St. Laurent Homeless Shelter
Giselle
groaned as she stepped into the bustling kitchen.
This was going to be one hell of a Thanksgiving,
and not in a good way.
It was before noon on Thanksgiving
morning, and instead of spending the holiday at
home with her family, she found herself at the local
homeless shelter. Normally, her personal chef, Ricardo,
prepared the Ormands’ traditional Thanksgiving
meal. This year, she would be the one doing the
cooking -- and for filthy bums, no less!
Her family Thanksgiving gathering
would have to be pushed back until later in the
evening. She wasn’t pleased...
“Giselle? Is that you?”
Sonya
Cortes asked, hardly able to believe her eyes.
“What on earth are you doing here on Thanksgiving?
Shouldn’t you be with your family?”
“I’m volunteering just
like you,” she responded. “And yes, I
should be home with my family, but unfortunately,
I have to clock one hundred hours of community service
before the end of the year as a condition of my
probation. Time is running out.”
“Probation?”
“You may not have heard, but
I broke out of an asylum and went on the run earlier
this year,” Giselle stated matter-of-factly.
“Oh, yeah...” Sonya said.
“Let’s just get to work then. Why don’t
you open the rolls, arrange them on the pans, and
put them in the ovens?” she suggested, all
the while overseeing the other kitchen volunteers
as they prepared their dishes.
“Who put you in charge, anyway?”
Giselle grumbled, though she did as Sonya asked.
“I’ve volunteered here
for years. There’s no better feeling on a holiday
like this than helping the less fortunate.”
“Oh, please. Spare me,”
Giselle crammed a tray of rolls into the oven and
slammed the door shut. She cranked the oven’s
dial up and stood back, folding her arms across
her chest. “I’m done with the rolls. What
now?”
“Wanna peel some potatoes?”
“Wanna come up with something
less tedious?” Giselle countered.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
Sonya smiled in spite of Giselle’s attitude.
“Could you fry up these peppers and onions?”
“Onions? Peppers? What in heaven’s
name...” Giselle asked, walking over to examine
the freshly sliced and diced ingredients. “I
don’t know how they do things in Mexico, Sonya,
but we’re cooking an American Thanksgiving
meal here.”
“I was going to mix them in
with the green beans. Add a little flavor, you know?
Spice it up.”
“I think it’d be best to
stick with a more traditional menu. We don’t
want to disappoint,” Giselle smiled sweetly,
scooping the onions and peppers into her hands and
dumping them into the trash.
Sonya took a deep, patient breath.
“Actually, Giselle, there is something else
you could do to help out. We could use more napkins
and plastic cups.”
“Plastic?” Giselle asked
with a shudder.
“Yes,” Sonya said, annoyed.
“There’s a little bodega around the corner.
Would you go buy some extra?”
“I suppose I could handle that,”
Giselle said, slipping back into her coat and heading
out into the cold. She knew Sonya was just trying
to get rid of her, but she didn’t care. Being
around all that poverty was depressing. It made
her skin itch.
She browsed the shelves of the corner
store. “I need some cups. Don’t you have
anything nicer than these?” Giselle asked the
shopkeeper, holding up a bag of plastic cups.
The grizzled man behind the cash
register shook his head.
“I’m willing to pay extra,”
Giselle added as if it mattered.
“This isn’t the Pottery
Barn, lady.”
“Fine.” Giselle grudgingly
paid for the cups and napkins and made her way back
to the shelter.
When she opened the door, she was
nearly trampled in her tracks by a throng of the
homeless fleeing the building. “What is the
meaning of this!” she asked, pressing herself
against the wall as the shelter was evacuated.
“Fire!” they cried.
Then she noticed the smoke pouring
from the kitchen, rolling out the door and up to
the ceiling in thick, dark waves.
“Giselle!” Sonya cried
sharply. “Look what you’ve done!”
Giselle stepped into the kitchen,
ducking lower to the floor to avoid the rising smoke.
Giselle’s dinner rolls had caught fire -- and
from the looks of things, they’d taken half
of the kitchen with them. Sonya was parked in front
of the oven, having finally managing to put out
the flames with the mini-fire extinguisher in her
lap.
“I asked you to do one simple
thing -- bake some freaking rolls! -- and you caught
them on fire?!”
“I must’ve turned on the
broiler by mistake...” Giselle said, embarrassed
at her error.
“You’ve ruined Thanksgiving
for everybody!” Sonya said, coughing against
the kitchen’s foggy smoke.
“I’m sorry!” she pleaded.
“But ... I’m still getting credit for
this as my community service, right?”
