Shadows at the Spring Show (8 page)

“Yes, Claudia?” Maggie took a sip of her Diet Pepsi. It was never too early for Diet Pepsi.

“Have you seen Uncle Sam?”

“I haven’t,” Maggie answered. Since she’d removed the large potted snake plant from her office, she didn’t see the American Studies cat as often as she used to. “Have you checked Paul Turk’s office? Sam’s taken a liking to the schefflera in there.”

“I’ll check,” said Claudia. “I’m not worried. He’ll probably appear as soon as I open a can of cat food. Maybe he’s avoiding me because he knows that today’s the day he goes home with me for the summer. He hates the cat cage. Anyway, I meant to tell you that Oliver Whitcomb called Friday afternoon, after you’d left. He wants to be at the meeting with the facilities management staff you’re having this morning. I told him it would be in the conference room over at the gym. I hope that was okay.”

Maggie sighed. “That was fine, Claudia.” The gymnasium was technically WHITCOMB gymnasium, and Oliver was the benefactor who’d made it possible. He was no longer a member of the board of trustees, but he still kept involved with events on campus. Especially events involving
his
gymnasium. He’d been the one to convince the board to donate the space as a gesture of community support for the antiques show, so he was welcome at the meeting. As long as he didn’t get in the way. Sometimes Oliver forgot he was no longer running a corporation.

“Two more students called to volunteer to help with the antiques show—Kendall Park and Kayla Martin, from Whitcomb House. I told them about the meeting on Wednesday.” Claudia bent down and stage-whispered, “I’ve seen Kendall and Kayla together a lot recently. Wouldn’t it be great if they got married? Two single parents. They’d have an instant family.”
Claudia looked closely at Maggie. “You look tired this morning. Late night grading exams? You need some fast energy.” She poured a dozen chocolate kisses onto Maggie’s desk.

“Thank you. I guess I am tired.” Maggie glanced at her watch. “You’re right; I was up late. I’d better get moving if I’m going to be at the gym on time.” She picked up her black binder and one of the chocolate kisses and headed for the door. “You know my schedule; just try to keep the place from falling apart while I’m gone.” She hesitated. “And lock my office, Claudia; there are exams in here.”

Once last fall, Maggie’s office had been trashed. Now she locked it even when she was going to the ladies’ room.

“Don’t worry, Professor Summer. I’ll take care of it.” Claudia popped a chocolate kiss into her own mouth. “You don’t have to worry about anything here. In fact, I wondered if I could go to the meeting with you. I’ve been thinking about all you’ve been doing for Our World Our Children, and I’d like to help with the show. Would you mind? I could take notes. Or run any errands you needed help with.”

“Claudia, I’d love to have your help. But we’re so close to the end of the semester, I think you’d better stay here this morning.” Maggie hesitated. “If you’d really like to help, maybe you could come to the meeting Wednesday, with the volunteers for the show, and help me keep that organized.”

“I’d love to! And if it’s all right with you, I’ve cleared my schedule for Thursday through Sunday so I can help with the show.” Claudia shrugged and brushed back her hair. “I guess all the advertising for Mother’s Day got to me this weekend. I’m not ready to be a mother, but I figured maybe I could do something for kids who needed one.”

Maggie almost hugged her. “Claudia, that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all morning. You know a lot of the players, and you’d be a great help.”

“Thank you!” Claudia’s smile was broad.

Claudia was Maggie’s right-hand person on campus, and she
could use all the help she could get before and during the show. Especially if there were any unanticipated problems.

Maggie was the last to arrive at the conference room in Whitcomb Gymnasium. The room had originally been designed as a small library on sports and athletics, conveniently located between a large conference room and the offices of the gymnasium director and coaches. But it turned out the college needed more space for weight machines and treadmills than for sports reference materials, so the college library had absorbed the books, the conference room was now a weight room, and the space designed for a library contained two small oblong tables, one of which was now topped by a coffeemaker and remnants of what must have been doughnuts for an even earlier meeting.

Maggie’s stomach growled. She’d skipped breakfast, and there would be no time for food until midmorning. She should have brought some pastries for the meeting.

Oliver Whitcomb was there, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and dripping a bit. He used the gym as his personal exercise site. Still, he was elegant despite the sweat. Oliver had retired from Wall Street, and last fall he and his wife, Dorothy, had rediscovered Sarah, the daughter she’d relinquished for adoption many years before, and Sarah’s five-year-old daughter, Aura. Oliver had accepted their entry into his life with remarkable grace.

Sarah had taken this semester off to manage some medical issues and get to know her mother. Maggie hoped she’d be back in class next fall. She’d volunteered to help out at the antiques show, so she would be at the Wednesday meeting.

Maggie put down her notebook. George Healy, the facilities manager who had responsibility for the gymnasium, was there, plus two men she didn’t recognize. One of them looked familiar. He was in his early twenties; a tall, light-skinned African-American. She’d seen him somewhere. Had he been in one of her classes? She tried to get to know all her students, but some years her classes were larger than she would have liked.

He looked at her, smiled, and raised his hand in greeting.
He’d been leaning back in his chair, but now he put his hands squarely on the table and looked at her intently.

She must know him. Drat. She hoped she wouldn’t have to introduce him to anyone. The other man was perhaps ten years older; receding brown hair, an athletic body, and a frown on his tanned face.

“Good morning, everyone! Thank you for freeing up your schedules so we could get together one last time. And a special thank-you to Oliver Whitcomb, who donated this wonderful facility, and helped me convince the Somerset County College Board of Trustees that this benefit antiques show would be a good use for it. Our World Our Children is thrilled that we’ll be setting up the show in the two gymnasiums usually used for basketball and indoor tennis. I hope everything is set for this weekend; today we’re just going to review the final details.”

The older of the two men she didn’t recognize spoke first. He was attractive. And not happy. “I’m Mike Colletto, Professor Summer. I haven’t met you, but I teach tennis here, and no one asked me what I thought about a bunch of people moving in tables and chairs and then asking hundreds of people wearing hard shoes to walk on my courts. As I told Mr. Whitcomb, those floors could be ruined. And he knows how much they cost to maintain.”

“Maggie, what about that? I told Mike here you’d have an answer, but I didn’t know what it was, so he should just come this morning and ask you himself.” Oliver looked at Maggie with confidence.

Maggie nodded, hoping her answer was acceptable. “When the president of OWOC and I first approached the board of the college, we promised not to damage anything in this wonderful new facility. The floors of both the tennis courts and the basketball courts will be covered with plastic liners, and then with padding and thick indoor-outdoor carpeting on Thursday, the day before the dealers arrive. Even if it rains, no dampness will get onto the floors, and the padding will protect them. We’ve
told our dealers nothing can be attached to the walls of the gyms or the hallways. Not even masking tape.”

Mike hesitated. “I’d like to be here to make sure no damage is done, even by the people putting down the carpeting.”

Maggie pulled out a pad of paper. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted us to meet today. Mike, if you’ll take responsibility for making sure there are no problems with the floors, I’d really appreciate your help. The company putting down the plastic and padding will be here Thursday morning at eight thirty.”

Mike nodded slightly. “I can’t take total responsibility, but I’ll be here. I still don’t understand why an adoption agency has to use a college fitness facility for something like an antiques show. One mark on that floor and thousands of dollars could be needed to restore it.”

Oliver just smiled at him.

The young black man leaned back in his chair again and started drumming on the table with the fingers of his left hand.

Maggie went on, “And, George, I’d appreciate some members of your staff being available when we set up and then during the show itself. I need someone who can take care of possible maintenance problems. We hope there’ll be hundreds of people here over the weekend. We need to make sure the doors are locked or unlocked when needed, the lights are on, and the bathrooms are clean and working and we don’t run out of soap or toilet paper.”

Maggie grimaced to herself. Never had she thought of antiques shows in terms of logistical issues involving toilet paper. As a dealer, she never had to. As an organizer of a show, whatever went wrong was her fault. “George, when we talked before, we estimated how much power we can use. We may need air-conditioning this weekend; there’s no predicting what kind of weather we’ll have in May in New Jersey. Have you arranged for your electricians to lay down wires with outlets? The dealers who’ve paid extra for their booths to have power will want it there when they check in Friday afternoon.”

“When can we start working on the electric?” asked George. “The floors would have to be covered by then, and we’d have to know exactly where you want the wires and outlets.”

“The electric will have to be finished by Friday afternoon, before four. It might help if someone could work Thursday night,” said Maggie. “The carpeting company estimates it will take most of Thursday to cover the two gyms and tape the carpet so it won’t separate. Thursday night I’ll be here with several other people to measure out booths and lay tape on top of the carpet to show the dealers what spaces they have to set up in.”

“Okay. We’ll work together on that. I’ll see if I can get someone to at least start working Thursday night, to follow you as you outline the booths.” Healy took some more notes. “And I brought Eric Sloane with me today so you could meet him.”

Eric Sloane. Of course. That’s who the young man was; one of Holly and Rob’s children. She’d met him at an adoptive parent picnic at their house. She wanted to ask him how his mother was, and whether his brother had come home. But this wasn’t the place. If anything disastrous had happened, he wouldn’t be here. Maybe there would be a moment after the meeting.

“Hi, Eric,” she said, hoping he would think she’d recognized him all along. “Good to see you again.” No wonder his T-shirt looked crumpled and his hair was askew. He and his family were living through a nightmare.

“Eric’s been in charge of basic daily cleanup in the gyms for the past couple of months. He’s volunteered to be available from the beginning of your setup until the show closes to help with small emergencies like spilled coffee and missing toilet paper. I’ll be in and out and so will the electricians, but Eric will also have reach numbers for everyone you might possibly need during the show.”

“That’s wonderful, Eric. Thank you for volunteering, and I’ll look forward to working with you,” said Maggie, nodding at him. “Sounds as though you’ll be an important point man during the setup and show, although I hope to have enough volunteers to take care of minor emergencies like spilled coffee!”

Eric smiled and nodded, but he was still drumming his fingers nervously on the table.

She looked down at her notes. “So, we were talking about taping the outlines of the booths Thursday afternoon and evening.” She already dreaded that part of the exercise. Spending long hours with duct tape and tape measures was not her idea of an exciting evening, but some of the dealers would bring their own measuring tapes and check to make sure they got exactly the size booth they had paid for. They would also be arriving with portable walls and heavy furniture, and no one would be in a mood to adjust boundaries at that point. Thank goodness Will would be here to help.

Maggie touched her regard ring for luck.

“We’ll leave a note in the middle of each space with instructions for the electricians as to which booths get power and which don’t.” Maggie hesitated. “I think I’ll have the carpet rental people do the basketball courts first, since they’re farthest away from the main entrance. As soon as they’re finished I’ll start measuring the booths. That way, by afternoon, maybe even by one o’clock or so, your electricians could start working in that gym, George. If they don’t finish by the time they have to leave that afternoon, they can work Friday morning while the tables and chairs are being put down.”

George looked relieved. “That would be a lot easier. My guys weren’t enthused about working late hours, especially between semesters.” He looked at his list again. “You were going to check on the furniture. Are the tables and chairs ours?”

“The chairs, yes, but not all the tables. The college has enough folding chairs to allow two for each booth and extras for the café area, for admissions, and for some seating at the ends of the gyms. We’ve had to rent”—Maggie glanced down at her notebook—“ninety-six extra folding tables.”

“Will you need help with them?” Healy was taking notes again.

“The company we’re renting from will bring them into the gym,
but, yes, they’ll still need to be put in the right booths Friday morning or early afternoon. If you have some people to help, that would be wonderful. Again, I’ll have a map. Some booths get six-foot tables, some get eight-foots. Others don’t want any, because dealers are bringing their own furniture and display areas.

“The dealer contracts say they can start unloading their vans and cars at four, but some will be here early, and anxious to set up. I’d like everything to be absolutely ready by three thirty.”

“I can help with tables,” said Eric.