old man.
“Best to you, Gertie,” he called out, and the bell rang over the lobby entrance as the door rattled open and slammed shut. The sound reverberated against the walls, and inside my chest. The keys grew twice as heavy, and twice as cold, matching the new sensation of foreboding in my lungs. I’d been nervous about our scheduled meeting today. Anxious to get started because I strongly suspected my learning curve wouldn’t be steep so much as it would be a straight trajectory upward. Being born and raised on Wenniway, I’d participated in my fair share of committees over the years, and you couldn’t live on an island this size without being aware of what things had an impact on the community, but negotiating those decisions and presiding over the city council were far above any of my previous experiences. My gaze lifted from those keys back to Gertie’s stricken expression.
“I suppose you’ll want to fire me and hire someone younger.” She squared her shoulders in a blatantly false display of courage. Her peony-pink lipstick seldom stayed within the actual boundaries of her lips, making their current trembling even more obvious, but her worry was misguided.
“Fire you? Are you crazy? I’m going to need all the help I can get. Please don’t leave me.” No false flattery there. I was completely sincere.
“Really?” The trembling stopped, and a wobbly sort of smile slanted all her pinched features. Gertie wasn’t beautiful by anyone’s standards, with jet-black bangs cut too short and straight across her pale forehead, and a reed-thin body that made stick figures look voluptuous, but she had a sweet and efficient quality to her. Never married, she’d devoted her life to the running of this island’s government. She was as instrumental in the inner workings as Harry had ever been, and some even went so far as to speculate that she was the real brains behind anything that actually got accomplished. I hoped that was true because it looked like Harry Blackwell had prematurely evacuated.
“Of course I want you to stay, Gertie. You were Harry’s right-hand gal, and I’ve heard that nobody knows the rules and regulations and bylaws like you do. I need you.” Relief flooded Gertie’s expression, followed by a slight blush, and I got the sense that Harry hadn’t spent too much time telling his assistant she did a good job. As a teacher, that was something I could certainly relate to. With a winter population of just over six hundred people, the island had only one school, and that school had only three teachers. I’d been one of them for the past thirteen years, and in all that time, I’d been thanked by parents exactly never times. Teachers are often taken for granted. Like Gertie.
“Oh, thank you, Mayor Callaghan.” She all but saluted.
“You’ve known me since I was a little kid, Gertie. I think it’s okay to call me Brooke.”
Her smile widened, exposing seriously crooked teeth as she nodded. “Of course. Can I get you some coffee, Mayor . . . um, Brooke?”
Coffee? No one ever got me coffee at school. I could get used to this. “That would be lovely, Gertie. Thanks so much. I take it black.”
An all-too-brief flutter of power rushed to my head but was gone as soon as it arrived because, as Gertie walked out, I took my first good, long look around. The mayor’s office, my office, was a study in chaotic disarray. Dingy walls with marks where pictures had once hung and been moved, gray metal filing cabinets, most with drawers that were too full to close, and cracked pleather furniture with permanent butt dents. And every surface stacked a mile high with papers. This place was one spark away from a raging inferno, and setting it on fire might be the best place to start. I sensed the implementation of a new filing system on the horizon. And some fresh paint on the walls. Surely there would be money in the budget for one gallon of paint?
Gertie returned and handed me a stained, chipped mug with a Wenniway Island logo on it that dated back to the mideighties. Maybe there would be cash in the budget for some new cups, too?
“Thanks, Gertie. I appreciate it. Now, maybe you can take me on a tour of this obstacle course? The first thing you might want to know about me is that I’m obsessively tidy, so all this”—I gestured to the room at large—“this is going to need to