Page 9 of Enemies to Lobsters
Nellie folds her arms. “Go on.”
“I’m asking that the town of Cape Georgeana nominate the lighthouse for the National Register of Historic Places.” Diana runs her hands down her navy skirt, and I avert my eyes. “With that designation we could receive the funding required for renovation—”
“We,” a crotchety male voice cuts in from the back. “You don’t even live here.”
“Thelighthousecould receive funding,” Diana corrects herself, then implores Nellie with her startling crystal blue eyes. If she’s looking for Girl Power, she’s come to the wrong place. Nellie will chew her up and spit her out.
“Miss York, the lighthouse was already rejected for the registry due to extensive renovation work that was done too recently.”
Delicate lines form between Diana's dark eyebrows. “How recently? It’s in shambles.” She runs her hands down her legs again, and I want to crack my gavel. She needs to stop that.
Nellie appears unaffected by Diana’s hands on her skirt. “The outbuildings were remodeled in the early 1970s by the last couple who kept the lighthouse before it was decommissioned—the O'Connors.”
“Okay, but the actual structure was built in 1876—”
“Be that as it may, it was rejected for the registry,” Nellie says with finality.
This is picking at a barely-healed wound. I worked so hard to get that lighthouse funded and never found a solution. It rankles that Diana waltzed into town, looked at the thing for five minutes, destroyed the staircase, and now she thinks she can solve this.
“There must be a way to fund it. A bond? A gift shop? Something,” she pleads. She almost seems to sincerely care about the thing. “You can’t let it crumble into the ocean.”
I’m tired of having this failure rubbed in my face. “We’ve tried, Diana. The money isn’t there.” My voice rings through the room, and I can’t stand how my frustration is leaking through. “We have other projects that are a higher priority.” I’ve already told her this.
She arches one perfect eyebrow in my direction, and my spine tingles. I don’t have time to manage a hex or a curse or whatever she’s attempting with that eyebrow. And I don’t care what she looks like in that skirt. She needs to let this go. She opens her mouth to speak, but someone talks over her.
“Maybe you oughta pay for it with all that money from your paper straw empire,” someone crows from the back of the roombefore Diana can respond. The comment is met with a few snickers, heads nods, and a staggered chorus of “yeah”s.
Diana blinks. She sounds exasperated when she says, “For the last time, I did not invent paper—”
“Have you ever used one of her straws?” Obie LeClaire grumbles from the front row to no one in particular. His backwoods Mainer accent is heavy when he’s grumping. “Falls right apart.”
“They aren’tmystraws.” Diana clears her throat and makes eye contact with me. “Perhaps if I looked at the budget for you. This is what I do, actually. I’m quite—”
Obie cuts her off with a swat of his weathered paw. “Go back to New York and look at the budget for your paper straws—”
BANG BANG BANG!
Diana jumps when I hit the gavel.
I have to cut off Obie before he really gets going. “We don’t kick people out of town meetings, Obie. Pesky First Amendment rights and all.” I grin and Obie turns red. There’s a look on Diana’s face that I don’t recognize. She almost looks vulnerable, but I know better. I have to ignore it. “If there’s no other business, I move that we adjourn until August.”
Diana shakes her head. “But—”
“There’s no money. Meeting adjourned.” I bang my gavel.
Diana doesn’t move away from the mic. She glares at me, her mouth in an appalled O-shape as the people of Cape Georgeana file out around her. She’s used to getting what she wants.
Well, I want this, too. I’ve tried. Sometimes we don’t get what we want.
Chapter 6
Diana
My grandparent’s house is dark and quiet when I enter through the garage. I’m sure they’re already asleep. They’re the type of people who start their day at five. I rub my lower eyelids as I roll my luggage in behind me.
After my long talk with Stevie last night, I ended up falling asleep on her couch mid-sentence. Then I spent the day on the same couch researching renovation costs and funding options for the lighthouse from my laptop, wearing the wrinkled blue dress from the day before. Stevie ran errands and let me work from her living room.
“I like seeing this slightly unhinged, obsessive version of you,” Stevie had said as she handed me a plate with a red hot dog sometime around dinner. “You look like Wonder Woman, only if she was a little nuts.”
