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Which wasn't like Joyce, but I guess she had to start losing it sometime. Why did it have to be on my watch?
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Since the mayor of Lake Bluff was in charge of pretty much everything municipal that wasn't handled by the sheriff's office, and my only staff was Joyce, I had a full plate.
Every week we had a town council meeting. I didn't think we needed a weekly meeting, but since the all-male, all-ancient membership had nothing better to do, and they'd been getting together every week since time began, I was outvoted.
In the time that I'd been here, the meetings followed the same pattern. They argued; I refereed. We rarely decided anything, and at 9:00 p. m. they adjourned to the American Legion Hall for two-dollar pitchers of Bud Light. They never invited me along. They'd always invited my dad.
Unfortunately for me, tonight was meeting night.
I heard them arguing before I reached the community room. I was tempted to turn right around and leave them to it. Would they even notice if I didn't show up?
"I say we need a new sidewalk in front of the elementary school. "
"I say we don't. "
"Maybe we should wait awhile and think on it some more. I can see both of your viewpoints. "
"We need to lower taxes. "
"We have to raise them. "
"Now let's not be hasty. . . "
I took a deep breath and walked in. The room went silent.
"Gentlemen. "
"Claire. "
Every one of them had known me since I wore diapers. I could hardly insist they call me Mayor Kennedy. That was what they'd called my dad.
My father had secretly referred to his council by the nicknames See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, and Have No Fun. I hadn't needed to ask who was who. One meeting and I'd easily been able to assign the monikers myself.
"What's on the agenda this evening?" I asked.
"Sidewalks and taxes. "
Why had I asked?
"Didn't we discuss sidewalks last week?"
"We didn't decide anything," said Wilbur Mcandless. He'd once owned the hardware store but had left it to his son and now spent his days worrying about sidewalks. I guess someone had to.
Wilbur couldn't make a decision; both sides of every coin always sounded fine to him. Dad probably should have named him Speak Nothing That Ever Helps, but that wouldn't have fitted in with the joke, so Wilbur was Speak No Evil.
"We haven't finished our discussion on taxes, either. " This came from Hoyt Abernathy, former president of the Lake Bluff Bank. He liked to talk about money. Incessantly.
Rumor had it that on the day Hoyt had retired from the bank, he'd made a bonfire of every one of his dress shoes, which was why he now wore slippers. Everywhere. It wasn't a bad idea.
I'd identified Hoyt as Have No Fun - to him everything was a disaster of epic proportions. Personally I'd call him Eeyore for the whiny nature of his comments.
"We can't raise taxes!" shouted Malcolm Frasier, not so much because he was angry as because he was deaf. Hear No Evil - or anything else, for that matter.
"Why not?" Hoyt shouted back.
"Folks are hurtin' already. Higher taxes will make them leave Lake Bluff altogether. "
"Why would anyone ever leave Lake Bluff?" asked Joe Cantrell, retired fire chief. "It's so wonderful here. "
