By Petula Dvorak
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/enc ... print.htmlIt wasn’t hard to miss Dominic, amid the sleek displays of coffee mugs and bags of Veranda Blend beans at the Starbucks in Fredericksburg. He was wearing a pair of dirty cut-off sweatpants and no coat on a cold winter night.
“Where could he be coming from?” wondered Diana Kelly, 54, a regional manager checking on her store. She’d never encountered a homeless person in this part of Stafford County before.
She bought him a hot chocolate and asked where he was staying.
“In the woods,” Dominic told her. “I’m staying in the woods.”
Since then, Kelly, who wears Starbucks earrings and a glittery, rhinestone Starbucks belt buckle and drives an immaculate, black cherry-colored SUV, has spent a lot of time in those woods.
“Twenty-two years here and I never, ever imagined there are encampments in these woods, right behind places I shop,” she says as we drive to one of the spots.