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here, not even the women who own retail businesses and should know better.  No one worries about the latest fashion because up until about five minutes ago, there weren’t any stores that carried interesting, fashionable clothing.  The stores now have upgraded their merchandise, but the women in town still ignore every opportunity to look better, fashionable and uncomfortable. Even I admit that comfort can be rather compelling. Debbie on the other hand, had elevated comfort to an extreme sport.
    She slid up next to be and started to talk, no introduction, no hello, no “how are you” or “how do you like the play?” 
    “The theater needs to be retrofitted .” She announced into my ear.
    “Retrofitted?”  I glanced around.  Sure, one little 4.6 tremor and this place would crumble down to a pile of rubble. If we were cataloging the dangers of Summer Theater, it was also a fire trap, the chairs were so full of dust I sneezed for days after just one evening here, and there was a real risk of helplessly witnessing a truly painful performance of a Broadway show that used to be a favorite but now was forever ruined.  And who knew if the water heater was secured? But that was part of the performance art: the disrepair of it, the bold embrace of the mediocre. It all served to enhance the veneer of old time charm.
    “Yes,” Debbie continued as if I had agreed with her.  “We have a real problem in this town, so few of the buildings are up to code. I blame the past councils for letting things slide and I even thought we should sue some of business owners for not repairing and upgrading when they sold their buildings, but I couldn’t find the minutes from the seventies.”
    “Oh,” I said. I suspected the minutes she was searching for went up in a forest fire - long story - but I wasn’t going to share history with Debbie.
    “Weren’t they in the old library?”  I asked instead, because that’s where I once searched for the old council minutes, before I learned the meeting minutes of the seventies had been taken by a private citizen to “keep them safe.”  The private citizen had lived miles above my grandmother’s place on the upper reaches of Red Dog Road in one of Lucky Masters’ tract homes. And there had been that fire.             
    Debbie nodded. “They were moved to City Hall when the library was decommissioned.  Easier to keep them safe.” 
                  I had no comment to make about the relative safety of paperwork and possible guilty parties. In the rather immediate past I had discovered that so much of what went on in Claim Jump was not recorded, at least not officially. Prue had access to a number of documents, but those were kept safe to keep her safe.  She may have some paperwork that revealed lax permitting, bribes, incidents of council members looking the other way so that developers could have their way with the forests surrounding the town. But she didn’t flaunt it.  We just kept it around for Prue’s own benefit.  But it had nothing to do with what Debbie searched for.  What Debbie wanted had actually, legitimately, gone up in smoke.
    “Are you enjoying your time on the council?”  I asked brightly.
    “Enjoying?” She barked. “I don’t have time to enjoy, do you know how much has been left to chance in this town? Do you know how little regard these owners have for codes and regulations?”
    It was odd to hear a woman draped in tie-dyed splendor speak of codes and regulations.  I watched Mike elaborately sneak up behind Debbie making terrible faces and mock snarling. He and Pat, who owned a number of the buildings downtown, were probably the bane of her existence (codewise), and she theirs.
    “Debbie, how lovely to see you and you are so, colorful tonight!”  Mike swooped around her and issued a bear hug that took her breath away.
    “Oh, uh, yes.”
    “Enjoying the play?”  Mike twinkled at her.
    “I was hoping to catch Lucky