And that went off the rails for a different reason. Which meant she had to put her foot down. “Whoa,” she said. “Once we have a thing for the JHPA to be involved in, we can involve the organization. Which means…”
“Right,” he said, not even letting her finish but if this was what it took to calm his horses down, she’d let it happen. “Not something that we can discuss till after the meeting tomorrow at least.”
“Correct,” she said, not even bothering to hide her sigh of relief before directing the conversation back to where it was supposed to be. “Anyway, bring a parve dessert.”
“I’ll run to a place in Rivertown that has great babka.”
She blinked. Of all places, he’d go there instead of a place in Briarwood? “Rivertown has babka?”
“Place is tiny,” he replied. “It just started selling more than meat last year. Their babka is gold.”
And now she got it. “I won’t question the babka. Knowing it’s coming from a meat place, I won’t doubt it’s parve.”
“Good. What time should I be there?”
“Do you want me to pick you up? I know the area and it can get a little twisty at night.”
There was a long silence, and she wondered what was going through his head. Did he want to drive by himself?
“That sounds good,” he finally said. “What time?”
She paused a second. “We need to be there by seven, so maybe six thirty?”
“See you at six thirty,” he finally said. “Where?”
“My place,” she said, a little too quickly for her taste. But then again it was on the way. “I’ll give you the address.”
“Done,” he said, and she heard the sound of his fingers typing on the phone. “Looking forward to it.”
And as she ended the call, she realized that she’d have to somehow give him back his jacket.