Spring Break Secret by Holly Rayner
Louisa
Despite the fun and luxury of the previous night’s gala, the next day was business as usual. After feeding Rei her breakfast and dropping her off at the conservation center for a day of Eco Scouts, Louisa headed to the center of downtown La Vega.
Today, she was attending a rally outside of city hall to protest against a new planned development that threatened to be even more dangerous than any of the previous construction that La Vega had seen. Instead of building on existing land, these developers planned to use a new concretizing chemical called Comentex, which would allow them to bond individual grains of sand together to turn dune areas into solid land on which to build.
Although Comentex was mostly untested in marine areas, Louisa had been doing her own research. Based on her findings, she worried that the new chemical would leach into the water and have disastrous consequences for wildlife in and around La Vega, including the sea turtles.
She had brought a packet full of printouts of her research with her today and hoped to show it to a representative on the city council. But there were no council people at the protest, only fellow conservationists and groups trying to protect La Vega’s unique but delicate ecosystems.
Louisa was used to attending these protests with Ellen, but ever since the older woman had started running the Eco Scouts, she was busy most days. So Louisa simply joined the small crowd, shouting for the council members to come out and meet with them.
Finally, a councilman opened the door. Louisa rolled her eyes. It was Martin Hubbs, her least favorite council member. He always sided with big business and never took her concerns seriously.
“Martin! Councilman Hubbs!” Louisa pushed through the crowd to speak with him.
“Hello, Miss Murray,” Martin said, clearly unhappy to see her.
“Councilman Hubbs, thank you for coming out to listen to your constituents today. We are here to raise our concerns about the use of Comentex in the new planned development.” She reached into her folder and tried to hand him one of her research sheets. “If you just take a look at some of my research, you’ll see—”
“No, thank you.” Martin dropped the sheet on the ground, waving her away with a dismissive gesture. “I only came out here to tell you people that the approval has already passed the city planning board. We voted on it this morning. So your little crusade here, I’m afraid, is too late.”
“But Councilman Hubbs, if you would only listen,” Louisa pleaded, bending down to grab the paper he had tossed on the ground. “Let me show you—”
“Goodbye, Miss Murray,” the councilman said, walking back inside and slamming the door behind him.
Dejected, Louisa stuffed the crumpled research sheet in her pocket and slumped back to the protestors.
“What did he say?” Clamoring voices all wanted to know how her conversation with the councilman had gone. “Is the board going to consider the research?”
“They already voted,” Louisa said, hating that she had to be the one to bring the news. “It’s approved. It’s over.”
“No!” A horrified chorus of arguments rose. “They can’t do that!”
Louisa didn’t know what to say. “We can keep fighting,” she said, “but it’ll be a lot harder now that the planning board has approved it.”
“Thanks for trying so hard,” someone said, clapping her on the shoulder.
“I’m sure Ellen will have some ideas for how to stop this.”
Louisa shrugged. As much as she adored and admired Ellen, it was becoming pretty clear that stopping these developments was a losing battle. There was only so much they could do.
“I’ll send out an email later today,” Louisa promised, handing out her research printouts to anyone who wanted one. “We can strategize about next steps. But we might need to start thinking about what restoration efforts we can make after this chemical gets into the water, instead of preventing it from getting there in the first place.”
From the disappointed posture of the dispersing crowd, Louisa could tell that few people had much faith in their ability to reduce the impact of Comentex on the wildlife. Truth be told, she shared their worries, but there wasn’t much she could do. Now that the local planning board had approved the plan, there were only a few people left who could make a change. Unless the real estate company could somehow be convinced to avoid using the chemical, the sea turtles of La Vega might be doomed.
Louisa was determined to figure out who, exactly, was behind this faceless corporation that seemed intent on destroying native wildlife habitats.
When she picked up Rei from her day at the Eco Scouts, an idea occurred to her.
“Hey, Rei, you know that tablet computer thing your Nana and Grandpa got you?”
“Yeah! It’s really cool.” Rei had been gifted a small device by Louisa’s parents at the beginning of the summer. It was supposed to help her with her Eco Scouts project by letting her photograph and catalog native wildlife, but Rei turned out to be a bit of a whiz kid with the technology. Soon she’d been helping Ellen improve the website for the conservation center and showing Louisa’s mom how to find new knitting patterns online.
“Do you think you could help me out with something?” Louisa wasn’t nearly as good with computers as her daughter. Her work kept her mostly out of her office, and since she quit her program in Berkeley to move back home to La Vega, she hadn’t learned much about technology.
“Sure, Mom!” Rei swung her little legs, still not tall enough to fit comfortably in the passenger seat. Louisa still drove her old hybrid car, its once-silver paint now dulled to a mottled grey with rust spots all over. “What do you need?”
“Well, you know how I’ve been working with Ellen and your grandparents to fight against this new real estate development?”
“Uh-huh. They’re using a bad chemical that will hurt the turtles.”
“That’s right.” Louisa was so grateful to have raised such a bright, kindhearted girl who shared her passion for sea life. “Well, we couldn’t convince the city council to put a stop to the project, so now I have to find someone else who can keep them from using that chemical.”
“Who?” Rei’s inquisitive little mind reminded Louisa so much of her own younger self. She wondered what nickname Ellen would settle on for her daughter.
“I was hoping to talk with someone at the company, since they’re the ones who are ultimately making the choice to use the chemical. But I haven’t been able to find contact information for anyone there—they just do everything under their business name and through their lawyers.”
“So you want to see if we can find a way to talk to them online?”
“Exactly, sweetie.” Louisa pulled the car into the driveway of the same house she had grown up in, where she and Rei now lived with her parents.
After a spaghetti dinner—Rei’s favorite—Louisa snuggled up next to her daughter on the couch, nearly blinded by the brightness of the tablet screen.
“See, right here, we can start searching for information on the company.” Rei’s fingers were lightning quick as she tapped her way around the tablet’s screen. “What’s it called?”
“Palmco Development,” Louisa said, remembering the name from the paperwork she had seen filed at the city center. “That’s all I know.”
“Okay.” Rei continued to poke around the tablet, scrolling through various pages of search results faster than Louisa could even process what was happening. “I’m not finding anything that gives contact information,” Rei said after a while, her face scrunched up with frustration. “They must be trying to stay really private.”
“That figures,” Louisa said, sharing her daughter’s frustration. “They probably know that people in town are angry about the development, and they don’t want anyone bothering them.”
“Wait,” Rei said, holding the screen closer to her face. “I might have found something.”
“Really?”
“Right here.” Rei pointed to a tiny bit of text on a slickly designed webpage. “It’s an email address. ‘[email protected].’ I don’t think it was supposed to be here.”
“Operations? So that email would just go to someone at their front desk?”
Rei shrugged. “I don’t know. But you could try it.”
For the first time that evening, Louisa looked at the clock, realizing with a start that it was almost half an hour past Rei’s bedtime. “You did great, sweetie,” Louisa said, ruffling Rei’s hair. “I’ll see what I can do with this email address. But it’s time for you to head to bed, okay? You have Eco Scouts tomorrow.”
Rei yawned, though the defiance in her blue eyes told Louisa she wouldn’t go down that easily. “I want to keep helping. Let me send the email with you.”
“Thanks, but I know how to send an email, at least. Your old mom’s not that useless with technology.”
Rei gave her a disbelieving look.
“Really. I promise I’ll be fine without you. Come on. Bedtime. I’ll tuck you in.”
Once Rei was sound asleep, her clownfish nightlight bathing her room in its soft orange glow, Louisa tiptoed back to the tablet, still glowing on the sofa.
She had their operations email, but she knew that if she just sent an email about her research and the Comentex chemical, she would be completely ignored. Louisa tried to think about what might give her the information she needed without tipping her hand.
As she glanced around the small living room, her eyes fell on the pair of black heels she’d worn to the fundraising gala the night before. They were an unusual sight among the work boots and beach sandals that otherwise littered the front entryway, but they gave Louisa an idea.
She pulled up the tablet’s email program and began to tap out a message:
“To whom it may concern,
I am the catering coordinator for an event to honor the leadership at Palmco, but I am missing some key materials I need for the slideshow we will use to showcase Palmco’s executives and their accomplishments.
Please send me the headshot photos and contact information for all of the executives at Palmco, so we can coordinate directly with their assistants to put together a high-quality display.
Thank you!”
Louisa finished with a fake name, hoping that it would be enough to get what she needed. She set the tablet down, stretching and preparing to head to bed herself, when she heard the chime sound that indicated a new email. Surprised, she picked it back up, tapping the little bubble that had popped up.
Palmco Development must have been very serious about their work, because it seemed that even their operations team was burning the midnight oil. Louisa had gotten a nearly instantaneous reply, complete with photos and contact information for all the Palmco decision-makers.
Louisa scrolled down, taking in all the images, wondering if she had seen any of them at the fundraising gala or whether she’d recognize them the next time she attended a meeting at city hall.
As she reached the bottom of the list, where the company’s CEO was listed, Louisa felt her heart leap into her chest. She couldn’t remember being this stunned since she and Alison had watched the blue lines turn solid on her pregnancy test a decade ago.
Despite her disbelief, Louisa couldn’t deny it. Those ocean blue eyes were unmistakable.
The CEO of Palmco Development, the head of the real estate corporation she had been trying to fight for months now, was none other than her old love and the father of her daughter—Tom.