She moved back behind the desk, giving Ross a glance and a shrug and settling herself into place with a sigh. Like all the front-desk people, she was a trained professional with experience working intake. Della had been at Fresh Start for something like five years, almost from its inception, according to Ray Hapgood, so she had pretty much seen and heard it all.

Ross moved over to stand beside her, and she gave him a suspicious frown for his trouble. “You at loose ends, Mr. Speechwriter? Need something more to do, maybe?”

“I’m depressed, and I need one of your smiles,” he answered with a wink.

“Shoo, what office you running for?” She gave him a look, then gestured with her head. “Little lady over there, she’s seventeen, says she’s pregnant, says the father doesn’t want her or the baby, doesn’t want nothing to do with none of it. Gangbanger or some such, just eighteen himself. Other girl is her sister. Been living wherever, the both of them. Runaways, street kids, babies making babies. Told her we could get them a bed, but she had to see a doctor and if there were parents, they had to be notified. Course, she doesn’t want that, doesn’t trust doctors, hates her parents, such as they are. Good Lord Almighty!”

Ross nodded. “You explain the reason for all this?”

Della gave him the glare. “Course I explained it! What you think I’m doing here, anyway—just taking up space? Who’s been here longer, you or me?”

Ross winced. “Sorry I asked.”

She punched him lightly on the arm. “No, you ain’t.” He glanced around the room. “How many new beds have come in today?”

“Seven. Not counting these.” Della shook her head ruefully. “This keeps up, we’re going to have to start putting them up in your office, having them sleep on your floor. You mind stepping over a few babies and mothers while you work—assuming you actually do any work while you’re sitting back there?”

He shrugged. “Wall-to-wall homeless. Maybe I can put some of them to work writing for me. They probably have better ideas about all this than I do.”

“They probably do.” Della was not going to cut him any slack. “You on your way to somewhere or did you just come out here to get underfoot?”

“I’m on my way to get some coffee. Do you want some?”

“No, I don’t. I got too much work to do. Unlike some I know.” She returned to the paperwork on her desk, dismissing him. Then she added, “Course, if you brought me some—cream and sugar, please—I guess I’d drink it all right.”

He went back down the hall to the elevator and pressed the button. The staff’s coffee room was in the basement along with a kitchen, storage rooms for food and supplies, maintenance equipment, and the water heaters and furnace. Space was at a premium. Fresh Start sheltered anywhere from a hundred and fifty to two hundred women and children at any given time, all of them homeless, most of them abused. Administrative offices and a first-aid room occupied the ground floor of the six-story building, and the top five floors had been converted into a mix of dormitories and bedrooms. The second floor also housed a dining hall that could seat up to a hundred people, which worked fine if everyone ate in shifts. Just next door, in the adjacent building, was Pass/Go, the alternative school for the children housed at Fresh Start. The school served upward of sixty or seventy children most of the time. The Pass/Go staff numbered twelve, the Fresh Start staff fifteen. Volunteers filled in the gaps.