The orthopedist Maureen took Zack to looked over his X-rays and was satisfied with the way the bones had been set. He told him what they all already knew, that Zack was lucky to be alive. It was a miracle the bus hadn’t killed him when Zack drifted out of the bike lane. The driver didn’t even see him until he was on the ground, and people were screaming to warn the driver. All Zack could do now was wait until the bones healed. He was going to be very hampered in the meantime, particularly with both wrists in casts.
Mike and Maureen organized a babysitting system for him. Mike dropped him off at his mother’s on the way to work, and picked him up on the way home at night. That way Zack got to spend time with both his parents, who had missed him for so long, and he was enjoying having his father to himself at night in Mike’s new apartment. Maureen knew a college student looking for odd jobs who had agreed to come to her house in the daytime to help them out. Zack settled in quickly and felt at home in the new apartment. Once Greg and Luke were back in New York, they often came over in the evenings, sometimes with other friends, and hung out with him, while Mike ordered food for them, and let them spend time together without interfering. When he did join them, they told him about their adventures on the trip. For the most part, it sounded like wholesome good fun, with a few scary episodes that had added some spice to their long trip and had proven to be harmless in the end, except for the final chapter with the bus.
Spencer sent Mike an occasional text to ask how Zack was doing, and it sounded as though they were managing very well. During his second week home, Zack had sent in his applications to NYU, Eugene Lang College, and Columbia for admission in January. He rejected Mike’s suggestion of MIT. Having been away for a year, he wanted to stay in New York, and Mike didn’t object. He was happy to have his son home, although he’d be living in the dorms once he started school.
When the store reopened, Spencer was busier than ever, and she noticed that the homeless population in the neighborhood seemed to have increased. While the construction was in progress, there had been nooks and crannies where they could set up their “cribs,” as the homeless called them, and their tents, and there was garbage near the entrance to the store every morning, rolled-up sleeping bags in doorways, and shopping carts full of belongings along the sidewalk. Spencer’s customers commented on it, and she was trying to figure out ways to help the homeless while keeping them at a distance from the store. One morning one of them, who had become a familiar face in the neighborhood, was standing a few feet from the entrance, stark naked, giving himself a shower from a hose, and she didn’t want to call the police. The doorman had escorted him rapidly away, but it was an ongoing problem she was eager to solve.
She finally had an idea late one night. In the morning, she spoke to Paul Trask about it and asked for his help.
“I need some kind of space to rent, with a large interior area, like an old garage, a warehouse, an art gallery. I need one big room. It doesn’t need to be habitable or pretty or chic, but it has to be big, about ten blocks from the store. It’s going to be a work and storage space, not a store,” she explained. “And we need a bathroom.”
“Is this for our annex?” Paul’s eyes lit up at the prospect, and Spencer shook her head.
“It’s not our annex. This is for something else. I’m not ready for our annex yet.” She didn’t explain further. The insurance had paid for a good part of the repairs and renovations after the fire, but not all of it, so it was an added, unexpected expense. She didn’t want to incur more big expenses at the moment, but if done right, the project she had in mind shouldn’t cost too much. After that, she spoke to HR, and asked them to put up a notice asking people to sign up if they wanted to make some extra money working late on a special project. She was going to pay them, and also the rent for the location, out of her own pocket. She assumed she would get mostly the young employees who might sign up. She was planning to pay minimum wage, and didn’t want to pay more. They had about fifteen names at the end of a week. And two weeks after Spencer had asked him, Paul Trask walked into her office with some photographs.
“I don’t know what you want it for, Spencer, but I think I might have found what you’re looking for. It’s an old brick garage. A car mechanic rented it for thirty years. He retired, and it’s standing empty. It’s ten blocks from here. It’s no thing of beauty, but it’s functional, and it’s big, and it has a basic bathroom.”
“It sounds perfect. When can I see it?” She smiled at him. “Is it expensive?”
“No, it’s cheap. It’s been standing vacant for two years. Now are you going to tell me what you’re up to?”
“Soon,” she promised him. She made a date to see it with him that afternoon. She was thrilled when she saw it. It was exactly what she had in mind. And now she had to do the rest. She’d been refining the concept in her head for weeks, and was excited about it. She hadn’t told a soul what she was up to.
She asked Marcy to place an order for a hundred down jackets at wholesale prices, in four sizes—medium, large, extra-large, and a small, average size for women—a hundred sleeping bags, gloves, beanies, blankets, sweatshirts, Tshirts and big white cotton shirts for summer, insulated tarps, some collapsible umbrellas, small tool kits, hygiene supplies, nonperishable food snacks, and staples like instant coffee, tea bags, and sugar.
“This isn’t for Brooke’s,” she explained to Marcy, “it’s for me to give away. I want solid quality that won’t fall apart in your hands, at the best prices we can get. This is an experiment. And I need big cheap tote bags to put it all in, one for each person. And a bottle they can carry water in.” Marcy was intrigued, and so was Paul Trask. Spencer signed a six-month lease for the garage at a ridiculously low price. It needed some repairs but not for what they were doing, and it had an alarm to protect it. And an iron gate in front, and the bathroom worked, for the employees who would be there.
“What are you going to do with all this stuff?” Marcy asked her. “Who’s it for?” She was intrigued.
“You’ll see,” Spencer said mysteriously.
“When do you need it?”
“As soon as you can get it.”
Within a week, everything had arrived, and she had it put in the garage, after she had the place thoroughly cleaned by the store’s janitorial staff, working at night. She had Paul buy her some old collapsible card tables, and they bought a few long ones secondhand.
Spencer sent emails to the fifteen employees who were interested in extra work at night and asked them to come to the garage a few days later, after the store closed. She was there herself before they arrived. Marcy and Beau had volunteered to come with her for her mystery project. She had spread the supplies out on the tables herself before the employees showed up. She explained the principle of it when they got there. She wanted to load the tote bags they’d gotten with one of everything, a jacket, a sweatshirt, a pack of Tshirts, socks, sleeping bag, food, tools, basic hygiene supplies, all of it.
“I want us to pack the bags, and we’re going to leave the bags here, as neatly as we can. We’re going to put these signs on the windows of the store.” Spencer had made big red hearts herself, and on each of them, it said “We want to help. If you need supplies (brand-new jackets, sleeping bags, etc.) come to (the address of the garage), every Tuesday after work hours.” And underneath it, in bold, “Please don’t camp here at night.” “It’s a trade-off,” she explained to Marcy and Beau. “Don’t camp in front of the store, and we’ll give you great new stuff for free. And we found a spot that’s just far enough away, so I hope that out of respect, they won’t come back to the store to camp, and they’ll stick around where ‘their own store’ is.”