Page 62

“Mrs. Morrison⁠—”

“Twenty-seventeen, page four,” she said to me. “You’re in it, and don’t tell me you’re not, because I wrote it.”

Colette photographed one ledger page and posted the offer on the festival’s public page with a six-dollar preorder link. Every merchant shared it before the meeting ended. People ordered cards for themselves, their children, and their parents. Dale Henderson pledged the first one thousand ninety-five dollars the cocoa cart earned during the festival. When Owen started to say that was too much, Dale said, “It’s cocoa, Owen. It’s water and powder and a man standing outside,” which was a lie, but it ended the argument. By noon, Colette had sold one hundred eighty ride-history cards in advance. At six dollars each, they brought in one thousand eighty dollars. Added to Dale’s cocoa pledge, they covered the remaining two thousand one hundred seventy-five dollars. Owen drew a box around the final total. The repair was funded. The foundation match was met. Once Griffin’s crew started, Crane would lose his right to take the block in January.

I stood because gratitude had apparently disabled my judgment. “The damaged footing is under the shop where I work and the apartment where I sleep. Griffin owns the building, but all of you just found a way to save it. Half of you will still be underneath it in the cold with a work light because of a crack nobody can see.”

“Nora.” Frank didn’t even look up from the clipboard. “Sit down.”

I sat down.

That was the important part. I let them help, and the world did not end. A second later, Pearl let out a victory yell loud enough to stop the room. I chose to believe it was about the money.

“You said the shop would be closed for five weeks,” I said when the room had thinned out to the people who stayed to stack chairs.

“Five weeks with one crew and the entire building closed. The council only ordered us to shore the dangerous sections now. The 1947 shared-wall plan gives us a second access point, and today gave us more hands.” Griffin held the plan flat with a ruler. “We close this Sunday and Monday for shoring. After that, you reopen while we work nights. The final inspection is at seven on festival Monday. You lose two trading days, not five weeks.”

“And the crawl space?”

“Thirty-one inches. You’re the only one small enough to get in there, but you’ll only mark the line. The licensed crew does the repair.”

“Of course the building needs me to crawl under it,” I said, and Pearl laughed so hard she had to put her head down on the table.

Griffin stopped me before I left the bakery and handed me an envelope. “Before Frank tells you, I rented the apartment over his store for a year. I signed the lease Tuesday.”

I opened it. The date beside his signature was December ninth. “You signed this before the engineer came. Before we raised the repair money. Before you knew any of this would work.”

“Yes. The lease starts January first. Frank let me move in early, so I finally took the box of winter clothes out of my car.” The box had stayed in his car through nine towns. Now it was in an apartment on Main Street.

“What happens if the council votes against us on the twenty-seventh?”

“Then I still live here. I may lose the buildings, but I’m not leaving Holly Creek. I signed because staying wasn’t supposed to depend on winning.”

“What did it cost you to stay?”

“I accepted an offer on my Portland apartment. When the sale closes, I can pay Meridian back. I also withdrew my plan to redevelop Main Street and agreed to repair the six buildings I own over the next three years. I still own them. I just can’t tear down what’s here and replace it with something new.”

“Why tell me now?”

“Because I should have told you Tuesday. Frank reminded me you’ve already heard enough important things about me from other people.” He met my eyes. “I’m done making you find out afterward.”

I folded the lease along its original crease and put it in my coat pocket. I did not give it back.

Jenna’s three lunch shifts had covered scheduled meetings. They could not cover a ten-day festival rescue on top of holiday traffic. Hal’s daughter, Marcy Sackett, came in Saturday morning because he had told her the shop needed help and, according to Marcy, made it sound like a medical emergency. “He says you’re trying to run the whole street from one register,” she said.

“That sounds like Hal.”

She looked past me at the counter, at the two ledgers, the crack gauge, the roll of blue tape and the headlamp sitting on the register where a headlamp has no business being. “The store’s been opening late. That’s Hal for ‘Are you all right?’”

Only then did I realize how many people had been asking if I was all right without saying the words—and how often I’d missed it.

“Marcy,” I said. “Have you ever run a register?”

“I ran the pharmacy register for nine years before it closed.”

“It’s fifteen fifty an hour, which is more than I can afford, and it’s through the twenty-fourth, and there’s a good chance the shop can’t carry itself through February.”

“So it’s seasonal,” Marcy said.