“Not to the store, Pat,” Billy objected, bending over to retrieve Aunt Jacqui’s papers. “To the school. It’s just the kind of thing Grandpa loves, helping kids who show enthusiasm for improving their lives.”
Ah: he was a Bysen. That was why he could set up meetings with beggars even though he was inexperienced and had a boss who didn’t want to hear about the matter. That meant Aunt Jacqui was a Bysen, too, so I didn’t have to keep playing twenty questions with her.
I smiled warmly at Billy. “Your grandfather went to this high school seventy years ago. Five of the girls on the team have parents who work for By-Smart, so it would be great synergy for the store and the community.” I winced at hearing corpu-speak fall so effortlessly from my lips.
“Your grandfather doesn’t believe in giving that kind of money to charity, Billy. If you don’t know that by now, you haven’t been listening to him very hard,” Jacqui said.
“That’s not fair, Aunt Jacqui. What about the wing he and Grandma built on the hospital in Rolling Meadows, and the mission school they started in Mozambique?”
“Those were big buildings that have his name on them,” Jacqui said. “A little program down here that he won’t get any glory for—”
“I’ll talk to him myself,” Billy said hotly. “I’ve met some of these girls, like I said, and when he hears their stories—”
“Large tears will fill his eyes,” Jacqui interrupted. “He’ll go, ‘Hnnh, hnnh, if they want to succeed they need to work hard, like I did. No one gave me any handouts, and I started out the same place they did, hnnh, hnnh.’”
Patrick Grobian laughed, but Billy looked flushed and hurt. He believed in his grandfather. To cover his confusion, Billy started sorting out the papers that Aunt Jacqui had dropped, separating my proposal from several sheets of fax paper.
“Here’s something from Adolpho in Matagalpa,” he said. “I thought we agreed not to work with him, but he’s quoting you—”
Jacqui took the papers back from him. “I wrote him last week, Billy, but maybe he didn’t get the letter. You’re right to point it out.”
“But it looks like he has a whole production schedule.”
Jacqui produced another dazzling smile. “I think you misread it, Billy, but I’ll make extra sure we’re all clear on this.”
Pat pulled my report out of his trash. “I moved too fast on this one, Billy; I’ll take a closer look at my numbers and get back to your friend. In the meantime, why don’t you go out to the loading bays, make sure that Bron at bay thirty-two has taken off—he has a tendency to linger, wasting time with the girls on the shift. And you, Ms.—uh, we’ll call you in a couple of days.”
Billy looked again at Aunt Jacqui, a troubled frown creasing his smooth young face, but he obediently got up to go. I followed him from the room.
“I’d be glad to get you any other information you want that might help your grandfather make a decision about the team. Maybe you’d like to bring him to one of our practices.”
His face lit up. “I don’t think he’d come, but I could, that is, if I could take off from here, maybe if I came in early. Aren’t Mondays and Thursdays your practice days?”
I was surprised and asked how he knew.
He flushed. “I’m in the choir and the youth group at my church, our church, I mean, the one my family goes to, and we do these exchanges with inner-city churches sometimes, like, where we trade ministers, and our choirs sing together and stuff, and my youth group has adopted Mount Ararat down on Ninety-first Street, and some of the kids at the church, they go to Bertha Palmer. Two of them play on the basketball team. Josie Dorrado and Sancia Valdéz. Do you know them?”
“Oh, yes: there are only sixteen girls on the team, I know them all. So how come you’re working here at the warehouse? Shouldn’t you be in college or high school or something yourself?”
“I wanted to do a year of service, something like the Peace Corps, after I finished high school, but Grandpa persuaded me to spend a year on the South Side. It’s not like he’s sick or dying or anything, but he wanted me to work for a year in the company while he was still around to, like, answer my questions, and meantime I can do service through the church and stuff. That’s why I know Aunt Jacqui is just being, well, cynical. She is sometimes. A lot of the time. Sometimes I think she only married Uncle Gary because she wanted—” He broke off, blushing even more darkly.