A Mercer in Town

NORA

By noon, I have decided three things about Julian Mercer.

One: he is annoyingly good at listening, which would be more convenient if he were terrible at it.

Two: he has no idea what a thirty-cent increase in the price of takeout cups means to a café trying to survive the season.

Three: I cannot tell whether he is trying to help or simply trying to feel better about what his family's company wants to do.

Tess says I should put all three statements in a document titled Preliminary Findings, Subject to Revision. She says it while eating the dough twist I was saving for lunch.

“I'm trying to be fair,” I tell her.

“You called him a walking zoning violation.”

“That was before he started taking notes.”

“And after he actually listened?”

“I still think the notes were suspicious.”

She licks cinnamon from her thumb. “You're going to make an excellent historian. Your sources disagree with you, so obviously they're wrong.”

“I'm not a historian.”

“You applied to study public history.”

“That's different.”

“Sure. Very.”

St. Arden College is a four-hour drive inland. Its public history program has a placement partnership with museums and preservation projects, and its acceptance letter is the most thrilling thing that has happened to me in eighteen years. Or it should be. Instead, I have spent the week feeling as if excitement is something disloyal people do when the family business is in trouble.

I push a pile of receipts into order. Tess holds up the dough twist in a gesture of surrender.

“Okay,” she says. “We need facts. You need somewhere people can talk without tourists shouting over the smoothie blender. The town library has a meeting room.”

“The library also has a librarian who once fined me for bringing a granola bar into local history.”

“That sounds like a person who respects the rules.”

“It sounds like a person who respects granola more than local history.”

“Come on.”

Mom is elbow-deep in the freezer by the time I ask if I can leave for an hour. Her hair is gathered in a knot with a pencil stuck through it, and she has that narrow-eyed expression that means she is deciding whether to repair a machine or personally insult it until it works.

“I thought you wanted more hours,” she says.

“I do. Just not the kind where I'm standing here refreshing the council website and getting angry.”

“That's promising.”

“Tess and I are going to the library. I want to find out who owns which parts of the boardwalk, what the lease actually says, and what the town is required to do before it signs anything.”

Mom takes her hands out of the freezer and wipes them on a towel. “That is much more promising.”

“Try not to sound shocked.”

“Don't make me regret it.”

I kiss her cheek and grab my bag. At the doorway she calls, “Nora?”

I turn.

“Ask about the insurance. Not just the buildings. We can't afford a victory that leaves every business with costs it can't pay.”

I nod, because of course she's thought farther ahead than I have.

The Breakwater Bay Public Library is two blocks inland, housed in an old red-brick customs office with windows tall enough to make everybody inside seem small. The local records room smells like paper and floor polish. A ceiling fan clicks once every rotation. I've loved it since I was twelve, when Grandpa brought me here to look at photographs of the boardwalk before the Ferris wheel went up.

Mrs. Pike is behind the research desk. Her glasses hang from a bright red chain, and she makes Tess stow her lemonade before saying hello.

“Municipal concession records?” she asks when I explain. “Those are online. Some of the older renewal agreements are indexed under recreation facilities rather than waterfront.”

“Because that makes perfect sense,” I mutter.

“It made sense to somebody in 1986.”

She slides over a laminated sheet with the archive instructions. “What question are you trying to answer?”

I open my mouth and realize I have seven, and none of them fit in a sentence.

“What happens to the people already there,” Tess supplies.

Mrs. Pike's expression softens. “Then start with the leases, but don't stop there. A contract tells you what the town can do. It doesn't tell you what it should do.”

We spend two hours surrounded by photocopies and the stale warmth of library computers.

The boardwalk belongs to the town. That much I expected. The small businesses hold seasonal concession agreements, not permanent rights to the spaces. There is a renewal process, and a clause allowing the town to decline renewal after proper notice. Our family's years on the boardwalk don't give us legal ownership of the boards beneath the stools.

The discovery makes me feel foolish in a way I have no words for. I knew, in theory, that Grandpa never owned the land. But I had carried our history around as if history itself counted as proof.

Tess highlights a paragraph about required public access. “This is interesting.”

“Which part?”

“The proposal has to identify accessible routes and alternative circulation during construction. They can't just draw a pretty walkway and call that a plan.”

“Julian noticed the ramp by the arcade.”

The words leave my mouth before I mean to say them.

Tess looks up slowly. “Julian noticed?”

“He was here. He saw it. That doesn't mean anything.”

“I didn't say it did.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking the ramp might actually matter.”

I return to the lease, which is suddenly harder to read.

When Mrs. Pike brings us a binder of photographs, I almost cry at the sight of a black-and-white picture taken in 1978. The north entrance is crowded with people in bell-bottoms, and the kiosk that will become Flynn's Window is painted a dark color I can't identify. Its original name, THE BRIGHT WINDOW, is written in crooked letters on the awning.

I take a photograph of the page and send it to Mom.

ME: Did you know it used to be called The Bright Window?

MOM: Your grandfather said the name sounded like a hardware store. He changed it when he took over.

ME: We should put the old photo up.

MOM: It's in the storage box labeled photos. The one you refuse to sort.

ME: That feels unfair.

MOM: It is accurate.

For the first time all day, I smile without forcing it.

Then I read the business survey Tess has started on her tablet. Six owners want repairs, four are undecided, and two would accept redevelopment if it included affordable replacement stalls. One owner has written, in all capital letters, I CAN'T KEEP PAYING FOR A BOARDWALK THE TOWN WON'T MAINTAIN.

“Who said that?” I ask.

“Mrs. Alvarez. The jewelry booth.”

Mrs. Alvarez has sold painted shell earrings next to the carousel since I was small. She gives me peppermints in winter and complains about young people staring at their phones. I pictured her on our side without bothering to ask.

“She said her insurance premium went up again,” Tess adds. “And business was down when the South Spur closed.”

I stare at the words. Saving the boardwalk can no longer mean just getting everybody to chant no at the hearing. The people we are trying to help don't all want the same thing.

A door clicks behind us. Mrs. Pike returns with an old planning map and spreads it on the large table.

“This is the flood-access plan the town used before they improved Harbor Avenue,” she says. “The routes have changed, but it might help you understand why the north ramp was placed where it is.”

She points to a sloping line from the promenade to the street. It connects the boarding area near the arcade to the bus stop and the inland sidewalk. The current proposal seems to move the route, but it's impossible to tell from its simplified drawing whether the replacement would be usable during construction.

“Does that make the plan illegal?” I ask.

“No,” Mrs. Pike says firmly. “It makes it a question to ask a qualified person. Please don't leave here announcing the library discovered a legal defect.”

Tess writes that down. I glare at her.

“What? It's good advice.”

It is. Unfortunately, good advice seems to be today's leading local industry.

At three, we head back into air thick enough to wear. The boardwalk rises ahead of us, its lights bright against the hazy sky. Tess has volunteered to gather statements from businesses and cut together an honest short film before the information session. I have agreed to read every section of the packet before arguing about it in public.

Somewhere between the library and the beach, my anger has changed shape. It's still there, but it no longer fills every available space. There are dates to check, figures to understand, people to ask. Things I can actually do.

We stop outside the café. Mom is serving a woman in a straw hat who wants two lemonades and a dough twist cut in half. Julian Mercer is standing a few feet from the window, looking at the notice on our post.

“You're collecting those things as a hobby?” I ask before I can help myself.

He turns. He's wearing a plain gray shirt today, with pencil marks down the side of his hand. He has a small paper bag from the bakery on Harbor Avenue and a new folder instead of the map tube. I suspect he has been sent to make himself useful. I resent how successfully he makes standing around look like a useful activity.

“I came to check something with your mother,” he says.

I immediately straighten. “About what?”

“Whether I can include a drawing of the existing kiosk in the next set of public concept illustrations. Not a promise that it stays. Just an accurate account of what's here.”

That is not what I expected.

“Why would you need permission to draw a building?”

“I don't necessarily. I want her input before I put her business in anything we're showing to the town.”

Mom leans out of the service window. “I told him he can sketch the outside as long as he doesn't photograph customers without asking.”

“She's very clear,” Julian says.

“She has practice.” I shift my bag higher on my shoulder. “I found the old flood-access map.”

He looks interested at once. Not in the polite way people do when you're describing your vacation, but as if I've just told him something he needed.

“Does it show the north ramp?”

“Yes. I don't know if the updated routes fix anything. Mrs. Pike said not to make claims without asking an expert.”

“Mrs. Pike sounds wise.”

“She'd like that.”

“Can I see it?”

I hesitate. A week ago, the obvious answer would have been no. I could have kept our research inside the preservation group and made a dramatic reveal at the hearing. But the ramp belongs to everybody, and I said I wanted the town to make an informed choice.

I open the photo on my phone and hand it over.

He studies it without rushing. I catch the faint scent of flour and cinnamon from his bakery bag. He's standing close enough that I can see a shallow nick in his thumbnail and the crease on his forehead when he concentrates.

“It's old,” he says at last. “Not proof of what the current design needs. But it gives us a question worth answering.”

“Which is?”

“How people who can't use stairs will get from Harbor Avenue to the boardwalk while construction is happening. And whether emergency access stays workable.”

“Exactly.”

The word comes out too quickly. We both look up.

For one awkward second, it feels as if we have agreed on something much larger than a ramp.

“Don't get comfortable,” I tell him.

“I wouldn't dare.”

Tess, who has been silent for an impressive amount of time, clears her throat. “I'm going to ask your mother about the meeting room.”

“She's inside,” I say.

“I have eyes.”

She disappears through the service door with a smile I don't trust.

Julian hands me back the phone. “There's a technical briefing before next week's public session. Mostly planners and engineers. I can ask about the route and make sure the answer is in the public packet.”

“What happens if they give you an answer you don't like?”

“Then I still put it in the packet if I'm responsible for documenting it.”

I consider this. He isn't offering to rescue us, or promising that my family will keep the kiosk. He's offering to ask a question in a room I can't get into. It's a small thing, but unlike the glossy rendering, I can see exactly what it means.

“Okay,” I say. “Do that.”

He gives a solemn nod. “I'll do that.”

He starts to leave. Then he pauses and holds out the paper bag.

“Bakery made too many cinnamon knots,” he says. “I bought two. Want one?”

I glance toward the café, where there are still three trays of our cinnamon dough twists waiting to be sold.

“You're offering me the competition's cinnamon product?”

“I didn't think about the politics.”

“That's becoming a pattern.”

He looks genuinely horrified for half a second, and I laugh. It's an unfair laugh. He could have been offering me a bag of gravel and I might have laughed anyway.

“Keep your knot, Mercer.”

“Your loss, Flynn.”

He walks toward Harbor Avenue, eating one of the pastries as if he hasn't just given me another reason to think about him.

I stay by the post until his gray shirt disappears around the corner.

Through the kiosk window, Mom watches me with an expression that is far too observant.

“Don't,” I warn her.

“I haven't said anything.”

“Your eyebrows said several things.”

“Then perhaps you should stop listening to my eyebrows.”

I go inside and pick up the college envelope from behind the napkins. The deposit is still due July first. The council vote is still August sixth. Our family's lease still ends in September. Not one of those facts has changed.

But for the first time since the notice appeared, I can imagine fighting for something without pretending the future can look exactly like the past.

I tuck the envelope into my bag and turn back to work.

Outside, the Ferris wheel begins its slow afternoon circle above the boardwalk. Every few minutes it brings the same car back to the bottom, where a new group climbs aboard and the wheel carries them into a different view.

I watch it for a second, then reach for the next order.