“An investor for what?” Uncle Jimmy asked.
“Ask,” Cam said, “and if it is, then take the job.”
The burst of temper was immediate. “If you think I’m just going to walk away from—”
“I’ll go with you.”
It was Norah’s turn to stare. “You hate the city.”
“I love you more.” And God, if he could do nothing else for her, he could do this.
“This is all very romantic and sweet, but anybody want to clue us in on what the hell you’re talking about?” asked Miranda.
Cam jumped in before Norah could minimize it. “She has a job offer from a billion dollar corporation in Denver to come run their marketing department, and she turned it down for me.”
“Whoa,” Mitch said.
“And I don’t intend to reverse that decision. Do you think I don’t know what leaving here would mean for you? I’m not dragging you to the other side of the country away from your family.”
“Norah, be sensible.”
“I am being sensible. You’re being impulsive. I appreciate the motivation behind it, but that’s not the answer. We’ve established the economic climate here is crap. The turn around the last couple of months is a start, but only a start. It’s no state in which to sell a business. And at that point, you have no control over what a new owner of the nursery would do. There’s no guarantee that they’d go to the effort to hire on people like Dewey May to keep him and his family afloat. No guarantee someone wouldn’t just come in and turn the nursery into something else entirely. No guarantee that whoever took over for you as City Councilman wouldn’t work to overturn everything we’ve done here. And every bit of that would eat at you, worse than it already does. That powerlessness of not knowing, or worse, knowing and not being able to do a damned thing about it from more than a thousand miles away, would make you miserable. You need to be here. So do I. I’ll find another way. It’s what I do, remember?”
Frustration simmered at a low boil. Her logic, as always, was undeniable. But there had to be some way he could help fix this. She’d done so much for him, given up so much, and what had he done for her? Chased down some lousy public records?
“How can I make this better for you? I need to do something.”
“Help me finish what we started. We’re getting this referendum and we’re going to bury GrandGoods. And then we’re going to turn this town around. And when all of it is over, and no more disasters are hanging around on the horizon, I’m going to fall apart in an absolutely spectacular fashion and count on you to pick up the pieces.” She said it in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone she tended to use when reciting business statistics or weather reports.
He wouldn’t have been surprised to see it penciled in on her calendar. Have breakdown. 8 AM to 5 PM. Schedule massage for tomorrow.
“In the meantime, I need to work like I need to breathe, so you’ll take me back to get my car and let me take over the loft with a quantity of bulletin boards and office supplies that will make it look like Office Depot dropped a tactical nuke on the place.”
A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “Okay.”
“What can we do to help?” His mother, as calm and focused as Norah herself.
“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. How long would it take you to set up a town meeting?”
Chapter 23
Please let this be nearly over. Cam sent up the prayer as he pulled open the door to Edison Hardware and stepped inside to continue the petition tally. It was almost time for lunch, and he’d already been by half of the businesses on his list. Aunt Liz and Uncle Pete were doing the others. Avery had been keeping a running tally as they went, and they were close. So close. If the total tipped over their threshold, they’d be spending the next several hours validating that each one was a registered voter. If they didn’t get the numbers today, they were out of time.
Tyler stood at the counter, her ponytail pulled through the back of the fire engine red YES cap that matched his. She looked up as he came in and one corner of her mouth curved up. “Hey Councilman, Mr. Cleese here wants to know if signing the petition will decrease his chances of getting called up for jury duty, seeing as it’s kind of a civil service.”
“Well now, that’s something to consider. But I reckon you’d have to take that up with Judge Carpenter.” Might as well foist the responsibility for that decision off on somebody else.
Mr. Cleese rubbed the tip of his bulbous nose. “Y’all should check on that. It’d be a real incentive for folks.”
“We’ll take that under advisement. In the meantime, how about you join the ranks of other fine citizens of Wishful and add your name to the petition?”
After some further hemming and hawing and additional suggestions that were completely out of Cam’s power as a city representative, Cleese finally signed the petition.
“Thanks for your support, Mr. Cleese. Here’s your sticker.” Tyler reached out and plastered the YES: I signed badge on the old man’s shirt pocket. “You be sure to tell your friends up at Bingo Night.”
Cam peeked over to check the petition numbers and texted the total to Avery.
“I thought about adding a suggestion box,” Tyler said as the door swung shut.