“Did you hear about the big hiring they are doing over at that construction site down on…” she heard a couple of the social workers talking.
“Isn’t that the one run by the Joy Foundation?” Robyn interrupted to ask, joining in whether they wanted her input or not.
“Yeah, I think it is. Something about putting the homeless back to work.”
“You think these bums want to work?” the other whispered in a naughty way.
“That’s not kind, and don’t call them bums,” Robyn chastised the caseworker, knowing they were just joking, but finding it unkind. “They want to pull themselves up, but how can they if they can’t get jobs? This way they are also building their own homes.” She realized she was quoting Joy and was proud of it.
“How do you know so much about it?” she was asked.
“Oh, I heard something about it. I think when it’s further along they are going to do a press conference or something…” she trailed off, realizing she was sharing information that Joy might not want out there. She thought some more about the job that Joy had mentioned. There would be a need for social workers, psychologists, and others to help run the facility as well as get these people back on their feet and on the right track.
“I don’t understand how they are going to accomplish that. Some of these people don’t want to work,” their naysayer was a cynical old fool.
“But most just need a break to start over. The soup kitchens aren’t helping them do anything but get by. I say if someone is willing to give them a job, then that’s a step in the right direction.”
“I heard they are building them homes,” Robyn put in, wanting to keep them in a positive frame of mind about the project. Joy was right, she had thought it over. Providing them with a home first and a way to pull themselves out of their situation was a step in the right direction. Then they could deal with their issues. She also realized that Joy was not taking credit for the idea. She had clearly stated she had heard about it in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada and followed up on it. She had also watched a video on hydroponics and clearly added it into the plans for her own village. She freely admitted the ideas were others’ and she had just provided the place and funds to initiate it. Her perspective on this woman had really changed.
During the next week, word went out among her fellow social workers and those who helped the homeless at the shelters that there was work to be had at the site. The Joy Foundation was putting people back to work. They were building homes for the homeless and providing jobs and on-the-job training for those who wanted it. Skills could be acquired, and if you already had some, they would be utilized. It transformed some of the people who came for a handout.
“I can get a job and they have childcare,” one mother was overheard saying enthusiastically.
“I never did a day’s paid work in my life. It’s how we ended up here when Stanley lost his job,” one mother said. “They asked if I’d taken care of my kids, and of course I did! Then they said I could work toward taking care of others’ kids and did I think I could handle that. They had solutions where all I could see was problems. Stanley was even offered a job learning how to do construction. They offered it to me if I was so inclined, but I chose taking care of the kids!”
Robyn smiled as she saw a definite improvement in the attitudes of many people who had been lucky enough to get a job at the site. Rumors abounded about them starting up another site soon and needing just as many people. Rumors that it was all a con also went around, but the overall positive feel outweighed the naysayers.
“Hello?” Robyn answered her phone, unfamiliar with the number that came up on the screen, her tone frosty.
“Hi, did I catch you at a bad time?” the smooth tones of Joy Parker came through the line and Robyn sat up a bit. She was sitting down for a break after helping with the soup kitchen. The quality of food had improved with the supplies that Joy’s Foundation had begun supplying again on a regular basis, including the hot chocolate.
“No, not at all,” she answered, feeling thrilled to be hearing from the leggy blonde since she had left that message a week ago.
“Sorry not to call sooner, but I’ve been swamped coordinating this thing,” she explained. “It also occurred to me that you did not have my phone number.”
“I called your foundation and left a message,” she explained.
“You did?” she asked, surprised. “I did not get the message! I wonder what other messages I haven’t been getting?” she wondered angrily, making a note.
“I figured you were busy. The buzz around the shelters was that you were busy,” she let her off the hook.
“Yes, I am, but that doesn’t mean I was not thinking about you or that I didn’t want to see you,” she confessed. “What are you doing this Friday? Want to try another restaurant and maybe see a band play or something?”
“Sounds great, formal or casual?” she sounded teasing.
Joy smiled into her phone. “Let’s stick to casual, I kind of like that. Formal sounds like a fundraiser and black tie.”
“Well, I don’t have a black tie,” she confessed, still teasing the blonde.
They went out again that Friday, enjoying each other’s company and finding music playing in the open air down in one of the parks. Joy laughingly gifted Robyn with a black bow tie, a pin on, in a gilded box. They both enjoyed the humor of the gift. They casually brushed up against each other, their shoulders rubbing now and then as they touched. Robyn caught Joy looking down at her time and again, smiling, and Joy caught Robyn looking out the corner of her eyes at her too.
That night Joy made sure to give Robyn her cell phone number as she walked her to the door. She had it on a business card, ready to hand her. Robyn surprised her by giving her a peck on the lips in good night. It had a delicious, tingly feel to it and she walked bemusedly back to her car, her stride had a decidedly springy touch to it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
They dated twice a week for a few weeks without progressing beyond the good night kiss and both were a little stymied as to how to advance beyond it. Joy noticed that Robyn had not invited her back into her house and did not ask her about it, figuring that was her business. Robyn noticed that Joy had never invited her to her place and wondered at that.
“Do you want to go to Summerfest?” Joy asked Robyn as they played miniature golf, a game that really amused her after having played real golf, on some very famous courses with her friends in Europe. She was not very good at either, but she always enjoyed herself.
“That sounds like fun,” Robyn answered as she lined up her ball, but the windmill blade hit it back at her. “Shit,” she exclaimed and then covered her mouth, realizing she had sworn. She looked around to see if any children had heard her.
Both women laughed. “Now, now,” Joy twitched a finger at the brunette. “Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?” She lined up her own ball and shot.
“I don’t kiss my mom, not too often anymore,” Robyn confessed before she could think. Then she tried to laugh it off, but Joy slowly looked up at her with a questioning look.
“Has your mom passed away?” she asked, sounding concerned. They had not talked about too many personal things.
“She might as well have.”
“What does that mean?”
Robyn shrugged, looked away, and then, “My mom has early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s kind of sad and I really don’t like to talk about it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. We do not have to talk about it if you do not want to,” she agreed and then waited for Robyn to pick up her ball and take her shot. “What day would you like to go to Summerfest?” she asked to change the subject.
“Well, I’ll have to see about getting a sitter for mom if we will be out all day,” she answered as she lined up her ball and tried again. Again, the windmill blade shot it back at her. “Dammit,” she hissed lower, cognizant that there were children around.
“I did not know she lived with you. What do you do when we
go out?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“My friend Callie comes by or my brother occasionally. It’s only fair, so I can get out. During the day, she goes to an adult center for seniors. It’s a community center so they don’t really charge, but it isn’t really that safe. She could wander off, so last year I got a GPS tracker for her wrist.”
Joy’s heart was breaking for her friend. That had to be so hard, but before she could express herself, she turned and went after her ball to take her next shot while Robyn tried a third time to get her ball past the windmill. This time it was deposited down by Joy’s ball. After a while, Joy felt compelled to fill the silence. “We could take her with us,” she offered.
Robyn smiled. “That’s really kind of you, but it could be a hassle and we couldn’t stay out late; she might get confused. Although,” she looked up at the windmill, contemplating, “They say music stimulates the brain.” She was referring to the fact that Summerfest had a lot of musical bands playing.
“We could go, take her with us for the day, then take her home and go back,” Joy offered. She knew from her friends how important families could be. Her own had been garbage, but that did not mean she did not know how it could be.
“That’s a lot to ask of you,” Robyn mused.
“That’s okay, I would like to meet your mom,” Joy answered as she took her next shot and got it in the cup.
“What about your own?” she felt brave enough to ask.
Joy frowned momentarily, watching as Joy lined up her own ball for her final shot. “My mom died with my dad when I was fourteen. I thought I told you that?”
Robyn missed her shot and looked up in concern, unintentionally putting her foot in her mouth. “No, you never told me. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
Joy shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
Robyn stood up straight, looking her right in the eye. “Yeah, but it still hurts. I can hear it in your voice,” she put up her hand to stop Joy from protesting. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Thanks,” she answered and went to retrieve her ball, sorry that it had come up. The atmosphere between them had turned sad. Discussing Alzheimer’s and the death of her parents was not a lovely and romantic talk between two women who were trying to get to know each other better, but still, it had to come out eventually.
That evening was a bust for them both, still, they had a good time the next time they went out, playing video games in an arcade. At the dance machine, Robyn proved to be pretty good and then was surprised when the usually staider Joy joined her and swept the floor with her moves. “Oh, my God, how’d you get so good?” she panted after one lively number. They were both taking a break, giving someone else a chance to use the two-person machine.
“I took lessons,” Joy confessed, breathing hard as she leaned back on a bench, her hands leaning over the back.
“When you were little?” she asked, surprised, trying to imagine Joy as a little girl taking ballet.
She shook her head. “A little, but I sent myself to ballet when I was twenty and they taught me the social graces like the waltz at…” she halted a moment, realizing how much she had been about to reveal about herself. She’d never told anyone this much, even about her parents. She felt so comfortable with Robyn that she had let down her guard.
“At…?” she asked to encourage her.
“School,” she finished lamely. She was not lying, she just did not want to admit to this woman that she had sent herself to charm school, even discreetly labeled as finishing school. She had gone, and while she was not embarrassed by it, it sounded pretentious. She had enjoyed dating Robyn and did not want to put her off.
“What school teaches that?” she nodded towards the electronic device they had just stopped pumping quarters into.
Joy laughed, relieved that she was not asking about school, not really. “That is improv and a lot of watching others perform,” she admitted. “They gave me the basics and we enjoyed ourselves after hours.”
“We?”
“Me and my school chums,” she smiled in remembrance.
“Where’d you go to school?”
Suddenly Joy saw where this conversation was going and did not like it. “I told you I grew up here in Milwaukee,” she said as she rose from the bench, stretching and hoping the brunette would drop it.
Robyn sensed her unease. Certain aspects of Joy’s past were an enigma. Joy didn’t want to talk about it and Robyn respected her privacy, but the more she got to know about the woman, the more she wanted to know. She dropped the subject by challenging her to a game of Ms. Pac-Man.
The dates were mostly shared. One time Robyn would pay, and one time Joy would pay. Joy tried to pay more often, but discreetly, so Robyn wouldn’t notice. The brunette was not stupid. She realized that Joy had money, she had to if she ran the Joy Foundation that owned the centers she worked at three times a week as well as the project she was undertaking to build houses for the homeless. She had made up a scenario in her mind that Joy’s family somehow had money and she was working for them, but her parents being dead put a damper on that fantasy.
Summerfest, an eleven-day festival of music, booths, and people on the lakefront in Milwaukee, was crowded, hot, and fun. It featured eight hundred bands and over ninety thousand people. Meeting Robyn’s mother Julia was a treat. Robyn had told her mother who was playing and her mother, in a rare moment of clarity, was looking forward to the event. She remembered one of the ‘old’ bands and was humming the music as they drove towards the lakefront. As they drove down, the traffic became horrendous. When Joy tried to turn away from the flow into a parking garage, the cops flagged her down. Rolling down her window, she listened to him.
“This is parking for residents only,” he told her, trying to signal to traffic behind her to go around.
“I live here,” she told him and pointed to a sticker on the window.
“Oh, of course. Go ahead,” he said, embarrassed, and backed off, going back to direct traffic.
“You live here?” Robyn asked, surprised. She looked around. The parking garage was the bottom five floors of a newer high-rise that had gone up on the lakefront. It had made a lot of people angry, saying it was ruining their view of the lake.
“Yeah, I told you I rented a furnished apartment,” she commented as she adroitly drove around the garage looking for her assigned spot.
“Yes, you did,” she murmured, wondering once again as she saw the expensive cars parked in the garage.
“I thought this would be easier than trying to park down by Summerfest. You do not mind the walk, do you?” she directed this last part to Julia, to include her in the conversation.
“No, no I don’t mind,” she said as she looked out the window at the uninteresting cars. “Where’s the park?”
“It’s down by the lake a couple of blocks,” Joy promised. She was soon at her spot and backed into it so her sticker faced out and anyone checking could easily see it. “Everyone have hats? Water?” she asked as she got out of the car.
“I didn’t bring either,” Julia confessed, suddenly worried.
“That’s okay, I brought extra,” Joy responded cheerfully as she unlocked her trunk and brought out some ridiculous hats, large and floppy with flowers around the crown. “This will keep the sun off your skin,” she said brightly as she handed them each one.
Robyn looked at hers and rolled her eyes as she laughed. It would indeed keep the sun off. “We’ll have to take them off when we actually watch the concert,” she teased.
“I got these neat water bottles. They have filters inside and I filled them with water and ice this morning,” she showed her companions. They had a neat little loop on them to hook them on a person’s wrist or belt.
“That’s a good idea,” Julia stated as she looped hers through her belt.
“That is,” Robyn agreed as she took the one Joy handed her.
They were soon on their way walking to the elevator and down to the ground floor, joini
ng the steady flow of people walking down to the Henry Maier Festival Park where Summerfest was held. Joy handed their entry tickets to the gate ticket attendant and they were soon inside. They had a blast as they viewed the many booths and made their way steadily toward the main stage where the band was playing. Julia even danced with the two women as they sang along to the band along with hundreds, sometimes thousands of others. As the hot summer sun beat down on them, they were grateful for their floppy hats that helped them keep each other in sight, as well as the water bottles that they refilled at a bubbler when they were empty.
“Oh, my darlings, I have to say that was a delightful afternoon,” Julia gasped as they sat on a bench hours later.
“That was fantastic—good music, good friends,” Joy toasted her companions with her water bottle before taking a slug of water.
“Oh, this has been great,” Robyn agreed, seeing her mother happy for the first time in a long time. Joy had been particularly attentive to her, and Julia had lapped up the extra attention as her God-given right. She’d had no episodes, but Robyn could see her stamina flagging and suggested they head back.
“Yeah, that walk uphill is going to fatigue me,” Julia stated dramatically.
“Do you want me to get the car and meet…” Joy started, but Robyn waved her off.
“If we take it slow, we can all walk it,” she insisted. She knew her mother was tired, but not that tired.
“I do not mind…” Joy started again, but Robyn interrupted again.
“Let’s see how far we can go.” She said it with so much meaning that Joy looked at her oddly. “Mom, do you think you can make it to the gate?” she asked, as though very concerned.
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