Town Hall

Town Hall Chapters One and Two

Chapter One

I don't know how I'd managed to get myself stuck in this town. I didn't hate it entirely, but occasionally I'd be sitting in my backyard, washing dishes, or walking to a town council meeting and come to a halt. Why was I here? How had I become so entrenched? Why was I signing for Charlie's packages when I walked by his door? Why did I know my neighbor's marriage was failing? Why did I know the tomatoes from the further farm stand tasted better than the ones from the closer one? How was it that I had opinions about town politics? I knew all the surnames, I knew all the starters for the high school basketball team. I hadn't grown up here and no one around here would let me forget it.

Everything was my own fault, my own making, and then I fell into a rut and didn't climb out. I was failing high school and threatening to quit, so my mother sent me to my aunt Minnie, who lived here. Not far away, in the same state, just an hour away. I'd never lived somewhere with no streetlights. I never lived somewhere with coyotes and houses that sold 'far woo' and deer-cleaning businesses. I was attracted and repelled by the silence of the evenings. I started picking out the noises though; storms blowing up the hillsides, some years, cicadas, turkey vultures, and fisher cats.

I finished my senior year homeschooling with my auntie. Barely, but done. Not a GED. I didn't walk for graduation. I got a standard printout saying I had graduated. We made coconut cake and ate it out on the back porch. First I didn't want to go home, so I didn't. Then my aunt got sick.

I hated school and hated being a student, but she pushed and pushed for college. I said, at least I'll get a degree that will get me a job. Something stupid, something simple, something that will get me a job in any city I want to go to. Which I did. And I graduated. Again, but this time well. This time, I just made a cupcake. I made her flan, it was easier for her. We ate it in her bedroom. It wasn't my intention to stay where I'd done my 'internship' such as it was, the town hall. But I just... stayed. I went from interning for the town clerk to being the town clerk somewhere in the four years it took for my aunt to die. And I could have left then. But she left me the house. And I could have sold the house and left. But somehow, neighbors kept coming by, and filling up my refrigerator, and I couldn't just pack up and leave with a month's worth of meals in my fridge, and so I just... stayed.

And now I was thirty, living alone in a ramble of a house, a yard of mostly wildflowers, those mountain laurels, beardtongues, larkspur, and auntie's particular favorite, prairie feathers. I had a truck that barely worked. I had a bike that worked better. I walked to and from work every day. The town hall was about twenty minutes down the road. There were three other houses I passed on my way there. All pretty similar to my own. Everything was a half-hour walk from my house. The hardware store, the meager grocery, three farm stands (two vegetables and eggs, the other milk), the post office, and the town hall. My life was pretty well in that loop. It sounds depressing when I lay it all out. But it wasn't. Mellowly content, or secure, anyway. Occasionally lonely. Sometimes frustrating. Sometimes asking 'why' but rarely. I still wore red lipstick. Still wore bright clothes. Would flirt with the neighbors who came in for hunting or fishing licenses, and building permits for another shed. Everyone is obviously too young, too married, or too useless to consider dating. But it was something to do. Work was nothing hard to do, nothing upsetting; just occasionally grinding teeth over patterns and habits unbreakable in the community I'd slid into like a warm bath.

****

Then Chip, town manager for forty-two years died. A bit of a scramble ensued and until a replacement was found the duties were split between me and Sheriff Andy Rathbone. I did not care for Sheriff Andy Rathbone. Andy'd gone to high school here, Andy was born and raised here. So were his parents. And his grandparents. As far as I knew his whole family had sprung fully formed from the dirt as did their rambling farmhouse. He was comfortable which made him confident and sure when he shouldn't have been. He wasn't nearly smart enough for how sure he was, nor competent enough to be so confident. I was surprised when the suitable replacement wasn't anyone from town, but someone hired in. I waited for Andy to throw a tantrum about it, but it wasn't forthcoming.