Page 23 of Make Me Love You

Cesar would be there any minute, so she hustled through her morning routine of brushing her teeth, throwing on clean but wrinkled clothes from the top of pile of laundry she hadn’t had time to put away yet, and twisting her hair into a bun. She didn’t have time to whip up an elaborate breakfast, and anyway Cesar was right. She couldn’t really cook. Burritos were always an option, but not an appealing one since she would be making them all day and probably eat one for lunch.

She set a pot of coffee to brewing and sat down with a bowl of cereal just as Cesar walked in without knocking. He never knocked, not since eight years ago when he had knocked every day for a week, and every day for a week she had ignored him. He had finally let himself in anyway, since she rarely locked the door, and found her on the floor, staring at the fan.

Anyone else would have given up, but Cesar was her surrogate grandfather. His daughter, Helen, had been best friends with Emma’s mom growing up. It was a lifelong friendship, only ending when her mom died. Helen had tried to help Emma after she passed, but somehow it had been too painful for both of them. With Cesar it was different. She hadn’t spent as much time with him as she had with Helen, so the memories associated with her mom were fewer. At the time, she needed fewer memories.

“I hitched up the Airstream to your truck.” He helped himself to her coffee, filling his travel mug and adding a spoonful of sugar.

“Thanks.”

Her Yukon Denali was more than a decade old, but it could haul almost about anything. So long as she made wide turns and didn’t push too hard on the gas, she mostly forgot the Airstream was there at all—until it was time to park. Luckily, that wouldn’t be an issue where they were going. There would be plenty of space in the back of the parking lot.

Fifteen minutes later they were on the road, heading north. The sun was just rising, streaking the sky with pink and gold. Emma caught her breath. It didn’t matter that she had seen thousands of sunrises exactly like it. The beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains never got old.

The streetlights along the highway flicked off as the sky grew brighter. Streetlights were not something she spent a lot of time considering, but now that she was so intimately acquainted with the lamps on Main Street, she noticed how ugly these were in comparison. Big and gray, with none of the delicate, intricate ironwork. None of the charm.

“Did you know that the streetlights on Main Street are a hundred years old?” she said. “Noah at the hardware store told me. He said they were gas until about thirty years ago. Apparently the pipes were leaking, gas was getting under the ground and killing trees.”

Cesar grunted. She took that to mean that, while he was not per se interested, it would be too much effort to shut her up.

“There’s a company in Germany that makes replacements that convert gas to electric. They customize it so they use the same base mounting as the gas mounts. And then they use special light bulbs that mimic the tone of gaslight. Isn’t that cool?”

Cesar grunted again.

“It was apparently a big deal at the time. Do you remember it?” She paused, giving him time to respond, but he just grunted again. “Hart’s Ridge got a grant from the National Park Service. There’s a Historic Preservation Fund that can pay for this sort of thing. I’m going to apply and see if I can get them to cover the buckets of paint I bought.”

At the mention of money, Cesar perked up. “Get your labor covered, too.”

Emma frowned. “That seems wrong, somehow. I’m mayor. I can’t hire myself to do a job.”

“Hart’s Ridge isn’t paying you for it. The Park Service is. You’re not in a position to turn down money right now, especially not hard-earned money. You’re doing the work, and I don’t see anyone else who was stepping in. Get your labor covered.”

“We’ll see,” she said noncommittally.

Cesar was right, she wasn’t in a position to turn down money. She had some savings, but if she didn’t start selling more burritos soon, those savings would be gone in three months. Getting paid for the hours she spent toiling on the streetlights would be a blessing. On the other hand, it might not be legal. The mayor didn’t even get a salary. Maybe she couldn’t be paid for odd jobs and services, either.

Emma sighed. It was only her second day as (acting) mayor, and she was already in over her head. How was she going to pull this off? It was like being tossed into a live video game and not knowing what the rules were.

Two months. That’s all she had to do this for, was two months. If she did a good job, great. If she messed a few things up here and there, that would be fine too. City Council had set the special election for July 5. Whatever she screwed up between now and then, the new mayor would fix everything. She didn’t know who that would be, but it didn’t matter.

It wouldn’t be her.

***

By the time they rolled back into town, Emma was exhausted down to her bones. There wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t demoralized, from her greasy hair to her throbbing feet.

The day had been a success, if success meant earning a tidy profit that more than covered their expenses, including gas and wages. For the first time in a month, the tightness in her chest eased somewhat. She wasn’t going to lose the house—not yet, anyway. She could still pay Cesar’s wages. So yes, the tightness in her chest had eased.

But everything else ached. What didn’t ache physically ached existentially. Those were worst of all. Emma hated existential aches.

They had sold out at SuperMart. That was good. But it had taken them all day to do it, and that was bad. The sun had been rising when they left this morning, and now it was setting. Worse, they had spent three hours driving. What had been an easy hour-long commute this morning had turned into a two-hour slog through traffic on the return home.

Was this going to be her life? Burritos from sunup to sundown, and three hours in traffic? The thought of it made her stomach curdle with dread.

It wasn’t that Emma was opposed to hard work. The Airstream was open seven days a week, after all, and she worked all seven of them. It wasn’t the same, though. For one thing, the Airstream closed at three, which meant she was done by four. That left plenty of time to get a happy hour drink with Kate and Suzie—which, more often than not these days, consisted of club soda for Suzie as she was either pregnant or nursing—or to binge a television show if she wanted. She might not always have time to fold laundry, but her house was neat and tidy, just the way she liked it.

For another, she didn’t spend three hours driving. Her commute was a ten-minute walk from her front yard to the house, fifteen if she had to drive from the church or another location in Hart’s Ridge. Sitting in a never-ending stream of cars full of irritated, aggressive drivers was soul crushing.

Most importantly, she knew every single one of her customers in Hart’s Ridge. She saw the same people day in and day out. Even the workers who commuted from outside Hart’s Ridge were still the same every day. She knew their lives, their families, and how they liked their coffee. She liked hearing the gossip. She liked seeing familiar faces. It made her work mean something more than just a paycheck.

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