A Man Of Influence. Melinda Curtis
life of her, Mildred couldn’t figure it out. She’d been a race car driver back when men would do anything to keep women off the track. She’d been independent forever. Why did Phil and his gentle ways make her feel as if she was forty again?
“It’s settled then. The town council will make the request.” Mayor Larry could also be filed under “Non-Confrontational Man.” He wouldn’t risk alienating Leona, because she still voted. “Do what you have to, ladies. Phil and I will go back to the bakery and entertain our guest until you come up with a workable solution.”
Phil moaned.
A few minutes later, Agnes parked her late model, faded green Buick in front of Leona’s home.
Mildred got out using the door for support, waiting for Agnes to bring her walker from the trunk. “This is going to be a waste of time.”
“Not necessarily,” Agnes said. “It’s a beautiful home and she doesn’t get to show it off very often.”
“It’s not as pretty as mine.” Rose had a much smaller painted lady, and a history of arguing with anyone who’d listen that hers was superior.
Even with her glasses, Mildred couldn’t see the details on the Victorian, so she couldn’t judge. In her eyes, Leona’s home was a green hulk with white trim that towered over the back fence of Mildred’s small Craftsman-style home. In forty years of being neighbors, she’d heard Leona’s caustic laugh over that fence. She’d heard her sing off-key as she gardened. She’d also heard some searing arguments between Leona and Phil before their official break-up. She’d always be Team Phil.
“How many steps are there?” Mildred’s annoyance increased. Growing old was a pain in the tuckus. Back in the day, Mildred would have skipped up the steps the same as Rose was doing now.
Of course, Rose had sundowning syndrome, which meant when she got tired, she got loopy. Mildred had all her marbles. The macular degeneration was stealing her vision and a car crash decades ago had weakened her knees. But Mildred would take her marbles any day of the week.
Agnes carried Mildred’s walker up the steps in one hand, holding on to Mildred’s arm with the other.
Leona opened the front door and stared them down. “Well, if it isn’t the town council.”
Mildred didn’t need to see details to recognize Leona’s salt-and-pepper hair in its usual tight beehive. She wore a blue dress—and heels, from the sound of her feet on hardwood—and probably had her mother’s pearl choker around her neck. There was no way Mildred was wearing a skirt and heels just to hang around the house. Did the woman never let her hair down?
“Leona.” Agnes had the unique talent of putting both sweetness and authority into her tone. “We’ve come to ask a favor.”
“I will not contribute to the Harvest Festival bake sale.”
It was hard to imagine soft-hearted Phil being in love with this dragon. She hadn’t even invited them in. And Mildred was standing in the brisk morning air with her walker!
“That’s not the favor.” Agnes should have been mayor. There was both respect and determination in her words. Of course, she wasn’t in love with Phil, so she probably had more patience for Leona than Mildred did. “May we come in?”
“If you must, but wipe your feet. I just did the floors.”
Mildred navigated carefully over the threshold, wishing it’d been raining and she’d rolled her walker through the mud. Leona brought out the most uncharitable thoughts in Mildred. Her mother wouldn’t have approved. Of course, her mother hadn’t approved of Mildred racing either.
Leona’s house smelled of furniture polish and disinfectant, sterile and off-putting, like the owner herself.
While Mildred sat in her walker, Rose perched on a black leather wingback chair nearby, unhappiness radiating from them both, like sulky children banished to the basement.
“There’s a travel writer in town.” Agnes shared the antique pink velvet loveseat across the room with Leona. What she didn’t share was Leona’s sour attitude. “You know how important getting the word out about Harmony Valley is.” If they didn’t attract young people to town, Harmony Valley would die with its aging citizens.
“It’s important to some.” Snooty. Leona was snooty. If they’d been in a car race together back in the day, Mildred would have given her a bump and sent her into the wall. “As soon as my granddaughters make me an acceptable formal offer and turn this into a bed & breakfast, I’m retiring to the city.”
Good riddance.
“The thing is, Leona...” Once again, Agnes’ calm voice filled the room. “We need a bed & breakfast for this man now. Today.”
“Until after the Harvest Festival,” Rose clarified, sounding glum.
“You expect me to take in a strange man?”
Mildred nodded. She couldn’t tell if anyone else did.
“You expect me to cook breakfast and clean up after a man who isn’t my husband?” Leona sounded horrified.
Mildred nodded again, trying hard not to smile. Was it wrong to hope the travel writer was a serial killer? A grin escaped, because she knew it was wrong and highly unlikely. Mildred revised her hopes from serial killer to him being someone who talked loudly all the time on his cell phone. She hated that.
“We also expect you to charge him for his stay,” Agnes pointed out.
“Nine nights, I figure,” Rose said gloomily.
It was the first time Mildred could remember Leona being speechless.
* * *
THINGS HAD SETTLED down since the baby test.
Jessica had taken Gregory into the kitchen alcove for his mid-morning feeding. Eunice was sewing in the window seat. The checkers match was still going on. And Chad was busy tapping away on his phone, no longer interested in Tracy’s existence.
Tracy condensed inventory in the bakery case, content with the silence and the lack of male attention. She was becoming good at being invisible.
The mayor and Phil returned.
Phil looked pale and more unsteady on his feet than usual. “You didn’t wait for me, Felix?” He pulled up a chair to the checkers match.
“Checkers wait for no man,” Felix said, absently brushing cat hair off his black T-shirt. He rescued cats and never showed up anywhere without a sprinkling of hair on his shirt.
Mayor Larry claimed a seat at Chad’s table and introduced himself again. “Who do you write for, Chad?”
“I’m launching my own online travel magazine.” There was a hard note to Chad’s voice that contradicted his easy smile. “Until recently, I was editor-in-chief for a national magazine and sometimes I wrote for a couple of national papers.”
Several heads swiveled in Chad’s direction. If Felix’s sage nodding was any indication, the mention of a couple of national newspapers had earned Chad some of the points he’d lost by not picking up Gregory.
Meanwhile, Tracy’s stomach did a barrel roll. Chad was handsome. He was successful. He had a shiny red sports car parked out front. She bet he’d never been phased out of a job. She bet everything he’d ever wanted had been within his reach. She bet that’s what she used to look like to the world—attractive, successful, on top of the corporate food chain. And now...
She gripped the hem of her canvas apron. She’d been back home since spring and had only made halfhearted attempts to land jobs in her field, most of which had ended with stilted telephone screening interviews and form rejection letters. Was she ready to get back out there and be rejected?
No. The bakery case glass needed cleaning.
Soon “out there” might be