tell me why you called last night and asked me to take the ferry over from Seattle this morning.”
Mab shook her straight shoulders, as though trying to disengage some annoying burden clinging to them.
“Because of the Scrooge, Octavia. All the trouble began with him.”
“What trouble?”
“When a group of us formed the Silver Power League five years ago, we did so in order to organize senior citizens and show them the kind of power we could wield if united against unfavorable legislation. One of our members gave us a ninety-nine-year lease to some land and an old barn that sat on it to use as our community center.”
“Yes, I remember visiting you there a couple of times when you first opened. You had cleaned and painted that old barn and made it very presentable. Now, what has this to do with Dole Scroogen?”
“He’s our new landlord.”
“And?”
“Remember those documents I asked you to look over nearly a year ago? The ones about the Silver Power League’s ninety-nine-year land lease?”
“Yes. You were worried about any loopholes. But the previous owner’s lawyer did a very good job drafting that protection clause against your eviction by a subsequent owner.”
“Except she didn’t anticipate that the Scrooge would levy a ridiculous rent on us.”
“Mab, he can’t do that. Remember my telling you? There are protection provisions in your lease that prohibit any rent being charged that is not commensurate with property value. The three acres of land your community center sits on has some value, but that old barn isn’t worth much.”
“You’ve been away too long, Octavia. We have a new Silver Power League community center.”
Yes, she had been away too long—too busy rushing through the arteries of her life to find the time to spend with this special person who had first put Octavia’s hand on life’s true pulse.
Octavia paused in the middle of her self-recrimination to let her grandmother’s last words register. “Wait a minute. Did you just say the new center?”
Her grandmother nodded.
“I kept looking at all this talent our members had just going to waste—retired architects, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, decorators. Our members may be over sixty, but most are still vital and strong and possess a lifetime of experience and expertise. So a couple of years ago I decided to get them off their duffs and put them to work on some renovations.”
“But, Mab—”
Mab raised her hand to halt Octavia’s interruption.
“Yes, I know. Any improvements on leased land become the property of the landowner. But you have to understand, Octavia, at that time the landowner was one of our members and a good friend. She was charging us only fifty dollars a month in rent. We knew that on her death everything in her estate was to go to her only surviving blood relative—her great-nephew, Dole Scroogen. She told us that she had spoken to him and he understood her wishes. Plus which, we had the ninety-nine-year lease and we never thought...well, we never thought he would do what he did.”
“Go on, Mab.”
“When she died, we’d already torn down that old barn and broken ground on the new Silver Power League Community Center and the extensive greenhouse that goes with it. Everyone was so involved by then, so excited at what we were creating.”
“And Scroogen?”
“Months went by and he never even contacted us. We thought that like his great aunt, he supported us. We went blissfully on with our plans. The buildings are magnificent. We’ve all been so proud. We held an open house two months ago. Invited everyone in the community.”
Octavia was certain she knew what was coming. “Let me guess. Scroogen showed up then with an appraiser?”
Mab nodded. “Because of our improvements, the property is now worth far more than it was before. He and the appraiser spent hours evaluating every inch before he presented us with an astronomical monthly rent and a six-month deposit demand, all payable by December 1. We barely managed to scrape together December’s rent and half of the deposit demand. It cleaned out our savings. He served us immediately with a thirty-day eviction notice. If we don’t come up with with the rest of the deposit and January’s rent by January 1, we’re out.”
Octavia sipped her cider. It would be so easy to get upset. But getting upset was not going to help her grandmother’s predicament. Only clear thinking could do that. Besides, Octavia had never been one to waste time wringing her hands over what was already done.
“Scroogen must have plans for that land to be so bent on forcing you seniors out.”
“About two and a half weeks ago, the bulldozers arrived and started leveling the houses on the rest of the block adjacent to our center. I checked the county assessor’s office and found that the Scrooge owns all the property. What’s more, he began buying it right after he acquired his great aunt’s land and we started building the new Silver Power League Community Center. A public notice went in the newspaper yesterday. He’s building a condominium complex.”
“Right next to your community center?”
“Right over our community center. We invited the workers driving the bulldozers in for tea and cookies and pumped them. Their foreman is Keneth George, a native American of the Suquamish Tribe, and a real nice young man. He told us the Scrooge has approval to build a very exclusive, high-priced condominium complex on all the land he owns.”
“So he’s been planning on evicting you all along.”
“Absolutely. The far-end parcel connects to the water. He’s going to build a private ferry system to Seattle for the owners of the condos. Keneth said he’s going to use our new community center as a clubhouse and our greenhouse as an indoor garden for the people who purchase the units.”
Octavia shook her head. “And he let you build them for him. This guy is a real piece of work. Your Scrooge label fits him only too well. Is the site zoned for multiple-family dwelling?”
“Yes. There was a small four-unit complex in the middle that was inhabited by seniors before he bought them out and tore it down. Octavia, he’s setting up the whole block to be a new bedroom community for Seattle.”
“And concentrated residences such as this condominium complex mean lots more people. Demands for water, electricity, gas stations, fast-food restaurants, shopping centers, everything rises. That will change the whole atmosphere of your quiet little community.”
“That’s precisely what I’ve been telling my radio listeners this last week. The Scrooge’s plan to push out the Silver Power League is only the start of the breakup of our community. It isn’t just our community center’s one block that will be affected. Our whole neighborhood for miles will be changed. With the influx of the affluent commuters, property values and taxes will skyrocket until the seniors on social security will be forced out from homes they’ve lived in all their lives. Unless he’s stopped.”
“Are you getting much response to your radio broadcasts?”
“The
