Page 61 of Salvation

I’m buried in paperwork. One of the biggest corporations in Baton Rouge contacted me a few days ago asking about sponsoring the shelter. After several phone calls, and a slew of emails, our lawyer finally took over and handled the ins and outs along with the legal jargon.

The rough draft of the agreement is now sitting on my desk. I’ve been reading through it all morning and marking the passages I need Gwen, my lawyer, to explain.

Gwen will be meeting me here in an hour to go over everything, and then, we’re supposed to head to downtown Baton Rouge to the corporate office and meet with the legal team there to sign everything.

Basically, they want to be one of the main benefactors. They will, in turn, distribute funds to us via a quarterly system and we can use it to stock the shelter and provide more outreach to the community. They also want to build a separate building and eventually offer free childcare to the people of the community who can show that they are employed, but not making enough to cover childcare, which would hinder them from actually going to work.

In turn, they would like to offer sponsorship opportunities to hardworking members of the area who would otherwise not have access to them. The people would basically be paid interns and learn on the job training for positions within the company. We would be able to watch their children during the workday and they would work harder knowing that their kids are in a safe location and getting adequate care.

All in all, it sounds like a dream, and they are being very generous. I’m excited to get the ball rolling. I just want to be perfectly sure that I fully understand everything, and that there’s nothing I missed that would jeopardize me, or the integrity of the shelter.

My phone rings as I’m reading the last paragraph of the contract. I glance at it. Seeing it’s Gabrial, I pause and then decide I can call him back in a bit.

It rings several times, and then, my voicemail picks up. Ignoring the message for the time being, I make a few more notations on things I need clarified.

Forty minutes later, Gwen strolls in. I like her. She grew up with us in the neighborhood and is now a non-profit legal analyst. She volunteers her time here and is the best person to represent us. Her mom was a battered woman who escaped the life, so it’s personal to her. She goes above and beyond for us and is here both in a legal aspect and a volunteer as often as she can be.

She walks in on her three-inch heels. Her suit is sharp looking, and her dyed red curls are perfectly pinned up in a no-nonsense twist, accentuating the mocha of her skin perfectly. She’s carrying a dark brown leather briefcase and two coffees from Java and Sweeties. She grins as I groan and reach for her with grabby hands.

Perching elegantly on the edge of the chair, showing off her curvaceous hips, she smirks at me and cheekily says, “Who said one of these is for you?”

I growl at her as the smell reaches me. I can already taste the heavenly brew as the scent envelops my senses. I snarl, “Bitch, I will cut you.”

Bursting out laughing, she hands the coffee over. “Damn, Sista. Your hood rat is coming out. You ain’t wrong though. This is the best damn coffee on the planet. Heaven can’t be better than this! Like the best sex of your life in a cup. Holla!” The first sip has me groaning in appreciation and completely agreeing with her colorful description. She always makes me laugh when she loses her refined lawyer vocabulary and falls back into the neighborhood talk.

Her defined brow arches at me. “First cup of the day?”

“You practically give me whiplash with how quickly you flip from neighborhood Gwen to lawyer Gwen.” I smirk, but growl, “Only cup of the day… it sucks.”

Laughing, she says, “It’s a gift,” and points to the papers spread haphazardly all over my desk. “I see you’ve been busy. You know you could have read all that on the computer, right?”

“I know that, but then I couldn’t use my Wonder Woman Post-its to mark the areas I want to talk to you about.”

Her discreetly, perfectly natural looking made-up eyes roll, and she laughs as she leans over the desk and grabs one of my stacks. She flips through the pages until she locates one of my sticky notes. She reads over it before looking up at me as she taps the note with her short, pink manicured nail. “This… they want the childcare center named after the founder of the company. Basically, they want a plaque on the door that everyone can see.”

I nod. “Okay, I thought so; but wasn’t sure. That’s completely doable.”

Grabbing another sheet, I flick the note and show the paragraph to Gwen. She nods. “Yeah, that one we can talk to them about. They want to be able to do walk-throughs of the shelter at random times to check the appearance and make certain it’s in good condition.”

I shake my head. “Not happening. I can’t have random people showing up here and walking through. The women and children here are frightened and have been through literal hell. Having strangers just randomly roam through when they feel the need to check my integrity is not smart or safe. I’m not comfortable with that and it’s not happening.”

She makes a notation on a legal pad of the page, and paragraph, before she sticks a pink page marker on the side of it. “I completely agree with you. We’ll have them appoint a female for that task, one individual, and request she give twenty-four hours’ notice when she wants to inspect the shelter. They shouldn’t have a problem with that.”

I murmur my agreement as we continue to flip through the entire 147-page contract.

She points out things she saw that I missed, and I bring up a few more points of contention that I found.

Together we make a list of things to discuss with the firm. Before we know it, another two hours has passed. Maia pops her head into the room to let us know that the meeting is across town in forty minutes, and we won’t make it with traffic if we don’t head out. We should have left twenty minutes ago.

Gwen looks at her delicate gold watch and stands. She grabs her notepad, placing it, and her copy of the contract, into her briefcase. After looking over at me, she excuses herself to use the restroom and says I can ride with her and we’re leaving in four minutes.

Standing, I smooth my purple pencil dress over my slim hips. My hair is pulled back in a simple low ponytail and I have low black kitten heels on my feet. Turning full circle, I ask Maia, “How do I look?”

She nods in appreciation and says, “You look great. Professional and put together. Like a woman who runs an amazing shelter and a woman they’d love to work with.” Thanking her, I grab my purse. As I do, I see my phone on my desk.

Shit! I forgot to listen to my message from Gabrial.

Grabbing the phone, I unlock it and quickly listen to the message as I walk down the hall.

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