Prayers of a Stranger: A Christmas Story Page 5

  Initially Kent Avery had considered the Campaeo offer a lifeline. But most of the people who had done business with Campaeo shook their heads when asked and said, never again. Chris knew this because he had sought them out. He’d brought in several respected local business owners, all of whom described Campaeo as the poisoned chalice. Hearing this, Kent Avery refused to meet with the Brazilians himself. He feared that if he were there, even with Chris at his side, he would agree to anything in order to keep his company going. So he sent Chris to make the journey alone.

  The attorneys representing Campaeo occupied the top three floors in one of downtown Orlando’s pricey high-rises. People in fine suits rushed about, talking power and money and offering him brisk, knowing smiles if they looked his way at all.

  Forty-five minutes later than scheduled, Chris was finally ushered into the conference room. He declined their offer of coffee and looked at the people lining the table’s opposite side. There were six of them, two women and four men. Chris assumed the man at the far end was actually from Campaeo. He had heard this was one of their tactics, having a director attend these early meetings but masking his real position. Giving him a chance to study the prey before pouncing. The Brazilian man was sleek, wearing a shiny tailored suit and flashy tie, with piercing eyes like a vulture’s.

  Evan Crouch, the senior attorney, cleared his throat and said, “We were expecting Mr. Avery.”

  “Kent couldn’t make it.”

  “Then we’ll need to reschedule. I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing.”

  “He won’t be able to make it then either.”

  The attorney started to look down the table but checked himself. “Surely the amount of business my client is proposing to do with your company deserves more respect.”

  Chris fastened his gaze upon the Brazilian and did not reply.

  “Because really, this offer of yours is not at all what we had expected. It will need to be renegotiated from the first clause to the last. Such discussions require the presence—”

  “The offer stands. Take it or leave it.”

  “Is this some sort of joke?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking to you?” Chris kept staring at the Brazilian. “Let me tell you what is happening. You focus on companies that are desperate. You make a huge offer of new business. You get the best possible deal, then you string out payment. You increase the amount of the order so they don’t complain too loudly over not being paid on time. When they’re really desperate, you offer to buy them out. For pennies. And because you’ve wrecked their finances, some of them have no choice but to agree.”

  The lawyer coughed. “This is slander.”

  “It’s slander if it’s untrue.” Chris drew the contract away from the senior lawyer and slid it down the table to the Brazilian. “The price is the price. You set up a letter of credit. You pay on time.”

  The meeting came to a close, but Chris carried no satisfaction away from it. And yet, as he took the elevator back to the parking garage, he knew he had done the right thing. A small part of him wished he could return upstairs, sit back down, and sign a contract that would guarantee his company’s survival. Instead he forced himself to start the car and drive away. Because the truth was inescapable. Upstairs in the lawyers’ conference room was a deal that represented nothing more than groveling and vanquished hopes and defeat.

  And he had another task awaiting him, the one that had come to him during the morning prayer time. A purpose that added a genuine sense of meaning to the day.

  Chris took the airport highway south into the neighboring city of Kissimmee. He knew Kissimmee Methodist Church. Twice each year that congregation partnered with his on mission trips. He headed south and west, following the main arteries leading around Orlando’s southern residential developments. He entered Kissimmee at the opposite end of the sprawling township from Disney and drove through neighborhoods filled with cheap hotels and low-rent apartment blocks and liquor stores and fast- food chains. Flashy billboards could not mask the shadows and the grime.

  He pulled around the main church building and parked in front of a day care and crisis center run by the church. The steeple rose to his right, a defiant gesture against the desperate need and angry scowl that blistered many of the young faces he saw as he rose from the car. The asphalt basketball court was occupied by a group of Latinos playing a team made up of African Americans and whites. All the kids were scrawny and feral. The play was rough, the language rougher.

  The low-slung building had probably once held offices. He pushed through cracked glass doors and entered an impossibly cheerful lobby. The walls were plastered with hand-painted posters shouting messages of hope and love and sobriety and salvation.

  “May I help you?”

  “My name is—”

  “Chris?”

  He did a swift double take at the woman he vaguely recalled. “Jackie?”

  “I thought I recognized you. How are you doing?”

  Jackie had been a nurse at the Melbourne hospital, who three years back had felt a strong calling to go into full-time ministry. Now she served on Kissimmee Methodist’s staff. She and Amanda had remained fast friends—until last December, when Amanda had basically severed all but the most critical ties.

  Chris found the day only held room for the truth. “Well, I’m not so good.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Would coffee help?”

  “Coffee would be great. But I don’t want to take you from your work.”

  “My work is all about meeting people’s needs.” She pointed him to the reception desk where a large man was watching him with careful eyes. “Everyone has to sign in. We deal with some pretty hard cases around here.”

  “I saw some hard cases out there on the basketball court.”

  “No, those kids are doing all right. Some of their families are still living out of their cars, but we’re working on that. Basically, if they’re in our teen center or out there on the court, they have a solid chance of making it. The lost ones are those who don’t come around, or don’t come back.”

  Jackie led him into the cafeteria. Everything had a makeshift air, including the mismatched chairs and the scarred table. But it was all spotless, and the air carried a slight fragrance of disinfectant. A number of the tables were occupied by people cradling cups and talking in low tones. Jackie poured them two cups and pointed him to an empty table by the back wall. “How’s Amanda?”

  “At the moment she’s in Israel.”

  “Is that why you’re facing difficulties?”

  “No, not at all. She went because a friend’s husband is ill and couldn’t make the trip.” He took a sip. The coffee was excellent. He told her about the meeting he had just left, and the problems that tainted his day.

  As he talked, Chris found himself missing Amanda with a biting intensity—not the woman he had seen off at the airport, but the woman he had married. The Amanda whose bright eyes shone with love and drank him in. Who gave him such open- hearted affection he felt ashamed sometimes at how feeble his own love was in comparison. He longed for the way they used to talk back when they spent hours on the patio watching night draw its velvet drapes across the Florida sky. He had not realized until then just how much her distance had cost him, especially now, with so much going on. Chris did not so much finish his tale as run out of steam.

  Jackie gave him the respect of a few silent moments just to ensure he was done, then said, “You know what we’re doing here?”

  “I assume it’s a rehab center.”

  “That’s right. And one of the problems we deal with is the fact that the drink or the drug is not the critical issue. In order to deal with the drug, the patient has to deal with the underlying issue. When you met with that rotten company today, you were dealing with your underlying issue. Quite successfully.”

  “I don’t see how you can say that when Avery is still threatened by bankruptcy.”

  “The company’s troubles are what’s on the su
rface. I’m talking about the turmoil you’re feeling down at a deeper level.” She slid her mug to one side. “Sometimes the only way to see the truth is by turning a secret corner. Looking beyond the thing that’s dominating your vision. In your case it’s the responsibility that you feel for your company. You’re sad because a real solution to your company’s problems, a genuine offer, would be such a great thing. But this wasn’t, was it? Real?”

  He shook his head. “No. It never was.”

  “That’s what we’re forcing people to accept here. That going back to whatever it is that’s wrecked their lives, no matter how desperately they’d like to have one more taste, one more high, will only return them to the same ruined state. Until they turn away and look beyond, they will never see the true salvation that awaits them.”

  He found himself growing uneasy under the glow of her smile, as though she was congratulating him for something he had not done. “I’m here for a neighbor. His daughter is an addict. Supposedly she’s cleaned herself up.”

  “But he’s heard all that before, right?”

  “All too often.”

  “And he thinks she’s here?”

  “She gave him this address in a letter she wrote. She also said she was pregnant.”

  Jackie’s face brightened still further. “Frank and Emily Wright are your neighbors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. Talk about miracles.”

  “Frank doesn’t know I’m here. Matter of fact, I don’t even know their daughter’s name.”

  “It’s Lucy, and you are an answer to a prayer.” She rose from the table. “Come with me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The teen center was housed in a former mini-mart on the basketball court’s other side. It was good that it was well separated from the other church buildings, because the place greeted Chris with one solid wall of noise. Rap music blared while the crowd yelled and jibed around a pair of battered pool tables. The side wall held an array of electronic games, all of which banged and chimed and yeowed and blasted. Through a glass partition Chris could see two rooms. One contained a dozen or so computer stations and more empty desks where kids studied. Compared to the front room, the study center was an island of sanity. The other rear room was the office, where a woman sat behind a desk and talked to a sullen teen sprawled on a stained sofa. One glance was enough for Chris to know the woman was Frank and Emily’s daughter.

  Jackie rapped on the glass, then waited for Lucy to look over and wave them in. When she shut the door behind them, he heard Lucy say, “Go tell Ramon he better lay off the little kids.”

  The boy rose to his feet, shifted his oversized jeans, and said, “You gonna talk to the cops?”

  “No, Anthony. You’re the one who’s going to talk to the detective, just like we agreed.”

  “But you’ll be there, right?”

  “I said I would be. Now, you want to make the call to social services?”

  “No, man, I don’t want to say another word to that lady.”

  “But you have to. Either that or she’s going to take you from your mother and put you in foster care. So who’s going to pick up the phone, you or me?”

  “You do it.”

  “‘Will you do it, please, Lucy?’” Lucy said.

  He repeated the words, though it cost him. Then he slipped past Chris and Jackie without acknowledging their presence. Lucy said, “You’re welcome, Anthony.”

  He shut the door hard enough to rattle the glass.

  Only then did Lucy focus her attention on them.

  Jackie said, “This is Chris Vance. Chris lives across the street from your folks.”

  Lucy’s only response to the news was to drop one hand to her extended belly.

  Jackie asked, “You mind if we sit down?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Chris unfolded a metal chair leaning against the side wall. He had no interest in coming within ten feet of that sofa. He seated himself across the desk from Lucy and studied her intently. The lady had packed a lot of hard living into her twentysome years.

  When Jackie finished with the introductions, Lucy asked, “Does Pop know you’re here?”

  “No. Nor does Emily.”

  That surprised her. “Why not Mom?”

  “She’s in Israel.”

  “So she finally got to go. Good for her. How come Pop’s not with her?”

  “He’s facing a health issue.”

  Her face tightened with concern. “Bad?”

  “He needs two hip replacements.”

  “So what did he tell you—he doubts his little girl is finally sober?”

  “Not exactly.” Chris had no problem being straight with her. “He wants to be certain you won’t hurt them again. I know there’s no way I can find that out for him. But I thought maybe . . .”

  Jackie said quietly, “You did the right thing.”

  Lucy’s chin trembled momentarily before she brought herself back under iron-hard control. “He’s right to worry.”

  Jackie said, “Lucy has been on staff here for a year and a half. How long ago did you graduate from our rehab center?”

  “Almost three years.” Her eyes glittered overbright with unshed tears. “I wound up here after I wasted my way through the money I got from hocking Mom’s jewels. She told you about that?”

  “Your dad did. Yes.”

  “One of the things they teach us here is facing up to the low points, and using them as a driving force to never fall again.” She cocked her chin toward the ceiling, as though trying to dislodge something in her throat. “Even so, I feel branded by the memory of what I did.”

  Jackie said, “When she graduated from our rehab program, Lucy moved into the apartments across the street. They used to be a motel. We converted them into studio apartments where we house families for up to six months while they try to straighten out their lives. Lucy started volunteering here. She turned out to be a diamond in the rough. The kids respond to her like no one we’ve ever seen before. She sees things before they happen and helps the kids out there get straight and stay straight. They feel safe here. Because of her.”

  “I believe you,” Chris said.

  “About a year ago Lucy married an instructor at the rehab center,” Jackie went on. “Unfortunately, he responded to the news that she was pregnant by going back on his drug of choice. We did an intervention. We gave him the ultimatum. Enter rehab, straighten out his life, or leave. We haven’t heard from him since.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chris said.

  “The important thing is that Lucy has remained on the straight and narrow. She’s been clean for almost three years. She studies the Scriptures and she makes them live for the kids you see out there. She teaches them the message of eternal hope. She makes Jesus live for them.” Jackie’s gaze rested calmly on the other woman. “And she is my friend.”

  Lucy asked, “Will you take a message to Pop?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell him I want my baby to know the best childhood anyone could ever have. Which is what I got, and then threw away.” There was a coppery tint to her eyes and her voice. “Maybe my daughter will be smarter than I was. I hope so.”

  Chris rose to his feet. He looked at the two of them and said, “I’ll tell him. Whether he hears me or not is another matter. Either way, I’m glad I came.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Amanda and Emily were still talking about it the next morning over breakfast. The buffet was a perfect representation of the hotel’s international visitors and contained everything from pickled herring to waffles. Over it all was draped an aromatic veil, filling the room with the scents of mint tea and chicory-laced coffee and hot chocolate with cinnamon. Each morning Amanda walked down the line, savoring the sights, before taking her standard fare of fruit and yogurt.

  “Can I tell you what I think?” Amanda asked.

  “Why do you think I brought it up? I’ve been wanting to talk about this ever since I heard.”

 
“How long have you known?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “Frank must have spent these last six weeks in knots.”

  “Actually, Frank didn’t hear about it until three days before we left.”

  “You didn’t tell him until we were leaving?”

  Emily shook her head sadly. “It was a terrible thing to do. But I couldn’t bring myself to mention it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he wished I hadn’t told him at all.”

  The news pushed Amanda back in her seat. “Frank Wright is the nicest, kindest man I have ever known. He’s what every grandfather should be. I cannot imagine him ever saying such a thing.”

  “Well, he did. What’s more, he meant it.”

  “I still don’t see how Frank can shut out his own daughter, especially when she’s soon to have a baby.”

  “You have no idea what that girl has put us through,” Emily replied. “If you had even the faintest inkling, you’d be standing there beside Frank, barring her from ever setting foot inside our home.”

  Amanda cut off her response at the sight of their tour guide approaching the table.

  “I suppose it would be acceptable to the rest of our group if you rejoined us today.”

  Amanda did not need to ask Emily’s opinion. Her friend’s expression said it all. “Sorry, but we’ll be on our own again.”

  The tour guide was an angular woman in her late fifties and spoke with an accent Amanda had decided was either German or Austrian. She held herself with Teutonic stiffness, especially when displeased, like now. “Again you wish to let down your group?”

  “We’re not letting anyone down,” Emily replied. “We’re doing what we came to Israel to do.”

  When she started to object, Amanda said with a steeliness all her own, “Good-bye.”

  Emily idly watched the group depart the breakfast room. “Do you know, talking this over with you has done me a world of good.”

  “I don’t see how. I haven’t said a thing of any use.”

  “It’s allowed me to share the burden.”