I glared at him. I didn’t want to hear any comments about my lumpy chair and its comfort, or lack of. “You said something about my sense of humor. What did you mean by that?”
“Nothing...” He trailed off, since it was pretty clear he had, in fact, meant something. “Just, you know, the water bottle and the chair, I’m sure it didn’t feel good at the time, but you gotta find the humor in something like that, right?”
He thought I was a humorless shrew. I pressed my lips together and did my best to curve them upwards in to a smile. “Ha. Ha. Ha.” I pulled out the folder of papers I’d gathered earlier in the afternoon and set it in front of him. “As long as you’re sitting at my desk, you might as well fill out this paperwork for me. Police background check, liability waiver, et cetera.” I handed him a pen.
“No problem,” said Dominic, taking the pen from me. His fingers brushed mine briefly, and I was surprised at how warm they were. He’d only been inside a few minutes, and it was cold out. My hands were always cold. “Hey, if I had to sit in this chair all day, I’d probably be in a bad mood too.”
“Aw, Natalie’s good people, now Dominic.” said Ryan. I guess the fact that I worked around the corner from him five days a week meant he realized having me mad at him would make his life worse than having Dominic Rosetti annoyed with him. “Most of the time, anyway.” He winked at me.
I rolled my eyes and took back the folder of paperwork from Dominic. “Let’s go meet Claudia and Jerome,” I said. I started walking, and Dominic jumped up from my inadequate chair, called a quick goodbye to Ryan over his shoulder, and jogged after me.
I found Jerome upstairs, fixing a bathroom sink, and introduced us to Jerome. He seemed a bit annoyed to be interrupted, so I cut the conversation short and went looking for Claudia. I didn’t spend much time on the second and third floors, where the private bedrooms and bathrooms for our residents were located, but as we were coming down the stairs from the third floor we ran in to Claudia coming up, holding the hand of little Lillian Wachowski, an adorable little toddler dressed in pink leggings and a sparkly t-shirt, her blonde curls pulled up in two sassy pigtails.
“Claudia! We’ve been looking for you,” I said. I bent down slightly and smiled at the little girl. “Hi, Lillian. Are you having fun with Claudia today? Are your mommy and daddy at the hospital?”
“Ethan had a big appointment with the transplant team,” explained Claudia. “Lillian is here with me so both of her parents could be there today.” She nodded towards Dominic. “Who is this? I think I heard Teresa mention a new volunteer?”
“Yes, I’m just showing him around now. Dominic, this is Claudia, one of the social workers here.”
“Only social worker,” Claudia corrected. “We’re going to have to hire a replacement for you, Natalie. It’s nice to meet you,” she added, shaking Dominic’s hand.
“Well, Dominic is hopefully going to fill in for some of the things I used to do around here,” I said. “We’ve only got him for about two months, so maybe after that we’ll talk to Ryan about finding the money to hire someone part-time or something. I know you’re probably swamped.” I felt a twinge of guilt. Claudia and I used to work closely together, dividing duties and making sure there was always someone around the house for the families to talk to. Now that I was in charge of public relations, Claudia was left by herself to do the job we used to do together. I knew what Ryan would say, though, if I asked about the possibility of hiring someone part time. There was no money. There was never enough money.
Dominic, however, wasn’t paying attention to the conversation between Claudia and I. He had crouched down and was talking to little Lillian Wachowski, who was almost three. “Hey,” he said, in a low voice I almost didn’t hear. “My name’s Dom. What’s your name?”
“I’m Wiwwian,” she lisped back.
“Lillian,” Claudia explained.
Dominic looked up with a smile and nodded. “How old are you?”
She held up two fingers. “I’m fwee.”
“Lillian will turn three next week,” Claudia interpreted again.
“You’re going to have a birthday! That’s awesome. What do you want for your birthday?”
“Cake,” said Lillian simply. “And bawwoons. And a pwincess dwess. And a dump twuck. And a pony. And stickas.”
“Whoa,” said Dominic. “A pony! Where would you keep a pony? Can a pony live in your bedroom?”
“I keep a pony in my house at home,” said Lillian. “I have a backyard in my house at home.”
My stomach tensed up. Lillian had been staying at Hartley House with her mother, Amy, for the past month while her older brother was in the hospital. Ethan had a rare autoimmune disorder and his doctors had determined that the best treatment for him would be a bone marrow transplant, followed by a few weeks of recovery time. He’d been having radiation treatments for the past several weeks to prepare him for the bone marrow transplant. Lillian wasn’t going home to her backyard anytime soon. I cleared my throat and tried to think of a way to communicate that to Dominic so he didn’t end up with his foot in his mouth, but he surprised me.
“That sounds like an awesome house. There isn’t as much room to play outside here, but I bet we could find somewhere to pretend to be ponies.”
Lillian’s eyes lit up. “You be the pony?” she asked. “I want to wide the pony.”
“Well, not here,” said Claudia.
“No, not on the stairs, or the hallway,” Dominic agreed. “Maybe we could go in to the living room and play ponies?”
“Yeaaah!” shrieked Lillian. She dropped Claudia’s hand and grabbed on to Dominic’s leg. “Wet’s go pway ponies!”
Claudia looked as if she might say something, but then she just nodded. “Do you know where the living room is?” she asked Dominic.
“Natalie showed me earlier,” he said, transferring Lillian’s hand from his leg to his hand. He glanced at me. “You okay if I go give some pony rides?”
All I could do was just nod. I would not have guessed Dominic would be volunteering to give Lillian Wachowski pony rides in the living room before his first day was over, but this job was never boring. I followed them to the living room and watched as she climbed on his back with delight as he crawled all over the floor. He even let her brush his hair with a plastic comb and try to feed him the television remote control, pretending it was a carrot.
I snapped a few photos with my phone, to share with Dominic later so he could post them on his Instagram and Twitter. I hoped he would do it.
Dominic and Lillian played ponies in the living room for at least half an hour, to the point where I started to get bored supervising them. I didn’t want to leave the room, not until the police background check came back, I told myself. Besides, it was kind of pleasant to sit in the living room curled up on the couch, watching the two of them laugh and come up with increasingly silly ideas of what the pony could do.
When Claudia stuck her head in the living room to tell us that the Wachowskis had just gotten back from the hospital, I was actually a little disappointed that the afternoon had to end.
7
I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to go to Libby’s yoga class after work, until I was gathering my things from my desk at the end of the day. I had pulled out my phone and was about to upload the picture of Dominic and Lillian that Amy Wachowski had approved me sharing on Hartley House’s social media accounts, but first I saw a new text from Libby on my phone. Still on for class at 5:30?
Of course! I texted back, not about to let on that I had completely forgotten. I’d even packed a change of clothes for yoga in my bag. I quickly uploaded the photo to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, added a quick caption and tagged Dominic on all three accounts, and crossed my fingers and hoped for a good response. Then I said goodbye to Ryan and headed out the door, off for an hour of forced relaxation.
The yoga studio Libby worked at was downtown, on the second floor above a small boutique. Women who work
ed in the various high-rise office buildings loved to stop by on their way home for a quick class, and the lobby was packed by the time I got there. I signed in at reception, pulling out my punch card to add another class – pay for ten classes, get the eleventh for free! – and then hurried to change. I wasn’t really in to yoga like some people were, so I mostly stuck to the beginner classes where I didn’t feel as out of place. I’d tried one of Libby’s intermediate classes once, and I could keep up okay, but in my non-designer yoga clothes and using one of the studio’s mats instead of bringing my own I’d felt too self conscious. Since then, I’d stayed with the beginner classes.
Libby caught my eye and gave me a little wave as I walked in the studio. A couple of the women were trying to chat with her about something, so I just waved back and laid out my mat in the back corner. As I sat down cross-legged on my mat, my knees creaked a bit. Maybe I did need to start coming to her classes regularly.
“Welcome, everyone,” Libby began, once the clock switched over to five-thirty. “Glad you could all join us today. We’re going to start sitting on our mats, nice and tall, shoulders down, and I want you all to close your eyes and picture your calm place. Nice and peaceful.”
Libby’s soothing voice, different from her usual voice, rolled over me like a wave. I closed my eyes and thought about the last time I had felt calm and at peace. Images from the afternoon popped in to my head – me curled up on the couch with my phone, Dominic on his hands and knees pretending to eat the remote control while Lillian pretended it was a carrot.
Why am I thinking about work? I chided myself. Work was what I was coming here to try and get away from. This time, I concentrated on the music playing in the background, waves crashing on a beach over a simple piano track. The beach. Yes, the beach was relaxing. I was in a hammock, swaying in the breeze. Sea gulls were calling. Waves were crashing. All the stress was leaving my body. Dominic was in the hammock next to me…
My eyes flew open. What was I thinking? That wasn’t the relaxing scene I was supposed to envision while I meditated! “Keep your eyes closed,” Libby admonished from the front of the room.
How did she even know my eyes were open? I lowered them to the floor and studied the freckles on my calves and the subtle pattern on my leggings for the rest of the meditation time, afraid to close my eyes again. I was supposed to be keeping my mind off work, not thinking about my coworkers.
Once we were finished meditating and had moved on to following Libby through a series of yoga poses, though, I found that she had been right. It was nice to forget about my job and just focus on my body, and my mind. By the time the class was over, I actually had forgotten about Dominic. I stopped to thank Libby for the class and tell her I’d see her back at the apartment later, then headed back to the change room to get dressed again. Before I left, I quickly checked my phone to see if I had any messages.
My notifications were blowing up. I had one text from my sister Alexandra, inviting me over to their house that weekend for a family dinner. The rest were notifications from Hartley House’s different social media accounts. I sank down on a bench in the change room to glance through them quickly.
The ‘likes’ were piling up. Five hundred on Facebook, two hundred on Twitter, fifty on Instagram I noted that Hartley House had a pathetically small Instagram following and I needed to work on that. Lots of new shares. Lots of new people liking and following our page. I had just tagged Dominic Rosetti in the photo, but he had shared it to his own page as well, and on that picture there were over a hundred likes and comments in just about two hours.
I wanted to squeal with joy right then and there, but it was hot and crowded, so I saved my happy dance for my bedroom. Teresa had been right. Dominic was going to help us. I could feel it and my hope lifted my spirits.
8
By the time I left for work the next morning, the reaction to the posts I’d made had doubled. Teresa was, as usual, waiting for me when I arrived at my desk even though I was three minutes early for work. This time, though, she was standing there with a huge grin on her face.
“What’s up, Teresa?” I asked innocently, setting my bag on my desk chair.
“Did you check Hartley House’s social media this morning?” She leaned forward and then crossed her hands over her heart. I hadn’t seen her in such a good mood in quite a while.
“Oh, right.” Finally, I let my huge smile show. “Yeah I did! A thousand likes! All those shares – two, three hundred? And tons of new followers. I’m so relieved.”
“Now we need to turn those followers in to Hartley House supporters,” said Teresa.
“I know, I know.” I chuckled and held up my hand. “My work is just beginning.” There was no worry that Teresa would ever let me get too much of a big head about my successes, big or small.
“Still, that’s pretty good for your first week on the job,” Teresa admitted. “I’m proud of you, Natalie.”
“Thanks, Teresa,” I said nonchalantly, sitting down in my chair. Maybe if I did a really great job, she’d let me buy a new chair.
I waited until she had walked away, then pushed my chair back from my desk so I could see Ryan. “Did you hear that?” I whispered loudly at him. “Did you hear what she said to me?”
“I didn’t know she even knew that word,” Ryan whispered back. “But, hey, I saw those posts too. Not because I follow Hartley House, which I do, of course. The Tigers shared it on their Twitter too. I saw it pop up in my feed because a bunch of my friends who are baseball fans liked it, too.”
“Really?” I asked eagerly. “Oh, that’s fantastic!” I’d seen the posts pop up in my personal feeds too, of course, but my mother, sister, brother, brother’s fiancée, and Libby and Maya always liked everything that Hartley House posted anyway, so it was good to hear that real people in the real world had noticed and liked it.
I was in such a good mood from the chat with Teresa that I was already smiling when I met with Dominic a few minutes later in the communal kitchen.
“You sure look happy,” he said. He held out a mug of coffee towards me. “Tiffany made the coffee this morning. You want some?”
How was he friends with Tiffany Maycomb already? “Thanks,” I said, accepting the mug. “Hey, thank you for sharing and retweeting those pictures that I posted last night. We’ve had a massive response to them. More interactions on the post than Hartley House has ever had before, and we gained a ton of new followers too. Thank you.”
“Aw, no problem,” said Dominic modestly, but he looked pleased. “Hey. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” I took a sip of my coffee.
“I want to have a birthday party for Lillian. What do you think?”
I lowered my mug and stared at him. “Really? A birthday party for a three-year-old is the first thing that you want to do around here?”
“It’s her big day,” he said. “Her parents are busy with her brother – which is completely understandable. Her brother’s getting ready to have a bone marrow transplant, right? So I totally understand how they haven’t been thinking about anything special for her birthday. But that should be our job, then, shouldn’t it? Making the day special for Lillian so her parents can focus on Ethan and not feel like she’s being left behind.”
“Maybe...” I shrugged, thinking. He was right, in a way. This was our job and part of the reason we existed. To help take away stress from parents and help the siblings cope.
“Come on,” Dominic begged. “I’ll get her a pony princess cake. Think how great that’ll look on Instagram, right?”
He was right. It would be pretty cute. I could just picture it. “She’d probably love it, actually. You going to bake the pony princess cake yourself?”
He laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I can bake okay, with a mix. Adding eggs and water, how hard is that? But the decorating? Man, have you seen some of those cakes? I can’t even spread icing evenly. You ever watch those shows on TV with the bakers
, the desserts they make, those cakes they decorate? That kind of thing is far beyond my skill set, I think they say.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I wouldn’t have picked you for a baking show fan.”
“Hey, I used to spend a lot of hours riding a bus all over America. Lots of nights in hotel rooms. You gotta do something to pass the time.”
“Well, I guess, but I would’ve thought if you were watching something it would be, you know, action movies, or maybe Sports Center. Possibly Law and Order. Didn’t think the baseball team got together to watch cake decorating.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Dominic. “I’ve learned a lot. Can’t do any of it, of course, but I know what they’re talking about. Are there any good bakeries like that around here?”
“There’s a place on Poplar Street that’s amazing,” I said. “My sister got my nephew Owen’s birthday cake there. Oh, and the farmer’s market in the summertime, there’s a lady who makes the best cupcakes.”
“Does the bakery just do cakes? Or other stuff too?”
“Cupcakes, cakes, pies, pastries,” I rhymed them all off, trying to remember. I’d only been there a few times, once to pick up Owen’s birthday cake, and a couple times with my roommates picking up some treats for brunch. “It’s all delicious.”
“We should go sometime,” said Dominic.
I froze. I stared at him, noticing for the first time his warm brown eyes. “You mean... like, to ask them to make a pony cake for Lillian Wachowski?”
“No,” he said. “I meant more like, you know, eat some pastries, talk, get to know each other a little better.”
“So a date.”
“No, not really,” he said hastily. “Just because you hang out with someone doesn’t make it a date. It doesn’t have to be a date.”
“I can’t date you,” I said flatly. “It’s unprofessional for me to be dating a volunteer. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”
Good Works (Hero Hearts: Contemporary) Page 4