“I dropped by to talk to Verity Gillespie—”
“Verity Donner Gillespie,” the woman interrupted to correct her.
“Right. Is she around?”
“She’s over there.”
The saleswoman pointed to where the family Dee had followed inside stood. They appeared to be cornered by a zaftig woman a few years older than Dee. The woman wore a nineteenth-century dress, but hers was tighter than any Dee had seen in town, hugging a figure that was more saloon girl than schoolmarm. She wore her mass of blond hair wound into a loose bun on top of her head.
The woman Dee assumed to be Verity gestured to a shelf of books with hands sporting incongruously long, fake nails. “This whole shelf is filled with the children’s books on the history of California. Everything a fourth grader needs to beat out the other kids in class.” She bent over, coming eye to eye with the young girl in the family, who looked terrified. Her father put his arms around her in a protective embrace. “We also got everything you need to make the best model of a mission your teacher’s ever seen.”
“We—we—we don’t make those,” the girl stammered.
The girl’s mother stepped in to help out her daughter. “Our school system banned them. They’re considered culturally insensitive.”
The hard squint of Verity’s eyes indicated she’d like to have a word with the family’s school system. She grabbed a coloring book and thrust it in the girl’s hands. “Then I recommend this wonderful coloring book. And a tin of a hundred twenty-four crayons.” She pulled a heavy tin from a shelf. “The school doesn’t need to know you’re coloring a mission, now does it?” She said this in a whisper, putting a finger to her lips.
The father took the tin and escaped with wife and child to the sales counter. Verity stood up. She looked down and noticed Dee. Sensing another mark, she graced her with a wide smile. “Why, hello there. What can I do ya for?”
“Hi.” Dee extended her hand. “I’m Dee Stern. I just moved to the area.”
“Well, welcome, Dee Stern.” Verity extended her hand to shake, and Dee noticed each long, index-finger fingernail sported a painted wagon wheel with a rhinestone as the wheel hub. “I’m Verity Donner—yes, that Donner—Gillespie. What brings you to town?”
“I’m the new co-owner of the Golden Motel.” Dee said this with pride. She was surprised to see Verity tense up, but continued with her pitch. “I’ve come up with an idea for a Foundgold Historical Trail, which the town is really excited about,” she said, embellishing reality a smidge. “But I think making it a Foundgold-Goldsgone Historical Trail would create an even better tourist draw, with benefits to both towns. I know you’re the tourism director in Goldsgone, so I want to run the idea by you to see if we can work together on it.”
“No.”
“No?” Verity’s instant, harsh response took Dee aback.
“Ugh, I’m sorry, that was so rude.” Verity placed a manicured hand on her heart and gave Dee an apologetic look. “It’s just . . . you should know you’re not the first person from Foundgold to try to cash in on our town’s popularity. Frankly, it gets wearing. I do mention Foundgold on our own website—”
“Actually, you don’t. I did a search.”
“And I’m afraid that’s the best we can do.” Verity finished her sentence as if Dee never spoke. “Best of luck with the Golden.”
Dee didn’t miss the insincerity in Verity’s sign-off.
The shop owner left Dee to descend on a new customer. Dee tamped down her annoyance at being dismissed. She wandered the store for a bit, trying to come up with a new approach to entice the tourism director. She stopped at the sales counter. On the wall behind it, a row of headshots hung below a placard anointing it the GOLDSGONE WALL OF FAME. Smirking back at Dee, front and center in the row, was a headshot of Michael Adam Baker. Her spirits rose. She’d found a possible in.
She waited until Verity finished strong-arming the customer into purchasing an overpriced water bottle decorated with yet another Honestadt reprint, then pointed to the photo. “I know someone on your Wall of Fame. Michael Adam Baker. I’m a sitcom writer too. We worked together on a show.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Dee said, buoyed by the woman’s flip from dismissive to impressed. “We’re good friends,” she continued, stretching the truth to meet the moment. “Such good friends that he’s supporting the Golden by being my very first guest there.”
Verity’s positive response evaporated. She stared at Dee with a mix of dismay and resentment. “That’s impossible. He always stays with me when he visits Goldsgone. He’s a local hero. Why would he stay at a dump, I mean place, like the Golden when he could stay at my ‘incredibly charming Victorian B and B’? And I’m not just saying that, I’m quoting an online review.”
Dee forced a smile. “I’m sure he’s only staying with me right now to support my career change. Believe me, my business partner, Jeff, and I could use all the support we can get. If you could help us in any way, like coming in on the historical trail, it would be amazing. An honor.” Sensing Verity had an outsized ego, Dee laid it on thick and then opted to finish with a silly joke. “Throw us a bone, esteemed tourism director.” She winked. “See what I did there? Donner Party? Bone?”
Verity gaped at her, horrified. “I see what you did and it’s awful. How can you make fun of my ancestors like that? They were people. What happened to the Donners was a tragedy, not a joke.”
“I’m so sorry,” Dee said, mortified by her faux pas. “I was nervous, and I make dumb, lame jokes when I’m nervous. Incredibly stupid, on my part.”
The store’s saleswoman, who’d been lurking behind the counter, glared at Dee. “That was a terrible thing to say. You’ve upset Verity. I think you should leave.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Verity strode to the shop’s door and pulled it open. Dee, feeling abashed, slumped out of the store. As she passed the tourism director, she heard the woman mutter under her breath, “Citiot.”
Dee paused. She drew herself up to her full height of five feet and almost two inches and summoned up a show of dignity. “It’s too bad my extremely sincere apology wasn’t enough. It’s also too bad we can’t work together to make Foundgold and Goldsgone the best historical tourism destination in the state. I guess I’ll have to do that by myself. And only for Foundgold. Oh, and by the way, ‘Mercantile’ and ‘Emporium’ are redundant. They’re synonyms. So . . . ha!”
Her goal of a dramatic exit was stymied by a collision with a barrel hosting a display of vintage postcard reproductions. “Ow! Sorry.” She fell to her knees and gathered up the postcards, which had gone flying in various directions. As she rearranged the display under the glare of Verity and her sales associate, a mortified Dee thought that Michael Adam Baker’s booking was turning out to be more of a curse than a blessing.
A second thought occurred to her. Did Michael do this on purpose? Is he setting me up to fail? Could he still be that competitive?
Dee dismissed the train of thought, labeling it paranoia. But as she finally made her way out of the store, she couldn’t shake the sense there was something off about the writer’s visit.
CHAPTER 6
Fuming from her run-in with “Yes-that-Donner”—Dee’s new nickname for Verity Gillespie—she almost missed noticing Jeff’s car, which confirmed he’d returned from his sojourn to San Fran. Dee found him cleaning and waxing a desk in one of the motel’s guest rooms.
“We’re citiots.” She said this glumly and flopped onto the room’s bed, generating creaks and groans from the springs of the soon-to-be-replaced mattress.
Jeff shot her a look. “We’re what-iots?”
“Citiots. Like ‘idiots,’ but with a c. That’s the nickname country people have for us. At least in Goldsgone.”
“Oh, really.” Jeff gestured to the desk. “Would a citiot be able to do this?”
