“And you honestly think I can simply snap my fingers and make all this go away, don’t you?” Her face was answer enough. “Well, Allison, I can’t. I wish I could, and I’m sorry, but those ordinances were as carefully thought out as we could make them, and they’re there for a purpose. And as much as I want to, I can’t bend them for you—or for Gran—or even for myself.”
And without things devolving into a shouting match—something he didn’t want at all—there was nothing left to say. He spun on his heel and walked out the front door.
* * *
KYLE TAPPED HIS foot while he waited for Lorenzo Adams to make small talk about the weather and summer vacations with his latest customer. Finally, just as Kyle had decided to leave, Lorenzo handed the woman her dry-cleaned clothes. The plastic bag enclosing them flapped in the breeze as she headed out the door.
Lorenzo’s big, toothy smile died as he regarded Kyle.
“What? Just because I didn’t bring any clothes to be cleaned?” Kyle attempted to joke. But the uncharacteristic sober expression on the man’s face worried him.
“If I depended on you to keep me in business, I’d be bankrupt,” Lorenzo told him. “You have got to be the most self-reliant bachelor I know.”
“Go fuss at my mom about it. She’s the one who insisted I learn how to look after myself,” Kyle retorted lightly. “So if it’s not my lack of patronage, what is it?”
Lorenzo reached under the counter and pulled out a newspaper. “I was hoping you’d come by to explain this.” He slapped the paper down on the counter.
At first Kyle didn’t see how he could possibly be expected to explain the main headline, Factory Announces More Job Cuts.
But then his eye slid down the page to the far left corner. There it was, in a box, with a picture of Belle Paix: Local Octogenarian Challenges Historic Ordinances.
“First of all, it’s not Gran herself—and second, it would be historical, not historic—”
“Get off your nitpicky self and read the story, won’t you?” Lorenzo tapped the article with a stubby index finger. “Much as I hate to admit it, Gwen wrote a zinger of a story, clunky headline or not.”
Kyle ground his teeth but picked up the paper. It was all there, a well-worded retelling of Allison’s woes, with even a quote from Gran saying she’d already warned her granddaughter how the committee would stonewall her on her requests. That was the tone of the article. Allison was reasonable; the historical committee was hysterical.
“Not one quote from our side,” Kyle pointed out. He threw the paper down. “She didn’t even try to get a response from me.”
“Just as well. You would have come across all professorial and rattled on for three paragraphs about the need for historical accuracy.” Lorenzo folded his arms across his chest. “Now am I right or am I right?”
“Lorenzo! Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Side? I’m not on either side—I’m on my district’s side. Whatever the folks who elected me want, well, I’m obliged to deliver.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. Every person in your district would want zero taxes, but you can’t give that to them, now can you? Because it wouldn’t be in their best interest. Same here.”
“Listen, Kyle, half of my constituents think all those people living in the historic district are rolling in money—and having it on the record that you expect those folks to dish out twenty grand to paint a house just reinforces that. Don’t you get it? A lot of the people I represent don’t make twenty thousand dollars in a year.”
“I don’t expect people to pay twenty thousand dollars to paint their house—”
“Oh, yeah? Well, that’s what the costs were when this Allison bidded it out. Says so right here.” Lorenzo tapped the newsprint again.
“That’s on the high side. I know that guy. He doesn’t want to fool with Belle Paix, anyway, so he quoted high to discourage her. She can get it done more reasonably than—”
“How much? Ballpark?”
Kyle stared down at his shoes. Why did he feel so guilty about this? Yes, owning a historic home meant extra sacrifices, but it was worth it. And if it wasn’t, nobody forced you to live in one.
“A paint scheme like Belle Paix’s, in the shape it’s currently in...ballpark, ten to fifteen thousand.” He saw the I-told-you-so forming on the council member’s mouth. “But that’s because Gran let it go so long, and it’s going to need a ton of scraping.”
“So you’re telling me to explain to my people that it’s right and fair to demand that an old lady with a broken hip pays out ten thousand dollars to get her house painted to suit you?” Lorenzo shook his head. “It’s not going to fly, Kyle. And you know it.”
“You’re going to consider repealing those ordinances, aren’t you?” Kyle’s throat went dry. He recalled what the historic district had looked like just a few short years before, and he knew it would take just half that time to see his work undone.
“I’ve already had three council members call me, demanding we at least have a hearing on it, and the ink’s still smearing on this paper. I get you, Kyle. I get why you’re so fired up about the historic district, and I know why you wrote the ordinances the way you did—no!” Lorenzo shook his finger when Kyle would have spoken. “Don’t say the committee, because not a person on that committee would have been able to draft those ordinances without you. And we passed them as a whole, just like you asked me to.”
“And it’s paid off, hasn’t it?” Kyle protested. “Look at the money we’ve brought in. At the tourism dollars. One person complains—”
“No. One woman tells a very convincing, very easy-to-relate-to story about her grandmother, who has lived in that house all her life. She points out a real flaw in your ordinances, a consequence you hadn’t considered. So, Kyle, if I were you, I’d be practicing my best arguments about why the city needs such restrictive ordinances. Or better yet, make this whole headache go away and work out some compromise with this woman. So go on.” Lorenzo made a shooing move with his hand. “Beat it. Because me? I’m not the one you have to convince.”
Kyle turned for the door. “Could have fooled me, Lorenzo. You sure could have fooled me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE CLANG OF the wrought-iron gate snapped Allison’s attention from Melanie’s tale of classroom woe and the tall jug of lemonade they’d been sharing on Gran’s front porch. Allison looked over to see Herbert stomping up the front path.
“Who’s that?” Melanie asked. “He seems as fierce as any mad parent I’ve ever encountered.”
“That would be Herbert, a zealot from the hysterical society.” Exhaling, Allison rose slowly and took the porch steps to head him off.
He shook the newspaper in her face. “Young lady, just what do you think you’re doing? You’re ruining everything!”
“I beg your pardon—”
“This story! You don’t deny you’re hounding the city council to repeal our ordinances? Do you want Lombard to look like the mess it did before Kyle turned things around?”
“Sir...” Allison struggled with her temper. She hated being talked to as though she were a wayward ten-year-old. Not even Pops had spoken to her like this in his worst scoldings.
“Well? Answer me!”
“I will. When you calm down.”
The old man compressed his lips, but still nearly trembled with anger. “I am calm. But I will apologize. I wish I could maintain my cool like Kyle does. I just get so...so—”
Yeah, right, well, at least with you, I know where I stand. Kyle makes you think he’s on your side and then lets you down.
“Mr.—”
“Just call me Herbert.” Again, she could see him making a valiant attempt to rein in his temper. But his anger was visible in the way his throat worked and his chest heaved.
“No, I don’t want any fool lemonade!” Herbert shook his head again. He took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his brow. “Have mercy,” he muttered. “Look, could we just cut the small talk and you tell me why you’re bent on destroying Lombard’s historic district?”
“I assume there’s a story in there about Belle Paix?” Allison gestured toward the paper.
“As if you didn’t know.” His mouth took on an even more pinched, sour crimp.
“I’m not trying to ruin the historic district. I’m just trying to get Gran’s house painted. Don’t you think it needs a coat of paint?”
Herbert stared up at the big Victorian. “Young woman, that house has been needing a coat of paint. Now it needs pressure washing, sandblasting, two coats of primer and at least another two base coats. And that’s just to get it started. If your grandmother hadn’t been so stubborn, she could have gotten this done much more reasonably years ago.”
“She wasn’t stubborn.” Allison insisted. “She was broke. Not everybody has a fat pension to help feed their historic house habit.”
“And you think I’ve got a fat pension?” He drew himself to his full height. “No, ma’am, I don’t. I’ve saved, and when I see something that needs fixing, I fix it...because if you ignore it, it just gets that much more expensive.”
Allison pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. If this man didn’t get off her front lawn in five seconds...
She dropped her hands, marshaled her thoughts and stared him down. “Sir. I won’t dignify with a response your implied accusations about my grandmother. I will say this. I will be happy—more than happy—to entertain any sort of compromise you and Kyle and the rest of your happy band of historic OCDers can work out. If you can’t help me address this very real problem that I have—no money, a falling-down house and an unbending ordinance that you helped pass—well, I’ll exercise my civic right and go before the city council. Maybe there, cooler, more reasonable heads will prevail. Until then? Have a very good day, sir. A very good day.”
With that, she turned and stomped back up the porch steps. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d do if he dogged her heels.
So she was glad when she sank back into her chair across from Melanie and saw out of the corner of her eye that Herbert was storming toward the gate.
Her friend let out a low whistle. “I’d forgotten what that redheaded temper looked like when it got unleashed.”
“Oh, he didn’t see the half of it.” Allison picked up her lemonade. To her irritation, the glass shook. She steadied it and took a long, welcome sip.
“You told him off but good. What was all that about, anyway?”
“Oh, a story that was in the paper about those stupid ordinances.”
“Wait. I have the paper—today’s?” Melanie rooted around in her huge sack of a purse until she came out with a rather battered edition. She smoothed out the pages across her lap. “Here it is—on the front page, wow!”
She skimmed it in silence, her smile dimming into a thoughtful frown.
A knot of apprehension formed in the pit of Allison’s stomach. She hadn’t expected Melanie to give a raving cheer of support. Still...
“What is it? I haven’t read it, so I don’t know what it says.” Allison crowded beside her on the love seat and peered over her shoulder.
Wow. Gwen hadn’t pulled any punches. She’d called the ordinances draconian and repressive. While she’d quoted Allison accurately, somehow on the page, in that unforgiving ink, Allison sounded more partisan.
And Kyle and the historic preservation committee wound up looking like an unfeeling bunch of pencil-pushing bureaucrats.
Well, the ordinances are unfair, she thought.
“You said all this?” Melanie folded the paper and laid it on the table. “You really think the ordinances are a tax on home owners of the historic houses?”
“Well...” Allison shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “We pay to keep a main attraction polished to perfection, and other people profit from that. We don’t get a dime from all those businesses that make money off the historic district—”
“But, Allison! You do! You save on taxes because of sales tax dollars that flow into the community. And we have higher employment, and less crime, and better schools. But then, my own mother owns a tea shop that caters to the tourists, so of course I’m biased. But the historical society has done a lot of good in this town, given the place an identity, something to be proud of. And my students benefit from the name recognition Lombard has now—not to mention the projects the historical society has done on behalf of the school.”
Allison sank back against the love seat, astonished at the vehemence in Melanie’s words. If there was one thing she could count on from their years of friendship, it was that Melanie would always call it like she saw it. And she saw it, Allison had to admit, pretty much like it was.
“I’m not trying to turn back the clock, Melanie.” She fumbled for the words. “I just want Kyle to—to work with me. I have to get this house in shape. Gran’s not getting any younger, and I really, really have no more money.”
Her friend reached over and squeezed her hand. “I know. I know how much you love Gran. But somehow...” She gave the paper a gentle shake. “This feels personal—no, not to me. It feels like it’s something between you and Kyle, not something that needs to spill out and affect the whole community. Your actions have consequences—consequences that could cost people their livelihoods.”
Anger flared up in Allison. “So I should take one for the team? Pay at least ten grand to some house painter so this place will match Kyle’s dream-house ordinance?”
Melanie shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not fair. But there’s got to be a solution that neither of you has considered.” She rose to her feet, clearly ready to leave. “Because it sounds like you two could be a pair of puppies fighting over one bone, and not bothering to look around to see that there’s another bone just waiting to be had.”
* * *
AT THE END of the boardroom table, Eunice took off her glasses. The rhinestone-bejeweled chains attached to the earpieces clacked together as she held the spectacles aloft. Her brow furrowed.
“Kyle, I just don’t know.” Eunice slipped her glasses back on and flipped through the stack of papers before her. “This doesn’t quite seem legitimate. We’re holding a meeting about a home owner’s request without the person being here. It feeds, I don’t know, extralegal.”
Her response evoked nods and grunts of agreement all around the table.
Kyle planted his palms on the mahogany finish, the beeswax polish satiny to the touch. It reminded him of the feel of Allison’s cheek—
Who was he fooling? Everything reminded him of Allison these days.
The board had agreed to meet, all the members shaken by the previous day’s news article. He didn’t have to spell out the consequences to them.
But he could see he needed to connect the dots.
“We’re not considering her particular request. I just thought you should all have in front of you exactly what she’s asking for and why she felt she had to go to the city council,” Kyle began.
Herbert interrupted. “See, now, it sounds like you agree with her, Kyle!”
“No—well, yes—not exactly.” How to explain the emotions running through him? He took a deep breath. “I don’t agree with the particulars of her request—and we won’t consider that request now, as Eunice is perfectly correct in saying that we would need to follow protocol. But I can empathize with Allison’s situation.”
“We all can,” Shelby Calvertson said. She was slightly older than Kyle, and the most r
ecent addition to the board. She and her husband had really struggled to restore their 1930s Craftsman bungalow, but they’d finally accomplished it.
Still, if Kyle had expected that Shelby would be the thin edge of a wedge to work out a compromise, his hopes were quickly dashed with her next words. “We’ve been there. We know how it is to run out of money before you run out of a to-do list. But that’s why you go to the bank and borrow the money. It’s not the end of the world. Besides...she and her grandmother haven’t had to deal with a house payment for years. What if they had been like us, with the mortgage and a construction loan?”
“Guys, I don’t want this to end up before the city council. If it does, given the way it looks now, we may well lose these ordinances. And that means—” Kyle broke off. He could hardly bear to view their faces. They all had the expectant look of someone waiting to be told what to do—while he was hoping they would pull a rabbit out of their hats for him.
“Yes. All that money we borrowed? All that sweat equity? It was for nothing,” Shelby said flatly.
“More than that, the downtown business owners feel safe in plowing money back into their companies because we hold the neighborhood’s feet to the fire,” Eunice interjected. “They know they can count on us to be sure the tourists have something to actually come and see. Five years ago, there wasn’t one antiques shop downtown. And now how many are there? Three?”
“Four.” Kyle’s quiet correction felt to him like an admission of guilt. They were right. Of course they were.
But so was Allison. And that couldn’t be, could it? Both of them couldn’t be right at the same time.
Those faces were fixed on him again, waiting, expectant. “As I was saying...we need to work out a compromise. Find some loophole we haven’t spotted. Some fund or tax break Allison has overlooked—that I have overlooked. Because if we don’t, she will go to the city council. And they’ll hold a hearing on the ordinances.”
“Then you have to convince them not to repeal them!” Herbert slammed his fist down on the mahogany table. “These ordinances protect our investments, our property values, and we’ve all had enough of a hit from the recent housing bubble. Home prices are just beginning to edge up in the district—and you know we count on that equity to borrow money for the repairs we have to do.”
What the Heart Wants Page 19