Chapter 19: The Parking Lot

"I can tell you what you can do to this town, Deborah."

The old man who spoke was at the front table with a napkin tucked into his collar.

He had sat on the club board for thirty years.

"Sit down," Deborah said.

"We have the annual meeting at one o'clock. It's on the agenda between the minutes and the pool fund."

"This is not the time."

"It's item three. Chair's confidence."

He stood with a hand on the table and addressed the room.

"All those in favor of removing Mrs. Aldrich as chair of the board, raise your hand."

For a moment I thought nobody would move.

Then the pastor's wife put her hand up.

The man beside her put his up, and the couple behind him, and a woman who had once told me my dress was too tight.

Hands went up all across the room.

Deborah looked around and counted, and I watched her understand it was over.

"Opposed?" the old man said.

Dean raised his hand.

It was the only one.

He lowered it slowly, because he could see that it was.

A man in a gray suit with a bank lanyard had been sitting at the board's own table all along.

He rose and buttoned his jacket.

"Dean," he said. "My office at eight on Monday. Bring your keys."

"Sir, it's a personal matter."

"It is on a screen, son."

Deborah did not wait for the rest.

She walked down the center aisle with her chin up and her handbag against her ribs, through the whole silent room, and out the double doors.

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