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“We don’t have pyrotechnics,” I said.

“Food vendors use propane, Mr. Calloway. Propane requires a permit. The permit requires inspection. The inspection can’t be scheduled during a fire ban.” She turned the form toward me. “I’m sorry.”

Priya leaned forward. “What else?”

Dena looked at her. The apology in her face didn’t waver, but something behind it sharpened — a respect for the question being asked directly.

“Water haulage,” she said. “For dust control on an outdoor arena in August, the county requires a certified water source and a haulage plan filed with the application. Your creek access is noted, but the county needs a volume estimate from a licensed hydrologist or a documented alternative supply.”

“We’re working on the volume estimate,” Priya said.

“I’m sure you are. But it needs to accompany the filing.” Dena’s hand moved to the third stack. She pulled a single sheet and set it beside the form. “And crowd capacity. For an event exceeding two hundred attendees — and you’ve just told me five — the county requires an infrastructure inspection of the site. Parking, egress, sanitation, emergency access.”

“We’ve addressed the ambulance turnaround,” I said.

“That’s excellent. The inspection will confirm it.”

“The inspection,” Priya said. “When can that be scheduled?”

Dena’s mouth pressed into a line. “After the fire ban lifts and the water haulage documentation is filed. The inspection can’t proceed until the preliminary conditions are met.”

“So the inspection is contingent on the other two,” Priya said.

“Yes.”

“And all three must be resolved before the filing is accepted.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

She said it again. Third time. Each one genuine. Each one immovable.

Priya wrote on her clipboard. Fast, precise, the pen moving in small strokes. I couldn’t read the words from where I stood, but I could see the list growing.

“The fees,” Priya said. “For re-application and inspection.”

Dena named the re-application fee. Two hundred and forty dollars. Then the inspection fee. Three hundred and seventy-five. Separate checks, payable to Madison County, nonrefundable.

Six hundred and fifteen dollars.

Neither of us had it.

The event budget — my event budget, the one built from circuit savings and the gooseneck’s resale value and whatever I could squeeze from a summer of working both ends of the day — had been allocated to the bone. Stock contractor deposits. Arena prep. Insurance. Every dollar assigned, every dollar spoken for, and now six hundred and fifteen more dollars sitting on a county clerk’s desk between a form and a photograph turned away from us.

Priya’s pen stopped.

She looked at the numbers. Then at me.

I could feel the joke forming. It was right there — something about the county’s business model, or the price of bureaucracy, or a line about how I’d expected the government to be expensive but hadn’t thought they’d be this organized about it. The grin was ready. The room — small, fluorescent, three stacks and a sorry — was ready to be warmed.

I let it go.

“Mrs. Fry,” I said. “Thank you for the review.”

She blinked. Not surprised, exactly. More the small recalibration of a woman who’d expected one kind of Calloway and met another.

“Of course,” she said.

“One question.” I kept my voice level. No dimples. No angle. “If the fire ban lifts and we get the water documentation filed — what’s the soonest the inspection could happen?”