Over the next several minutes, I tried to figure out how to get him unstuck. I had no idea how he’d jammed his head through the gate. Finally, I had to go get some tools and take the gate apart. The whole time, the goat was crying, and Duke was agitated. I swear that my hound had the biggest heart. He worried about everything.
Once I finally got the goat free, I had a chance to love my puppy up. Cassidy laughed at his antics. There was never a doubt when Duke wanted to let you know he loved you.
When I was done putting the fence back together, Grandma Dawson invited us into the house. She had hot apple cider and cherry-walnut bars. They were all made from things we grew on the farm.
“Can you adopt me?” Cassidy asked.
“Sweetheart, I adopt all of David’s friends. Feel free to come by anytime,” Grandma Dawson answered.
“How is being Mayor Duke’s proxy going?” I asked.
“I’d forgotten how much fun this could be. Knowing that Duke won’t be running again has allowed me to do stuff that the city council never thought would get done because of the politics involved.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” I said.
“The city treasurer came to me and said that they had a backlog of people who owed the town money for one reason or another. Things like unpaid parking tickets, fines for not maintaining their yards, or violating other city ordinances. She complained that it would cost us more to try to collect everything than it was worth and wanted to write it off. I had another idea.
“We had an amnesty day where, if they brought in a variety of items for the homeless or children in need, they would have their record cleaned up. But we did say that it was only for those who didn’t have an open ordinance violation on the books. We offered them a chance to get the issue corrected. If they did that, they could take advantage of the donation offer,” she shared.
“How did it go?” I asked.
“It was okay. The ones that didn’t take advantage, we decided to go after. We turned those over to a collection agency. I figured we didn’t need to waste city resources chasing people down for less than $300 a pop. If they weren’t smart enough to show up with at least a pack of gum, then I wasn’t going to worry about them.”
“What else is going on?” I asked.
“We have some serious budget issues. The previous mayor embezzled from the city employees pension fund, and we have an obligation to repay that. We’re in the process of figuring out how we’ll raise money without having to increase property and/or sales taxes. There’s talk of shutting down the libraries, public pools, and the like. If we do that, Duke’s not going to be very popular,” she admitted.
I noticed that he took the blame when anything went wrong. And I realized that my grandma was using an old political trick: suggest the closure of popular venues or services. The alternative of a ‘small’ tax hike wouldn’t seem so bad in comparison.
My phone rang, and I saw it was Halle James calling.
“What’s up, Buttercup?” I asked when I answered the call.
“Did you forget that you promised to redo the song with me?” she asked back.
“I’m going to blame Lexi for this one,” I said to try to wiggle out of my obligation.
“Nice. Blame your people. You’re starting to sound like a typical Hollywood type.”
“Is there some way I can do it from here? There has to be a local sound studio where I can lay down my track,” I suggested.
“No need,” she said, letting me off the hook. “We were able to piece together audio from your singing lessons with Jett.”
“So, you just wanted to give me a hard time?”
“That, and I’ll be in town tomorrow. I was hoping we might get together and do something.”
“Are we talking bow-chicka-bow-wow, or something else?” I asked.
“David,” Cassidy warned.
I looked up at my grandmother and gave her my innocent face.
She sighed.
“I’m starting to understand why your mother is put out all the time,” Grandma Dawson said with a raised eyebrow.
I would have to learn to mimic that look for my kids. She had years of experience with the ‘put-out mom’ look. As her favorite grandson, I rarely received that from her. That was one of the perks of being a grandparent: you could leave the discipline to the parents.
“If you think you can talk Brook into it, I’m game,” Halle flirted.
That brought a smile to my face, which caused my grandmother and Cassidy to double down on their glares. I snorted out a laugh in response.
“What’s so funny?” Halle asked.
“Cassidy and my grandmother are giving me dirty looks,” I confessed.
“You poor thing. I’ll make it all better when I see you,” Halle teased.
“You better hurry up and get here. I think Cassidy might hurt me, and I need protecting,” I said in a scared little boy voice.
Even my grandmother’s lips twitched as she tried not to smile. Cassidy just ignored me and grabbed another cherry-walnut bar.
“I really do miss you.”
“Good,” I decided. “I’ll tell Brook, and we’ll figure something out.”
She promised to text me when they landed, and I hung up. I looked my grandmother in the eyes.
