Page 26 of Silver Linings

Since Sidney leaned against the back of the booth and appeared to relax slightly, Ben decided that had been a good call.

“Usually once a month,” she said. “Sometimes a little more often if something important comes up, like Northwest Pacific wanting to do some clear-cutting.”

“Is that unusual?”

Her lips parted to reply, but Gus the waiter reappeared right then, and they had to pause as he set down their glasses of chardonnay and asked if they were ready to order. Ben had already decided on the sea bass, and it appeared Sidney knew the menu well enough that she didn’t even have to look at it.

“The shrimp scampi, please.”

Once that was handled and Gus had taken their menus and departed again, she seemed ready to pick up the thread of their conversation.

“Well, it’s not usual,” she said in response to his question about Northwest Pacific Lumber. “I mean, I vaguely remember them doing some cutting when I was still in grade school, but that was twenty years ago. Maybe they think enough time has passed that it should be okay to go back in. I honestly don’t know how much has regrown, but a friend of mine — Sam Tucker, one of the rangers here — would have a better idea.”

Her cheeks flushed faintly pink as she mentioned the other man’s name, and Ben experienced an odd stab of jealousy. Was Sam an ex? A prospective boyfriend?

Hard to say, since he knew next to nothing about her personal life except that she’d suffered an unimaginable tragedy only a few months earlier.

“But I suppose we’ll find out at the meeting,” she continued, then reached for her glass of wine. “I know most of us will be against any kind of cutting, so I have to hope the mayor will listen to us and know he should abide by the will of the majority.”

“Does he have a habit of not doing that?” Ben inquired.

A lift of her shoulders, and Sidney said, “Well, a lot of people think he’s a little too much in the pocket of corporate interests rather than doing what’s best for Silver Hollow. Luckily, the town charter states that he can’t make unilateral decisions on anything that would adversely affect the overall population, so even if he might push for Northwest Pacific to start cutting trees in the forest again, as long as most people vote against that kind of initiative, we should be okay.”

It sounded as if whoever had first established the little town, they’d made sure to have it be a “power to the people” kind of place, which Ben thought was pretty advanced for the 1850s.

Or maybe not, since back then, there might have still been a few old-timers around who’d been alive during the Revolution.

“That must be a relief to everyone,” he said, and she flashed him a grin.

“Well, probably not to the Northwest Pacific execs, but yeah.”

He smiled in return, and the conversation flowed on to entirely normal stuff, like the differences between small-town living and being in a huge exurban sprawl like where he was currently located.

“I still can’t really wrap my head around the idea of Southern California,” Sidney remarked, and Ben tilted his head at her.

“You’ve really never been there?”

She sipped some chardonnay and then set down the glass. “My parents took me to Disneyland when I was around eight, but that’s it. I remember it all being big and kind of scary — we flew into LAX and rented a car and drove down to Orange County. It felt like there were way too many buildings, even back then.”

Not quite twenty years ago, Ben guessed, which wouldn’t have been far enough in the past for Southern California to be materially different from how it looked now. No, based on old photos he’d seen and comments his parents had made about their childhoods — they’d both been born in Orange County — you would have had to go back to the 1970s to revisit the days when hundreds of acres were still covered by orange groves and strawberry fields.

“There are quite a few,” he agreed, and her mouth quirked.

“Are you teasing me?”

“Not quite,” he replied, and that small lift at the corners of her mouth turned into an outright smile.

Gus arrived with their entrées then, so the two of them were quiet for a couple of minutes while they helped themselves to a few bites. His sea bass was perfectly prepared, succulent and brushed with butter-lemon sauce, and Sidney’s shrimp scampi appeared equally delectable.

When their conversation resumed, they talked about Silver Hollow, but ordinary stuff, like how the pet store she was currently overseeing had been established back in the 1960s by her grandparents, and how the town sometimes grew a little and sometimes contracted and yet always managed to remain its own unique self.

No talk of glowing plants or shimmering white horses, nothing to indicate the place was anything more than one of many quaint settlements that dotted the Pacific Northwest.

After dinner — Ben had grabbed the check too quickly for Sidney to even look at it, since he was the one who’d invited her and he didn’t want her to even consider paying — they walked over to City Hall. He’d noticed the place when he was strolling along Main Street the day before, one of the few stone structures in a town that appeared to be mostly wooden houses and buildings. It only made sense for most of the houses and storefronts to be made of wood, considering how they were surrounded by evergreen forests, and he wondered where the stone had come from. It was reddish in hue, with turrets at either side, distinctly Victorian in its style of architecture, an impression proven by the small bronze plaque affixed to the wall by the main entrance that declared it as a National Historic Register site and stated that it had been built in 1878.

Quite a few people had already gathered in the large meeting space on the first floor, so he and Sidney had to sit near the back. Ben was all right with that, though; he was only observing, and he got the feeling that if she needed to make her voice heard, she’d stand up and make sure everyone was able to hear what she was saying.

Two men climbed the stairs to the low stage at the far end of the room. Ben recognized one of them as Victor Maplehurst, and although he’d never seen the other man before, he guessed he must be the mayor. He was probably close in age to the Northwest Pacific exec, but the resemblance ended there, since Silver Hollow’s mayor was short and balding, and definitely didn’t look like the kind of person who would be interested in restoring vintage MGs.

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