Earnest (18 page)

C
HAPTER
35

T
wo alligators were wrestling in Anna's stomach. Tails were slashing, and teeth were snapping, and waves of foam shot in the air.
So much is riding on this planning commission meeting
. For calm, Anna folded her arms around her waist, but the alligators kept at it.

She tried to hide her feelings as Jeff made his presentation behind a podium at the side of the room. In a gray blazer and button-down shirt, he flashed PowerPoint slides about Cedar Place on a screen. His red laser pointer danced on the graphs and drawings like a hyperactive Red Hot, but she looked at them with indifference. She would not let Jeff see on her face that his every word distressed her. She would not allow him that pleasure.

Seated at tables in a “U” on the dais, the planning commissioners seemed rapt by Jeff 's ideas. Giving them extra gravitas, which they hardly deserved, in Anna's opinion, were American and Washington State flags set in copper planters of sand on each side of the screen. On the wall, the hands of a clock, big as a bicycle tire, seemed never to move. Anna kept checking the time. So far Jeff's twenty-nine minutes had felt like the entire Jurassic period.

At last, after thirty-two minutes—and Anna had counted every second—Jeff turned off his laptop. The applause offended her as much as he just had.
Humph. It's just polite applause, really. Nothing more
. Though she, Joy, and Lauren had rounded up supporters, so had Mrs. Scroogemore. Except for Lauren, who had the flu, both sides were here in full force.

As Jeff returned to his seat on the front row—in clear view of Anna's own front-row seat—Joy leaned over and said, “The dirty rat.” To avoid him, Anna fixed her eyes on David Connolly, the planning commission's chair.

“Thank you, Jeff Egan, for your insights,” said Connolly, a silver fox whom Joy called the Elder Hunk. He had a muscular build and thick gray hair, which sometimes fell devilishly over one of his dark gray eyes. He could have starred as a Western's sheriff, his badge glinting as he drew his gun.
Ka-pow!

Connolly folded his hands around the base of his microphone, not that a sheriff's voice needed amplifying. “Without further ado, I'm opening this meeting to public comment. I ask you to take no more than three minutes each and be polite. Feelings are running high about Naomi Blackmore's project, and we all need to get along.” He nodded toward her on the aisle to his right. “Why don't you start us out, Naomi?”

Mrs. Scroogemore strode confidently to the podium in a pearl-gray Armani suit. She smiled at the clapping crowd and pointed her index finger at favored supporters the way a seasoned politician would.

Joy whispered, “Look at that necklace.”

“You'd think the weight of all that gold would make her stoop,” Anna said.

With a maroon fingernail, Mrs. Scroogemore hooked an errant strand of highlighted hair behind her ear. She adjusted the microphone, a treacly smile on her lips. Then she pressed her hands through the air, palms down, to signal the crowd to muffle their welcome and let her speak.

“Thank you. Thank you.” She tossed her head as if she were accepting an Oscar. “I'm so glad to be here, and my mother would be pleased. Twenty-two years ago she bought the property on Rainier. She dreamed of developing it, but she died before she had the chance. I swore I'd do it for her, and tonight I'm excited that Jeff has told you about our wonderful plans for Cedar Place.” As her supporters applauded, she pointed at them again.

“I'm also excited that
I'm
the person developing my family's property instead of some company that would do it just for profit.
I'm
looking out for our town. My family has lived on Gamble for generations, and I grew up here. I've loved our island all my life. I understand better than any outside investor what we want and need. And I can tell you, we don't need a hard-nosed company forcing a Walmart on us.” Her smile was spun sugar, fudge.

“I want our own businesses to thrive. I want our little town to prosper,” she continued. “And our kids! Jeff has allotted space for the KiDiMu to move into my building at a reduced rent. I want our children to have the opportunities I had. I believe in the next generation, and I believe in Gamble Island and in all of you. I am certain that Cedar Place will improve our lives, and I can hardly wait to get started giving back to our community all it's given me.”

As Mrs. Scroogemore walked back to her seat, she waved at her admirers. Joy snarled, “The mildewed hypocrite. Pardon me while I gag. I'd like to smack her in the chops.”

Anna glanced at Jeff, who was also applauding.
How could he?
More important, she asked herself for the one thousand and twenty-ninth time,
How could he have taken on that project? How could it have been more important than the family we used to have?
The questions stoked her stomach's alligators into wrestling another round.
Thrash, thrash.

“Mr. Chairman? I can't let that woman's words go by without responding.” In bicycle shorts and a hoodie with “The Squeaky Wheel” emblazoned on the back, Lloyd McGregor, Gamble's bagpiper, advanced on the podium like he was leading Scottish troops to war. “Maybe Naomi Blackmore believes she's doing us all a favor by developing her property, but what about the environmental impact?” He raised dark, scornful eyebrows.

“Wetlands adjoin her property, and they deserve protection. In her yard is a hundred-year-old heritage madrona that she intends to bulldoze. Traffic to her new building would cause air and noise pollution downtown. We're at a crossroads here. We can look after our own interests or give in to her greed. It's no different from an outside developer's. It's threatening our environment and the character of our small town.”

“You think the parking lot's proposed eight spaces are gonna cause smog, McGregor?” a man shouted.

“Yeah, and you've seen one tree, you've seen 'em all,” yelled someone else.

Elder Hunk Connolly's gavel came down with an authoritative crack. “Keep it civil.”

Anna looked over at Jeff to see his reaction. For the flap of a hummingbird's wing, their eyes met—before they looked away. Enough of a second passed, however, for Anna to writhe at having been caught. Why had he been looking at her? To gloat? Anna was still pondering the reason when old Mr. Webster walked to the podium.

He smoothed back his few remaining wisps of hair as if he wanted to look his best on national TV. “I've lived two doors down the street from that property for seventy-five years, long before Naomi Blackmore owned it. Money-grubbing developers have tried to ruin my neighborhood time and again, but we've fought them off. Leave us alone. Don't bring in fancy new businesses that will force our small concerns like the Chat 'n' Chew to close. And keep your traffic to yourself. Our kids play in the street. Think of their safety. You may feel we neighbors don't count, but we're important.”

Joy shouted, “That's right! We count!”

Anna clapped till her palms turned pink.

Liz Matheron, mother of Tommy, who was Igor the Venus flytrap's friend, hurried to the microphone. She adjusted it shyly, as if she thought it might grab her and pinch her bottom. When she introduced herself as director of the Kids Discovery Museum, she flinched at the sound of her amplified voice.

“I understand Homer Webster's concern about neighborhood children, but not
that
many more cars are going to be coming down his street,” she said. “And Naomi Blackmore's generosity to our museum is a huge gift. We'll finally have room to expand our exhibits. We can teach classes. We'll have hands-on demonstrations. Gamble's kids will gain a lot more than they'll lose from Cedar Place.”

Before Liz could finish, April Pringle of the historical society wobbled toward the podium on unsteady feet. “Now listen here. You people keep talking about traffic and wetlands and kids, but nobody's bothering to mention the historic house on that property. You can't just pretend it isn't there. Tearing it down would be a tragedy. Why, the very idea!”

Indignant, she pulled the microphone down to her frail lips as Liz returned to her seat. “I'm your elder, and you young people need to stop and think about what you're doing,” Miss Pringle said. “That house has been around here longer than any of us. It's part of our community, and we'll miss it if it's gone. It takes us out of our crazy, rushed world back to a slower time, and it's a living memory of the past that we can see and touch.”

Miss Pringle grasped the podium's edges and leaned forward, scowling. “You may not think about this, but you're connected to every person who's lived on this island before you, everyone here now, and everyone coming after you. That old house is connected to everybody too, and you're connected to it whether you realize it or not. It just sits there, peaceful, reminding you of how the past and present and future are all part of each other—and you. If you lose that house, you lose an old friend and a witness to this island's history. You tear down that lovely old place at your peril. Naomi Blackmore, build your commercial building somewhere else!”

Anna's hands burned from clapping so hard. “Perfect!”

Joy gave her a high five and nodded toward Jeff. “Too bad he doesn't like to hear the truth.”

Anna looked at him, and wouldn't you know that at that exact moment, he looked at her too? Anna practically snapped her neck turning her head away so quickly, but she had seen him long enough to note his frown.
Good.

At the microphone, Alex Rugoff introduced himself as a recently retired newcomer from Los Angeles, but he said he'd lived here long enough to know what's what. “What about progress? Nobody's talking about moving forward into the future. Building new buildings. Starting new businesses. Keeping up with the times. You've got to admit we're a bit of a backwater. We could use some modernizing.” Along with applause, enough boos followed Rugoff to his seat to discourage him from speaking his mind at future public meetings.

To speak her own mind, Anna needed courage, especially when Jeff would watch. Still, for the sake of Grammy and the house, she begged her stomach's alligators to make peace, and took her place at the microphone. She looked around at the faces of her loyal friends and customers, but she did not turn her head toward Jeff or Mrs. Scroogemore. “I want to give a personal view of what Miss Pringle just said about the historic house,” she began.

“Many of you know that I lived in it as a child with my grandmother, and now two friends and I rent it for our businesses. We love the house. For us, it's far more than glass and wood and bricks. I know that houses aren't people, but, to me, tearing it down would feel like murder.”

Anna held up the Mason jar that Ted Carcionni, the fire marshal, had given her months before. “This is a time capsule that the house's original owner, James Williams, left between two walls.” She unscrewed the lid. “Here are square nails, the kind used for construction then. And a bullet. And a crumbling page from an 1880
Gamble Crier
.” With care, Anna held up the paper for the crowd to see. “Everybody was excited about getting Mr. Edison's electric lighting to Gamble someday. One of the residents was starting a steamship ferry to Seattle. The island's first post office opened downtown. Eggs were three cents a dozen then. James Garfield was just elected president.”

Between her thumb and index finger, Anna held up a tiny ladder-back chair. “This came from Amy Williams's dollhouse. And this is a clamshell someone drew a little face on.” Anna showed that too. “I feel like the Williams family still lives with us because you can feel their presence in the house. It holds their hopes and fears and love and secrets, just like it does for all of us who have lived in it, shopped in it, walked by it, admired it, or taken care of it. It's a part of us.

“Gamble would never be the same without the house, and neither would I. I'm begging the planning commission to vote against Cedar Place. Help us save the house!”

Anna scanned the crowd again before returning to her seat. Mrs. Scroogemore looked like she might explode, and everybody would have to get down on their hands and knees and pick up her angry, pointed shards and her necklace's gold links. When Anna broke down and looked at Jeff, this time he met her eyes with an impassive mask revealing nothing.

Nothing!
His expression also seemed to make clear that she was nothing to him. He didn't nod or blink or signal in any way that he was aware of her existence.

For the rest of the meeting, Anna blocked him out with equal disregard. But when she reached the door to step outside, wouldn't you know that Jeff happened to have gotten jostled along with her in the exiting crowd? As a fresh breeze cooled her face, her shoulder bumped against him. Though she'd intended not to speak to him, she was too polite not to come up with a civilized greeting, such as “hello.”

But Jeff beat her to it. “The rain has stopped,” he said.

“Maybe.”
No point conceding anything.
“I think more rain is blowing in.”

“You might be right.”

As Anna walked ahead, Jeff turned toward the parking lot. Their directions were as different as their views about the house, but that was just the way it was. Neither had said good-bye.

C
HAPTER
36

T
hanks to the
Gamble Crier
's article, almost forty mostly gray-haired women showed up for Anna's presentation at the senior center. They sat on folding chairs in front of her and Earnest, who'd come along to encourage her. At the back a younger broad-shouldered man leaned forward, his knees apart, as if he intended to spring out of his seat. As he watched Anna intently, she wondered,
What is he doing here? Where have I seen him before?

“First you fill a beautiful vase with water, and then you add flower food.” Anna showed the audience a silver vase. “I got this at the New to You for three dollars. All it needed was a little polish.”

From a glass pitcher, she poured in water and sprinkled in a small green packet's contents. “For Valentine's Day, I got these red and pink roses, pale pink ranunculus, and variegated carnations. See the gorgeous purple streaks in the red petals?”

Anna piled the flowers next to the silver vase, then held up a bunch of geranium leaves. “Look at these furry beauties. They complement the flowers' red and pink tones, and they smell like spearmint.” She handed a leaf to a woman in the front row. “Pass it around so everyone can see how delightful it is.”

Anna's talk today was part of her plan for growing her business and stepping onto firm financial ground. Though Christmas orders had been good—every wreath and swag had sold—she was trying to rebuild her savings. She also intended to fight back against Thrifty's new flower market. She would not let them defeat her. She would lure away their customers.

She'd invested in brochures and business cards, handed them out, and pinned them on bulletin boards around town. She'd run ads for Plant Parenthood in two church bulletins, the chamber of commerce's newsletter, and the
Gamble Crier
. She'd talked with people who might order flowers—Gamble's mortician, realtors, restaurateurs, church secretaries, and Downtown Business Association members. And she'd given flower-arranging demonstrations at the library, the Cascade Country Club, and now the senior center.

“Once you've got your materials together, you tuck these leaves into the vase for a green background. Be sure you spread them out.” Anna fluffed the leaves around, just so. “Because these red roses are largest, I'll put them in first around the vase's lip. See? Like this.”

“Anna? Do you cut off the flowers' leaves?” asked the wife of David Connolly, the Elder Hunk. In a blue felt hat, she was sitting next to the man on the last row.

Who
was
he?

“Good question, Sammy. The answer is yes if the leaves are below the water line because they'll rot.” With clippers, Anna snipped a leaf to demonstrate. “Now I'll fit some of these smaller flowers here and there above the roses. You don't want to crowd anybody. Flowers need air like we do.”

Anna tucked in blossoms till the arrangement was round and full. She held up the vase as the audience applauded. The man at the back smiled and clapped his hands over his head as if he were doing eager upper-body jumping jacks.
What is with him?
Anna had met him, but where? In her shop?

“Now I want to show you something romantic you can do with petals and small flowers. I'm going to set them in a heart shape on this cookie sheet, but you should put your petals on your dinner table or entry floor—or your valentine's pillow. Anywhere you want to leave a surprise.”

From a plastic bag, Anna scooped out violet, rose, tulip, and carnation petals in shades of red, pink, and purple. She formed her heart and carefully tilted the cookie sheet so everyone could see. “Look! One puff of breath and these petals would go flying. They're like love itself—beautiful and delicate and fleeting.” How well she'd learned about “fleeting” from Jeff.

So everyone could have a closer look, Anna carried the cookie sheet around the room. As she made her way along the last row, she asked, “Isn't it lovely?”

The man gave her a goofy smile, flashing yellow teeth.

As he fingered his keys like worry beads, Anna had a flash of recognition. He was the unfaithful husband for whom she'd been making a Virtue Special on the day the kitchen caught on fire. Now she knew what he was doing in this audience of senior women: trolling!
What an ego.
How could she be interested in a philanderer like him?

For the last few months, Anna had felt too hurt to consider even the concept of dating, much less an actual date. Given her poor judgment of men, she could end up with Gary Ridgway, Washington's Green River Killer. She couldn't trust herself
or
the men in this world, such as the dishonorable one in front of her. Though she might change her mind and risk again someday, for now she preferred to stay alone.

She did not lean down to show him the heart. She moved on. When she returned to the front of the room, she set the cookie sheet on the table and turned around. The man was gazing at her like a love-struck cocker spaniel.

Anna reached for Earnest. “Want to see how to put a valentine on your dog's forehead?” She stooped down, kissed him between the eyes, and left a lipstick heart.

When the crowd applauded again, Earnest, the eternal ham, stood up as if he were taking a bow. She quickly tied a red bow around his neck. “I thank you all for coming here today. If you have questions, feel free to drop by Plant Parenthood. I'd love to see you.”

As the women filed out of the room, many stopped to thank Anna. The man hovered off to the side in the posture of a hungry vulture. Eventually, only he, Anna, and Earnest were left in the room.
Not a pleasant prospect.

He walked up to her. “Great talk. I enjoyed it.”

“Thanks.” Anna busied herself picking petals off the table.

He puffed out his chest as if he thought he could shove Johnny Depp out of the way and take his place as
People
magazine's “Sexiest Man Alive.” But this man needed to attend to his teeth. Earnest seemed to share that opinion and to worry that something unpalatable might unfold before him. He leaned against Anna's legs.

“Want me to carry this stuff to your car?” the man asked.

“No, thanks. I can handle it.”

“I'm strong.” He flexed his bicep and chortled, “Stand back, Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Right. Get me out of here.
“Really, I'm fine.”

“I can take this to your car easy,” he insisted.

“I'm sure you could. But no need,” Anna said.

Earnest seemed to be losing patience with this hanger-on. He gave him a scornful look that unequivocally urged,
Scram, you perfidious slime.

“Want to go have a cup of coffee? I bet you could use one after your talk,” the man tried again.

“Thanks, but my boyfriend will be here in a minute,” Anna lied.

As she stuffed her cookie sheet into a tote bag, the man said, “Um . . . well, okay. Maybe another time.” He shrugged and walked out.

Anna breathed clean air again and patted Earnest's head. Thank goodness he was there, the one male she could trust. As he accompanied her to Vincent and watched her load boxes into the back, she remembered that Lauren's valentine poem for her community poetry post was Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet:

Anna changed the question: Why do I love thee? She applied it to Earnest and counted her reasons.

She slid open Vincent's side door, and Earnest jumped in for the three-block ride to Plant Parenthood. Her protector on guard, he peered out the window.