“Good luck, kid. You’re going to need it.” Harry Blackwell dropped a well-worn set of brass keys into my unsuspecting palm and stepped toward the open door of the mayor’s office—an office which, until last week’s election, had been his. For twenty-eight years, he’d served Trillium Bay’s community. Before that, his older brother had been the mayor, and before that, their father, and his father before him, and even his father before him. You get the picture. A Blackwell patriarch has been running the show around here on Wenniway Island pretty much ever since a fiery comet crashed into the earth and killed off all the dinosaurs. That is, until now. Now it was my turn.
That’s right. Me. Modest, pragmatic Brooke Therese Callaghan, science teacher turned public servant. Not only had I toppled the Blackwell dynasty, but I was also the first female, and the youngest, mayor ever elected in Trillium Bay. Unprecedented stuff, and trust me, no one was more surprised by my landslide victory than I was. Except for maybe poor old Harry Blackwell.
He took a shuffling sidestep, his scuffed brown loafers scraping softly against the hardwood floor as his long-suffering assistant, Gertie, stood in the background with both hands pressed to her heart, as if the sight of him departing was more than she could bear. She listed to the left, her bony hip bumping up against a gigantic mahogany desk strewn with stacks of manila files, tattered papers, and a plethora of office-y type things. A dented black stapler. A wire in-basket. A dusty bust of Ronald Reagan.
“Where are you going?” I asked as he continued to amble toward the door. “I thought we were meeting to go over . . . things.” I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of things because, truth be told, I was wholly unprepared to be the mayor. Like a bride who thinks a lot about the wedding but very little about the marriage, I’d focused most of my energy on the campaign without a great deal of strategizing over how to run things in the event that I actually won. But won I had, and having earned the trust of my constituents, I was now determined to be the best damn mayor the town had ever seen. Luckily for me, while Harry may have had size-fourteen feet, his shoes should not be all that hard to fill.
“I’m out of here. Goin’ fishin’. Gertie can bring you up to speed.”
I glanced at his assistant just as Gertie dashed a fat tear from her splotchy cheek.
“Um, I’m sure Gertie will do a fabulous job filling me in, but don’t you and I have lots to talk about? I’d like to learn as much from you as I can before you officially step down. You’ve got so much knowledge and expertise.” Out of necessity, I chose to appeal to his battleship-size ego, because even though Harry Blackwell wasn’t the most dynamic character, or the most inventive, or ambitious, or insightful for that matter, at the moment, he was my best source of information. Plus, admittedly, the people-pleaser in me wanted him to be happy about this turn of events, which he clearly was not. I’d tarnished his reputation and usurped his power. That was evident in the harsh set of his fleshy jaw.
He plucked a raggedy khaki fishing hat from a spindly coatrack and dropped it on his nearly bald head. “It’s already official. I resigned this morning. The tribe has spoken and voted me off the island, so no sense in me sticking around where I’m not wanted. Next week I’m heading down to Florida to visit my grandchildren. You can keep the Reagan statue, but I’ll be back for my autographed photos with George and George W.”
My breath cut short and I looked to Gertie once more, hoping in vain for some reinforcement, but his assistant just let another tear dribble down her face, her pale brown eyes magnified to triple their size behind her thick reading glasses. She looked like a praying mantis.
“You already resigned? But . . .” My tongue felt suddenly clumsy and thick. “But I’m not supposed to take office until January. It’s November. If you’ve already resigned, then who is in charge right now?”
He crooked a bushy, bristly white eyebrow and looked down at my still-open palm. “See those keys?”
I nodded.
“Looks like you’re in charge.”
He took advantage of my surprise to slide around and lurch out into the hallway. He was pretty agile for a grumpy