Drew sank back in his chair. Full funding, somebody behind his vision—including the God part—and no budget worries for three years. That was serious expansion. “That’s…incredible. Amazing. I knew you could do it, Charlie.” Drew hoisted the mug he was holding. “Well, hello and God bless ’ya, HomeBase.”
“Use that line a lot when you get out here. They want to announce it at their annual shareholders’ meeting on the twentieth. If we get all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed by then.”
Something at the very edge of Charlie’s tone caught in Drew’s ear. “Meaning?”
“Well, we’ve got a bit of fine print to iron out on this one. When the deals get this big, the details get complicated.”
And that, without a doubt, was “Charlie-speak” for You may not like what I say next.
“Meaning?”
“They’ve actually offered above and beyond what we proposed, Drew. We’ll go from a well-done minor show to a very big league major network sensation. And they’re not asking us to water down the faith, Drew. Not a bit. Do you understand how big that is? What kind of visibility they’re handing us? Even in all my planning, I never thought we’d get this far.” Charlie paused before he continued. “They’re demanding an exclusive, Drew. But we won’t need anyone else’s backing with this offer. This is it. This is our shot. It’s a whole new world from here on in.”
“Wow.” How was it supposed to feel, to arrive? To achieve something he’d worked so long to obtain? Drew stood up and paced the bus, unsure how to feel. Exhilarated? Scared? Blessed beyond his imagination? At the moment, Drew felt like he’d just been shot out of a cannon. But God’s eye was on the sparrow, right? And that could always be trusted.
“Exclusive, huh?”
“Exclusive. Only one phone call to get whatever you need, whenever you need it.”
“Wow,” he said, unable to come up with a more creative response. “That’s huge.”
“It is, Drew. Enormous. Think of it—God just did something so enormous even I’m not able to take credit for it.”
“Just when I thought I couldn’t find a way to describe how big it is,” Drew teased. He imagined Charlie’d been dancing in his office, celebrating. “Maybe I should crack open four boxes of Dave’s for breakfast instead of my usual two.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie, a bit nervously. “You might want to eat up your supply this season.”
Drew practically pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it in disbelief. “No Dave’s?”
“That’s what exclusive means, Drew. It means nobody else’s products appear but HomeBase’s.”
“But HomeBase doesn’t make cookies, Charlie. I’m fine with using all their tools and appliances and stuff, but I don’t know how to run a show without Dave’s cookies.”
Drew heard Charlie sigh on the other end of the phone. “Nobody says you have to stop eating Dave’s. You’ll just have to buy your cookies and eat them off-camera from now on—and believe me, you’ll have a big enough budget to keep yourself in cookies.”
“But at the end of the show…the milk and cookies…”
“Look, there’s a lot of creative minds in on this. I’m sure we can find an alternative that’ll make everyone happy.” He paused again, and Drew heard some papers shuffling in the background. “Keep the big picture in mind here. This is worth it. A full eighteen episodes and a Christmas special, not to mention print advertising in more magazines than you and I could read in a lifetime. For a Christian show.”
Annie had always wanted to write a home-organizing column. Maybe now they’d have the leverage to make that happen. And Kevin would get all the native species plants he wanted. The whole team would never have to make do again—and they all had jobs for the next three years. With that kind of job security, maybe even Kevin and Annie could end up at the altar.
“Drew?” Charlie’s voice pulled him back. “About that shareholders’ meeting?”
“Yeah, I heard you say something about that.” Drew ran his hands through his hair, thinking he might need to shake his head to clear the tangle of thoughts going through it right now.
“It’s on the twentieth. I need you to commit to it today. Now, if you can. You’ll have the season wrapped by then, won’t you?”
Drew glanced at the pile of production schedules he’d been scouring when Charlie called. “Um…it’s a bit tight with Kevin out of commission, but…” he flipped through two more pages, checking half a dozen deadlines “…yeah, we can do it. Tell ’em we’re on. You’ve got legal on all the paperwork?”
“You’ll get a package by this afternoon to look over, another one for your signatures on Monday. Did I mention you’ve still got full control of the cast and crew?”
“No, but I’m glad to hear it. What about the bus? Am I going to live in a HomeBase delivery truck now or something?”
“Buses, my good man. Plural. Three. One for you, two for the expanded team.”
Drew leaned back against the filing cabinets. “And what do you get, Chuck?”
“I get the best part of all, Drew. I get to be the guy who made it happen. Aside from God, of course, but lots of folks in this neighborhood haven’t figured that out yet. Yet. God’s credentials just went up threefold in TV land.”
Be careful what you pray for. The platitude rang in Drew’s head as he tried to take in what his future now held. Missionnovation would be bigger and better than ever before.
Would it?
Bigger, yes. But Drew wished he could be more certain about how much better it would be. A part of him wondered if he could keep the personal touch—the one-on-one connection that fueled him—on the grand scale Missionnovation would now have. He thought about matching up the artisans for the preschool garden. The stonemason whose family had been in the business for three generations and the blacksmith who made a gate especially for those little kids. The painter. And Janet.
What he’d told Janet was right; Missionnovation needed both the big chain stores and the small local shops. Could it be the same show with just HomeBase? Granted, HomeBase was filled with people, too, maybe even with unique craftsmen and folks who cared about building things like no one had ever seen—was he right to stereotype them as an uncaring conglomerate just because they were big? Could he lead the team that would strike that all-important balance?
God was leading him into new territory, no doubt about it. Drew just wished he could be more certain it wasn’t a detour.
“How big?” Kevin’s eyes flew wide open when Drew shared Charlie’s packet of papers with the team and told them the budget they’d have for next season. “Are all those zeros for real?”
“Three buses?” Annie ran her fingers down a column of figures.
“Exclusive sponsorship evidently has its privileges.” Drew fingered a bag of Dave’s chocolate chip cookies. “And a few downsides.”
“No Dave’s?” Kevin reached over and clutched the bag protectively.
“Well, no free Dave’s. But a bigger food budget so we can buy all the Dave’s we want.”
“But…” Annie heard the hesitation in his voice and looked at him from over the top of her glasses.
“But that also means no milk and Dave’s at the end of the show.”
“Aw, come on,” Mike groaned, putting down the wiring he had been fiddling with all through the meeting. Ever since gaining Vern’s approval, Mike had become much more confident. And opinionated. “It’s not like HomeBase sells milk and cookies and Dave’s is their archrival.”
Everyone stared. Outbursts from Mike took a little getting used to. “Cookies or no,” Drew said, “God’s still in control here, and I’m trying to keep open to whatever He’s got in mind for Missionnovation.”
Mike’s expression remained sour.
“Think of it this way,” Drew suggested, “We’re getting the funds to improve Dave’s bottom line by buying the cookies now.”
“Yeah,” Mike muttered, “that’ll more than make up for the lack of n
ational television exposure.” The new Mike had more than enough opinions and suddenly wasn’t reluctant to share them. Who knew a place like Middleburg would bring this out in the guy? Drew had to wonder what other surprises the next Missionnovation season had in store.
“Our main focus right now needs to be completion of the preschool and getting this season wrapped up.” After ticking through all the remaining elements of the construction, Drew turned to Kevin. “I’m going over the rest of the roof installation. Can you have another go at the cistern specs? Janet Bishop’s not happy with either of them yet.”
“Let her talk to Howard Epson,” Annie offered. “He’s so gung-ho on the cistern thing he’s been touting it to every environmental group in the state. He called it ‘a civic showpiece’ the other day.” She rolled her eyes. “He wants a photograph of himself holding the giant watering can as if he were pouring it.”
Kevin chuckled and nudged her. “Why did I just know Howard would want to get his hands on ‘God’s watering can’?”
Drew watched Annie nudge him back. How had he not seen this before? “Just promise me you’ll give them another once-over. Make sure everything’s in shape.”
“Sure. But it’s gonna be tight just getting everything done by the nineteenth as it is. You sure you want to mess with anything now?”
Of course he didn’t want to mess with anything now. The HomeBase shareholders meeting was hanging over his head as it was. But he just couldn’t get Janet’s disapproval out of his head—and she was right, roofs were important.
“Just make sure. We haven’t won her confidence, and I’m leaving no stone unturned.”
“You know,” Mike piped in again, “she’ll be the last.”
“The last what?” Annie asked.
“The last local vendor. It’ll all be HomeBase from here on in. She knows her stuff. You gotta wonder if we’ll get folks like that from HomeBase.” He sounded an awful lot like Vern.
Drew ignored Mike’s last remark. “Get back to me by four o’clock with ways to shave ten hours off our timelines. It’s 24-7 now until we hand over the keys, got it?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Janet pulled the final birdhouse off the shelf and blew a layer of dust off the little red roof. It was two days before they’d need the birdhouses, but she’d been unable to sleep since dinner with her mom, and she thought she’d get up and pack the houses rather than lay staring at the ceiling for another hour.
Bebe had gone on and on about the spectacular new preschool. You’d have thought God himself had put up those walls, the way she raved about them. As a matter of fact, to hear her mom put it, God himself did put up those walls. Missionnovation was no less than the hand of God to Bebe Bishop. God’s chosen messengers of renovation.
Everyone was on cloud nine about the show and the preschool.
Why not her?
Do you have to be such an ungrateful spoilsport? she asked herself as she used a dry paintbrush to get the dust off the tiny white window shutters. Drew is right—this is twice the school we’d be able to build ourselves. Since when did you start caring so much about that church again, anyway?
Her mom had said much the same thing when she dared to raise the topic of the less-than-perfect cistern at dinner. “God’s hand is on this, honey. I think He can tend to His own watering can.” After that, Janet didn’t dare bring up the subject of the roof.
Bebe offered, as she did with most problems, to “pray over it.” Somehow Janet failed to see how prayer was a substitute for good project management, but she’d lost that argument with her mother years ago.
It was near three o’clock in the morning, but she could still see the floodlights on over at the church from her kitchen window. They’d talked about working round the clock on their shows before. They were sure burning the candle at both ends this week. Ambitious didn’t even begin to cover it. It was bordering on insane.
Without really thinking about it, Janet pulled on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. Why not head over there? It couldn’t be any worse than insomniac birdhouse dusting.
She wandered through the site, saying hello to this volunteer and that person. She didn’t know what fool handed Howard Epson a staple-gun at three in the morning, but he seemed to be holding his own as he tacked carpeting down to a set of risers. Two of her favorite customers—a young couple who’d bought a fixer-upper on the east end of town—were grouting tile on the sink backsplash. The man who ran a tack shop just up the street was painting a pair of pint-sized tables. She noticed a cup of coffee and a half-eaten Muffinnovation on the sawhorse behind him and laughed to herself. So many people out in the middle of the night just to lend a hand.
Unsurprisingly, she ended her wandering at the preschool windows, staring at the little circular garden outside.
Drew was there.
He didn’t see her. He was angled away from her with his head down, pressing both hands against the giant watering can as if he were holding it in place. Somehow, without even knowing how she knew, she was certain he was praying over it. The way his shoulders seemed to lean into the casing, the way his fingers flexed against the wall in something that could only be described as a struggle. It was like he was wrestling with the cistern. Or himself.
It was a side of him she’d never seen. And it unnerved her that she could see it so clearly—she didn’t think she knew him well enough to see so much strain in his body language. Drew Downing, unstoppable force of nature, was struggling. She saw him lay his head against the wall of the cistern and something enormous twisted in her heart.
He turned, startled, and she realized she’d put her hand up against the glass without even knowing it. His eyes. Maybe that was how he won people so easily—those eyes were so powerful you couldn’t hope to pull yourself out of their gaze.
He stared at her for a long moment, over the distance of the garden and the window bay, and the enormous thing in her heart twisted further until she found it hard to breathe. Then, with a deep breath, he shook his head in a laughing, sort of surrendering expression and motioned for her to come outside.
He had good reason to be surprised—she was amazed herself to be standing in a preschool garden in the middle of the night. “I couldn’t sleep.” It was dumb, and a bit obvious, but it was the only thing that came to mind after the shock of seeing him in so private a moment.
He leaned back against the watering can and tucked his hands in his jeans pockets. He shook his head again. “I was just asking God what to do about you.”
How do you respond to a statement like that? It rattled her in a dozen ways. “What’d He say?”
“He didn’t say much, but then again I didn’t realize you were going to show up in a matter of seconds, so maybe He didn’t need to say much.”
So he wasn’t praying over the cistern, he was praying over her. Just when she thought she couldn’t get more unnerved. Janet sat down on the concrete bench shaped like a tree stump. She couldn’t pretend anymore that it—whatever it was between them—didn’t exist. She tried to pull the conversation back to something more controllable. “You talk to God about your hardware vendors?”
His expression showed that he knew what she was trying and wouldn’t go for it. “I talk to God about everything.” He paused a moment before he added, “Including women.”
Janet wasn’t ready to go in this unsafe direction. “I hate to break it to you,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could, “but the Lord Almighty did not raise me out of bed and command me to go see Drew Downing.”
He took on a mischievous look, and she saw the grin that won thousands of hearts each week. “You sure?”
“We don’t exactly speak much.”
The high voltage grin vanished and his voice softened to something more personal. “Want to talk about that some more?”
“No.”
“I do. I want to know why you don’t talk much to God anymore. I want you to tell me what it was that happened to you.”
�
�Why? So you can fix it? I already told you.”
“You told me why you don’t go to church anymore. I don’t think that’s the whole story. I think it’s more personal than some guy committing fraud.”
Drew slid down the side of the cistern until he was sitting on the ground. “I want to understand it. It’s not hard to figure out someone hurt you, Janet. You’ve got a wall four feet thick where men of faith are concerned, and those kinds of things don’t spring up out of nowhere.”
“You want the whole story? Fine, I’ll tell you.” Maybe now really was the time to let him know how deep that wound went. It might finally stop his pressure. Janet settled herself on the bench. This didn’t condense down to a short story. “You’re right, I’ve got a sore spot for people like you. I earned my thick wall. Or rather, had it given to me.”
Drew stretched his legs out and crossed one ankle over the other, settling in as well. She was thankful he didn’t try to close the distance between them. “Tony Donalds?”
“We were…involved.” She fumbled with the words. It had been years since she’d talked about this with anyone but Dinah and Emily.
“Serious?” Drew cocked his head to one side.
“Ring shopping, if that’s what you mean by serious. We were planning to announce our engagement after he’d raised all his mission support. I was really, really involved in MCC at the time, if you haven’t guessed. But when Tony did…what he did, it all came undone. Everything I knew about him, everything I knew about faith and serving and integrity…was gone. I had no idea if any of it was true. I loved him. I wanted so much to be part of the amazing future ahead of him.” Janet hated how the words caught in her throat, how it made her feel weak and wounded to talk about Tony. “Tony never came back for me because he never came back at all.” She felt the old hurt surge back as if the news had come yesterday. “So you’ll forgive me if I’ve learned not to trust a charming man with big ideas who claims God is on his side. I’ve seen too much to take anyone high and mighty at their word.”
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