Ramon was sitting alone in his garden of Post-it notes at the office when Page, back in cell phone range, dialed in. He felt his stomach lurch when she told him that she and Beatrix had been in an accident somewhere in the mountains on the way to Missoula, but he quickly steadied himself upon learning that the only casualty was Page’s BMW.
He was not nearly the adrenalin junky that Beatrix was, but it was clearly part of his mix. The idea of holding a job at the Chamber, or becoming permanently embedded or tethered to an economic development council was just terrifying to him. Whatever their differences, Ramon and Beatrix were touring pros. You came, you set up shop, got the job done well, and got out of town and out of each other’s ways with your money and before gravity caught up with the excitement of the project and pulled everything to earth in a heap of boredom or recriminations.
Spokane Skates On was going to get its televised pageant one way or the other and, in exchange, he and Beatrix were going to get long vacations to places well over the horizons.
The suspense was only whether they could exit before the complications set in.
One signal that this was an active item of concern had come in his mail that day. It was a letter from Reneé Bollister, a board member of Spokane Skates On. Ramon understood that Reneé was trouble in waiting. She had been recruited as a liaison to Spokane’s old money and to the newest version of the granddaughters of old money network whose members were both regally lunched and proud of themselves for the swiftly effective ass kickings they could deliver behind closed doors at City Hall or other venues where bureaucrats and other mortals resisted their will. To them it was great sport, especially in that period from the dregs of winter to mid-spring, at which time attentions turned to deciding which lake homes would get the bulk of the action over the summer months. The art was to deliver a good ass kicking or two, for sure, but also to construct the properly entertaining narrative around these little events, so that each made for a delightful little theatre piece over coffee or lunch.
Ramon was puzzled by Reneé’s mission in this case. Just why would she be bringing him grief?
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