“All right, I think that’s enough questions.” Hodges pushed to his feet. “Mike, if you want to wait out in the entryway for us to quickly discuss among ourselves, we’ll call you back in when we’re ready to vote.”
I glanced around the room, thinking quickly.
I couldn’t leave things like this. The vote was teetering on a cliff edge. Even if I ignored Martin and fact-checked Monica, I already knew the town was worried about my rep, and it wouldn’t take much to set them off. I needed to get out in front of the criticism.
So I said, “Just one more detail. Did I tell you about the site?”
I hadn’t, because I didn’t have one.
At the expected head shakes, I announced with great fanfare, “Mike’s Place will be located at the old Blossom & Bramble Café.”
“Cilla’s place?” Lily, the town post carrier, spoke up for the first time. “I thought she was trying to turn that into a Bed and Breakfast.”
“It’ll be both,” I lied, figuring I’d sort this out later.
Either Cilla would go for this idea and let me buy into her crumbling estate, which would benefit both of us, or she wouldn’t—but it would be easier to convince the Association to go from plan A to plan B, than from plan Nothing to plan B.
“That’s a good idea.” Sarnia stroked her chin. “We all know Cilla’s run out of money. Even Cilla knows she’s run out of money. You know, Mike, this could work …”
“That’s why we’re teaming up,” I said, all bravado, no basis. “Cilla with her Bn’B and me and my ranch. It’ll be the gem in Woodville’s crown.”
“Okay, thank you for your time, Mike,” Hodges said with finality. “We don’t have any more questions for you. Why don’t you head out to the foyer—there’s tea and coffee out there if you want—and we’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
I gave them a salute and left.
Studying the trestle table in the foyer, I didn’t know what to do. I would never drink instant coffee, that was disgusting. There were rows of individual tea bags wrapped in paper sleeves, but no lemon, so I couldn’t make tea the way I liked. I realized none of the committee members were drinking this instant coffee slop either; that’s why there were so many takeaway Levitate cups in the room.
My indecision wasn’t really about beverages though.
A peach pit of dread had formed in my belly when Monica and her husband had started in on me, and now the little fucker was sprouting.
Instead of being a good boy and making a coffee I wouldn’t drink, I ducked out of the hall and slipped around the corner to the doors that led up to the stage at the front of the hall. When I went to this school, we’d had to queue up outside these doors for hours for end-of-year prize-giving (even though I didn’t get real prizes, just the participation certificates everyone got).
I slipped into the alcove by the stairs to the stage and pressed my ear to the door that led back into the auditorium. From here, I could hear every word perfectly.
“We’re going around in circles,” Hodges was saying. “Let’s just vote. All in favor of investing fifty thousand dollars in Mike’s Place for 24 percent equity?”
I needed a majority.
Monica and Martin were write-offs, obviously.
Hodges confirmed this when he said, “Two votes no from the Shailor-Chapmans. Fine. I’m a yes, and so are you, Michael. Good. Sarnia? Yes.”
“An emphatic yes,” Sarnia added. “Write down that I’m emphatic.”
The scratch of Hodges’s pen paused. “How about I just write keen?”
“Come on, Brent, it’s not that hard to spell. E-m-p?—”
“Sarnia is very, very keen,” Hodges said slowly, his pen following his voice. Sarnia seemed to accept this.
Jason was a yes. Oz’s dad woke up for long enough to vote, and he voted no. This also wasn’t a surprise. That pickled cucumber hadn’t voted yes to anything since 2001.
That just left Oz and Lily.
I had four yeses and needed five.
I was so close.
