She decided she’d never figure Thomas’s puzzle out the day Jim entered the office and walked near her desk to report, “Caleb’s month is up. The doctors approved his return, so he’ll be here in the morning.”
Gloria pondered that a moment. When Heather and Bobby had joined her, Jim, and Clara for lunch after church one Sunday so Clara and Heather could discuss Bible school, Heather tearfully vowed she wouldn’t live the kind of life her mom had with her alcoholic dad. She’d lived without Caleb while he served in the military and could again if needed for her and Bobby’s welfare.
“So Heather’s not taking him back?”
“Caleb will be in therapy and on medication for a while. The doctors don’t think he has an addiction, but he used alcohol to get relief from his pain.” He sighed sadly. “Just caused more pain. But”—he perked up—“there’s a chance that family can be together again.”
A thought seared her brain. “Does Thomas leaving mean I’ll go back to cooking?”
“No, no,” he said. “You’re needed to help with the job fair. The church wants to know if we can take on some additional responsibilities. You know they have representatives coming from all over.”
She knew quite well, since Jim was on the church committee for the job fair and this was an annual event geared especially for the many homeless in DC and surrounding areas. The church secretary already carried a full load. Gloria had helped with correspondence to and from representatives coming from DC, Maryland, Virginia, and some as far away as Tennessee and Georgia.
“The need this year has exceeded all expectations,” Jim said with his eyebrows almost a straight line. “In past years we’ve had an abundance of homeless and unemployed. This year it’s record high.” He shook his head. “Some of our own church members are hurting. Not homeless but threatened with foreclosures.”
His words gave her a shot of reality. Comparatively she had nothing to complain about. But she didn’t even have a house that could be foreclosed. And no family to support either. Assisting with the fair, maybe she wouldn’t feel so much like a piece of furniture good for decoration only. “What can I do?”
“Help our residents who’re able to work and our own church members with résumés. Maybe give some instruction on being interviewed. Many who haven’t been able to get work are desperate and scared. Like Caleb.”
During Jim’s moment of reflection he turned and walked over to sit at his desk. He looked across at her. “This is right up your alley, since you managed a bookstore and have some knowledge of interviewing and résumés.”
“I can help with résumés, thanks to my friend here.” She patted her computer. “But how to be interviewed is a different matter. I hired workers, mostly summer and holiday help, but that was similar to the way I was hired. Another worker knew me. My résumé was being a college student needing a summer job. That extended to holidays. Then the job became permanent after I graduated.” She didn’t bother to mention the district manager had taken a liking to her and recommended promotions. “I don’t know, Uncle Jim. I’ve failed to find a job for supporting myself.”
“You have it up here.” He pointed at his head. “But I wouldn’t expect you to take all this on by yourself. I have a very capable volunteer—”
Volunteer?
At that moment he walked into the office, his brown eyes dancing as if he’d just enjoyed having water sprinkled on his beard.
Amazing what could happen from one moment to the next.
Jim’s request promoted her to the challenge of helping the church secretary with this huge project.
Thomas’s presence demoted her confidence down to reality. She had a strong suspicion she was going to be like Lois, an assistant to a homeless man.
fourteen
Thomas had stopped in the hallway rather than walking in and interrupting Jim and Gloria’s conversation. He considered retracing his steps but realized Jim was explaining the job fair work to be done.
Jim had explained it to him at breakfast. Clara came with Jim, and the three of them ate breakfast together after the men had been fed and went about their activities of job hunting, attending classes, doing yard work, tending to their personal needs the best they could, or for one man, biding time while hoping the natural healing process would take place.
Thomas had been under the impression Clara was in-capacitated but saw that although she wore a shoe boot she otherwise seemed perfectly functional. “Jim told me you’d be making the Southern cream biscuits this morning,” she said, a playfulness about her like he’d seen in Jim and had seen once in Gloria. “I’m jealous and have to find out if they’re tasty as mine.” She huffed and sat at the table. “Jim says you’re making everybody fat.”
“Fat’s not my expertise if I can help it.” He held up his hands. “But this was your recipe, so don’t blame me.”
He served their plates and, at their request, sat down with them. While Clara ate, Lois came over and sat for a while, asking about Clara’s foot and when she was coming back.
“I’m not,” Clara said and then smiled at Thomas, using his words. “If I can help it. I’ve been spoiled since Gloria came to us. I’ve slowed down with this contraption on my foot, but I can still do everything at home. The work here is for younger people like Gloria and Thomas.”
“Is Gloria going to stay?” Lois asked.
“No longer than she has to,” Clara said. They all looked sad at that.
Thomas wondered at the remark about Gloria. Maybe she’d been in an accident and was still recuperating.
Lois touched the petal of a wilting flower. “Has she come in yet? I can fix her a plate.”
“She ate cereal,” Jim said, “then went out to cut some fresh flowers.”
Thomas supposed she’d rather have cereal than find out how his Southern cream biscuits tasted.
“I’ll go ahead and take the wilted ones out of the vases,” Lois said. “But I have to know what you think of Thomas’s biscuits.”
Clara looked down at her empty plate and sighed. “It’s a little soon to tell,” she said reflectively. “The red-eye gravy may have changed the taste. I might have to try another. So, if there are any left, I’ll just take one home for my lunch.”
Ah, of the three women around here he’d like please, this might be two down, one to go. But he warned himself against that kind of thinking. He had a mission, he had a goal, and he wasn’t letting James and his family interfere with that. He certainly couldn’t give in to the temptation of female companionship. Not that he’d been given the opportunity.
Lois left the table to empty the vases. Clara asked Jim how Gloria was getting along with the job fair. She addressed Thomas then. “That was always the most difficult for me,” she said. “So many details, and technology isn’t my forte.”
Jim explained the additional workload. “Gloria and I might be working a few late hours.”
Clara said she understood and patted Jim’s hand. Her kind eyes, in a pleasant face, looked across at Thomas with acceptance. “Thanks for what you’re doing here, Thomas. And”—she paused a moment before saying—“welcome.”
He had a feeling she knew who he was. His confidential conversation with Jim had applied to his purpose not to keep secret Thomas’s identity from his wife. She had every right to know who replaced her and Gloria in the kitchen and stayed in the shelter to which she devoted so much of her life.
“I need to tell you,” Jim said after Clara left to get her biscuit. “Caleb will be released in the morning. Can you pick him up in the truck and bring him here?”
“Certainly,” Thomas said. Anything he could do for Jim or the shelter, he would. He’d borrowed the truck to drive to James’s office for his packages and made a trip to Frank’s office for the small royalty checks he made from reproductions. Frank didn’t ask any questions, but being the dad of James’s wife, he would have been told that Thomas had been wandering around the country and was living in a shelter.
They probably tho
ught he was a lost soul, not knowing his wandering was how he found his soul.
Now that Caleb would be returning, Thomas’s routine would change. Since he wouldn’t be spending nights at the shelter, he would need more than afternoon light and water. He’d need to get the electricity turned on.
He would make that call. And, too, he may not have time in the morning to clean his side of the room that he shared with Sam, so he’d get that done today and take his few personal items from the bathroom. “I’ll go up and take the sheets off the bed and get them into the washer.”
“You have a place to stay tonight?”
“Only a choice of a dozen or so empty rooms.”
Jim smiled knowingly. “The hotel.”
Thomas nodded. “That’s where I’ve been in the afternoons. Oh,” he added, “I’d like to help with the job fair if you can use me.”
Jim looked pleased. “Get the laundry underway and come to my office.”
That’s what led to his standing in the hallway listening to the conversation between Jim and Gloria, after he’d set the sheets to washing.
What surprised him was Gloria’s saying, “I’ve failed to find a job for myself.”
What did that mean? She’s not pleased working here? Is that the reason for the hint of sadness he detected in her?
Maybe God’s landing a job fair in their laps wasn’t just for Thomas’s benefit but Gloria’s. And he was the volunteer Jim mentioned to her.
So he walked into their office.
fifteen
“Pull up a chair, Thomas,” Jim said. “I was telling Gloria you might help with the job fair.”
He unfolded the padded chair propped against the wall and set it in a spot between their desks, so he could easily talk to both. “How can I help you?” he asked Gloria.
“You could tell me. . .” She paused, as if reluctant to ask. “What are your skills?”
Hoping to lighten the tension, he quipped, “Well, I’m a kitchen painter.” Jim chuckled and shook his head like Thomas might be hopeless. Gloria’s glance seemed to reveal no doubt of that. He cleared his throat. “Jim mentioned interviewing. I have a little experience along that line. And I remember how job fairs were handled in college.” He didn’t want to say he also remembered what his dad taught him about it.
“I didn’t attend those. I already had a job I liked,” she said. Her gaze moved to the computer. He wondered if she were surprised a homeless man was educated. Many were. He’d met a professor, with a PhD, in a shelter because of an accusation, later proved false, that put him out of his job and home. Illness without enough insurance to pay the bills, a factory closing unexpectedly, or an investment firm going bankrupt could do it. Or. . .losing a job unexpectedly.
She glanced his way again. “I would start with résumés.”
He nodded. “Get a résumé form and we’ll go from there. Oh, but I’m not available in the afternoons. Not tomorrow morning either.”
“This morning?”
“Sorry.”
“At your convenience,” she said politely, but he detected the edge in her tone. Jim looked amused.
Thomas stood and folded the chair. Standing close to her desk he noticed the sun had highlighted her light brown hair with a hint of reddish-gold. She looked up and pushed her errant wavy lock behind her ear. He strongly suspected those eyes, more gray than blue today and holding a hint of uncertainty, should be replicated. But he’d need to know what lay behind the expression before he could paint it.
Returning thoughts to her now questioning gaze, he quickly explained. “This morning I need to get my room ready and clean the bathroom since Caleb returns in the morning.”
She drew in a sharp breath and looked past him. “Jim, Heather thinks she and Bobby should be at the rehab center to show her support when Caleb’s released. But she wants someone else to be with them in case Caleb demands to go home with them. I know she’ll call and ask me.” She spoke hesitantly. “I want to be supportive of her, but I don’t want to be in the middle of a family squabble.”
“I don’t want that either,” Jim said as Thomas returned his chair to the wall. “The rehab center is releasing Caleb into our custody, so someone from here needs to pick him up. I already asked Thomas. Guess I won’t need you to do that, Thomas.”
Thomas turned to face him. “I’ll be glad to go along. Caleb’s probably embarrassed and needs to know he has friends here. And I can thank him for his bed.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jim said. “You’ll need the car.”
“My little economy car is small,” Gloria reminded Jim.
Jim nodded. “Mine’s bigger. And I appreciate this. I want to be here in the morning when the produce arrives from the community farm.”
Thomas would like to be here for that, too, but he could look at food another time. This would be an ideal time to interview the way his dad taught him. He’d interview Gloria, Heather, and Caleb by listening. Just as they would not ask Caleb about life in a rehab center, they wouldn’t ask what life had been like for a homeless man.
sixteen
People could reveal a lot about themselves in what they might think was only casual conversation. And that group was trying to be casual. Caleb and Bobby related on the child’s level. Thomas watched the traffic and the reflection of women and boy in the rearview mirror, and he managed to let Caleb know the men were looking forward to his return, especially Sam.
Caleb said he’d be in therapy for a while and on medi-cation. He now understood he had an illness that could be cured. Heather had been a cosmetologist until Bobby was born. They’d managed in the one-bedroom apartment until Caleb was discharged from the military. Bobby wasn’t in school yet, she had no one to watch him, so she couldn’t try to get a job. She left unspoken what they all knew. She wouldn’t allow the troubled Caleb to be alone with their son.
Thomas wasn’t surprised to hear Gloria saying she had a degree in business management, considering her expertise when helping Jim in his office, her work with classroom schedules, and her being asked to help the church in an even greater capacity with the job fair. He’d overheard she had managed a bookstore. In the car he learned that a store she managed had been with Walkway Christian Stores, which he knew to be a major chain with several stores in and around DC. He’d seen them in malls.
Heather apparently already knew Gloria’s parents were missionaries in Ecuador and asked about them. Gloria had attended a university in DC to be close to Clara and Jim for holidays and visits. She’d worked in a DC store and moved to the Shenandoah Mountains where she was promoted to manager and shared an apartment with a girlfriend.
“I plan to be interviewed at the job fair,” Heather said. “Some church people have offered to help with Bobby. In a few weeks he’ll be in kindergarten.”
“Maybe somebody at the job fair will give me a job,” Caleb said. “I’ll be glad to do anything.”
When Heather asked Gloria if she was going to be interviewed, Gloria said she would like to but then hesitated. “But I don’t want to take time or a job away from any others. My position in this is to help the others, not myself.”
Thomas thought it time he spoke about that. “Gloria, it wouldn’t be wrong to have a couple interviews of your own. If someone else were more qualified than you, they’d get the job anyway.”
He saw her eyes brighten for a moment. “I suppose that’s right.” In the rearview mirror, he watched her and Heather smile at each other. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
When they dropped Heather and Bobby off at their apartment, Bobby begged his dad to stay, and Caleb explained he was sick right now and needed to be at the shelter. Bobby finally accepted that he could visit his dad there. With that settled, Thomas returned to the center with Gloria and Caleb. Caleb headed to Jim’s office to report in.
Thomas knew Gloria could joke with the workers and volunteers, and she could be spontaneous, loving toward Jim, caring and helpful with the men, friendly with Heather and
Bobby, and conscientious with her job. She was the kind of person anyone would want to be around and quite attractive to look at. She had sparked his curiosity. With him, he thought she was not indifferent. Just. . .wary. Rightfully so. She didn’t know a lot about him. And if she did, she might be even more wary.
The following morning after breakfast he went into the office. Jim said he needed to speak to the RA and had a few other things to do, so Thomas and Gloria could have the office to themselves for a while.
Gloria showed Thomas a couple résumé forms.
“Both these are fine,” he said “But let’s try this one. You go ahead and fill it out.”
“Me? But I’m not going to be interviewed. Why don’t we have Sam or one of the other men do this?”
“Because,” he said, “you’ll be preparing Sam or one of the others to have some idea what to expect in the interview. My job is to”—he decided not to use the word teach —“to suggest to you what you might suggest to them.”
She actually laughed. “You’re being very careful with me, aren’t you?”
“Very,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe she didn’t really enjoy being so. . .careful. . .around him.
She began to fill out the résumé. He walked over to the window and looked out. Maybe he had attended Sunday school in this room as a boy. And his dad when he was a boy, too. His grandmother could have taught in it. His gaze moved to outside the window. A resident was cutting the grass with a push mower. Another was emptying the trash into the bins, partially obscured by shrubs at the end of the side road. There were many jobs the homeless could do if given the chance, options for people such as Caleb who declared, “I’ll do anything.”
He watched a man emptying the trash. A piece of paper fell onto the ground and was blown by the wind. The man hurried after it. When something apparently got caught in the lid, he opened the lid and pushed it down.
A man with the mower backed up to try again at a stubborn weed. It didn’t cut, so he pulled it. This was what his dad taught him to watch for. Take a landscaper out to see the area to be worked. His reaction would tell you what kind of worker he’d be without your asking a question.
A Knight to Remember Page 7
