Book Series:IRISH BLUE Author:Sheila Willar Copyright:2022 Sheila Willar ISBN #:978-0-9867101-4-8 Book Title:THE CHAPEL Chapter #:06 - MS. STATTON
BOOK 1 - CHAPTER 6 - MS. STATTON
Back at work, Erin asked her supervisor about repairs for the chapel.
“We don’t do personal projects here. Everything for Mrs. Mancinni goes through her secretary.”
Erin winced at the thought of working with Ms. Statton, but decided to make the best of it and ask for her help.
“Hi. I’m Erin McBride. I need to order some stone for Mrs. Mancinni.”
“What stone?” asked Ms. Statton coldly.
“I need one-hundred and fifty square feet of Irish Blue stone. As soon as possible.”
Jane Statton was not about to take orders from Erin or make her life easier.
“Fill out this requisition!”
Erin tried her best to check the appropriate boxes and handed it back to Ms. Statton, who barely acknowledged her presence.
“I’ll leave it here then,” said Erin as she laid the paper on the desk. “How will I know when the stone is ready? Who should I call to check on delivery?”
“I will call you,” said Jane.
“I need to have it carved and delivered to Mrs. Mancinni within a few days.”
“Fine,” replied Jane with a nod of her head.
“It has to be THEE Irish Blue,” asserted Erin. “There are only a few quarry’s in the world that have it.”
“I will make sure you get what you ask for,” confirmed Ms. Statton.
Erin had heard that tone of voice before, and it wasn’t good.
Office politics were trouble at the best of times, so she offered a genuine "thank you" as consolation and returned to the elevator.
As Erin walked away Ms. Statton took the requisition, and with a very sharp pen, crossed out the word “stone” and replaced it with the word “hydrangeas”.
She also crossed out the units “square feet”, and wrote the word “RUSH” at the top of the order.
“I’ll make sure she gets her Irish Blue,” mused Ms. Statton, who sent Erin’s requisition to a flower shop named Arthur’s Blooms.
Ms. Statton had reworded the form to order one hundred and fifty pots of Irish Blue hydrangeas, instead of one hundred and fifty square feet, of Irish Blue stone.
At the flower shop, Arthur sighed when he saw the order for the potted plants.
He was used to filling large orders for Mrs. Mancinni, but he had no idea how to find one-hundred and fifty blossoming Irish Blue hydrangeas, along with hundreds of feet of matching ribbon. He rubbed his forehead and sighed, “There goes another weekend”.
That night, Erin found it hard to sleep because she was worried about the stone, and as 3 am approached, Kelly’s mother and aunts gathered in the kitchen to plan their day. They were still on Ireland time and were already buzzing with energy.
Erin listened as they talked about Maggy’s father who had “taken the best years” of Maggy’s mother’s life, and yet demanded nothing of his new girl friend.
"He moved with her to Cyprus you know."
"Still not far enough away."
Next they weighed in on Maggy’s fiancé Peter, who was Mrs. Mancinni’s grandson, and wanted nothing of the family business and had instead become a chef.
“What a waste,” said one sister.
“A lot of nonsense,” said the other.
Then they turned their attention to Erin.
“Poor thing. Practically raised by a priest.”
“How did she get a job at the Mancinni’s?”
“Word has it that Kerry asked Maggy to arrange it.”
“Chasing money.”
“As usual.”
Erin endured the insults until sunrise.
They would never understand how much she loved architecture, or that her professor had singled her out for the work term in New York. He said that she was well suited for restoring cathedrals, which the Mancinni’s had a long history of doing.
At dawn she waited in line for the washrooms, and shivered at the thought of spending the next two weeks in the cramped apartment.
At work, Erin did not get a reply from Ms. Statton, so she went to see her in person.
However, when she stepped off the elevator, there was a different secretary at the reception desk, one who knew nothing about the requisition for Irish Blue stone.
Whether it was purposeful or not, Erin quickly realized that she was not going to get any answers, so she contacted a friend, Lila, to ask for help.
Lila had been with the company for years and smiled when Erin explained the Irish Blue project.
“Really!" she exclaimed. "Not many people are fortunate enough to work with Irish Blue stone. It is a very rare form of rock, some say "sacred", and the Mancinni’s are one of the few companies in the world who have it.”
Soon, Lila spoke to her colleagues and they made arrangements to have workers, tools, sand and Irish Blue stone sent to Mrs. Mancinni’s chapel.
“Finally!" thought Erin. " Things are starting to come together."
