by Robert Elmer
After several minutes of mind-numbing verbal fog, Will couldn’t resist checking his watch. These cats were going to kill him. His nose had started running like a faucet, and he could feel his cheeks puffing up. He waited for Sydney to ease up on her monologue, then squeezed in a hint.
“Well, girls, I think we’d better get back home and see how your mom is doing.”
Abby had already made her way to the front door. No need to talk her into anything. Olivia, however, was still listening intently, her head cocked to one side like a puppy.
“Liv?” he interrupted the lecture as gently as he could, and Aunt Sydney winked at her new young disciple.
“You come back any time you like, Olivia.” Maybe this had been the first time anyone really listened to her. “We’ll have coffee.”
“I’ve never had coffee before.” Olivia glanced at her dad and smiled uncertainly. “But I’d like to come back.”
“Uh, she’s not into caffeine,” Will explained. He wondered what had possessed him to bring these two innocent little ones with him to this less-than-innocent place. He saw a computer parked on the kitchen counter, out of place. Aunt Sydney must have noticed the look.
“I have a Web site,” she announced.
“Cool!” Olivia bounced on her toes at the news. “Does it have, like, games on it or lots of graphics?”
“No games. Just photographs and some writing. It’s kind of a rescue mission.”
“Really?” Olivia asked. “Our Sunday school class volunteered at a rescue mission last Christmas.”
When Sydney frowned, Will knew he hadn’t rescued his daughters quickly enough. He dragged them toward the door, but too late.
“My site is a little different, dear,” explained the woman. “It’s to rescue as many people as we can from the lies of the government, the lies of the multinational corporations, and”— she leveled her gaze at Will and lowered her voice—” the lies of the church.”
Where did that come from? Fortunately, Olivia had picked up another cat and wasn’t paying attention.
“Sounds fascinating.” He shepherded his girls safely toward the door, hoping they hadn’t heard the last comment. “Well have to check it out.” He didn’t ask for the Web address.
“Wait a minute.” Aunt Sydney shuffled over to a card table set up next to her little wood stove piled high with small willow hoops, feathers, beads, yarn, and other such craft supplies. She selected a dreamcatcher that looked like a spider web and gave it to Olivia.
“You hang this up in your room over your bed,” she told the girls. “The Ojibwa native peoples tell us that long ago, Asibikaashi the Spider Woman taught mothers how to make webs like this and hang them above the beds of their children.”
Abby started to giggle, probably at the Asibikaashi the Spider Woman part.
“What for?” Olivia asked.
“Well, to filter out all the bad dreams and only allow good thoughts through. See that little hole in the middle?” She pointed. “That’s for the good thoughts.”
Abby wrinkled her nose. “Guess they have to be awfully little good thoughts to fit through, huh?”
Olivia poked her older sister with an elbow and smiled at her aunt. “I think it’s pretty. Thank you.”
“Yeah, that’s nice of you, Sydney.” Will had had enough of the legends. They really had to go. “Maybe it’ll help the resort’s fun-shoe…whatever.”
“That would be feng shui, Will, and I don’t think you understand. The goal is cosmic equilibrium of individual objects within—”
He sneezed and rubbed his poor nose. But Aunt Sydney was just getting warmed up, and she obviously wasn’t going to stop until she had convinced them all to seek cosmic unity and happiness.
“Thanks again, Sydney,” he interrupted, stepping backward onto the trampoline porch. “Sorry we have to run, but we really to need to get back and check on Merit. FU teli her hi for you.”
Will thought he saw the woman stiffen at his words, but she recovered quickly.
“Don’t forget the town meeting tonight,” she called after them. “Seven o’clock at the community center. We’ve got a group protesting the Osprey Point developer. Can you believe he wants to put thirty condos in the middle of an environmentally sensitive area like this?”
Will thanked her again and retreated to the car. The girls must have heard him sigh when he locked the doors.
“She’s weird,” said Abby. “All that cosmic stuff she was talking about. It’s not in the Bible. And I don’t think you should keep that…that thing she gave you, Olivia.”
“She is not weird!” Olivia would defend her from now on, probably. She held up her prize and its feathers twirled in the breeze from the open window. “And there’s nothing wrong with the dreamcatcher, is there, Daddy?”
“Uh…” He guessed Merit would probably flip when she saw it, like it was some kind of occult talisman. Maybe it was. “Let’s talk about it some more when we get home.”
“Well, I liked her.” Olivia obviously wanted to make sure her older sister knew she couldn’t be bossed around so easily. “And I think her cats are cool.”
Will found a tissue and blew his nose, grateful he’d gotten out of there alive. He wasn’t sure about the dreamcatcher, but he did know one thing: Aunt Sydney’s cats were definitely not cool.
eleven
A family is a unit comprised not only of children but of men,
women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.
OGDEN NASH
Normally the white clapboard church housed the Kokanee Cove Bible Chapel. Tonight, however, it had been pressed into service as the community center. Almost one hundred townspeople crammed into the pews and stood along the sides, nearly falling out the windows. Will and Merit squeezed in beside two large men wearing North Idaho Trucking caps. They would be standing for this meeting, but so would a lot of other folks.
“Nice little church,” observed Will, and Merit agreed. It looked like a classic New England church, even though they were nowhere near New England. Red, blue, and golden light spilled through simple stained-glass windows lining each side, and a prominent cross presided over the scene from its mount on the back wall. The worn wood floor gave the sanctuary a humble, working-class character.
Merit wouldn’t mind visiting this weekend, just to see what it was like, but right now churchgoing was the furthest thing from her mind. She and Will were beginning to garner strange looks from the locals. A couple of women stopped their chatter to note Merits arrival.
“Hi there,” Merit said, trying to preempt their stares. It didn’t work, so she turned her attention to the crowd. In the front row, looking like a throwback to the sixties in her peculiar yellow and violet tie-dyed dress, Sydney perched on the edge of a pew with pencil and tattered notebook in hand. She focused straight ahead, probably ready to attack.
Merit also recognized the fellow who ran the Kokanee Cove Mercantile, an odd-looking man named Mr. Mooney. She’d had to ask if that was really his name.
She recognized no one else, so she resigned herself to listening in on some of the conversations swirling around her like river rapids. The two men wearing stained trucker caps next to her spoke clearly and loudly, not at all worried about being overheard.
“I think the county commissioners have already decided, and this meeting is just a show.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.” The second trucker cleared his throat as if he was going to spit, then caught himself.
“Yeah, you just watch. They’re going to pretend to listen and then just do what they wanted to do in the first place. Developer’s got those three guys in his pocket.”
“Those three guys” presided over the meeting-to-be from behind a folding table where the altar would normally have been. It didn’t seem to bother anybody that the meeting was already fifteen minutes late—or at least no one asked what time it was. Everyone in the room buzzed with anticipation.
Merit glanced back at the entry, pretended
not to notice the continuing stares, and wondered what people would think if she and Will left early and got back to the kids. They’d made their appearance, showed their support. They were hemmed in by a dozen or more people, though, so they were trapped here for the duration.
Will leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “The girls will be fine,” he told her. “This isn’t the big city, remember.”
She should have known Will would realize exactly what she was worrying about. But what if Abby and Olivia had to deal with a wild animal, or what if one of them got hurt? Out here, 911 meant a call to the volunteer fire department, but who was that exactly? How long would it take them to respond? And weren’t they all at the meeting anyway?
She sighed and nodded. They’d be fine? Easy for him to say.
After five more minutes of chitchat, a gray-haired gentleman at the front table finally banged a gavel to bring the meeting to order. He seemed to enjoy his gavel, because he slammed it against the table far longer than needed. The buzzing settled down.
“All right, everybody,” he called, “we’re going to get this meeting started, so we can be out of here by midnight.”
He was kidding, right? Merit looked around, but no one was laughing.
The man went on, informing them this was simply a chamber of commerce meeting, the rest of the town had been invited as a courtesy only, and he would not tolerate any outbursts, et cetera. The people took in his warnings with crossed arms and stony expressions, seemingly determined to have their say.
Merit realized where she’d seen this scene before: one of those classic Norman Rockwell paintings, the one with the earnest-looking working man standing up at the town meeting to say his piece. But Rockwell might have missed the undertone of hostility in this painting.
It didn’t take long for the fur to fly.
“That’s all fine and good, Hank,” the fellow standing next to Merit said, interrupting the meeting’s official proceedings, “but we just want to make sure there’s no back room deals going on here. We have something to say about the—”
Bam-bam-bam! Hank swung his gavel with even more gusto. “I meant what I said, Earl.” The chairman’s face began to turn red. “We’ve opened this meeting as a courtesy to you, and you’re welcome to stay if you’d like to listen. If not, we’re going to ask you to leave.”
But Earl wasn’t backing down, and neither were his friends. “I’m not here to make trouble.” He puffed up his chest. “I’m just here to make sure the people of Kokanee Cove have a say in all this.”
That brought applause that drowned out even the gavel.
“Problem is,” Earl continued, “people from California are coming in and kicking property values so crazy high, nobody’s going to be able to afford to live here anymore.”
As the crowd murmured their approval, Merit felt like a Daniel in a lions’ den, and she could feel all eyes on her and Will.
Earl wasn’t done yet. “I hear California developers even came in and bought the old Kokanee Cove Resort, just below where they want to put all those condos, and that it’s going to be part of the big mess they’re making. Condos up on the hill and a casino down on the water is what I heard. Now we’ve already got two bars, a coffee shop, and the Buttonhook Inn, and we don’t need a lot of outsiders coming in like vultures, buying things up. Anybody else agree?”
More applause and a flurry of comments bounced off the walls. This was getting personal in a hurry. Merit felt her cheeks redden as she tried to back toward the exit. Someone knew from the brother of a friend of a reliable source that all the marinas were being cleared out and rates doubled, probably tripled. Where were they going to keep their fishing boats now that all the out-of-town yachts were coming? And somebody else heard Donald Trump had something to do with the buyout, and that…
“That’s a lot of deer droppings.”
When Sydney got to her feet, even Hank’s gavel paused in midair. She turned slowly to face the crowd and pointed straight at Merit and Will. “My little sister and her husband don’t know Donald Trump, and they’re not starting any casinos. You’re doing this all on your own, aren’t you, Will?”
Merit felt every eye rest on her and Will and sensed her husband’s discomfort as sharply as her own. If anyone hated speaking in public more than she did, it was her Will.
He cleared his throat, but nothing came out quickly enough to keep the moderator from finally slipping back into the driver’s seat of this free-for-all.
“Thanks for pointing out your brother-in-law, Sydney.” He still held his gavel up like a threat. Maybe he would use it on someone’s head, this time.
He turned toward Will. “Mister, I don’t know where all these rumors are coming from, but I hear you are fixing up the place on your own. That right?”
Will nodded, swallowed hard, and finally found his voice. “That’s right. Just the resort. I don’t know anything about the condos.”
“Good,” the moderator said. “You’ve got plenty of work to do, I imagine, just keeping those old docks from sinking. My uncle built those docks back when Sandy Johnson owned the place. When was that, the sixties?”
“Sixty-seven,” someone volunteered from the back of the room.
“Yeah, could be.” Hank rubbed his chin. “That was the year we had that big freeze, I think.”
“No, it wasn’t,” someone else corrected him. “Sixty-seven was the year they had that huge forest fire up by Sandpoint. The one that burned out fifty-some thousand acres.”
“Before my time.” That got a chuckle from the crowd, but Hank was done recollecting. He waved his gavel with new menace as he turned back to the newcomers. “Anyway, it’s the Sullivans, right? Good luck to you. You’re going to need it.”
“Thanks,” Will replied. “Will and Merit. We’re glad to be here.”
“Just the two of you?” Hank demanded, continuing the interview. Merit was glad she wasn’t answering the questions.
“No, actually…” Will seemed to be warming up. “We have two young girls and an older son who’s joining us the day after tomorrow. He’s driving a truck with the rest of our stuff—tools, that kind of thing. He’s a pretty good mechanic. Just out of the service.”
Hank squinted at them. “So where you all from?”
“Uh…” Will hesitated, “south of Boise.”
Merit almost giggled. They were from south of Boise, all right. Almost a thousand miles south, but no one needed to know that yet. Not the way these people felt about California.
“And you’re all invited to the grand reopening in two weeks,” Will added. Merit gave him a warning look. What was he saying?
“Good.” Hank waved his gavel for effect. “On behalf of the chamber of commerce, I want to welcome you to Kokanee Cove, home of the best kokanee and rainbow trout fishing in North America…or it was, until the Corps of Engineers started messing with the dam downriver, and the lake levels, and… well, anyway, welcome.”
Merit noticed only a couple murmurs of agreement this time.
“Fine,” interjected Earl the Rebel Leader, “but what about the casino?”
Here came the murmurs, and several people glanced at Merit, the enemy.
“Actually…” For a crazy moment Merit considered correcting the man, setting him straight and extending her neck out onto the chopping block on behalf of all the Sullivans. These people would find out they were California refugees sooner or later. Instead, Sydney held up her hand to make her own announcement.
“Merit’s grandfather—my grandpa too—came to the lake in 1925. He fished the lake and helped build the Navy boot camp back in 1943.” She looked around to make sure everyone got her point. “Our family goes back several generations around here.”
Sydney’s challenge was unmistakable. No one replied. Finally, Sydney sat down, her arms crossed, and Hank picked up the meeting agenda again. Earls gaze never left Will and Merit. Maybe he was still wondering about the “south of Boise” remark.
Merit wasn�
��t sure what folks would do when they found out the truth. Or how she and Will would get the resort ready in time, now that he’d announced it to the world.
twelve
If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance.
ANDREA BOYDSTON
Merit paused to catch her breath, wishing the paint didn’t make her stomach tumble, the way everything seemed to do these days. She swallowed and ran the roller through the tray once more. Two coats of fresh, white paint would cover a multitude of stains and scratches on the wall above the stove. She took down the little Gone Fishing fish she’d given Will. Well, given herself really. The rustic fish sign looked cute in the kitchen. It matched the resort decor.
Will’s pounding stopped for a moment, and she imagined having to rescue her husband from under the house. Please, she thought, at least not before Michael shows up with the truck this afternoon. How long could they convince their son to stay?
The pounding started again, followed by a clunk and a loud groan. She could hear Will’s yell plainly through the floorboards.
“Stupid pipe!”
“Are you all right down there?” she called. “Do you need me to bring you the plumbing book again?”
More grumbling, and the pounding started anew. Merit smiled. Apparently not.
She took another breath, trying not to gag on the paint fumes, and Abby flew through the open front door out of breath.
“Somebody’s coming, Mom!”
“Oh good.” She needed an excuse to put down the paint roller. “Your brother is finally here?”
“Uh-uh.” Abby shook her head. “Somebody else. Lots of somebody elses.”
Visitors? Already? At the town meeting, Merit had gotten the clear impression that people were anxious about the resorts rejuvenation, but she’d never expected they’d all just show up. Unannounced. And several days early.
