George Lehman clears his throat then taps the mic, which makes a loud screeching sound ring throughout the auditorium.
“Want to go make out under the bleachers?” Cade whispers, not quietly enough, to Presley.
“Sure, babe, I’m seven months pregnant. I’d love to fold myself under metal stands and make out with you.”
I’m pretty sure she’s being sarcastic, but George interrupts the secondary conversations from my family.
“Okay, I’m going to introduce everyone to our two candidates running for Sunrise Bay mayor. First off, we have our current acting mayor, Marla Greene. Who doesn’t know Marla? From the fact that she married her ex-husband’s cousin to the fact that she makes the best salad dressings in the state. She grew up here. This was her high school. There isn’t anyone or anything Marla doesn’t know about Sunrise Bay. Let’s give her a hand.”
The crowd claps—I whistle, of course—while my mom walks over to her podium on the right side.
“Second, many of you know him, or think you do, from his successful television shows, a few B movies and tabloid fodder. Gavin Price recently moved to Sunrise Bay after visiting us off and on for a couple years. Although we don’t know much about him, the women of this town sure seem to like to drool over his daily runs in the park. Let’s give him a warm Sunrise Bay welcome.”
Gavin’s smile loses its sparkle for a moment due to the introduction, but when a whole section of moms cheer and whistle for him, he raises his hand in a wave with a nod of thanks, making his way to his podium.
I roll my eyes at the group cheering him on. I went to high school with some of them. No surprise they’re all in their twenties or early thirties—the generation that was head over heels in love with Blake Michaels, aka Gavin Price.
“Those women should be ashamed,” Dori whispers. “Everyone knows he only has eyes for you.”
My head whips in her direction. “We don’t even like each other.”
“You sure about that?” Dori asks.
“Yes,” I answer, knowing I’m not.
George says a few things about the rules for the night, then gets right into it. “First question, how do you plan on getting the schools more up to speed as far as technology goes? Marla, you can take this one first.”
George motions to my mom, who smiles at the crowd. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have tablets or computers. We had a pencil and paper. And although I feel my generation turned out just fine, I understand that we can’t let our children fall behind on available technology. So I propose that we have fundraisers. There are many programs that I was a part of when my kids were younger, like box tops and can tabs. The kids are then part of it, which makes receiving the new technology more rewarding for them.”
“Thanks, Marla. Gavin, your turn,” George says.
“As much as I think the kids should be part of earning the reward of a computer or tablet, I don’t think technology is a privilege, but a must. If we don’t get them into their hands soon, there’s no doubt our kids will fall behind other kids their age. This is a necessity. I know when I say this next part, you’ll all probably throw things at me, but I think we take money from the tourism budget to give to these kids. One less festival could do it, and honestly, shouldn’t our kids, the future of Sunrise Bay, be more important than someone who travels here once a year?”
There are a lot of grumblings and whispers. Gavin’s eyes find mine and I want to tell him I agree with him, because I’ve been saying that for years. We spend way too much on tourism and not enough on our own residents. Yes, tourism helps to support the families in town, but there are other ways to do it without spending so much money on traditional print ads, posters, and such. A good social media campaign can draw people in, and I have a lot of other ideas. Sometimes small towns like to keep doing things one way because that’s how it’s always been done.
Hell, we’ve had an unfinished hotel sitting vacant for years when we could’ve torn it down and used the land for something else. But I’ll never go against my mom and tell Gavin how I feel. And from the hushed tones in the auditorium, I’m not sure that many people agree with him anyway.
For the rest of the night, many of the questions go the same way. Mom gives the answers the townspeople want to hear, and Gavin says things that are so opposite, so outside of the realm of anything Sunrise Bay has ever done, I think he might’ve just lost his campaign all on his own.
But at the end of the night when I’m helping to put away chairs, there’s still a line of people waiting to shake his hand, so maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am.
What surprises me is that minutes after everyone’s gone, he’s next to me, waiting to put a chair on the cart.
“Want to take me on a tour of your high school?” he asks. I open my mouth, but he’s quick to add, “I’m coming in tomorrow to talk to some of the kids and I don’t want to look like a loser and get lost.”
“And you expect me to help you?”
“I’m asking for your help. I don’t expect it.” The look on his face already has me agreeing. “I’ll trade you one haircut.”
“Well then. Allow me to be your tour guide.”
I should’ve stacked the chairs and gone home, but I wasn’t ready to leave Posey yet.
“Once I finish sweeping the floors, I’m locking up,” the custodian tells us.
“Thanks, Al.” Posey waves to him as we walk out into the hallway of the high school. “Do you miss your high school days so much that you want to relive them tomorrow?” she asks, never looking at me.
My hands are in my pockets, hers linked behind her back. “I never went to high school.”
She nods. “Homeschooled?”
“All of us from High Society had school on the set for a few hours every day. Sometimes we got to miss if they were shooting a big scene. Honestly, we all passed whether we actually did pass or not. Sad really.”
“This is the English wing.” She points down the hallway. “Science.” Her finger moves to another hallway in the opposite direction. “There are only two stories and mostly it’s all classrooms upstairs.”
I stop at a glass case and if I didn’t know the Greene name was big in Sunrise Bay, I’d know it after looking here. It’s shoved full of trophies and pictures of Cade, Jed, Fisher, and Adam. A bigger display of Xavier Greene, pro quarterback for the San Francisco Rebels, sits in the middle.
“Isn’t that Cade’s wife?” I point at a picture from a school dance next to a newspaper article about Xavier committing to a D1 college.
She laughs. “No. That’s Clara, Xavier’s… well, they were best friends since they were young, but now I don’t know what they are. They don’t seem to be talking. She’s Cade’s wife’s sister. It’s a long story I can tell you another time. Maybe.” She shrugs, as though maybe there wouldn’t be another time to tell me.
“And where are all the Posey Greene accolades?”
She huffs. “I didn’t play football. Or any sport, for that matter.”
“Theater?”
“Nope.”