A Dime a Dozen

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I noticed some activity near my gate and saw that my flight had begun boarding. I stood, grabbed my carry-on, and told Tom I needed to get moving.

  “All right,” he said. “I hope it goes smoothly for you back there in the coach section.”

  He was just teasing, but I knew he hated the fact I wouldn’t fly first class when I was on business for the foundation. That was one perk I wasn’t willing to accept no matter how much he insisted.

  “Why, thank you, Tom,” I said sweetly.

  We talked a minute more and then said our goodbyes, and as I stood in line to get on the plane, I tried to focus my mind away from Tom and onto my next investigation—one which just happened to involve my late husband’s parents in the very town where he and I had met and fallen in love.

  Whatever was in store for me there, I prayed that God would provide the strength for me to handle it.

  Three

  My final flight reached Asheville a few minutes after 5:00 p.m., providing a gorgeous view of the Smoky Mountains as we came in for a landing. The airport was as low-key and simple to navigate as I remembered, and I easily retrieved my bags and handled the details of my car rental. An hour and a half of driving later, I passed the sign welcoming me to Greenbriar.

  The town looked exactly as I remembered it. Coming around the curve and down the hill, I could see rooftops peeking through the trees and, beyond that, the glimmer of the sun setting on Greenbriar Lake in the distance. I took a deep breath as I continued to drive. In an odd way, coming here almost felt like coming home. This place was in my blood, as much a part of me as the color of my eyes or the sound of my voice. It owned a piece of my heart.

  I thought back to the first time I had come here. I was a nine-year-old kid ready for a week at Camp Greenbriar, the local Christian summer camp that covered 300 acres of wooded lakefront property. I had loved it so much that I continued to return as a camper every summer through age fifteen. When I turned sixteen, I started coming back as a junior counselor. To me, summer would always mean the sparkling lake, the shadowy blue mountains, the intoxicating smell of dirt and moss and pine.

  Anticipating that smell, I rolled down my window and inhaled deeply. Knowing I was almost to the Webbers’ house, I slowed as I passed the big Cornerstone Community Church, which had a giant sign out front announcing “Free Concert Tonight!” by a Christian rock group. Though, according to the sign, the concert didn’t begin for another hour, the parking lot in front of the church was already filled to overflowing.

  Just past the church, I made a left turn into the Webbers’ long, winding driveway. As their house came into view through the trees, I had to blink away sudden, sentimental tears. I had been afraid I might feel anxious or depressed once I got here, but the opposite was true. As I pulled to a stop and looked up at the house and then out at the lake behind it, I was flooded with a calm sense of peace and contentment.

  After the long flight and then the drive, my legs were stiff as I climbed from the car. I had brought along some Ghirardelli chocolates from San Francisco as a small gift, so I grabbed the box from the backseat, shut the door, and started up the walk. I was a bit concerned about the number of cars parked in the driveway. The Webbers had said they would be having “a few people” over so that I could meet the directors of the different migrant programs MORE was affiliated with. But this looked like more than a few, and I wished suddenly that I had asked them to hold off on all of this until tomorrow. We should’ve reserved tonight for a private reunion for the three of us, not a public gathering with 50 of their closest friends and associates.

  Holding my breath, I knocked on the door and tried to decide what the Webbers were to me now anyway. With Bryan gone, were they still my in-laws or were they my “former” in-laws? When the door opened and I was face-to-face with Bryan’s mom and dad, I knew there was nothing former about it. These people were still my family.

  “Callie!” Natalie cried, her arms flying open. “Honey, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  We hugged, holding on for a long, long time. I didn’t realize until that moment how much I had missed her. Once we pulled apart, Dean was there for a hug as well.

  Finally, I stepped back and looked at them, thinking that in two years they hadn’t seemed to age a bit. As always, Dean sported trim gray hair and just the slightest paunch under a tailored shirt and sweater-vest. Natalie, with her silver bob and genial face, looked almost like an older, female version of Bryan.

  “You look beautiful, my dear,” she pronounced, reaching up to touch the back of my short hair. “Elegant as ever, and this hairdo is perfect for you.”

  Thanking her for the compliment, I gave her the chocolates and stepped inside. As Dean closed the door behind me, I could hear voices and music coming from the other rooms, and I quickly realized this wasn’t just a small welcoming reception, but an out-and-out party.

  “I’m so sorry,” Natalie said softly, leaning toward me, “but this thing has escalated out of control. Some of the cousins found out you were coming and spread the word among the family, and before I knew it, the house was completely filled with relatives who insisted on being here when you arrived. They even brought food, and it looks like they’re here for the duration.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, feeling butterflies fill my stomach. “It’ll be nice to see them.”

  We stepped into the parlor, and before I could blink, I was assaulted by the loving hugs of cousins and aunts and uncles and two of Bryan’s brothers and their wives and children. For a moment, I hesitated, wondering if I was strong enough for this after all.

  After the hugging and kissing, I realized the room was decorated with balloons and streamers and a big banner over the hearth that said “Welcome Back, Callie! We Love You!”

  Overwhelmed, I accepted a glass of iced tea someone thrust into my hand. Then I sought out a stool at the kitchen counter and sat, wishing suddenly that I could withdraw from the confusion surrounding me. One by one, relatives exclaimed about how much younger I looked with shorter hair, how great it was to have me here, how much they had missed seeing me. Someone asked how I had been, and before I could answer, someone else asked how my flight was. Women set out food and children ran through the room grabbing at streamers, and the best I could manage was to take a deep breath and remind myself that this was family. Enjoy the moment, Callie. These are people who love you.

  In the corner I could see Bryan’s Uncle Rob about to light up a cigar, and I predicted that his wife would catch him at the first puff of smoke and shoo him out the door. Sure enough, she was just chasing him outside when Natalie started sending everyone else into the backyard, asking the women to take the food they had brought and set it up on the picnic tables for an impromptu covered-dish buffet. It was nearly dark, but someone flipped a switch, and suddenly the deck and yard were awash in glowing yellow lights.

  After washing my hands at the sink, I busied myself with putting ice in cups, slowly relaxing enough to enjoy the conversations that ebbed and flowed around me. It was touching, I had to admit, that so many of Bryan’s relatives had wanted to see me when I came. Perhaps, this was easier after all. We could get the social part out of the way this first night, leaving me free to get more work done as the week progressed.

  Once all of the relatives were outside, things quieted down a bit, and I was able to focus on my goal here, which was to evaluate the Webbers’ charity for a grant. I thought about Dean and Natalie Webber and how they had come to be involved with helping migrants in the first place.

  The area in North Carolina where they lived was known as “apple country,” and its rolling hills were dotted with apple orchards both large and small. In fact, there were so many orchards there that at harvesttime there weren’t enough local workers to handle the job of picking all the fruit. That’s why every July and August migrant workers would flood the region, coming north from Texas and Mexico and staying until the harvest was finished at the end of October.

  Bas
ically, the system worked well for everyone concerned. Picking apples was a labor-intensive process, and the window of opportunity for getting the apples off the trees and into storage was actually quite small. The migrants showed up when they were needed, worked inexpensively, and left when they were finished. Also, they were excellent pickers, highly skilled and careful with the fruit.

  Of course, as well as the situation worked, some problems were inevitable. The housing of all of those migrants was a challenge, as were the child care and education of their children. A number of government programs had sprung up in recent years to treat some of these issues, but there were still needs that weren’t being met, and the goal of the Webbers’ organization was to fill in some of the gaps.

  Back when Bryan was just a child, the migrants who came to their area lived in fairly deplorable conditions—usually in tents or in their cars along the creek near one of the bigger orchards. A huge migrant camp sprang up there every year, and even as a kid riding past in the family car, Bryan had been appalled at their living conditions. With no running water, no sewage disposal, and no real shelter, it seemed to him to be the worst kind of existence. When he was much older and studying architecture at college, his senior thesis had involved designing low-cost, functional housing for migrant workers.

  When Bryan passed away, his parents chose to honor his memory by establishing a memorial fund. Keeping in mind the concern their son had always had for the migrants, Dean and Natalie had decided to take a closer look at the different migrant-related charities in the area and choose one where they could make a donation in Bryan’s honor. The more they saw and learned, however, the more they felt compelled to go beyond a simple donation. Dean, in particular, was a “big picture” person, and he could see that there was a need there for one overriding agency to facilitate the operations of the other, smaller agencies. Natalie possessed her own unique set of talents that related to the cause, since she had worked in facilities management for the local community college and knew a thing or two about coordinating different entities under one larger heading. At the same time, I was just starting out with the J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation, and it was almost as though the Lord were putting together pieces of a big puzzle. As I was learning the ropes in my new job with the foundation, Dean and Natalie both retired from their jobs and began their second, much less highly paid careers as executive director and volunteer coordinator of this new agency.

  When I approved the first grant, all they had was their nonprofit status, some solid ideas of where they wanted to go, and an excellent business plan to get them there. Now I was excited to see how their ideas had translated into reality. Knowing them, I had a feeling the place was going to be everything they had hoped it would be, and more.

  Tonight’s party had originally been planned as a way for me to meet the directors of some of the local migrant-related charities that MORE helped to support. Now, Natalie took my arm and began to introduce them to me.

  First was Karen Weatherby, a soft-spoken woman about my age, perhaps a few years older, dressed in a simple, faded cotton dress and slipon flats, her hair pulled back from her face by a beaded headband. Karen was the director of a local education program for migrant children called Go the Distance Learning Center. Though Karen seemed shy, her face lit up and her voice grew stronger as she spoke about her program and the children it served. Karen gave me her card so that we could arrange to meet later this week. She said she was eager for me to see her program in action.

  With her was a fellow in jeans and a flannel shirt, cute in a boyish way, though he had to be at least 35, with brown curly hair and dimples. He introduced himself as Danny Stanford.

  “Danny works for Go the Distance as a volunteer,” Karen explained. “He’s our orchard liaison.”

  “Really? What is that?”

  “Oh, it sounds more important than it is,” Danny said. “I just keep the lines of communication open between the school, the parents, and all the orchards in the area. If somebody has a problem or a question, make connections and smooth things over. I guess you’d say I’m a facilitator.”

  “You must have a lot of connections,” I said, “to do a job like that.”

  “Well, actually, it’s kind of the opposite. I just moved here two months ago. The fact that I don’t have any connections at all probably helps, because then nobody thinks I’m playing favorites.”

  He grinned and winked at Karen, and by her shy blush I guessed that there might be something more between them than simple friendship.

  “So what do you do when you’re not volunteering at Go the Distance?” I asked.

  He took a sip of iced tea and smiled.

  “I work over at Tinsdale Orchards,” he said. “I started out as general farm help, but lately I’ve been training on the forklift.”

  He went on to talk about the different jobs on the orchard, and I found the whole subject of growing apples fascinating. Clearly, there was much more to it than simply planting trees in a row and then picking the fruit when it was ripe! I sipped my own tea and listened as he talked about scabs and grafts and frost watches.

  “I could give you a tour sometime, if you’d like,” he said, and Karen nodded enthusiastically.

  “You really should tour the orchard, Callie,” she added. “It might give you a feel for what the migrants’ work entails. And Danny can explain the ways the migrants are essential to the whole process.”

  I agreed that a tour of an apple orchard might actually be the perfect way to begin my investigation, and we made tentative plans for me to meet Danny at Tinsdale Orchards the next afternoon.

  “While you’re out there,” another man said, “be sure to stop by Su Casa and say hello. Their facility is up behind the orchard.”

  “Su Casa?”

  “A nonprofit organization that builds dormitories for the migrant workers. My father runs it.”

  The man introduced himself as Butch Hooper, owner of Hooper Construction. He was a big man with a booming voice, genial if a bit intimidating.

  “My company works a lot with the Webbers too,” he added. “In fact, we built the MORE facility.”

  “Is Hooper Construction a nonprofit?” I asked.

  “Not intentionally,” he said, laughing.

  Dean joined our conversation, putting one hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “Don’t let Butch kid you, Callie,” Dean said. “He has a very successful construction company. But he always gives a big price break whenever he does work for us or one of our charities.”

  After chatting for a few more minutes, Dean led me around and introduced me to the rest of the people who were there, including the director of services for the migrant clinic and the coordinator of the local Head Start program. All in all, it was an impressive bunch, and I felt honored to be there in my own capacity. All of these migrant-related charities were connected to the Webbers’ charity, MORE. Hopefully, my investigation here would benefit them all.

  We eventually went outside and helped ourselves to the impromptu buffet. As I ate I talked with one person after another, and soon I realized I really had been able to relax. It was good to see everyone and to catch up on all of the family news. One by one, the charity directors finished eating and took their leave, and eventually I realized that all we were left with was family.

  Since it was a school night, those who had children departed right after dinner, and once they were gone things quieted down considerably. As I sat on the porch and took in the smells and sounds of a night in North Carolina, I was hit with a wave of familiarity so raw and so fresh that I might as well have been nine years old again and sitting on the front steps of my cabin at camp. As fireflies blinked in the darkness and gentle waves lapped at the dock, I closed my eyes and went back into the past, wondering how I could’ve survived a full two years without coming here to this place that was like my second home.

  As vividly as if it were yesterday, I could recall the first year I returned to Camp Greenbriar as a junior
counselor, the year I turned 16. Like me, many of the counselors came from other states, but the camp also employed plenty of local teens—including one particularly cute fellow named Bryan Webber. During the afternoon sessions, Bryan was in charge of canoes and I was a swimming instructor, and soon our long hours at the lake together began to blossom into a romance. Among other things, Bryan loved to talk about his big family, his five brothers and sisters, and the new home they were building on the lake, not too far from the camp.

  I couldn’t believe I was at that home now, remembering back to the first time Bryan had brought me here to see it one day during our free period. The camp was close enough that we could’ve walked up the dirt road to get here, but there were always people about, and somehow this was just supposed to be between the two of us. We had come by canoe instead.

  The house was merely framed out at that point, a cement foundation with intermittent boards outlining where the walls would go. I could still picture him once we were here, going from “room” to “room,” describing to me how it was going to look. Even at the age of 16, Bryan already knew he wanted to be an architect when he grew up, and he had an enthusiastic way of describing images and ideas as if they were already a reality. At one point, I gazed up at him as he was talking animatedly about post-and-beam construction, and I thought to myself, I’m going to marry him some day.

  And, eventually, I did.

  Now I was back at that house, where Dean and Natalie Webber still lived even though all of their other kids were now grown with families and houses of their own. Nearby Camp Greenbriar was surely the same little unassuming place it had always been. At this time of year, it would be all closed up, but I hoped to be able to stroll around the grounds while I was in town. At the very least, I thought I might be able to borrow the Webbers’ canoe and paddle past.

  “Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Dean asked, startling me from my thoughts.