Joan leans down, looking at Christopher. “You don’t want a hummingbird cake for dessert, do you?” she asks, handing him the phone.
“I do!” Gigi says, making the toy car she’s been playing with fly through the air. “If hummingbirds love it, then I will, too!”
“Then you’ll help me make it?”
Gigi leaps into the air, holding the car like a rocket ship. “Yes!”
Joan chuckles. “Then say hello to Grandma and let’s go to the grocery store. We’ve got a lot of things to buy.”
May 2012
Heddy Gregory sits at a wooden desk with its too-worn top etched with jagged scars and stained with blotches of purple-black ink, and fills out paperwork for a new child at Glory’s Place. This is the same paperwork and the same desk she has used year after year, but today when she presses a ballpoint pen down onto the information sheet, a leg on the desk collapses, making Heddy and the mother of the child gasp together. “Oh, my word!” Heddy says, grabbing the pictures of the children on top of the desk before they fall but letting the cup of pens crash to the floor.
Gloria pops her head out of her office at the commotion. “What’s going on?”
“Apparently Dalton did not fix this leg!”
Hearing his name, Dalton walks across the big room and looks at the desk. “What’d you do, Heddy?” he says, winking at Gloria.
“The question is, what didn’t you do?” Heddy says, leading the mother into the office to finish the paperwork.
“There’s not much that I can do for this leg,” Dalton says to Gloria. “It needs a new one. Do you want me to get it to Larry?”
Gloria shakes her head. “Larry would charge us twice what we paid for it.”
“What did you pay for it?”
“Nothing. We got it out of Miriam’s garage when we first opened, and it was a piece of junk then. Let’s just get it out of here and one of us can get over to Larry’s to see if he has anything we can buy. This space looks awfully big and boring without a table or desk here.” She looks up and notices Lauren chatting with a child on the sidewalk and pats Dalton on the shoulder. “I’ll grab Lauren to help get it out of here.”
Dalton and Lauren load the desk into the back of Dalton’s pickup truck as Gloria gives instructions to Lauren. “Just find something simple and nice at Larry’s,” she says. “Anything with a top and four legs would be nicer than what we’ve been using.”
“I don’t think I should be in charge of finding a new piece of furniture,” Lauren says. “I can’t even pick furniture out for our house.”
“Oh yes you can!” Gloria says, leading her back into Glory’s Place. “Larry can help. He knows the size space that we have, and he knows our budget.”
“What is our budget?” Lauren asks.
“What is our budget, Dalton?” Gloria says.
“I have about forty dollars in my wallet,” he says, grinning.
“And that’s about what I have,” Gloria says. “I bet Miriam has another forty, so let’s say a hundred and twenty dollars.”
Lauren steps into the bathroom before making the trip to Larry’s. It’s been five days since she ate the sushi from Clauson’s and she still doesn’t feel well. She knows now that it obviously isn’t food poisoning but rather a virus. “Hi, Andrea!” she says when she exits the bathroom and sees Andrea across the big room.
“Lauren!” Andrea watches as Lauren slings her purse over her shoulder. “Are you leaving?”
“I’m headed to Larry Maccabee’s to find a table or desk for the front entryway.” She sits on a chair in the reading section and sighs, trying to catch her breath.
Andrea sits next to her. “Are you still not feeling well?”
“Just tired right now. It comes over me at weird times. I heard somebody at Clauson’s talking about a virus going around.”
“Still nauseous?” Lauren nods. Andrea looks up at the bathroom door. “And going to the bathroom more frequently?”
Lauren’s brows rise and her eyes widen. “Yes! So frustrating.”
Andrea pats her knee. “Tell you what, why don’t I go to Larry’s and you go to the doctor?”
“I can’t do that to Miss Glory. She needs every volunteer once the kids arrive.”
“Gloria wouldn’t want any of us to be sick around the children, and Miriam said that Gabe is coming in with Amy today, so we already have an extra person to cover for you.”
Lauren nods. “Do you know Larry?”
Andrea smiles. “No, but I will after I get to his shop.”
“Don’t tell Gloria that I’m sick. I don’t want her to worry.”
“I won’t say a word until you and your husband both know what’s happening.” Andrea smiles, watching Lauren walk across the big room and leave the building.
* * *
Larry Maccabee creates a mini dust storm inside his shop as he uses a power sander to lift years of polyurethane and what looks like nail polish abuse from a tabletop. He’s had it for years in his workshop in hopes of restoring and reselling it but has never gotten around to it. The table was set aside and quickly became a catchall for extra tools, cans of stain, books and manuals, paintbrushes, and anything else that was in Larry’s hand.
“Excuse me.” His back is to the door, and Andrea knows there’s no way he’s going to hear her over that blasted sander. She spots the light switch and walks to it, flicking it on and off a couple of times. He spins around, turns off the sander, and pulls the earmuffs down around his neck. “So sorry to bother you,” she says. “I didn’t want to scare you because your back was to the door.”
“I normally keep the door locked when I’m working with the power tools,” he says, setting down the power sander and wiping sawdust from his forearms as he walks through his shop filled with a table saw, drill press, band saw, jointer, workbenches, belt sander, planers, clamps, and various hand tools hanging on each wall. Larry mills his own wood and has been making or refurbishing furniture for decades. He looks to be in his late sixties or early seventies with a crown of grayish brown hair, black-framed glasses, and a gently worn face. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Andrea King, and I’m looking for a table or desk for the entryway to Glory’s Place. She said you’d know the size that would be best for that space.”
“Sure! My wife, Melanie, and I were there when volunteers were cleaning and painting and getting Glory’s Place ready.”
Andrea looks around the shop, wondering what he has that might work. “Well, we’ve all pitched in and we have a hundred and sixty dollars to buy something. What do you have?”
“The one I was working on when you came in would be the perfect size but…” He glances up at it. “No. It’s round. You need a rectangle.” He moves to the side of the shop with a few pieces of finished furniture, and Andrea follows.
“I love the smell of a wood shop,” she says. “It—”
“I do, too! Always have.” He stands in front of two desks and taps one.