by Mara Wells
“He seemed like a nice guy. Your brother.”
“How’d you know?” Caleb scrubbed a hand down his face. “Never mind. We all look like chips off the old block, don’t we? But yeah, I think he might be a good guy.”
“You’re not sure?”
“We didn’t grow up together. Different moms. Different custody agreements and visitation schedules. I don’t really know either of my brothers.”
“That’s sad.”
“Are you close with your siblings?”
Riley crouched down to smooth a hand along LouLou’s back. “No siblings. I’m a lonely only, as they say.”
“Were you, I mean, are you lonely?” Caleb crouched, too, facing her across the poodle’s back. LouLou’s tail thumped happily against Riley’s thigh.
Riley ducked her face, wishing her hair were loose so it’d cover the color she felt rising to her cheeks. “I’ve never felt it. Having Grams. It was always enough.”
“I never felt lonely, either.” He scratched under LouLou’s collar, sending her tail thumping triple time. “Maybe I just didn’t recognize the symptoms.”
“Loneliness isn’t a disease,” Riley said, but then she thought of the sisters, Doris and Merle, who lived in the unit right below Mr. Cardoza, who were always calling her up to fix things they could fix themselves, and how Grams made sure she had at least one errand or visit per day so she would, as she liked to say, “have a reason to get up in the morning.”
“Luckily, I have LouLou.” Riley scratched the poodle right above her tail, her favorite spot.
“You’re lucky then.” Caleb stood and brushed his palms on his thighs. “Maybe I need a dog.”
Riley looked up the long length of him, head haloed by the sun setting behind him. “Maybe you do.”
Chapter 13
Riley walked into the City Commission meeting room with much more confidence than she’d had the week before. For one, Sydney had dressed in her in a to-die-for pale-pink Chanel suit with adorable kitten heels. For another, she had her PowerPoint presentation memorized and ready to go on her laptop, along with a backup on a USB drive and a printed-out script in case of technology failure.
Eliza was already seated, her hand on the briefcase that contained the pages of signatures and whatever legal notes she’d prepared. Behind her, Mr. Cardoza escorted Grams, and although they were twenty minutes early for the meeting, Riley recognized a lot of the faces in the room from the Dorothy and the dog park. Eliza was right when she’d said, “If you ask people to show up, you’d be surprised how many will.”
Riley was certainly surprised, and touched, that so many people she’d talked to at the party were already seated. She saw Sasha and Joe a few seats down from Eliza, holding hands. She waved at Patty where she sat with her walker parked next to Doris and Merle, the two elderly sisters dressed like they were going to church in their Sunday-best flowered dresses and big hats.
Sydney waved at Riley from the back row and gave her a thumbs-up, mouthing, “You look great!”
It was amazing what having the right suit could do for a woman. She was no longer the on-site manager of a run-down building. She was back to being Riley Carson, rising star. It felt right to glide into a seat near the front and pop open her laptop. The Wi-Fi connected easily and her PowerPoint loaded, no problem. Unlike with the presentations she’d dreaded giving in college, she was excited to get started. Once the city commissioners knew the neighborhood like she did, they’d shoot down the Donovans’ plans in a heartbeat.
Riley took it as a good sign when Commissioner Jackson came over to greet Grams, exclaiming loudly, “Gloria, you never age!” which was something Grams liked to hear as much and as often as possible.
“Pish-posh, Claudia. Don’t you look lovely today?”
They exchanged thoughts on various overnight creams until Commissioner Santos called the meeting to order. The other commissioners were in place at the front of the room, a screen pulled down behind them. A small projector with a blinking light sat between Santos and Jackson.
“Forgive us.” A booming voice entered the room. “There was a bit of a kerfuffle with the parking situation.” An older man, probably around Grams’ age, entered the room. He looked slim in a dark pin-striped suit that camouflaged the small bulge of a belly. His bold blue tie matched the eyes under a pair of bushy white eyebrows.
“Billy!” Grams’ hand flew to her chest. Her other hand gripped Riley’s forearm hard enough to leave marks.
The older man’s sharp gaze landed on Grams. He leaned a bit heavier on the cane in his right hand. “Glo?”
“Billy?” Caleb entered the room, equally well dressed in a light-gray suit and crisp white shirt open at the collar. “Grandpa Billy?”
“Don’t even try it. I’ve never been a Billy.” He walked toward Grams, one thump of the cane at a time. “Glo, it’s been too long.”
Grams dropped her hands to her lap and studied her nails. She didn’t respond.
“And you must be that gorgeous granddaughter I’ve heard all about.” He reached out a hand to Riley. “I’m William Donovan.”
“Don’t touch that greasy snake-oil salesman,” Grams hissed under her breath.
Riley ignored her and stood to shake his hand. “A pleasure, sir.”
“She has manners,” William observed, whether to Grams or Caleb, it was unclear.
“And she can hear you.” Riley removed her hand and made a show of getting hand sanitizer out of her bag.
“Good girl,” Grams murmured.
“You’re not going to talk to me? Still?”
Grams held out her hand for some sanitizer and hummed to herself.
Although Grams couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, William clearly recognized the opening bars of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” His eyes narrowed, and he thumped away to an empty seat a few rows away.
Caleb placed a hand on the back of Riley’s chair. “Bad blood, I guess, but I hope you’ll keep an open mind during my presentation.”
“And I hope you’ll keep an open mind during mine.”
“Deal.”
Riley felt the loss of his body heat behind her, could sense without looking his taking a seat near his grandfather. How she hated this awareness of him that she couldn’t control, couldn’t turn off. He was here to change everything about Grams’ and her lives, and all she could think about was how close his hand on the chair had been to her shoulder. What if he’d closed the gap, slid a knuckle up her neck and into the neat chignon of her hair? She closed her eyes against the image. Focus, that was what she needed right now, focus.
Santos gave some general opening remarks about the importance of every neighborhood to the character of Miami Beach. “But we mustn’t lose sight of the progressive nature of time and the importance of planning for the future. Miami Beach was founded on one man’s dream of what could be, and it is our duty as representatives of the people to keep reimagining what our future can be.”
“As long as it keeps him in office and his major contributors’ pockets lined with cash, he means,” Grams spoke loud enough that her words carried a few rows. William Donovan’s shoulders noticeably stiffened.
Caleb was brought up to discuss his plans for the Dorothy and the adjacent empty lot. He smiled readily at Santos’ introduction, shook hands with each commissioner, and hooked up his computer with ease.
“First, let me introduce you to the Dorothy.” The first image on the screen showed the Dorothy from the street, the wide expanse of unmanicured lawn leading up to the front door. He flipped through slides of close-ups of sagging gutters, peeling paint, the stained terrazzo in the lobby. He showed the gaping gate at the empty lot, the patchwork grass, a shot of the dog park when no dogs were there, just some plastic bags blown against the fence and shards of broken glass buried in the dirt. “As you can see, the property ha
s not been kept up, and although the current residents love their home, there’s no doubt that a huge influx of cash is needed to bring it up to modern standards.”
“And whose fault is it?” Grams muttered. “If he himself has been owning it all these years, why did he never swoop in with his checkbook and make things right? He was waiting for this, waiting to take it away from me in as public and humiliating a way as possible.”
Riley patted Grams’ hand. She couldn’t argue. She didn’t know why the Donovans had kept their ownership secret or why they wanted to repair things now. She only knew she couldn’t let them.
“I’ve been working with a local architect on some designs that will respect the building’s history while still bringing it into the current century.” Caleb flipped to a slide showing a shiny new apartment building, three stories high, with nothing in common with the Dorothy except the original lettering of the building’s name preserved and hung over the new doorway. It was sleek and modern-looking, but certainly not Deco or even Deco-inspired.
Grams gasped and held her hand to her heart again. “He wants to build that monstrosity?” Other neighbors grumbled their disapproval.
“Of course, as with many of the older buildings on the Beach, parking is wholly inadequate even for the current residents. With increased capacity, we’ll need increased parking space, and that’s where the pièce de résistance comes in.” Caleb clicked, and a futuristic parking structure appeared, also three stories, the outside covered in greenery. “The building is enough to provide ample space for residents while still allowing for public parking on the first floor.”
“The city is not investing in new parking structures at this time,” Commissioner Jackson said in a quelling tone that could probably hush an auditorium full of rowdy students but didn’t dampen Caleb’s smile in the least.
“Of course not. We have to build the parking structure anyway. We’re offering a partnership with the city, a potential long-term revenue stream.”
“A bribe!” Grams hissed.
“And a good one.” Riley drummed her fingers nervously on the briefcase holding her laptop. She didn’t have shiny photos of what could be to show the commissioners, and Santos’ surprised laugh made her uneasy.
“What’s the anticipated revenue stream?” Santos tapped the tips of his fingers together.
Caleb pulled up a complicated graph of current parking garages on Miami Beach and their hourly and daily rates as well as occupancy history and projections. “It’s hard to say for sure, given the variability by season, but we estimate that opening up the bottom floor for public parking will bring in a couple hundred thousand per year, if not more.”
Santos rested his elbows on the table and templed his fingers. “And if we had two floors of the parking structure, that would double?”
For the first time, Caleb blinked. “Priority goes to resident parking, of course, and then the extra spaces will be used as public spaces.”
“And if the city’s approval depended on having two floors of the garage?” Santos pushed his point while pushing his fingers into the table.
“Not going to happen.” Eliza stood and addressed the commission. “You should be advised, I’ve alerted the Historic Preservation Board to these proceedings, and they have representatives in the room right now. We know they are unlikely to approve buildings higher than the ones currently in the neighborhood.”
“But the Dorothy isn’t an historic building,” Caleb said.
“Not yet.” Eliza sat down, her point made.
“Still.” Santos regained control of the meeting. “This is a very promising proposal. I believe the commission will look favorably upon it. We can certainly give preliminary approvals, get the ball rolling as it were, until we hear from the Historic Preservation Board.” Other commissioners nodded their agreement.
Rocks settled in Riley’s stomach, the kind of rocks she’d run into when working on the Dorothy’s landscaping. Immovable stones, hard as concrete. She didn’t think she could stand, but when Commissioner Jackson called her forward, Riley rose.
She fumbled the setup, felt herself sweating through Sydney’s smart suit.
“Uh, hi.” She flipped to her first presentation slide, feeling the fear from every school presentation she’d ever given freeze her face into a mask. Smile, she had to smile. She tried to, really hard, but when Santos reeled back from her fierce expression, she understood it wasn’t working. How she wished LouLou were here, sitting on her feet like she’d done while Riley was putting the presentation together. Her comforting warmth was exactly what she needed.
Grams gave her a thumbs-up from the audience, and Sydney’s encouraging smile from the back row straightened her spine. She could absolutely do this. Then she did what she had promised herself she wouldn’t do: make eye contact with Caleb, where he sat in the front row. She thought he’d be smug after Santos basically guaranteed him a pass with his plan, but he nodded his head encouragingly. The warmth she’d been seeking filled her, melting the heavy stones in her stomach and finally allowing her to speak. She didn’t understand it, didn’t like it, but she couldn’t look away. She addressed the first part of her carefully rehearsed presentation to him.
“Yes, the Dorothy needs some work. Maybe a lot of work.” Her first image was a picture from the day Grams moved into the building. Tropical landscape filled the front yard, windows sparkled in the sun, and women with 1960s bouffants and large sunglasses sat in deck chairs beneath the palm trees.
“But it was once a gem of Art Deco architecture here on the Beach.” She flipped through interior shots showing the lobby in its midcentury heyday, pictures from various parties at Grams’ apartment through the years, lots and lots of photos of residents hanging out in the lobby, in one another’s apartments, laughing, arms around one another. “More importantly, the residents of the Dorothy have always felt like it was a true home, a place where neighbors become family.
“And that empty lot? Why, it’s not empty at all.” She showed pictures from the dog park party, the people eating snacks and chatting, the dogs running the field. “The lot has become an important extension of the Dorothy, a place where the neighborhood gathers. Neighbors not only have a place to exercise their dogs but also to meet each other and become a real community.”
Riley reached into her briefcase and pulled out the petition and the pages and pages of signatures, presenting them to the commissioners. “That’s why we’re asking that the Dorothy be left the way she is so she can continue to be the heart of our beloved neighborhood.”
Eliza whistled her approval, and the neighbors in the crowd stomped their feet and clapped. Riley let out a whoosh of pent-up breath and plastered on a smile, eyes darting from one commissioner to the other, searching their reactions. Hoping what she’d said, what she’d done, was enough.
Commissioner Jackson took the paperwork from Riley. “You’ve certainly got a lot of signatures here.”
Riley nodded. Now that her preplanned words were delivered, she felt a bit self-conscious at all eyes being on her. She glanced at Caleb out of the corner of her eye. He was frowning and checking something on his computer. Good, maybe she’d shaken him up. Or at least the community support shook him.
“No one likes change.” Santos’ words were as condescending as his tone. “But it’s the responsibility of this body to encourage positive change in our neighborhoods. I don’t see how we can say no to the Donovan proposal when it offers so much to the current neighborhood as well as the benefit to the city.”
Grams raised her hand, and Santos called on her. “My sole income is Social Security, and many of the residents are in a similar situation. If the Dorothy is converted to condos, many of us will be forced to move. And what can we afford here on the Beach? We’ll be forced to leave the city that we have called home for longer than some of you commissioners have been alive. How are you serving your cons
tituents if the choices you make today force the very people who voted for you to move away?”
More clapping erupted from the audience. Commissioner Jackson leaned into the microphone on the table. “Well said, Gloria. I couldn’t agree more.”
“Perhaps you’re overstating the situation, Gloria.” Commissioner Graves swiped the microphone toward him. “The parking revenue could do a lot of good in our community, and there is plenty of affordable housing in our fair city.”
There were mumblings of “Oh yeah, where?” from the crowd, and Grams got that fighting look in her eye that usually spelled trouble, but she demurred with a “That’s certainly an opinion.”
“You said it. Too many opinions, not enough action.” Santos banged his hand on the table. “I say we vote now.”
“I say we wait for the Historic Preservation Board to weigh in.” Commissioner Jackson leaned into her mic and enunciated each word clearly. “Nothing can be decided until the status of the building is settled.”
Commissioner Santos tapped impatient fingers next to his mic. “Come, Claudia, everyone at the table knows how hard it is to get a building through that process, and the Dorothy is well outside the historic preservation district. It’s a delaying tactic at best. We’ll let it play out, of course, we have to, but we know which way this is going. In the meantime, there’s no reason we can’t take an informal poll to see how the commissioners are leaning. All in favor of the Donovan proposal?”
Each of the commissioners except Claudia Jackson raised their hands.
“There you have it.” Santos rubbed his palms together. “There’s obviously a more official process to come, but it’s good to see we are in agreement.” At Jackson’s snort, he corrected himself, “Mostly in agreement.”
