up the meeting since there had been a few changes in policy approved by the council for the upcoming season. Unfortunately, Barry thought he’d been invited to lecture the group on the history of fire prevention, rather than just give a quick update of his program.
I’m Jill Gardner, and as the business liaison to the council I was responsible for hosting and setting up the meetings. By my count, today’s group of business owners had gone through three rounds of coffee carafe refills and the cookie plates were totally empty. I shook my head when Sasha Smith, one of our baristas, asked me a nonverbal question about refills. We hadn’t gotten our supply order from Pies on the Fly yet, and if the meeting didn’t end soon, we’d be out of food to sell to actual paying customers.
“Safety is our number one priority.” Barry Gleason stood in front of the shop owners gathered for the June meeting and pounded the table with his fist. The volunteer fire chief paused, and when he knew he had the crowd’s attention, he ran a beefy hand with a garnet ring from his college football glory days through his wavy, too long salt-and-pepper hair.
Amy Newman, my BFF and the secretary for the meeting, leaned toward me and whispered, “Someone should tell him that hair style went away with the Bee Gees.”
I tried to keep my lips from twitching, but from the glare I got from Mayor Baylor, I guess I had failed. I glanced down at the agenda. Once the fire chief relinquished his stage, the only other thing was Darla and the finishing touches for the Fourth of July street festival. Since the actual holiday was on a Saturday this year, we had a long weekend planned for South Cove visitors and tourists. Everyone would be open longer hours and Coffee, Books, and More would be erecting a tent annex out at the end of town near the bandstand and Diamond Lille’s. Which the owner, Lille, had expressed her dismay about several times. Lille and I had an agreement mostly: she didn’t come north and I didn’t go south. Except for festival time when the needs of the tourists superseded our boundaries.
“I’ll be inspecting each and every business this week for fire code violations. If you’re not up to code, I’m going to close you down on June thirtieth until you are compliant.” Barry started handing out folders. “These are the new rules. You all might have gotten away with being lax on the fire code before, but now with the city council’s blessing, there’s a new sheriff in town, so to speak.”
“That’s less than a week away,” I said. I opened the folder and cringed when I found what looked like a twenty-five-page single-spaced list of must-do’s. “It will take me that long to read and understand these regulations.”
Barry shrugged. “Not my problem. You all didn’t seem to worry about fire safety when I didn’t have the power to make you change. Now you’re on my timeline.”
“I’ve always believed in following the rules,” Josh Thomas, owner of Antiques by Thomas, said, jumping into the discussion. “You can come inspect my shop at any time. I’m certain I’ll pass.”
“Thank you for your support.” Barry paused, looking for questions from the group who, like me, had their gaze on the enormous list of must-do’s. To fill the gap in the discussion, Mayor Baylor started to stand, but Bill Sullivan beat him to the front of the table.
“Thank you, Barry, for that insightful update on the history of fire prevention in South Cove. Now, let’s get this meeting going. I know you all have a lot to do before the holiday next week. Darla, would you come up and give us the final directions on the Fourth of July festival?” Bill moved in front of Barry, who still hadn’t sat down.
Barry glanced at the mayor, who waved him into the seat next to him. Apparently, Barry hadn’t been ready to relinquish the podium. He probably had planned on reading the entire list of regulations to us, one by one. Thank goodness for Bill. I don’t say that often, but today he’d saved the entire group from dozing off at the table. Even with the excess of caffeine from the coffee.
Amy pushed a sheet of paper toward me. I picked it up and tried to read her scribbles. Rumor is he has slept with all of his firefighter’s wives.
I picked up her pen and wrote in big block letters the only response I could muster: EWWWW.
Amy giggled and this time not only Mayor Baylor but Bill and Darla glared at me.
I squared my shoulders and mumbled, “I didn’t do anything.”
“If Jill will quiet down, I’ll run through the assignments. Our big event will be on Saturday, when Diamond Lille’s will host an old-fashioned summer picnic to go with our old-fashioned Fourth of July theme. We’ll set up tables in the street with red-checked table cloths. And we have a great lineup of bands coming in all day. Matt did a great job of setting up a diverse mix.” Darla blushed a bit as she threw kudos to her boyfriend-slash-winery manager. He’d arrived on the scene last winter and, like Sasha, hadn’t left. That had been one of the mayor’s great ideas that had actually worked out.
Well, except for the manager of the Welfare to Work program. But that’s another story. I pretended to take notes as Darla listed off the events starting at noon on Thursday. All I knew was my store needed to be open and staffed until nine each night. Which were normal hours anyway. We would be down a person since Toby would be full-time deputy for the duration of the festival, but Amy had volunteered to take on a few shifts in the evening.
“You realize that these people you bring in for festivals are mainly drunks and losers.” Barry was playing a game on his phone so he didn’t see Darla’s glare. But I did. She ignored his comment and went back to outlining the festival schedule.
As the meeting broke up, Barry Gleason barreled his way toward me.
“Since I had to stay for the entire meeting, I’ve already started the fire safety review for your shop. Do you mind if I check the back office? That way we’ll be done and I can move on to Mr. Thomas’s shop.” Barry Gleason grinned and I realized that maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I’d imagined. He probably would take ten to fifteen minutes and I’d be done for the next year. “I’m sure you’re as busy as I am,” he said.
“That’s for certain.” I took his arm and led him toward the counter. “Sasha will assist you if you need access to anything or need information.”
Sasha smiled brightly. “I’d be glad to help.”
“Actually, I’d rather work with you, if you don’t mind.” Barry glanced at Sasha and even I could see the dismissal in his eyes. I didn’t know if it was her age or her skin color that made him uneasy, but Barry had gone down a few pegs in my estimation of him—which hadn’t been that high to begin with.
“That’s fine. Sasha’s busy with the counter anyway.” I sent Sasha a “what can you do” glance and got a shrug from her back. Either Barry didn’t like working with underlings or people younger than him, or, probably, he didn’t want to work with anyone he didn’t think was worth his precious time. Anyway, the faster I got him out of the shop, the better for all of us.
Ten minutes later, he ripped off a page that appeared to be a ticket. He’d been taking notes on the pad all through the tour, but I hadn’t realized it was an official document. “Here’s the list of infractions. Please call me when these are repaired and I’ll come back for a new inspection. Call early as it typically takes a week to get on my schedule.”
I glanced through the list. “For a lot of these things, I’ll need to call in an electrician. There’s no way I can get them done by June thirtieth. That’s next week.”
“Then you’ll be closed until you
