I enter Ron’s office and the only thing that’s in there is his desk, which I’ve always thought was probably bolted to the floor back in the 1980s.
“Sorry there’s not even a chair to sit on. Go on and pull up a desk, why don’t ya?” He gestures to the desk and then leans against the wall behind it.
I smile and slide onto the desk. It feels wrong, though. Like I’m disrespecting it.
“The fundraiser was an unexpected surprise.” He attempts to smile, but I know the guy and there’s something off here.
“Yes, well, unexpected for me, too. I only officially decided to do it yesterday.”
“It was great of you to do that.” His head cocks to the side. “You’d mentioned the possibility of doing it before, but I didn’ttake it seriously. And I didn’t know you were going to have Taysom Reed involved!”
I only nod. I want to scream.Does this mean the center can stay open?
“I should have talked to my superiors beforehand,” Ron says. “This is on me, since you did mention it before.”
“Oh.” I ball my hands into fists.
“It’s not your fault. I’m the one who dropped the ball. I’ve been on the phone with people from the College of Health and Human Performances all morning. And the advancement office, too. You’d think everyone would be more excited about this than they are.”
My heart skips a beat. “Am I in trouble?”
“No, not in trouble. We’re just not sure what to do with it. Typically, the university uses their own fundraising channels if they even resort to those measures in the first place. It’s highly unusual.”
“So do we have to give the money back?”
Ron smiles. “Do you think the university is going to turn down a sum like that? Of course we’re not giving it back. But using a commercial fundraising site has posed some challenges.”
“I’m sorry.”
He waves his hand away. “I think we’ve come up with a workaround. Basically, the advancement office is creating an official landing page that’s associated with the university’s website. All you have to do is link the fundraiser to that page and then the funds can go directly into an account for the Early Childhood Center.”
“Except, the center doesn’t exist anymore.”
“It’s still an entity in and of itself. This building might not exist much longer, but the center still does, if only in theory for the time being. And with this new influx of funds, we have some options.”
“Which are?”
His lips quirk to one side. “Well, there’s an office on the same floor as my new office across campus. It’s still accessible to a parking lot in which patrons from the city can park and enter. It was proposed that we take this money and create a scaled-down version of what we’ve done here.”
“Really?”
He nods. “Not on the same scope. Not with the same resources, but it looks like the center might not be gone after all.”
Warmth spreads through my chest. “Really?” I say again. “That’s amazing to hear. We’d better let the others know in case they can come back.”
“Charlotte, we’ll only be having one O.T. working in this new capacity. I can only hire one of you back.”
A buzzing ball forms in my throat. “Well, of course, it should be Willa,” I say, my voice strained. “She’s been here the longest.”
Ron hesitates. “She’s pretty excited about her position in Eastside.”
“Well, then Skyler. He said he’s not so sure about his new job at the hospital.” Frankly, I wouldn’t be either. The hours are pretty bad, and there are a lot of politics over there.
“You really want to give the one position to someone just because he might not like his new job? That doesn’t seem like the best reason.”
“He wanted to stay, though. We all wanted to stay.”
Ron’s voice is gentle. “Charlotte, Skyler is fine. He didn’t necessarily want to stay. But you do.”
