Wheels (Tabor Heights Year Two)

by Michelle Levigne

  "True," Paul said. "Remember when those two bruisers who worked for Ringo came after you last year, just after you came to town?"

  "Don't remind me," Brock growled. Then he grinned and shook his head. "What was it Pastor Glenn was saying in church a few weeks ago? God lets us go through really rotten situations so we know what to say and do, how people are feeling, when they're going through similar problems and ask for our help?"

  "So what are you going to do?" Tommy asked. "I don't want to get the guy in trouble--"

  "He won't be," Paul said, lifting his hands as if gesturing for quiet. "There's a protocol for this kind of situation. Open Doors has probably handled thousands of situations where a con leaves his old life behind, but it won't stay left behind. We'll go to Franky's area coordinator and he'll notify the authorities, and they'll do a search of his case, his records and old associates, and investigate from the other side."

  "Meaning?" Natalie said, her dimple-frown coming back.

  "They'll go after this Simon and Chuck, instead of blaming Franky," Tommy said.

  "Hopefully," Brock added.

  *****

  Later, Tommy wanted to kick himself. Paul had been right there, having come straight in from picking up the donated equipment -- meaning he hadn't stopped in the office to check with Claire when he returned to the Mission. The mess with Franky distracted him, so Paul obviously didn't think about Claire and the results from her doctor visit, and Tommy forgot to ask, too. By the time he remembered, he was outside on the playground and couldn't nag Paul to go talk to Claire. When he got back inside from playground duty, Paul was gone again and Claire serenely reported that she hadn't talked to him because he had only been in the office for a total of twelve minutes, and they hadn't been alone together for one second. Tommy wondered if his big sister was laughing at him.

  But if she was laughing, that was a good sign, right? It was good news from the doctor, right?

  Finally, the clock crept around to the time school let out for Sammy. Tommy knew exactly how long it would take for Paul to get back from picking up his daughter at the elementary school. He finished up his duties, gave a last few hugs goodbye to the children who got picked up early by big brothers and sisters getting out of the high school, and wheeled down the hall to the office. His timing was perfect, because he was just at Pastor Doug's door when Sammy darted across the lobby to the office, waving a big sheet of paper covered with splotches of color, shouting, "Mommy, look at my picture!"

  Tommy missed his grip on the wheels of his chair for a moment, and blinked away the sudden tears that still attacked him at the oddest moments. He knew how much Claire enjoyed Sammy calling her Mommy. There was nothing in the world he liked better than to see Sammy's face light up when she saw him, and the way she ran to him, vaulting past his footrests and into his lap with a squeal of glee. He couldn't imagine life without Sammy and Paul in it.

  Paul followed in Sammy's wake a few seconds later, just as Tommy reached the point where the hall opened into the lobby. He nodded to Tommy and strolled into the office. Tommy's heart skipped a beat when Claire gestured for Paul to follow her, put down Sammy's artwork, and led the way into Pastor Wally's office.

  "Lookee, Uncle Tommy!" Sammy proudly waved her newest artwork and accidentally slapped him in the face with it before getting it to lie flat in his lap.

  Tommy commented on the colors, the stiffness of the paper with all the glue or paste or whatever it was holding multiple layers of colored construction paper, glitter, feathers and sequins in place. He knew by now not to ask what it was. Sammy would eventually tell him. The funny thing was, once she told him what her creations were supposed to be, he could actually see the animal or forest scene or fanciful house amid the hodge-podge of colors and lines and materials.

  "So, what's up with the grownups?" he asked, glancing at the door of Pastor Wally's office.

  Still closed.

  "Mommy said she had to talk to Daddy. And he said it must be big 'cause she didn't call him when she got back from the doctor. And she said this wasn't stuff you say on the phone." Sammy frowned up at him and rested her little elbows on his thigh, right in those pressure spots that made him suggest she study acupressure -- or become a professional torturer. "What kind of stuff?"

  "Don't really--"

  Paul shouted, something incoherent. He sounded shocked -- but did Tommy dare hope that was a happy sound?

  Tommy held his breath until he thought he heard laughter. Did Paul just let out a whoop worthy of a rhinestone cowboy?

  "What's wrong with Daddy?" Sammy whispered.

  Chapter Nine

  "Believe it or not, I think he's happy about something." Tommy caught her under her armpits and lifted her up to kneel on his knees, facing him.

  "That's what happy sounds like?"

  "Well, guys can be kind of unreasonable sometimes. Get used to it. That's why God put girls in the world, you know? To straighten out guys." He tapped her nose, earning a grin and driving that worried light from her eyes.

  Then the door to Pastor Wally's office opened. Paul and Claire came out, their arms around each other's waists, looking flushed and teary. They stopped short when they saw Tommy and Sammy facing the door, waiting.

  "Hey, Squirt." Paul reached out and lifted her off Tommy's lap, settling her on his hip.

  "Are you okay, Daddy? Does it hurt being unruz -- unrass --"

  "Unreasonable," Tommy filled in. A heavy load left his shoulders when Claire snorted and grinned, shaking her head.

  "Daddy had a little shock," his sister said. "He'll be fine."

  "Fine, nothing," Paul said. "I'm ecstatic!" His grin softened as he and Claire locked gazes. "And relieved. Like you couldn't believe."

  "You're not the only one."

  "All right, already!" Tommy bellowed, and wished he was within reach of a desk so he could pound it with both fists. "What's this news you wouldn't tell me before? "

  "Yeah, Daddy," Sammy said, nodding for emphasis. "What's the big secret?"

  "It's no secret." Paul glanced at Claire, that silent communication passing between them. "I have a big job for you, Squirt. I want you to start praying really, really hard."

  "About what?"

  "Well, you have to ask God for what you want more -- a baby brother, or a baby sister."

  "I think it's a little late to put in an order," Claire muttered, then sank into her desk chair, silently laughing, tears in her eyes.

  "A baby brother?" Sammy half-whispered. Her eyes got bigger than baseballs.

  "Or a baby sister," Paul said.

  Tommy let out a whoop that threatened to bring down the ceiling.

  Soon, though, he regretted his outburst. The noise brought staff members running, interrupting the family's celebration. Once they left, they spread the news, so that there were more interruptions as teachers and volunteer workers came to the office to congratulate them, whenever they could get away from their classes. It seemed to take hours before Tommy heard all the news from the doctor.

  Essentially, Claire needed to slow down, take it a little easier. There was nothing to worry about, as long as she paid attention to her body and didn't push too hard -- meaning she had to cut back on her work load at the Mission and at home. Whenever possible, others should be delegated to do some of her running around. But not all of it. The doctor wanted Claire to stay as active as possible. The old-fashioned idea that women suddenly became delicate and needed to be coddled from the moment they became pregnant did more harm than good, in his opinion. If they let their stamina fade away, they would regret it during labor and delivery, and especially during the first few months of adjusting to taking care of a baby at all hours of the day or night.

  He wasn't worried about her nausea and bouts of dizziness or her inability to eat. They were all part of her body adjusting to its new chemistry. In a few more weeks, the doctor fully expected Claire's equilibrium and her appetite to return to normal, and she would be able to slide into her old
routine again. Within reason.

  *****

  By the end of the day, Natalie was footsore and suspected she had been far more of an idealist than she suspected. At least, she had been, but listening to the widely varying opinions and stories from the "man in the street" today had disillusioned her. Claire and Nikki and Pastor Wally had warned her what she would hear when she headed out to talk to people before they found out why she was in town. She just hadn't thought all the warnings would be so dead-on.

  Essentially, the Mission's massive renovations and the accessibility drive had brought to a head a number of issues and disagreements and divisions that had been simmering in the quiet, seemingly happy, friendly little town for years. Nearly everybody knew about the Mission, what it was doing, its plans for the future, and interestingly enough, knew all the juicy details of how it had been bought and the approvals passed through City Council. Depending on who she talked to, the principles of dividing church from state had been violated by unethical idiots, or a piece of Tabor Heights' history had been saved from blatant commercialism and the original intent of the building, to serve the community, had been preserved. People were either happily for or bitterly against the Mission. Those who weren't personally impacted by the Mission's existence or its location in town or its effect on the immediate neighborhood still had opinions because of their political leanings. Municipal Judge Foggerty seemed to be the lightning rod or focal point for the dissenters. His supporters -- mercifully, in the minority -- grumbled about how the building should have been sold for a large profit and turned into a shopping mall, or razed to create a parking lot or turned over to the euphemistically labeled "women's health" consortium. Natalie had done her research and knew all about the assembly line abortion clinic supported by Judge Foggerty, who was still under investigation for allegations of unethical activities -- in simpler terminology, "sticking his nose where he had no business, and trying to make a hefty profit from other people's misery," as one elfin, gravel-voiced elderly man had pronounced.

  Interestingly, a good number of the people with whom she spoke all that long, warm afternoon, were aware of the harassment campaigns aimed at the Mission, both in the past and currently, trying to stop the accessibility awareness drive. Judge Foggerty's supporters snickered and thought it amusing and make remarks such as, "teach those interlopers not to tell us how to run our town," while the Mission's supporters were indignant and vowed to be visible and active the day of the accessibility awareness walk, to show their support. Several mentioned an effort already underway to impact the elections in March when Judge Foggerty had to run for re-election. If he wasn't disbarred by then.

  By the time she reached the offices of the Tabor Picayune, shortly after four that afternoon, Natalie felt soiled by the same nasty politics that had made the last national election such a miserable time. She had stopped watching television and answering the phone, just to avoid all the vicious, lying, slanderous commercials and computerized political phone calls. It made her feel depressed and weary to realize that even lovely, friendly Tabor Heights couldn't escape the nastiness. Knowing that the negative talkers were outnumbered five to one didn't make her feel any better. It only took a little yeast to infect a whole loaf of bread.

  "Or more appropriately," she muttered as she crossed the parking lot to the front door of the newspaper office, "there's the old Klingon proverb about a running man with a knife, being able to slit a thousand throats in a single night." She sighed. "It only takes one."

  "Hello? Could you hold the door?" a woman called, as Natalie pulled the door open and was about to walk through.

  She looked over her shoulder, then across the parking lot. A slim, elderly woman bustled up the sidewalk from the side parking spots, carrying what looked like a sheet cake carrier perched on top of an insulated casserole carrier, with an enormous canvas shopping bag dangling from either elbow. She laughed, sounding a little breathless.

  "Thank you, dear. Perfect timing. God must have sent you, because I didn't realize I put myself in a bind until I was halfway to the door." She chuckled and swept past Natalie, into the office. "Max? Dear, could you help me?"

  "Is it that late already?" a young woman called, getting up from a desk tucked up against the wall. She hurried around the long counter that separated the reception area from the rest of the office, and took the two carriers from the woman. "Aunt Rose, you should have called ahead. I would have come and helped you carry it in."

  "Well, it all worked out." Rose shifted the canvas bags to her hands, and nodded at Natalie, who followed her as far as the counter. "This nice young lady was in the right place at the right time."

  "Thanks." The woman, who appeared to be Rose's niece, nodded to Natalie. "Let me get this put in the kitchen and I'll help you." She glanced across the office at the three girls, young enough to be either high school students or college students, all on the telephones.

  "Um, if you could tell me where Max Martin is?" Natalie gestured at the chairs in the waiting area, indicating she would sit. "I'm a little early, but--"

  "Natalie, right? I'm Max. Come on back." Max made a beckoning motion with her shoulder. "Editorial is having a big meeting tonight, to plan the fall focus, and Aunt Rose is spoiling us by making dinner."

  Natalie tried not to gawk, but she made sure she got a good look at the layout of the building, visibly divided up with small offices along one side of the hallway, which then opened into one big room that she assumed had to be editorial. Max led her up a flight of stairs, to an open, cheerful room with three long tables, cabinets and counters tucked into a corner, refrigerator and microwave and the ubiquitous coffee machine, along with two bottled water dispensers. Doors off what appeared to be the lunchroom were marked "morgue" and "photography" and "storage."

  She hung back, not sure she should have followed Max this far into the office. Lunchrooms were technically off-limits, a sanctum for the office staff, safe from the intrusion of the general public. At least, that was the way it had always been in the various newspaper and magazine offices she had interned at or worked in from high school on up, until she landed at America's Voice.

  Max put down the carriers and opened up several cupboards, showing her aunt where the paper plates and plastic flatware were kept, then beckoned for Natalie to follow her into another room off of the other side of the lunchroom. It turned out to be another room set up with a long table and chairs, but a little better decorated. Natalie guessed this was a meeting room or a place where interviews took place, as opposed to a room that had to stand up to daily use and abuse, like the lunchroom and editorial. Several banker's boxes sat on the floor in front of the table.

  "We've pulled out the general files -- clippings and photos," Max said, gesturing at the boxes. "But it's going to need some sorting. How do you want to handle the search?"

  Nikki Pierson had made arrangements with the Tabor Picayune to share photos and stories with America's Voice. The newspaper would get access to whatever Natalie wrote, the pictures she took, to run before the story in the magazine, while the magazine had access to every story and picture the newspaper had ever published relating to the Mission and the school it used to be.

  Natalie looked at the boxes and thought about hours of simply flipping through the files. She wished the newspaper hadn't been quite so overwhelmingly cooperative. Then she laughed.

  "I think the best bet is to take a few folders home with me, look through them, make notes of what I want to copy, and take care of that at the Mission before bringing them back. Unless you don't want to let the clippings out of the office?"

  "You, we trust." Max grinned at her before bending down and picking up the first box to put on the table for easier access. "We learned the hard way to have multiple copies of everything, and now fortunately it's all stored electronically. Back before we had the computer records, we just had the clip files, photocopies of everything in the clip files, and the binder books."

  "But?" Natalie prompted, seeing s
omething in the other woman's eyes, a glint of disgust mixed with amusement.

  "Well, we don't let the public have access to our binder books anymore. There was this guy, about nine, ten years ago. He was putting together a lawsuit against the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, claiming they caused an accident he was in. Myrna let him look through the binders without any supervision -- first mistake. Instead of paying for copies, as he was instructed to do, the big bozo cut the stories right out of the pages, from newspapers that were more than two years old."

  "No more copies of the paper in the office?" she guessed.

  "At our previous office, we just didn't have the storage space. Like one-third the size of this place. Mr. C -- that's our owner, Mr. Coffelt -- he was ready for bear to begin with, but the bozo came back all upset and demanding undamaged copies of the papers for his use. It turns out that just cutting the stories out of the paper didn't provide him any proof -- he needed the whole page, with the date and the name of the paper." Max snorted and settled in a chair at the end of the table. "To make matters worse, he only cut out the paragraphs that supported his lawsuit. If you read the entire story, it went against him."

  "So what did the bozo do?"

  "He threatened Mr. C with a lawsuit for refusing to cooperate in a legal defense action, until Mr. C filed a complaint that he had damaged irreplaceable documents. His lawsuit against the Fairgrounds got thrown out, of course. Witnesses testified he not only went into areas clearly marked off-limits, but he was warned multiple times and cussed out the people who warned him away. He punched a security guard who tried to stop him moving a barricade, then he claimed his hand was hurt in the accident, not before." She sighed. "He's still around town, trying to run everything. Nobody listens to him. The guy's pure nuts."

  "Oh, I so hope he wasn't one of the grumps I ran into today." Natalie decided she was going to be here a while, and took the opportunity to slide her sneakers off her feet. She sighed, feeling the coolness of the carpeting soak through her hot, sweaty socks.