Chapter Fourteen
G ia entered her code on the keypad at the back door of the community rec center and then went to clock in. Today she would be supervising twelve second graders as they participated in a culinary arts class—also known as cupcake baking from a box mix—in preparation for the center’s patriotic version of cupcake wars. From there she was supposed to take a turn in arts and crafts, and finish her day as a judge for the Fourth of July door decorating contest.
She would love every minute of it.
She put her lunch in the refrigerator and greeted other employees who milled around the staff kitchen area.
“Hey, Gia,” someone said. “Coach was asking if you’d come in yet. He’s probably still up in the office.”
She checked her watch. She wasn’t late, and she’d only been employed for nine days. If she was in trouble, she didn’t know why.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll try and catch him there.”
Coach was tall—like professional basketball player tall—and he always had a whistle around his neck. Some female staff said he was an attractive cross between Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and Gia wondered who had time at work to do such specific facial analysis.
She’d seen Coach in passing the last three days, but they’d only spoken briefly twice. Though he was her direct supervisor and the man in charge of the youth department, it was the executive director who’d hired her on the spot while Coach was on vacation. Perhaps he wanted to get to know her better. Those second grade pastry chefs were his responsibility, after all. One should know who’s keeping an eye on them.
He spotted her through the glass doors of the youth services suite and waved her in as he disappeared into his own private office.
Misty, the eighteen-year-old behind the receptionist desk, waved at her too. “Wait up, Gia.” She stretched toward a box behind her. “Here are the two staff t-shirts you ordered. One pink and one green.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” she said. “There’s also a box of used shirts in the lunch room. They’re from staff who have quit. Help yourself.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I think it’s full if you know what I mean.”
Gia nodded. “Awesome, thanks.”
“Is that mineral powder foundation you wear? Your skin is always glowing. But in a good healthy way. Not in an oil slick way.”
Gia absently touched her cheeks. If she was glowing, it was because mini white-hot hormonal volcanos were shooting fire out of her pores. She read this could soon be followed by a pregnancy zit explosion to end all zit explosions.
Yaaaayyyyy...
“Thanks for the compliment, but I don’t wear much makeup to work. It melts off my face in the heat. It’s probably my tinted sunscreen.”
“Misty,” Coach called. “Everyone else has work to do. Don’t you?”
Misty made a face and put her hand on her computer mouse. “Yes, sir.”
Coach, who was probably around forty-years-old, stood and greeted her with a cordial handshake and motioned for her to sit. She spotted her resume on his desk. He picked it up and looked at it and then studied his laptop screen for a few more seconds.
“So,” he said and leaned back in his chair. “How is it we snagged you away from Towering Pines in the middle of the summer?”
Well . It wasn’t exactly a trick question, but...
His hearty laugh was too loud for the little room. He tented his fingers in front of him. Yes, she was sure the man could palm a basketball, maybe two.
“Let me rephrase that.” He looked at her resume again. “You are overqualified for the position the executive director hired you for. I’ve got three emails here from other staff who have spotted you doing something phenomenal with the kids and were so impressed they had to share it. That doesn’t happen around here, Gia, especially in a short amount of time. I’ll be honest. This place is a mess. I took over this department a year ago and it’s been slow going. Good employees are hard to find and keep with what we can pay. Granted, I have some key staff who uphold the standard and make us look good, but this is a hard population and community to serve. Some of these kids don’t have a safe place to sleep or enough food. So again, being brutally honest, a professional like you could work anywhere. Why here?”
“Well, sir—”
“Coach is fine.”
“Well, Coach.” She shifted in her chair. “Honesty, right?”
“Speak freely.”
“All right. First of all, I don’t believe you can be over qualified to work with kids. That’s never made sense to me. How can you know too much to handle a six-year-old? As for Towering Pines, I wish I could have finished the summer. I miss it. I enjoyed taking the lead there, training staff, and helping develop ideas, but I’m recently married, and my husband’s home is here. The timing was right to make the move. It would have been my last summer anyway. There’s not a full-time job with benefits for me there.”
“Congratulations on your marriage. I didn’t know you were a newlywed.”
“Thank you. Regarding my work here, I needed a job, and no one else made an offer. I love to work with children. In fact, I intend to continue my education and specialize in children’s psychological care.”
“There are occasionally other positions in our system here. Program coordinators, things of that nature.”
“I know. I’ve applied, and now I have my foot in the door as they say. Maybe something will open up.”
“Anything with city, county, or federal funds moves slow, but don’t give up.”
“I won’t.”
“There’s another reason I wanted to visit with you.”
“Yes?”
“How are you with angsty thirteen-year-olds?”
Gia laughed. “My specialty. Why?”
He scooted his chair forward and moved his laptop aside so he could rest his arms on his desk. “I wasn’t on vacation last week. Wanted to be, but my wife and I had to travel to Tennessee with our seven and nine-year-old daughters to move my nephew back with us. At least temporarily.”
“I see.”
“It’s a bad situation. My sister is either not able or not willing to give him the care he needs. He sustained some major injuries two years ago in a car accident that killed his biological father. There are some physical disabilities, but he should be participating in his own care and his own life a lot more than he is. He has shut down.”
“Is he enrolled in any of the scheduled activities for the day campers?”
“Not yet. I’ve brought him to work with me a couple times in hopes he’d make friends and want to take part, but so far, he’ll only hang in that game room. This whole building is ADA compliant. We don’t have any specific programs for kids with disabilities, but we don’t turn anyone away providing they can safely participate. Believe me, Ty could participate if he wanted to.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“With your permission, I’d like to schedule you to work with that age next week. I’m going to insist he come here with me. I’m hoping you can observe him, maybe try to draw him out and let me know your professional opinion of his behavior.”
Gia scanned her brain for questions. The community center was not an overnight Christian summer camp. Most activities were co-ed, and the kids went home by six o’clock. She could easily interact with Ty.
“I appreciate the candidness of our conversation and the confidence you have in me. I’ll try my best, but Ty is an angry, adolescent boy. He might do well with someone like himself, a guy, someone he can identify with.”
“Understood. I’ve already spoken to a young man on staff who might relate.”
“How is Ty’s relationship with you? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Not at all. I have two daughters who think they are princesses. Ty was always my little buddy. He’s been with my family a lot. We used to spend hours on the basketball court. Now it reminds him of things he thinks he can’t do anymore.” He checked his watch. “Speaking of that, I’m late to referee a game. We can talk about it more on the way if you like.”
“Not necessary. I’ll do what I can.”
“I appreciate that, Gia. Glad you’re here.”
“No problem. What exactly is Ty’s disability?”
“He has an incomplete spinal cord injury and uses a wheelchair. Do you have any experience with that?”
GIA STARTED THE CAR after work and lowered the windows. Clouds of steamy heat billowed out. Her phone rang as she waited for the AC to blow cold air and overtake the blazing afternoon sun.
It was Rocky, and he wanted to know if she was talking and driving. There had been a lively discussion the night before where she admitted to talking to her mom a lot on the way to and from work. She also admitted tapping out the occasional text while at a stop light. The whole thing ended with her all but promising she would not touch her phone while the car was in motion. She had a sneaky suspicion he didn’t follow his own rule.
“No, I am not driving. Are you talking and driving?”
“Yes, but it’s actually my truck calling you so it doesn’t count. My phone’s in my pocket.”
“How does it not count? You still could be distracted from driving while having this conversation.”
“How was your day?”
“The most incredible thing happened. You won’t believe what my boss talked to me about. It’s such a God thing. It has to be. I mean, who else could arrange it so two completely unrelated people and places and situations could cross paths? It’s like God placed me at this job at the same time this other person would be here. And he’s facing issues I was familiar with because of all my work with children, but still didn’t have any real experience with until recently. And now I have a close resource I can get information from and maybe actually help this person. I always believed God was closer to our daily lives than a lot of people think. Some people think God is often hands-off and lets us learn with our own choices and consequences. I believe that’s true sometimes, but I also believe when God really wants to move, he gets right in there and shuffles things for his glory and uses us the way He wants to get things done. Like us, for example, look how you and I got together. I still can’t believe how God orchestrated all that and what he did today.”
There was a pause.
“Rocky?”
“I’m here. I don’t know how you can accuse me of talking and driving when you haven’t let me say a word.”
She hung up on him.
He rang back in mere seconds.
“Sorry,” he said. “I really can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“Are you on your way back from camp? How was your talk?”
“I am. Talk was good. I saw Rebekah and did what you asked.”
“Was she shocked? Is she coming?”
“No, not really shocked. Yes, she is coming this weekend to the wedding reception. Yes, she will keep her mouth shut. Does she always behave like she’s had too many energy drinks?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Rocky? What is it? I need to put the car in drive and get home, but I can tell something’s on your mind.”
“There was mail for you.”
“Oh.” She turned the vent to blow cold air directly on her face. “I’m not worried about it. It’s evidence now. I’m safe, you’re safe... We’ll deal with it however we need to.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said. “And uh...”
“What?”
“You’re not thinking anymore about doing what we talked about are you?”
“I haven’t ruled it out, Rocky. Especially now. I still maintain the letters are his way of toying with me because he thinks I don’t know. He thinks I never put it together because of the drugs he gave me. He thinks he got away with something and scrambled my brains. For my own sanity I need to face him and say hey, I know what you did, the police know what you did...”
“Promise me you would never do that without me.”
“I can’t promise that. You can’t be there for this. I have to do it. That rapist doesn’t get to know who you are. He doesn’t get to have knowledge of anything else that’s mine. All I can promise is that I will stay safe. I’m not putting myself or this baby in any danger.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up when you’ve clearly had a great day otherwise. Don’t think about it anymore. I’ll see you when I get home.”
“OK. Take your time but hurry.”
Gia headed home with the knowledge of the letter strangely lightening her mood. She could stop beating herself up for the impulsive destruction of the previous mail. Now she had another chance to use it for the future protection of nameless and faceless college girls by adding its existence to her statement. It didn’t matter if she read it or not. It only mattered because it connected the crime against her to the criminal who perpetrated it. And once she faced the slimy jerk, she could finally put it all behind her.
She arrived at the house and inched her car toward the curb to avoid the trash can. She dragged it and the recycling bin from the street to the garage door and left them there until Rocky got home to put them away.
She looked over, and Rocky’s ex-and-still-bitter-girlfriend was staring at her with her hands on her hips.
Gia smiled and waved. “Hello, Mrs. Konchesky.”
“Hello,” she responded coolly and adjusted her wide-brimmed garden hat. She glanced at the can and shook her head as she turned away.
“That’s great,” Gia mumbled. “Now she thinks I’m too lazy to put things back where they belong. Would if I could, you mean old lady, would if I could.”
She opened the front door and immediately noticed a blast of heat. “Oh Lord, please, we do not need an air conditioner repair.” She stretched to hold her hand under the closest vent. It was blowing cold air, and the unit was chugging along as usual. She rounded the corner into the kitchen and noticed the door to the garage was standing wide open. Waves of warmth from the un-air-conditioned space wafted into the kitchen. Someone could have broken in, but she remembered seeing Rocky’s giant TV as she passed through. Nothing else was out of place. It simply must not have closed all the way when Rocky left through it that morning.
She rushed to push it closed, then stopped to scan the room from her own side of the door. Beams of filtered light cascaded through the narrow strip of decorative windows at the top of the metal garage door and rested on... Nearly nothing.
Humph . Worried she would get hurt. Lies.
Was it wrong if she only accidentally saw things and didn’t purposely go against his wishes? Especially when his story about the dangerous clutter was more than an exaggeration of the truth.
The exercise equipment Bev talked about sat on one end, and sure, there were boxes and plastic storage containers stacked along the wall, but there was no danger. The other end contained neat and shiny tool chests and a peg board with extra long hooks held an assortment of bicycle helmets and gloves. There were other fancy tools. She knew he liked to work on cars, but she was sure there were NASCAR garages that weren’t this well equipped.
Then there was the tarp. The large blue cover rested on a bulky pile of something big enough to take up one whole corner. She strained to take a look and saw only what looked like wheels poking out from one side.
“This is ridiculous,” she yelled at the ceiling as she stormed the pile. “I’m only a hormonal human, and I wouldn’t even be out here if that jacked-up door hadn’t been open!”
But now that she was, why not turn on a light?
She flipped the switch and pulled the corner of the tarp.
And had no idea what she was looking at.
There were wheels and tires in varying sizes, a pile of cables, and several metal parts she didn’t recognize. Two seats rested against each other with a stack of unopened boxes on them with labels that read cassette , shifter , or brake . Large brightly colored metallic pieces reminded her of the front forks of the mountain bikes at camp, or possibly a go kart frame. But if there was a whole bicycle or go kart in the pile, she couldn’t see how it all went together. Especially since none of the parts were typical bicycle or go kart size.
Now she was ashamed, but mostly confused.
She flipped off the light. “Oh, Rocky. If this is what you’re hiding, you shouldn’t have bothered. I don’t know what it is anyway.”