And there it is.
Our Main Street, half gone.
The Roasted Chestnut, vanished.
And turned into a parking lot.
“We’ll preserve as much of the east side of the town as we can, but the west—”
“For parking? You want to tear down my great granddaddy’s shopfor parking?”Shelly shrieks.
Everyone on the west side of the street joins in. The east side of the street has a few shops before the street turns residential. There’s the historic Sap Hill mansion and some brownstones. Before the mansion, the west side of the street ends in a sort of cul-d-sac, where the gazebo and the grassy knoll sit.
A few outliers in the room join Shelly, people who want our beloved gazebo to stand. People who want the town square to stay a full square, er, circle.People who want, you know, actual Juniper Falls, to still exist!
I clench my fists, silently cheering on everyone yelling and pointing.Tell him, guys!
But the man just stands and waits, cool as a tomato, unbothered. Like we’re a bunch of toddlers and he’s letting us have our tantrum. His unflappable stance and hard-set, chiseled jaw arenotattractive. They’re annoying! So annoying.
Eventually everyone settles and stares at him, waiting.
“I want Juniper Falls to adapt. The resort is positioned on the land for maximum use of the mountain slopes and views. It has to be in order to charge the right prices and make back my almost one billion dollar investment. And I’m the only hope you have. Unless you’ve similar offers piling up somewhere?” He pauses to look at Miles, whose poker face is as bad as mine. Then he gives his staff a nod. They begin packing up. “Right. Becauseno one else has the capital, resources or portfolio of past acquisitions exactly like this one. This is what I want, and my offer to you. Your town lives, or it doesn’t. I look forward to hearing your answer soon so we can be operational in under a year.”
He taps the table once and leaves.
Just…leaves.
His staffers quietly follow.
The grill door slams and the room explodes.
Poor Miles, who was handed the giant leather-bound binder of information, is all but attacked.
I’m still frozen in my chair.
He didn’t even take questions. Didn’t offer any sort of compromise or leeway. No window for negotiations. Just his way or no way.
“We can’t,” I say out loud.
Tyrone, probably surprised to hear my voice in the turmoil, turns to me. “What’s that?”
“We can’t let him take over. He didn’t even let us ask questions.”
“No he sure didn’t,” the sweet old man replies, sounding a bit dumb-struck.
“Because we don’t have any other options,” Shelly says. She’s still stuck in her chair like me, while everyone else has moved to hover over Miles' shoulder.
“Well, we’ll have to come up with some,” I say.
“We will? Who is we, sister? You and me and this ol’ hippie?” She gestures at Tyrone, who does, in this moment, look exactly like a big black man from Jamaica who owns a record store, and probably has some weed on his person right now, would look. He just laughs.
“Stockings was gone too,” I say,remembering the image.
“Yeah, but the Newmans are ready to retire, no kids to leave the grocery store to. Plus they have their rentals around town. They’re gonna fold,” Shelly sighs.
“Where’s Maxine?”
“Maxine!” I say, pointing at Tyrone as he asks about her. “She won’t stand for this. She’s at a market this week.”
