***
By Friday, Lilah and Diego’s focus had shifted away from their budding relationship back to the needs of the community. They had spent the week reviewing the needs assessments turned in by the program directors invited to the meeting. Both of them were ready to proceed when the meeting started.
Lilah looked around the conference table at the twenty people seated. A pall descended over everyone as Diego entered the room and took his seat at the head of the table. Some of the people were obviously intimidated, and others seemed almost hostile. Everyone seemed skeptical of his motives for bringing them together. Fortunately, Lilah had experience alleviating all of those negative emotions. She flipped to a clean sheet in her legal pad, and prepared to take notes.
To soften the mood, Lilah stood up to introduce herself again before Diego started talking. She knew that everyone around the table remembered her, but she wanted to take every opportunity to lighten the mood before the meeting began.
“Before we start the meeting, I think it will be a great idea for us all to introduce ourselves and get to know a little more about each other,” she began with a smile. “Each of you were invited here today because of the work you are currently doing in the community. Today is all about building new partnerships and connections with the local government. I hope you all are as excited as Mayor Gonzales and I are about this meeting.”
One by one, everyone around the table had a turn to speak. By the time it was Diego’s turn, the mood in the room had noticeably lifted. Frowns of concern had been replaced by smiles and actual eye contact.
When it was his turn to speak, Diego smiled at Lilah before he began.
“Thanks again for accepting my invitation to this meeting today. As you know, this is my first term as mayor of Bay City. What some of you probably don’t know is that I never planned on running for mayor. Instead, I was only trying to fight the corruption that infiltrated our city government years ago under the last mayor. Through the process, I ended up seeing that this job is something that I am passionate about. More specifically, I am passionate about improving our community. Some politicians like to talk about improving things from the top and hoping the effects will trickle down. I’m not one of those. I like to think of my approach to community improvement as an inside out approach. I want to start by addressing any issues in the inner workings of this community. Everyone seated around this table is already a community insider, and you are in a unique position to share your expertise with each other and with me.
“One of the things that sets strong communities apart from weaker ones is the ability to work together, share resources, and come up with innovative solutions to the pressing social and economic issues they face. All of you seated here today have demonstrated your ability to do just that, so I am honored to meet you and work together on making Bay City stronger.
“Miss Johnson spent the last two weeks meeting with you all individually to explain this push to galvanize the community a little better. When I first took office, Mrs. Horta asked me if I had ever heard of a national coalition of cities called Cities of Service. She was a little disappointed that I hadn’t, so I don’t expect that all of you have. Cities of Service is a coalition that I think Bay City can benefit greatly from being a part of. We will have access to fresh ideas and templates for programs that have helped other cities. We will also be able to help our non-profit organizations apply for more funding opportunities. In order to make this a reality, the city government will have to develop and maintain strong partnerships with organizations like yours. A partnership is just a pledge or a letter of commitment to dedicating certain resources to your program. For example, I looked into Ms. Brooks’s gardening program this week. She has been running it from her personal lot, and using her own resources. With a partnership, I can offer her dedicated gardening space in the new city park under construction near her house. I can also make sure she has access to any gardening tools she needs through the parks and rec department. Best of all, she would no longer have to foot the bill for watering the garden, because we can grant her the use of a city water key. The only thing the city needs in return is an established relationship with her and a report on the number of volunteers who help and the number of households who benefit from the food harvested. If Bay City is designated as an official City of Service, we have to report on our volunteer status. The reporting will be handled by the city of course.
“I see by the looks on some of your faces, that you are skeptical about this endeavor. I don’t know how popular this is going to make me among all of the voters, especially the ones who don’t really care much about social programs meant to help those less fortunate than themselves. When I took the oath of office, I made up my mind that I was going to do the job that would bring the most good to the community during my term, not the job that I thought was going to get me reelected. I made headlines as the youngest mayor ever to be elected in Bay City history, but now I’d like for Bay City to make headlines as a leader in community service and quality of life for all of its residents, not just the ones who make a certain amount of money.”
Lilah watched Diego speak and realized that she now felt invested in his success as mayor. She had spent enough time with him over the past two weeks to recognize the subtle signs of what he was feeling in a given moment. The timbre of his voice told her he was nervous as he spoke. His eyes continuously flitted to hers while he spoke, and she offered him an encouraging smile every time. She tried to give him the same smile she had given to everyone else at the table, but she couldn’t stifle the small leaps of joy her hear took each time he looked to her for reassurance. Her opinion obviously mattered to him, and she loved him for that.
A wayward thought of her ex-fiancé jumped into her head as she watched Diego. Her relationship with James had always been more of a mentor relationship. He had certainly never sought her approval or even her input on any matters, personal or career-wise. When James had made decisions, he had done so independently and handed the results down to her as if they were commandments from heaven.
The meeting wrapped up just before five p.m., and everyone seemed to come out of it with greater enthusiasm for working with Diego. Lilah thought he probably picked up a few extra votes from everyone sitting around the table.
After everyone else left, Lilah approached Jannetta. “Thanks again for applying for the job. I really think you will be great at it if you get it,” she said.
“Well, I guess we’ll see,” Jannetta replied with a nervous little chuckle. “This isn’t the sort of thing I ever really planned to do for a living, but after the last few years, it makes a lot more sense to me than what I was doing before.”
“Good luck to you. I’m going to step out now, because I’m sure you want to hurry up and get this over with. You look lovely, by the way,” Lilah said as she gave Jannetta’s hand a little squeeze.
Lilah closed the door behind her and took a seat in the reception area near Mrs. Horta’s desk.
“Good job in the big meeting, mija,” Mrs. Horta said when she sat down.
“Could you tell how nervous Diego was?” Lilah asked.
“Of course. He doesn’t like speaking in public, but you’re so good at it, I think you’re rubbing off on him,” Mrs. Horta replied.
“Oh?”
“You should have seen him when he was running for mayor. He vomited before the big debate. Having you around has helped him a lot this week. Do you know how long he has been wanting to present his new proposal to the council? He has been putting it off for almost six months; then you show up, and—bam! He decides to put it on the agenda for the next council meeting. You should stick around, mija. You two make a good team.”
Lilah’s wide grin came with a hefty dose of regret. If only she could stick around a little longer. She felt it prudent to change the subject instead of dwelling on impossible wishes.
“I have to look over a few things while I wait for them to finish with Jannetta,” she said quietly.
She
tried not to wonder how things were going. The panel conducting the interview included Diego, George, the police chief, and the council president. Anybody could be intimidated by the process, but Lilah knew Jannetta would shine. Aside from her experience, her intelligence, and the ease with which she engaged with everyone she spoke to, Jannetta had a strikingly attractive appearance. She was much taller than the average woman, and she had dark, flawless skin, and a magnetic presence that reminded Lilah of a superhero.
Twenty minutes into the interview, a familiar man walked into the reception area.
“May I help you, Mr. Gomez?” Mrs. Horta said with a frown.
“I need to talk to Diego.”
“He’s in a meeting right now, so you can have a seat if you want to wait, or you can leave a message if you don’t,” she said in a borderline rude tone.
“I can’t wait. I’ll just be a minute,” he said as he turned toward the conference room door.
Before Mrs. Horta could say another word, he opened the door and interrupted Jannetta’s interview. Mrs. Horta hopped out of her seat and said, “Mr. Gomez, I’ll have to ask you to wait at the reception desk.”
Simultaneously, Diego stood up and said, “Ricky, I’ll be with you after this interview.” He seemed surprised, almost startled to see Ricky.
Ricky Gomez looked around and exited the room without another word. He returned to the reception area and sat in the chair farthest from Mrs. Horta’s desk. Once she heard his name and got a good look at his face, Lilah remembered him. Ricky Gomez had been Diego’s best friend through high school. She wondered if the two of them still had a close relationship.
As soon as the interview concluded, Ricky stood up and brushed past everyone exiting the conference room. He closed the door behind him without uttering so much as an ‘excuse me.’
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Lilah offered when she saw Jannetta staring at the closed door with a frown of concern.
“Thanks,” Jannetta replied with an unsure little smile.
“How did it go?” Lilah asked.
“They told me that would call me with a decision tomorrow morning. I think it went pretty well. The city attorney seemed pretty impressed by the fact that I’ve been to a couple of grant writing classes.”
“You never mentioned that when you talked to me, and that is a huge plus!” Lilah exclaimed. She felt even better about recommending her now. “I really hope you got the job.”
“Thanks,” Jannetta said as she released a sigh.
Lilah arrived back at the office to see Mrs. Horta sitting at her desk with a blank expression and tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Lilah asked as she sat beside her.
“Ricky Gomez. He’s in there arguing with Diego,” Mrs. Horta answered in a voice shaking with anger.
“About what?” Lilah asked.
“Go listen for yourself,” Mrs. Horta replied.
Lilah tiptoed up to the door. She didn’t have to try very hard to hear what was happening.
“What? Do you think you’re better than me now?” Ricky demanded. “Newsflash, bro. You are the mayor of a shitty little town, and you barely won!”
“Ricky, you need to calm down. Just because I said no doesn’t mean I’m not your friend. I really just can’t do something like that. Besides the fact that it’s wrong, I could lose my job and go to jail. I can’t believe you even had the nerve to ask me. That’s pretty low.”
A nasty laugh floated through the door. “Mister High and Mighty Mayor thinks I’m low. That’s rich,” Ricky snarled. “You didn’t think I was low when you borrowed money from me to open your shitty little bar. Money which you haven’t fully repaid yet. You owe me, bro!”
“Yes, I owe you money, not criminal favors!” Diego shouted.
Startled, Lilah jumped away from the door just before Ricky jerked it open and stormed out of the building.
Lilah stepped into Diego’s office and asked, “Is everything alright?”
“That depends on how much you heard,” Diego sighed as he sat down.
“Just that Ricky wants you to do an illegal favor for him. Mrs. Horta seems pretty upset. What’s going on?”
“Mrs. Horta doesn’t like Ricky. He’s rude to her, and he never listens when she tells him that I’m busy. He got a DUI and he wants me to talk to the police chief and ‘take care of it’ for him,” Diego answered.
“Oh,” Lilah said with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I can see how that would upset Mrs. Horta.”
“Exactly. I would never do such a thing, but it really bugs me that he would even ask.”
“How much money do you owe him?”
“So, you heard that part too… He loaned me fifty thousand dollars when I opened the bar. I still have to pay back about ten thousand. I had to sell the bar at a loss a couple of years ago.”
“Whoa. How did Ricky Gomez get all of that money? His parents?”
Diego looked at her and chuckled. “I forgot you hate sports. Ricky still has some money from his time in the majors. He was a shortstop for the Giants for almost five years before he blew out his knee on a bad double play.”
“Oh.”
“He’s been bitter about it, so he drinks too much. I think he needs to start going to meetings, but he’s too stubborn to listen to the people who care about him. He injured himself coming off of a contract, and as a free agent on the disabled list, nobody wanted him. He might have still had a chance to play a few more years if he had focused on rehab, but he started drinking and got all out of shape. Now, he’ll be lucky if he can just get his life straight.”
“That’s sad,” Lilah said as a bit of empathy for Ricky crept up on her. She quickly squelched the feeling and said, “But that doesn’t give him he right to be abrasive and demand special favors from you. You have a moral and legal obligation to—”
“Lilah, I know,” Diego interrupted gently, as he placed a hand over hers. “Believe me; I know exactly what my legal and moral obligations are. I learned a lot about corruption when Mrs. Horta and I went up against Mayor Holt and the former police chief. I don’t know if she ever talked to you about it, but things got really hard for both of us. We both received threats, my mother stopped talking to me for a while, and it seemed like nothing good was going to come out all that trouble. It was really hard, Delilah.”
“How did it all resolve?” she asked.
“The emergency room doctor from that night came forward and testified before a grand jury that Misty was under the influence when she was brought in. Also, I testified about a conversation we had, and I gave the prosecutor the discharge paper from the hospital that night. After that, it was like a house of cards falling down. The police chief resigned and took a plea deal. In exchange for his testimony against Mayor Holt, he avoided jail time. Within a week of Mayor Holtz’s arrest, Mrs. Horta was going around telling everyone that I should be the new mayor. At first, I just went along with it, but it didn’t take me long to start thinking that I might be kind of good at it. The last thing I want to do is lose everything we worked so hard for over the same type of thing we were fighting against in the first place.”
“From what I’ve seen, you are very good at this job,” Lilah said with a gentle smile. “It seems to have cost you some personal relationships, but I think you are doing the right thing. The more I get to see of you at work, the more I admire you. If I still lived here, you would definitely have my vote.
His lips turned up with the barest hint of a smile before he tugged her forward for a hug. “Thanks, querida. You and Mrs. Horta think I’m doing a good job, so that makes it worth a little extra aggravation every once in a while. Your admiration means the world to me,” he said.
Lilah didn’t know what to say, so she returned the embrace and held on tight. If she didn’t have to leave town, she could see herself being happily involved in his daily life. The words, ‘I love you’ bubbled up to her lips, but she didn’t say them. Instead, she said, “You deserve a
nother term as mayor. I really hope you get reelected.”
***
“Is there anything left for Cheryl to be surprised about?” Heather asked as she looked around the room.
“She doesn’t know what’s in any of the gift boxes,” Lilah said.
Heather gave her a withering look before crossing the room to examine one of the flower arrangements. “I would have gone with all white roses,” she said. “This is a bridal shower after all.”
Lilah cleared her throat and nodded. Cheryl had insisted on having the bridal shower in her mother’s house, but Heather seemed to find fault with Lilah’s party preparations at every turn. First, the streamers she’d picked out were tasteless and gauche. Next, Heather had insulted her planned events for the shower. She didn’t like some of the games Lilah had put on the itinerary. When she was done harping about the games, she moved on to the food. After about an hour straight of criticism, she started complaining about the variety of flowers in the arrangements from the floral shop. Lilah had long ago given up the unattainable dream of trying to please her.
“Cheryl told me she thought there were too many white roses in the plans for the reception decorations. I thought she’d enjoy a little more color for the bridal shower,” Lilah replied. She kept her tone reasonable, but on the inside, she was screaming for Heather to just shut up.
“Well, if it’s what Cheryl wants…” Heather trailed off with a little shrug as she left the room.
Lilah checked her watch. Most of the decorating was complete, and the bridal shower wasn’t supposed to start until this evening. She had time to get out of the house for lunch if she could come up with a good excuse.
“What else do you have left to do?” Heather asked.
“Not much. I was actually going to take off for lunch, because the rest of the prep is just last minute food stuff,” Lilah answered as she edged closer to the front door.
“Last minute food stuff, huh?” Heather said with another one of her almost annoyed but not quite looks.
Redemption (Reunion Book 1) Page 13