the fashion scene with some romantic Spanish-inspired designs that were selling like hotcakes. “Who’d have backed them last year when women’s suits looked like those communist Chinese uniforms?”
“They did not!” Ivory protested.
“Plain straight-skirted suits with scooped-neck blouses of various colors, and no trim. Yuck! I wouldn’t be caught dead in one!”
“Beats miniskirts.”
Dee reluctantly agreed. “Especially with my legs...”
“Miss Grier!” a strident voice called. “You are not paid to converse with other employees!”
“Yes ma’am, Miss Raines, I was just asking Miss Keene if she wanted to have lunch with me at the new Japanese sushi place.” She smiled sweetly. “You could come, too, if you like.”
“I never eat fish, especially raw fish. God alone knows what pollutants are in the water where they’re caught.” She kept walking, her back like a poker.
Dee’s face reddened as she tried not to laugh. She looked at Ivory, and it was fatal. Mirth burst the restraints, to be quickly disguised as coughing.
Ivory watched her retreat and turned back to her own work before Miss Raines had time to notice that she wasn’t doing what she’d been told. Would it be worth a trip to Mr. Kells’s office to show him those designs? Or would she lose her job? If only she weren’t so afraid of being out of work.
But she was. A homeless shelter was a poor accommodation in November, when snow flurries had already come calling, along with subfreezing temperatures. No, she decided. It might be better to wait just a little longer before she risked everything on such a gamble. Besides, Dee’s description of Mr. Kells as visually challenged niggled at the back of her mind. What if she meant that he only had one eye? It would be just her luck to walk into his office and discover that he was the same ill-tempered, despondent man who’d mistaken her for a beggar and handed her a five-dollar bill for a meal!
ON SATURDAY MORNING, Ivory set out for the homeless shelter, where she was to meet Dee and work for a few hours. The volunteer work kept her mind off her own problems and gave her something to do with her free time.
There was a small corner grocery store near the shelter. She stopped there just as Mr. Galloway, the tall, elderly owner, opened up behind the strong iron bars that protected his shop from vandals.
“Good morning!” she greeted in her now accentless voice. “I thought I might take the children at the shelter some fruit.”
“Got in some fresh oranges yesterday,” he said, smiling at her over his narrow glasses as he indicated them. “Nice and sweet.”
“Just the thing,” she said, and picked out a handful. “When I become very rich, I’ll come back and buy several cases for all my friends.”
He chuckled at the mischief in her face. “I believe you.” He handed her an orange with a flourish. “Compliments of the management.”
“Thanks! I wish I had something to give you,” she said wistfully. He really was an old dear, so kind to everyone who patronized his store. An idea lit her face. “I could design you an apron,” she offered.
He looked down at his ample girth. “Better make it a tent.”
Her eyes narrowed in thought. “Just you wait,” she promised, measuring him with her gaze. She was good at estimating sizes. “Come Christmas, you’ll be the smartest-looking grocer around.”
“Nothing fancy,” he cautioned. “I cut meat in the back.”
“I know.” She picked up her bag and put the change he handed her from a five-dollar bill into her purse.
“Be careful going down the street,” he added. “We’ve got some roughnecks around here lately.”
“I know. Tim told me.”
He knew Tim. Most everyone in the neighborhood did. “Pity about him, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “All children should have someplace to live...”
“No, I mean about what he’s got.”
Her hand stilled on her purse. “What has he got?” she queried. “He was cheerful and laughing the last time I saw him.”
“He didn’t find out until today. His mama came in about an hour ago for some formula for the baby. She told me.” He grimaced. “Social services ran some tests last week on a few kids at the shelter, including Tim. Got the results this morning. He’s HIV-positive. She said she’d have to tell him. Poor woman. She was scared.”
She caught her breath painfully. “No wonder! But he’s just eight years old.”
“Some babies are born with it,” he reminded her. “But his mama doesn’t shoot up. In Tim’s case, they think it was a contaminated needle...”
“Tim doesn’t shoot up!” she exclaimed.
“I know that. But he has a friend who does.”
Ivory recalled with disquiet the conversation she’d had with Tim and his question about contaminated needles, and her vague reply. Oh, the poor little boy! “He told me about his friend. I wasn’t listening,” she said miserably.
“He told his mama that he picked up one of the syringes, you know, just out of curiosity, and accidentally stuck himself with it.”
“And that was all it took?”
He nodded. “Hell of a disease, ain’t it? Kids getting it, that’s the worst. Kids are the very last people who should get such a terrible thing.”
“If he’s only HIV-positive, he hasn’t necessarily got AIDS,” she said stubbornly. “Tim’s very young and they’re coming up with new treatments all the time. All the time!”
He smiled gently. “Sure.”
She shifted the bag to her other hand. She felt empty inside. She started to go and hesitated. “You won’t tell anyone else about Tim? Some people get funny when they know.”
“I haven’t told anyone else.” He shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t treat him like a leper, or I wouldn’t have told you, either.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Galloway.”
“For what? I like Tim. He’s special.”
She heard the metallic sound of the bars being slid into place behind her and spared a thought for Mr. Galloway, who’d been robbed twice and burned out once. Gangs seemed to target small businesses these days. It was a pity that anyone would want to hurt a kind man who went out of his way to help anyone in trouble.
She walked toward the shelter despondently and hesitated at the foot of the steps, looking around. Tim was nowhere in sight. He was usually waiting for her when she came, and she’d told him that there would be some of Mrs. Horst’s gingerbread left over for him today. She’d tucked a slice, wrapped in plastic, in her purse for him. Had his mother made him stop coming? Unlikely. She was too busy trying to take care of the baby and the toddler to watch him all the time. If she had told him about his disease, maybe he thought Ivory might not want him around anymore. But Tim knew Ivory. Surely he wouldn’t think it would make her avoid him.
She secured the bag of oranges under her arm at the entrance of the shelter and opened the door. It was a sad sight, all those rows of cots and hopeless people who had no place to go. Some of them were mentally challenged, some were addicts. But most were just victims of circumstance with no education and no jobs.
Dee hadn’t arrived yet, but it didn’t take long to spot Tim and his family. She made her way through the clutter, past small colonies of Hispanics and other whites