Page 89 of (Not So) Famous in Paradise

Georgia peeks over my shoulder. “What’s going on?” Her voice tapers off, and she sinks back to her heels. The hand she had on my shoulder drops.

“Mayor Voglmeyer is here,” Stella says softly at the same time Darlene comes up behind her.

“There you are, Zachary!” she says. “I’ve been looking all over for you. We’ve got a problem.”

Chapter 37

Georgia

I step around Zach, blocking him from Darlene. “What’s the problem?”

Darlene smiles at me with a satisfaction that makes my stomach drop. “You need a permit for this trailer. It’s over thirty feet. I explained all this to Zachary, but he never applied for the permit. Which means you’ll need to cease operations until the permit is approved.”

“What?” I look from Darlene over my shoulder to Zach. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Because I didn’t want to worry you. I told you I’d handle permits, and I did. That’s what I was doing this morning.” Zach’s voice pitches higher than usual, and my panic rises with it. We can’t shut down.

“I haven’t seen any applications,” Darlene says.

“What’s going on here?” Ike steps through the house’s still doorless entryway and beelines for Darlene. “Who are you, and why are you on my set?”

“I was just explaining to Zach and Georgia…” Darlene starts at the same time I say, “We need another permit. She’s shutting us down.”

“What are you talking about?” Ike asks Darlene, raising his voice over both of ours.

“I filled it out this morning, first thing,” Zach adds his voice to the cacophony. “I watched Sheryl make copies and put them in everyone’s mail slots. Ask her.”

“I came straight from the city offices. There was no application in my mailbox or anyone else’s.” Darlene is taking too much pleasure in this, and it has to stop.

“Okay, be quiet!” I yell, and everyone goes silent. I take a deep breath and look down at Darlene from my perch in the trailer doorway. “Tell me what we can do to make this right.”

“You don’t need to do anything, Georgia. I took care of it. I—” Zach stops when I put up my hand.

“Obviously not. I’ll handle it,” I snap, and immediately feel terrible. But the worst words pop out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I don’t need your help.”

A silence falls over everything. Even Darlene goes quiet under the weight of the tension between Zach and me.

“Fine.” His jaw fastens tight around the word before he squeezes by me and out the door.

I want to go after him, to tell him I’m not mad at him, just frustrated. But, first, I have to solve the problem he was supposed to take care of. “What do you want, Darlene?"

“Well, I certainly don’t want to shut you down. I think we all know I’ve been your biggest supporter.” She offers a quick, close-lipped smile, then continues. “I want this project to be mutually beneficial for you and Paradise,” she says, and Ike lets out a loud scoff that only stops Darlene long enough for her to shoot him a glare.

“If we discuss this permit issue on camera—over lunch at a local business, for example—and we both talk up Paradise, the other members of the city council will be too afraid of bad publicity if they try to shut you down.” Darlene clasps her hands together, her clipboard between them, and shrugs her shoulders. “We can even get the application signed and approved right then and there if we eat at Lyle’s. He’s the one in charge of permit approval for this area. What do you think?”

What I think is that Lyle’s position must be through appointment, and that the honor was probably bestowed on him very recently.

But what I say is, “I think we don’t have much of a choice, do we?” I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe.

“You always have a choice, Georgia. It’s the consequences you don’t get to choose.” Darlene’s mouth ticks into a Sunday-school-teacher smile. “How about noon tomorrow? That gives you time for the paperwork and for your director to scope out Lyle’s and set up the cameras and lights.”

“I’m right here,” Ike says.

Darlene stares him down until Ike squirms. “And is that plan amenable to you?”

Ike nods and walks away.

“I knew we could come to an agreement,” Darlene says, then tucks her clipboard under her arm and hitches her purse over her shoulder. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

---