by Sue Pethick
If only she’d been able to convince Walt.
In spite of his admission that her plan had merit, Walt Gunderson remained stubbornly convinced that any idea—even one as unconventional as making Shep the mayor—was doomed to failure. The last time they’d spoken, he advised her not to look for him at the meeting. As Melanie grabbed another chair and set it in place, she tried to ignore the knot in her stomach.
“Where do you want these cookies?” Kayla said.
Melanie looked up at the girl in the heavy metal T-shirt. For the first few years after opening Ground Central, Melanie had labored alone, unable to afford even part-time help. Then five months ago, she’d finally hired her first permanent employee. Kayla Maas might be only eighteen and her fashion choices somewhat questionable, but she showed up on time, didn’t cop an attitude with the customers, and adored Shep, for whom the feeling was mutual.
“The front counter is fine,” Melanie said. “Are the coffee urns ready?”
“Yep. Regular on the right, Unleaded on the left.” Kayla set the tray down and covered it with plastic wrap. “How many people will come, you think?”
“Who knows? Twenty? Thirty? None?”
There was a handprint on the front door. Melanie walked into the back room to get some vinegar water and a rag.
“You think Mr. Gunderson will change his mind?” Kayla said.
She shook her head.
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t get it,” the girl said, dusting crumbs off the counter. “That story about the cat said it brought a lot of people into the town. If it worked there, why not here?”
“It’s not that he thinks having Shep as the mayor won’t work,” Melanie said. “It’s just that, well, he’s not sure that anything will help save Fossett at this point.”
“Why not?”
She bit her lip, wondering how to paraphrase Walt’s position without giving offense. After all, it wasn’t as if his objections were unfounded.
“Because we don’t just need people to come and visit; we need for them to move here permanently. I think he’s afraid that most folks won’t find Fossett all that appealing.”
Kayla scrunched up her nose.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, you know. It’s a small town. People in small towns can be a bit . . . different.” She chuckled. “I mean, it’s not every place that has a pet psychic.”
“But people love Jewell!” Kayla said. “And she’s really good, too. When our cockatiel, Stevie, stopped eating, Mom asked Jewell to come over and take a look at him. Right away, she knew what was wrong.”
Melanie nodded feebly. She could just picture Jewell Divine, showing up on Kayla’s doorstep in one of her tie-dyed caftans, ready to reveal the thoughts and feelings of the anorexic bird.
“Jewell told us that Stevie had been smuggled in from South America in some guy’s smelly coat and then sold to a pet store where the other birds were mean to him. It was real sad.”
“And did he start eating again?”
“Oh no, he died,” Kayla said. “But at least we understood him better, and Jewell said sometimes that’s all an animal really wants. Plus, after all he’d been through, we could sort of understand why he’d want to end it all.”
“So . . . it was suicide?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Melanie was about to say something about the chances that a bird would willfully self-destruct when the girl’s phone rang. As Kayla went off to answer it, Melanie started cleaning the window, going over what she planned to say at the meeting as she wiped away the handprints. Now wasn’t the time to worry about whether or not Walt was right, she told herself. Making Shep the mayor was going to be enough of a stretch without complicating matters, and it was important that the idea get more than a grudging endorsement. For her plan to work, Fossett’s residents would need to know they had a stake in the outcome. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to feel they’d been buffaloed.
Kayla returned and glanced at the door.
“I’m surprised there’s nobody here yet.”
Melanie felt the knot in her stomach tighten.
“Yeah. I guess free coffee and cookies weren’t as enticing as I thought.”
“Mind if I take off, then? I told Cal I’d go kayaking with him today.”
“No, you go on,” Melanie said. “I appreciate your helping out. See you tomorrow.”
As Kayla disappeared around the corner, Melanie sauntered up to the front counter, lifted the plastic wrap from the cookies, and slid one off the tray. To help keep her strength up when everyone arrived, she told herself, taking a bite. Or as consolation, if no one did.
Then, like the first drops of rain after a long drought, people began to arrive. A trickle at first, then groups of two and three came in, chatting amiably as they surveyed the cookies, poured themselves some coffee, and found a seat. Selma from the B and B came, taking an extra cookie for the boy who was watching the front desk, along with her twin sister, Helena, and Jewell Divine, in a pair of harem pants and a tie-dyed vest. Rod Blakely arrived in his usual attire—jungle fatigues, combat boots, and a flak jacket—and Francine and Everett Stubbs had left their herd of goats to take their places in the front row. When the flow of friends and neighbors finally abated, fifty-one people—more than twice as many as expected—had shown up. Melanie searched the faces carefully, but Walt’s was not among them. She told herself it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Nevertheless, his lack of confidence felt like a blow.
She stepped up in front of the counter and cleared her throat.
“Thanks for coming, everyone,” she said, loud enough to be heard over the din.
As the room quieted, all eyes turned toward her. Seeing so many hopeful faces made Melanie feel weak at the knees. These were her friends and neighbors, people hoping for a way out of a desperate situation, and what did she have to offer them? An absurd idea based on something that had happened half a world away. What if Walt was right and Fossett was already beyond salvation? All she’d be giving them was another dose of false hope. Melanie looked down at her ragged fingernails and felt the weight of their expectations pressing down on her. Perhaps, she thought, it would be better just to admit defeat and go home.
A whoosh of air and the sound of chairs being shuffled caught her attention. She looked up and saw the door close as Walt Gunderson slipped inside. He leaned against the back wall, arms folded, and gave her an encouraging nod. Melanie felt tears of relief and gratitude well up. Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause after all.
“We all know that things around here have been going downhill since the mill closed. Shops are closing, people are moving away, and the changes we thought would bring more people into town haven’t worked out the way we hoped.”
Heads nodded. There were murmurs of assent.
“I have an idea that I think might help, something that would get us some attention and bring tourists into town.”
“We don’t need tourists,” Rod Blakely grumbled. “We need jobs.”
“You’re right,” Melanie said. “We do need jobs, but we need people, too. Folks who have jobs in Corvallis or Albany—even Salem—might just be looking for a small town where they can raise their kids. If we can get the word out about what a great place Fossett is, I think folks like that will want to come here and buy houses, settle down, and fill our school with their kids so we can reverse the downward spiral we’ve been in.”
“The mill’s closed,” someone said. “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”
“No,” she said. “But if we can increase our numbers, Fossett will be a more attractive place for companies to come to. We’ve got a lot of empty storefronts to fill.”
“Retail jobs don’t pay enough to live on,” said another.
“Yeah,” Rod Blakely added. “Minimum wage won’t help anyone.”
Melanie was tempted to point out that rents were dirt cheap in Fossett and having any job was better than being unemployed,
but she didn’t want to get pulled into an argument before she’d had a chance to share her idea. Making Shep the mayor was never going be the entire solution to Fossett’s problems, but it could be a step toward helping the town rehabilitate itself. If they got bogged down in the details now, people might give up before they’d even given it a chance.
“So,” came a voice from the back. “What’s your idea?”
Melanie gave Walt a grateful smile. He might be a skeptic, but he’d come and shown his support. Whether or not he’d ever change his mind, it seemed he at least wanted people to hear what she had to say.
“I think we need a gimmick,” she said.
At once, the air of excited anticipation died. Heads shook and eyes began to roll. Melanie felt panic rise up in her chest. How could they dismiss her so quickly? They hadn’t even heard what she had to say. She gave Walt a pleading look, hoping for some backup.
“Quiet down!” he said. “You all sound like a bunch of geese. Let the lady finish.”
The effect was immediate. Against the moral weight of their most prominent citizen no one was willing to argue.
“So, what’s the gimmick?” Selma said.
Melanie paused. Thinking about making her dog the mayor was one thing, but saying it out loud almost made it seem like a joke. She didn’t want people to think she was making fun of their plight or minimizing the amount of effort it would take to drag them back from the brink of disaster. What made her think that her plan would work when so many others had failed?
Then Melanie glanced at Shep, sitting beside her, alert but unruffled by a crowd whose emotions were wavering between hope and despair, and it occurred to her that he was exactly the sort of leader they needed. Maybe having Shep as Fossett’s mayor wasn’t so crazy after all, she told herself. Maybe, under the circumstances, it was the sanest thing they could do. She just had to hope that the people who saw him sitting there would realize it, too.
“I think we need a mayor.”
“A mayor?!”
“Oh, come on.”
“What the hell kind of gimmick is that?”
“Hold on!” Walt said. “Let her finish.”
“And,” Melanie added, “I think it should be my dog, Shep.”
For the first few seconds, no one moved. The coffee shop was so quiet she could hear the clock ticking on the wall behind her. Melanie swallowed, and the sound seemed to fill the room as she waited for a response.
I am never going to live this down.
Then everyone began to talk at once.
“That’s a great idea!”
“A dog mayor! We’ll be famous!”
“It’s perfect!”
“Three cheers for Mayor Shep!”
As the crowd continued to smile and voice their approval, Melanie glanced at Walt, who shook his head in wonder. The folks there had not only taken her seriously; they also seemed to think her plan could work. It wasn’t the end of Fossett’s problems by a long shot, but it was a start.
And it was already catching fire.
“He should wear a badge that says: ‘Mayor Shep.’”
“And carry a briefcase!”
“Why don’t we give him an office in the old City Hall building?”
“Yeah, people could come and see him passing laws.”
“Mayors don’t pass laws; they enforce them.”
“No, the police do that!”
“Well, Fossett doesn’t have a police force, does it?”
“Good thing, too, or you’d be in jail!”
“Wait!” Melanie shouted, waving her arms. “Hold on! Shep wouldn’t be doing things that a real mayor would do. He’d just be the honorary mayor.”
Disappointed looks were exchanged among the audience members.
“What’s the point of that?”
“The point is, he’d be called the mayor and people would come and see him.”
“But if he’s not a real mayor—”
“He would be a real mayor,” Melanie said. “A real, honorary mayor. Cities do it all the time.”
Nevertheless, the air of skepticism remained.
“But what would he do?”
“The same thing he does now: greet people at the coffee shop and nap on his dog bed.”
“Who’d want to come all the way out here just to see that?”
“Lots of people,” Melanie said, her confidence waning. “He’s a dog. People love dogs.”
Now that they were talking about the actual details of her plan, she had to admit that the idea sounded awfully flimsy. The story on the television hadn’t said anything about Reginald the cat doing anything special, but that was in England. Maybe Americans needed something more exciting to get them to come to a place like Fossett.
“I don’t know,” Selma said. “I still think he needs to do some mayor stuff.”
“Well . . . maybe he could be a real mayor,” Melanie conceded. “But before we decide about that, we need to agree that this is something we all want to do. If people here in town don’t take this seriously, no one else will believe it and the whole thing will fall apart. What we have to decide today is, should we do it or not?”
“You can’t decide something like that on the say-so of a couple dozen people,” Rod Blakely said. “That ain’t fair.”
Melanie ground her teeth. Leave it to Rod, she thought, to stop her momentum in its tracks.
“All right,” she said. “What would you suggest?”
“We should put it to a vote.”
“Right now?” She looked around.
“No. On Election Day.”
“But that’s silly. He’d be the only candidate.”
“Not necessarily.” Rod gave her a mutinous look. “There might be others who’d like to be the mayor.”
She should have seen this coming, Melanie thought. Rod Blakely was not only the most disagreeable person in Fossett; he was also under the impression that he was the smartest, most competent, and best-loved guy in town. The man was delusional.
“Look, I really don’t see why we should hold an election. After all, the point is to have a dog as our mayor.”
Rod crossed his arms. “No, the point is to make the process fair.”
Melanie was dismayed to find several people nodding in agreement. Folks in Fossett might not be terribly sophisticated, but they had a keen sense of right and wrong; fairness and playing by the rules meant more to them than reason and logic. She glanced at Walt, hoping for some sort of intervention, but he simply shrugged as if to say, You got yourself into this mess. Better figure your way out.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll hold an election.”
“On Election Day?” Selma said.
“Uh, sure, I guess. If we can manage it.”
“But we don’t have a mayor now. How do we elect one?”
Melanie shook her head, feeling the optimism that had carried her thus far begin to falter under the weight of reality.
“I-I suppose the first thing we’ll have to do is talk to an attorney and find out what the legal requirements are.”
Francine Stubbs scowled.
“And how much will that cost?”
“Yeah,” her husband said. “I thought this was supposed to make us money, not cost us anything.”
As the rumbles of dissent grew, Melanie knew she’d have to act fast.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I know a lawyer who’ll do it for free.”
And just like that, the tide turned back in her favor. Hopeful smiles broke out all over the room and people came forward to shake Shep’s paw, promising him their votes. Walt Gunderson gave her a thumbs-up and she nodded her thanks. She’d done it! And once the people there went back to their homes and families, the idea would percolate and grow until everyone in Fossett would be eager to have Shep as their mayor.
Sure, they’d have to hold an election and Rod Blakely might insist that his name be on the ballot, but no one in their right mind would vote for him, so why worry?
All she needed to do was figure out how to hold an election that was legally enforceable in the next two weeks. Never mind that the only lawyer Melanie knew was her ex-husband, or that she hadn’t spoken to him in years, or even that they’d broken up over his refusal to move to Fossett. That was history, over and done with. The two of them had moved on ages ago. He’d be happy to help her out, right?
CHAPTER 3
Bryce MacDonald could be forgiven for feeling a bit smug. Not only had he just won a big case, but billable hours for his first year at Norcross Daniels had exceeded all expectations; if things continued as they were, he’d be pocketing a hefty bonus at the end of the year. As he prepared for his defense team’s debrief with the senior partner that afternoon, he finally felt as if his decision to become a litigator had been the right one. It was hard to imagine that sixteen months ago he’d been busting his butt in the DA’s office and drowning in student debt. Whoever said that money couldn’t buy a clear conscience didn’t know what they were talking about.
The intercom buzzed.
“Call for you on line three. It’s Melanie MacDonald.”
Seconds passed while Bryce hesitated. He glanced at his watch. The debrief was in eighteen minutes.
“Did she say what it was regarding?”
“No, sir.”
Bryce considered the possibilities. Was it an emergency of some sort? The last time they’d spoken, she made it clear that she didn’t need his help. A death in the family? Doubtful. Melanie was an only child of only children, a late-in-life baby whose parents had died when she was barely out of her teens.
He pressed his lips together, feeling an unreasonable irritation at this intrusion. Why was she calling now, just when things were looking up for him? The blinking light on his telephone seemed as ominous as a ticking time bomb.
“Shall I ask her to leave a message?”