She stormed into her husband’s office. He was on the phone and looked aggravated at the intrusion. “I have to talk to you,” she whispered harshly.
Gerald raised his hand to silence her, and continued his conversation.
Abby folded her arms and began to pace across his floor— back and forth, back and forth, like an inmate waiting to be released from confinement.
When her husband finally hung up, she braced both hands on his desk and leaned over. “She’s back,” she said.
“Who’s back?”
“That Brooke Martin. Nick Marcello hired her to work on those windows for our church.”
Gerald Hemphill distractedly flipped through his Rolodex as his wife railed on, and without looking up at her, he muttered, “Sit down, Abby. I have to make another call.”
Abby grabbed his hand to stop him from dialing and forced him to look up at her. “She came to my office and chewed me out, Gerald!”
Gerald began dialing again. “Chewed you out? That sounds interesting. Abby, what is that on your skirt? For heaven’s sake, you look like you’ve been in a fight.”
Abby looked down at her skirt and saw the dust she must have picked up at the old church. She dusted it off with her hand. “Would you listen to me?” she said. “I have to stop this. It isn’t right that our building fund is going to be paying those two for having their little affair. If they did that right in the school, what do you think they’ll do over there?”
“Yes, is Mr. Hartford in?” Gerald asked into the phone, flipping through some papers on his desk. “Bob, hi. Gerald here. I have those transfer papers you were asking about…”
Abby stood back, flabbergasted. “Gerald!” she whispered, but he didn’t seem to hear. Instead he lifted one index finger and pointed to the chair.
Abby dropped into it, crossed her legs, and began swinging her foot. The phone call dragged on, and finally she couldn’t contain herself any longer. She jumped up and began pacing again.
Gerald hung up and reached for another file, as if he had forgotten his wife was in the room.
“Gerald, I came in here to talk to you!”
“It’s not a good time, dear. I’m really swamped today. I’m trying to catch up on a million things while school’s out.”
“You’re always swamped!” she said. “I’m swamped too. But I’m upset about this! It’s our responsibility to see that our tithes and offerings are spent well, and I—”
“Could you hand me that phonebook on the table behind you, dear?” he cut in, pointing to the table.
Abby stopped mid-sentence and gaped at him. At times like these, she thought miserably, tears would be a welcome release. But she hadn’t been able to cry in years. Anger was the most vivid emotion she knew these days. “Never mind, Gerald,” she said. “Just forget it.”
She turned and started to leave.
“Good-bye, dear,” Gerald replied. “I’ll see you at dinner. Lasagna would be nice, with a Caesar salad. Cheesecake, maybe?”
Abby stopped in the hall and leaned back against the wall. Her eyes misted over, but no tears flowed. Lasagna and cheesecake, an immaculate house, a flawless reputation, a trophy wife…these were things that mattered to Gerald, and she’d learned long ago how to achieve all of them.
Slowly she left the building and crossed the yard to the high school. She strolled up the corridor, glancing in at the empty class-rooms. Occasionally, she passed a room where a teacher worked. There were few familiar faces. It wasn’t as easy to get to know the teachers as it had once been. She was so busy now that she rarely came here, and when she and Gerald were invited to faculty parties, she found it harder and harder to laugh and smile and listen to their war stories.
She found herself in the east wing and strolled further to the classroom at the end of the hall, the one that smelled of paint and mineral spirits. She looked inside the door. The teacher wasn’t there.
Slowly, Abby stepped inside and looked around at the simplistic drawings on the walls, the crude representations of life. Hayden hadn’t had an art teacher in years who really had talent or who was able to inspire creativity in his students. Not since Nick Marcello.
It was too bad he had taken that inspiration one step too far.
She sat down at one of the desks and remembered vividly that night when she and Gerald had seen the light on and had stumbled onto Nick’s little fling with that girl. The price for propriety was high. The cost for impropriety, by rights, should be far greater.
And indeed it was. His affair had been nipped in the bud, and Nick Marcello had lost his job. What cut Abby to the quick now was that it hadn’t seemed to matter. Over the years he’d done well for himself despite what he’d lost. And now…
Abby searched her heart, honestly seeking the reason Brooke grated on her nerves. Perhaps it was the way the girl had always finagled her way into competitions she had no business competing in. She had been chosen as one of the twenty girls to participate in the school’s beauty pageant, and Abby’s daughter, Sharon, who should have been an obvious choice, had been left out. Brooke wore those distasteful secondhand clothes, and people acted as if she’d bought them on Fifth Avenue. She was thin without trying, and despite her best efforts, Abby hadn’t been able to control Sharon’s weight until she’d sent her to that fat farm the summer after her senior year. She’d been bone-thin ever since. But was she grateful? No. She had done nothing but embarrass and humiliate the family ever since. Abby hadn’t even seen Sharon in almost three years.
But now, to see Brooke prance back into town like some movie star returning to her old haunts, bracelets jangling and hair flying around her shoulders—as if any decent person wore it that way past high school—was just too much to take. She had no right. She should have been put in her place years ago.
She got up and went to the desk at the front of the room, staring sightlessly down at it. It wasn’t right that she had chosen the correct path with great sacrifice, while others thumbed their noses at the world and thrived.
Brooke and Nick had not deserved to thrive, she told herself, letting her eyes sweep the room again. He had deserved to lose his job and his respect and his reputation. What he didn’t deserve was the opportunity to continue his fling when he began designing those church windows.
After all, the purchase and renovation of the old landmark had been her idea to begin with. But then someone else had suggested stained-glass windows, and the pastor had hired Nick, who’d hired that girl, and everything had gotten out of control.
Well, Abby was going to get back in control now, if it killed her. No bracelet-jangler was going to treat her the way she had been treated this morning and get away with it. If she had anything to say about it, Brooke Martin would be out of this town by week’s end.
CHAPTER
NICK TRIED NOT TO LOOK AS IF HE were waiting for her when Brooke pulled back into the parking lot. He wasn’t, after all. He’d merely come outside to take out the garbage.
Well, she was here now, and as he waited for her to get out of her car, he watched her face for a sign of her mood. He couldn’t tell from her expression if she was staying or going.
Brooke got out of her car, tossed her hair back with a flip, and faced him squarely. “I told Mrs. Hemphill I was taking the job,” she said. “So you win. I’m staying.”
A subtle smile gleamed in Nick’s eyes, but he didn’t let it reach his lips. “I think we both won.”
“Not yet, we haven’t.” She started to go on, stopped, and took a deep breath. The breeze swept her hair back into her face. She pushed it away with one finger as she seemed to struggle with her words. “Look, Nick, I think if we’re going to be working together, we should lay down some ground rules. Otherwise I might just be a nervous wreck the whole time, and that won’t be productive at all.”
Nick leaned back against her car and inclined his head solemnly. “What do you have in mind?”
Brooke looked down at the concrete. Her hair feathered into h
er face once again. Shoving it back, she met his eyes. Her tone was matter-of-fact when she answered. “It’s strictly business, Nick.”
Nick nodded. “We’re going to be business partners,” he said quietly. “What we’re going to create together will be very special. But strictly business.”
Brooke set her hand on her hip, and for a second Nick thought she was struggling to speak. Instead, she fidgeted with the bracelets on her left wrist. “Okay,” she said, her voice a decibel quieter than it had been before. “Then let’s get started.”
His smile reached his lips then, and he stood up fully. He opened the big church door, and Brooke went in. A committee of well-dressed business people were milling around, dodging the carpenters and contractors. Some women were dragging boxes into the back rooms of the church with strained expressions on their faces, as if they couldn’t get away from the contractors fast enough.
“That’s the Historical Society,” he said. “Even though this is a church project, they’re getting involved because the building is a landmark. They’re in charge of preserving whatever is salvageable.” He stepped over a cord and grabbed Brooke’s hand. “Watch your step.”
Brooke caught her balance and withdrew her hand at once. She jammed it into her pocket, as if to assure herself that he wouldn’t take it again.
Nick let his hand drop to his side. “Anyway, they’re all over the place wrapping and packing the pieces that can be moved out. I’ve got our workroom set up in the back, but I’m afraid we’ll have to share it with them for a few days. Just until they’re finished moving everything.”
Brooke scanned the group again. “Mrs. Hemphill wouldn’t be in that group, would she?”
“Of course,” he said. “Mrs. Hemphill’s in everything. That’s why she was here earlier today.”
He led her out of the office, through the darkly lit hall, and into the large workroom where he had set up their tables. Several middle-aged women crouched over a box of artifacts, disagreeing about the proper way to wrap each piece.
He knew Brooke recognized some of them. How could she have forgotten the women who’d sat together at town picnics, picking away at the juiciest grapevine morsels. She jammed her hands back into her pockets.
“What do you think?” Nick asked her, drawing her attention from the women back to their work space. “Is this going to be okay?”
Brooke surveyed the large worktable, just tall enough to stand up at without putting strain on the back. To the left of it was a light table made of several pieces of frosted glass with fluorescent bulbs beneath to simulate sunlight through the stained glass. On the wall hung a large pegboard with Nick’s tools hooked neatly from it, and beneath that sat a stack of storage bins of various sizes for glass. “It’ll work,” Brooke said. “Might need a few modifications.”
“The thing is,” Nick said, “we really need to work onsite to keep from having to move the panels much. They’ll be too big.”
Her face tightened again, and he wondered if the project would overwhelm her. “There’s so much to be done,” she said. “It’ll take weeks to do the cartoons, and then all the cutting and leading…I don’t see how we can do this without help.”
“Oh, we won’t be doing it alone,” Nick said, pulling out a drawer of the worktable and removing a stack of sketches. “We’ll have to hire more people experienced in cutting glass. I was going to ask if you knew of anyone who might be interested in helping us out when we get to that point.”
Brooke sat on a tall stool and thought for a moment. “I know a few people we could subcontract. But do we have enough in our budget to pay them?”
Nick shrugged and began to spread his sketches out across the table. “We have plenty, unless Abby Hemphill pulls the rug out from under us. I don’t know for sure what our budget’s going to be yet. Abby Hemphill was right. It hasn’t completely been approved. But, yeah, they’ll have to put it in the budget. If we did this ourselves, it would take years.”
“Maybe we could hire some high school kids to help with some of the other things,” she said. “Like tracing the patterns, coloring them, cutting them out…”
“My nephew has agreed to help,” Nick said. “And I’ll call the high school and see if we could get some help from the art department.”
The chattering women got quiet behind them, and Nick knew at once what they were thinking. Brooke only voiced it. “Do you think they’d really let some of their students work here with you—us?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Nick glanced back at the women, noting the distasteful looks on their faces. He released a heavy sigh. “Well, maybe not,” he mumbled. “Maybe we’ll have to find help another way.”
The women behind them began to whisper again, and Brooke’s eyes connected with his, sharing the common bond of regret.
“These are some of my preliminary sketches,” Nick said finally. “I don’t want it to be something that you see in a thousand other churches. I want it to be more unique. Fresher and more exciting. Are you familiar with the covenants in the Bible, Brooke?”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “No, not really.”
Nick reached onto his stack of sketches, crude puzzle-piece drawings that translated well to glass. “Look at this,” he said.
It was a picture of an old, wizened man, holding a child on his bony lap.
“That’s beautiful,” she whispered. “But what’s your theme? Age? Family? Love?”
The sound of activity behind them ceased, and she knew that the women were listening intently, though they couldn’t see the drawings. “Covenant,” he said. “I want the theme to be God’s covenants. This is Abraham holding Isaac. The miracle child born in his old age.”
“I like it,” Brooke said. She lowered her voice so the ladies couldn’t hear, but he could see that they strained to listen. “But I don’t know that much about the Bible. I wouldn’t know where to begin with a covenant theme.”
“I’ll teach you about it,” he said. “It’ll blow your mind, Brooke. Really.”
Brooke bit her lip and nodded. “Okay, then give me some Bible references to look up, and I’ll do my homework and make some sketches.”
“You could start with Adam and Eve. For instance, the curse of God on Eve, where he said he would put enmity between the serpent and Eve, and between his offspring and hers. I’d like to do a window of Christ crushing the head of the serpent.”
“Crushing the head of the serpent?” one of the women erupted. “Christ never crushed a serpent.”
Nick’s face changed. “I’m talking about Genesis 3:5, Mrs. Inglish, when God made a promise. And it was a prophecy about Christ…”
Mrs. Inglish’s face reddened. “Oh, that.”
Nick shook his head and turned back to the table. Slowly he began gathering the sketches. “Why don’t we find someplace where we can work without interruptions,” he said.
Mrs. Inglish mumbled something to the other women as Nick and Brooke left, something neither of them cared to imagine. The room erupted into a low roar of cackles and chirps.
“Where are we going?” Brooke asked when they were out of earshot.
“Well, there sure isn’t any place around here,” he said. “1 guess we’ll go to my house.”
Brooke stopped in her tracks. “No.”
Nick turned and saw the resolution in her expression. “What, Brooke?”
“It’s bad enough that their gossip will be all over town before lunch,” she said, “but if we go to your house today while they’re looking for something to say about us, we’re only feeding it. I won’t do that, Nick.”
Nick leaned back against a wall, and his shoulders fell as he expelled a long breath. “It isn’t that, really, is it, Brooke? You’re afraid to go to my house with me for other reasons, aren’t you?”
“Of course not.”
His eyes were impatient, penetrating, as they locked her in their scrutiny. “Yes, you are. You’re afraid to be alone with me.”
Brooke’s mouth tightened into a thin line; anger flared in her eyes. “I can see now that maybe I was hasty,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“In telling Abby Hemphill I was staying!” she whispered. “I’m not looking forward to rationalizing every decision I make with you, Nick. I’m not interested in explaining myself constantly. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, after all.”
Nick pulled her into his office and closed the door behind them. She leaned wearily back against the wall. Nick lifted his hands in apology. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s just try to work, okay? Don’t quit on me just when we’ve gotten started. We can work in here.”
With a look that said it was against her better judgment, she nodded. “All right. Let’s work.”
Relief drained Nick’s face. He turned to the cluttered desk and cleared off a space for her. “We’ll each take one side of the desk, and maybe by the afternoon the Hysterical Society will have gone home.”
Brooke smiled.
“We’re going to get through this, you know,” he said. “I promise.”
Brooke’s smile settled comfortably over her face, despite the sigh unraveling from her lungs.
He only hoped he could keep that promise.
CHAPTER
BY THE END OF THE DAY NICK HAD walked Brooke through a mini-course in God’s covenants, and they had divided the circular windows into four panels each and had assigned a different covenant to each group of four. They stayed in the tiny office with the door closed until lunchtime. When they came out, they noticed the members of the “Hysterical Society” nudging each other. They went to a fast-food restaurant and choked down a hamburger in Brooke’s car, where they were removed from the stares and gossip they might have encountered inside. Then, feeling refreshed, they braved curious eyes once again and closed themselves back in the office.
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