Page 173 of Story of My Life
The shouting quieted to a low rumble.
“Thanks, Cam,” Darius said. “Now, I know this news comes as a shock, but your council members have been hard at work on possible solutions.”
“There are only two actual solutions. Triple the property taxes or be absorbed into Dominion,” Emilie announced. “Might as well give up now. Start packing up and get those houses on the market before our streets run brown with shit and our taxes bankrupt you!”
The yelling started again and continued over several hums from the Warblers and Darius’s requests for quiet.
Cam put his hand on the back of my chair, fingers grazing my back. He leaned behind me. “Erleen, get their attention.”
The witchy woman threw him a little salute and produced an air horn from under the table.
I had just enough time to plug my ears before Erleen rocked the room with a blast from the horn. The crowd reluctantly quieted.
“Thank you, everyone, for your passion. Now Councilperson Emilie has provided two possible options, but I’d like to hear from a few more of our council members,” Darius said, moving things along.
Erleen leaned forward, her stacked bracelets jingling in the microphone making her sound like a magical fairy. “I propose that we start applying for infrastructure grants to help cover the cost. There are bound to be one or two that we’d qualify for, and we have a professional writer in town to help us out.”
“Excellent suggestion,” Darius encouraged.
Ace raised his hand. “My recommendation is that we ask for an extension on the timeline. With more time, we can explore less costly alternative upgrades.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Darius said, ignoring Emilie’s snort of derision. “And anticipating this, I did submit the request to the county commissioners, and they said no.”
The crowd groaned.
“But I didn’t get the sense that it was a firm no,” Darius said. “I believe we can find some middle ground.”
Cam leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. “We’re tanking here, Trouble. Better speak up.”
I was going to throw up on the remainder of the front row. My heart was beating so fast I wondered if I needed medical attention. But Cam was right. I came here to start fresh and maybe instead of just watching and observing, it was time to get involved.
Pep and Frank gave me encouraging thumbs-ups. At the back of the room, Laura mimed talking with her hand. Zoey was on the aisle next to Lacresha, staring at me. She used her fingers to pull up the corners of her mouth into a smile.
The crowd began to murmur again.
Instead of driving shivers up my spine with another whisper in my ear, Cam kicked me under the table.
“Ow!”
“Now or never, Trouble.”
Old Hazel wanted to picknever. But I’d left her back in Manhattan in a too-small, too-lonely apartment.
“What if—” My microphone erupted in a high screech of feedback.
“I’ll be happy to provide free hearing assessments after tonight’s meeting,” Ace offered.
I gave the mic some space and tried again. “What if the money didn’t have to come from Story Lake residents?”
“Areyougoing to write a check?” Emilie snarled from the corner.
“Let her talk, Rump,” Cam said.
“What I’m saying is, Dominion has taken a lot from you…er, us over the years. What if we found a way to take something back from them?”
“Like what?” Gator wondered from the middle of a row.
“I always liked their fountain outside city hall,” said a young mom jiggling a toddler on her hip next to a glossy—hopefully empty—casket.
