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town, or at least this board, hasn’t considered before. Even if Brian and Nicole don’t go for it, it’s still a good idea, so maybe we need to open up that can of worms.”
    Meg made a face at him. “That’s a lovely image for a restaurant. You know, if we want the town to support this, then they have to be able to afford a meal there. If it’s too upscale, the people of Granford will get annoyed.”
    “Agreed. But we’re a long way from that yet.”

    The Granford Selectboard met in a room in the Victorian town hall on the green—which had a convenient view of the proposed restaurant site. Meg wasn’t sure what her role at the meeting was: she had some small legal standing as a resident, albeit one of less than six months, but she had a limited knowledge of the inner workings of the town. And what little the town’s citizens knew of her was not exactly positive, after she had disrupted the last town meeting in a rather spectacular way.
    “Hi, Tom—you remember Meg Corey, don’t you?” Seth began, guiding Meg over to Tom Moody, seated at the end of the long oak table. He stood up promptly and offered his hand.
    “Hard to forget her, don’t you think?” He softened his statement with a smile. “Welcome, Meg. You don’t plan to drop any bombshells tonight, do you? Because I’d like to get home in time to watch the Red Sox game.”
    Meg returned his smile, relieved by the warmth of his reception. She had seen him before, at the last town meeting, but now she could see he was close to Seth’s age, and outweighed him by at least twenty pounds, in the wrong places. “You don’t have to worry. Nice to see you again, Tom, under happier circumstances,” Meg replied.
    “Meg, this is Mrs. Caroline Goldthwaite, our third selectman—or maybe we should be saying ‘selectperson’?” Tom gestured to a woman already seated at the big oak table. She was probably past seventy, her silvered hair neatly set, carefully dressed in a pressed blouse and tailored skirt, and wearing pearls. Meg promptly felt shabby in her jeans and shirt.
    Mrs. Goldthwaite didn’t rise, but waited for Meg to approach her before she extended a slender hand; when Meg took it, it was cold and dry, despite the warmth of the June evening. “ ‘ Selectman’ will do fine, Tom. I don’t hold with this feminist silliness. Meg, I’m happy to meet you at last. Your reputation precedes you.”
    “I’m happy to be here, Caroline.” When a faint cloud passed over the woman’s face, Meg quickly added, “Mrs. Goldthwaite. But I’m here mainly as an observer, and maybe as a consultant. I’m happy to listen and learn.”
    Once everyone had settled themselves in chairs, supplied with bad coffee from the office pot, Tom Moody declared the meeting open. The three board members ran through a number of business items, which Meg had little interest in, so instead she studied the participants. Seth brought his usual enthusiasm to the discussion; Tom was more laid-back; and Mrs. Goldthwaite frequently looked as though she smelled something objectionable, although her comments showed that she knew quite a bit about the articles under discussion—and disapproved of most. This was an elected group, wasn’t it? Meg reflected. Did Caroline Goldthwaite represent a sizable constituency in Granford?
    “Meg, do you have an opinion?” Seth’s voice interrupted her musings.
    “Oh, sorry. What was that?” Great: now she’d been caught wool-gathering.
    “Why don’t you explain what your area of expertise is, as a start?”
    “Of course. Before I moved to Granford, I was a municipal bond analyst for a Boston bank. That means I evaluated the underlying credit strengths and weaknesses of the issuer, reviewed the issuer’s financial history, that kind of thing. I left when my bank was bought out by another one, and my position became redundant. That’s when I decided to move here and take over the house and orchard on County Line Road.”
    “The Warren