CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HAMPTON
“NOTICE ANYTHING?” STACY ASKS.
I look where she’s pointing. There’s an ice cream cone in her hand, and apparently, she missed a few lessons about kid skills because she hasn’t kept the cone sufficiently tamed. There’s a long drip of vanilla running over the edge and across the back of her hand. She retracts the arm, licks her hand with a playful pink tongue. I watch the everyday motions like a stalker until I see she’s still waiting for an answer.
I look again. “It’s a clock.”
“A clock tower,” Stacy clarifies. Hey, at least I guessed that the clock was what mattered. It’s at one end of a long, white stone building, beside a rather large fountain occupying some children tossing pennies for wishes. Any one of the features beyond the ice cream shop’s lawn could be what she’s implying I should already have commented on.
“Nice. Now I don’t need a watch,” I say.
“That’s not what you’re supposed to notice.”
“I give up.” Because I’m not really trying.
“You don’t get to give up.”
I look again. My ice cream cone is handled because I’m neat with my frozen confections. I haven’t had an ice cream cone for five years or more, but at least I haven’t forgotten how to eat one.
“The time is wrong,” I say, comparing the clock to my watch.
“Exactly.”
“So it’s a shitty clock tower.”
“Actually,” Stacy says, taking another lick, “it’s a historic clock tower. There was a famous storm in 1967. A dam broke north of here, and it wiped out a fifth of the town, in the area we now call the flats. It was a turning point for the town because most of what was lost in the flood were old mercantile buildings. They rebuilt homes and small businesses instead, like its own district. The storm made Williamsville what it is today.” She points again. “In that same storm, lightning struck the tower, and the clock stopped. As if it was immortalizing the moment when everything changed.”
“Lightning struck it? Like in Back to the Future. Do you get a lot of mad scientists around these parts, toying with time and space?”
Stacy is staring at me, judgment on her face.
“What, you’ve never seen Back to the Future?” I ask.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m making fun of the clock nobody’s bothered to fix.”
“There’s a museum inside the building,” Stacy says. “All about Williamsville, and the storm.”
I don’t think I should push any harder, but a mocking comment flies into my head: Now that must be one exciting museum. Because really. Who the hell would go there other than locals, and why would locals go twice?
“Or at least there was,” she says.
I look at her face.
“A few years ago, the town council needed to raise money, and their solution was to sell the building. The argument was that the spot was a prime downtown location and that holding onto the museum wasn’t worth the loss of tax revenue that could be made on such a large property. There was an auction, and an out-of-town company called Newport bought it. They gutted the place. Took out all the original work and left the shell. They subdivided the interior, then rented it out. Now, instead of the museum, there’s a Verizon store, a Starbucks, an Urban Outfitters, and an Applebee’s.”
“What’s wrong with Applebee’s?”
I can see my mistake on her face.
“This town might be boring to a lot of people, but it’s who I am. It shaped me into the person I’ve become. As a kid, I played down by the creek beds. Rode my bike along the promenade. We used to go down to Whippersnapper for burgers after school. And whenever we met up with anyone downtown, we’d say to meet at the clock tower, by the entrance to the museum. And now there’s a stupid Verizon store there.”
I take a mental step back. The emotion is clear on her face. I won’t make jokes, and if I’m smart, I’ll find something sympathetic to say. I feel transparent. Not only do I own an out-of-town company myself, I know the name Newport. During my research into Williamsville, I learned that Newport Investments has purchased many of the town’s oldest buildings, and Carlo the realtor told me they’ve become a public scourge. The city sold to them during desperate times and is now battling over building plans that will convert more of the town’s precious memories into Starbucks and Applebee’s.
More specifically, Newport owns the Billings & Pile Building, which I’m inches from buying. Based on what they paid versus what I’m paying, ours is a deal that will make Stacy’s mortal enemy very happy.
“At least the clock is still there,” I say.
“There’s an easement or something, apparently,” Stacy says. “I don’t understand the details, but luckily they can’t knock down the tower or even charge people for tours. I guess the steps up into the tower are too rickety to pass code for something like that, and the historical restrictions say that the tower’s structure can’t be modified, even just to add safety railings. So at least that part will stay how it is. For now.”
Stacy’s face is fury fighting with sorrow. She’s glaring at the building as if it punched her mother. I guess now isn’t a good time to say that I’ve met Newport’s CEO as part of our deal, and shook his hand just three days ago.
I want to end this conversation, so I’m about to shift it. But Stacy’s stare breaks and she faces me. “I know you think things are backward here. But quaint is how we like it. And since we’re the ones who live here, who is anyone else to judge?”
By “anyone else,” she could easily mean me. It’s me she’s asking, and me she’s looking at. I have some answers, from agreement to argumentative. I could tell her that the market decides what thrives or dies and that if nobody went to the old museum while the Urban Outfitters does brisk business, then the townspeople must not like quaint as much as she says. But I don’t want to spar with Stacy. Nor do I want to deepen her pain, or make her sad.
“Should we walk and talk?” I say after the moment of tension dissipates.
Stacy takes a big, unladylike mouthful of cone, more of a moosh with her lips than a bite. She nods, and we stand.
“Where should we go next?” she asks.
It’s a curious question. Yes, we need to know where to go, but under her words lies the song of an ongoing adventure. Where should we go next? is what teenagers ask each other when they go out. Where should we go next? is what people ask each other when they’re on a date and all that matters is being together and having fun.
But what’s between Stacy and me is business, no matter what happened last time. It can only be business. It’s all either of us seems to want, judging by how sharply we’ve turned our heads from the scintillating truth.
“To The Perfect Fit, of course,” I say, “to see your designs.”