Hope's Corner

by Chris Keniston

  “I think Mom was disappointed with Sandra at lunch today, as if she didn’t quite pass the checklist. But if Sandra already has the hots for big brother, maybe—”

  “Pam, the copy machine is jammed again. Could you call…” Jeff stopped short at the sight of Carol Ann sitting on the edge of Pam’s desk“I was just leaving, big brother.” Carol Ann walked over, leaned in, gave her brother a kiss on the cheek, and looking rather pleased with herself, strolled out the door.

  Jeff moved over to Pam's side. “I really am sorry if she embarrassed you.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll give Fred a call about the copy machine.”

  “Yes, please. I can’t seem to find his number in my father’s Rolodex.”

  “No problem.” Pam reached for the phone.

  “Also.” Jeff shifted from one foot to the other. “She is right about one thing.”

  “Only one?” Pam chuckled. She probably shouldn’t have said anything about Sandra to Carol Ann, but maybe it would work out.

  “We do have to eat.”

  Pam felt her shoulders stiffen.

  “The Thursday night special at the café is always chicken fried steak. Don’t tell my mother I said this, but the only things her cooking can't compete with is Mabel’s blueberry pie and her chicken fried steak.”

  “I won’t say a word.” Pam swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to smile.

  “Good.” Jeff smiled. “Then you’ll join me for dinner at the café?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dinner? Oh, God. Dinner? Like a date? A dinner date? Pam’s lungs seized while her heart raced. Was that even physically possible? Breathe!

  She didn’t want to go on a date. Not with Valerie’s neighbor the architect who had everything except the right woman. Not with Mrs. Cahill’s son Peter who really can’t be blamed for his two divorces. And most especially not with her boss, Pastor Jeff, whose smile could make any woman go weak in the knees. Breathe!

  But wait. Carol Ann had suggested “share a booth.” Nothing about a date. Only a step to stop his mother from meddling. Air filled her lungs. “We do have to eat” wouldn’t qualify in anyone’s broadest imagination as an invitation to a romantic dinner for two. Another breath.

  Jeff slipped his hands into his pockets, his expression blank except for the slight dip in his brow. Oh, great. Now he was probably once again thinking she was a nutcase and planning his fastest getaway. A boss asks his secretary to a simple meal, and she reacts like Count Dracula has just invited her to his castle. She wouldn’t be surprised if he turned and ran for the door without looking back.

  Her sister was right. She needed to get out more. Make new friends. Have dinner out. When Travis worked late, night after night, on a big case, Pam would go out with friends. It was time she did it again. Just friends. So what if he was a man?

  Jeff was getting a kick out of watching Pam eat her dinner. The way she savored every bite, anyone would think she’d been eating at a five-star Parisian restaurant.

  When he had first asked her to join him for dinner, he swore he saw all the color drain from her face, and was convinced she was going to tell him that she’d forgotten she wanted to stay home and clean out the refrigerator. He came within inches of backpedaling and rescinding the invitation, but until that moment, he hadn’t realized just how much he had wanted her to say yes.

  After Carol Ann had left his office, it had occurred to him that a casual dinner at the café would be just the right place to chat a bit with Pam about her situation. Mention Caleb, his old college friend the psychologist, and subtly introduce the idea of therapy. But as soon as the dinner invitation was out of his mouth, and her smile had slipped, he hadn’t cared about therapy or counselors. He’d only wanted to see her smile again. And he’d very much wanted to see that smile over dinner, even if that gave him one more thing to worry about.

  “Hmm. You were so right.” Pam speared another small piece of meat. “This is the best chicken fried steak I’ve ever eaten. Ever.”

  “Only one person on the planet cooks nearly as good as my mother. And not even Mom makes a better chicken fried steak than Mabel.”

  “I loved my mother to death, but cooking wasn’t one of her gifts in life. I’m not sure if Dad really liked cooking the way he claimed or if it was just self-preservation.”

  Jeff laughed. “That bad?”

  “Mom? Oh, yeah. I once caught her holding a Butterball turkey up on its legs. When I asked her what she was doing, she answered, ‘Trying to see which way it walks.’ I had no clue what she was talking about, so I asked her why. Seems she was having a hard time telling which side was the breast on the perfectly round twenty-pound turkey.”

  “Did she figure it out?”

  Pam shook her head. “That was the year Dad started cooking Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Then how is it your dad never brought the family to the café to taste Mabel’s cooking?”

  Pam tipped her head in thought. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “What about you? Do you like to cook?”

  Pam shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t think I’d say I like to cook, but I don’t mind it. It’s sort of like laundry or housecleaning. It has to be done.” She put down her fork and let out a soft chuckle. “But at least I know which side of a turkey is up.” Delicately she dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “What about you?”

  “We all cook.” Jeff watched Pam finish off her last piece of steak. “Even though Ma’s the queen of her kitchen, she made sure all her kids knew their way around one. But I don’t see much point to cooking for only me.”

  “So you eat here a lot?”

  “Not as much as I used to. Sometimes I go home for dinner. More often I just eat frozen or takeout.”

  “I know what you mean.” Pam dabbed the corners of her mouth again. A small drop of gravy remained to one side of her mouth.

  “You missed a spot.” To his surprise, he very much wanted to reach out and wipe the drop away. Maybe his sister and mother were right. He needed to spend more time in the company of women. It had been much too long since he’d felt a woman’s soft skin under his fingertips.

  Not that he’d done that much touching since his carousing days at college. But even the feel of a woman’s smaller hand in his was a comfort. A comfort he missed more than he’d been willing to admit, and heaven help him, right now he very much wanted to find that comfort in the feel of Pam’s hand in his.

  “Contemplating the immortality of the crab?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Something my grandmother used to say when she was lost in thought. I got the feeling you were someplace else for a few minutes there. Anything interesting?”

  What was he doing? He shouldn’t be thinking about wiping away droplets or holding hands. He needed to focus. She needed help. Real help. And this time he would do his job right and see that she got professional help from someone qualified to make a difference. “Not really.”

  “Then why are you blushing?”

  “Was I blushing?” Sometimes having inherited his mom’s pale Irish complexion was a real pain.

  “Oh, yeah.” Pam flashed a broad grin, the kind that made him want to grin back.

  He gave himself another mental kick. The fact that Pam’s smile warmed his insides wasn’t important. And maybe if he repeated that often enough, he might just believe it. “It’s just my naturally ruddy complexion.”

  “Right.” She laughed. “And Mabel's a natural redhead.”

  “If it means that much to you, my mind wandered back to when I was in college. My friends.” At least it had briefly—between thoughts of her.

  “Did she mean a lot to you?” An impish grin spread across Pam’s face.

  “Actually, he’s the best. Caleb Young. We were roommates at UT. Couldn’t have asked for a better friend. Only downside was our food bill senior year when we had our own apartment. The guy ate like a linebacker.”

  Pam put the roll she held in her hand back
on her dish. “And I remind you of him?”

  “Oh, no.” Great move, Pastor Jeff. Why not just tell the woman she eats like two hundred pound football player. “It was the dinner that made me think of him. Chicken fried steak was his favorite. One summer he spent a few weeks here in town, and I think he ate Mabel’s chicken fried steak three times a day.”

  Pam picked the roll back up. “So tell me more about this friend.”

  A flash of school days’ antics made him smile. “Back in college I had no intention of ever following in my father’s footsteps. I’d had enough of the disciplined godly life. The day I walked onto campus, I was free and ready to start living. You might say Caleb and I majored in girls, parties, and baseball. Not exactly a stellar background for a future pastor.”

  Marybeth Houlihan sprang suddenly to Jeff’s mind. He’d dated her for almost six months his sophomore year. They’d continued sleeping together off and on for another six months after that. Over the course of four years in Austin, he and Caleb had sown enough wild oats for several NCAA Division 1 Baseball teams. The details were forever sealed in a pledge of silence between Caleb and him.

  He waited for Pam’s reaction to his admission of a wild past, but she merely smiled at him. A sweet smile that silently said we all had college days like that, though he couldn’t picture it. There was no way the woman sitting across from him had ever partied hard.

  Gesturing with his hands, he signaled for Redding to bring them some coffee. “My first year of college I was convinced I had the stuff to be a pro ball player.”

  “Really?” Pam pushed aside her empty plate. “What changed?”

  “It started with minor nerve surgery on my pitching arm.” He lifted his arm and showed her the thin line across the inside of his elbow. “By the end of sophomore year I’d blown out my rotator cuff and accepted that I’d never pitch at a major league ballpark.”

  “I’m sorry.” Pam stretched her fingers forward slightly, brushed her hand against his, and then, as though shocked by the touch, quickly dropped her hand to her side. “I remember how much you loved to play ball. Jake too. Baseball was more important to him than anything. Even girls.”

  Thoughts of Marybeth popped back up, and Jeff felt the rising heat in his neck. He really needed to get out more. “Yeah, well. Since there was no way I wanted to be a stodgy pastor like my father, I buckled down and walked away with a degree in economics.”

  “Really? So what changed your mind? About being a pastor I mean.”

  “In a nutshell, I discovered I didn’t have the heart to do whatever it took to climb the corporate ladder. Apparently all those years of doing right in the face of the Lord were more ingrained in me than I’d thought.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that you can take the boy out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the boy.”

  A grin teased the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, that pretty much covers it. I found myself doing what was best for everyone rather than what was needed to make money.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. You’re really good with people. Some pastors come off as pious and pretentious, but it’s obvious to anyone with eyes you’re the real deal.”

  “Real deal?”

  “Yeah. Like the way you worried about Mrs. Perkins until Sandra came along. This isn’t just a job with a pretty title to you. You’re a pastor in every sense of the word. You really care and it shows.”

  The real deal. Focusing on a spoon he now spun between his fingers, Jeff thought of Jenny. The real deal would have been able to save her. “Sometimes caring isn’t enough.”

  “Sometimes caring is all you can do.”

  Lifting his gaze to meet Pam’s, he wondered what she’d say if she knew the one time his choices were a matter of life and death—he’d made the wrong one.

  Pam reached out, her fingertips gently stilling the hand fiddling with the spoon. For a long moment the silence spoke volumes. When Pam withdrew her touch, he was tempted to snatch back her hand. Now more than ever he wanted the comfort of holding her smaller hand in his. But good sense won out. He kept his hands at his sides and forced a smile to his lips.

  “Anyway, I went from partying-wannabe-ballplayer, to bad businessman, and now here I am.”

  “What about your roommate? Did he make it in baseball?”

  Jeff shook his head, thankful for a chance to redirect the conversation. “Somewhere along the way Caleb managed to fit in a degree in psychology.”

  “Oh.” Pam straightened in her seat.

  The stiffened response wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. He’d thought to use his friend as a casual lead into discussing the need for therapy. But Pam’s tense body language gave him a moment’s pause. “Anyhow, five years later I found myself in divinity school ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, and by then, Caleb was well on his way to a promising career as a clinical psychologist.”

  “Clinical psychologist?”

  “Mmm.” He nodded, wondering briefly how far to push the conversation. “In Poplar Springs—”

  “Here you go,” Redding interrupted, setting two cups of coffee on the table. “Ready for dessert? Today’s special is pecan pie.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “Fresh from the oven.”

  “Oh, my.” Pam licked her lips. “I don’t think I could eat another bite.”

  “You sure?” Redding glanced from Pam to Jeff and back. The way Pam was nibbling on the corner of her mouth, anyone could see it wouldn’t take much convincing for her to change her mind.

  “What if we split a piece?” Jeff suggested.

  “I don’t know.” Pam stared at the empty plates Redding held in his hand. “I don’t usually eat this much.”

  “Then what harm will a little more do? One piece of pecan pie with two forks coming right up.” Redding gave Jeff a wink, and turned about, whistling on his way to the kitchen.

  “Wonder what came over him?” Pam watched Redding until he disappeared through a rear doorway. “I mean, why would agreeing to a piece of pie make a man so happy?”

  “I don’t think it was the pie. I think it was the two forks.”

  “Two forks?” She turned her attention back to Jeff. He knew the minute recognition dawned. Her eyes grew round as silver dollars, and her chin nearly hit the table. “Uh-oh. You don’t mean…”

  He nodded. “I should have anticipated someone might misconstrue the situation. Tomorrow morning I’ll call Mrs. Cahill to confirm the date of her granddaughter’s baptism. I’ll find a way to mention dinner tonight was simply the church’s way of thanking you for doing such a great job filling in for Ellen.” That wasn’t far from the truth. Once Ellen returned from maternity leave, the church would want to do something nice for Pam. Maybe he’d ask Mrs. Cahill to be in charge of the thank-you committee. Then there’d be no doubt left in Mrs. Cahill’s mind that this wasn’t a social dinner. “By lunchtime she'll have single handedly informed the whole town this wasn’t a real date.”

  “You may want to practice on Redding.” Pam tilted her head toward the older man walking their way with a plate of pie, two forks, and the biggest grin this side of the Pecos.

  Jeff cast a quick glance at Redding, then back to Pam. "Maybe I’d better call Mrs. Cahill tonight.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Caleb Young in Poplar Springs. At least now Pam had the name of a psychologist, a good one according to Jeff.

  No advertisement in the yellow pages, just his name, address, and phone number. No wonder she hadn’t noticed him before. Pulling a pen out of the kitchen junk drawer, she scribbled his number on a piece of paper. With careful precision, she folded the page in half. Making sure the ends aligned perfectly, she ran her finger along the crease and then halved it again so it would fit in her wallet.

  “Wonder what Caleb Young would say about this. Folding from corner to corner, pleating the sides not once, but twice, before folding again. Always matching the corners precisely. Think he’d consider me compulsive?” Pam laugh
ed at the piece of paper in her hand. “Maybe my problems have nothing to do with you being dead and everything to do with me being crazy.”

  She slipped the paper into her billfold and placed her purse on the kitchen counter by the bag from the café. Somehow Redding had talked her into bringing home a piece of Mabel’s pecan pie and a tub of cream. She’d put the cream in the fridge, but the pie still sat on the counter, and she’d almost be willing to swear under oath it was calling her name.

  “Oh, heck. What’s a few more calories?” She was going to need the fortitude anyway. If Jeff didn’t reach Mrs. Cahill tonight, Pam should expect a deluge of parishioners calling first thing in the morning to get the latest scoop on him and her.

  The way Redding, with his broad grin intact, kept nodding at Jeff, as he explained about the working dinner, told Pam that Redding didn’t believe a word Jeff had said. Even though there wasn’t a single thing to indicate they were anything more than employer and employee, Redding was perfectly content to put his own spin on dinner.

  How could she blame the man for jumping to conclusions, when it had taken her a very long couple of minutes to convince herself that Jeff wasn’t asking her for a date. And even then it wasn’t until her first bite of chicken fried steak that she’d truly relaxed enough to enjoy Jeff’s company.

  She’d barely had enough time to put her first forkful of pie into her mouth when the phone rang.

  “Dang.” Juggling the plate in one hand, Pam grabbed the phone. “Hello.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Valerie?”

  “Is it really true?” Val’s eagerness was coming through the phone line loud and clear.

  “Is what true?”

  “You and Jeff Parker?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Pam set the plate on the end table and looked at her watch. Home less than half an hour and already news had spread to her sister. “I work for the man.”

  “And had a nice intimate supper at the café.”