Molly’s cheeks pinked. “Coming from a bright, capable young woman like yourself, I take that as a huge compliment.”
“I can’t think of any better role model.”
Norah almost toppled off her bar stool as Liam seemed to materialize from thin air and crossed over to the cake.
“He has a sixth sense for baked goods.”
As he cut himself a huge slab, Norah wondered if she’d managed to wash away all traces of the tears. Maybe he’d politely ignore the fact that she’d been crying.
No such luck. Turning around with his plate, Liam kicked back against the counter and studied her. “Whatever he did, if he needs an attitude adjustment, I’m happy to give one.”
Norah offered a wry smile.“I’m sure Mitch would help.”
“Oh, Mitch is a good one in a fight, but for this you want Randa Panda. She fights dirty.”
“You know she absolutely loathes that you call her that, right?”
Liam grinned. “Yeah. That’s part of the fun.”
Norah straightened her shoulders. “If anybody’s giving Cam an ass kicking, it’ll be me.”
He laughed. “I knew I liked you.” Walking over, he kissed his mother on the cheek. “Great cake, Mom.” Then he and his cake were gone with the same soundless grace with which he’d appeared.
“A man of few words.”
“Not always. But when there’s cake involved, he’s very focused.” Molly picked up her own tea. “So, is Cam worth the fight?”
Norah didn’t even have to think about it. “More than anybody I’ve ever known.”
Molly gave a satisfied nod. “Good. Do you want to go kick his ass now or do you still want to go over the coalition stuff?”
“Coalition stuff. He’s still at work and what I have to say to him is going to take a while.”
She nibbled cake and listened to Molly outline the efforts they’d made so far. Approximately three hundred fifty signatures in the first week wasn’t bad, but it was nowhere near the rate they needed to get the referendum.
“We need something to give to people who sign.”
“Like a thank you gift?”
“No.” She retrieved her bag from the living room and sketched out a quick design. “I’m thinking stickers. YES printed in big block letters and beneath it ‘I signed’. That makes signatories walking advertisements. It’s vague enough to prompt people to ask ‘signed what?’ And we should have a second set ready to go for the referendum itself with YES: I voted.”
“Oh that’s fabulous. We can have them at every signing station. Every business downtown has a stack of pages for the petition.”
“That’s a good start but we need more. Bigger. We need a street team. People who are actively out informing people and soliciting signatures. And we’d want them easily identifiable in a way that gets the message across very quickly and visually, so that as word spreads, people can find a petition to sign very easily. I was thinking red baseball caps with YES printed across the front. They’re attention getting and very clearly say YES, I support a size cap.”
“Richard can have those made up within a few days. I’ve got a good dozen people I can task with organizing a street team.”
Norah scribbled more notes. “Cam said it had to be a majority of registered voters. Can people who aren’t registered yet go do that and sign?”
“They can. And for anybody who wants to sign that isn’t registered, we’ve pointed them down to City Hall.”
“No you need to eliminate as many barriers as possible. If it’s allowed, have stacks of voter registration forms at each petition location so that it saves them from having to go get one. Even better if our business owners can just collect those and drop them off and save people a trip all together.”
“I’ll check with Sandra to find out the rules on that.”
Norah paused in the midst of her notes. “Look, I know you two are close—”
“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. Nobody needs to know.”