by Fiona Grace
He motioned to step past her, but Ali halted him with a hand to his chest. He wasn’t acting right. Something was going on. She remembered his ominous “we need to talk” statement back at the bakery earlier that day and felt a little flutter of anguish start up in her breast.
“What’s going on?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” Nate said, too quickly, too enthusiastically. He might be a talented surfer—with a buff body to match—but a good actor he was not. “You’re busy. We can talk another time. Tomorrow, for sure.”
He was babbling now, and clearly trying to extract himself from the conversation. Ali felt the flutter of anguish turn into a whole churning mess.
“Fine,” she said, realizing he wasn’t going to budge on this one, and that she didn’t really have the time to deal with her love life at this moment anyway. “Come by the bakery?”
“Will do,” he said, and he was already backing away.
As he stepped into the beam of the streetlamp, he flashed her a smile and two thumbs up. Then he turned and was swallowed up by the shadows.
Ali narrowed her eyes at the space he’d been in. Something was up, she was sure of it. But it would have to wait. There were more pressing problems ahead.
So she pushed her worries about Nate to the back of her mind and glanced into the distance, where the lights of the town hall were glowing yellow.
She ground her teeth with determination and pressed on. Before long, the building loomed ahead, a rather grand-looking three story, red brick building with large, steepled windows edged with white stone. The town’s crescent was mounted into the walls in the same white stone and positioned right above the big, blue-painted wooden doors.
There was already quite a congregation of boardwalk vendors outside. They stood in a huddle—Marco and Emilio, Miriyam from Kookies, and Cillian from the juice kiosk. Ali was surprised by how many people had turned up considering how last-minute the whole thing was. It seemed as if every vendor on the boardwalk was there. Miriyam’s canvassing efforts had really paid off.
She started toward them, crossing the gravel lot. They all looked over at her in unison at the sound of her approaching footsteps.
“There she is!” Emilio cried.
Marco’s dark eyes darted in her direction. He looked skittish, and rather disheveled. Ali fully understood why. He didn’t just have one foe to contend with in the form of Marvin Chessley, but he also had the situation with Bo Bronnigan and his lawyer on his shoulders as well.
‘Poor Marco,’ she thought, her heart lurching for him as she crossed the short distance to the group.
“You’re cutting it close,” Miriyam snapped immediately. “The meeting starts in five minutes.”
“Sorry,” Ali mumbled. “I got...held up.”
“How did your research go?” Cillian asked, his tone more kind than Miriyam’s had been.
Ali reached inside her bag and pulled out all her notes from that afternoon’s cram session.
“Here,” she said, handing it over to him. “This was the best I could do.”
His eyes widened with awe. “Ali, this is a lot!”
“Thanks,” she said, rubbing the space between her eyes. Seeing the fruits of all her labor in one go like that was triggering a headache.
“But do you think it will be enough?” Marco asked, worrying his hands.
Ali glanced toward the large wooden door of the town hall, standing ajar just enough to reveal the figures of several silhouettes moving about inside. The hum of voices emanated through the gap, filling the night. She couldn’t help but feel extremely unconfident about walking inside and giving her speech.
“I really hope so,” was all she was able to tell Marco.
The Italian nodded, unconvinced, leaving his brother to step up in his place.
Emilio slapped a hand on Ali’s shoulder. “You can do it,” he said with a smile.
He seemed surprisingly calm, Ali thought. Unless that was just in comparison to his brother, who was standing next to him like a trembling wreck. But no, Ali assessed Emilio again. He was entirely calm. Obviously, it was Marco’s pizzeria that had been hit with the lawsuit and not his own, but that didn’t mean he was out of the woods. As much as they liked to posture about who was the better businessman, Ali knew they were pretty evenly matched, which meant both brothers were facing ruin, lawsuit or none. Yet, curiously, Emilio seemed as cool as a cucumber, almost as if he didn’t really care about the outcome of the meeting.
“Shall we take our seats?” Cillian said, breaking Ali out of her distraction.
She nodded, her gaze drifting over to that big wooden door again, standing open as if beckoning her inside like a lamb to the slaughter. She swallowed her nerves and led the way.
They headed inside, finding themselves in a marble-floored corridor. Straight ahead was a large staircase, which was cordoned off with a red rope and a sign reading: staff only. The council members’ offices must be up there.
The hall for the meeting was through a door on the left, and as they all filed inside, Ali immediately felt the stuffiness. The town was an old building, and poorly ventilated. The heat seemed oppressive. The lights were far too bright—halogen spotlights that gave off a harsh glare and added to the warmth. Ali tugged at her collar, peering around at the rows of chairs all set out facing the fold out tables that had been arranged at the front for the council members. There were fifteen places in all, each with a name placard, one for each of the town’s council members. Except it didn’t appear as if any of them had bothered to turn up to listen to the feedback of the public from the consultation.
‘They don’t even care…,’ Ali thought, sadly. And if they’d already made up their mind as to how they’d be voting regardless of the views of the townsfolk, then nothing Ali said here would be of any use anyway. A bitter feeling of defeat began to creep into Ali’s stomach. Was this already over?
More and more people were coming into the hall behind her, taking their seats, and Ali instantly spotted Sullivan Raine among them. He was a tall, largely built man, towering at least a foot over most of the others, and even more conspicuous thanks to the beige cowboy hat he was wearing. He took a seat at the front, and Ali couldn’t help but feel that his presence here was goading. He was sitting in the audience, sure, but his proxy would be sitting in one of those councilman seats.
It only occurred to Ali then that this would be her first face to face meeting with Marvin Chessley. So far, the new councilman had been nothing more than a faceless name, a specter like the bogeyman. She’d never actually stopped to consider what the man she was facing off against would look like. As a friend of Sullivan Raine’s, he was likely to be another large, formidable cowboy. The thought filled her with dread.
Her eyes scanned the council members’ table; two attendees had arrived and were taking their seats. One was a Hispanic man she recognized instantly. He was very active in the community, and she’d seen him out and about on the boardwalk dealing with issues many times before.
She read the name placard at his seat: Rodrigo da Silva. Then she scanned across to the name placard of the other attendee, who was sitting a few empty spots away from him: Marvin Chessley.
“That’s him,” she muttered under her breath, as her gaze rose up from the tag to his face. “Mr. Tax Hike.”
Suddenly, Ali gasped with shock and her eyes widened with recognition.
The man sitting in Marvin Chessley’s seat was none other than the man who’d visited her store two mornings in a row: the silver-fox.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You have got to be kidding me!” Ali cried under her breath, as she stared at Marvin Chessley.
Of all the crummy luck in the world, her opponent was the man she’d chatted with that very morning. The man she’d connected with over a shared history with France, to whom she’d given a free Danish to, and to whom she’d confessed her woes regarding the “jerk” new council member…
“Oh no,” Ali exclaimed,
as her stomach dropped to her toes.
No wonder he’d reacted so strangely when she’d offloaded her woes onto him that morning! She’d thought at the time it was because she’d misjudged his friendliness and over-shared with him. But in fact, it was because she’d literally insulted the very man to his face! And now she was supposed to try and appeal to him to change this bill? She was utterly screwed!
Ali’s stomach somersaulted, and she felt nausea swirl inside of her. She’d been worried enough about the meeting in the first place, but now that she’d seen who her competitor was, she felt even worse. She’d have taken a big, formidable cowboy over this guy any day!
Just then, Marvin spotted her, and a smile of acknowledgement quirked at the side of his lips.
A flood of embarrassment washed through Ali as she recalled their earlier interaction, seeing it now through a new lens. Marvin hadn’t said a thing at all, had kept silent about his identity and allowed her to put her big foot in it!
With his gaze fixed on her, Marvin picked something up off the table—a brown paper bag?—and waved it in her direction. Then he removed something from inside—was it a pastry?—and took a large bite.
Ali gasped. Suddenly, she knew exactly what was happening. The bag on Marvin’s desk he’d waved at her was a Seaside Sweets one, and the pastry he was now munching on was the very Danish she’d given him free of charge that morning. He was taunting her!
“That snake!” Ali thought, balling her hands into fists. “What game is he playing?”
Just then, the speaker—a short, tubby man in an ill-fitting, pale-blue shirt and beige slacks—stepped up to the podium and a hush fell over the audience. Ali plonked herself into a chair, seething with fury as the speaker began.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” he said, with a nervous energy he directed into stroking his goatee. “It’s great to see so many of you here taking an active interest in the community. We’re here to discuss the upcoming proposal regarding taxes of boardwalk eateries; so without further ado, I’ll hand the floor over to council member Marvin Chessley.”
In his seat, Marvin leaned closer to the microphone, and flashed his big grin at the audience, a grin Ali had found so charming in her store but now seemed suddenly smarmy and manipulative. The veil for her had lifted, and she wasn’t about to be conned by this terrible man.
“The bill I’m proposing could be best described as a tourism tax,” Marvin said. “At the moment, the council pays a large sum of money to advertise the boardwalk and bring tourists to our town, and an equally large sum of money on refuse collectors and cleaners. The eateries on the boardwalk benefit from all of this for free, as they don’t pay a single extra dime in taxes for these perks. Perhaps fifty years ago there was no disparity between the boardwalk eateries and the town ones, but as time has marched forward and the boardwalk has become more and more successful, I think you will all agree, this difference is now grossly unfair.”
All around Ali, she could see people nodding, and the fury she was already feeling began to bubble and boil. Of course she understood why the other vendors felt like they were being put at an unfair advantage, but surely the answer was to lower their taxes, not hike up hers!
“It is simply unfair,” Marvin continued, “for the boardwalk eateries to continue raking in huge profits off the back of council-funded advertising—i.e., tax-payer-funded, i.e., funded by YOU.”
He sat back triumphantly as a ripple of applause went through the room.
Councilman da Silva leaned closer to his mic. “With respect, Councilman Chessley, but these “huge profits” you speak of are not a reality for the boardwalk eateries. They pay higher ground rents for their units, because they are in a more prime position.”
“So the town’s vendors should be penalized for their less favorable choice of locations?” Marvin Chessley shot back.
“There is no penalty!” Rodrigo roared. “The rent is cheaper because the location is less desirable. It’s basic economics.”
“Not when they pay the same fee for refuse collection and street sweeping,” Marvin snapped back without missing a beat. “Of which, I’m at pains to point out, a whopping ninety-five percent is spent tidying up the boardwalk!”
The nodding audience began clapping now, and Rodrigo da Silva had to lean in close to his microphone to speak over the din.
“The entire town’s tourism benefits from a clean boardwalk,” Rodrigo said, the mic squeaking painfully from his proximity. “Not just the stores people eat in. People want to come to a pretty, clean boardwalk, and the amount spent on refuse collection and street sweeping is a burden we all equally bear, businesses and locals alike!”
“You mean to say the ordinary tax-payer is funding the prettification of the boardwalk?” Marvin replied haughtily, his eyebrows raised in disdain. He certainly knew how to play a crowd, and how to twist everything to his advantage. Poor Rodrigo was left floundering.
Ali leapt up.
“How do you expect us to survive under these proposals?” she said across the heads of the audience, her voice causing them all to turn in her direction. She swallowed her anxiety but remained firm. “We’re small business owners, not millionaire multinationals!”
With a smirk, Marvin Chessley leaned into his microphone and said, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Ali Sweet. You either sink, or you swim.”
The crowd loved this and began to bray and jeer. Ali heard several voices refer to her as a “princess,” and behind her a woman loudly said, “who are you to come here asking for handouts?”
Ali floundered under their negativity but managed to find her voice.
“Can’t you see what they’re doing?” she cried. “They’re making us quibble about fairness. But at the end of the day, whichever line you fall on ideologically is beside the point. The reality of this bill is that, if passed, every single one of the eateries on the boardwalk will be driven to the point of bankruptcy. We’ll be vulnerable. One rainier than normal season — heck, one rainier than normal week! — and we’ll be forced to shut our doors for good. And when we’re gone, who will fill those spaces? If none of the small business owners like myself can afford these prices, what makes you think you guys in town will be able to, either? It will end up going one of two ways. Either we have a boarded-up boardwalk that not a single tourist wants to visit, or we’ll have a boardwalk full of huge chain restaurants, like Sullivan Raine’s steakhouse franchise!”
She threw an accusatory arm toward the cowboy, who’d been sitting there silently the whole time with a terrifying scowl on his big, meaty face.
Suddenly, a hushed silence fell. It seemed as if many people in the audience had not put two and two together before this moment and realized the Texan property mogul had engineered this entire situation to pit them against one another, making them so busy squabbling and bickering over fairness they’d not realized what was going on under their noses. And now that Ali had lifted the veil, all hell broke loose.
In an instant, people were on their feet, shouting, demanding, yelling. It seemed as if a spell had been broken. Ali sank into her seat, as the roars went up like kindling around her.
The speaker nervously began banging his gavel, his shouts for “calm!” completely drowned out by the calamity.
“Order!” he cried. “Will everyone calm down!”
Finally, the shouting ebbed away.
The speaker raised one of his nervous hands up to his goatee. “The proposal will be voted on tomorrow night,” he said, sounding utterly exhausted by the entire debacle. “I’m calling this meeting to a close.”
And with a final bang of the gavel, it was all over.
*
As she marched out of the town hall, fury crackled in Ali’s veins. She felt so helpless. But she wasn’t giving up, not without a fight.
“Ali!” a voice called.
She turned to see Seth hurrying up to her. She’d not realized he was inside, and her stomach somersaulted at the thought of him witne
ssing her impassioned speech.
He trotted to a halt beside her, moonlight bouncing off his handsome features.
“You were great in there,” he said.
“Thanks,” Ali replied, dejectedly. She shrugged. “Not that it will do much good. The bill will pass regardless.”
“Not if we have anything to do with it,” Seth said, and he jabbed his thumb toward the open doors of the town hall.
Bright light was spilling down the stone steps and coming with it were the other local vendors—among them were Carys, Miriyam, Marco and Emilio, and Cillian from the juice kiosk, all heading her way, grinning widely. Even Devon from Protein Palace was with them, and he headed for Ali with a congratulatory grin on his face.
“Wow, Ali, you really gave them a piece of your mind!” Carys said as she reached her.
“It was a very impressive speech,” Marco agreed with a nod.
“I don’t think any of them had realized what Sullivan was really trying to do until you said it,” Cillian joined in.
“I saw Marvin sneak out the back way,” Miriyam added with a smirk. “Slithering away like the snake he is.”
Ali felt her cheeks warm with pride. It was good to know she had the backing of other local business-people. And if Miriyam of all people was on her side, then she was really doing something right!
“So what do we do now?” Devon asked.
“Yeah,” Seth joined in. “What’s the plan, Ali? How do we make sure the bill doesn’t go through tomorrow?”
Ali didn’t have an answer for that, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything anyway, because the vendors all began talking excitedly over one another.
“A petition?” Miriyam said.
“Or a protest?” Cillian added.
“Yeah, a protest!” Carys cried, her eyes lighting up at the thought.
They all seemed very enthused, and while Ali was glad to see them all working together, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of trepidation that none of it mattered at the end of the day. Sullivan would get his proxy Marvin to push through that bill come hell or high water. None of their ideas would help.