Chapter 9
Colleen
Two Weeks Later
Even with her arm in a cast, Colleen was here at the monthly meeting of the Luview, Maine, Love Committee, staring at a handout with a heart-shaped penis drawn on it, the diagram covered in what looked like architectural blueprint notes.
“Point eight inches,” Anne Petrinelli said loudly from the dais. Five members served on the Love Committee, a quasi-governmental body that had no equivalent in any other New England town, or anywhere, for that matter.
The committee had formed in the late 1960s, when some more-or-less lascivious businesses, capitalizing on the Love You theme, began springing up around the town.
Love You Harder, the adult bookstore and under-the-radar brothel, had been founded by hippies in 1968.
A head shop featuring heart-shaped bongs and roach clips had gone in at the edge of town next to Fields’ CPA office.
More recently, someone had started a hookah bar called Love You Lungs.
Alarmed by the sudden prurient nature of the businesses, Anne Petrinelli and her husband Stan, along with Lucinda and Donald Armistead, had gone to town meeting and proposed a new governing body called the Love Committee.
Their official role: to make certain that businesses and homeowners within the downtown district conformed to specific standards, in order to preserve the general atmosphere that supported the town’s goals.
Their unofficial role: to block anything they disagreed with.
Colleen didn’t want to be here. And she certainly didn’t want to stare at blueprints of penises while Anne talked about tenths of an inch.
But she’d volunteered, as a brake against runaway conservatism on the board. Everyone here was at least forty years older than she was, and the committee needed some new blood.
“I think you’re searching for something to complain about, Anne,” Lorne Tsaki said loud and clear with a twisted smirk on his lips. Lorne was on the committee for the same reason Colleen was:
To keep people like Anne from going overboard.
Lorne was one of the few farmers left living in Luview proper. His land was more mountain than farm, but his two hundred head of sheep and a small, diversified organic vegetable offering spearheaded by his daughter, Beth, drew people from all over.
But it was their famous pie stand that was the biggest draw.
Tiny and neat, the 8’x10’ wooden structure housed a hundred pies on any given day, including those of the whoopie variety.
Colleen’s hips held more than their fair share of maple cream whoopie pies from Beth’s Best, as the little shop was named.
Last year, Beth had added a coffee machine, and morning business from tourists and tradespeople who couldn’t make it to Deke’s Breakfast Diner had made Tsaki’s Farm a hopping place.
Rachel was working on getting the electric trolley that carried tourists up and down Main Street to extend the 2.3 miles to the pie shack, but first things first.
The Love Committee had a penis that was eight-tenths of an inch too big to deal with.
“Rules are rules, Lorne,” Anne replied, mouth tight, nose flaring, her dry wrinkles folding in on themselves.
A cornerstone of the community, Anne and her late husband, Stan, were generations-deep residents, though their respective families weren’t related to the Luviews or the Bilbees.
Stan had been town manager until his heart attack at the wheel of his car.
The car that struck Colleen’s sister-in-law, Amber, who was out for a walk on the side of the road that fateful Thanksgiving Day.
No one blamed Stan, and certainly not Anne, but for years after, Anne had practically begged Luke, over and over, to let her help him. Caring for his daughter was her way of atoning for a wrong that she hadn’t committed. It made any conflict a bit tricky to navigate.
And when it came to sign standards in town, Anne was all about conflict.
“Are we really going to argue about the size of the penis, Anne? That’s it? You’re not upset that there’s a, you know… penis?”
“That is secondary,” she sniffed.
“Since when are they secondary?” Lorne shot back, leading to titters in the room.
A short man, muscular even in his early seventies, Lorne had a keen gaze that made you feel like he understood all the layers of the world better than you ever would, and he was deeply amused by your fumbling through life.
At least, that’s how Colleen felt around him.
Bright red now, Anne pointed at Lorne. The two were on opposite ends of the slightly curved committee table on the dais at town hall.
Colleen was smack in the middle. Paula Cuomonelli sat between her and Lorne, doing a crossword puzzle, absentmindedly scratching her gray-haired scalp now and then with her pencil eraser.
Paula had been Colleen’s ninth grade English teacher.
On Colleen’s other side sat old Doc Blythe, whose first name was Marion but everyone called him by his title.
Sure, the Luview Medical Center, where Colleen worked, was the region’s biggest hospital, but Doc Blythe was the family doctor in town, with hospital privileges.
He’d delivered her and all her siblings.
With twenty-five hundred residents in Luview, she’d estimate that he had delivered more than half, which made him the unofficial grandpa for hundreds of families.
She was on the stage with people who not only remembered the JFK assassination, they’d been in high school or older at the time.
Never well attended, the public meeting nonetheless was open to all townsfolk. Tonight, only Nadine Khouri, Lucinda Armistead, and–wait a minute.
Was that Moore in the audience?
Like Anne, she turned bright red.
Avoiding Moore had become a second job for her, the emotional pain of what had happened between them almost worse than her physical injuries from the accident. A full exam in the ER at the Manchester hospital had revealed more damage than she’d realized.
Broken wrist.
Injured rotator cuff.
Multiple lacerations.
And, as a nurse who could have been Colleen’s twin announced around her chewing gum, “You’re wicked bruised and wicked lucky. Good thing that guy got you out of there.”
That guy.
That guy who was currently sitting in the front row of the audience, legs stretched out, hands in his lap, suit jacket unbuttoned. A new wool topcoat was folded over the seat next to him.
The memory of that guy’s naked, hot body against hers, how he smelled as they made love under the covers, the cabin warming up as if their passion alone heated it, made Colleen squirm in her seat.
Moore wasn’t looking straight at her, instead watching Lorne and Anne snapping at each other, one corner of his mouth up in amusement.
A mouth she’d kissed.
A mouth she’d enjoyed.
A mouth that had spent some heavenly time between her legs.
A mouth that–
“Colleen?”
“WHAT?” she practically screamed as Lorne said her name, snapping her out of a hazy, dreamy state that made her want to walk off the stage and sit in Moore’s lap.
“Are you–are you sure you’re fit to be here? Maybe you need more time to recover,” Lorne said slowly, respectfully. Anne gave her a worried look, leaning forward at the table.
“Lorne’s right,” Anne said.
“I am?” He feigned shock. “You’ll quit complaining about the cockamamie eighth of an inch on the co–”
“About Colleen! You’re right about her. Look at the poor woman, she’s red as a beet.”
Closing her eyes, Colleen pursed her lips and tried to pretend Moore wasn’t in the room. She waved her cast-covered arm at Lorne.
“I’m fine. Just distracted.”
The second the word came out of her mouth, she knew it was a mistake.
Sharp, rhythmic clacking sounds caught her attention as the back door opened, and in walked a man in uniform.
A red uniform with a black belt, black boots, and an attitude the size of the giraffe that had gotten stuck under a bridge arch a few years ago.
Needle. The giraffe’s name was Needle.
“You here to arrest Finola Shaughnessy, Luke?” Lorne joked. Finola, the owner of Love You Harder, generally made herself scarce around town.
“For what?” Luke called out, taking a seat in the same row as Moore, but five spots away.
“For her broken penis sign.”
All the men in the room made a funny face at the words broken penis.
“Not broken!” Anne called out, annoyed. “Eight-tenths of an inch too big.”
Luke blinked. Moore covered his mouth with his hand. She knew these two trixters were dying to make jokes, but she also knew the rules.
No juvenile behavior during Love Committee meetings.
Being part of this board meant talking about anything and everything devoted to love, which led to hilarious and occasionally puerile discussions. For instance, heart-shaped condoms.
Yes. Someone had gone there.
Love You Harder was a constant source of contention, but it was by no means the only issue.
Similar to a zoning board, much of the Love Committee’s time was spent making sure buildings conformed to the approved color schemes, that the quaint New England architecture was preserved downtown, that the Love You theme wasn’t used in a derogatory manner, and that duplication was avoided.
Next on the docket tonight was Love You Ink, the town’s first tattoo parlor.
But first things first: the overly large penis.
“Love You Harder isn’t within downtown limits,” Luke said slowly, eyes on Anne. “This committee doesn’t have control over their signage.”
“Then why did Finola submit it to us?” Lorne asked, looking at Colleen, Paula, Anne, and Doc Blythe.
“She looking to move closer to town?” Doc Blythe asked, eyes twinkling with amusement as he watched Anne’s face, his question clearly designed to goad her.
“We can’t–she can’t–we can’t have that kind of vulgar establishment in town! Bilbee’s is bad enough!”