“Oh my goodness,” Teddy’s mom, Vanessa, muttered in disgust and literally clutched her pearls.
“So, Mayor Cole,” Preston addressed the mayor, “this… um… smell. I don’t remember… experiencing it the last few times I’ve visited the town.”
“Well, I’ll be honest,” Mayor Cole said, deftly stepping over Frisbee’s greeting as we continued down Main Street, “we are not actually sure what the smell is. It just kinda pops up every fall, but it’s usually gone by spring.” The expressions of Preston’s colleagues soured, and I noticed a woman in a gray pantsuit lean toward one of her suited peers and whisper in his ear.
“Yes,” Belinda chimed in. “That’s why we have the Harvest Festival when we do. It would be unbearable if we didn’t.”
“And you… grew up here, Celeste?” Vanessa furrowed her brow and gave my mother an incredulous look.
“Oh, yes. So many happy childhood memories,” my mother fawned. “But it’s a lot nicer now.”
“I’m sorry, did you say nicer?” Vanessa spluttered.
“Here we are!” Belinda chirped before my mother could answer Teddy’s mother. We waited patiently while Erica’s husband held the door to Greenie’s open for us.
“My wife is the owner and chef.” Derek beamed. “She prepared a special meal just for our honored guests. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
“That’s right, Daddy.” Melissa, who was wearing a dress for the first time I’d ever seen, her hair braided into two neat plaits and without a speck of dirt on her face, appeared next to her father wearing a big smile. “Right this way, please.” The world’s most adorable hostess ushered us to a large table comprised of all of the smaller tables in the diner pushed together. There were a few regulars seated in the booths that lined the restaurant and also at the counter, including Mavis and Leonard. “Enjoy your meal.” She spun on her heels and skipped toward the rear of the restaurant.
“You’re going to love this place, Vanessa.” I reached across the table, patting Teddy’s mother on the hand she’d just slathered with half a bottle of hand sanitizer from her purse. “They make the best waffles. I eat them almost every morning.”
“Well, I can’t wait,” my mother chimed in.
“So, Mayor Cole—” Preston began with a smile.
“Oh, stop with that Mayor Cole business.” He smiled genially. “You’d better start calling me Franklin, since we’ll be working closely together for the foreseeable future.”
“Well, I like the sound of that,” Teddy chimed in.
“Well, Franklin,” Preston continued, “I was telling Estelle here”—he gestured to the woman in the gray pantsuit, who was using her paper napkin to polish her fork while scowling—“that inaddition to the over two hundred acres of farmland, there’s a lot of potential for revenue streams in the town. Lots of commercial space, long-term residential properties…”
Estelle didn’t seem amused.
“Excuse me, little girl?” Vanessa flagged down Melissa, who was setting out bread plates. “May I trouble you for a glass of water?”
“Sure thing, ma’am.” Melissa retreated to the kitchen and returned carrying a tray of water glasses. Erica followed closely behind with a large plastic pitcher. Melissa set out the glasses and Erica began to fill them, starting with mine and Mom’s. We immediately lifted our glasses and sipped. Once Erica reached Teddy’s mother, she let out an audible gasp.
“What in the world?” she said, picking up her glass of slightly cloudy and yellow-tinted water and turning it in her hand. The rest of the occupants of the table politely refused water while staring at Vanessa Baker, who was using every decade of her debutante training not to lose her shit at the table.
“What’s the matter, Vanessa?” my mom said, taking another sip of her lightly flavored and food color–tinted water before letting out a satisfiedaah.
“What is wrong with this water?” she demanded through clenched teeth. “Do you not have a filtration system?”
“Oh, this is the filtered stuff,” Derek answered her with a smile, taking a long gulp of his water and signaling his wife for a refill.
“Yeah, you should’ve seen it before.” Belinda shrugged and shook her head sadly.
Estelle’s lips pinched into a tight line, and she was shooting daggers at Preston, who looked visibly nervous.
“Well, a new filtration system isn’t a problem.”
“You’re absolutely right about that. We had the whole system replaced three years ago.” Mayor Cole nodded. “It cost us a pretty penny, but of course, that’s when we thought that other firm would be investing in the town.”
“What other firm?” Estelle spoke for the first time, and her voice was deeper than I’d expected.
“Some big real estate firm from out west, Copperhead or Coopertown…”
“Coopersmith?” Estelle leaned forward with interest. Coopersmith and Associates was one of the biggest real estate development firms in the country.
