“I don’t remember talking about changing the meeting schedule at our last meeting. Did we talk about that? Good thing I happened to see all your cars in the driveway when I was bird gazing out my bathroom window a bit ago.” She rushed in and plopped her purse on the table. “Did I miss anything?”
“Nothing but cheese,” Gus grumbled.
“I thought Charcuterie Society wasn’t until Friday,” said Lottie.
“Let’s just move along with the agenda,” Georgie said, sliding on her green reading glasses and peering down at her open folder. “As you know, Saturdays in June are when we always help with Bugle’s fundraiser events. Unfortunately we seem to be losing more funds than we raise. We’ve already had to cancel the fish fry for June thirteenth. Barb, do we have the official numbers back from our library book sale on the sixth?”
“I can give you the numbers,” Lottie said before Barb could respond. “There were none. Talk about a terrible turnout. And we can’t blame the weather either.”
“She’s not completely wrong,” Barb said, continuing to undostrands of yarn from Evie’s knitting needles as she reported their grand total earnings.
“I suppose that’s not enough to remodel the children’s library wing, is it?” said Georgie.
Lottie grunted. “That’s not even enough to repaint one of the walls.”
“I just wish there was a way we could stir up a little more excitement about our town events,” Barb said. “The Dominoes Dance typically does okay, but what are we going to do the last Saturday of the month? That’s usually our big event.”
“How about another author event,” Evie said. “That guy who talked about his book on beekeeping was interesting.”
“The first time,” Lottie said. “Not sure how many more times people want to sit through that talk again.”
“I’ll sit through it as many times as he keeps bringing those samples of honey with him,” Gus said.
“What about a festival?” said Evie. “The last town I lived in had an annual mule event with parades, food trucks, games, and even a few exotic animals. The kids loved it.”
Lottie snorted. “Where are we going to find the budget for food trucks and exotic animals?”
“So then we go back to the author idea,” said Barb. “Except maybe instead of a local author, we try to bring in some other sort of celebrity.”
Georgie cleared her throat. “I’m actually glad you said that, Barb, because—”
“A celebrity?” Lottie interrupted with a laugh. “How are you supposed to get acelebrityin this town? Now when I was president of the PTA in Franklin, which we all know is just down the road from Nashville, that was a whole different matter. We had more famous singers willing to attend our fundraisers than we knew what to do with. Why one year, Brad PaisleyandKeith Urban—”
“We don’t care about your little committee in Franklin,” Georgie blurted.
“Little?” Lottie’s fingers splayed across her chest. “Excuse me, but I’ll have you know thatlittlecommittee was the—”
“Most active and thriving PTA in middle Tennessee, including the Nashville area,” everyone said at the same time, including Nate.
“Well, it was,” Lottie said with shrug. “And I want that recorded in the minutes.”
“Point is,” Georgie said, taking Nate’s pen out of his hand before he could write down anything, “the little committee you see sitting right here is just as capable of bringing in a famous celebrity as any committee anywhere.”
“Sure,” Lottie said with a smirk. “If you consider Larry the Beekeeper a famous celebrity.”
“I do,” Evie muttered.
“Best honey I’ve ever tasted,” added Gus.
“Wecanget a celebrity here,” Georgie said, throwing the pen on the table.
“Prove it,” said Lottie, slapping her hand on the table across from her.
“I will,” said Georgie, slapping the table.
“How,” said Lottie with another slap.
“I’m already in the process of bringing a big name here as we speak,” Georgie said, winding her arm.
