“She’s already working on that,” Mother said. “And she has a room you can use as a small temporary office over at Trinity.”
An office? I wasn’t sure why I would need an office at the church—surely this was something that could be solved in a few hours with a telephone and a computer, or even just a good supply of paper and ink. But Trinity was several miles from the stench of the choir loft, so although the office was clearly overkill, I didn’t mind the idea.
“Can you give us a ride over there?” Minerva asked.
“We’re going to start getting things ready for tonight’s concert,” Mother added.
“Which is the one nonnegotiable item on that schedule of yours,” Minerva said. “The first concert will go on at eight o’clock tonight at Trinity Episcopal.”
“Your carriage awaits.” I opened the front and rear passenger doors of my car and Mother and Minerva climbed in.
Chapter 7
“It’s small, but I think it will work,” Robyn said as she opened the door to my new temporary office.
The room itself wasn’t actually that small—it might have been a little larger than her own comfortable study. But it was filled almost literally to the ceiling with boxes and pieces of furniture, all of them either old, broken, shabby, ugly, or all of the above.
“Unfortunately, we’re using it right now as a kind of storage room,” Robyn said as she showed me in. “For stuff that doesn’t fit into the undercroft.”
It took me a moment to remember that what Robyn—and Mother—referred to as the church’s undercroft was what plebian souls like me called the basement.
“Most of these old relics used to be in my study,” Robyn went on. “I’d have exiled them to the undercroft until this spring’s rummage sale, but the undercroft’s already packed tight with Mrs. Thornefield’s belongings.”
“Mrs. Thornefield?” The name sounded familiar. “Oh—the lady who left her entire estate to the church.”
“God rest her soul,” Robyn said. “Yes, and we got a very good offer a few weeks ago for the house—well above its real value, if you ask me.”
Clearly she wasn’t yet familiar with Caerphilly’s chronic housing shortage.
“But the offer was contingent on the buyer being able to move in by Thanksgiving,” she went on. “So we had to empty the house, and rather than spend money on storage, we just brought all the stuff here and stowed it in the undercroft. Where frankly it’s driving me bonkers.”
I could understand why—Robyn clearly shared my preference for clean, uncluttered surroundings. I still couldn’t get over how she’d transformed the previous rector’s dark, claustrophobic study into a bright, inviting, airy space.
“But that’s a problem for another day,” she said, in her brisk, businesslike tone. “Here you go.” She pointed to the sturdy, battered desk that turned the space just inside the door into a cramped but usable work space. The top of the desk was empty except for a telephone, a legal pad, and a few pens and pencils stuck into a cracked coffee mug with the red, white, and blue Episcopal shield on it.
“The other churches are either dropping off their schedules or e-mailing them to you,” she went on. “Here’s the password for our wireless router. Dial nine to get an outside line. And if you need anything, I’ll be out in the sanctuary, helping with the setup. And Riddick will be in his office next door. I’m sure he’d be happy to help as well if you need anything.”
I nodded, though I doubted I’d want to ask for help from Riddick Hedges, Trinity Episcopal’s office manager, bookkeeper, and general factotum. Apart from the sexton he was Trinity’s one paid staff member. I had no idea whether he was genuinely overworked or merely bad at multitasking and constantly feeling overwhelmed as a result, but he could generally be seen darting about the church in a state of high anxiety, wringing his hands and getting in the way of anyone who was performing actual useful work.
Robyn hurried out. I sat down at the desk and looked at the papers she had left me. First was a photocopy of the St. Byblig’s schedule for the holy season. They had a lot going on, but I noted some possible empty spaces that the Baptists might use. Next up was a schedule from Temple Beth-El of Caerphilly—obviously printed out from a computer file. Seeing it made me realize that I needed more information from St. Byblig’s—the temple schedule didn’t just tell me the times and locations of each event, it had a column for each available space, and included the duration, the name of the event’s leader or other responsible person, the anticipated number of attendees, and any special needs, like a projector or a coffee setup. I was about to give Rabbi Grossman top marks for thoroughness until I found the Trinity schedule Robyn had prepared. It was a printout similar to the Temple Beth-El’s, but Robyn had also given the capacity of each room, attached a list of the people I might need to call about rescheduling their events, and penciled in useful if offbeat suggestions of where some of the Trinity events could be located to free up space for the Baptists.