Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(91)

A look of confusion spread rapidly across Carmella’s face, and a lead weight had suddenly settled in Olivia’s stomach.

Carmella looked at Olivia. “But aren’t you grandmother to all three?”

“Not exactly,” Olivia said. She explained that Ethan Allen was related to her late husband, and she was simply caring for the other two children because they didn’t have anyone else.

“But they do have someone else!” Carmella argued. “They have an aunt who is right here at this table. You yourself said she was their aunt!”

“So I did,” Olivia said. “So I did.”





The Meeting



Jim Turner banged his gavel against the podium for the third time, and he did it with such ferocity that the chattering crowd stilled. It was the largest turnout the building association had ever seen. Every resident was in attendance, with the lone exception of Olivia Doyle. Olivia was missing because no one had told her of the meeting; in fact, they went out of their way to keep her from knowing of it.

The crowd began filtering in at five-thirty, and by six o’clock the room was filled with residents standing shoulder to shoulder and pressed against the back wall.

Jim Turner had already sensed a wave of rebellion wafting through the room, and he was determined to squash it right from the start. “This meeting will come to order!” he shouted. “Or there will be no meeting!”

“That’s what you think!” a voice in the rear of the room yelled back.

“Quiet!” Turner angrily slammed his gavel down again. “The bylaws of this building specifically state that all association meetings will be chaired by the president and conducted in an orderly fashion!”

“We’re sick of your bylaws!” Cathy Contino shouted.

“Quiet!”

“We’ve been quiet long enough!” Seth Porter yelled. “It’s high time we said something!”

“Yeah,” a chorus of voices echoed. “We been quiet long enough!”

Anticipating just such a reaction, Clara smiled. She’d carried a wooden milk crate to the meeting and while an angry undertone still circled the room, she stepped onto the crate and gave a loud two-finger whistle.

The murmuring stopped and everyone turned to look at Clara who now stood a head taller than anyone else in the room. Trying to give her message an air of propriety she said, “I would like to make a motion that we impeach Jim Turner.”

Before she could say anything else, Fred Wiskowski yelled, “I say we just kick his ass out of office!”

Cindy Hamilton leaned over and whispered in Fred’s ear, “That’s what impeach means.”

“Well, then, they ought to come right out and say it.”

Clara gave another whistle. “Having bylaws means we’re regulated. It means we’ve got no choice in what we do! Is that what we want?”

A chorus of voices yelled, “Hell, no!”

“You’re out of order!” Turner yelled and banged the gavel so hard the head flew off and went rolling across the floor.

Everybody applauded the broken gavel.

After three bounces, the gavel rolled to a stop in front of Linda Foust. She picked it up and dropped it into the waste basket.

There was another round of applause.

Without the gavel Jim Turner was helpless. Several times he tried yelling “Quiet!” but when his throat began to close up, there was little more he could do. He finally said, “I relinquish the floor to Clara Bowman,” and sat down.

It was a good ten minutes before the wolf whistles and cheering subsided and the room grew silent enough for Clara to speak.

“We’ve become a bunch of old fuddy duddies,” she said. “We’ve closed our minds to new ideas and look down our noses at anyone who dares to bring a bit of fun and laughter to this building. I say it’s time to change that!”

Several “Woohoo’s” came from the back of the room, followed by another round of applause.

Clara continued. “It was against the bylaws when Ethan Allen came to live here, but we all agreed he was a welcome addition.”

Turner gave a sideways glance of disagreement.

“Okay,” Clara amended, “we almost all agreed.” She looked at Beth Lillis. “Beth, when your arthritis was acting up, who did your errands?”

“Ethan Allen.” Beth smiled.

“Tom,” Clara said, pointing her finger, “who carted all that stuff to the storage bin when you had your apartment painted?”

He nodded. “Ethan Allen.”

Clara then called on Frank Casper, Wayne Dolby, Barbara Harris, and Jeanine Elizalde. Every one of them had the same kind of story. Ethan Allen had helped out, he’d run errands, fetched medications, carried laundry up from the basement.

“Has the child ever done one thing that makes this building a less lovely place to live?”

A murmur of no’s floated through the room.

“Well,” Eloise Fromm said, “he does from time to time push all the buttons in the elevator and keep riding up and down.”

When a crowd of angry faces glared at her, Eloise added, “But that’s certainly not much to complain about.”

“Let’s face it,” Clara said, “these bylaws are outdated, obsolete, of no use whatsoever.”