Chapter Thirteen H: The Rehearsal
On Friday morning, Lena heard raised voices outside the corner grocery.
Celia stood beside a man wearing a reflective vest and holding a clipboard.
The man was arguing with Gloria Bell about the bus stop.
“You can’t move children to a blind corner without speaking to the school,” Gloria said.
Celia interrupted before the man could answer.
“We’re only testing a safer route.”
Gloria folded her arms.
“A route isn’t safer because you call it safer.”
Lena stopped at the edge of the pavement.
“Who authorized the test?” she asked.
Celia turned toward her.
“You are not part of this discussion.
”
“The crossing guard is asking a reasonable question.”
The man in the vest introduced himself as a temporary traffic survey assistant.
He said he had been hired to count vehicles and assess visibility near the intersection.
“By whom?” Lena asked.
He looked at Celia.
“The neighborhood committee.”
Gloria shook her head.
“The school district didn’t ask for a survey.”
Lena addressed the assistant rather than Celia.
“You can count vehicles from a public place, but you cannot direct children to a new crossing without the proper approval.”
He looked down at his clipboard.
“Nobody told me I would be moving children.
”
“You were about to,” Gloria said.
The man stepped back from the curb.
Celia’s face flushed.
“You people are determined to make me look unreasonable.”
“Then stop asking strangers to do things they haven’t agreed to do,” Gloria replied.
The assistant removed his vest and walked toward his car.
Celia followed him, speaking rapidly.
Lena stayed beside Gloria until the school bus arrived.
The crossing guard waved the children through their familiar route.
A small girl with purple ribbons in her hair stopped to look at the adults.
“Are we going somewhere different?” she asked.
“Not today,” Gloria said.
The girl nodded and boarded the bus.
After the doors closed, Gloria turned toward Lena.
“I don’t want a fight with my neighbors.”
“Neither do I.”
“But she keeps trying to make me choose between being polite and doing my job.”
Lena looked at the empty bus stop.
“You did your job.”
Gloria sighed.
“I hope that will be enough.”
“It was enough for the children this morning.”
Lena went home by the longer route and found Malik waiting on her porch.
He had brought two bags of soil and a small rosemary plant.
“I thought we might work on something that doesn’t involve police reports,” he said.
Lena took the plant from him.
“That sounds wonderful.”
They spent the afternoon digging beside the fence.
For several hours, the loudest sounds were birds and the scrape of a trowel against the earth.
When they finished, Lena stood back and examined the neat row of plants.
“I had forgotten how good ordinary work feels,” she said.
Malik brushed dirt from his gloves.
“Ordinary work is underrated.”
Lena smiled.
Then her phone rang, and Dana Webb asked whether she could come to the station the next morning to review the sequence of incidents.
Lena looked at the rosemary before answering.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll be there.”
