George leaned back, his skin furrowing between his brows. “Pushy? Hardly. All I know is that you got me up and moving. I lifted the lid of that industrial sized trash bin and helped put the bags in it. And then instead of telling me to ‘get the hell out,’ you sent me next door to the shelter to get a change of clothes and a shower.
“By the time I made my way back, I felt a little more human. There must have been twenty or thirty people inside working and no one gave me a hard time. No one stared at me, glaring hard enough that I knew I’d disappointed them. People had work to do and they did it. And I fell right in with them.
“And then the next day when I showed up, Maybell took one look at me and smiled.”
“Well, you were handsome.”
“Were?”
She tapped her palm against his chest.
“Are... you are handsome. It was good to see you.”
“And I kept coming back.”
Their words fell away and left them in silence, but the looks between the married couple spoke volumes.
Wayne got down from the tailgate but left it open because he didn’t want to distract the couple. He started toward the warehouse to go and help. He got a few steps away when he heard Maybell’s voice.
“Wayne?”
He turned and smiled at the two. Maybell took her phone out of her back pocket and tapped the screen to turn it on. “I was wondering if you can do me a favor.”
“Sure,” Wayne grinned at her. “What can I do to help?”
She moved closer and turned her phone so he could see the screen. There was a pin on a map.
“One of our volunteers is stuck on the side of the road. Her car broke down.”
Wayne read into her tone and the concerned look on George’s face. “Betty?”
Maybell nodded, a solemn look on her face.
“She’s got some donations for us and was driving it over, but...”
George sighed. “She’s got a Grand Cherokee that’s seen better days.”
“Better decades,” Maybell countered.
George shook his head.
Maybell continued to explain. “She’s pretty good under the hood-”
“Honestly, Maybell and I have been wondering how much longer it was going to keep running. I hope this isn’t the end of it.”
Wayne took a good look at the map, squinting a little at the screen. “I know where that is.”
Maybell sighed, smiling. “She said she can probably get it working enough that she can get it back to her apartment, but she was hoping someone could go and pick up the donations she has in the car.”
Wayne nodded and murmured an agreement. “I can absolutely do that.”
He headed back toward the Gladiator and with George’s help put the tailgate in place. “I’ll see you two when I get back.”
They waved at him and as he pulled out of the drive he saw them step inside the food bank door behind him.
It didn’t take him very long to get to where Betty was stranded. It was in the same area as the food bank. The area was an older part of Center City focused on industry. Many of the warehouses that used to be bustling with activity were now shuddered and boarded up. It made the area a little sketchier than Wayne liked to see.
Carver Stadium wasn’t more than a few blocks away and he knew that he’d have to look into solutions to help the neighborhood look like more than a bunch of older warehouses and shuttered buildings.
