Page 7 of Love You, Mean It

I stared at the screen, sucking first one lip, then the other through my teeth. Finally I clicked Send.

The three little dots appeared…they kept blinking for ten seconds, twenty…

Then they went away. I gripped the phone a little tighter. What could that mean?

They started again. Okay, so he was thinking about what to say. Maybe he hadn’t considered our deli. Hell, maybe he didn’t even know it existed. People like the Taylors probably had groceries flown in from Switzerland or some shit, right?

Stopped again.

I was staring so hard now I could practically feel my eyelids attempting to recede into my skull. Maybe he was composing his own novel. But was that good? Trying to find the words to apologize fordestroying someone’s family businessprobably takes a lot of time. My breath started coming short as I willed the dots to come back. He had to saysomething,didn’t—

Oh god, the dots! My whole body tensed as they blinked, blinked, and then…

And?

Wait…seriously?

I hunched over the phone, molars sanding each other down as I furiously typed.

And I know you’re a spoiled dick whose lucky grandpa was born first but for some people HAVING A LIVELIHOOD actually fucking matters

I wasso closeto hitting Send, then I thought of Mimi hunching over the breakfast bar in…not quite defeat, but the closest approximation of it I’d ever seen in her. I closed my eyes,breathing deeply—in through the nose, out through the mouth—the way Bella had told me the 0.1 times I’d attempted to meditate with her.

I held my thumb over the Delete key, grimacing as I forced myself to type something Bella-approved.

And I was hoping we could meet to discuss it before anything is finalized.

The dots barely flashed before his response appeared.

I’m not sure what good that will do, negotiations are fairly advanced.

I was about to fury-text for real this time when the dots appeared again.

But if you want to talk about it anyway, I’ll be at the property tomorrow to meet with some contractors. You can meet me there.

Relief flooded through me, so intense I felt a little shaky.

Sounds great. What time?

I’ll be there at 8 sharp

See you then

I hesitated a moment, then added.

Thanks for taking the time

NP

I set the phone down, feeling triumphant. It was just step one, but I’d managed it. I was doingsomething. And tomorrow I’d take step two: I’d channel Bella’s way-more-zen energy, and I’d explain to Trip—Theo—whatever the fuck he went by—how important small business was to our community. How importantourbusiness was to the town’s history. Maybe, just maybe, I’d find a way out of this.

I turned back to the TV, turning over what I could say to convince him—other businesses would be affected too, maybe that was a way in? The Taylors held commercial properties all over town; getting Mangia in but gutting the downtown core would have to affect their bottom line. Other folks might just see dollar signs flowing into town—no one else was asdirectlycompetitive with Mangia as we were—but the coffee shop near me wasn’t that convenient if you had no reason to head downtown in the first place. Joe’s Pizza was good but not great, they’d definitely suffer. Maybe other business owners hadn’t realized what this would really mean, yet. If they’d gone to the meeting at all.

I briefly toyed with the idea of rallying them…but that could take weeks, and by then it might be too late. For now, the play was going to Theo directly and trying to hit him the only place it might hurt: in the money. Even if the Taylors could afford to lose the rent from every other shop and restaurant and whatever else they owned, stripping Milborough of the charm that made it appealing in the first place would have to have long-term consequences. Mangia was the kind of play that was banking on Milborough continuing to gentrify, but without the cluster of cute shops, restaurants,deliseven, it was hard to distinguish from Burnton (closer to the freeway) or Andrew’s Point (wealthier overall, but without the character). Without the quirky cute–factor, the exodus of Bostonians might redirect toward one of them, or even Amherst or Salem. Sure, some of those people would visit Mangia occasionally, maybe even often enough to keep it open, but surely the Taylors didn’t wantalltheir eggs in that retro wire-and-wood basket. There had tobe an argument in there that would work, even with Trip—no,Theo,don’t fuck that up—Taylor.

The nature program showed a bunny, its trembling making it extra adorable.

The python’s strike is so fast that by the time the marsh rabbit senses him moving overhead, the giant snake has already wrapped himselfaround the smaller creature, in preparation for swallowing his meal whole.

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