I shift to address Maxine again, “How?”
“What?”
“How do you plan to suddenly turn a profit after years in decline?”
“You leave that up to us.”
I huff, “So you’ve no plan, then.”
“We do. We have a bunch of holidays throughout the year. Not just Christmas. We’re going to celebrate all of them.”
“Celebrate holidays? That’s your big marketing ploy?”
She doesn’t respond but she doesn’t cower, to her credit.
I look around the store. There are thousands of records, posters, vintage lights, retro listening booths hooked up to iPods. It’s a well-thought-out record shop. Put it on a busy corner in Manhattan and give some teenager access to the Instagram account, they might thrive.
But this isn’t Manhattan.
“No, the deal is—”
“Ten months,” Maxine counters. Everyone watches. Some are starting to fidget, others glare. Makes me think they had a group discussion aboutnotfidgeting. Cute. I wonder if the baker is fidgeting, but I don’t look. I hold eye contact with my tiny foe.
“It won’t be enough,” I say, meaning it.
“Let us try anyway.”
“No.”
“September,” she says, sounding a bit nervous now.
It’s the motion in the corner of my eye that does it. Harper looks up. At me. I don’t look over, since I’m positive she’ll just look away. Scurry off, metaphorically, like the mouse she is. But only sometimes? Why am I even wondering about it?
“July,” I’m surprised to hear myself say.
What the hell? Now am Inegotiatingwith these country bumpkins?
Maxine turns, and everyone else shifts as well. As predictable as clockwork, they’ll look to the ringleader, probably the realtor. Not the demonstrative fellow, but the quiet one who actually knows what he’s…
What?
The baker?
They’re all looking at her. At Harper.
I do, too. She’s looking at Maxine, not me, but she is exactly like I remember. Huge, brilliant emerald eyes hiding under the curls and the bandanna. Sweet features, probably literally sugar-dusted, even though they’re always frowning. She nods once, then retreats back into herself.
A strange facade, that one. One of the two is fake, either the town leader or the shy baker.
But I don’t care either way.
I’m not changing the design. I can’t. I don’t need the extra months, not really. I’ll get what I need, delayed or not. And they’ll come round once they realize I’m saving them. Not out of the goodness of my heart, of course, but because it’s a solid investment and Ben claims to love this place. The beautiful scenery is being wasted now, hiding behind their garish lights and cheap tinsel.
Most importantly, I’m not letting the Rockfords get their greedy hands on it now that word’s spread that I’m interested. The resort is positioned perfectly to round out my portfolio. Soon they will finally be put in their place. By me.
“Deal,” Maxine says.
I have to drag my eyeballs away from the enigma at the back of the room and back to the little old lady squaring off with me.
