“Hey, Winnie,” he said. “Can I join you? Feel free to tell me to go away if you’re too busy for a chat.”
She jolted, clearly surprised to see him standing there, and Shane smiled. He got like that too, sometimes, when he was coding, got so caught up in the work that the rest of the world ceased to exist.
Or, at least, hehadgotten like that sometimes, back when his job wasn’t the albatross hanging around his neck.
But Winnie didn’t seem at all sorry for the interruption, at least not judging from the way she closed her computer and leaned back in the chair, gesturing for him to take the place across from her without hesitation.
“Please,” she said. “It’s not like I’m getting anywhere, anyway. Maybe a break will do me good.”
He scrunched his nose. “You feeling stuck?”
She sighed. “Yeah. You know how that is, I guess.”
He feigned shock. “Me? Never! I’ve never been stuck a day in my life. I would certainly never come to a coffee shop to read a self-help book about getting un-stuck because of how stuck I was. Nope. Couldn’t be me.”
“Oh, right,” she said, failing at hiding her laughter. She was really cute when she let down her guard like this, Shane noticed. “My mistake.”
“I will forgive you just this one,” he teased, just to make her laugh again. “Anyway, what are you working on?”
Winnie made a face and let out a little growl… which was also fairly adorable.
“So, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I work at the historical society. I really like it, but this year, my boss put me in charge of coming up with ‘innovative’ new fundraising events.” She put finger quotes around the word—adorable—and, seriously, Shane was going to stop noticing her cuteness any moment now.
“Innovation is hard,” he said in commiseration. “Every time that I hear a client tell me they want something ‘innovative,’ I start to break out in stress hives. Sorry, was that not helpful?” he added with a laugh when she gave him an appalled expression. “My bad.”
“That was extremely not helpful!” she exclaimed, but he was relieved to see that she was smiling. “If that book of yours suggests that your next career move should be inspirational speaking… it is wrong.”
“That wasn’t on my shortlist, but good idea,” he said. “Okay, okay, let me see if I can help at least a little. What’s the objective with these new events? Sometimes talking stuff through can help.”
“Well,” she said, “the general idea is that the old events are a little too stuffy. Textbook, you know? And since we aren’t exactly a huge town?—”
“You don’t say,” he interjected. She paused to make another face.
“—we tend to get the same donors year after year,” she continued pointedly. “That’s probably true for bigger cities too, since local history is a bit niche by definition, but here, it’s even more obvious. And it’s the same old, same old, year after year. I get why donors find it boring. Even I kind of find the fundraising parties boring, and Ineverfind local history boring. So it’s the same thing, attended by the same people, most of whom are… how do I put this delicately? Not exactly in the first bloom of youth?” she tried.
“Got it.” He nodded his understanding.
“Basically, I’d like to figure out a way to make it a little more ‘all ages.’ But that’s tough, because kids like things that are active, and older folks… less so. But if we get kids, then we get parents, who might stick around for longer…” She sighed. “It’s a mess.”
“So, you’re looking to get a donor base that’s a bit more diverse, age-wise,” he summarized.
“Yes, for sure,” she agreed. “And it feels a little mercenary to say, but obviously the first point of fundraising is that we need money. Our main moneymaker aside from that is our tours, and those are donation-based, so it’s not a lot and it varies highly by season, what with tourists and everything.”
“That makes sense,” he said encouragingly. “I know Eleanor is thinking about planning for tourism ebbs and flows for the bookstore.”
“Exactly!” she agreed. “But that’s tourists. They’re not likely to be donors. So, my secondary goal is to build some community. Make the local history something that’s really in the hands of the locals, you know? Get people involved.”
Shane noticed the way Winnie lit up when she talked about building community, and it made him think back to the inverse reaction she’d had when she’d talked about feeling disconnected from the other book club members.
He wanted to ask more, but…
But there was a difference between friendly, supportive interest and prying. He didn’t want to cross over that line.
“That sounds like a really good goal,” he said. “Okay, okay. What if you… build a model train that’s like, a full replica of an old-timey train. And then everyone can ride in it. Old people will like the part where they get to, you know, sit, and kids love trains.”
Winnie pressed her lips together, hiding a laugh. “Well, thatwouldbe a great idea… if we were looking to spend a bazillion dollars instead of, you know, raise money.”
“Right.” Shane tapped the table thoughtfully. He didn’t have any truly innovative ideas, but he did have a few thoughts on how he could make Winnie laugh, and his own experience had taught him that sometimes a work problem could feel a lot less heavy if you had a good attitude about it.
