Page 2 of Faithful

When we’re not laboring over forms, emails, and routine calls, we’re preoccupied with preparations for the Annual Halloween Candy Drive, something Blue Sun Project apparently does every year. Something I wasn’t included in last fall due to my commitments at school. That’s why I’m baffled by how much collective effort goes into organizing a one-day charity event.

“We like to get things off the ground early,” Winona explains to me on a Thursday morning as she and I look through clip art for a flier she’s tasked to make. “Otherwise, you’re gonna have to compete with a lot of other nonprofit start-ups, and people don’t like to give stuff away when faced with too many choices.”

“Huh, I never thought about it that way,” I confess, pointing at the bright orange pumpkin-shaped figure that comes up on the screen after yet another click of the mouse.

“Believe it or not, but the majority of those engaging in philanthropic activities don’t even know where their donations go. They have people to decide this kind of thing.”

“I figured.” My father is a good example.

“Don’t take it personally.” Winona tears her gaze from the computer screen and directs it at me as if trying to tell me this is not an afterthought.

“I don’t… take it personally.”

“You’re alright,” she says with a smile. “We’re not our parents. Sometimes apples do fall far from the tree and then roll into the bushes and run away and join a commune of strawberries.”

Nobody in my office likes Gavin Watson, especially recently with him trying to make more waves in Washington. I’m not an exception to that rule. “Why strawberries and not ora–”

Here, the front door swings open and Steven walks in, effectively cutting off the rest of my question.

He drops by at least three times a week now and more often than not, I don’t see him penciled into Gin’s appointment calendar, so the only other logical explanation for his visits is Val.

All of us, especially Winona, find this development interesting and gossip-worthy. Admittedly, though, in addition to my phone going off quietly in my desk drawer each time a new article about Iodine hits the web, the developing friendship between Steven and Val isn’t the only source of entertainment in the office these days.

There’s Crazy Bree too. Gin spends a good hour with her at a time locked up in that tiny room down the hallway with occasional screams bleeding through the concrete walls.

Bree is here today again. Supposedly she needs assistance to renew her food stamps, and it’s been more or less quiet ever since she arrived, but now that Steven is here, things start getting out of hand.

“That woman is unstable,” he says eventually when the high-pitched screams behind the door are impossible to ignore. He’s perched on the edge of Val’s desk while she’s munching on the cake he brought her. “She needs to be institutionalized.”

“She has two little kids,” Winona says, getting up and walking to the coffee maker to refill her paper cup. “There’s no one to look after them.”

“Have you considered that they might be better off with someone else?” Steven asks.

“She’s not always this moody,” Val replies, pushing the cake aside as if it soured in a matter of seconds. “She probably just forgot to take her meds.”

“And that's the problem.” Steven folds his arms on his chest.

“Are you seriously saying her kids should be sent to foster care?” Val shoots him a menacing stare.

“In some cases, it’s the right thing to do,” Steven goes on.

As if to prove his point, Bree explodes out of Gin’s office, screaming something very unintelligible at the top of her lungs. She rushes through the reception area, yelling and slapping furniture, and then disappears into the street.

I’m watching all this play out from my spot at Winona’s desk, a selection of pumpkins still on screen.

“Well.” Steven shakes his head and motions at the exit. “I wouldn’t be comfortable with the mother of my children behaving like that.”

“Maybe you should fuck yourself then so you’d conceive, carry, and birth and raise your own children,” Val says snappishly. “See, problem solved.” She nudges the leftovers of the cake toward the edge of the desk and sends it into a trashcan.

Winona snorts and almost spills her coffee.

I attempt to hold in my laughter by pressing my lips together.

The look on Steven’s face is hit-by-a-brick priceless.

“What is wrong with you all?” Gin–our soft-hearted, sunflower Gin–barks from across the room, pushing everyone into a bubble of tense silence.

I’ve never witnessed my boss raise her voice before and this sudden burst of anger makes my stomach curl.

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