“Maybe, but I think this particular piece should be something special.”
Pastor Paul must have scraped his nose when he fell over the “hurdle.” Having crashed and burned a few times himself, Stephen knew what it felt like. “When you work with people, Pastor, you run into trouble. Just comes with the territory.”
“You can say that again.” Paul finished his orange juice. “And call me Paul.” He set his empty glass on the counter. “Seems to me you and I have a lot in common, Stephen. We’re both builders, and we both have to deal with inspectors who come in looking for something wrong with our work.” He took out his wallet and removed enough money to pay for the juice and leave a generous tip.
“Pays to make friends with inspectors who can impede progress.” Stephen turned on his stool and cocked his head. “Is the cabinet a bribe, or a way of making amends?” He saw the color seep into the younger man’s face and wondered if it was anger or embarrassment. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t his business what went on inside Centerville Christian Church. Unless he decided he wanted to become part of it.
“Both.” Paul grimaced. “But I’ve been told crow is edible.”
“True, but never the bird of choice.”
“Maybe the taste of it will keep me from making the same mistake again.” He gave a casual salute. “Hope I see you Sunday morning.” He thanked Sally and went out the door.
Stephen paid for his breakfast and headed for the work site. He talked to Tree House about the cabinet for the church, but got no for an answer. Tree House was building a china hutch for his mother. “If I start another project before finishing her piece, she’ll have my head in a basket.”
The more Stephen thought about it, the more he wanted to tackle the project himself. He’d done the finish work on the bookshelves in the den of his Granite Bay house and built the mantel that had been the centerpiece in the living room. Back when he was a kid, he’d made a few pieces of furniture in an elective wood-shop class. A drop-leaf desk that won an award at the county fair. His teacher had told him he had a talent for woodworking, but Stephen had known it was no way to get rich. He’d made a profit of less than a hundred dollars when he calculated the time it had taken him to build the thing. That had been a deciding factor in his decision to be an architect with a contractor’s license. The bigger the project, the more money to be made.
The Atherton house would put him in the black again, and the project had already opened up possibilities for more work in the area. But he still had too much time on his hands. Too much time alone. Too much time to think and regret past actions, which only increased the temptation to drink and forget.
He’d never built anything for a church. Why not do the project? It’d keep him busy in the evenings.
Rob Atherton came by late in the afternoon. Before he was out of his car, a Cadillac came up the driveway. Stephen groaned inwardly. Sheila parked next to her husband. They talked briefly. Even at a distance, Stephen could tell Rob was in a foul mood. Probably a rough day at the office. Stephen hoped Sheila would take the hint and not come up with another cocka-mamie idea that would drive everybody up a wall.
He greeted them cordially and walked them through the house again, explaining how the pace would pick up over the next few weeks as wiring, cables, and plumbing were completed, insulation put in, and Sheetrock put up. Next came the taping and texturing, or paneling, depending on the room. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets were being built and would be brought out for installation by the end of the month. Sheila had already decided on colors, tiles, carpeting, paneling, and fixtures. Everything top of the line, the way Sheila wanted. They had no sooner entered the kitchen than Sheila announced she wanted a Sub-Zero refrigerator and steel instead of black for the convection oven. Stephen exhaled slowly to release steam.
Rob spewed out several four-letter words. Stephen couldn’t have voiced his own frustrations any more eloquently. “That’s it, Sheila! Enough already! Leave everything as it is now, Decker. No more changes. I want this house to be finished while I’m still this side of sixty.”
“But, Rob, I was just telling you what I read. We should upgrade the appliances.”
“I said no. It’s a waste of his time and my money. What do you care about refrigerators and ovens, anyway? You don’t even cook!”
Her eyes went hot. “Well, I would if I had a decent kitchen.”
“Decent? Julia Child would be happy to cook in here.” His face was red and tight. “Molly never had anything better than what ordinary people have, and she always managed to have a nice dinner on the table at six sharp.”
“Then maybe you should’ve stayed married to her.”
“Don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind a hundred times in the past three years.”
Sheila’s mouth fell open. Her blue eyes filled with tears. “You’re always blaming me!” Turning abruptly, she left the house. Atherton muttered another expletive under his breath. He took a step after her and then stopped, swore again, and headed for the back of the house. Stephen heard a car door slam, an engine roar, and gravel crunch violently.
Stephen found Rob standing in the barren living room that would eventually look out over a French garden with gazebo and pool, if Sheila’s plans proceeded on schedule.
Rob looked up at the beams and around at the alcoves ready to house bookshelves. “Sheila’s idea of cooking is to call a restaurant that delivers.” He let out his breath, his shoulders drooping. “Nothing like an old fool who thinks he’s become cock of the walk, is there?” When he turned, Stephen saw the weariness in his expression, the worn-down look of a man living with a multitude of regrets. “Ever wish you could go back and do things over, Decker?”
“All the time.”
“Molly was my first wife.” He looked around again. “What’s your opinion?”
Stephen wasn’t certain what Rob Atherton was asking, but he wasn’t going to enter a confessional with an embittered executive who was paying close to seven hundred thousand dollars to house his trophy wife. “Always build with the idea of resale. Men look at garages. Women look at kitchens.” Even if they never used them.
Atherton gave a bleak laugh. “There you have it, Decker. Sheila knows where the money’s to be made.” His eyes were cool and appraising. “I’d like to promise to keep her out of your hair, but I don’t think that’s possible.”
Stephen sensed the message beneath those words. Atherton was no fool. He’d married an adulteress and knew she couldn’t be trusted. Too bad Rob couldn’t take Sheila off on a two-month vacation to the Bahamas or Hawaii or Timbuktu. By the time they returned, the house would be finished, the landscaping in, and Stephen could hand Rob Atherton or his little tart the key and walk away with the last check due on completion.
He was dreaming.
“I’m already beginning to wish I’d bought land closer to Sacramento,” Rob said. “What do you do around here?”
“I attend a Wednesday night Bible study.”
“Bible study? You’re kidding.” Atherton laughed.
“No, I’m not kidding.”
“Somehow I didn’t think you were that sort.”
“What sort would that be?”
Atherton hesitated, assessed. “You really get something out of it?”
He wasn’t mocking anymore, and Stephen knew why. For all his money and power, his life was in shambles. “You know where I was before you hired me.”
“In rehab.” Rob jingled his keys. “Look, I’m not trying to pry. I’m just curious.”
“About what?”
“If religion really does improve your life.”
“Religion makes life more difficult. God makes life bearable.”
“And there’s a difference?”
“Life and death difference, but if you want to understand, you ought to check out Centerville Christian.”
“Right now, I’d try just about anything.”
Stephen smiled cynically. “Well, take a
little advice from someone who’s been down a few highways. Stay away from booze. Try the church.”
CHAPTER 5
AS EUNICE came out of the parsonage and headed for the church to do her piano practice, Paul was just pulling away from the curb in their Toyota. She waved, but he didn’t notice. He’d been up since five, practicing his speech for the Rotary Club.
“Daddy!” Timmy waved.
Eunice crouched down next to her son. “Let’s pray for Daddy, Timmy.” She put her forehead against his. “Lord Jesus, we know You love us and watch over us. We know You want us to obey You in everything we do. Please be with Daddy today. Give him the words You want him to speak to the men and women at the Rotary Club meeting today. Let Your love shine out of Daddy so that all the people who hear him will want to be Your children. In Jesus’ precious name we pray.”
“Amen,” Timmy said.
She kissed him and stood up. He ran ahead of her to the steps of the church, his arms outstretched like an airplane. Laughing, she followed. She reached into her pocket for the key, but saw the door was already ajar. It wasn’t like Paul to leave the church unlocked when he wasn’t in his office. She noticed a metallic tan truck parked on the side street near the corner. “Wait, Timmy!” Too late, her son disappeared inside the door.
“Who are you?” she heard Timmy ask.
Hurrying up the steps, Eunice pushed the door wide open. She found a tall man wearing brown work boots, faded Levi’s, and a plaid work shirt muscling a dolly carrying a beautiful display cabinet. He glanced back and she smiled in relief. “This is Stephen Decker, Timmy.”
Timmy walked closer. “Whatcha doing?”
“Putting in a display case for the church’s Bible.”
“It’s beautiful, Mr. Decker.” Eunice admired the curved legs carved with grape leaves and clusters of grapes.
He straightened and ran his hand over the wood framing the glass top. “Call me Stephen.”
Her heart did a little fillip at the tone of his voice. She looked into his eyes briefly and then lowered her head, putting her hand lightly on Timmy’s head. “Maybe we should come back later and let Mr. Decker finish his work.”
Timmy moved away from her. “Mommy practices piano every morning.” He stopped and pointed. “You have an owie.”
“An owie?”
“What did you do to your thumb?”
“Oh!” Enlightened, Stephen Decker grinned down at him. “I smashed it.”
“I smashed my finger in a door once.”
“I smashed my thumb with a hammer.” Stephen pulled the hammer from his tool belt. “This one, as a matter of fact.”
“Why?”
“Well, not on purpose, I can tell you. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. You have to pay close attention when you’re using a hammer.”
“Did it hurt?”
“It hurt like—” he stopped, glanced at Eunice—“yeah. It hurt. A lot.”
“You need a Band-Aid. Mommy has Sesame Street Band-Aids.”
“It’s a nice offer, Timmy,” Decker said, and then looked at her with a broad grin. “But I don’t think I’d have the nerve to show up at the job site wearing a Big Bird Band-Aid.”
Eunice laughed. “I can see how that might cause some difficulties.”
“I’d never live it down.”
She withdrew a step. “Come on, Timmy.”
“Don’t put off your piano practice on account of me, Mrs. Hudson. I’d enjoy listening while I finish up here.”
For the first time in a long time, Eunice felt shy about her playing. “I make a lot of mistakes.”
He smiled. “I promise not to tell anyone.”
“As long as you promise to pay attention to what you’re doing.”
He slipped the hammer back into his work belt like a gunfighter holstering his gun. “You bet.”
She took Timmy’s hand and went into the sanctuary. Once her son was settled with some toys she kept in a basket under the front pew, she sat at the piano and began her scales. It had been cold out this morning, an autumn snap in the air, and her fingers were stiff. She ran through all the scales and then went to chords, then runs. Then she just played whatever came to her, bits and pieces of hymns, classical movements, popular songs, Broadway musicals, and some of her own compositions as well. She loved the challenge of making it all flow from one part to the next so that it blended without seams. Paul called her practices “improv-venue.”
He hadn’t listened to her practice since becoming a pastor. No time. And since arriving at Centerville Christian, his only real interest in her music was to make it work in the service. Paul wanted her to play music that appealed to the people he was trying to attract to the church. Several of the senior members of the church would then come to her and complain, gently, about the music she played and ask why she wasn’t playing the hymns she had when she’d first come. She couldn’t bring herself to say Paul had told her the kind of music to play. That would only exacerbate the tension between her husband and some of the older members of the congregation. Worse, it would make her feel like she was protecting herself rather than standing beside her husband in his mission to serve the church the best way he knew how.
“Sounds sad.”
Startled, she saw Stephen Decker sitting in the second pew. She lifted her hands from the keys.
“You looked pretty caught up in it.”
Her face went hot. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“Hoped I’d be gone, you mean.”
“No, I didn’t mean . . . ”
“I should’ve kept my mouth shut so I could’ve enjoyed the rest of the concert. What were you playing?”
“A little of this and that.”
“Never heard of it.”
She wished she didn’t blush so easily. “And likely never will again.”
“Ah. You make it up as you go.”
“It’s the way I warm up.” She shrugged. “I just play whatever music comes to mind.”
“I recognized a lot of it, but not the last portion. Who wrote that music?”
“I can’t remember.” She looked away and opened the book of music on the stand.
“Sure you do. You’re just too shy to say it came from you.”
She watched him walk back up the aisle. He troubled her. For one thing, he was far too attractive, and there was something about the way he looked at her. Refocusing on the music in front of her, she began to play again, following the notes on the page this time. The song was contemporary and designed for praise and worship in more charismatic services than the seniors at Centerville Christian were used to hearing. She’d questioned Paul’s choice. “They’ll get used to it,” Paul had told her. She agreed it was a beautiful song, but so were any one of the four hundred hymns in the books set out in each pew rack. The new song was so easy; she had it memorized in a few minutes. The words were clear, concise, and simple. A child would be able to sing the stanza by heart after the first Sunday.
“Boring!” Stephen Decker called loudly from the back of the church.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. It’s repetitious.”
“What do you mean, repetitious?” Annoyed, she wished he would leave and let her practice in peace.
“Repetitious, as in repeating the same thing over and over again.”
“The words . . . ”
“I know the words.”
She put her hands on her jean-clad knees. “It’s the latest music, Mr. Decker.”
“Latest doesn’t necessarily mean the greatest, Mrs. Hudson.”
“It appeals to the younger generation.” She felt the color mount into her cheeks as he laughed.
“Thirty-four and I’m part of the older generation, huh, Mrs. Hudson? But I guess to a twenty-what-year-old, that must seem over the hill and sliding into the grave.”
“It spells out the gospel message in basic terms. It’s meant to give people something to take home with them. Something they can
remember and think about during the week. People have so many things to do these days. It’s not like fifty years ago when the church was people’s social life and singing hymns was enjoyable.”
“I didn’t know we came to church for enjoyment.”
“Not entirely.” She was uncomfortable with the tack the conversation was taking. “Don’t you enjoy being a Christian?”
“Enjoyment isn’t a term I’d use. Trying to turn the tables on me, Mrs. Hudson?”
“Just curious.”
“So am I. Why don’t you play some of your own work?”
She shook her head. “It’s not good enough.”
“It’s better than what you were just playing.”
“Well, thank you.” She dismissed his praise easily.
“Just chicken, I’m thinking.”
She’d never met a more disturbing man. “I’ve never finished anything, if you want to know.”
“Why not? You don’t strike me as someone who would give up easily.”
She tried to think of a response quickly. “I haven’t given up.” She’d put it aside. Paul needed her. Timmy needed her. “There’s just not time right now. Someday. Maybe.”
“When your husband’s retired from the ministry and your son’s grownup and moved away?”
She lifted her head at his dry tone. He was standing at the end of the church aisle, arms crossed, leaning his hip against the end of a pew. Why was he baiting her? “My music is not as important as my husband or my son.”
“Good cop-out. I guess there’s no way for people to stay married and still be all God meant them to be as individuals.” He straightened. “Sorry to have interrupted your practice.” He picked up his jacket and left.
What he said bothered her. Sometimes she did feel restless. She felt a changing tide in her life and in her marriage. Every evening, Paul seemed to have a meeting scheduled. He accepted invitations from any organization that asked him to speak, viewing them as opportunities from the Lord to “get the word out.” But the word about what? The gospel? Or Centerville Christian? Or were they still one and the same? Sometimes she wondered.
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