Page 21 of Stacked
CHAPTER TEN
ROBERT
“I’m dying to hear your ideas,” I told Jason as I parked the cart on the sixteenth hole at Hollow Hills Country Club. Now that we had almost played all eighteen, I figured we could turn the conversation to matters outside the hilly course. “I have no idea what I’m going to do for that float.”
“Me neither.” He got out, his beer in one hand. “I’m not good at that shit.”
“Was thinking about doing something with books, of course.”
He cocked his head, squinting underneath a baseball cap with the club insignia embroidered on the front. HCC was one of the oldest and most prestigious country clubs in the area, and I was grateful he invited me to play a round. I hadn’t played golf since before I left New York, and my current score of 115 was proof of that. Jason, on the other hand, was still under a hundred.
“You could do a statue of Lady Liberty and use old books as paper mâché.”
I started and leaned back in the seat of the cart. “That’s actually a decent idea.”
He laughed. “Sometimes I shock myself.”
“And we could put her on a flatbed truck,” I said, my thoughts turning as I considered Jason’s suggestion. “Decorate the truck to look like the harbor around her.”
“What is this ‘we’?”
“Yeah, we.” I laughed. “You have to help me.”
He put his beer back in the cupholder. “I don’t have time, man. This is a busy season for me.”
“Worth a try.”
Jason screwed up his face and studied the rolling hills of the course. “You could try to get some high school kids to help.”
I took my own beer from the console and sipped it. It was dry and bitter and nowhere close to having a positive impact on my game. “That’s a good idea. They probably know how to build a statue like that.”
“If they don’t, they can help figure it out.” He walked to the back of the cart and pulled his driver out of his bag. “You ready for me to crush you?”
“Sure am,” I admitted. “Two holes to go before you put me out of my misery.”
Jason’s idea turned out to be a decent one. After we finished playing golf, I called the New Burlington Independent Schools administration office, and the person who answered was kind enough to give me the high school art teacher’s email. “This is wonderful,” the woman said. “We’re always looking for opportunities for the kids.”
She also sounded a little bowled over and excited when she realized I was the guy on the cover ofNew Burlington Living. “I can’t wait to see what you do with the place,” she told me. “That building has been vacant for too long.”
Advertising in the local magazine hadn’t come cheap, but I’d known it would pay off in small comments like that. Anything to plant a seed about what I planned to do, especially in a town like this.
“I love the restoration going on downtown,” I replied, referencing the ongoing efforts by the New Burlington city council. Most of the work had mixed results, but Javier told me there were more businesses downtown now than there were six years ago. “Happy to be a part of it.”
“We need something like your store,” the woman said. “You have no idea.”
“You already have one great bookstore,” I replied. “The Green Frog.”
“But... but still, your store is going to do so much for our community.”
“I hope so,” I replied.
We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and once the conversation ended, I shot an email from my phone to the high school art teacher. There were only a few weeks until the parade, and I knew it was a lot asking her to help in this way, but I hoped the promise of decent pay would help drum up some interest.
It didn’t take long for me to get an answer.
I was halfway through one of the happy hour specials at Front Street when the reply email hit my phone, lighting up my device with a small ding. I unlocked the screen and opened the app.
