Three Days in Town, and the Barista Already Knew My Order novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Town Meeting

Barton holds its Town Meeting on the first Tuesday in March, in the town hall, on folding chairs, with a potluck table along the back wall and a ballot box on the stage.

By six o'clock that evening the hall was full.

Four hundred people, in boots and parkas, had been talking about culverts since the morning session, and now the polls were closed and everyone waited with a paper plate.

I stood by the coffee urn with my hands knotted in front of me.

"You're going to wear a hole in that coat," said the selectboard woman.

"I'm not nervous."

"You've checked the clock fourteen times."

"It's slow," I said.

"It's always slow. It's been slow since 1991." She handed me a cup. "Drink. Your man's at the back."

I looked.

He stood by the double doors in a clean white shirt, buttoned to the neck, with his grandmother beside him in her good coat.

He'd washed the flour out of his hair.

Yvonne had a paper plate in each hand and her chin lifted, surveying the room.

Etienne saw me look.

He did not wave.

He put one hand flat over his heart, and I almost dropped the cup.

It had been ten days since the hayloft.

We had agreed to wait for the vote, and he had said all right.

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