Chapter 12
Andi
Shannon and I and the others are pleased with how the training goes. Friday night after we’ve thanked the new volunteers, issued them their training completion certificates, signed them up for their first volunteer shifts, and ushered them out the door, we clean up the training room, break out our traditional sparkling grape juice and freshly rewashed plastic wineglasses, and collapse into the chairs recently vacated by the volunteers.
“Too bad we can’t have alcohol in the building.” Shannon holds her wineglass up to the light and watches the bubbles rise.
“You say that every time.” I tilt back in my chair to put my feet up on the table. Every single part of me aches with tiredness.
“I liked this bunch a lot,” says one of the senior volunteers who helped tonight.
“Yeah,” somebody else says. “This bunch didn’t have that one know-it-all like so many groups have.”
Everyone nods. I close my eyes and rub them. As I’d figured, I hadn’t gotten to slip away for any afternoon runs this week and my energy level reflects it. I’m satisfied with the training…and ready to go home to crawl into my bed. I’m not going to do a lick of work this weekend unless I get an emergency call. Might just sleep until noon tomorrow and Sunday both. And then take afternoon naps. Hell, I might go home tonight and sleep until my alarm goes off Monday morning.
But first…nose crinkling, I right my chair and look around. No trash cans nearby, and no visible trash, but something’s really smelly. I open the drawers of the desk next to me against the wall. Peer in, poke around… Nothing.
Shannon nudges my foot with her own without getting up. “What’re you looking for?”
“Whatever stinks. Somebody eat lunch in here and forget to clean up?”
“I don’t smell anything.” Shannon looks to the others and they shrug.
“How can you not smell that? It’s…weird. Unpleasant. Kinda…mildew plus something else icky.” Nothing in this desk, though. And no other furniture nearby.
“You hallucinating again?” Shannon turns away to refill her cup.
One of the senior volunteers holds her cup out for more too. “This was the first time I’ve seen a man in training.”
“Kevin seems like a good guy.” Shannon pours for her. “Quiet. Nice. Asked good questions.”
I abandon my search for stinky stuff and resume my near-napping position. I nod without opening my eyes. “I think he’ll be really good for the kids.” My mind stays on him as the others discuss the strengths of the other new volunteers. Kevin seemed really interested in each part of the training, listening carefully, nodding his head occasionally, taking lots of notes.
I missed getting to talk to him this week, which means it’s probably good that I didn’t. I am far too interested in the man. I’m glad he didn’t seek me out here at the shelter. I need to be completely professional during trainings. Not sure how easy that would have been if he’d been right there where I could feel his body heat and see the warmth in his eyes.
***
As September passes, I wonder if I might be getting burned out. Or maybe a little depressed. It’s harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning. Some days the only reason I run is to see Kevin. I ignore Gram’s yelling. Try to convince myself it’s okay to enjoy his company as long as we’re not dating.
When we run, though, I rarely feel up to my usual distance or speed. Some days I even have trouble making myself go back to work afterward because I can feel my bed calling me home. I do always go back, of course, but it’s difficult.
Wouldn’t be my first go-around with depression. Had a couple of episodes when I was little, and again as a teen. Gram was ready for it. “Perfectly normal,” she’d said. “To be expected, even.” She’d gotten me the help I needed. I didn’t realize until years later that therapy must have put a real strain on her budget. During those periods she didn’t buy as much meat. We ate more rice and pasta and beans and didn’t go out as often. After my therapy sessions, we’d hit the McDonald’s drive-through as a treat, but she wouldn’t get anything for herself; she’d say she wasn’t hungry.
I miss that stubborn, giant-hearted little woman every damn day.
I still have a therapist in Asheville I see occasionally, as needed. Maybe I should make an appointment with her? But…something about that doesn’t fit quite right. Yes, I’m exhausted all the time and tiredness is a symptom of depression, but I don’t have any of the other red-flag symptoms. I’m not feeling blah about work or life in general; I’m just tired. No real changes in appetite or loss of interest in my regular activities. If the way my body and mind react to the sight and scent of Kevin is any indication, my sex drive’s functioning just fine. I’m just…really, really tired.
Maybe I need more iron in my diet.
But also, okay, I’ve been a little emotional lately. I cried over a very sweet yogurt commercial the other night, which is a purely ridiculous thing to do, and I got a little weepy last Saturday when I dropped by work to get a file I needed and glanced out to the patio to see Kevin sitting at one of the picnic tables with a little guy who’s fairly new to the shelter. The little boy was staring miserably at a workbook open in front of him on the table. His head was propped on the hand that held his pencil and he was twisting a short lock of his own hair tightly around his finger. He looked up and said something to Kevin and I could see a sheen of tears in his eyes.
Kevin said something in return, pointing to the lower part of the page, his gesture mimicking an explosion, a dimple showing in his cheek as he almost—but not quite—smiled as he talked. The little boy listened carefully, laughed once, looked back down at the worksheet for a long moment, and suddenly straightened as if hit with an electrical shock. He got his pencil into writing position and scribbled something on the page, then pushed it toward Kevin. Looked up at him with eyes full of hope. Kevin peered at the sheet, then reared back grinning and gave the little boy a high five. Then they both got up and joined some kids who were kicking around a soccer ball in the grass. The little guy’s face was wreathed in smiles.
And I stood at the window crying. Dammit. I’d better make that therapy appointment soon. But…they felt like happy tears.
I don’t know what the hell’s going on with me.
***
“I think I’m halfway in love with our new volunteer,” Pattie says idly late Friday afternoon, putting the day’s mail on my desk and wandering over to peer out the window.
“Oh yeah? Which one?” I’ve got papers spread in front of me and a different spreadsheet open on each of my monitors, comparing last year’s shelter expenses to this year’s for one of the reports required by the state.
“Kevin. I think probably a few of the residents are too.”
That gets my attention. That could be a problem. “You teasing?”
Pattie gives me a half smile. “Well, can you blame them? He’s nice to them, he’s sweet and gentle with their kids, and he looks like… that .” She waves her hand at the window, at Kevin playing soccer with a mixed-age group of kids in the fenced backyard. “Some of the residents have started hanging out at the picnic tables whenever he’s outside with the kids.”
“Do you think they’re worried he’ll do something inappropriate with their children?” Shit.
Pattie rolls her eyes. “I think a couple of them would like to do something inappropriate to him. ”
“He’s not flirting with anybody, is he?” This is dead serious. My own misguided interest in Kevin aside, I can’t let a volunteer mess with the emotions—or the bodies—of residents who are more vulnerable than usual during a stay in the shelter.
Pattie shakes her head. “Nah. He treats everybody the same. Nice, friendly, respectful, platonic.” She injects a butt load of drama into her sigh. “Including me, unfortunately.”
I snort and turn back to my spreadsheets. “We haven’t had this come up before. I should probably talk to him about it. Will you send him in here when he’s getting ready to leave?”
“Sure.” Pattie takes one last look out the window and heads back to the reception desk.
***
Kevin
I don’t know what to think when Pattie catches me on my way out and says Andi wants to see me. My heart gives a stupid little leap of hope, and then my brain mocks it for being dumbass enough to think that she’s going to change her mind about seeing me.
I cross to her office and tap on the doorframe. She raises her gaze from the ocean of paper on her desk. She’s so darn pretty, her face bare of makeup, her dark eyes shining, her wavy hair as always fighting to escape that braid. She’s got a red pen in her hand and a pencil tucked in over one ear… Wonder if she’s forgotten it. Freaking adorable.
Also, immensely capable, fully grown, and not in need of my schoolboy adoration.
“Oh, hey. Come in.” She puts down the pen and waves me to one of the chairs in front of her desk. She gets up to close the door most of the way, then takes a seat facing me in the other guest chair instead of settling back behind her desk in the seat of power.
Today she’s wearing jeans and a loose black shirt with bright woven sandals. Her toenails are the color of sunset. That should not cause any uproar in my body. Definitely shouldn’t make me want to ease off those shoes and nibble on her. Undo a couple of her buttons, slip my hands inside, and warm us both with the friction of touch.
I’m an idiot. A lust-struck, confused, juvenile idiot.
“How are you doing?” Her eyes are friendly. Her smile is faint.
“Good, good. You?” I’m not comfortable enough to cross my legs. Instead I lean forward, elbows on my armrests, my fingers interlocked.
“I’m fine.” She leans forward, just slightly, too. “First, thank you so much for all the good work you’re doing here. I’ve heard that some of the more traumatized kids seem a little calmer and happier after playing with you out in the yard. Some of them are acting out less. And one boy was thrilled with a grade he got on a math test after you helped him prepare for it.”
Well, that does my heart good. “Great!” I can feel a big, silly grin spread across my face.
“So I hope you’re liking it enough to keep coming?”
I nod. “Definitely.” I like younger kids a lot, and the kinds of play and tutoring I do here are different enough from my work with the high school students that I’m not in danger of getting burned out. Some of the little ones are so sweet I can almost hear my biological clock ticking when they reach for my hand or snuggle up next to me at the picnic tables. It’s all I can do not to hug them, but as a volunteer I have to be real careful about stuff like that.
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it. Besides my general, pathetic need for companionship of all kinds, my knees go a little weak whenever I imagine a child calling me “Daddy.” Makes me want to kill whoever made these kids’ homes unsafe for them.
“Good, because we—they—sure need you.” She leans back in her chair, suddenly looking less comfortable.
I brace for whatever’s coming.
“We’ve got kind of an unfamiliar situation I need to talk to you about.” She pauses, frowning down at her hands for a second before meeting my eye. “We’ve only ever had one male volunteer here before, and he looked like a little old Santa Claus and always worked the same shifts as his wife. So he was like a shelter grandpa, you might say.”
“Okay…?” So, suddenly, after recruiting me, she has a problem with me being a man?
“Somebody mentioned to me today that maybe one or two of the women in shelter are developing kind of a crush on you.”
That presses me back in my seat, gobsmacked. “What?”
She tilts her head, flashing me a tiny, brief grin. “Well, think about it. In this country we raise our little girls on princess stories, right? Stories with Prince Charming. So imagine you’re a woman here, and you’ve grown up with that culture but you’ve had to seek shelter because your Prince Charming turned out to be not so charming, and then voilà! Here comes a big, sweet, good-looking man who’s great with kids and always kind to you. What’s not to crush on?”
What the hell? Is it true that women here are interested in me? It makes sense the way she describes it, but…I hardly even interact with the women. Just the kids.
Or…is she only talking about the residents? Could she be telling me something about her own feelings? Down, stupid heart. There’s zero evidence to support that hope, and almost two full months of words and clues refuting it. But she did just call me a big, sweet, good-looking man, so…
I resist an urge to shake my head like a wet dog to see if it’ll help me make sense of this. “I—Wow.”
She’s watching me closely. “So it occurs to me that you might have some experience with this from your teaching. You’ve probably had parents show interest in you every now and then, haven’t you?”
I try to focus on the question and not on the way the late-afternoon sun through her window edges her smooth cheekbone with gold. I clear my throat. “A couple of times I did wonder about messages I was getting, I guess. It’s a thing teachers have to deal with sometimes.”
“What’s a teacher supposed to do if that happens? Is there, like, an ethical code you’re supposed to follow?” She looks a little more comfortable in this less personal territory.
“I think some schools have policies about it. You know, forbidding relationships between teachers and parents of their students. A lot of teachers have strong feelings about it themselves. Some say they’d never do a relationship with a parent, period. Others are okay with it as long as the parent’s child is no longer in their class and there aren’t any younger kids coming up in the family who are likely to be in their class.”
“How do you feel about it?” She cocks her head, studying me.
“I… Gosh. Haven’t had to make that call.” I blow out a breath, looking at the ceiling. “I think I’d probably fall in that second camp. I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it if the child was no longer in my class and didn’t have siblings who would be later.”
“Okay.” She plucks the pencil from behind her ear and turns it over and over in her fingers. “Now think about the women here. You meet them when they’re at a crisis point in their lives. Things have gone really wrong, and lots of things are up in the air for them. If they have kids, that’s a whole other layer of worry and responsibility at a time when they might not have many resources. Some are recovering from physical injuries, and they almost all have psychic wounds, at very least.”
She pauses to let that sink in. “We haven’t had any attractive young guys volunteer here before, so we don’t have an established policy. Which isn’t good. Really, we need one for all volunteers, not just men. I need to write one, I guess. But I thought we should talk about it today. Come to an understanding. I’m sorry to embarrass you.”
It’s true, my face is hot, but I’m not sure it’s from embarrassment. Did she just call me an attractive young guy? I’m the thirty-five-year-old man she turned down months ago.
“So knowing what you know now about our residents, what do you think the policy I write should say?” She’s abandoned the pencil. Now her fingers are intertwined in her lap.
Distractions aside, I’m solid on the ethics of this issue. “It would be wrong for a volunteer to get involved with a shelter resident. Absolutely wrong while they’re in residence, and probably also wrong after they leave shelter. There’s just a, I don’t know, power or resource difference that would probably never go away. The relationship would always be unbalanced. I’d make a policy prohibiting it.” Darn, she’s good. She didn’t have to tell me to do—or not do—anything. She got me to state it myself.
She nods. “Your instincts are great. That’s the policy I’m going to write.” Her dark eyes settle on me. I can see faint shadows under them. Fatigue? Stress? “Some volunteers come in with a rescue fantasy, and I’m thinking any possibility of romance would only tangle that up more.”
I nod. “Yeah.” Teachers know a lot about rescue fantasies.
She slaps her hands on the arms of her chair and stands up. I catch her scent; today it’s soap and something spicy, like cloves. I want to tug her down onto my lap, cuddle her curvy body to mine, and nibble on her, but instead I stand too.
She smiles up at me. “Okay, then. Thanks for talking to me and for understanding. It seemed important that we…have this talk since I know you’re still pretty new to town and were feeling…” Her voice trails off and she looks less comfortable again. “…lonely not too long ago. It would be easy for you to be tempted… Well. Never mind. You doing okay?”
Awkward. Wow. I’m probably bright red again. That’s such a good look. I sigh. “I’ve met some really nice people. Mostly through the high school. Been Steve’s wingman a couple of times.”
She laughs. “That dog. You should make him be your wingman too sometimes. It’s only fair.”
“Yeah…no. I’m not…really interested in that.” And I sound pathetic. “I do some exploring. Drive around, try new places. You know, trying to get used to being here.”
She searches my face, serious now. “Does it help make up for being away from your family?”
I can lie to save face, or I can be honest. “Well, I don’t mind having a little more time to myself than I did in Nebraska. But I eat more meals alone than I’d like. Steve’s not much for just hanging out and talking.”
She nods, looking more sympathetic than pitying. “I know that feeling. My best friend recently got into a really great relationship. I’m glad she has this guy—he’s the love of her life, for sure, and a really great person—but I miss having a dinner-date friend.”
Ohhh, crap. This is a Very Bad Idea, but I can’t hold the words back. “Look, I know you said you don’t want to date, but if you ever feel like grabbing dinner or doing something on a weekend, let me know. I’ll probably be free.” My hand, which for some unfathomable reason I’d raised as if to reach out to her, hovers in the air before I force it back down to my side.
I’ve never made a first move before. Even as a friend. It’s awful. Terrifying.
Suddenly I see back into my past, through a long line of friends and girlfriends—all the way back to second grade—all of whom approached me first. Vanilla Kevin never risked rejection by being the first to signal interest. That realization feels pretty awful too.
I can’t read her expression as she studies me.
“Are you asking me as a date or as a friend?”
“Friend. I heard what you said. I know you don’t want more.”