Her nicknames get more inane the more manic she gets. It’s good Mab’s still out and Monday has a job to do. Otherwise Nora would have left me home, and clearly she needs a chaperone tonight. My plan for the evening had been biochemistry homework. I realize that doesn’t sound Saturday-night exciting, but pickings are slim as splinters around here, and anyway I’ve started a project on vertical farming (no soil, little water, perfect for Bourne) that’s at least as thrilling as most teenagers’ weekend plans. The wifi at the bar is no worse than the wifi anywhere else in town, so I’m happy to den-mother my mother while I work.
But when we arrive, I see my presence won’t be enough to keep her sane because there, at the end of the bar, is Omar. Norma’s is already as crowded as it gets, even though it’s only just five, and, we can hear from the back entrance, loud, but as Nora emerges behind the bar, a hush falls over the whole place. Everyone’s eyes dance back and forth between Nora and Omar, Nora and Omar. Frank passes behind her, rests his hands lightly on her shoulders for a few beats before moving on. I’m on your side, his hands promise. Don’t start a scene in my bar, they add. Everyone waits to see what Nora’s got in store for Omar tonight—this is what passes for entertainment in Bourne—but everyone (except Omar) is disappointed.
“Omar!” She forces a smile. “Just the man I was hoping to see.” She pours him a beer, even though he has a nearly full one in front of him already. He looks at it nervously.
“You were?”
“I was.”
“To yell at me?”
“No!” She laughs. “Well, maybe. Depends what you say. But probably not. I hope not.” She’s grinning now, but even she doesn’t quite look like she’s buying it.
“Me too.”
“You too what?”
“I hope not.” Then he turns to me. “Whatcha think, Mirabel? Is she going to yell at me?”
“Signs point to yes,” my Voice pronounces, a saved joke because my Voice sounds kind of like how you imagine a Magic 8 Ball would if it could talk. Omar throws his head back and laughs, a real laugh. “You’re a funny, funny girl. And probably a correct one.”
People are turning back to their own drinks and conversations but much quieter than before, one eye on their beers, one on Omar and Nora, so they won’t miss it if fisticuffs break out.
“I heard an appalling, ridiculous rumor this afternoon,” Nora begins lightly, like she’s going to tell a joke or a story.
“From whom?” Omar goes back to looking nervous.
“A little birdie.”
Omar raises his eyebrows to mime Who? but the rest of his face falls. He knows.
“What little birdie?” Hobart asks.
“Well, see, that’s an interesting story itself.” Nora nods. “You’ll never guess who stopped by my house this afternoon.” She takes a breath, maybe to build suspense, maybe just to give everyone one more moment before she delivers the bad news. “River Templeton.”
A pause.
“Who the hell is River Templeton?” Zacharias says.
“Well, wouldn’t you know it”—no one is buying, but everyone is made edgy by, Nora’s extreme good cheer—“Duke Templeton has a grandson.”
“And he came to your house?” Zach says.
“He did.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Nora says.
“They named him River?” Tom’s trying to catch up.
“They did. Can you believe that?”
“Apt.” He smiles at his beer.
“Because they destroyed ours?” Nora says.
“Not like a river. Like one who rives.”
“What’d he want?” Frank asks.
“To flirt with my daughters,” Nora says darkly.
I wish.
“What did he say?” Omar just wants to get it over with, I think.
“Well, that’s where it got weird.” Nora’s taking her torturous time. “I asked what brought him and his family to town—”
“Good question,” Tom says, but it’s everyone’s.
“And he said Belsum is reopening the plant.”
I hear the bottoms of beer glasses hitting the bar, forks and knives clattering onto plates, a few scattered gasps, and then that falling sound that is no sound at all, everyone’s conversations lapsing into silence at once.
“No fucking way,” someone says.
“That’s what I said.” Nora nods.
“What did he say?”
“Well, I didn’t say it until after he left. Mirabel made Mab take the kid for a walk.”
“Lucky kid,” Hobart says, and everyone grins at me, picturing the alternative: Nora dismantling the Templeton scion with her teeth.
“But I told the girls he was an idiot. Had to be wrong. Or lying. Or screwing with us. Something. Because there was no way Omar would let it happen. Not again. Never. Didn’t I, Mirabel?”
I work hard to nod, but no one’s looking at me because everyone’s looking at Omar, Nora included, who looks at him—it must be said—with surety, certainty. Faith. This isn’t a setup or a trap. In fact, it’s Omar’s moment of redemption, and she holds it out to him like a prize he’s won off her fair and square. Her look is equal parts proud of him for earning it at last, grateful to him for doing so, and slightly sheepish for all the shit she’s given him in the past, and mostly, it is beyond-a-doubt confident of his fealty and good sense.
Which is why what happens next is heartbreaking. Not because of what he says. Because of the gap between what he says and what she vividly finally imagined he would.
In fact, at first he doesn’t say anything at all. But the hesitation tells her all she needs to know. The whole bar is holding its breath (except for me; I am pointedly breathing, deep and steady, so as not to distract from the scene playing out before us).
Nora is the one to break—her will, this silence, and a great deal more. “You said yes to them again.” Halfway between a question and a keen. She is furious. Of course she is. But beneath that, her face shows something else. She is betrayed. She so believed deep down, beneath all those years of animosity she’s held toward Omar for getting us into this mess in the first place, that he wasn’t really the bad guy here. And he failed her, deserted her, broke her faith and trust which, however small, were hard won. She looks heartsick. Him too.
“Worse.” Omar can’t look at her. He sees what I see in her face. “I didn’t say yes again. This was in their contract to begin with.”
She pales. “How is that possible?”
“The land is theirs. And when we zoned it, we zoned it for them. We gave them their designation and land-use rights for a hundred years.”
“A hundred years!”
“As a gesture, obviously. To show them we were all in, we’d support them now and into the future.”
“Why?”
“We wanted them to stay.” Omar shrugs miserably but raises his head to take everyone in. He is our leader, after all. “And we didn’t want to give them a chance to renegotiate the deal five years down the road when they were employing half the town and could demand whatever terms they wanted. I thought we were being smart. I could envision them wanting to leave us behind. I never imagined there’d be a time we wouldn’t want the jobs. I never imagined we would want to get rid of them.”