She exhales. Already? “Me too.”
He nods. He knew this. “He showed me the test results. Did he show you?”
“Well he gave them to me.” A laugh small and dry as an almond. “He told me what they said,” she adds. “Not that I … you know.”
Omar nods again. He does know. He takes a breath. “He’s not his father, Nora.”
She looks away from him. “I know.”
“What he says those tests prove may or may not be true,” he admits, and her eyes spark with gratitude, but he keeps talking and they dim again, “but everything else he says is. We do need the jobs. We do need the opportunities. We do need the growth.” He pauses, then adds, “Reopening the plant is what lots of folks in this town need and want.”
“Think they need,” Nora amends. “Think they want.”
“Nora, I read through his binder.” There’s an edge in his voice, a warning not that what’s coming is bad, but that it’s good, which is worse. “The test results are impressive. Reassuring. It seems like he’s done his homework. And if the GL606 is fixed—”
“A big if,” she interrupts.
“Yes. Exactly. A big if. But if it is, then the reason to keep them out isn’t safety anymore. It’s spite.”
“That’s a plenty good reason.” Nora’s face is red. Blazing.
“For some people.”
“Yes! Us!” she says, and then, when he doesn’t say anything, “I can’t believe it,” her voice changed completely, her face too, like she’s become a different person in these few sad seconds.
“What?”
“When he told me he was taking this to you, I was thrilled. Overjoyed. Because I knew—I knew—you’d never pick him over us. Over me. But it turns out—”
“I would never pick him over you,” Omar interrupts. He won’t let her say it, won’t hear it.
“That’s not what’s happening here? That’s not what you’re telling me?”
“Nora. It’s not.”
He stops and she stops, and they look at each other while long moments pass. Whatever’s going on between them these last weeks has broken her rage like a fever, but it’s left her fragile, vulnerable. Without the anger toward him, all she has is fear, fear and unguarded hope and the likelihood of being hurt some more. She drops her head.
“I am not choosing him over you or over Bourne,” he says slowly. “Of course I’m not.” A pause, then, “Among many other reasons, it’s not my choice.”
Her head snaps up. She was expecting him to take her side. Then, when it seemed like it would go the other way, she was expecting to be devastated for failing to expect that of course he was taking Belsum’s side. Again. But she was not expecting this.
“I’m calling a vote,” he says, sorry but sure.
It takes a moment for her brain to catch up. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Omar—”
“I have to.”
“You do not.”
“This isn’t your decision, Nora.”
“No, it’s yours.”
“It’s not.”
“Omar.” She makes herself take a deep breath, lower her voice. “This is our chance. Our one chance. You said you chose wrong last time. This is how you—we—make it right.”
“It wouldn’t make it right, Nora. It can never be made right. But that is the choice I’d make if this were my decision.” He pauses and holds her eyes, making sure she’s heard him before he continues. “But it’s not. We need to decide—”
“Yes! Exactly!”
“Not we, you and me.” He puts his hands over his heart. “We, all of us. Bourne’s citizenry. We need to decide—we all need to decide—if this is a risk we’re willing to take as a town in exchange for what Belsum is offering. If we believe them this time. If we think they’ve earned another chance. If we think they haven’t earned another chance but we’re going to grant them one anyway. I told Nathan I’d give him a couple weeks to make his case around here, put that R&D in layman’s terms for people, and then we’ll hold a vote. If the majority wants to give Belsum another go, we’ll repair the dam. But if the vote goes the other way, we’ll proceed with legal action immediately to force Belsum to desist on the grounds that the infrastructure is unsound.”