The weekend that Ashley was gone, Shawn realized how much he missed the twelve-year-old gymnast, and admired her constant good humor and incredible energy. He knew that he was not destined to share anything with her but friendship, as she was openly promised to a young man already. That was all right — as much as he admired her, he also knew that her life and values were very different than his, and she was, after all, six years younger than him.
During that same weekend, Liberty seemed to be making herself quite scarce. That hurt more than he had anticipated. As much as he had doubts about her status as a Christian, he had seen her growing and learning very rapidly over the last few weeks, and so he hadn’t left behind all hope of her coming to the point of accepting Christ into her life and becoming interested in a mature relationship.
But as Saturday ended, and then Sunday afternoon began to pass into history, Shawn just comforted himself with the thought that whatever close companionship he found in life would come when, and how, God willed it. He knew that God’s ways were beyond his understanding, and His rewards were, as often as not, very different and unexpected for whose who lived by His will.
By Monday morning, after a comforting worship and reflection time in Avalon Hall, an interesting Christianity class, and seeing his two friends in the weekly training classes they all shared, he felt much better. Ashley had told
about her trip, including her discomfort with the helicopter, and Liberty had shared a little about the soul-searching and re-evaluating she had done that weekend. Shawn was glad they were both his friends, but he reaffirmed to himself his decision to leave the close companionship issue in God’s hands.
At noon he dashed to the kitchen, got box lunches for himself and Sister Rachael, and strode to the Gallery.
When he arrived, the Art Curator was strolling the aisles of the public display room, making notes on which media, subject, or style areas were well-stocked, which lacking. She completed her survey, greeted him with eye contact and said, “Have your Driver’s License with you?”
“Well... I think so...” He opened his wallet to check. “Yes, but... I haven’t driven much. My dad didn’t think I was old enough for my own car, and my mom always insisted on driving when we were in her car.”
“I’m not worried. By the time there’s any art in the van, I’ll know if you’re reckless. Let’s go.”
Shawn pushed the large cart of empty art storage boxes to the parking lot near the Residential Lobby, and with a little instruction from Sister Rachael, he soon had the electric van disconnected from its charging cable, started, and they were winding their way out of the Lyceum campus.
Sister Rachael quickly discovered that if anything, Shawn was a timid and over-careful driver. Her only problem would be getting back in time for evening responsibilities.
The first gallery they visited was in a small town east of Portland that primarily catered to the tourist traffic heading for Mount Hood or central Oregon. Its collection was contained in two large rooms, and Shawn was assigned to look through one of them and make notes on anything of high quality and interest. He soon discovered that anyone holding a clipboard was immediately offered all possible assistance by one of the clerks, who were trained to spot serious art buyers a mile away. He thanked the lady profusely, and assured her that after he had completed his survey, he would come to her with all his questions.
He found four paintings in the room that he wanted Sister Rachael to look at. The clerk hovered within ear-shot. One of them Rachael found very nice, but in a very common style on an over-done theme. Shawn saw her point.
One was in a subject area for which they were well-stocked. She explained that if it had been extremely unique, or of unusually high quality, she would have gotten it anyway. They both agreed it was neither. The third was over-priced. She planned to make an offer.
She looked long at his final suggestion. The artist was not known to her, but the oil painting was of excellent quality in a realist, slightly impressionist style, and the subject was rare. She had him mark it for purchase on his list.
Shawn listened as Sister Rachael named for the clerk the one painting he had found and the one painting and one sculpture she had found that they would probably take at asking price. But then she worded her offer on the over-priced item so that it sounded like it was a necessary part of the package.
She also asserted the necessity of meeting one of the artists whose works they were proposing to purchase. The clerk made a phone call.
Ten minutes later, after listing for her boss all the items the buyers were interested in, she had approval to accept their offer, and to set a date for the artist to be at the gallery.
“Um... this comes to over three thousand dollars. You know we don’t take credit cards...?” the clerk said nervously.
Without a word, Sister Rachael pulled a zippered cash bag out of her purse and began counting out hundred dollar bills. Shawn was wondering if he should get the packing boxes from the van, but when the clerk, after completing the transaction, began to bring out cartons from the back room and Sister Rachael said nothing, he realized she was again increasing the value of their purchase, if only slightly.
They discussed their finds during the drive into Portland, and Sister Rachael described two more items she had seen and was still thinking about.
“I was wondering why you didn’t give them your name and number, you know, so they’d call you if something good came in.” Shawn said.
“They’d be bothering us all the time, and the pieces they’d tell us about would rarely be what we wanted. I used to do that. A lot of wasted miles. We do, however, keep in touch with a number of top-notch artists.”
The second gallery was huge, and located right in the downtown business district. Shawn got his clipboard ready, and Rachael assigned him some rooms.
“In this gallery, in addition to making a list of things for me to look at, I want you to take complete responsibility for selecting one item, without any feedback from me.”
Shawn swallowed. “Gosh... um... what’s my limit?”
“No limit. They take debit cards. You know by now what good art costs.”
As he entered his half of the gallery, he decided to make his list first, and then select from it his one item. The prices were much higher here, the works generally of much finer quality, and the responsibility for choosing one item, without any feedback from Sister Rachael, felt heavy. But then he remembered that Sister Rachael had the same weighty decision to make for all the rest of the things they would take back to Lyceum. He took a deep breath and began to look over the works.
Forty-five minutes later he had a list of four items. He returned to all of them and gave them more of his attention. One he struck from the list completely. One he wasn’t sure about and definitely wanted Sister Rachael’s feedback. Two were candidates for his own selection. He looked at them both again.
The first was an oil painting of a scene from the Bible in which Jesus was teaching a group of people. It was a subject that had been done many times, but the quality was very high, the point of view was a little unusual, as it looked over the shoulder of a little girl sitting on the ground, and the sense of depth and vividness was incredible. It was two thousand dollars.
The second was also religious, a vignette on black velvet of several people of different cultures all standing in a circle and reaching for the communion cup and bread. Above them floated what could be a flame or a dove — it had been crafted carefully so that the viewer could not decide which. It was three thousand dollars.
Sister Rachael appeared at his side. “Ready?”
“Yes. This is my choice. But there’s a close second that I hope you get also.”
She looked at all the items on his list, except the one he had selected. She simply marked it as a definite purchase. To his delight, she also marked his second choice, and the one he hadn’t been sure about. In that gallery he had had better luck than she — three items, including his own choice, to her two.
Their bill came to more than seven thousand dollars.
After tyropita and baklava at a Greek deli, they headed for a small town south of the city. Shawn was anxious for some opinion from Sister Rachael about his selection, but she only smiled.
“Sometimes you just have to trust your own decisions, including of course whatever sources of guidance and inspiration you have. That ability to make decisions, as I’m sure you know, is very important at Lyceum. Sometimes you have to make them very quickly and with inadequate information. At the next place, we’ll play a little game. You have to make your one definite selection within one minute of walking in the door. I know it may sound hard, but consider it a compliment from me — your eye for art is good, very good... even though you seem to be limiting yourself to religious subjects.”
Shawn sat in silence, realizing that he wouldn’t have time to make any notes. He would have to walk through quickly, look at the best, and narrow it down ruthlessly.
It was the home of an artist, with the display rooms taking up the bottom floor of a large old farm house. The artist’s living space and studio, Rachael explained, were upstairs. Before they entered, Sister Rachael looked at her watch. “Remember, the one you pick doesn’t have to be the only thing we get.
Ready... go!” She entered at a leisurely pace after Shawn was inside.
There were five rooms. He went from room to room, stood in the middle of each and scanned the walls quickly. First room... nothing definite. Second room... a good oil painting. Third room... he stopped. There it was, or rather, there they were. He approached. It was a pair of pastel drawings on black paper, poorly framed and easy to miss. Both had a similar composition, an almost cubist design that spiraled inward.
In
Road To Heaven the spiral contained scenes of labors and trials, painful hurts and humble moments. In the center was a land of beauty where clear water flowed and angels glided.
In
Road To Hell the spiral contained pleasures of the palate and of the flesh, scenes of money and of power. In the center, bordered by jagged teeth, flames leapt up and lava flowed from the walls.
“Your minute is over,” Sister Rachael said, stepping beside him.
“It’s a pair. They shouldn’t be separated. But we’ll definitely have to
reframe them.”
“You broke the rules — I said one. Good work. People who join Lyceum but don’t have the intelligence and wisdom to break the rules when appropriate usually don’t stay long.”
Shawn looked at her with a gleam of understanding in his eyes.
They took their time looking over the rest of the works, and selected three others, spending less than four thousand dollars. Again Sister Rachael used cash, but this time they had to bring in their own cartons.
On the way back to the campus, Shawn felt very good about the decisions he had made and helped to make. He realized that he couldn’t expect to feel the guidance of the Holy Spirit unless he was doing important things and making important decisions. If he had stayed at home, or gone to a seminary in Atlanta, he would be making few, if any, decisions of substance.
And he also realized that he had driven a car more that day than during the entire previous year living at home.
The next day, Shawn’s Comparative Religion class met in the Islamic Chapel in the Hall of Shrines. One class a month was devoted to getting a feel for the religion they had been studying. Shawn had had no problem the week before dealing with facts and figures about Islam, but today they sat on Persian rugs with their shoes off and faced Mecca while Brother Ika chanted from the Koran in Arabic. They all repeated back the key phrases in both Arabic and English.
“Allah is the one God, and Mohammed is His prophet.”
After spending an hour in the Islamic Chapel chanting Arabic, Shawn knew what Liberty felt in the helicopter simulator. He almost expected to step out of the chapel at the end of the hour and find himself on the streets of Riyadh or Tehran. Instead, to his relief, all he had to do was continue down the corridor to his choir practice.
As he headed back from practice an hour later, his mind still reverberating with the beautiful music the choir had made in the excellent acoustics of the Ecumenical Temple, he happened to pass by a door on the edge of the Main Lobby just as a bearded man dressed in black was coming out. Shawn recognized the garb as that of an orthodox Jew, and his name tag revealed
that he was a Rabbi. The man looked around, confusion written on his face.
Shawn realized what he should do.
“Hello, Rabbi. I’m Brother Shawn. May I guide you anywhere?”
“Oh, yes, yes. Thank you, my child. I am Rabbi Levine. I believe you have a room in the Lodge reserved for me, but I don’t know which one, and I don’t even know which direction to go.”
“I would be happy to take you there...”
“Thank you so much.” They began to walk through the Main Lobby. “I arrived early this morning from Chicago, and I was so fascinated by the work you people are doing on the Three Testaments that I have forgotten to eat breakfast or anything else.”
“Well then,” Shawn said, glad of the chance to serve someone at Lyceum spontaneously, without assignment, “after we find your Lodge room, I’ll take you to the Dining Hall if you’d like. I could even use a bite myself, if you’d enjoy the company...”
“I would indeed!”
Shawn inquired at the counter in the Lodge, and soon introduced Rabbi Levine to the Lodge room named Mediterranean. The Rabbi found it very adequate and interesting, and Shawn explained where everything was and what other services were available that he might need. After the Rabbi programmed the lock, they walked back toward the Dining Hall together.
“I am so very honored that the Orthodox Committee selected me to come here to look over your scripture editing project. We get these requests all the time, of course, and we always send someone, but I have a special feeling about this one.”
They selected a small table in the fairly empty restaurant section.
“I don’t think the Committee realized what Lyceum was,” he went on as they looked at the little menus. “I think they thought it was just another book publisher.”
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Sister Helen said, her order pad in hand.
“What may I bring you?”
“Sister Helen, this is Rabbi Levine.”
“Good morning, Rabbi, Brother Shawn. Brother Caleb is in the kitchen, and knows kosher cooking.”
“Excellent!” the Rabbi said. “Eggs and whatever. No pork or animal fat, of course. Fruit juice, please.”
“I’d like a cinnamon roll and milk,” Shawn said.
“So, as I was saying, they thought it was just another publisher. But I now know better. I have looked over the format you people have planned, and the supplemental information you plan to include, and I believe something very important is taking shape here...”
Before and during their meal, Shawn continued to listen to Rabbi Levine talk about the publishing project he had been sent to advise. It was an interesting experience for Shawn, for he himself knew nothing about the project. But after a moment’s reflection, he realized there were probably many projects going on at Lyceum that he yet knew little or nothing about.
After breakfast, the Rabbi took leave of Shawn, wanting to move his car to the parking lot near the Lodge, bring in his luggage, and take a nap.
Shawn was now brimming over with curiosity. He had not felt comfortable revealing to the Rabbi that he was ignorant about the project, and so the visitor had made no effort to give a complete description. With an hour to spare before his janitorial shift began, he headed for the door on the edge of the Main Lobby where he had first met Rabbi Levine.
The placard beside the door said Office of Publishing — Special Projects.
With some hesitation, Shawn knocked. A man whom Shawn recognized from his Greek class opened the door.
“Hello, Brother Shawn! Come in!”
“Um, I just met Rabbi Levine, showed him to his room, had breakfast with him, and he got me curious about the project. He called it the Three Testaments.”
“That’s one of the things we call it. The names get less nice when we’re up to our ears with political issues to dance around. But I need you to know from the beginning that at this point, the project has not been announced to the public in any way. We’re working out the scholarly details right now, and we don’t want public controversy to cloud that work.”
“I
understand.”
“And the Testaments will cause public controversy, I assure you. But we want to have the controversy be about what we publish, not about press
releases, speculation, or rumor. Here’s the format we’re considering.”
Shawn gazed at the beautiful tome before him. Its outside was thickly ribbed leather, with gold lettering on the front and binding. The gold-edged pages inside this mock-up were blank. Most were very thin, like in his old Bible, with occasional thicker glossy ones interspersed. Six place marking ribbons of different colors came out of the binding at the top.
“Each volume will contain about two thousand pages. The thicker sheets are for color plates.”
“It’s beautiful. It just feels so... important.”
“Yes. That feel is essential to many people. Ever since the printing press was invented, Bibles that included the word “Holy” and had a leather cover have sold ten times as well as those that didn’t. Come over here.”
Shawn followed the man to a chart on one wall.
“This shows how we’re thinking of breaking them up. The First Testament includes all of ancient times and most of the classical age, right up to the eve of Christianity. It would have the bulk of Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, Taoist, and Confucianist material, as well as all the minor items you see listed. The Second Testament would bring us right to the year one thousand, with Christianity, Islam, et cetera. And The Third Testament would include the entire last thousand years — Sikh, Baha’i, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Humanism, Existentialism, and the others you see listed.”
“Amazing,” Shawn said. “But... why Humanism?”
“It fits the definition of a religion, one practiced by a large chunk of the people of our world, I might add. So does its cousin Science. The Third Testament will present both of them in a completely positive light, laying out what wisdom and good teachings they contain for all to see. Why don’t you look around for yourself now. A good sampling of the kind of artwork we’re considering is on the walls. I’ve got some word processing I’d like to get finished before lunch.”
“Thanks.”
Shawn peered at photographs of famous churches and temples, and artist’s renderings of buildings that no longer existed. There were also samples of original scriptures in Hebrew, Greek, Hindi, Chinese, and other languages.
Next he found charts and time lines that detailed the history of each religion.
On the other side of the room were drawings of the houses and towns people lived in at important points in religious history, the technology that existed, the plants and animals that were important to them, the clothes and jewelry they wore.
Finally, aware that he would soon have to head for work, he returned to the leather-bound mock-up. It was the kind of book that you would have to save up for, and then keep a lifetime, passing on to your children.
As he waved good-bye to the brother who was busy transcribing some text from an old book, he looked forward to coming back in the near future to see how Christianity would be presented. And he realized that since it would be sharing a volume with Islam and several other religions, he had better pay close attention in Comparative Religion class.
Chapter 7: A New Angle on an Old Problem Liberty pondered many things during the weekend that Ashley was away.
She was now two weeks into her Lyceum membership. She had passed the initial stress of starting most of her classes, and knew that she was capable of handling all of them, even the most challenging one of all for her — Childcare.
She now knew the basic routine of the Horse Barn, which she only did on Mondays and Tuesdays. She had done her early morning baking shift once alone, for which Brenda had left her an easy list of things to make, and a recipe for a cake in case she had time. She had had time, but with a sigh placed the finished product on the shelf labeled Leftovers and Rejects to use in Members Dining Room.
But taking everything into account, Liberty Rae Buchanan, U.S. senator’s daughter, I.Q. of two hundred and fifteen (the non-public area of her computer file said) was very happy with her present situation. She had goals that she planned to move toward as quickly as possible, from her Rotary Wing License to successful cake baking. She had no intention of baking cakes all her life... or even flying helicopters exclusively. She did have every intention of being able to turn out a perfect cake, and being able to fly a helicopter, whenever she might need or choose to do so.
One of the things she pondered that weekend was a topic that had once had a prominent place in her life, but recently, partly out of choice and partly out of circumstances, had undergone considerable change. That topic was boys.
Liberty had first felt the passionate embrace of a young man at age eleven.
She would have lived and died for that boy, but he had left not long after, gone into the U.S. Marines at age seventeen, and had only written once. Liberty stopped writing after her eighth letter went unanswered. She later realized that she had been lucky: she had not become pregnant on that occasion, and she had protected herself on future occasions, which were many.
By the time she was nearing her thirteenth birthday, Liberty had experienced all kinds of boys and all kinds of sex, some of it very good, some of it very loving. But on a few occasions she had felt lucky to get out with her life, and had been very glad her father could afford doctors who were willing to handle everything on the private level. Many girls would have been frightened to death by those experiences. But Liberty Buchanan was strong, and liked the good times too much to let the bad times spoil the fun.
So by age thirteen, she had known some of the best, and some of the worst.
There was a third kind of boy, the one who was inexperienced and didn’t really know what to do. At first they had been very unsatisfying on the occasions she had tried them, but then she had realized that they presented her with an excellent opportunity to control her romantic encounters a bit more... and develop her teaching skills at the same time. She soon discovered that the boys she initiated were just as capable of giving her pleasure, after a few pointers, as the ones who had previous experience. By age fourteen, she had almost entirely eliminated the dangerous situations from her love life by sticking to the handsome but innocent boys.
But the fall semester before she entered North Philadelphia Girl’s Academy, which she had spent in a small semi-rural public school, had been a disastrous time for Liberty in many ways. She had gone through two relationships that had ended with so much bitterness, and one physical fight, that her grades had suffered. It took a lot to cause Liberty Buchanan’s grades to suffer.
By chance or the wisdom of her father, she wasn’t sure which, the next school she had tried had been an all-girls boarding school. She had been ready to give the whole topic of boys a rest. As a result she had learned an incredible amount at that school, at least by her own standards.
Of course, when the semester had ended, she had felt a little starved for a
tender embrace. Once during the semester she had given her body to a young man at a party, but it had just been sex, not a relationship. So it was that when she returned to her father’s Philadelphia apartment and then hit the streets in sensuous garb, she went to a simple boy who worked in a fast-food restaurant, a boy she had taught how to give and receive the pleasures of the body about a year before. And she would have been in his arms that night, arms that had probably not held another girl since they had last held her, if she had not been picked up by the Philadelphia Police.
Then her year at the Buchanan country house had begun. If Mr. Neils had been a twenty-five, even thirty-year-old hunk of a gardener, things might have been very different. But as it was, there was no one under forty within ten miles, and the three times her father had taken her to nearby towns during that year, he had not let her out of his sight.
Then she had come to Lyceum.
But Liberty could honestly say, as she sat gazing across a garden where a family was strolling, that she didn’t feel sex-starved. She felt a lack, but it wasn’t for a good lay. It was as if her year, almost year and a half of abstinence, had caused her to regress. She almost felt — and was a little embarrassed to admit it to herself — not quite like a virgin, but at least...
inexperienced... as though the next time would be wonderful just because it was happening. She hadn’t felt that way since about age twelve.
The next time would be... wonderful? She pondered the concept. What did she want now in the way of relationships with guys? So much of her path into the future had changed, thanks to Lyceum. G.E.D. completion... college credit classes... pilot training... computer control systems... Russian, and someday a foreign residency... diplomatic clearances... and, she added with a grin, baking cakes. Three thoughts came to her in answer.
The first was Shawn. There he had been in her evaluation group. Gentle, sweet, generous, and quite sufficiently handsome. And, except for his friendship with Sarah, which Liberty was sure was only a friendship, he appeared to be completely unattached. She had been tempted on several occasions already to try and break the ice and take their relationship to another level. But she had stopped herself on each occasion. Something didn’t feel right. Now she thought she knew why.
As much as she had enjoyed teaching boys their first lessons in love, she knew what gave her the deepest satisfaction, and only some of her pupils had ever achieved it, ever even understood it. Liberty liked her lovers to respect her rights and her wishes and never force her into something she didn’t want to do. But there came a moment, with the door locked, a good quadraphonic disk playing, and their clothes scattered on the floor, that she wanted to be taken, to really feel that her boyfriend was going to love her until she saw stars, and nothing she or anyone else could say or do was going to stop him.
Liberty just didn’t get the feeling that Shawn would be that kind of lover, even if he was willing to have a relationship.
The second thought that came to her was about the Group A Virus Test. If she ever failed it, she would immediately become unable to pursue many of her goals, and may not be able to hold onto her Lyceum membership at all.
She had, she knew, been very lucky so far. Twice she had gotten infections from her many sexual contacts. Both had been curable, although the cures had not been cheap. Somehow, perhaps with legions of guardian angels stacked up on her shoulders, she had arrived at Lyceum with none of the viruses that contraindicated international diplomatic clearances. She wanted very much to keep it that way.
She could abstain. She could pretend that Lyceum was a convent . Right, Liberty, be real. You’d be a raving maniac in a few weeks. The actual, workable answer was right there in front of her mind, but she was a little afraid to take ahold of it. It was radical. It was also so very obvious, so very simple. All she had to do was choose her boys from the other people who had passed the Group A Virus Test. And she already knew that information could be inferred from the Diplomatic Status Display on the computers.
She did some figuring. About a thousand members, four hundred of whom were generally on the campus. Two hundred males. Her preferred age range encompassed about ten years, from fourteen or fifteen to about twenty-five. But then she remembered that the ages of Lyceum members were skewed; there were proportionally less young people than in the general population. She’d have to just count them, easy enough next time she wandered by a computer terminal.
But right then the sun that was shining on her felt so deliciously warm, the
grass under her so pleasantly soft, and the little spot she had found was so nicely out of the way, that she decided to just try it from memory. She took a long swig from the bottle of tangy sparkling fruit juice at her side and closed her eyes.
Shawn was eighteen. There was a boy about twelve she had seen, but didn’t know his name. Probably not an option... but she didn’t want to rule anything out prematurely. David was nineteen. He was taken. The guy in her swimming class, who also worked in the labs, was about twenty. Over-weight.
Phil was twenty-fiveish, but not at all interesting. There was a fellow who did mechanics who was in his mid-twenties, as was Ashley’s coach. Both on the back burner. The pilot named Kyle was about that age, but Liberty was pretty sure he and Erica were tight. Jason was sixteen.
Jason. He was the third of the three thoughts that had come to her. At first she hadn’t liked what she heard about him. He was very gentle, worked with animals all the time, and was studying to be a veterinarian. Now she had to laugh at herself. She must have made that initial judgment from the point of view of the Liberty who roamed the streets of Philadelphia at all hours.
But a girl named Liberty had just joined Lyceum, one whose only real skill was her ability to care for horses. That must have been a different Liberty, the one who was not very different from Jason, she thought with amusement.
During three of her four Horse Barn shifts the previous week, he had been within sight, brushing llamas, salving scratches on goats, feeding deer. And she had watched him give a llama ride to a little girl. Gentle... yes. Loved animals... yes. Handsome... yes. Good boyfriend for Liberty Buchanan... too soon to tell.
That evening Liberty wandered over to the Healing Arts Clinic. She knew Brenda would be on duty. She read a magazine while a couple of people were taken care of. When the room was finally empty, she plopped into the chair beside the reception desk.
“Hi Lib! I looked for you today to see if you wanted to go to Portland with me, but couldn’t find you, and you didn’t answer your pager.”
“Had a lot of thinking to do, just me, a tall bottle of mango juice, and lots of sunshine. Hopefully I got a bit of a tan. How was the big city?”
“Total zoo, but I found most of the stuff I needed, and had a good Mexican lunch. I’ll let you know sooner next time I go.”
“Yeah. Sounds like fun. I was wondering... about a little information. You can say no, if there’s some reason it’s none of my business, and we can just forget I asked. I don’t want it to hurt our friendship...”
“You can ask me anything, Liberty, and I’ll be as honest as I can, and won’t let it hurt our friendship even if I have to say no.”
“Really?”
“Truly!”
“I was wondering about... Jason.”
“Oh,
him.”
“If I’m stepping on toes, just forget...”
“You’re not. Relax! He and I dated for awhile last fall, but quickly discovered we weren’t right for each other. Are you... interested?”
“Maybe.”
“Hmm... yes, I can see you two together...”
“Come on, give me some specs!”
“Well, let me see. I think I was his first date, and I don’t know of any he’s had since. I think he was a virgin before...”
“Why? What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing that I know of. I guess he’s just decided to, you know, take it slow. He’s very intelligent. Could probably even keep up with you in some subjects. Basketball, jogging, a little swimming...”
“Where does he work besides the zoo?”
Brenda tapped at her computer. “Also in the kitchen, Pro Shop, and Bio Lab. He’s in and out of here a lot, of course, for supplies and advice. His mentor is Brother Mohammed, our vet.”
“How come you guys quit dating?”
“We talked about the future. Probably a mistake, but anyway, I wanted to live in a big city, at least Seattle, and he wanted to live in the country, keep animals, or maybe just stay at Lyceum campuses. He wanted to have children someday, I didn’t. He wanted to get to know me kind of slowly, I wanted to, you know, get right down to business.”
Liberty flashed Brenda an understanding grin. But deep down inside she
was feeling something that surprised her. She knew how closely Brenda’s values matched her own... at least how closely they matched the values of the Liberty who had gone to North Philly Girl’s Academy. But at the present moment, those values weren’t setting well.
They chatted a little more about Jason, and then about Liberty’s classes, and finally Liberty said good night.
“Hey!” Brenda said just as Liberty was leaving. “I had a piece of your cake.
Not bad at all. Want to stick with that one until you get it perfected?”
“Absolutely!” Liberty said, and they both smiled.
On Sunday, Liberty had her first shift as a Computer Control System Technician’s Assistant during the public inspirational service. She had to eat breakfast early as the shift ran from seven to eleven.
The first hour consisted of running around with the Technician on duty, Brother Glen, and helping him to adjust lights, change color filters, hang banners on hooks at the ends of fine wires, and even change a couple of burned-out light bulbs.
During the second hour, she donned a communications headset, and at Brother Glen’s direction, moved to different places in the Temple to help him test the coverage of certain lights or the output of certain speakers. At about a quarter to nine, he called her back to the control booth on the balcony, where they had a quick snack as people began arriving.
During the service itself, the name of the game for Liberty was to watch and learn what she could. He promised to narrate what he was doing whenever possible, but there were some very quiet moments in the service during which they both had to be silent.
By the time the service was over, Liberty had a fair understanding of what most of the controls were for. They were, after all, labeled. She had constantly been amazed over the years to see how often people would fail to learn something new even when the information was right in front of them in plain English. And Brother Glen had been able to talk her through what he was doing about half the time. She hadn’t realized it at first, but he was listening with his headset to the instructions of three other members located at different points in the audience below.
As they shut down their systems and put away some of the banners after the service, Brother Glen promised to give her some hands-on time at the control console the following week. Liberty realized that she liked him very much. He was very good with the controls, and had allowed her to learn as much as possible under the circumstances.
But her mind, when not busy with other tasks, kept wandering back to Jason, wondering...
All the rest of that day, she rolled over and over in her mind the things that Brenda had shared with her, and her surprising gut-level reactions to Brenda’s point of view. He wanted to live in the country, or maybe at Lyceum campuses. Liberty knew that a campus would be opening near Atlanta the following year, near Geneva the year after that, and near Moscow the year after that. He wanted to have children. Hmm. He wanted to get to know his date slowly...
The last idea she was sure she liked. It would be a first for her, but it felt completely right. The other two she was thinking about. That must mean, she admitted to herself, that she wasn’t definitely opposed to the ideas. But she would have to think about them... maybe while getting to know him.
That evening she took in a movie, went for a swim, and finished with a delicious soak in the hot pool. She felt ready for the week, even for her Children’s Program shift. That too surprised her.
During Liberty’s horse care shift on Monday, she made a special effort to watch for Jason, to gather more information, she told herself, before making any moves. He was there, even right in the Horse Barn with them once.
Sister Claire had decided that the barn needed a good cleaning, so they got their basic work done, skipped the brushing and other niceties, and started swamping out the corners. Jason came over to help them move bales of hay.
He was no weakling. He could manage a bale just as well as he could manage a goat. She started to wonder how his strong arms would feel around her.
On Tuesday they had finished with the hay and were working with the tack and tools. Liberty found times she could take a look in the direction of the
Small Animal Barn. He was as gentle and skillful with the giant tortoises and the ducks as he was with the mammals. She continued to like what she saw.
Liberty was thoughtful that evening as she skimmed the study material from her History class and prepared to go to bed early. Her three a.m.
simulator reservation and her four a.m. baking shift were not very many hours away.
Liberty didn’t see Jason, except at some meals, during the next few days.
She reconciled herself to the fact that whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen in its own time. She sunk her teeth into her classes and homework and her remaining work shift of the week.
Then on Friday, as she was sweeping the floor in the members’ dining area after lunch, one of the cooks stepped out of the kitchen.
“Brother Jason is tending a sick animal. Would someone please take him a tray?”
“I will!” Liberty said spontaneously, and almost too loudly.
“Thank you, Sister Liberty.”
A Chinese man getting ready to mop nearby smiled and said, “I’d be glad to finish your sweeping.”
“Thanks, Li. You’re a pal.”
“Yes. A pal with eyes to see!”
Liberty snatched up the tray and headed for the Small Animal Barn.
She had never been in the barn where all the small and medium-size animals lived. It was built of sturdy logs, just like most of the other barns and sheds in the Demonstration Farm and Zoo. As she stepped in, she found it to be much larger than the Horse Barn, and generally very open and airy, but at the same time divided into several distinct sections. The llamas, sheep, and goats had the largest section, but there were also areas for the fowl with nesting boxes and perches, pens for the rabbits and other small mammals, and a sandy section for the tortoises.
Liberty found Jason sitting on the ground in a low-walled stall talking to and stroking an ewe who was lying on her side on a sheet.
“You know, Penny, if you drank some water, your body would be able to replace all those fluids you lost.”
“Um, hi. I brought you a tray...” she said. This wasn’t what she had imagined as the ideal circumstances for her first personal time with Jason.
He looked over his shoulder. “Thank you, Liberty. Would you talk to Penny, maybe massage her a little, while I inhale this. I’m starved.”
This was new to Liberty, and a little uncomfortable, but she didn’t suppose it would do her any harm. She sat down beside the close-shorn ewe and tentatively stroked its wool. It felt oily, and she remembered the term —
lanolin. “So her name is Penny? What’s wrong with her?”
He finished chewing a bite. “She lost her lamb this morning. It was a mess, and she bled a lot. We got the bleeding stopped, but we can’t get her to eat or drink.”
Liberty’s stomach instantly tied itself into a massive knot, and she wondered for a moment if she was going to keep her lunch down. The fact that she had a gardening class in about ten minutes popped into her mind, and she wondered how to say that she had to leave very soon.
But then she happened to look at the eyes of the ewe. They were very deep and mysterious... and right now so very, very sad. She decided to rethink the situation.
Liberty looked at the ewe intently, forgetting all about Jason and her designs, even forgetting about her stomach and Gardening class. Before her lay a living creature, a mammal like herself, and also a female like herself.
The female animal before her had had a mate... a lover. She had become pregnant, and had been ready to give birth. She had been ready to nurse and care for her baby lamb.
But something had gone wrong. Her baby had died. The same thing could have happened to Liberty at any time in her life since she had had her first boy at age eleven. Tears welled up inside her at the thought.
“Gosh,” she said, holding back the sobs, “that’s a pretty big thing to have happen, Penny. I’ve never had that happen to me, but I bet it hurt a lot, and I bet you’re very sad right now.” Liberty touched the ewe’s face and ears, stroked her neck, ran hands down her front legs. “Maybe you’d like to have another girl around right now. I think I would if I were you.”
Jason had ceased to eat and was watching the exchange taking place in front of him. “Liberty, you’re crying.”
“Am I? Well, maybe I have to shed some tears for Penny, who’s just too tired and sad to do it herself right now.” Liberty continued to touch the woolly animal, and soon she laid her head onto the ewe’s side. She could hear it breathing, but it was a shallow breath, without will or vigor. And she could hear its heart beating weakly. Something inside her was being touched, some tender spot, some open wound that had been created all those many times she had parted with a lover with nothing to hold onto from the relationship but memories and cheap gifts and letters. She started crying out loud, letting her tears soak into Penny’s soft wool.
Jason continued to watch, all thought of eating gone. He wasn’t sure what to do. This certainly hadn’t been what the vet had suggested, but none of those things had worked, and he knew that Penny had been getting weaker all morning.
Then, as Liberty crouched there, crying and caressing the animal, it bleated for the first time in hours.
“That’s it, Penny,” Liberty said through her tears. “You have lots of things still to say, and I’m going to be right here to listen to you and share all that pain and sadness you’re feeling.”
“Ba-a-a-a-a.” Penny bleated again, and this time lifted her head a little.
“Wow!” was all Jason could think to say.
Liberty continued to talk to Penny, and touch her, and cry for her, and about five minutes later, the tired ewe suddenly stood up, practically knocking Liberty over. But Liberty was so excited by the miracle she had helped to bring about that she wrapped her arms around the ewe’s head, still crying and laughing and talking all at the same time. The ewe nuzzled Liberty and bleated several times.
Jason wasted no time. He had a bowl of water with vitamins and electrolytes ready, and grabbing it, knelt beside Liberty. As soon as Penny pushed her head under Liberty’s arm, he had the bowl right there. The thirsty ewe plunged her nose in and sucked greedily at the flavored water.
“Oh, that’s so wonderful, Penny!” Liberty said. “There’s so much to live for, so many things to do, and someday you’ll have a beautiful little lamb of your very own!”
Jason was speechless, but he was smiling, and there were tears in his eyes
now too. Finally Penny finished drinking and bleated loudly, water dripping from her nose.
They both continued to talk to and stroke the ewe for the next hour, and during that time Penny began to eat some alfalfa pellets.
“Well, I should have realized that a situation like this needed a girl’s touch.
Brother Mohammed and I were doing everything we were supposed to...
medically. Penny needed something more than that. She needed someone who could really understand. Thank you so very much, Liberty, from me and from Brother Mohammed and from Penny.”
“Us girls have to stick together. There are things only we can understand.
Will you do me a favor?”
“Sure! What?”
“I missed Gardening class. Would you send a note to Sister Maggie telling her what I was doing. I don’t want her to think I skipped.”
“Nooo
problem!”
“Thanks. I’d better be going in a little while. I don’t want to miss Russian too!”
“Hey... um... maybe you could come by some time, you know, just to talk or something...?”
“Oh... I don’t know. I like to get to know people kind of... slowly,” Liberty said.
Jason smiled shyly. “I understand. I’m that way too.”
Liberty gave Penny a last hug. The ewe was busy with some alfalfa, but bleated vigorously through her mouthful. Liberty laughed.
As Liberty left the Small Animal Barn, she was still feeling slightly amazed at what she had said to Jason when he had invited her back. It had, however, felt like the right thing to say.
But she did very much intend, she realized, to return soon and often... to check on Penny, of course.
Chapter 8: Hope Where There was None
The warm days of August were nearing their end. Already the Pacific Northwest had received a light rain. Ashley was comfortable with all her classes and responsibilities, and was looking forward to beginning her Depth History class and coaching a beginning gymnastics class, both of which would start in September. She had been given the description of the class she would be coaching, and knew that it would contain only serious students interested in an intensive training experience. And, to her relief, she also knew that Sister Shannon would always be either right with her or nearby.
It was Friday. Ashley had just completed her first on-call shift of French interpreting in Conference Center Two, which had caused her to miss her Childcare class. As she walked back toward the Main Lobby with Sister Heather, who had also been interpreting, she mentally made plans to learn what she could from Liberty about the missed class, and get the reading assignment. They were passing the Audio and Video Production Building, and an ancient man was inching out into the corridor using a walker, a member at his side whom Ashley had seen going in and out of the same door many times, and several other people trailing behind who appeared to be related to the elderly man. Not wanting to bump into the frail man, Ashley slowed to let them use the passage first.
“I can rest now,” he said in a broken voice. “My heart is at peace knowing all that knowledge is safely recorded for my children and their children.”
“How soon will those disks be ready?” a middle-aged lady asked.
“I plan to do the editing this afternoon and tomorrow,” the member said.
“One or more of you are welcome to be present...”
“Why don’t I do that, Father,” a somewhat younger man said to the eldest.
“Thank you, Son.”
“If everything looks good, we can have the hundred copies you want to mail ready by the middle of next week. Your father might even like to put some of them into the postal slot himself.”
“He would like that,” the elderly man’s son said.
“And the disk will be available to the public?” the lady said, wanting reassurance.
“Yes. Lyceum is a publisher from which any bookstore can order. It will be listed in Books In Print and the Cumulative Book Index, and be available to any library through inter-library loan. And we will keep a master copy in our vault, and a copy in our Research Library, so it will always be available from us no matter what.”
“That is so nice,” the elderly man said, now approaching the middle of the Main Lobby and being steered by his family toward the Healing Arts Clinic.
“What was that all about?” Ashley asked Sister Heather with curiosity.
“That gentleman was a well-known scientist during his prime. He knows that he will die soon, and is in our Hospice Program where people in their last year of life who have significant wisdom or knowledge to pass on can live right here at Lyceum and work on whatever presentation is appropriate. He’s been working on his final lecture series for several months.”
“The Hospice Building must be that one attached to the Clinic,” Ashley speculated as they walked toward the Dining Hall.
“That’s
right.”
Something was striking a little bell for Ashley. “I wonder why I didn’t know anything about it before...”
“It’s a small program that doesn’t involve many members. There are only seven or eight clients in it right now, although the building has space for twenty. I think they passed out a brochure on it while you were in the Clinic that day getting all your tests done.”
“I remember something that people were reading when I got back to the waiting room, but I thought it was just a pamphlet about brushing your teeth
or something like that.”
Heather laughed. “Feel free to wander by the Clinic and learn more if you’re interested. My compliments on your excellent French this morning.
Remember to record it in your computer file so you can take some time off someday. What’s your chore?”
“Serving,” Ashley said.
“I have some vacuuming to do. I’ll see you later.”
“Bye!”
Ashley was in a very thoughtful mood as she carried pitchers and platters out to the long tables that would be full of members in just a few minutes.
Something important was falling into place, something that just might make a difference for someone that Ashley cared about very much.
As soon as she had finished eating and clearing her dishes, Ashley nearly ran to the Healing Arts Clinic and asked to read everything they had on the Hospice Program. By five minutes before one o’clock, she had read enough to know that she was onto something very, very important. As there were several people in the waiting room, she went out into the corridor before pulling her communications pager out of her purse and tapping in Sister Heather’s code.
“This is Heather.”
“This is Ashley. I need to talk to you. It’s very important!”
“Can you come to the laundry room in Aurora Borealis, or should I meet you somewhere?”
“I’ll be right there!”
Less than a minute later, Ashley skidded to a stop right in front of her contact person.
“I have to talk to you about the Hospice Program. I know someone who’s dying, and I think they should be in it!” Ashley said with great urgency in her voice.
“Wait a minute! Don’t you have a Gardening class at one?”
“Yes, but then there’s gym after that and then dinner and French and Interpretive Dance, and my friend could be dying right now, and she has something very beautiful and very important that she needs help with before
she dies!” Ashley poured out, almost in tears.
Sister Heather sensed the magnitude of the situation. “Okay. Forget Gardening class. Sit down and tell me all about your friend.”
Ashley spoke fast, not because she had any hope of getting to Gardening class on time, but because she had been reminded of Jenny’s mortal plight by seeing the terminally ill man, and a sense of guilt was welling up inside her, wondering if maybe she was too late already, while all this time she had been living comfortably at Lyceum where a program existed that could have allowed her friend to fulfill her dream.
She told Sister Heather about getting to know the ten-year-old girl in the nursing home, and all about the seven voices of music that Jenny had heard while gazing up at the stars at night. She described how Jenny had learned to play some of them on her penny whistle, and then on the recorder Ashley had bought for her, and finally how her worsening condition was making it harder and harder for her to play the ones she knew, and impossible to practice the sixth and seventh ones.
She also told Heather about how hard it was for Jenny to play in the nursing home, and about the tiny little porch that was her only retreat, and how her mother had hocked the recorder and Ashley had had to buy it back.
Ashley fell silent and watched her older friend expectantly.
Heather pondered the situation, seeing how obviously important it was to Ashley, and thinking about the facilities that Lyceum had that could help the young dying girl. A moment later she reached for her shoulder bag and pulled out her pager and touched the keys. She looked at Ashley with a smile as she waited for a response.
“Brother Clyde at your service!” a baritone voice said.
“Clyde, this is Heather. Sister Ashley and I need to meet with you about a potential candidate for your program. I think it proper to call the situation urgent.”
“I’m in the Hospice Center now.”
“We’ll be right over.”
On their way, Heather explained to Ashley that Brother Clyde was the administrator in charge of the entire Hospice Program. As soon as they entered the building, which was connected to the Healing Arts Clinic by an
indoor glass-walled corridor, Ashley was amazed. She had expected something like the Rapid City Convalescent Center, maybe a little nicer.
What she found was a spacious indoor patio and garden, with pools and fountains, lawns and carpets, benches and tables, ringed by twenty apartments and numerous other rooms for various kinds of work and play, just like the members’ Residence Halls. The roof was a beautiful white dome held up with soaring wooden beams and pierced with six large skylights.
By one of the pools in the garden, Ashley could see an elderly lady tossing bits of fish food onto the water. Then the lady would stop, consider a thought, and write something down in a notebook at her side. In another part of the patio a man worked at an easel. He was not very old, perhaps fifty, but every once in awhile he would twitch and shudder with some kind of painful spasm.
Then he would return to his painting for a few moments.
A large man stepped out of one of the apartments.
“Thank you again, Clyde,” an elderly male voice came from within. “I sure am sorry to have to bother you like this.”
“No problem, Mr. Ambroise,” the large man said. “That’s why I’m here.
Do you feel up to teaching your class this evening?”
“I wouldn’t miss it even if I had to take a bed pan with me!” the voice said.
The large man chuckled. “That’s the spirit! I’ll see you there!”
Then he turned and spotted Ashley and Heather. “Greetings, Sisters! We can go into the office. Sister Hillary is also here to assist the residents.” He washed his hands at a sink in a small work area, and then led them into the pleasant office and meeting room, where they all sat down at a round table.
Ashley told her story again, adding details she had forgotten to mention to Sister Heather earlier. Brother Clyde listened with keen interest. When she was finished, he thought for a moment.
“I need to speak very plainly, Ashley,” he said. “You’re a Lyceum member, and so you should have the wisdom to not misinterpret what I am about to say, to not replace intelligent thought with a knee-jerk emotional response.
Can I assume you have that wisdom?”
Ashley took a deep breath. She remembered the rotor blades. She had learned to trust that they would stay in their proper place. Her feelings about Jenny were threatening to jump out of their proper place. She knew she had
to push them back, at least for the moment. “Yes.”
“The most important question we have to consider, Ashley, is whether this ten-year-old girl truly has something of great value to leave to the future.
Most ten-year-olds have not accumulated much knowledge or wisdom.
People die all the time — even ten-year-olds. We don’t have space or resources here at Lyceum for all of them.”
He paused to let his words soak in. Ashley nodded.
“But as I understand it,” Brother Clyde went on, “your friend has a special gift, something that she did not acquire over a lifetime of experiences, but rather received, or is receiving, directly from some external source.”
“Right,” Ashley confirmed.
“The question is, how do we determine the quality of the music that your friend is hearing and was trying to play? A variation on Mary Had A Little Lamb would be of little worth to the future.”
“I have heard it. Not all of it, of course, and not all of the voices together.
There was no way she could play them for me all together. But I have heard four of them, and some of the fifth.”
She glanced at the adults, and realized what they needed to hear.
“My parents play classical music at home all the time, and I dance to some of the best music in the world in my gymnastics routines and in my dance classes. I have watched gymnasts and ballet dancers and ice skaters perform to great music all my life. I know what good music is. Jenny’s song is like that. It’s not a little kid’s tune. It’s about twenty minutes long, and it’s complex, and it’s deep and mysterious. I wish I had recorded some of it, because it would make you cry, it’s so beautiful.”
Ashley figured she had said all she could. Brother Clyde and Sister Heather looked at each other. She closed her eyes, fearing they would now do what she had seen adults do many times — toss away the concerns and accomplishments of the young as unimportant.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s what we have to go on. Ashley is a Lyceum member, she knows music, and she judges that the quality of the music that has been composed or transcribed by her friend is comparable to the great music we have today that has withstood the test of time. It sounds like we had better get moving on this.”
Ashley opened her eyes. “You mean... she can come?”
Sister Heather smiled. “Actually, it was you who made that decision, Ashley. Are you still comfortable with it?”
“Yes... I’m just... very happy!”
“Okay,” Brother Clyde said. “We have a number of things to do. First of all, clear your schedules for this afternoon and evening. Do you have any work shifts for the rest of the day, Ashley?”
“No. Just classes.”
“Get on a computer terminal and leave messages for your teachers telling them you’re on a special project for the Hospice Center. Then call the nursing home and see if you can get an update on your friend’s condition. Heather, do we have a member in the area?”
“Yes. Sister Laura set up Ashley’s two membership preparation assignments there.”
“Good. Get with her and have her make contact with the girl’s mother to see if she’s at all open to a benefactor situation to upgrade her daughter’s care.
Ashley is the benefactor, champion athlete’s home town, you know. Meet back here in half an hour.”
Ashley and Heather strode to the main office together. Ashley sat down at a computer and left messages for Sister Shannon in the gym, her French teacher, and her dance instructor. Then, remembering that they had a televideo at the Rapid City Convalescent Center, she stepped into a booth and found the number in her little address book that was always in her purse. She was very glad that one of the nurses she knew appeared on the screen.
“Hello,
Ashley!”
“Hello, Mrs. Miller. I just called to see how Jenny was doing.”
“Not good. She’s so depressed now that she doesn’t have the strength to play her recorder anymore. Your letter improved her spirits for a day or two, and she even got out her instrument and tried to play, but her breath was only good for about a minute, and then the coughing started again. Doctor thinks she’ll go sometime this fall or winter. She’s working on a letter to you, but it goes slowly. Would you like to talk to her?”
“Not right now. I have to go talk to someone. Please tell her that I called, and I’ll call again tonight or tomorrow.”
“Okay, Honey. You take care.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Miller.”
Back in the office, Ashley was informed that Sister Heather wanted Ashley to join her in another telecommunications booth as soon as possible. Ashley slipped in and sat down next to the older member. Suddenly there was recognition on both sides of the connection.
“Hello, Ashley. I’m very happy to hear that you became a member,” the image on the screen said. “I’ll never forget the many times I’ve seen you sitting on the floor in the stacks searching through the gymnastics books.”
“Mrs. Pearson! I thought you were the Children’s Librarian!”
“Well, I was and still am the Children’s Librarian. I’ve also been a non-resident member of Lyceum for almost ten years, so you can call me Sister Laura. I understand that one of those volunteer assignments I arranged for you has borne some special fruit.”
“I’ve already told Sister Laura about Jenny. She’s about to give her mother a call and see if she’s willing to come to a meeting.”
“Um... Sister Laura... I have to tell you some things about Jenny’s mom.”
“Go ahead, Ashley. Any information that will help me is appreciated.”
“Well... she’s kind of... a very selfish person. I bet she won’t want to do anything that doesn’t have something in it for her.”
“I see,” Sister Laura said thoughtfully.
“If you want to talk to her, you’ll probably have to buy her a meal or something.”
“Hmm. I know the type. Thank you for the tip, Ashley. I bet she hasn’t been to the Red Lion in a while.”
“Probably never. She lives on welfare. And I don’t think she has a phone.
You’ll have to call her neighbor, Susan MacArthur.”
“Okay. I’m glad to know what I’m up against. I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes or less.”
The screen went blank, and while they waited, Ashley shared Jenny’s condition with Sister Heather. She had barely finished when Sister Laura was back on the line.
“Your assessment was correct, Ashley. She was extremely suspicious until I offered her a free steak dinner. She’ll meet with me this evening, and I have
a hunch she’ll be open to the plan as long as it doesn’t cost her anything.”
“Okay,” Heather said. “Thanks, Laura. We’ll proceed with that as our working assumption. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
“Bye, Sister Laura!”
“Bye,
Ashley!”
They walked quickly back to the Hospice Center. Again Brother Clyde was helping a resident, but he was soon free. They filled him in on Jenny’s condition, and Sister Laura’s impressions and planned meeting. He laughed when he heard about the necessary steak dinner bribe.
“Now I think I see the situation a little more clearly,” he said. “Mom is going to want a piece of the action. We’ll have to be careful with this one.
Sister Laura could use some help. Why don’t you fly out tonight, Ashley.
Take a portfolio with you, lots of pictures, a number of lodging, meal, and transportation vouchers, and a complete Hospice Program kit. Include a deluxe mock-up library case for a music disk in your portfolio. That ought to be inspiring to the girl at least. Heather and I will help you get it all ready.”
Ashley’s head was spinning as she experienced first hand how quickly Lyceum could go into action. She was trying to stay calm and collected, but the part about flying out to Rapid City that night to help Sister Laura was almost beyond her belief.
Then she realized two things. First of all, this was all being done fairly leisurely compared to her recent Disneyland trip. The timing on that trip, she remembered, had been almost split second, and she could imagine the hasty phone calls and quick decisions that had been necessary, even though she had not herself witnessed the arrangements being made.
Second of all, she, Sister Ashley Marie, was a resident member of Lyceum, and a champion athlete who had trained in Rapid City from childhood to gold medal. Sister Laura was a non-resident member and a Children’s Librarian.
Maybe Ashley could help out in some way...
The next two hours were very busy for Ashley. Sister Heather and Brother Clyde put together the portfolio while Ashley packed several changes of respectable clothing. When she returned to the office, she learned that she had a flight to Billings, Montana at six o’clock, and then a connecting flight to Rapid City, arriving about ten p.m. local time. She called her mother, who
was ecstatic that Ashley would be visiting and promised to meet her at the airport. It was a little hard to tell her mother that she was on an assignment and wouldn’t have much time to spend with them, but she had to say it. Her mother seemed to understand.
Heather made sure that Ashley had all the necessary phone numbers, and the man at the travel desk issued Ashley a debit card and three hundred dollars in cash. He dropped it down from five hundred at Ashley’s request after she assured him that she could stay at her parent’s house, but he also reminded her to use any of Lyceum’s contact numbers if she got into a bind.
In addition to the flashy portfolio and mock-up library case that looked like a book but opened to reveal a music disk and accompanying booklet, Ashley received a serious-looking envelope of mission documents and permission forms for Jenny’s mother to sign. She planned to read everything on the airplane so that she would arrive knowing what she had with her.
Over a hasty dinner, Ashley, Heather, and Clyde brain-stormed about what sorts of things Jenny’s mother might want out of the situation, and how far Lyceum was willing to go on such issues as free transportation, lodging and meals, and royalties that might be received on the sale of Jenny’s music.
Ashley took notes, and by the time she swallowed her last bite, felt she understood their limitations. She just hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with any surprise demands. She was glad Sister Laura would be there.
At 5:15 Heather drove her to Portland International Airport and waved good-bye as the young member boarded the small transport on its low-volume run to Billings, Montana. Ashley was going home, but knew she was on a mission that could be very important to at least one young girl, and that leisurely visiting and playing would have to wait for another time.