by Ellie Danes
Before he could answer me, the waitress came and asked if we’d made up our minds. I got my usual: crawfish etouffee, with fresh green beans and butternut squash on the side. Dad got shrimp and grits, and asparagus and garlic bread on the side, and ordered us beers and crab cakes to start off. Once we were alone again, he looked at me.
“I believe I’m going to have to let that son of a bitch go.” Dad shook his head. “And I’m going to have some words with Wilson over there in the company about making deals that cut me out.”
“I know you don’t want to back out of the deal altogether,” I said. “And I know you think I’m on Rhett’s side, but really I think both sides can compromise on this.”
“Don’t bring that up with me right now, Em,” he said in a warning voice.
“Now’s as good a time as any,” I pointed out with a smile.
He sighed and shook his head. “Let’s settle in to eat and then we can talk about what you think a compromise solution would look like.”
I decided to go along with that—it was fair, after all, and I thought it would put him in a better mood overall.
I sat back and sipped my beer when it came, and sampled the crab cakes. We chit-chatted about nothing, and I waited until our actual meals came to broach the topic again. I considered my position pretty carefully—I knew if I pushed on Dad too hard, even with what he’d just learned and maybe especially with what he’d just learned about Jacob, he’d likely push back.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I said. “I think we can come up with a solution that will still be good for the company, and also be decent for Mustang Ridge.” I outlined the thing I’d suggested to Rhett before—that instead of bringing in partners from other parts of the country, bring in the Mustang Ridge merchants to open up their centralized locations in the bigger strip mall arrangement we had already contracted to build. That way, everything would be updated—and it would be something that everyone in the town could partake in, instead of being driven out. It was different from the older compromise I’d come up with, which was just for the original build.
“I think they might go for that,” Dad said in a thoughtful voice. “But I don’t know that it’ll work out if the town doesn’t go for it—and your boy Rhett is trying to avoid us putting anything there. You know that.”
“True. But right now he just wants to make sure it’s the best thing for everyone in town,” I said. “Just bringing in the store isn’t going to improve anything for anyone—but building the strip mall with all the local businesses in it is something that would actually help Mustang Ridge. Especially if we go with the original base company instead of the fully expanded location. Just the base store—stuff that people in town wouldn’t be able to get from the grocery or hardware store or the other places that already exist.”
Dad pressed his lips together and ate a little more of his food, and I let him think about it for a bit.
“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” he said, waving the server over for the check.
I nodded. “Thanks for hearing me out, Dad. I’ve drawn up what the finished project might look like. I have it here if you want to look it over.”
He gestured that I should show it to him, so I pulled the plans from my oversized purse and handed them to him.
His lightly-lined face was thoughtful as he perused the plans. “I’m still not sure that you’re going to get everyone to agree to this,” he said, shaking his head. “Rhett’s been working hard to convince the people not to sell to us.”
“Why don’t we talk to him about it?” I wanted to see Rhett again, which surprised me because I’d just said goodbye to him this morning. Besides that, I really hoped Dad and Rhett could come to an agreement. “This plan would require less land, and it would mean we could mostly buy up from the property the town has open, instead of the farms.”
Dad frowned. “Let’s see what your boyfriend has to say.”
I didn’t tell him that technically, Rhett wasn’t my boyfriend. Rhett and I hadn’t talked about what we were to each other, beyond both of us agreeing that the sex was good, and that we had a shared goal for the moment.
I texted Rhett to tell him that we would be coming over. He responded that his mother would love to have us for dinner.
As I drove Dad and myself out to Mustang Ridge, I thought that if anyone could convince my dad of anything, it would be Mrs. Baxter. She seemed to have gotten on pretty well with him so far.
“Thanks for coming by,” Rhett said when we got out of the car together.
Dad shook his hand and there was that tension between them, but I could tell they were both trying to be on their best behavior.
“Always glad to have a reason to make some time with a beautiful woman like your mother,” Dad said.
We went inside and I greeted Rhett’s mother, hugging her quickly before we all sat down.
“I think we might be on the edge of coming up with a way to make everyone happy,” I said, taking out the plans I’d drawn up. I’d shown parts of them to Rhett before. “There’s just a couple of loose ends to tie up.”
“We’ve already made some preliminary agreements to purchase land here,” Dad said. “So I’m not sure if we can do your deal exactly, Em, but I think we can come to an agreement on this somehow.”
I nodded. “We know that Rhett’s against people selling their farmlands off for this project,” I said. “I’m not sure how we can get around that—or the fact that there are people who really do need the money more than they need the land. But I think you’ll see that if we do this, fewer people are going to have to sell their land to make it happen.”
“There are empty lots that would cover what you have marked here,” Rhett said. “Lands that came up free after people didn’t pass their farms on to any heirs.”
“But that doesn’t solve the problem of the people we’ve already made agreements with,” Dad pointed out.
“I can cover them,” Rhett said.
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
Rhett shrugged. “I haven’t been making a big deal about it, because I wasn’t raised to brag, but I convinced Justin and a few of the others to hold off on selling while I floated them for a while,” Rhett said. “So what I could do is to sort of float some of these other farms for a year or two—give them funding—and basically make it so they don’t need to sell. If you think that would help.”
“If they refuse to sell,” I said, looking over at Dad, “we’ll have to tell the company that they can’t have that much space, and they’d have to take the smaller amount, and do the other deal.”
“The town council already approved the old deal,” Dad said. “So what are we going to do about that?”
“I’m only about a dozen signatures away from having enough to force the town council to meet,” Rhett explained. “We’ll discuss this project and have everyone in the town vote on it.”
Dad considered that for a moment and then nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” He looked over at Rhett’s mother. “I hope you’ll still have us for dinner, even though we’ve already come to an agreement on this.”
Mrs. Baxter smiled at him. “I already started making a big meal for four,” she said. “I am not about to let you go without being fed, so don’t even think about it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rhett
I looked around at the people coming into the big auditorium attached to the town’s administrative building. They came in ones and twos, in families and little groups of friends. The Mustang Ridge Town Council had set itself up on one side of a big table, and the chairs were set out for everyone else who might be interested in watching the proceedings. I knew that I was going to be the official-unofficial spokesman for the town. I felt nervous, even though these were people I’d known my whole life.
It seemed to me that all the roughly two thousand people were coming in, including the kids. The council had been forced to meet after all, and they’d made the meeting as public
as possible, probably to avoid any accusation that they were trying to cover up what they were doing.
Of course, Emily had found out about there being a member on the council who’d worked with Jacob to make the newer, much more disastrous deal. I’d managed to figure out who it was specifically. Todd Johnson, who was only a little bit older than me, had been the one to make a deal with Jacob. I’d kept that information to myself just for the sake of having it up my sleeve in case things got too heated, or in case it looked like things weren’t going the way that Emily and I wanted them to. I was pretty sure that her dad wouldn’t care if it came to that. He was going to make bank from putting this business in Mustang Ridge either way, and he’d fired Jacob for making side deals. The only people I knew for sure wanted this new plan were me and Emily, and a few of the farmers I’d talked into letting me float them for a year or so from the money I’d made with my investments.
Some of them had been too proud to start off with, but I’d made them a deal: I wouldn’t just be giving them money, I was buying my way into being a part-owner of their farm, investing in them. That way, too, there was less of an ability or the company that Martin Lewis was bringing in to buy up the land in the first place. There were just papers to sign and it would be done, and assuming that things worked out, I’d eventually make back the money I was giving my friends. Everyone would win.
Finally, everyone had more or less arrived. The leader of our town’s council, Fred Vaughn, stood up to announce that the meeting was going to begin.
“From what I understand from the petition that was brought to us by Mr. Rhett Baxter, there’s some concern that the council is approving plans for development that might not be in the best interests of Mustang Ridge,” Fred said. “While there are folks on both sides of this issue, it’s obviously important enough to all the folks here that we actually talk about this, in detail, before moving forward with any plans.”
He sat down and Jessica Tillby, another member of the council, stood up to do her part of the intro. “We’re going to open this up to the floor, but we want things to be orderly. We’re not a big town, obviously, but there’s still over a thousand of us total here, so we’re going to be letting folks talk one at a time, and since Rhett has spearheaded the move to make this meeting happen, the council has decided it’s only fair to let him go first. Then we can discuss things more broadly.”
I stepped up to the front and turned so that I was facing both the council and the townspeople. I took a quick, deep breath. I knew I could do this, and between me and Emily I knew we could make something good happen here tonight.
“Thanks for hearing me out, and I want to thank the town council for agreeing to meet,” I said. “The issue as I see it is this: the proposed development as it stands right now is something that I think will end up destroying Mustang Ridge. That might sound alarmist to some of you, but if you really think about it with some common sense, I think you’ll agree with me.” I took another breath to let what I was saying hit home. “The plan that the council approved includes not just a big-box store, which on its own would mean that lots of folks here would have to sell property to make room for it, but also a big strip mall around it—with companies that have franchises all over the US. And those franchises would compete with our local business.”
I explained the whole setup, pointing out specific people who it would potentially put out of business, and going over how I could foresee the development proceeding, how I could see it impacting the town as a whole. A few people got restless and I could see that there was still going to be opposition to what I was saying—but I could hope that by the time it was Emily’s turn to come up, with my support, that it would shake out just fine.
“I’m not going to go on all night, because I think it’s important that all of us who want to be heard get heard,” I finished. “But I want y’all to all think about not just what this means for you personally—how much easier it would be to sell off some or all of your land instead of working it in a slump—but what this means for the town we’ve all grown up in, where lots of us have kids that are growing up.”
I looked once more around the room and then took the seat I’d claimed near Emily and her dad.
We’d planned out how we were going to do what we came to do, and I could only help that the council would cooperate with us, that things wouldn’t get too out of hand before Emily and I could propose the solution to the conflict in front of us. I sat still as some of the people I hadn’t been able to convince not to sell came up to the same spot I’d taken and voiced their concerns: that Mustang Ridge was, ultimately, behind the times, that things were tough for a lot of farmers, and that it wasn’t fair to expect people to hold off on selling land when they could make more money off of it than they were able to farming. In between those people were some of those I’d managed to convince, or who hadn’t needed convincing at all, and their message was pretty clear too.
Fred interrupted the proceedings after about half a dozen people from either side had spoken, to redirect and bring people back to focus. “The issue I see at hand here is a question of whether it’s fair for a few of us to make a decision that affects all of us. I understand that the company in charge of buying the land for the development here has a representative in the audience?”
Emily raised her hand. All the eyes in the room swiveled to look at her.
“There are some concerns that Mr. Baxter has brought to the attention of the council as a whole, as well,” Jessica said. “We’ve been pretty quiet up here because the purpose of this meeting is to hear what you all have to say, but I want to hear from Rhett and from Emily—but only if the town as a whole thinks it’s worthwhile. So we’re going to take a vote.” This was the moment that our plans hinged on; if no one thought it was worth hearing from me and Emily, then we might not even get a chance to show the town what kind of counter proposal we could make.
Jessica led the vote by a show of hands. There were just enough hands up in the crowd to let Emily and me speak. I gave her fingers a squeeze and we both walked up to the front.
“Most of you here who are concerned with the decision being made tonight have met me, one way or another,” Emily said. “Some of you I convinced to sell to the company I work for—that my dad owns—and some of you I’ve talked into signing the petition to have this meeting in the first place. I wanted to talk to you all about a possible different path that Mustang Ridge can take, but first I think that it’s important to address something that has come up in an investigation into this particular development plan.”
“Emily found out in checking out the contracts and contacts that her company’s representative—some of y’all met him, Jacob—made a side-deal with the big store that’s going in here,” I said.
“Not only did he make a deal with the company,” Emily added, when we could both tell that everyone was wondering just what that meant to Mustang Ridge. “I found out—and Rhett was able to confirm—that he made a side deal as well with a member of the town council. The two conspired to make this happen as quickly and easily as possible.”
I glanced over at the table with the council members seated at it, and I could tell that Todd was trying to keep his composure. He wasn’t succeeding all that well.
“Todd Johnson made a deal with someone outside of this town to affect the future of this town, for the sake of getting about ten thousand dollars in his pocket,” I said. “No matter what other conclusion this meeting comes to, I would move that Todd doesn’t belong on the council anymore.”
“This is really serious,” Fred said, and while his voice was calm, I could tell he was furious. “I assume the two of you have proof?”
Emily nodded and gestured to her dad, who’d been holding the folder with the paperwork showing what had been done. Once I’d figured out who it was on the council that Jacob had gotten to, it had been pretty easy for Emily to find the documentation in the office that had made the transfer of payment from her company to Todd,
through Jacob, possible. She handed the folder to Fred. Todd tried to reach for it—only to get his hand smacked by Jessica.
For a while, there was nothing but chaos—people shouting, the members of the council going over the paperwork and arguing amongst themselves, people demanding copies of the paperwork, and so on. Emily had come prepared; she’d also compiled the emails between Jacob and Todd, and she’d made copies of them to hand out—just the relevant stuff, so that people would know what they were looking at. Everyone started to quiet down as they looked over the evidence.
“I believe this calls for a vote of no confidence in Todd Johnson,” Jessica said finally, once everyone had absorbed the information.
“We’re not going to do a vocal vote because I’m not sure we’ll be able to get a clear count,” Fred told us all. “We’re going to do this by hand-raise. All those in favor of keeping Todd Johnson on the town council?”
Even among those who had been in favor of selling their property to make room for the big store, there weren’t many who were all that fond of Todd’s deal and how he’d managed to make himself richer in such a shady way. Overwhelmingly, people wanted him off the council.
Todd, red-faced, got up and left through a rear exit. Several people booed him as he went.
“We’ll have elections for the vacancy on our town council in a matter of a week or two,” Fred concluded. “Now that that’s settled, I think we can get on to what you were going to discuss in view of the development.”
I handed the platform over to Emily, who explained her compromise of a smaller, more compact version of the big box store, and that the strip mall would include the businesses that were already in Mustang Ridge.
Once more, some chaos erupted in the room, and Emily and I both stepped back to let it happen around us. There were people who still wanted to sell their land off, there were people accusing others of trying to put them out of. It seemed to rage back and forth for at least thirty minutes, with the council itself—minus Todd—occasionally intervening to bring things to some semblance of order.