feeble sparkle even as his finger hovered ever closer to my boob. While there was a bit of a gray area regarding just where my obligation to serve the people of Trillium Bay began and ended, I was not about to claim responsibility for the success or failure of Mr. and Mrs. O’Doul’s geriatric sex life. Or anyone else’s sex life for that matter. I didn’t have one of my own to worry about, so theirs was nowhere on my radar.
I patted (swatted) his hand away. “I’ll do my best, Mr. O’Doul. Have a nice day now.” I continued on my way before he could further engage me in some other pointless commentary. I was already running late and needed to stop by the post office before the meeting. I’d left my house in plenty of time but had foolishly allowed my sister to talk me into wearing not only her navy-blue business suit, which was too tight in the ass, but also her stupidly high-heeled shoes.
“I don’t need to wear a business suit, Emily. No one dresses up for these meetings,” I’d said to her that morning when she’d stopped over at my place for coffee.
“This is technically your first day as the mayor, Brooke. You have to set the tone. You want them to take you seriously, right? You can’t go in there in old jeans and a ratty old sweatshirt.”
“I wasn’t going to wear old jeans and an old sweatshirt.” Probably.
“What were you going to wear?” She’d crossed her arms and looked at me in the same cross-examining way she looked at her daughter when her daughter wasn’t being completely honest, and the flush on my face had given me away.
“I was going to wear new jeans and a new sweatshirt.” I vaguely recalled resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at her. Or maybe I did stick my tongue out. Either way, I’d lost that battle, and now I was teetering along the sidewalk like a drunk on stilts. How Emily managed to get around on these wobbly chopsticks was a mystery, but she’d insisted that the red-soled pumps made the outfit, and maybe they did, but this pair was a size too big and pitched me forward at such an awkward tilt that I was shuffling more than walking. Three times in the past ten minutes, I’d taken a step forward only to have a shoe stay behind. Let that be the first lesson learned from my new job: don’t pretend to be someone I’m not.
I continued on, past the Espresso Yo’self Coffee Bar and the Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch Bakery with the flowered sign in the window that said WE’VE GOT BIG BUNS, AND WE CANNOT LIE. Then, as if to spite me, the spindly heel of one borrowed shoe plunged into a crevice of the sidewalk and stuck. My foot popped out and I launched forward, nearly face-planting onto the sidewalk. I caught an arm on the railing just in time and righted myself before looking around to see if anyone had witnessed my gazellelike gracefulness. A few tourists glanced my way, but seeing that I was okay, they continued on with their day. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. I turned my eyes back to the shoe, glared at it, and at the sidewalk in general. Did we have money in the town budget to repair sidewalk crevices? I certainly hoped so, but first I had to get to the damn meeting. I hopped gingerly back a step and nudged the stuck shoe with my toe. It was wedged in there tighter than me in the Spanx Emily had also insisted I wear. (I hate her, by the way.) I kicked at the shoe with a little more oomph. And then again, with too much oomph that time, because the cursed thing dislodged from the sidewalk, soared through the air like an Olympic javelin, and landed with a wet, squishy squelch, stiletto heel piercing right into the center of a generous pile of horse manure. Naturally. Horse manure. No cars, remember? Bikes and horses. Pooping horses.
Well, crap.
Literally.
Old Vic and his team of street sweepers were very efficient at keeping the roads in town clean, but sticky equine refuse was a common thing, especially on a damp day like today, and it’s not that unusual to get some on your shoes if you don’t watch where you’re going. This was a new twist, though. And quite the dilemma. I pondered my