For a moment they were silent, then he said, “Heather, I want to thank you and your husband for cleaning up the mess in the preserve.”
When neither of the women replied, Reede went down the hall to his office.
“I love Sophie,” Heather whispered.
“I think we need to thank her. I’m going to start the grapevine that she needs customers.”
“Good idea,” Heather said, and when she went back to the exam rooms she was smiling.
All afternoon Reede worked on his bedside manner, trying his best to be . . . well, a Tristan clone. Unfortunately, he found that the more he listened the more people talked. By the end of the day he was well behind schedule. He texted Sophie.
LATE PATIENTS. SEE YOU AT 6:30? DINNER?
When Sophie’s phone buzzed she was so swamped with work she hardly had time to read. YES AND YES she wrote back.
By four she had the last of the animals done and she set them on top of the big refrigerated glass case to begin to dry. They’d be fragile, not really playthings, but each one had the child’s name on it and she’d also put on her initials and the year.
“They’re great,” Roan said as he came up behind her, then leaned toward her ear. “Not one of these kids would be good for the job. Too much talk and not enough action. I think I’ll ask the relatives to find someone.”
Sophie was chopping carrots and the look she gave him said it was too little too late.
“Here, I’ll help you,” he said.
But Sophie could see that he wanted to keep talking with the kids. It looked like he was missing being a professor. “I can do this,” she said. “Go on with your new friends.” There were only four of them left. “They look hungry, so why don’t you take them out to dinner?”
Roan kissed her cheek. “My cousin isn’t good enough for you.”
“I agree,” she said.
Sophie got everything cut up and ready to make into soup but she couldn’t cook it yet as she didn’t have refrigerator space for the big pots. She’d have to get up early tomorrow and start everything.
As she cut and arranged and planned, some of the parents from the Williamsburg church came by with their children to get the animals. Sophie told them how the dried clay would break easily.
“Don’t worry, this will go in the glass case in the living room,” a mother said. “And, Sophie, thank you for this. There were no nightmares, just talk of the potato dragon.”
At about seven when she was just finishing for the day the Baptist pastor, Russell Pendergast, stopped by.
“Should I throw my hat in first?” he asked sheepishly. She hadn’t seen him since that first day when she’d poured beer over Reede. Russell had known that she’d been about to start work for the man who’d nearly run over her.
“It’s all right,” she said and Russell stepped inside.
“It looks good. Very creatively done by talented people.”
Sophie groaned. “Roan and his ad! I think he wanted to lure students to him and he did. I did manage to get them to do a little cleaning while they contemplated how the universe is going to be affected by their own brilliant selves.”
“I was never that young,” he said.
“Me neither.”
“So you still have no help?”
“Is that an opening into telling me that you know someone?”
“I do, actually. Her name is Kelli and she’s had a hard time of it. She’s young and knows how to work.”
“She sounds marvelous,” Sophie said. “When can she start?”
“She’s on a bus to here now.”