said as I joined him on Monday at a tiny table in the center of Carmen’s Café. “I hope I’m not interrupting a busy day.”
“All my days are busy. This city never sleeps,” I said, then chuckled. “Actually, that’s not true, but Gertie and I are determined to sort through every single file and pile of junk in that damn office. You would not believe the kind of crap Harry Blackwell left behind.” I latched my purse over the back of my chair and eased out of my tan coat. I was wearing a plum-colored sweater that looked . . . fine, but if I’d known Leo was going to text me, I would have put in a bit more effort. I thought I’d put on mascara this morning. Or had I?
“What kind of crap?” He handed me a plastic-covered menu.
“Like dozens and dozens of nail clippers. He must have had some serious claws. He did stop back in before he left for Florida, but all he wanted was his picture of George Bush, his other picture of the other George Bush, and his Gerald R. Ford commemorative place mat. He informed us that they don’t make them anymore, and I have no doubt that’s true.”
Leo propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin on one hand. His smile was warm and easy, and maybe it was the deep blue of his eyes, or his sincere expression, or the conversation I’d just had with my sister, but something in that moment made me want to share all the tidbits about my work and all the little pieces that made up my day. Leo wasn’t Jason. He was nothing like Jason, and I found myself rattling on, even as we ordered our food and ate our lunch.
“One of the things I really want to do is update the community center, but since that is going to cost money, I’m not sure how to convince everyone that it’s important.”
“Is the community center that old building with the green siding? The one that looks like half of it is about to fall into the lake?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I have this dream of setting up some classrooms inside and having a computer lab. Too many of the older residents around here have only a rudimentary knowledge of computers, and it’s essential for our local businesses that they get with the program. I’ve been talking to some internet providers about improving our bandwidth, too, and my sister’s boyfriend, Ryan, works for a hotel management company, so we’ve been talking about getting all the hotels and bed-and-breakfast places to start using the same reservation system. That way visitors could just visit our chamber of commerce website and then link to any hotel they want. Or they could just search by dates and see which places have a vacancy. As of right now there is no communication between the hotels, and half of them keep track of their visitors using paper.”
“Paper?”
“Yes, like my grandmother. She has six rental properties and keeps track of everything using a spiral notebook. If that notebook got lost or damaged, she’d have no idea who was booked at any of her places.”
“That’s pretty risky.”
“She says using a computer is even riskier because then the government can track your every keystroke. Pretty sure she learned that from my predecessor. The truth is I’m spending a lot of my time just undoing the damage Harry did by convincing our older population to resist every modern convenience, but I think my niece is softening up my grandmother. Gigi is all about Pinterest now, so hopefully, once I show her how easy the reservation website is, she’ll get on board. And once the hotels are linked, the other local businesses will join, too. People come from all over just to taste our fudge, and that’s a great draw, so I have to wonder what kind of revenue we could drum up for the island during the off-season if people could order some of our products online. Like the fudge, or Dmitri’s honey. Or Shari’s pasties.”
I grinned at him, waiting for that to sink in.
“Shari’s what?”
“The woman from our post office makes custom pasties for exotic dancers. Now if that isn’t some good old-fashioned capitalism, then I don’t know what is.”
Leo nodded. “Nothing says God bless America like red, white, and blue tassels.”
We laughed in unison. “I’ll have you know that Shari has made almost a thousand