Fantastic Women

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Beth closed the door behind her before she got a look at the room. Almost all the metal chairs facing her were filled, and a thousand people seemed to be staring. Clammy sweat covered her body in an instant. She tried to smile, then walked as fast as she could toward the exit.

Just as she reached the door, she glanced back over her shoulder. The stack of brochures on the long table beside her set her inner alarm off again. The state department of land reclamation’s information about…old abandoned mines.

Beth didn’t much believe in coincidences, especially not this big. She turned around and took a seat near the back. Clina and what sounded like a hundred of her friends were singing hymns again, soft and low in her head.

Over an hour later, Beth stood in the corner while it seemed like everyone else in town lined up to ask questions. The presenter did his best not to look at his watch, but he clearly had somewhere else to be. Beth willed him to wait just a few more minutes. When the last person finally headed out, she walked up to the front.

“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, holding out her hand. “I won’t take long. I’m Beth Azen. I know you need to get out of here, but I might be able to help you get the word out about this project.”

“Good to meet you, Beth,” he said. His grip was warm and firm. “Mark Hersh. Any ideas you have would be great, but I’m afraid they want to close up here.”

“Well, no, we can wait a while longer,” Tina said from a few feet behind Beth. She was smiling, but she glanced at her husband and two little boys out in the hall. The kids were as blond, blue-eyed, and pale as their parents, but they spoke as if they’d lived in Hartstown all their lives. “Beth would be a great contact for ya, Mr. Hersh. She’s a reporter and a writer.”

“Maybe we should talk then,” Mark said, his bright green eyes lighting up with his smile. He was just over Beth’s height of five-eleven, and he seemed to be in his mid-thirties too. “It’s so hard to get through to small landowners when we only have rumors about where some of these old mines were located.”

“Oh, she’s just perfect, then!” Tina said, beaming. “Beth’s been here for a few weeks workin’ on a history book about Boun County.”

“That’s what gave me the idea,” Beth said. She hoped the strange turn her project had taken didn’t show on her face. “If you haven’t had dinner yet, we can walk over to Rayburn’s.”

“Sure, I’d like to hear more,” he said, then turned to Tina. “Thank you again for the room, ma’am.”

As Tina locked up behind them, the boys ran screaming into the once again empty space. Beth was still a bit in shock over basically asking a man out to dinner, one she’d never laid eyes on before tonight. At least he was easy on the eyes.

“Just as well we got out of there before those kids exploded,” she said as they walked across the street in the harsh wind, only having to wait for a couple of cars at just after seven. “When did you start focusing on these smaller mines?”

“We’re still working on several big ones, but a lot of the stream runoff in Boun County seems to be coming from these old, unpermitted mines. No one really kept records for a long time. Once they did, a bunch of the smaller ones were already abandoned. Cleaning up these little mines has been a pet project of mine for a while. Finally starting to happen.”

Beth’s mind worked at top speed as they got settled in the Italian-themed restaurant. Murals of Roman statues and ancient city vistas contrasted with the red vinyl booths and college basketball game muted on two flat-screen TVs hanging from the ceiling. The food here was hardly gourmet, but it was good. Her stomach growled at the rich, yeasty smell of pizza and frying potatoes.

She tried to think of all the reasons he’d turn her crazy idea down. If Beth managed this, she might solve more than Clina’s problems.