“And he came to your house?” Zach says.
“He did.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Nora says.
“They named him River?” Tom’s trying to catch up.
“They did. Can you believe that?”
“Apt.” He smiles at his beer.
“Because they destroyed ours?” Nora says.
“Not like a river. Like one who rives.”
“What’d he want?” Frank asks.
“To flirt with my daughters,” Nora says darkly.
I wish.
“What did he say?” Omar just wants to get it over with, I think.
“Well, that’s where it got weird.” Nora’s taking her torturous time. “I asked what brought him and his family to town—”
“Good question,” Tom says, but it’s everyone’s.
“And he said Belsum is reopening the plant.”
I hear the bottoms of beer glasses hitting the bar, forks and knives clattering onto plates, a few scattered gasps, and then that falling sound that is no sound at all, everyone’s conversations lapsing into silence at once.
“No fucking way,” someone says.
“That’s what I said.” Nora nods.
“What did he say?”
“Well, I didn’t say it until after he left. Mirabel made Mab take the kid for a walk.”
“Lucky kid,” Hobart says, and everyone grins at me, picturing the alternative: Nora dismantling the Templeton scion with her teeth.
“But I told the girls he was an idiot. Had to be wrong. Or lying. Or screwing with us. Something. Because there was no way Omar would let it happen. Not again. Never. Didn’t I, Mirabel?”
I work hard to nod, but no one’s looking at me because everyone’s looking at Omar, Nora included, who looks at him—it must be said—with surety, certainty. Faith. This isn’t a setup or a trap. In fact, it’s Omar’s moment of redemption, and she holds it out to him like a prize he’s won off her fair and square. Her look is equal parts proud of him for earning it at last, grateful to him for doing so, and slightly sheepish for all the shit she’s given him in the past, and mostly, it is beyond-a-doubt confident of his fealty and good sense.
Which is why what happens next is heartbreaking. Not because of what he says. Because of the gap between what he says and what she vividly finally imagined he would.
In fact, at first he doesn’t say anything at all. But the hesitation tells her all she needs to know. The whole bar is holding its breath （except for me; I am pointedly breathing, deep and steady, so as not to distract from the scene playing out before us）。
Nora is the one to break—her will, this silence, and a great deal more. “You said yes to them again.” Halfway between a question and a keen. She is furious. Of course she is. But beneath that, her face shows something else. She is betrayed. She so believed deep down, beneath all those years of animosity she’s held toward Omar for getting us into this mess in the first place, that he wasn’t really the bad guy here. And he failed her, deserted her, broke her faith and trust which, however small, were hard won. She looks heartsick. Him too.
“Worse.” Omar can’t look at her. He sees what I see in her face. “I didn’t say yes again. This was in their contract to begin with.”
She pales. “How is that possible?”
“The land is theirs. And when we zoned it, we zoned it for them. We gave them their designation and land-use rights for a hundred years.”
“A hundred years!”
“As a gesture, obviously. To show them we were all in, we’d support them now and into the future.”
“Why?”
“We wanted them to stay.” Omar shrugs miserably but raises his head to take everyone in. He is our leader, after all. “And we didn’t want to give them a chance to renegotiate the deal five years down the road when they were employing half the town and could demand whatever terms they wanted. I thought we were being smart. I could envision them wanting to leave us behind. I never imagined there’d be a time we wouldn’t want the jobs. I never imagined we would want to get rid of them.”
“Or keep them from coming back.” Nora looks, more than anything, exhausted. “Fucking hell.”
“Yeah,” Omar agrees. “But listen—”
I would like to. Everyone would like to. Even Nora, if only out of desperation, would like to. But no one gets the opportunity because the door opens and in walks Nathan Templeton.