When Love Runs Dry novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: A Dollar a Year

Three hundred people turned from Tobias to me.

I still had Opal's dollar in my fist.

"Then you'll be shutting off a lot of people," I said. "In front of a lot of cameras."

"I can afford cameras."

"You can't afford this town. You just don't know it yet."

He smiled the boardroom smile.

"Good luck, Mere."

Then he held the door for Delaney, and they were gone.

Mae broke the silence from the stage.

"Is that your husband?"

"Ex-husband," I said.

"He's really mean."

"Mae," Nolan said.

"What? He is."

Nobody in the room disagreed with her.

On Wednesday I went to work for the first time in five years.

My office was Opal's kitchen table.

Opal cleared it by sweeping her crossword, the mail and the cat clock's spare batteries into a drawer.

"There," she said. "Engineering firm."

I unrolled my plan and pinned the corners with her sugar bowl, the salt shaker, a jar of pickles and her reading glasses case.

At nine sharp Nolan knocked on the back door.

He had a clipboard and a box of soil sample bags.

"Field man reporting," he said.

"I can't pay you."

"Your grandmother said she'd pay me in pie."

"I said one pie," Opal called from the stove.

"You said pie, Miss Opal. Open-ended."

"Apple," she said. "Thursday. One."

"Two," said Nolan.

"Get out of my kitchen."

He sat down at my table instead. He took up half of it.

I spread the old plan between us.

"Here's the problem," I said. "This was right five years ago. Prices went up. Pipes got older."

"If I take this to a referendum, Spaulding's lawyers will tear every number apart in public."

"So we make it bulletproof."

"We make it bulletproof."

"How long have we got?"

"For a bond this size, the vote needs two-thirds of the town." I tapped the calendar Opal kept by the phone.

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