Chapter 9: Ribbon Cutting

I watched the ad four times sitting on the edge of my bed.

A thirty-second spot.

The slow pan across my father's bricks and the flood line.

The painted sign on the side wall, cropped above the word PRITCHARD so all you saw was HARDWARE.

Blaine's voice: "There was a man on Front Street who taught me what this town is."

Then Blaine himself, standing on the sidewalk in front of the store with his sleeves rolled up for the first time in his life.

"Blaine Eckert. A family man for a family town."

Reuben knocked on my open door with two mugs of coffee.

"I saw," he said.

I took the coffee.

"Where's his office?"

"Court Street. The old savings bank across from City Hall." He paused. "The grand opening's at noon. There's a ribbon."

"Of course there's a ribbon."

"Rhea."

"I'm not going to burn it down."

"I wasn't going to say that." He leaned on the doorframe. "I was going to say wear the notebook. People act different when they see the notebook."

At noon, Court Street was full of balloons.

A banner across the stone front said ECKERT FOR HALBROOK.

Inside were volunteers in navy T-shirts, cookies with Blaine's face on the frosting, and big gold scissors.

I walked in with my reporter's notebook in my back pocket, where it's lived since I was twenty-two.

Blaine was by the ribbon with a local TV reporter.

Corrie stood off to one side in cream and gold with her phone up, filming his good angle.

My ring swung on its chain when she moved.

Blaine saw me over the reporter's shoulder.

He smiled with his whole face.

"There she is," he said to the room. "My uncle's new wife. Come to wish me luck?"

"Come to ask you a question."

"Anything."

"The ad," I said. "The store in it. Whose store is that?"

The volunteers went quiet.

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