“The Council voted. I was the lone dissenting voice. GrandGoods’ proposal was approved, and they’re moving forward with the hearing for a special use permit. No one but me is going to vote against it after this.”
Norah’s mind went immediately to damage control. “That’s a public hearing?”
Cam’s nod was tight. “Public hearing, but still ultimately a Council vote.”
“Then we ramp up our efforts to educate the public, get them out to attend the hearing. You need to put in a formal request to the firm who did the evaluation to have them present for the hearing so they can answer questions. We’re going to get a rebuttal by then. We need a second opinion. Someone not hired by Vick.”
“How? It was a minor miracle this got pushed through in a month. Where the hell do you think you’re going to get a second opinion in a week or two?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find someone. Have a little—”
“Faith?” The word was bitter, brittle with lack of belief. “Because that’s gotten us so far up to now.”
Norah felt the sting of his frustrated dejection. She could see it in the set of his chin, the defeated look in his eyes. God, how could he give up so easily? Was the rest of the town so easily cowed, so devoid of hope? If they were, she was fighting a losing battle, and the enemy wasn’t GrandGoods.
Norah put the thought out of her mind. She had one war to fight right now, one stubborn man to convince. She crossed the room toward him. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here when the GrandGoods proposal came in? If I hadn’t been here to tell you expressly what it could mean?”
“I’d have fought it, regardless.”
“How? Would you have mobilized the citizenry? Even thought to get an economic impact study? Would you have had the grounds to delay things this far?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I don’t know.”
Norah nodded. “You’re out of your depth. You knew that when you asked me to stay. Now I know this is frustrating. It’s not what we’d hoped for. But this is just a battle, Cam. It’s not the war.”
“They’re not going to listen. They don’t want to listen. How can you possibly combat that?”
All the Campbells had similar streaks of mulish stubbornness. After years of living with Miranda, Norah was well-versed in the various shades of that expression, so she knew she wasn’t making a dent. She shifted tactics. “What were you doing when you were fifteen?”
“What?”
“When you were fifteen. What were you doing? School? Sports? Dating? Getting your learner’s permit to drive?”
“Yeah, all that, I guess. Why?”
“When I was fifteen, I was in Cincinnati with my mom. Public school. New kid…again. And I still managed to get elected class president. While in office, I used my position to orchestrate the clean up and rehab of half a dozen inner-city playgrounds and started an urban gardening initiative that’s still in operation. Sixteen was Philadelphia. Dad that year. Catholic school. I was a youth activist for the ACLU. Seventeen, I was in Boston with Mom again. Private school. I interned with Amnesty International. Oh, followed by a summer internship at the Smithsonian while Dad was in D.C. arguing with Congress. So while you got to live your life and be a normal teenager who did normal teenager things, I was being shaped and trained to be an extension of my parents’ successes. That is what my parents expected of me. Because that’s what Burkes are supposed to do. We save the world. Except not me.
“No, I eschewed Harvard, avoided law school, ran from med school. I built a goddamned good career in a field that has absolutely nothing to do with the humanitarian background my parents gave me. A fact which my father, in particular, takes great pains to remind me is a waste of my potential and the advantages they worked to give me. When he’s not busy cross-examining me about my decisions. That’s what he said to me when I finally talked to him yesterday. That he was disappointed in me. That he expected better of me. After all but demanding the legal documents related to the sordid affair of Morton to prove I didn’t actually know anything underhanded was taking place.”
Miranda made an inarticulate sound of rage—the same emotion Norah could see echoed in Cam’s face.
“Your father’s an asshole.” She appreciated the growl in his voice that said exactly what he’d like to do to her dad.
“He’s an idealist with a very explicitly defined vision that doesn’t take anyone else’s wants into account. And he happens to know exactly which ribs to shove the knife between to try to manipulate me into doing what he wants. The fact is, he’s right. After everything that happened in Morton, I expect better of me. I was given every advantage, every possible form of training to do great things, to take on any challenge and come out the victor. I may disagree with my parents on the nature of what those great things are, but through circumstance or fate or the alignment of the goddamn stars, I was brought here, right now, for this.” For you. The certainty of the thought gave her pause, but she didn’t voice it. “I have exactly the skillset and the indefatigable ego needed for the job. I may not be saving the world by my parents’ standards, but by damn I’m going to save yours. So you have five more minutes to waste on this useless pity party before I expect you to get your ass back to work. Do I make myself clear?”
From somewhere behind her, Mitch said, “And though she be but wee, she is mighty.”
Norah felt her lips twitch, but didn’t look away from Cam.
“Are you always this fearless?”
Fearless. What a joke. But Norah supposed it probably did look like that from the outside. Because she acted rather than standing paralyzed in the face of challenge.
“Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important. Wishful is more important.” And so was Cam, though Norah didn’t give voice to that thought either.
“What about your job search?”
“I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. If that means further damage to my career, then at least I’ll be able to sleep at night.” She turned away because she couldn’t bear the hopeless expression on his face. “Mitch, can you move those site visits this afternoon?”