First (Wrong) Impressions: A Modern Pride & Prejudice (6 page)

“We don’t allow heels in here for volunteers. The floors are slippery and you’ll be running around doing jobs. It’ll be unsafe. Also, I’ll need you to put on a new shirt. Jane can find you one in the donation pile.”

“What the hell is wrong with my shirt?”

“It’s too skimpy, tight, and short. I can see you bra through it. It’s going to get you a lot of unwelcome attention.”

“Just change it,” Charles said in a big-brother voice.

“It isn’t my fault if they don’t like what I’m wearing.”

“No, it isn’t. If this were a bar, I’d absolutely agree with you. But this is a drop-in centre. Half of the people coming in through those doors tonight will be drunk or high. Most of them are banned from the other facilities in the city. If they grope you or hit on you or threaten to rape you, I have to kick them out. Harassing and threatening volunteers can get a person banned for three months minimum. I don’t want to be put in that situation when all you have to do is wear a different shirt for a couple of hours.”

Darcy said, “We’re guests here. We should follow the rules.”

Lizzy blinked at him. “Thank you.”

“Fine,” Caroline said. “Whatever.”

Lizzy went through their roles for the evening. Darcy agreed to wash dishes and Charles agreed to garbage detail. Caroline signed up to help Jane in the coffee bar.

Lizzy did her new volunteer spiel: no touching, no giving out money or items, no getting involved in confrontations, and so on. She pointed out the four staff members working on shift besides herself, and how two worked at the door, one in the kitchen, and one on the main floor with her.

“Do fights break out here?” Charles asked.

“No.” Lizzy considered that answer. “Well, almost never. You have to realize that fighting inside is a really big deal. You get banned, for one thing. I’ll call the cops if I can’t break it up. That’s only happened a couple of times because mostly clients will pull apart a fight if I can’t stop it. They don’t want the place to get shut down.”

“Do people ever hit staff?” Darcy asked and Lizzy detected a lot of weight in the question. It was a common one, though. She got it every time she had new volunteers.

“Hitting a staff member gets you a minimum one-year ban. Depending upon your behavior during that year, you might get back in afterwards. Hitting staff is…it happens, sure, but I’ve been here since my teens. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually been hit. Think about that. It’s pretty rare.”

“So, we’re safe here?” Caroline asked.

“Oh sure,” Lizzy said. “We don’t let volunteers walk to their cars alone. We have radios. And we’re trained to deal with nearly anything that comes up. You just need to follow the rules. It’s the breaking of the rules that causes the most trouble because people see it as unfair, which can cause conflicts.”

“If you walk a volunteer to their car,” Darcy said slowly, “who walks you back?”

“No one,” she said. “It’s a little different for the staff. Plus, we have the radios and we let everyone know where we are. But, honestly, don’t worry. I live two blocks from here. All of these people know where I live, yet I feel perfectly safe.”

They had no more questions, so Lizzy got up and did a final check on the kitchen crew. They were heating up leftover chili that The Mustard Seed had dropped off from their monthly freezer clean up. Thank the Lord for their leftovers. Aria, the health inspector, was fine with this temporary solution, since the Seed had a fully equipped—and inspected—kitchen.

The doors opened and the crowd entered. Lizzy greeted people and laughed and asked questions. She maintained the professional detachment of knowing names and knowing stories, but sharing very little of herself. That was the way of things. They were in survival mode when they walked into The Faith. In many ways, so was she.

Rob’s Sue walked in with heavy, lidded eyes. Damn. She’d been clean for a month, too. Lizzy didn’t say anything and let her get in line for supper.

People asked for bus tickets, which were handed out at eight and ten; for use of the phone, which had to be the payphone; for food, which was handed at out at eight and ten; for blankets, which were handed out… she repeated the same lines over and over to people who came every single night The Faith was open. But she understood: for people whose lives had no stability, there was comfort in knowing her rules stayed the same and the schedule was consistent.

She liked to think it helped them build their own schedule, since The Faith did not operate in crisis mode. But some days, she just felt she was patronizing and infantilizing them. Not tonight, though. Tonight, she felt she was helping.

The chili was served with stale bread. No green anything tonight. None had been dropped off from the grocery store leftovers and salad for a hundred people was well outside her budget, especially now.

“Um, Ms. Bennet?”

She turned around. “Don’t use my last name here.”

“Right. You’d already told us that. Sorry, Lizzy.”

“It’s okay. I’ll cheat and call you Darcy?” She eyed his dress sleeves rolled to his elbows and the front of his shirt damp and clinging to his torso. “Did the dishwasher attack you?”

“Several times. I wish someone had warned me I’d be sprayed with scalding water every time I opened the lid.”

“Sorry. I forgot.” That wasn’t a lie, though looking at the mess he was in, she was happy it had slipped her mind. “Did you need an apron or something?”

“David said dishes were his job, so I let him take over washing the pots.”

“Oh, I didn’t see him come in. Yeah, sorry, he’s one of our regulars. He’s on something of a probation around here. Doing dishes is part of it.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I would’ve told you if I’d seen him.”

“What did he do?”

She didn’t like to scare volunteers with the juicy details. In David’s case, he’d been tripping out on way too much meth. He’d attacked her, put her into a headlock, and punched her three times before she could get free. Four people jumped him and beat the living shit out of him. It went downhill from there.

Melissa closed The Faith down for two days so they could clean up all the blood and make sure Lizzy was okay. She wasn’t badly hurt, just a black eye and busted lip, but no one fooled around when one of them got hurt. While she was off, Luke arranged a refresher non-violent self-defence course and they hired a fourth staff member to work every shift.

And then they forced her to take two weeks’ stress leave, “Just in case.”

She didn’t want to tell Darcy all that. He didn’t need to know and he’d probably just look down on her for being too weak to control an uncontrollable environment where only street code kept the place standing. “He wants to earn back my trust, so I’m letting him.”

Darcy said nothing in reply, which suited Lizzy just fine.

Chapter 6

It was nearly eleven-thirty by the time they were gathered in Lizzy’s living room. Caroline feigned a headache and took a cab to her hotel when it was clear that Darcy was going to follow Charles back to the house. Lizzy couldn’t understand why Darcy came back with them; there was nothing there for him. Plus, this was totally date night for Charles and Jane. Lizzy wanted to shoo him away.

“You sang really well,” Charles was saying to Jane.

“Thank you,” Jane said, blushing. “You did…” she searched for the right word, “an admirable job with
Desperado.
“

Everyone but Darcy laughed. But even he couldn’t help but crack a small smile and say, “Charles needs to be significantly drunk to even hit the right key.”

“Yeah, but by then I’ve forgotten all of the words!”

Darcy’s mouth twitched. “That’s no real difference from tonight.”

Charles erupted into laughter and pointed at Darcy. “At least I tried singing!”

Darcy ignored him, though his smile didn’t fade.

“And Lizzy,” Charles said, “I didn’t realize you could sing so well.”

Lizzy returned to the kitchen with a glass of water for Charles, and mint tea for herself and Darcy. “Mom was determined one of her daughters would be successful at something famous. She didn’t care what that ‘something’ was. Jane got out of it once we realized she could figure skate, and the rest of us had to suffer through singing, acting, and music lessons.”

“The lessons seemed to have stuck,” Darcy said.

Jane chuckled. “If they have, it was only by luck. Lizzy screamed before every class until she was seven.”

Lizzy rolled her eyes, but she did feel her cheeks heat up. “I hated it.”

“You made sure everyone knew. Eventually, the instructor told Mom to stop forcing Lizzy to do what she didn’t want, because Mom was just wasting her time and money. So then Mom made the mistake of asking Lizzy what she wanted to do.”

“What did you ask for?” Charles asked.

Lizzy felt her face heat up more. “Jousting lessons.”

That brought more laughter and Charles asked, “What you did you end up getting?”

“Freaking piano.”

Darcy frowned at that. “You don’t like the piano?”

“I preferred reading, not trying to act like some spoiled rich kid wanting to go to concerts and auditions.”

“Some of those kids might have been there because they were shy and learning how to overcome it,” Darcy said calmly.

Jane reached over to put her hand on Lizzy’s forearm. “Shyness is something Lizzy’s never experienced.”

That brought a release of the tension and Lizzy laughed along. Darcy looked away, but not before she noticed his smirk.

“Lizzy, I don’t know how you do it,” Charles said. “You had a fight break out, you ran out of sugar for the coffee, half of your volunteers didn’t show up, and here you are, laughing like nothing’s happened.”

“Practice, detachment, and ice in my veins.”

Lizzy never liked to talk in depth about her job. It was easier to give the flip answers, so she wouldn’t have to think about the bad times. At Charles’s dubious look, she added, “It’s not a job for everyone, but I enjoy it.”

Jane smiled. “I’m very proud of her. She makes a difference every day.”

“Do you believe you’re making a difference?” Darcy asked. “If these people keep coming back night after night for a decade, have you really done anything?”

Lizzy stared at him, her temper rising. She got this question all of the time from volunteers. That didn’t bother her so much, since talking to them was her job. However, here, in her own home, she didn’t have to address that question, talk about charity models, or emotions and broken systems. This was her house and he was a guest.

One glance at Jane was enough for Jane to say, “You should come to the lecture series in the new year.”

Charles, who’d been giving Darcy a death glare, encouraged Jane to keep talking.

“It’s given by Lizzy, Luke, and Melissa, and they do a social justice series. It’s always well attended. I’ve taken some of the classes, and it’s amazing when Lizzy explains the history of charity, the effects of the residential school system, urban poor, all of it.”

“My dad’s family were all in resident schools,” Charles said somberly. “It really wrecked a lot of their lives.”

Jane, encouraged by Charles’s input, said, “Exactly. Yet, so many people just brush it off because they don’t understand the wide-reaching effects. So that’s one of the topics Lizzy covers.”

Lizzy looked down at her mug. “Well, it’s a part of my job. Brings in donors.”

“Don’t lie, Lizzy.”

Lizzy glared at her sister, but Jane ignored her. “She’s just saying that, to get you going. Lizzy’s been published in several magazines for her articles on social justice. She doesn’t actually see people as potential donors. She sees them as potential advocates. She doesn’t want you to know that.”

Lizzy pushed aside her ire at Darcy to chide her sister. “It’s not like I’m in Macleans or on the CBC.”

Jane gave her a glare.

“Well, okay, I’ve been on CBC a few times, but that’s just locally. Not nationally. It’s not like Peter Mansbridge is calling me up.”

“Don’t downplay your work.” Jane kept on bragging about her sister: “Lizzy runs The Faith’s blog where she posts pictures of the inner-city and tells stories every time she asks for donations. She puts a face on everything she asks for.”

“I didn’t mean to imply she doesn’t do any good.” Darcy said. He turned to Lizzy. “I was just asking a question. I worded it wrongly.”

Lizzy decided to let it go. She really wasn’t in the mood. “I’m too tired for this topic. Let’s save it for when I’m not asleep on my feet.”

He inclined his head. “No offence was meant.”

“None was taken,” she answered, though she did take plenty of offence. “I’m going to bed, everyone. I’ve had a long day.”

When she stood up, Darcy jumped to his feet. “Charles, shall we?”

“I’m not tired,” Jane said.

Charles looked at Jane, who gave him a small smile. “I can stay for a while and just get a cab home. Darcy, take the rental.”

Lizzy tried to conceal her smile.

Charles fished out his keys and tossed them over. “I’ll get the car from you tomorrow.”

Darcy frowned, but said, “Good night, Jane, Charles.” He looked around for the door, and Lizzy pointed the way. He inclined his head, and slipped on his shoes. “Good night,
Ms. Bennet
.”

****

September 22

Lizzy had fallen asleep listening to an audiobook, so had spent the night with her noise-cancelling earbuds wedged firmly in her ears. She had no idea when Charles had left, but judging by the fact that the normally early-riser Jane’s bedroom door was still firmly shut, Lizzy guessed he stayed pretty darn late.

Lizzy was shuffling to the kitchen to search for some instant latte mix when she caught a glimpse of an expensive pair of men’s sneakers still tucked against the wall near the side door.

A small giggle escaped her and she clamped her hand over her mouth to prevent any fangirl sounds from waking anyone. She tried to calm her excitement for Jane. After all, he might not have stayed over in the biblical sense, so Lizzy tiptoed downstairs. The three roommates rented the upstairs from The Faith, and were allowed to use the basement, provided it was available for any out-of-town guests, such as volunteer groups.