Page 47 of Always You (A Lilac Bay Novel)

When Chris announced that they needed to get back to the mainland to catch their flight, there was an audible murmur of disappointment.

“They probably all thought they’d be TV stars by the end of the day,” Libby muttered to me as we stood to walk our guests back to the ferry.

Once outside, I found myself walking next to Gina.

“Thanks for going through all the info,” I told her. “If you couldn’t tell, the people here are really excited.”

She laughed. “I’m excited too! This is actually my first producing job,” she confessed. “I’ve been an associate producer on Heather’s show for two years now, but this is the first segment they’re letting me run on my own.” She cast a furtive glance at me, as if gauging how disappointed I was in her lack of experience. “I figure it’s actually a pretty good thing for you guys, though,” she said quickly. “Most of the senior producers are covering two or three towns. But I get to devote all my attention to you!”

“That sounds great,” I told her, and I decided right then that I meant it. It was definitely possible, maybe even likely, that a more experienced producer—someone like Chris, for instance—wouldn’t be nearly so excited to come and work in our little town. When I considered how nervous Chris obviously made the entire committee, I figured I would take Gina’s enthusiasm over any amount of experience. “I just hope we’re not too boring for you.”

“Nothing about this place seems boring,” she said. “It’s all so quaint and fun! Oh, that reminds me! I wanted to ask Libby about the wine tasting events,” she said. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead,” I told her, gesturing at my friend, who was currently at the back of the group.

Once Gina was gone, I took a deep breath. It was the first time I hadn’t needed to be totally on since they'd arrived, and I wanted to try to get my thoughts together. Before I had a chance to do much more than breathe, I realized that I had somehow managed to nearly catch up with Chris.

She’s the executive producer of your favorite show, I told myself.And you haven’t talked to her all day. Scary or not, you should try to make a good impression.

I sped up a little until I was at her side.

“I hope you enjoyed your lunch,” I said, and immediately felt stupid. What next, was I going to talk to her about the weather?

“It was good,” she said, her voice brisk but not entirely insincere, and I said a little prayer of thanks to Cora for her amazing burgers.

“Do you get to visit all the towns that are entered?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m nearly finished, though—only two more after you, and both of them are on the coast.”

I realized that I had no idea who else had been chosen as finalists. “Are the entrants pretty spread out?”

She nodded, her eyes on her phone again. “We tried to get a good geographical spread. We’ll be shooting in California, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, North Carolina, and New England.”

I tried not to worry about the fact that she hadn’t mentioned us. “So we’re the Great Lakes contestant,” I said, glad my voice sounded bright. “I know we’ll do the region proud.”

“Mm-hmm,” Chris said vaguely, tapping something on her phone.

And just like that, my nerves went away. Who did she think she was? Hot shot TV producer or not, she had no right to just write us off so easily.

“I’m very confident we’ll do well,” I said. And, okay, maybe my tone was a little sharp. But I didn’t get the reputation of being the most competitive person on this island to take her dismissal lying down.

Her gaze snapped up from her phone and scanned my face, much like it had done down on the dock. Like she was trying to suss out what I had to offer.

“I’m sure you’ll all do your best,” she said, her voice much more gentle than I had heard it all day.

Once again my stomach went plummeting to my knees. “What does that mean?”

“It’s Riley, right?” she asked and I nodded. “Look, this place seems very special. It might be the most unique of the cities that I’ve visited. But it’s also the smallest.”

“Isn’t that the point?” I asked. “Aren’t you looking for the best small town in America?”

“Yes.” Her eyes scanned my face again. “But there is a such thing astoosmall.”

“I don’t under—”

She talked over me. “Some of those other towns are putting big resources into this, Riley. Resources I’m pretty sure you don’t have. They’re also better situated geographically. They may be small, but they’re nearer to larger metropolitan areas—places with a lot of people who will vote. We have some really well-known towns on our list. Nantucket, for instance. Do you know how many people on the east coast grew up visiting Nantucket? That gives them a major advantage with voters.”

I frowned. It wasn’t just Lilac Bay that was sparsely populated. Northern Michigan just didn’t have a lot of people in general. Not like the East Coast, anyway. The closest really big city was Detroit, and that was hours away. Who was going to vote for us?

“We’ll just have to show people what they’re missing here,” I said firmly. “I’m sure there will be tons of people watching who don’t have any loyalty to any of the finalists. Those are the ones we’ll try to win over.”

Again her eyes scanned my face. “I’m sure you’ll do your best,” she said again, and I knew I hadn’t won her over at all.

That’s just fine, I thought to myself as we said goodbye to the crew on the dock, Gina hugging each of us before boarding the ferry. Who said I needed to win over Chris Cunningham anyhow? Gina liked us, and she was the one we would be working with. If I could win her over, I could win over the rest of the country, too.

But no matter how much I tried to believe that as I watched the ferry pull out into the bay, the sick feeling in my stomach didn’t go away.