Chapter 356

At our Thursday night meeting we brought all four of the homeless girls up for the meeting. We brought up the four so there would be no appearance that we were trying to divide them.

From all appearances, they were each others support group. They did everything they were told to do and more, but immediately were together if they had idle time.

We had reached a partial decision; we were going to do it in steps. Step one was to make the job offer to Joni and Paula and see how that went before moving on to step two. Jenny was working on step two behind the scenes.

With them sitting at the table I began with a general conversation.

“Is everything going good for you; up to your expectations now that you have been here a couple of weeks?”

After looks at each other Joni replied, “We are certainly better off than we were and we thank you for that. Are you telling us it is time to move on?”

“No, not at all; we were wondering if you and Paula were willing to take on more responsibility,” I replied. Then I added “Lorrie’s aviation division has a lot of flights coming up and she needs flight attendants, if you are interested,” I replied.

“What will we need to do?” Paula asked.

“First will be CPR and First Aid training, and that can happen tomorrow. In fact, we want all four of you to take it because someday you may need it. Then to the outlets to get you the uniforms we approve for flight attendants,” Lorrie said.

“Flight time pay is double what you are getting and pays overtime,” Lorrie added.

“What is flight time pay?” Joni asked.

“Flight time pay starts when you arrive at the airport for a flight and ends when you return, unless you are on an overnight flight; in which case a motel room, meal and overnight allowance will be provided. The pay resumes when the return flight resumes,” Lorrie responded.

“I think I would like to try that; it might be fun,” Paula replied.

“I think I would like to do that too,” Joni replied.

“OK, that is what we wanted to hear. Here is the paperwork that needs to be filled out, job application, power of attorney to get a copy of your birth certificates and Social Security cards. Then we need to get both of you Maryland driver’s licenses so we can get you passports in case any of the flights go out of the country. Start filling it out and we will help you through any problems,” Jenny said.

“I might not be able to get a passport,” Joni replied.

I opened the report, circled the shoplifting charge and slid it to her, “Because of this?” I asked.

“Yes,” Joni replied.

“It should not be a problem, we have friends in high places if it is,” I replied.

An hour later all the paperwork was done. First thing that had to happen was getting a Maryland drivers licenses for them; without the license there was no way to get passports and a license was one the required documentation to navigate the new DHS airport security.

For Paula it was easy; she still had her NC driver’s license in her possession. A trip to the DMV was on tap as soon as we acquired the documents for Joni.

We were sending someone to MVA every few days. Jason usually went; he still knew a lot of the people there. She could go along with whoever went and make the change. Marcy had already given them an address for their first paycheck.

It was Paula Craft, 1001 Summers Lane, JBG Building H, Apt 1. State law required a physical address on a pay stub or other official paperwork when applying for a license or a change of address. To help smooth things along with more official documents, Jeanna had already started checking accounts with debit cards for Joni and Paula.