Sylvia took a deep breath and reminded herself what Jesus could do with a biscuit. That reminded her—yes, tea. She needed a pot of tea and some English biscuits.
By four o’clock the tea was cooling in the cups and Sylvia’s glow was fading by the second. Mrs. Buckwalter certainly wasn’t interested in the proposal Sylvia had managed to get ready.
“—we’d pair each teen with a mentor.” Sylvia pressed forward with her proposal because she didn’t know what else to do. Mrs. Buckwalter still held her purse in her lap. The purse was genuine leather and the lap was ample. Sylvia had seen Mrs. Buckwalter at a distance in several local charity events and thought she looked imposing. Up close she looked downright intimidating. English tweed suit, hand-tailored for her. Starched blouse. Iron hair, severely pulled back. Intelligent green eyes that seemed impatient.
Mrs. Buckwalter looked at the diamond watch on her wrist.
Sylvia gave up. Mrs. Buckwalter must have realized the mistake early on and was just waiting for enough minutes to pass so she could politely leave. She obviously wasn’t used to this part of town. There must be thirty carats of diamonds on that watchband alone. “You shouldn’t wear your good watch down here.”
Mrs. Buckwalter looked up blankly. “I didn’t.”
“Well, it would be the watch of a lifetime for any of the kids down here,” Sylvia said dryly. “We try not to wave temptation in front of them.”
Mrs. Buckwalter nodded and slowly unhooked her watch. Then she laid the watch out beside the teapot. “It’s yours.”
“But I didn’t mean for you to—”
“I know.” Mrs. Buckwalter waved aside her protest. “I’m an old woman and I don’t have time to be subtle. Don’t know what made me think I might be able to pull this off slowly. Let me put it to you straight. I’ll fund this camp of yours but I have one condition—I pick the campsite, no questions asked. If you have a problem with that—”
“No, no—” Sylvia was speechless. She started to rise out of her chair. Could it really be that simple?
“We’ll need at least a hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Sylvia clarified. She wasn’t sure Mrs. Buckwalter had been paying attention.
Mrs. Buckwalter nodded complacently. “We’ll probably want to make it two hundred thousand dollars, plus whatever the watch brings. I never liked it anyway. I want to be sure they have the best of everything. Not that it’s necessary for learning good manners, but it helps.”
Sylvia half choked as she sank lower into the folding chair. “Manners?” She was right. Mrs. Buckwalter hadn’t been listening. She had them confused with some other youth center. Maybe one of those upscale places that prepares girls to be debutantes.
“We work with young people who have been in gangs,” Sylvia offered quietly as she got up and walked over to a locked cabinet and turned a key. She pulled the drawer open to reveal a jumble of knives, cans of spray paint and bullets. Each item had a tag. “These are only from the past month. Kids give them to us for a month at a time. We hope that at the end of the month they’re ready to give up the stuff forever. Usually they do. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, they know fear every day of their lives. They see other kids killed. They’ve all robbed someone. They need more than manners.”
Mrs. Buckwalter looked at the drawer and raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you’re set on it, you’re welcome to add the prayer and Bible stuff I hear you’re famous for—I don’t believe it will harm anyone. But you’re to include a proper amount of old-fashioned manners, too. I don’t care how violent these children have been—we are a civilized nation and manners will do them good.”
“You don’t mean table manners? Salad forks—that kind of thing?” Now that Sylvia concluded Mrs. Buckwalter knew where she was and what she was saying, she tried to sort the thing out. Was “manners” a code name for some new therapy she hadn’t read about yet? Some kind of new EST thing—or maybe Zen something. Mrs. Buckwalter didn’t look the type to go in for psychological fads, but she must be.
“And everyday etiquette, too,” Mrs. Buckwalter added complacently. “Respect for elders. Ladies first, boys opening the door for girls—that kind of thing. Maybe even wrap it up with a formal dance.” Mrs. Buckwalter’s face softened. “I’ve always thought there’s nothing like a formal dance to bring out the manners in everyone.”
Sylvia felt as if her head was buzzing. Most of the kids she worked with had probably never seen a dance more formal than the funky chicken. And if a boy opened the door for a girl, she wouldn’t go through it, suspecting he was using her as a body shield to stop bullets from someone on the other side of it.
“But—” Sylvia started to explain when she noticed that Mrs. Buckwalter was no longer listening to her. Instead, the older woman had her head tilted to the outer room. Things were getting a little noisy, even for the center.
“Excuse me,” Sylvia said. She’d worry about manners later. “I’d better check and see what’s happening.”
The thud of a basketball sounded as it hit the wire hoop in the main, gymlike room of the center, but no one even looked as the ball circled the hoop before slowly dropping through the basket. The two teenage boys, who had been shooting baskets, had their backs to the hoop. They stood frozen, half-crouched, undecided about whether to run or to hit the floor as the front door slammed open.
Sylvia scanned the big room in a glance. The air was humid; it’d been raining off and on all day. Sometimes the weather made everyone short-tempered. But it wasn’t the weather today. She saw the two boys in the middle of the floor and three or four girls sitting on the edge of the floor where they’d been gossiping.
All of the kids were staring at the front door. And she couldn’t blame them. A large figure was shouldering its way inside. If they were anywhere else, Sylvia would say it was a bear. Or Bigfoot. But then she saw that the figure had two parts. John was slung over the shoulder of a man as big as a mountain. She could already hear the squeal of rubber as a car screeched to a stop outside.
The man turned to face the room and Sylvia drew in her breath. That gray Stetson. It couldn’t be anyone but— No, she wasn’t mistaken. She’d know that arrogant masculinity anywhere. The question was—“What are you doing here?”
Sylvia meant to have the question come out strong, but it must have been little more than a whisper. In any event, Garth didn’t seem to hear her. Instead he bowed down in a graceful arc to let John roll off his back and, at the same time, uncoiled a massive bullwhip from his shoulder.
Sylvia cleared her throat and tried again. “What are—”
This time she had his attention. She knew it with the first word out of her mouth. His eyes swung to her and he took a step toward her. He dipped his hat and his eyes were in the shadows again. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn he was feeling shy. “I—ah—”
He never finished his sentence. The first bullet shattered the glass in the window beside the door. Garth didn’t wait to see what the second bullet would hit.
“Everybody down,” he bellowed as he dropped the whip and took another step toward her.
Sylvia looked around to be sure everyone was obeying. She was going to slide down when she knew the kids were all right. But that wasn’t soon enough for Garth.
He sprinted to her side and in one fluid movement wrapped his body around her before rolling with her to the floor. Sylvia braced herself to hit the floor, but Garth twisted his body so that he took the impact. He landed on his back with Sylvia resting on his chest. Then he quickly somersaulted so that Sylvia was enclosed inside his arms.
Sylvia froze. She forgot all about the bullets that might be