The Unwelcome Wagon by Michelle L. Levigne

Author:Michelle L. Levigne [Levigne, Michelle L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cozy mystery, small town mystery, coffee shop, bookstore, librarians
Publisher: Mt. Zion Ridge Press
Published: 2022-04-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Monday, August 29

Monday, the Welcome Wagon committee met at the library. Every member of the committee showed up, which meant the only conference room not already booked up with regular meetings wouldn't hold them all. They ended up pushing together all the tables throughout the library in the open area between the front desk and the reference librarian station. Saundra overheard a lot of grumbling as she helped move furniture.

She reasoned that she wasn't really eavesdropping because the women airing their complaints and seeking information couldn't seem to remember they were in a library. They spoke at normal volume, and she suspected some of them raised their voices a little to make sure the other side heard them. There were two sides, she caught on quickly. The regular attendees, who considered themselves in charge of the Welcome Wagon, and the ones who didn't attend regularly because they couldn't. The committee meetings kept getting changed from evenings to afternoons and even mornings. The non-regular attendees, she deduced, had jobs, or children to ferry to and from practices and lessons. According to the grumbles, everyone ignored their protests and requests for a regular meeting schedule when everyone was free.

Her theory started to gel when one woman from the "regulars" made a snide remark to a woman from the "irregulars" about "finally" showing up, and "how nice you found the time to do your civic duty." The other woman shot back that the bylaws required meetings to take place on the evenings and weekends, but the current chair kept changing the meeting times for her own convenience and to lock people out. Someone else remarked that it seemed odd the chair herself couldn't manage to arrive on time, especially since she made it so hard for other people to attend. Pot shots were exchanged about how some people never found out about the changed meeting time until after the meeting had taken place, with the other side denying it happened.

Then Ashley Cadburn walked in, looking self-important with a hot pink folder marked Welcome Wagon and clutching a gavel. She walked up to the table that had been left empty facing all the chairs and dropped her materials on top of it.

Saundra ducked back behind a half-wall of bookshelves and scurried to her desk. She didn't want to be seen close enough to be accused of eavesdropping, after all.

No surprise, Twila abandoned her post at the front desk to settle in a seat at the edge of the meeting. Saundra anticipated having to answer phones because Twila would be too busy to do her job.

Patty Hill sat in the center of the handful of women who weren't participating in the accusations and snide remarks. Almost half an hour after the meeting was scheduled to start, Ashley called everyone to order.

Two members of the Welcome Wagon group were realtors, and they reported on houses that had been sold and the move-in date for the new residences, along with a little personal information—if they were married, if the couples worked, if they had children, and their ages.

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