Skipped by the Altar, Taken by His Uncle novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The First Debate
Reuben wanted to call the Chamber president that night.
"He's on my parks board," he said. "He's afraid of me a little."
"Then he'll say you bullied him, and Blaine gets a second clip."
"So you just don't go."
"I didn't say that."
Thursday at six-thirty the Elks lodge on Court Street had a line out the door.
Two Chamber volunteers sat at a folding table with a clipboard.
I wore a green dress, my mother's pearls, and the notebook in my purse, since green dresses don't have back pockets.
One of the volunteers found my name on a separate sheet. It had a line through it.
"I'm so sorry, Rhea," she said, and she was.
A gray pickup pulled up to the curb behind me and stopped in the fire lane.
Earl Eckert climbed down with his cane, his canvas jacket over a pressed white shirt, and a tie that had been in fashion during Vietnam.
"Obituaries," he said. "Take my arm."
"Earl, they've banned me."
"I'm a charter member of this Chamber. I paid for that roof." He pointed his cane at the volunteers. "Members bring a guest. That's in the bylaws. I wrote the bylaws."
The volunteer looked at the clipboard.
Then at the cane.
She drew a little check mark next to the line through my name.
I took his arm.
We went down the center aisle together, slow, because Earl walks slow on purpose when he wants a room to see him.
Three hundred folding chairs. Every one full.
Blaine sat on the stage at a podium on the left. He saw us, and his smile stayed exactly where it was.
Corrie wasn't next to him.
I looked for her platinum hair in the front rows and didn't find it.
Earl put me in the fourth row, on the aisle, and sat beside me with his cane across both our knees.
"Now they can't get you out without going through an old man," he said. "Nobody wants that picture."
Reuben stood at the right-hand podium in a navy jacket and a tie I'd tied for him in the truck.
He found me in the fourth row.
He didn't smile. He just looked, and then he looked at his notes.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Skipped by the Altar, Taken by His Uncle are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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