“Sure. I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”
“Good. Because I have been working on my accent and,” he dropped into a thick and terrible Cockney accent, “I fink it’s going swell, I do!”
He continued speaking in his accent, but her mind wandered. By the end of the afternoon, if they kept to their plans, they’d visit four houses with presents while a second group visited later in the evening with hot meals and frozen, reheatable food for the next day. If the festival were going on, the food would have been served at the event and the presents doled out on Christmas morning, but given the unexpected changes, this morning they devised a new plan. In some ways, this might be better. More personal. On the other hand, Kate knew how deeply these families hated anything remotely resembling charity. In the friendly environment of the festival, where huge buffets of turkey and sweet potato pie ran through town hall like a deliciously fattening river, no one felt they were accepting charity because everyone shared equally. Bringing a bunch of food directly to a family with maybe six or seven days off a year so that they could spend their precious time together instead of cooking was targeted, singling out the people who needed the most help.
By the time she turned to the car, it was empty.
Well, empty except for one.
Clark, for his part, hadn’t moved away from the car at all. He leaned against the hood, reading something on his phone and determinedly not looking anywhere but the dimmed screen. There was a strange duality to Clark. On the one hand, he clearly lived a frugal, tight-fisted existence. On the other hand, he had every luxury and advantage at his fingertips. He should have been a snob. Being a snob definitely would have explained his refusal to even interact with the Lewisham family or their aging but proudly kept home. There were only two motives she could see for keeping himself away from the people he’d driven here to help.
A) He was an unsalvageable, irreversible, cruel man beyond salvation, who hated the poor, resented the working, and slept happily on stacks of money. He had to rest up, naturally, because he spent his days diving into money bins full of gold coins. Or:
B)…Something else. She wasn’t entirely sure what that something else was, but there had to be a second option. She refused to see the worst of him and only the worst. Maybe he was allergic to the wildflowers in the front lawn? Maybe he didn’t want to rub his wealth in their face?
She looked at his face. Tight. Strained. Maybe he was nervous?
“Hey, Bradley?”
“Yep!”
She released him; he plopped to the ground with the lightest thud she ever heard. Like a dedicated method actor, he leaned against his Tiny Tim cane, putting all his weight on it. Kate bent down to his eye level; she needed to impress upon him the importance of this mission. Just one little interaction could be the key to understanding the bank vault of a man who’d driven her here.
“If you do something for me, I promise I’ll tell you everything. Deal?”
“Deal.” Bradley brandished his cane like a sword. “Now, who do I have to fight?”
“You don’t have to fight anyone. You see that guy over there?”
“Yeah.”
“His name is Clark, and—”
“I know who he is!”
“Okay. Okay! What do you think about him?”
“He looks kind of lonely.” Bradley shrugged. He matched his voice to the whisper of Kate’s, keeping his tone low and confidential. “He’s not your boyfriend, is he? Because everyone hates him.”
Hate. What a bold, uncompromising word for a nine-year-old. A shiver gripped Kate’s spine. The hairs on her neck raised.
“We don’t hate him. We have to help him. Can you go over there and just…” She searched for the words to describe what she wanted. In the end, she landed on the one thing she wanted to do. “Just be nice to him?”
Bradley’s face scrunched as he leaned on his cane, giving him the appearance of a curmudgeonly old man. A mini Scrooge. Of all the times not to have a camera handy.
“What, just like talk to him and stuff?”
“You said he looks lonely. Go be a friend.”
“But everyone hates him! Everyone’ll hate me next.”
Hate, hate, hate. That wasn’t Christmas talk at all. That wasn’t Miller’s Point talk. Kate couldn’t let the poison of fear infect her town any more than it already had.
There was only one thing to do now: talk to the small child as though they were secret agents.
“No one’s going to be mad…” She looked left, then right, as if checking for spies. “You’re helping with the plan.”
“What plan?”
“The secret plan to get the festival back. I can’t tell you the specifics until you finish this mission. I have to know you can be trusted.”
“Deal.” Bradley started for the car, but stopped so hard he created a dust cloud. “And I want a candy bar.”
“You can have a stick of gum.”
He beamed.
“Deal.”
Clark didn’t often make bad decisions. At least, he told himself he never made bad decisions. Before coming to Miller’s Point, the last bad thing he did was choose the cranberry orange protein bars instead of the blueberry protein bars during his last grocery shop.
But upon arriving at Miller’s Point, he seemed incapable of making good decisions. Leaving his car on the street to get towed? Bad call. Letting Kate talk down to him on his first night? Really bad call. Giving Kate free rein over his family’s house? Terrible call. Coming along on this charity mission? The worst call.
Like most things—including the cranberry orange bars, which had fifteen fewer calories than the blueberry—it started with good intentions. Good, stupid intentions. That was the reason Clark tried his best never to do anything with good intentions. He preferred neutral intentions. Good intentions always backfired. Neutral intentions weren’t capable of backfiring, because
