Authors: Irene Radford
Thistle Down (26 page)
Dusty shrugged. “I don’t know. Joe is trying to get a face-to-face meeting with the judge, or the guy in the hard hat, or the lawyer who issued the work order. No one is talking to him or to each other.”
“That we know of,” Chase mused. “Hush, we’re up next.”
Councilman Pepperidge read the proposal to rescind contractual authority by the mayor. Dusty dismissed the legalese in the speech, too worried about her upcoming session with reading aloud her own document. She hadn’t given an oral report since fourth grade, just before her bout with cancer and subsequent homeschooling.
She gave tours to strangers and school groups every day.
That was material she knew inside out, upside down, and backward. She could do a tour in her sleep.
She knew the arguments in the statement she’d helped Joe write equally as well.
“This is preposterous!” Mayor Seth Johansen shouted. “You all gave me the power to sign work orders and contracts to end the bickering, posturing, and indecision that plagues the Council. Nothing got done before you signed off that authority, and nothing will get done if you take it away from me. Toilets will remain plugged in public buildings, parking meters won’t get fixed. Potholes won’t get filled. You didn’t want to have to
work
at the job you got elected to and paid for.”
work
at the job you got elected to and paid for.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” George Pepperidge interrupted the tirade. “That power was granted to you twenty-five years ago, by a different City Council, with a different agenda. And now we feel that we should have a greater say in the management of the city.” He kept his voice calm and rational.
The mayor, however, turned beet red, breathed shallowly, and drooled a bit.
Dick half stood, as if to rush to the mayor’s side and begin CPR.
“This meeting is adj ourned.” The mayor pounded his gavel and pushed his chair back from the long table.
“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. There is an issue pertinent to the measure still on the floor.” Dick finished standing and addressed the Council as a whole.
“No measure is still on the floor. I have adjourned the meeting.”
“No, sir. According to the rules of order, the Council has to vote that they have finished the daily business before you can adjourn,” Dusty found herself saying. “You have to follow the rules of order.”
“Who are you people?” the mayor asked suspiciously.
“Benedict Carrick, sir,” Dick replied.
“Juliet Worthington’s boy? Didn’t she marry that teacher person, never thought any good would come of that relationship.”
“My parents are still married after thirty-two years and still happy. Sir,” he added the last a bit belatedly. “And there is the issue of who signed the work order allowing Pixel Industries, Ltd to log off The Ten Acre Wood,” Dick continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “The Ten Acre Wood is a city park, the timber is protected from cutting by city ordinance.”
“The park is special to everyone in town, enhancing the city, granting necessary recreation, and preventing serious erosion of the fragile soil on the ridge.” Thistle jumped up and recited her own piece. Not once did she look at her paper.
Chase nudged Dusty’s side with his elbow. “Your turn. Read the paper to me, not to the Council.”
Gathering as much calm and dignity as she could, Dusty stood, adjusted her glasses, and began reading the words Joe had set forth for her. Her heart pounded loudly. Sweat dripped from her brow, making her glasses slide to the tip of her nose. Two minutes later, she shifted to the second page, unaware of anything she’d said.
But she got through it. She presented all of Joe’s logical arguments in order, without failing him. “Respectfully submitted by Joseph Newberry, Curator of the Skene County Historical Museum, and staff.” She dropped back into her chair the second the last syllable left her mouth.
Chase took her hand again and kissed the back of it. “Good job.”
She couldn’t help smiling at him, and the warm tingles that crawled up her arm from where his lips had touched her.
Chaos erupted around the room. All Dusty heard was, “You can’t cut down The Ten Acre Wood!” repeated again and again. The acoustics picked up the words and reverberated them around and around, again and again.
Thistle sat and covered her ears against the noise, whimpering slightly.
A bit of sparkling light caught Dusty’s attention. By the time her eyes focused on the blur of movement, she saw only the slender back of a man in a gold-and-tan sport coat exiting the hall behind the mayor’s dais. A bit of the shimmering haze clung to the mayor’s head.
“Ahem,” Mayor Seth cleared his throat. The marble walls picked up the sound and sent it around the room loud enough to cut through the noise. “Such a proposal has come to my attention. The purchase price of the timber is enough to keep the free clinic open for another year and to rehire three of the five teachers we had to let go due to the current budget crisis. This is something I must consider seriously.”
Dusty sat in stunned silence.
“Why weren’t we told that the clinic is closing?” Dick asked. “It’s part of the community college. Nursing students get most of their clinic hours required for graduation there. All the people who have lost jobs and, therefore, their health insurance depend upon that clinic.”
“The college provides less than half the funds required to keep the clinic open,” Mayor Seth said with a sneer. “I was told last week that the state budget can no longer fund the rest. Our area is growing. We aren’t an isolated community anymore. Other hospitals and clinics are within easy commuting distance and along mass transit lines. That is enough on the subject. This meeting is adjourned.” He pounded the gavel once more, rose slowly, took up his three-legged cane, and stumped out of the room.
Twenty-one
P
HELMA JO NELSON READ THE NOTE that Haywood placed in her hands, not on her desk.
HELMA JO NELSON READ THE NOTE that Haywood placed in her hands, not on her desk.
“Free clinic closing January 1 or before.”
Interesting. Haywood had been back and forth between the office and City Hall half a dozen times today. This was the first tidbit of news to intrigue her. Especially since the receptionist from the free clinic sat in front of her.
She schooled her face to make it look like she listened intently while her mind wandered to daydreams of the look on Dusty Carrick’s face when her precious fund-raising Ball was ruined.
“As you can see, we need donations from the entire community.” Janet Boland finally finished her shpiel.
“Donations look good on a resume,” Haywood whispered to Phelma Jo, finally settling behind her left shoulder. “The elderly in this town represent a strong voting contingent come November,” he added so quietly Phelma Jo had to strain to hear him.
She glanced at the note again and read the second line of handwritten text. A bigger idea popped into Phelma Jo’s head.
“You need more than just a few donations now, Ms. Boland. You need a nonprofit corporation with a continuing stream of donations.”
“You are right, Phelma Jo,” Ms. Boland said. “The problem of seniors needing a little extra help will continue and get severe again with the first cold snap and snowstorm. But this is a new project. We only have the resources to start small and temporary. It all came about because of Mrs. Spencer’s collapse—you do remember Mrs. Spencer from fourth grade, don’t you?—and that new girl, Thistle Down. She needs a job and this is something she can do. Actually it’s something she’s good at. She saved Mrs. Spencer’s life. Her intervention might very well save several other valuable voters.” So she had heard Haywood’s comment.
Beside her, Phelma Jo felt Haywood stiffen. Hastily, he wrote a note and passed it to her, keeping his hands below the desk level. “Remind this lady that the clinic is closing, and she’d make a better employee than Thistle.”
Phelma Jo already had that in hand.
“Ms. Boland, I have the staff and resources to set this up. Leave it in my hands.” Phelma Jo smiled her dismissal.
“We need donations now, not six months from now when the paperwork for incorporation clears,” Janet insisted.
“So you do.” Phelma Jo retrieved her personal checkbook in its oxblood leather cover from the desk drawer and scrawled numbers and a signature.
Haywood fidgeted nervously. What was with the man today? One of the reasons she’d hired him was his calm reassurance.
As she put the final flourish on her signature, Phelma Jo’s field of vision seemed to narrow. Darkness encroached from the sides.
She raised her head a moment in alarm. Sparkles replaced the darkness, pretty sparkles in wonderful autumnal colors of gold and green and russet.
“Since the clinic will be closing soon, I suggest we set this corporation up so that you will take the job of checking on the seniors, Ms. Boland. You are much more qualified than Thistle Down. Much easier to obtain a bond on your honesty and integrity. Especially since she has a criminal record under another name. Something to do with gang violence and vandalism.”
“The clinic is closing?” Janet seemed to wilt. Her mouth gaped in stunned astonishment. She might not have heard the second statement after the shock of the first. “They can’t do that to the community. Why weren’t the employees told first?”
“Not my decision. I just heard about it. But if I were you, I’d start checking my options. In this town there aren’t many.” Phelma Jo ripped the check off the pad and handed it to the woman with great satisfaction. “There, that should get things rolling.”
Janet Boland took the paper without even looking at it as she stumbled out of the office.
“Haywood, get on that nonprofit setup.”
“Certainly, Phelma Jo. I’ll make sure you are listed as primary trustee and registered agent. You can list this charity at the top of your good works in the mayoral campaign literature. It will look as if the whole thing was your idea.”
“And put Ms. Boland’s name as the sole employee.”
“Already done. The Carricks will get no credit for this, and Thistle Down will be unemployed, homeless, and probably in jail by nightfall.”
“When did you learn to read, Thistle?” Dick asked when they left the City Council meeting together.
Dusty and Chase wandered off together in animated conversation.
Several things today were hanging at in Dick’s mind. He addressed the first of them to the woman walking beside him.
“I’ve always been able to read some. Just not well,” she said, looking away with a blush.
“The Pixie I knew as a child couldn’t read, had no need to.” Was that disappointment, suspicion, or anger rising up to nearly choke him?
“It’s something we all have to learn eventually,” she said, still not looking directly at him. “Dusty taught me a lot more than street signs could. She had nothing better to do with her time while she was sick. And she was so lonely being homeschooled that teaching me basic reading and numbers helped her pass the time. Kept her mind active when she was too tired to do her own schoolwork.”
“Oh . . . I thought . . . I don’t know what to think.”
“I truly am a Pixie in exile. I am, Dick. You were the first to believe me. Why don’t you now?” Then she turned those fabulous purple eyes up to him. Moisture made bright drops on her lashes that caught the overhead lights and turned to sparkling crystals.
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