Free Whatever It Takes by Gwynne Forster

engagement, but her contract covered November the fifteenth through January the second, the peak selling period of the year, and she intended to make the most of the opportunity.
    She decided not to wear a cook’s uniform, as most demonstrators of foods and kitchen products did; she wanted to meet people, especially men, and she wanted to be at her best. Early that afternoon, she noticed a man decorating the lobby near her with branches of autumn leaves, pumpkins, and gourds.
    Mmm, she thought, Wonder who he is. He didn’t come near her, but when he looked her way and she smiled at him, he smiled in return. But he didn’t walk over to her and introduce himself, and he didn’t speak. Quickly, her mind returned to the business at hand, for hotel guests began crowding around her. By six-thirty that evening, she had twenty-two orders, more than she had dreamed of getting in one afternoon. She closed for the day, and had started to the lower-level garage where she parked her car, when she passed a florist shop and, remembering the man she saw earlier in the day, she walked over to the house phone and dialed #418.
    â€œCould you please tell me who the man is who decorated the lobby for Thanksgiving?”
    â€œHis name is Douglas Rawlins. Why? Did he get out of line?”
    â€œNo. He definitely did not. Thanks. Good night.” Let him chew on that, she said to herself. None of his business why I wanted to know the man’s name. She entered the elevator with the receptionist who worked across the corridor from her booth.
    â€œMy name is Lourdes,” the woman said. “If you’re driving, could I get a lift to the bus stop? It’s starting to snow, and I didn’t bring an umbrella.”
    â€œI’m Lacette. Where do you live?”
    â€œOn Elk, not far from that Baptist church.”
    â€œThen, I’ll drop you home.” She discovered that she liked Lourdes, a Ladino woman of African descent, and wanted them to become friends.
    At home, she found Kellie pacing the floor like a caged animal and the dining room air heavy with the odor of Kellie’s expensive perfume. Her initial reaction to it was to open a window, but she didn’t want the blast of twenty-four-degree air that would follow, so she went up the stairs, looked in on her mother, found that she wasn’t in what she and Kellie called Cynthia’s Sanctuary, went into her own room and closed the door.
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    The following Tuesday at lunchtime, having settled on her plan, Kellie went to the house her father inherited and stood with her back to the great elm that for years had occupied a spot between the sidewalk and the street facing the house. Grateful for the warming temperatures, she leaned against the tree for over half an hour waiting to see what, if any, activity would indicate that the house was being renovated. She had to get in there before anyone disarranged it. As she was about to leave, disappointed, a white pickup truck with a wildcat logo and an inscription she couldn’t make out drove up into the front yard and parked. A man jumped out and started for the front door.
    She rushed to the door as the man inserted a key. “I was waiting for you,” she said. “I don’t have my key, and I can go in with you.”
    He stared down at her until she took a step backward. “No, you can’t, babe. Nobody’s going in here but me. You steal something, and there goes my job. My boss said nobody is to enter this house while I’m here but me. I don’t know what your game is, sis, but you’re wasting your time.”
    She wished it wasn’t so cold, and he could see how good she looked without her coat. Not many men would willingly pass up thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-eight measurements on a five feet, nine inch, good-looking woman in a size ten dress. “I’ll come back when you’re in a better mood,” she said. He narrowed his left eye, and