Mayor Maksimov rubbed an arthritic finger over his chin. Whoever had sewn on his patches must also have shaved him, because the stubble on one side of his jaw was longer than on the other. “I can’t personally do anything, Anna. I try to stay out of skirmishes, even though I’d like to get into them sometimes. And I definitely try not to cross the Planning Department.”
“What about the city council? Could they help?”
“I can only think of a single time that the council stepped in to alter a planner’s verdict. In the end it didn’t work.”
“Can’t somebody do something?”
Mayor Maksimov rested his hands on his swivel chair’s arms. His gaze went to a red Ford passing by the window. “I suppose the council could vote to appeal Naomi Blackmore’s demolition permit to our hearing examiner. I could put it on the agenda for our next meeting.”
“Oh, please, would you?” Anna leaned forward on the edge of her seat.
“Yes, but I can’t guarantee the outcome. A vote like that could be complicated when the town’s already stirred up about the project.”
“At least the house might have a chance.”
“Not necessarily.” Mayor Maksimov wagged his finger at no one in particular. “If the council does vote to appeal, the examiner could rule in favor of Naomi. Then your only recourse would be to go to court.”
“We couldn’t afford the legal fees.” Mad Dog Horowitz had taught Anna more about them than she wanted to know. “When’s the next meeting?”
“Next Thursday, the twenty-seventh.”
“If the council votes yes, we’d have time to stop the demolition while the examiner decides,” Anna said, excitement stirring inside her.
“That’s true, but don’t get your hopes up. The Planning Department rules the roost in this town.”
Not exactly encouraging news. But not enough to stop the fight.
Anna had only a week before the meeting to organize supporters.
Now that the days were longer, it was light after six o’clock. Rain was pouring onto Anna’s beach-ball-striped umbrella and splashing on her yellow galoshes. Though she was bundled up in an Irish wool sweater and yellow slicker, she was shivering. Earnest seemed not to mind the damp and cold. He pressed against her legs and watched people pass by on the sidewalk outside Thrifty Market.
On Anna’s clipboard was a petition urging the city council to appeal Mrs. Blackmore’s demolition permit. So far Anna had gotten over three hundred signatures, a major accomplishment considering the short few days she’d had to canvass the town. But her success had taken a toll. She’d caught a cold, and at the end of each day she dragged home and went to bed. Still, determination and the pressure of time’s passing drove her forward.
All weekend Anna, Lauren, and Joy had called friends to corral them to the city council meeting on Thursday, three days away. The plan was to gather a crowd in Thrifty’s parking lot and march in a show of force to city hall. The house’s supporters could speak to the council, just as they had to the planning commission. But then, Cedar Place’s supporters could also speak. The house had become a lightning rod for opposing groups. The most anyone could hope for was that the crowd would be polite.
Anna and Lauren had also made posters announcing the meeting, and pinned them to community bulletin boards outside Thrifty Market, Sweet Time Bakery, the ferry building, police station, and post office. Joy had put on her lowest-cut sweater, and, like her heroine Penelope, she’d loosened her hair so it fell, free and sexy, to her shoulders. Then she’d paid a call on the Gamble Crier’s single, thirty-something male editor. She’d placed her elbows on his desk, leaned forward, and let him feast his eyes as she begged him to write another editorial on the house. The heat of her persuasion melted his resistance. His support would appear in the Crier tomorrow.
“Sir, may I talk with you a minute?” Anna asked another thirty-something male. Dressed in a power suit, wing-tip shoes, and a navy overcoat, he was likely returning from work in Seattle.
“Only a minute. I’m in a rush,” he said.
“I’ll hurry.” Anna smiled. “I’m wondering if you’d sign this petition.” She held out her clipboard.
He waved it away, unwilling to take time to read. “What’s it for?”
“We’re asking the city council to appeal a permit that the Planning Department granted.”
“What permit?”
“To demolish the old Victorian house on Rainier. Maybe you’ve heard about it.”
“I certainly have.” He looked down at Anna as if playing tiddlywinks might be a better use of her time. “I’m a friend of Naomi Blackmore. Does she know about your petition?”
Gulp. “I don’t know.” Anna reached down for the consoling top of Earnest’s head.
“Surely you do know she won’t be happy about it,” he said.
“I expect so.”
“Are you one of those women who opposed her building? She’s told me about you. You’ve been a real pain.”
Anna mustered her grit. She would not back down. “We’re trying to save the house. It’s important.”
“Give it up. If Naomi has to, she’ll fight all the way to the Supreme Court.”
Before Anna could reply, the man walked away, trailing the smell of an acidic aftershave.
Phooey on you. “Thanks for your time, sir.”
Grammy had said that fighting was a fact of life.
CHAPTER 43
Jeff walked off the ferry a satisfied man. It was a pleasant evening, and at work he’d had a productive conference with Mrs. Blackmore’s contractor, who’d start Cedar Place in less than two weeks. The permit process was behind Jeff, and the project was moving forward at last. He’d run the gantlet, and now Cedar Place shimmered in his future. He’d prevailed!
Jeff joined the other commuters on the long ramp to the terminal. All the feet on the worn green carpet made muffled thunder, which faded at the exit as Jeff stepped outside to fresh, clean air. The sky was clear. At Thrifty Market he’d pick up a steak to celebrate Cedar Place’s imminent groundbreaking. All was right with the world.
Across the street, Joy and five women whom Jeff did not know were shouting at the passengers and waving homemade signs. For a second, he wondered if he’d missed mention in the Crier of an upcoming election for the city council or school board. Local politics always brought out citizens and heated up the town.
But then he read Joy’s sign, and his heart keeled over, paralyzed. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Written in brash red letters was: SAVE GAMBLE’S MOST IMPORTANT HISTORIC HOUSE!
The other women’s signs also thumbed their noses at him: “ONCE HISTORY IS DESTROYED, IT’S GONE FOREVER!” “SAY NO TO CEDAR PLACE!” “SAVE OUR PAST!” “COME TO THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING THURSDAY NIGHT @ SEVEN.”
Jeff stopped and stared as commuters flowed around him to the street. What the hell? He’d bet a year’s paychecks that Anna was behind every word in those signs and she’d wrangled the city council into hearing more pleas about Mrs. Blackmore’s house. Jeff’s deal was done, and he had the permits to prove it. Why couldn’t Anna just accept it and give up? Did she have to keep stirring her damned pot of opposition? He’d been a fool to feel sorry for her or to think that at last they might make peace.
Jeff turned and hurried, disgusted, through the parking lot to avoid Joy and her friends. Eager to get home, make a few calls, and find out what was going on, he sprinted up the hill, turned onto Rainier, and headed to his apartment. As his annoyance propelled him down the street, in the distance he saw bright lights and a crowd in front of Mrs. Blackmore’s house. He got closer. TV cameras were aimed at the porch, and the lights were shining on Anna.
She was standing with Earnest behind a small grove of microphones, which let Jeff know she’d contacted media not just on the island, but also in Seattle. She held a sign that urged, “HISTORY TRUMPS GREED!” Under the lights’ glare, her eyes seemed flinty, and Earnest’s fur looked bleached. Her hair’s tufts spiked l
ike barracuda teeth.
“I’m trying to save my grandmother’s historic house and her hundred-year-old madrona tree,” Anna told the reporters. “We can’t let developers destroy our island’s heritage. History can’t be replaced. Thursday night is our last chance to speak our minds and save a Gamble landmark.”
How absurd. A decrepit house is not a landmark.
Anna pointed to the madrona. A woman in a dark green running suit was lounging on a wooden platform high up in the branches, from which hung yellow balloons and a banner: “SAVE THIS TREE!” She waved at the crowd as if she were wearing a tiara and throwing doubloons from a dragon float in the Mardi Gras parade. Her confident smile rankled Jeff as much as Anna had.
“That’s Madeline,” Anna said. “She’s going to sit up there till the city council votes to appeal this house’s demolition permit to Gamble’s Hearing Examiner. And she’ll stay till he cancels it and rescues this house once and for all. Madeline’s committed. We’ve got volunteers to watch after her for as long as it takes.”
Someone shouted, “You go, girl! You rock!” Then people chanted, “Save the house! Save the tree! Save the house! Save the tree!”
As Jeff pushed his way out of the crowd, the chant changed to “No mini mall! No mini mall!”
How ridiculous! It’s not a mini mall. It’s a small commercial building.
By the time Jeff got to Thrifty Market’s newspaper stand, he was breathless. He couldn’t put distance quickly enough between him and Anna’s circus. He fished two quarters from his pocket, slipped them into the slot of the Crier’s collection box, and pulled up the window for a copy. By the light coming through Thrifty’s plate-glass window, he opened the paper and flipped through the pages to an op-ed headline: “City Council to Vote on Appealing Controversial Permit.”
The editorial began, “When a town loses its history, it loses its soul. . . .”
Jeff blanched. Once again he knew where that biased jerk of an editor stood. Surely I haven’t come this far only to be blocked another time. But Anna and the editor might drum up enough ill will to make that happen. They could get hundreds of people to a meeting that could ruin Jeff’s career.
He shouldn’t have counted his chickens and let down his guard. He should have remembered Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Damn Anna. Damn the editor. Damn Madeline, the tree hugger. Damn those women and their signs at the ferry dock. Damn the TV crews. Damn the house.
CHAPTER 44
Despite the rain, more than a hundred of the house’s supporters gathered in Thrifty Market’s parking lot. Bumping umbrellas, they greeted each other in jeans, rain hats, and hoodies. Under Thrifty’s green-and-white-striped awning, April Pringle and Lloyd McGregor, minus his bagpipes, talked and waved their hands. As excitement rippled through the crowd, someone shouted, “Save the tree! Save the house!”
If only, Anna thought.
The city council’s vote tonight might as well be the peak of a crescendo in Beethoven’s “Battle Symphony,” which old Mr. Webster played too loudly on his ancient stereo. Months of worry and effort had built to this moment, and every day of those months was etched in the tension on Anna’s face. All afternoon while Joy had made last-minute calls to round up allies, Anna and Earnest had handed out flyers about the meeting, and Lauren had painted signs for the crowd to carry down the block to city hall.
“It’s now or never.” Joy stamped her feet in the chill. “We should get going in about twenty minutes.”
“I have six flyers left. Anybody need one?” Anna asked.
“Put them on windshields. Lots to choose from.” Lauren swept her hand through the air to indicate the parking lot. “There’s still time to get people to join us.”
Anna glanced around at cars to target. “Look who’s here.” She pointed two rows down to Jeff’s blue Honda.
“Slap one of those babies on him. Stick it to him,” Joy said. “Leave it facedown so he can’t miss it when he climbs behind the steering wheel.”
“That would be mean,” Lauren pointed out.
“He’s earned mean,” Joy said.
“It would be throwing gasoline on fire,” Lauren warned.
“Whose side are you on?” As Joy pushed damp hair back from her face, her dark roots showed.
Anna hesitated. “Jeff doesn’t need a reminder about the meeting.”
“Your flyer wouldn’t remind him. It’d notify him that enemies are waiting for him at city hall,” Joy said.
Anna shook her head with indecision. “I don’t know . . .”
“Do it! Go get him! Or I will.” Joy waved her fist.
If Jeff hadn’t been Gamble’s Benedict Arnold, we wouldn’t be here in the first place, Anna thought. “I guess you’re right.”
While Joy and Lauren handed out signs, Anna and Earnest walked to Jeff’s car. Earnest seemed to sense that something disagreeable was about to happen because he pressed back his ears and let her know, I prefer harmony and peace.
Normally, Anna would have agreed with him, but not after a day of strong tea, adrenaline, and gearing up to plead for the house. She lifted Jeff’s windshield wiper and set the flyer facedown on the glass. Just as she was replacing the wiper, footsteps approached from behind—and Earnest whined and tugged his leash.
Anna didn’t have to look to know that Jeff had caught her in an underhanded act. But it was hardly criminal; she felt justified, and she refused to slink away, embarrassed. She turned around as Earnest threw himself at Jeff. You’re here! You’re here! said each fervent tail swish.
“Hey, Earnest.” Careful not to drop his grocery bag, Jeff stooped down and greeted him.
Then looking solemn, he straightened up and stared at Anna intently enough to singe her skin. “May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Um . . . Well, I was . . .”
Across the parking lot, the crowd began to wave signs and chant, Save the tree! Save the house! Joy yelled, “Yahoo!”
“You were . . . what?” Jeff asked, not giving Anna an inch of slack.
“You don’t have to treat me like I’m three.” Anna slipped on self-righteousness like a porcupine pelt. “I was leaving you a flyer about tonight’s meeting.”
“Obviously I know about it. I don’t need your flyer,” Jeff said. “You were being sneaky and passive aggressive.”
No one had ever accused her of that! Anna bristled her quills. “And you are being insensitive. You can’t expect me to sit around and watch you destroy Grammy’s house. No way will I not try to stop you.”
“No way will I not do the job I was hired for. I do have a job, if you remember. I work,” Jeff said.
“You don’t have to be sarcastic.” Anna folded her arms across her chest. “And just for the record, I could never forget that you work.” She said “work” as if skunks were spraying from the letters. “Your work ruined everything.”
“Wait a minute . . .” Jeff narrowed his eyes.
“You wait,” Anna interrupted, fueled by the evening’s tension. It felt good to speak her mind. “You knew how much I cared about Grammy’s house, but you arranged to tear it down without a thought of me. Cedar Place was more important to you than I was. You wanted everyone to admire you. You thought you’d prove you weren’t like your father, but you won’t prove a thing except that you think only about yourself.”
Jeff looked like his lungs were collapsing and there was no more oxygen left in the parking lot for him to breathe. Lines that Anna had never seen before appeared around his squint, which seemed to be about both self-protection and disapproval of her. Rain spattered his glasses.
“You’re the one thinking about yourself,” he snapped. “You think a house can make up for your parents’ abandoning you, and it’ll keep you tied to your grandmother’s love. But it won’t. The past is gone, and a house isn’t going to bring it back. You threw us away for that.”
Earnest’s grief-stricken eyes went back and forth between the two people he loved most. He couldn’t
help but pick up their anger. He whimpered, Stop! Stop!
“Look what you’ve done to him.” Jeff’s words seemed bitten off rebar. “You’ve upset him. Hell, you’ve upset his whole life. Because of you, he lost his family.”
“Because of me?! What about because of you? You’re in total denial.”
“And you’re blind and stubborn,” Jeff shot back. “Have you ever considered for a single second that Mrs. Blackmore wanted to build a big-box chain store? I persuaded her to go for a building that would fit in downtown, and I designed special spaces for you and Joy and Lauren’s shops. You wouldn’t listen to what I was trying to do. All you cared about was chasing the past, but life goes on.”
Anna stepped back, withered by Jeff’s anger. She needed space.
“Your grandmother’s dead,” he continued. “You can’t get her back, but you could have had me, and I loved you. Brian Cooper promised me a raise for Cedar Place. I wanted it so we could get married. What a joke.”
Wails came from deep inside Earnest. Stop fighting! Oh, please, stop. I can’t bear it.
Jeff squatted down and cradled Earnest’s head against his chest. He smoothed back Earnest’s ears and kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry, Buddy. I really am. I promise you’ll never have to hear those words again.”
The crowd chanted, Save the tree! Save the house!
Anna wanted to say that the last thing she ever meant to do was upset Earnest, but she was too shocked to speak. Regret seemed to swallow her in one large gulp—regret about her beloved dog and maybe about other things as well—she’d have to sort them out when she could think straight.
From across the lot, Joy shouted, “Come on, Anna. We’re about to leave.”
With effort, Anna stuffed all her feelings back inside.
Jeff kissed Earnest again. “Take care of yourself, Buddy. I’ll pick you up tomorrow and make this up to you. I’ll buy you some cheese. We’ll go for a hike.”
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