Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
I was not going to get frustrated with her. Even though she hadn’t even seen half of all I had put together to show her. She had taken one look at me and immediately shut me out before I could say a word. I’d tried to dress conservatively. Businesslike. That seemed to have been the wrong decision.
“Yes, I understand that you are short-staffed here, but that is not an issue. What I am showing you here, I intend to do it myself. If I need help, I will do my own recruiting. Nothing will—”
“It’s just not what we need here,” she said, shaking her head as she cut me off. “This is simply a mission. It doesn’t need all this other stuff. The things you’re talking about will cost money we can’t spend. All donations should go directly to stocking more clothes.”
Again, she wasn’t letting me get to that part. It was in my binder—on page ten. I started to tell her that I would have the things we needed donated when the bell above the door rang, and she enthusiastically spun around, putting her back to me, happy for any reason to shut me up.
I took the moment to regroup, taking a deep breath.
“Father Jude,” she exclaimed with a clap of her hands.
All my other thoughts went right out the window as I jerked my head up to lock eyes with his. He looked exactly like he had an hour and a half ago. Nothing had changed.
“Sister Mena,” he replied, barely giving her a glance before his curious gaze was back on me. “Saylor, hello again.”
Did fate hate me? Seriously? I was trying to do something good, something that would be worthwhile—even though a very uptight, unimaginative woman was standing in my way—and I did not need a distraction.
“Father Jude,” I replied.
Sister Mena turned back to look at me with a surprised expression, which proved she had other ones that didn’t resemble a bored grimace. “You know each other?” she asked, turning to direct the question to Jude.
There was a twitch to his lips as he moved his attention from me to Mena. I was done calling her Sister. Even in my head. It was dumb. She wasn’t my sister.
“We do,” he confirmed. “Saylor has attended one of our Saturday meetings and a Sunday Mass.”
Mena swung her eyes back to me. This time, she was clearly sizing me up. Doing a once-over to make sure she hadn’t overlooked something. I hadn’t realized Mena was Catholic, but it seemed she was since she cared that I had gone to Mass. Once.
“What do you have there?” Jude asked me.
Maybe he would see the potential in it and help me persuade Mena since she liked him so much.
“My ideas to organize the place, to make it easier to find things, make it more appealing for those who come in so they feel less like they are digging and more like they are shopping.”
“And I explained, Father Jude, it isn’t in the budget. We don’t have the volunteers for that kind of thing,” Mena said, interrupting me yet again.
“And neither is required. I want to take this on myself. I’ll do all the work. No help needed, no funds required. In fact, I intend to get more funding and donations to give a wider selection. Things such as new underwear, socks, bras. This is a large area, and so much can be done—”
“The people who come in here are desperate. They do not care about those things. They care about having something to put on themselves—” Mena started, and this time, I was going to be the one to cut her off.
“I understand that, but why can’t they have a place they can walk into to get those things that doesn’t feel like charity? Where they don’t have to spend time digging in boxes? A place where they can feel like they have their self-respect?”
Mena shook her head. “Someone like you doesn’t understand the people who come in those doors. You’ve never wanted for anything in your life. It’s all been given to you.”
I held her gaze, more determined than ever to get her to listen to me. To get her to give in a little. “No one can give you a purpose, Sister Mena. That’s not handed out.”
She stared at me, as if trying to understand what I meant by that. Admitting I didn’t have a purpose was hard, but doing it in front of Jude, the sexy priest, was incredibly difficult.
“Can I see the binder? Will you show me your ideas?” Jude asked.
I shifted my gaze to meet his. He held out a hand for me to give the binder to him. Showing him seemed like a way to only make Mena angrier with me, but then, without her cutting me off, I might be able to get through the entire thing. If she’d listened to it all, I couldn’t see how saying no even made sense.