Page 91 of Head Room

Earlier this year, Clara pulled off an exhibit by a historic painter and she had many more big plans.

Her plans for the Old West town suffered a setback last summer.Plus, her micromanaging of volunteers helping her sort items at the Old West town and here at the museum slowed the process.Especially by driving off volunteers.

That helped explain the crowded state of the hallway and offices.Except they’d been crowded from the first time I saw them.

At this moment, Clara’s office was further crowded by the presence of one person I did not want to see here.

Emmaline Parens.

In case it wasn’t clear from yesterday’s encounter, I love Mrs.P.We all do.I’ll be delighted to see her at my wedding.

Now, not delighted.

Her presence complicated my planned button-pushing with Clara, who wasn’t the most forthcoming.Not, as far as I could tell, from hiding anything nefarious, but from liking to keep things to herself.

That must make for an interesting push-pull dynamic in her long-distance relationship with my friend Dell.

All that ran through my mind before Mrs.P turned and saw me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Good day, Elizabeth,”she said.

“Mrs.Parens, how wonderful to see you.”

I overdid the enthusiasm and she raised one eyebrow.

Trying to establish a more neutral footing, and possibly to encourage her to leave, I said, “I stopped by to get background from Clara on museum business.”

“I am aware of the nature of your interest, as well as being intimately acquainted with the details of the museum’s negotiations over land with a group of veterans about which you seek background.”

In other words, she wasn’t budging.

Also in other words, she’d known yesterday that this land deal could be of interest to me and said nothing.

“Why would you be interested in our negotiation?”Clara said with her usual impatience for anything not involved with historic artifacts, the museum, or money that could support them.

“We don’t need all that land.It extends to the forest service lands, with Tom Burrell’s Circle B — well, I guess yours, too, pretty soon — on the southern boundary and part of Clyde Baranski’s holdings to the north.None of it’s used for ranching.Too up and down.Even if it were range land, we wouldn’t need it, as long as we keep room to grow.We could double the footprint and still have a significant buffer.”

I’d swear Mrs.P almost winced at the wordsdouble the footprint.

Clara dreamt of expanding across the county, across Wyoming, likely shoving Yellowstone Park aside to get to Idaho and Montana, too.

Mrs.P favored polishing the tiny to perfection before considering another step forward.

“Why sell land to those vets at all?”

Mrs.P answered, though I’d addressed Clara.“As you are aware from your meeting with them—” Of course she knew about that.“— they are in need of space for the benefit of their well-being.At the same time, the acreage near the national forest land, which rests at a significant distance from the Old West buildings, not only is of no use to us, it is a responsibility, requiring attention that we can far better benefit from applying to the core efforts of the museum.”

Clara piped up with, “We’re not selling all the acreage.We need to hold onto a right of way, north or south, to connect to the forest service lands.”

Mrs.P drew in a breath, but had no chance to expel it into words.Clara was too fast.

“We can’t know what the future holds and we have to leave options open for contingencies.Keeping a right of way to the forest service lands might prove to be essential.”

“How?”I asked with real curiosity.

It wasn’t like the right of way would let vehicles get through the rugged and wooded terrain without a lot of work.