Never Too Soon

by Tamika Christy

  “Can you lighten the hell up, Sophia? What’s wrong with you tonight?” Catie glared at Sophie before turning to Anaya. “Wait. Ny, you are still in a loving, committed relationship with Carl, right?”

  Finally, Anaya looked up from her plate and looked squarely at Catie. “Yes. I am. I love Carl. Nothing will ever change that. I’m not worried that seeing Jeff will make me suddenly fall back in love with him. I guess I’m just curious to know what he wants after all this time.”

  “Booty!” Catie laughed.

  Anaya folded her arms and pursed her lips. “Can you be serious for a minute?”

  “I don’t think you should see him,” Sophie said decisively. “Nothing good can come of it. It’s self-serving and self-destructive. Neither of which is beneficial to your relationship with Carl.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Anaya said, cutting her spinach into tiny strips. “I was just wondering what he wanted.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he wants,” Sophie said. “Forward, my friend. Not backward. Never backward.”

  “You know I’m all about figuring things out.” Catie said through a mouthful of noodles. “But I don’t know about this one, Ny.” She slurped up a piece of shrimp that had been hanging out the side of her mouth.

  Sophie stared at Catie. “You are disgusting right now—you know that, right?”

  “Be quiet, Soph-ee-uh, I’m feeding my baby,” Catie said before gulping down some water.

  “Then feed your baby now and talk later,” Sophie said, frowning. “But don’t do both at the same time. It’s gross.” She turned to Anaya. “I say let it go. Let him stay in your past.”

  “You guys are right. That was my past, and there’s no reason to look back.” Anaya sighed.

  “Good for you,” Sophie said. “It’s always good to self-assess because, in the end, you have to make healthy choices. Besides, you don’t want that bad karma following you if you sneak around on Carl.”

  “That’s true.”

  Catie wiped her mouth with a napkin. “That reminds me, are you guys working on my baby shower? You know it has to be fabulous.”

  Anaya groaned. “Catie, I sent you an email weeks ago about getting the names of people you want to invite. No party can be planned without a guest list.”

  Catie waved her hand dismissively. “You know I don’t have anybody else to invite other than the people you already know. I don’t have any family except you two, so my list is complete.”

  “Aw, we love you.” Sophie threw a grape that bounced off Catie’s belly.

  “I love you too. Now make sure my baby shower is the bomb so I don’t have to disown you.”

  SIX

  Anaya sat at the back of the council chambers as Jayde Merrick—the county clerk and a good friend of hers—brought the weekly Board of Supervisors meeting to order. The County Board of Supervisors was primarily responsible for exercising administrative and executive authority throughout County government. Week after week, board members sat behind the grand dais, pontificating and providing lamentable responses to public outcries of dissatisfaction. Sometimes the board managed to conduct business like a Fortune 500 company—they made decisions and quickly moved forward through the agenda items. Other times, the meetings resembled the Jerry Springer Show with occasional chair-throwing and unhappy protests.

  Meeting attendees represented all walks of life from each of the county’s fourteen cities. Last week, a young woman had chained herself to the podium, saying she would only unlock herself when the board removed the tracking device from her brain. Glory days of public service.

  Get ready for the circus, Anaya thought. She hoped her presentation wouldn’t be too late on the agenda—she owed Carl some quality time. She was supposed to see him yesterday after brunch at Sophie’s, but she had needed to finish the presentation.

  Jayde sat at the dais with the five Alameda County supervisors, the county counsel, Sue Garcia, and the county administrator, Wendy Woo. The dais was a raised platform at the head of the room, located directly below a huge projection screen. A semi-circle of folding stadium seats, where members of the public sat, faced the dais. More seats were available in the balconies above. A large podium to the right of the dais provided the platform from which county staff and consultants presented information to the board, and members of the public addressed the board from a smaller podium in the center of the room. The faded industrial carpets, cathedral-coffered ceilings, and incandescent lighting preserved the historic nature of the chamber, which was built in 1910.

  “Good evening,” Jayde announced to the nearly full chamber. “The Board of Supervisors welcomes you to the meeting and your interest is appreciated.” She read out the proposed agenda for the evening, and Anaya groaned when she heard that her naval base presentation would be last. Not only would she miss spending time with Carl, but the board would be grumpy and tired by the time her presentation began.

  “If you would like to speak on an agenda item, please submit a presenter card before the item is called for discussion. When addressing the board, please give your name for the record before speaking. On roll call for this meeting: Chair Memphis, Supervisor Buckingham, Supervisor Abramson, Supervisor Fernandez, and Supervisor Harris.”

  Over the next two hours, Anaya sent several apology texts to Carl, listened to the various presentations, reports, and ceremonial items, and observed the supervisors, who she had come to know quite well. Eventually, Jayde called the final item, which was Anaya’s preliminary report on the proposed development agreement for the naval base site. A development agreement was a contract between the company who would redevelop the naval base and the county, who owns the land. Anaya took a deep breath and walked up to the county staff’s podium. Let’s do this.

  She had presented before the board plenty of times and knew what to expect. Supervisor Fernandez would ask questions that gave creed to the popular notion that he had absolutely no idea what was going on. Supervisor Harris would ask impossible questions because she didn’t trust Wendy Woo. Supervisor Buckingham would smile the entire time. Supervisor Abramson would make empty statements that brought disgrace to her Harvard Law degree, and Chair Memphis would either sigh in boredom or cheer audibly when he reached the next level of Candy Crush.

  “All right, looks like we saved the best topic for last.” Chair Memphis cleared his throat and sat up in his seat. “Ms. Goode, you may proceed with your report.” He stroked his mustache and put his hand on his phone.

  “Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the board.” Anaya spoke clearly and slowly into the microphone. “My name is Anaya Goode, Director of Housing and Community Development. Tonight I will present you with a—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Chair,” Wendy interrupted suddenly. “Just a point of personal privilege. I’d like to say something.”

  Anaya yielded, trying to keep her annoyance from showing as Chair Memphis gave what sounded like a murmur of consent. Anaya saw Jayde glare at Wendy from across the dais.

  Wendy Woo had a penchant for several things, and being at the center of attention topped the list. She didn’t care about making friends or hurting feelings. She once said that all she wanted her staff to do was fall in line and follow her direction. Being the top administrator of a county on the verge of a fiscal cataclysm didn’t stop her from occasionally checking her make-up during public meetings, donning the finest couture or receiving quarterly Botox treatments that prevented her from demonstrating genuine facial expressions. Developers loved her, the unions hated the ground on which her red-bottomed Louboutins walked, and most of her staff and the Board of Supervisors could take or leave her.

  Anaya was definitely of the “leave her” opinion. As county administrator, all department directors reported directly to Wendy, who was tougher on her staff than necessary. She was particularly hard on Anaya who wasn’t afraid to stand up to Wendy like most of the other directors were.

  “I’d like to express my gratitude to everyone for their support.�
�� Wendy cleared her throat and spoke as if she were reading from a script. “As you all know, this project has been a long time coming. I’d like to thank my staff for their long hours and dedication, and my husband for allowing me to work the extra hours on top of the long hours I already work. Should the board decide to approve the contract and move forward, my intention is to assemble a small task force to streamline the process. I am determined to make this project work, and now here we are.” She gestured around the room. The only thing missing was a curtsy and a patent leather one-piece.

  Anaya stared at Wendy in disbelief. She had spent the last three weeks creating and fine-tuning this preliminary report with her staff, and now Wendy was trying to take over? And who was part of this alleged task force? Why hadn’t Wendy discussed it with Anaya?

  “Um, excuse me, point of personal privilege,” Supervisor Harris said with measured spite. Anaya looked expectantly at the small woman. Maybe those mandated anger management classes were starting to pay off. This was the third meeting this month and Harris hadn’t used the F word once. It was definitely progress.

  “First of all, Ms. Woo, I know you didn’t contribute a single word to the report.” Harris looked over the top of her purple-framed glasses. The tension was thick and Supervisor Harris could be unpredictable. “Secondly, you aren’t receiving an Oscar; your department is delivering a preliminary report. Pre-lim-in-ary. We still have a lot of work to do. Get on with it already.” Supervisor Harris did not receive quarterly Botox treatments, and contempt wedged between her over-sculpted brows like food particles in Chair Memphis’s mustache.

  “Thank you very much for that passionate rhetoric, Supervisor Harris,” Wendy said with a pageant smile. “As I was saying, I appreciate and recognize everyone’s hard work. Ms. Goode, you may proceed.”

  Anaya stepped up to the podium again.

  “Good evening, board members. I will present a slide show with my report, and upon conclusion, I will take any questions.”

  Before the naval base closed ten years ago, the area had boomed because of the military families who lived there. When the government announced the base would be phased out and started transferring naval families away, businesses began to close and houses were eventually boarded up. Now the space was overgrown with weeds and the abandoned homes and businesses looked more like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie.

  More than a dozen investment groups had approached the supervisors over the years with different ideas of what to do with the base, but the board had never been able to agree on a development plan, and the idea was lost in legislative purgatory. In a final attempt to make progress, alongside rumors of his retirement, Chair Memphis had recently resurrected the idea of redevelopment.

  All county development fell under Anaya’s purview, so it was her responsibility to determine what type of development—business, housing, or retail—would be most beneficial to the county and recommend an agreement moving forward. The final agreement was usually reviewed by Wendy’s office prior to submitting to the Board, who had final decision-making power. As administrator, Wendy could technically overrule Anaya’s decision, but that typically didn’t happen since Anaya was the subject-matter expert and department director. The Department of Housing and Community Development had determined that the naval base could generate approximately sixteen million dollars in property tax revenue alone. Additionally, there would be seventeen hundred housing units, with six hundred of those being affordable housing. Ten thousand potential new jobs could also be created.

  Anaya expertly walked the board through her office’s recommendations that had been her air and water since the board decided to consider reopening the naval base three weeks ago.

  After Anaya finished her presentation (during which Chair Memphis had only visibly nodded off once), she tried to gauge the reactions of the supervisors. If the board approved the draft language, she would be even busier than she had been during her preparations for this meeting.

  Chair Memphis opened his eyes looked down his nose at her. “Ms. Goode, thank you for your presentation. You’ve given us a lot to consider. You may be seated.” Anaya nodded and took her seat near the podium.

  “Madame County Clerk, how many speakers do we have on this item?” Chair Memphis asked, referring to members of the public who had signed up to comment.

  “Twenty-five,” Jayde replied.

  “Twenty-five?” He sighed loudly. Whenever there were more than three speakers, Chair Memphis complained. The zeal that came with being an elected official had disappeared with his hairline and ability to stay awake during meetings.

  “All right, I want to see if these members of the audience actually want to speak,” he said. “Because if they don’t feel like it, they don’t have to.” State law required that the public was allowed to speak without discouragement. Jayde reminded Chair Memphis of this at every meeting, and at every meeting he ignored her advice.

  “So what is the pleasure of the board?” Chair Memphis asked the other members. “Do you want to deliberate or hear the public first? Either way, it’s going to be a long night.”

  What a class act, thought Anaya, although he was right. Each speaker was given three minutes to speak, so they would be there for a while.

  “I think we should listen to the speakers,” Supervisor Buckingham said in her lilting voice. “Why would we put the cart before the horse?” she sang. Buckingham was married to the CEO of a company that produced keyless entry systems, and her father was a retired state senator. She was the only person in the county who matched Wendy’s fashion sagacity.

  “No, we should have questions first.” Supervisor Harris was a former grassroots activist and she and Buckingham didn’t agree on anything.

  “Why would we deliberate before hearing public comment?” Buckingham smiled. “Isn’t that the way the process works? Or do we not care about the public process anymore?”

  “We care about the public,” Harris’s forehead furrowed with displeasure. “What we don’t care about is you pretending you care so much. These people are the 99 percent; you are the 1 percent. How can you possibly relate?”

  “Really, Miss Harris?” Buckingham sustained her smile. “Are you going to go on a tirade about my finances again when we have a room full of people who need our help? I mean, you’re the one who wants to make a decision before we even hear public comment.”

  “I never said we would decide before hearing public comment.” Supervisor Harris’ voice carried the weight of their many disagreements. Harris’ feistiness was one of the reasons that the unions and her constituents loved her. “I said we could ask questions. You do know the difference between asking questions and making a decision? Or do you not discuss such things in the Hamptons?”

  “Hush,” Buckingham said, pursing her lips. And that was the reason the unions hated Buckingham.

  “Hush?” Harris was caught off guard. “That’s articulate, Phyllis. Did you learn that in Pilates class?”

  “Look,” Chair Memphis interrupted. “We can hear the speakers first, it’s fine.”

  “I suggest you tell that to Miss Good Government over there,” Supervisor Harris said.

  “All right, Madam Clerk.” Chair Memphis tried to speak over the murmurs of the crowd. “Call the names.”

  “As I call your name, please step forward to the podium and state your name for the record,” Jayde directed.

  For more than an hour, the board listened to the public, union members, contractors, and gadflies. Their concerns ranged from whether local business would get an opportunity to bid on the project, to questions about the hiring of local workers. Another speaker approached the podium.

  “Good evening, my name is Keith Hung. I want to say that you all need to pay attention to what’s going on here. You have people here from all walks of life trying to help you navigate through this process. It’s difficult. It’s convoluted, and it’s incumbent on you, our civic leaders, to make the right choice. We built this city
on rock and roll. The rock and the roll and the roll and the rock. Get it right, or you will get it wrong. I have come from a place far away to deliver a message of peace and understanding. I made my point, so take my point. That’s a 10-4, good buddy.” He slammed the palm of his hand on the podium before walking away.

  The audience and staff—all familiar with Mr. Hung—laughed. Chair Memphis was not amused and sighed loudly. Board meetings attracted the civic-minded, the business-minded, and the half-minded.

  “Was that the last speaker?” Chair Memphis made no effort to conceal his impatience.

  “No. Mr. Killian, please approach the podium.” Audible groans circled the room. Clinton Killian was the gadfly from gadfly hell. He came to every board meeting and insisted on speaking on every item. Sometimes he made relevant points, but most of the time he just tried to stick it to the board, whom he deemed corrupt and unworthy of their paychecks and pensions.

  “Well, here we are again at another meeting where Chair Memphis is discouraging members of the public from speaking. A clear violation of the law. But clearly, rules don’t matter in this organization. You do as you please with no repercussions for your unlawful and thoughtless actions. The base should be reopened, but the oversight should come from elsewhere because this body is incapable of following simple local laws, let alone overseeing a multimillion-dollar development project.” He went on about other violations, using fifteen seconds more than his three minutes speaking time.

  “All names have been called,” Jayde said when Mr. Killian finally finished.

  “Good. It’s time for board comments. Ms. Goode, please return to the podium.”

  Anaya stood and stepped up to the microphone again.

  Supervisor Harris was first.

  “I want to say the report was well presented, so good work to you and your staff. And while I agree with the recommendations, there’s been a lot of talk about big developers coming to town and not using local contractors. We need to make sure the communities receive benefits from this deal. How will we know for sure that locals will get these jobs? We’ve been here before. How can we be sure there will be local hiring?”