Page 53 of Puck Daddies
The room laughs, and my chest loosens an inch.
Aqua gestures to the bee painting. “We start with Bea. She fed you. She told you to drink water. She reminded you to take breaks and kiss your kids. She gave second chances. This wall is for her and for the place she built. This is about all of us. Donor tiles are there. QR codes are here and here. If you can’t give money, give a story. If you can’t give a story, give a share. Everyone can do something.”
She hands me the mic. I step up. My voice is smaller than I want it to be. I try anyway. “Thank you for coming. We’re fighting to stay. We’re preparing in case we can’t. The wall is our way to carry this place forward no matter what happens. I don’t have a speech. I have a request. If this place has mattered to you, help us keep it alive. That’s it.”
I hand the mic back before my voice shakes. Aqua nods like that was exactly right and turns to the crowd. “Who has a story?” she asks, and a hand goes up near the back.
A man in a suit steps forward, holds the mic two inches from his mouth like he was coached. “I came here after school in ninth grade. Bea sat me at the pink table and made me do my algebra. She threatened to call my mother if I didn’t finish the worksheet. I finished. I got into City. I’m a teacher now. I send my students here for cocoa in the winter. Put me down for a gold tile.”
Applause. He steps aside. Aqua points to a woman with a stroller. The woman speaks into the mic even though her voice shakes. “This was my first stop after the hospital with my first child. I needed quiet. I needed to sit somewhere that didn’t smell like sanitizer. Bea walked over with a glass of water and a cookie and said, ‘You’re doing great.’ I believed her because she said it like a fact.”
Another hand. An older woman with a cane. “My husband and I had our first date at that table, the one by the window,” she says. “The second week after he moved here from Ghana. Bea made him try every pastry. He proposed there three years later. We lost him last spring. I still come in and she still tells me I’m doing fine even though she’s gone. I feel her here every time. I want a tile with both our names on it.”
A twenty-something. “I did my first open mic here. I messed up, and Bea clapped anyway and told me to do it again. I did. I’m going to art school in the fall. I can only do the twenty-five dollar tile but I’ll come back when I can do more.”
A man I don’t know. “I got my first job because I met my boss here. He heard me arguing about baseball and hired me for theinternship because I could make a point without being a jerk. Sometimes. I owe this place.”
A line of stories forms without anyone telling them to form. I keep pouring. Bex keeps sliding drinks. The tip jar fills and fills. Anthony keeps setting tiles. Tom keeps the crowd out of the street when a bus needs to pass.
It’s almost impossible not to cry, hearing their memories of Aunt Bea.
Aqua wraps the story portion and swings into the mechanics. “Raise your phone. Scan the code. Pick a tile level. Write your line at the signing table. Don’t worry about your handwriting. We’ll print the label. If you need help, Tom has you. If you want to sponsor a tile for someone else, tell Bex. If you want to cry, the bathroom is to your left, and the paper towels are strong. We do not judge tears here.”
The line at the signing table goes from three people to twenty. Bex and I pour faster. Regulars step behind the counter and help pull cups even though they don’t work here. I let them. It’s that kind of day.
People are live streaming from the sidewalk too. “Look, the wall,” someone says into her phone. Comments fly.I remember Bea yelling at me to eat a real lunch.Tell Meg my grandma says hi.Can we buy tiles from out of town?Aqua answers that last one into the mic. “Yes. QR code in our bio. Write your inscription and we’ll place it.”
By five, my hands ache. My face hurts from not crying. The honeycomb is halfway full. People are still coming. I pull Anthony aside between tile placements. “We’re going to need a second panel.”
“I have another in the back.”
“Bring it out.”
He mounts it under the first. The pattern keeps going. People cheer when it clicks into the brackets, as if we’ve added a second floor to a house.
Dana calls at five on the dot. “We’re filed. We’ll get a hearing date by midweek. I sent a letter to Harbor Street Holdings’ counsel asking for a meeting. I also sent a note to the press contact atBaltimore Dailyabout the fundraiser, no legal talk, just facts. They’ll send a photographer in the next half hour. If someone from the city shows up, smile and say thank you for being here.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“You’re doing great. Hang in there.”
I stand still for five seconds in the office because the clock in my head is too loud. When I emerge, the street is full. The sawhorses hold the edges. A violinist from the corner joined without asking and is now playing something soft. The shelter jar has more cash than I’ve seen in it during any event. TheBaltimore Dailyphotographer is taking photos of the wall, not my face. Good.
Oliver, Hudson, and Rocco arrive at six. They stay at the edges and do what needs doing. Hudson takes over carrying cases of water from the back to the front. Oliver stands by the signing table and helps people with the app when it freezes. Rocco hands out donation flyers and answers questions about the shelter. We don’t touch. We don’t drift toward each other. We move like people who know how to stay in our lanes when the street is crowded.
Aqua calls me to the front to update the total at six thirty. “We have raised twelve thousand dollars for legal costs and moving prep!” The room cheers. I look out at faces and try to hold that number in my head like it can ground me. It helps for a minute, and then the fear rushes back in. Thirty days. Paper on the table in the office. I smile anyway. People need a smile.
I do too. Even if it’s fake.
At seven, we stop taking tile inscriptions and start pressing the last of them into the wall. Anthony lines them up and sets them. The grid fills. He presses the last gold hex at the bottom right and steps back. The wall glows. Names. Dates.Thank you, Bea.First kiss, 2007.For Dad.For Mom.For the bees.
The crowd claps again. Aqua wraps. “We’re closing the wall for tonight. We’ll open it tomorrow at open and keep going until we fill the second panel. If we need a third, we’ll add one. Thank you for being here. Get home safe. Tip your baristas. Drink water. Hug your mothers. Protect the dolls.”
We clean as the crowd thins. Volunteers bring back cones. Tom tallies the last of the QR donations. Bex wipes the counters under the honey drips. Anthony snaps a photo of the wall for the post. I stand in front of the painting and breathe. My hands shake from coffee and adrenaline.
The guys wait until the last of the volunteers leave and then come to the counter. Oliver’s eyes ask before his mouth does. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
