Part Twenty-Four

"We're coming to the East Coast!" Peggy said on the phone to her son Taylor. It was a few minutes before five in the morning.

"Huh?" said Taylor, groggy. It was eight o'clock his time.

"Sorry. I couldn't reach you last night, and I'll be in meetings all day today so I thought I'd give you a quick call."

"Who's coming with you?"

"Raoul. And you'll get to meet his daughter, Deidre. She's very nice."

"Why? What's up?"

"It's a business trip. I'll send you an email with the details. Gotta run now and catch my ferry. Bye."

She hung up and dashed out the door. The morning was gray and kind of dark; the days already seemed to be noticeably shorter. As she walked up the ramp to the ferry Peggy watched a pair of seagulls pick for delicacies among the rocks and seaweed exposed by the low tide waters around Eagle Harbor.

"I suppose you've alerted the forces," said Raoul.

"I called Marjorie last night and Taylor this morning," she said.

"And I called my brother, Dale, in Connecticut." Raoul shrugged, "If nothing else, the taxpayers of Washington State will be reuniting families."

As a result of their work on the Coastal Planning Task Force, the governor invited Peggy, Raoul and several other members of the task force to testify before a U.S. Congressional sub-committee in Washington, D.C., on coastal policies and development. The hearing was scheduled for Monday, July 18.

"Marjorie was thrilled," said Peggy. "Did you reach Deidre?"

"Yes. She'll be in Philly, and she'd like to come to New York with us."

"I'm so excited." For some reason, Peggy had been thinking of Taylor and Deidre. There was a certain off-beat quirkiness to both of them. Of course, she didn't want to be a meddling mother, but she couldn't resist at least getting them together informally. No pressure whatsoever.

After receiving the news yesterday, Peggy and Raoul talked on the phone and discovered that they had had the same idea: turn the trip into a family-visiting tour of the Northeast Corridor. They would visit Marjorie in Arlington, Deidre in Philadelphia, Taylor, Jr., in Brooklyn, and Dale in Connecticut. And then maybe go off somewhere in New England on their own.

"Not sure what good our testimony will do," Raoul said, sipping his tea as the ferry made the turn into Puget Sound.

"We've been pretty thorough, and balanced," said Peggy.

"Being balanced never gets you anywhere," he said.

"There you go being cynical again."

"It's true. Who supports middle-of-the-road positions on anything? No one. If you want support for any political viewpoint it has to be an extreme viewpoint. There's no money in compromise."

"But the facts speak for themselves. We have data showing that a limited amount of smart development is good for revenue while preserving the environment at the same time."

"True, but if you own beachfront property and you want to build a large hotel that makes more money than a small hotel then the last thing you want is for someone to come along and talk to you about preserving the environment."

"But if you preserve the environment then you will attract more visitors. People don't want to go for scenic walks in a dump."

"Depends. If the dump has a go-cart track and a hamburger stand and an ice-cream shop they might like it."

"You're giving me a headache," she said. Then her mind switched to Taylor and she imagined his grungy art studio in Brooklyn, and his odd night-time hours due to his restaurant job. She wondered how she could get him to clean his studio before Deidre visited.

"I'm just trying to give you a taste of what the committee will be like. They're going to grill us on property rights issues."

"Like that really matters anymore in light of the Supreme Court decision."

"Sad but true. If a developer is willing to build a small hotel, some other developer could come along and argue that a larger hotel would generate more revenue and would be better for the so-called public. Isn't that perverted?"

"I hope you tell that to the committee," said Peggy.

"I'm sure that between the two of us we'll give them an earful."

"It'll be fun." Then after a moment she said, "Does Deidre like art?"