Bless Her Heart

by Sally Kilpatrick

  I suppose my staid Golden Girls aesthetic inspired confidence.

  Next thing I knew, she stood over my desk wringing her hands. “Everything okay, Amanda?”

  “No. Not really. I see you’re eating lunch, but could I talk to you for a few minutes? I need some advice.”

  “Sure, but Chad’s just down the hall.”

  She hesitated and looked toward his office, as though afraid he would appear. “Really, this is something that needs to be discussed woman-to-woman.”

  “It’s not gossip, right?” I was so not in the mood to hear Chad recite the gossip passage from Romans later.

  “No, no. This is about me.”

  “Well, I’ll help you if I can,” I said.

  If I’d been hoping for something quickly discussed over the reception desk, I was destined for disappointment. Amanda went across the little lobby to drag an overstuffed chair behind the desk. It got hung up between the desk and the wall, so she stepped over and sat down, leaning over her knees. She smelled of Chanel Number Five, with every golden hair in place and her sweater set just so. Her tiny little boots tapped on the floor, the perfect shade of brown and the perfect style for her designer jeans. No matter how many times she came through the door, I couldn’t help but marvel at what brought the former Homecoming Queen to me.

  Finally, she whispered, “You know that book?”

  Heavens. That again? I had a pretty good idea where this was going, but I cautiously asked, “Which book?”

  Amanda reached behind her for what had to be a designer handbag and opened it enough for me to see. Sure enough, it was, indeed, that book, the gray one with the tie on the cover.

  “I know of the book.”

  He eyes gleamed with hope. “Have you read it?”

  “No, should I?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “You’re going to judge me, too.”

  “Amanda, you know I wouldn’t do that. Judge not lest ye be judged.”

  She took a deep breath and launched into her story, a variation of which I’d been hearing for months. She’d been curious, wanting to see what all of the fuss was about. She’d asked her husband to try some new things in the bedroom. I mentally placed my bets for who’d upset her: Husband? Friend? Aunt? Sister?

  “And then he told his mother!”

  I did not see that one coming.

  “As if I weren’t already embarrassed enough that he was telling his mother about our sex life, she told me I was going to hell for reading such filth. Do you think I’m going to hell, Posey?”

  Ah, the million-dollar question. At least ten different women had been in my office over the past few months, all wanting to know if I thought they were going to hell for reading a book. “Tell me, Amanda, have you killed anyone recently?”

  “No,” she said with a sniff.

  “Stolen from anyone? Maybe disrespected your parents or coveted your neighbor’s husband?”

  “No! Ew.”

  “Did this book make you commit adultery?”

  “You know it didn’t.”

  “Maybe you made a graven image or took up Satanism?”

  She gasped, “What has gotten into you?”

  Even as she said it, all of my examples dawned on her. “Oh. I get it. You’re saying that I haven’t caused anyone harm so it’s okay.”

  I shrugged. “There’s a difference between ‘okay’ and ‘good.’ There’s that whole passage about thinking on what’s pure and lovely and admirable, but I don’t think reading a book is going to send you to hell. Unless it has to do with devil worship.”

  She graced me with the Homecoming smile that had launched a thousand votes. “Thank you, Posey. You know, I would feel better, though, if you would read the book and then tell me it’s okay.”

  “No, thank you. I don’t really have much time for reading.” Or, more accurately, I didn’t make time for things I didn’t want to read in the first place.

  “Well, I’m done with this book, so I’ll leave it here with you.” She took the book in question and put it in my bottom drawer.

  “Amanda—”

  “No, I trust you to get rid of it,” she said with that beaming smile. “Thank you so much for making me feel better.”

  “I didn’t do that much,” I said. “I still think you should’ve spoken with Chad. He’s the preacher.”

  She dragged the chair back to where it belonged, and turned to look at me with her expression all scrunched up. “No. He would’ve given me the lecture about asking my husband permission for what I read or something like that. You give better advice because you help people figure things out for themselves rather than just telling them what to do.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that, but I wished I had someone who’d help me figure things out without telling me what to do. I opened my mouth to say “You’re welcome,” but Amanda was already gone.

  She hadn’t closed the desk drawer all the way, and the book mocked me, tempted me even. I reached for the book just as I heard Chad whistling his way down the hall. I slammed the drawer shut so he wouldn’t see it.

  chapter 2

  The next day I dressed with care and got up early to make mint brownies.

  “Why did you make brownies?” Chad asked once we were seated in the car and on the way to work.

  “Because John O’Brien is coming to tune the piano,” I said. “He really likes brownies and he’s tuning the piano at a discount, so it’s the least that I could do.”

  “Well, I think you should prayerfully consider whether or not you should share those brownies with him,” Chad said.

  “Why?”

  “Weren’t you just complaining about how your clothes are getting too tight?”

  Shapewear, actually, but ouch.

  “Would you like me to save any for you?” I asked.

  “You know I prefer blondies,” he said.

  It was true that my husband hated chocolate. Often, I’d thought that maybe—just maybe—if I’d hated chocolate, too, then I could’ve been more svelte.

  We arrived at Love Ministries quickly, and I took my seat at the reception desk while Chad went down the hall. Even before the computer booted up, Naomi Rawls yanked open the door, wearing a perfectly matched tank top and fitted workout pants. She had to be dressed for the Zumba class she taught down at First Baptist. “Is Chad in?”

  “He just got here.” I pointed down the tiny hallway, and she headed in that direction.

  Chad had suggested I try Zumba, and I went to two classes, but dancing exercises weren’t for me. I never could get the hang of having my arms do one thing while my legs did another. Either the dancing gene had skipped me or years of growing up in a school system that didn’t allow proms had stunted my rhythmic growth.

  I had to admit Naomi looked quite healthy and rosy. Maybe I should give Zumba another go.

  No, her eyes had been red-rimmed from crying. I looked curiously down the hall, but I could only hear the soft murmur of voices. Usually, he called me into the office when a woman wanted to see him. He said it was for propriety, but I’d seen the article he read about avoiding law suits.

  Oh, Posey, you don’t know. Maybe it’s a really personal matter she doesn’t want to share with just anyone.

  As long as she didn’t come in to ask me if reading that book meant she was going to hell, I didn’t care.

  I typed up the newsletter that included the month’s happenings as well as a prayer list. The format went out of whack, so I fussed and fiddled with the email until lunchtime. When I went into the break room for lunch, I found Chad’s spaghetti container empty but unwashed in the sink. I rinsed it out while I waited for my spaghetti to heat in the microwave.

  I eyed the bottles of Mexican Coke in the fridge. I could resist regular Coke, but the Mexican variety, made with real sugar, tasted better. Granny, in her more lucid moments, spoke with woe of the days of New Coke and how the old recipe simply wasn’t the same as it had been before the Max Headroom fiasco. I’d thought
she was crazy until I’d tasted the difference for myself. Granny, as it turned out, was crazy like a fox. Sure, she thought she was living in the fifties and carried a baby doll around with her, but she still knew things.

  With a heavy sigh, I closed the fridge and got a glass of water from the sink instead. If only I could lose weight the Chad way: cutting out bread at supper.

  I wasn’t even eating real pasta, and still I hadn’t lost a pound. No, my spaghetti sauce rested on spaghetti squash, which all of the Internet articles swore to me would taste exactly like noodles. Such articles reminded me that the Internet lied. Chad had hated the stuff so much, I’d had to boil him some pasta on the spot. I wanted real noodles, but I persevered through the spaghetti squash. It was the principle of the thing, really. After devoting an hour of my time to roasting the gourd, I was going to eat it.

  Or at least some of it.

  In the end, I scrapped half of the spaghetti-squash concoction into the trash and took up my post at the reception desk. The mint brownies called to me, but I ignored them. Twice I reached behind me to the shelf where I’d put them. Twice I turned around and concentrated on emails and voicemails and snail mail.

  At two exactly, John O’Brien showed up. He had no trouble pulling open the door instead of pushing, and, as always, he looked effortlessly gorgeous with his ripped jeans and his blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. Chad didn’t like for John to wear the ripped jeans into the church building, but John had worked as a roadie for a semi-famous rock band up until two years ago. I didn’t think he had enough money to replace his wardrobe, not that he seemed inclined to do so.

  “Working hard or hardly working?” he asked with a grin that revealed dimples. I’d spent many an eighth grade earth science class contemplating those dimples.

  “The second one,” I said, willing my heart to keep its beating rhythmic and normal. Completely normal.

  So what if I’d had a crush on John O’Brien since eighth grade? I was a married woman, but I could appreciate the view. As my bestie Liza always said, she might’ve ordered but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look at the menu. Whatever menu he was on, John O’Brien was the best entrée. That much I knew.

  “You’re going to make me suffer, aren’t you?’

  “Hmm. What?”

  “The brownies. Did you forget to make the brownies?” he asked.

  Oh, the brownies. “Of course, I didn’t forget. I reached behind me for the pan and lifted the tin foil. The smell of chocolate and mint wafted across the office area, and my stomach growled from not having finished my lunch. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his eyelashes ridiculously dark and long.

  “These are like Thin Mints only I don’t have to wait for the Girl Scouts to bring them. Posey, you’re the best.” He took the plastic knife I offered and cut off a healthy slab of brownie, moaning as he took the first bite. My mouth salivated, my stomach growled in protest. Still I resisted the call of the brownies.

  “One day you’re going to get tired of these. Then what will I do?” I teased.

  “You’ll think of something.” He tried to hand me the pan, but I held up my hands in surrender.

  “You keep them. It’s a disposable pan.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I understood his confusion. Usually I kept the brownies, but I had weight to lose and Chad didn’t like chocolate, so I had no reason to keep them. In fact, the sooner they got out of my general vicinity, the more likely I was to resist temptation. “I’m sure. I need to lose a little weight.”

  He chucked my chin. “That’s crazy talk. You’re pretty just the way you are.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he balanced the pan of brownies on one hand and headed off toward the sanctuary humming “How Great Thou Art.”

  John O’Brien thought I was pretty. The idea of it made tears prick my eyes because I’d spent my high school years attempting to achieve invisibility to everyone but him. Then I’d met Chad within two months of my freshman year of college, and we’d been together ever since. Come to think of it, I didn’t think Chad had ever called me pretty or beautiful. Certainly not sexy. The last person to call me pretty was probably my mother as she took my picture after college graduation.

  Posey Love, you will not be starstruck over being called pretty. Pretty is ephemeral and not in the least important. You’re supposed to be virtuous. You know, with a price far above rubies.

  True, but I had yet to meet a girl who didn’t appreciate being told she was beautiful. Or receiving rubies.

  Chad cleared his throat, and I jumped sky high. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to know if you’d typed up the minutes from the last church council meeting yet?”

  “Yes. I emailed them to you last week.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t see them in my mailbox. Maybe you’re emailing them to your other husband.”

  Ha. As if I would ever want two husbands.

  Even though I could’ve sworn I’d sent the minutes, I said, “I’ll send them again.”

  That task quickly completed, I turned to face him. “Is Naomi okay? She looked really upset when she came through this morning.”

  He frowned, and I wondered how bad her situation was. “She’s fine now. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it.”

  That wasn’t the kind of pretty I was looking for.

  “I assume Mr. O’Brien is tuning the piano?”

  “Yes,” I said, even though we could both clearly hear the repeated tones as John tried a key and made adjustments, then tried the key again to make sure it was perfectly in tune. I couldn’t hear the difference, but apparently he could.

  “Did you give him the entire tray of brownies?” My husband asked nonchalantly.

  “Well, yes, I didn’t need the calories, and you don’t like chocolate, so—”

  “You didn’t give him one of our good pans, did you?”

  Since when did he care about our pans? He did none of the cooking and only washed the dishes once a month. “It’s disposable.”

  “And how much did that cost you?”

  “Four dollars for three of them, I think.”

  “Well, as long as it’s in the budget.” He shrugged and turned on his heel to leave. He often came and questioned me about silly things while John was tuning the piano. It was almost as though he intuited my crush, but he had nothing to fear. One of the reasons I’d gone along with our move to Love Ministries and the shift to Chad’s philosophies is that the flipside of submission was to be loved as Jesus loved the church. To me, that meant faithfulness, and faithfulness meant that I wouldn’t have to worry about being abandoned.

  Mom claimed I had a fear of abandonment stemming from Daddy issues.

  During one of our more memorable arguments, I’d told her I wouldn’t have Daddy issues if I’d had a Daddy, that maybe she should’ve gotten married before she got pregnant.

  We’d since called an uneasy truce.

  To avoid thinking about my mother, I decided to check myself for early senility. I knew I’d emailed Chad those minutes. Sure enough I found them in my Sent folder. Why he couldn’t admit he lost things was beyond me. In the end, it was easier to resend anything he couldn’t find than to argue. Of course, part of the reason he came down the hall to ask me, rather than calling, was because he liked to keep an eye on John.

  Chad hadn’t wanted to hire John in the first place, but I’d sensed the piano tuner needed a job and had hired him out of instinct without asking Chad first. That hadn’t gone over well, but he’d grudgingly kept John on because he took a sizable pay cut to tune our piano. He said it was because he enjoyed tuning the unusual model, but I suspected he appreciated the fact I was one of the first people to hire him after he came back to town.

  He’d come back from the last tour broken, a skinny, haggard version of himself. People kept their distance, especially when word got out that he was attending AA meetings and was trying to get sober. Eventual
ly he found himself and his charm, a trait he used to wear down the folks in Ellery, especially those at First Baptist. The Baptists loved a good redemption story, and John had a testimony both stellar and authentic. Now he tuned pianos and played guitar for the contemporary service. Parents, once assured he was once again on the straight and narrow, brought their kids to him for guitar and piano lessons. He also played for weddings and even worked with the high school drama club when they put on a musical.

  In short, it made no sense for Chad to hate him.

  “She’s still a beauty,” John said as he walked through the lobby. The piano he’d tuned had once belonged to Mrs. Morris and was some kind of weird one, which made sense since Mrs. Morris herself was a tad eccentric. John had done research to figure out how to tune her equally eccentric piano and had had to buy a different set of tools that Chad, of course, refused to reimburse him for.

  “Well, we do thank you.” I slid an envelope with a check across the top of the reception desk to him.

  “And I thank you. For the check and for the brownies.”

  “Have a great week, John,” I said as he left.

  “You, too, Posey.”

  Chad cleared his throat. “If you’re done flirting, I thought we might leave early this afternoon.”

  “Okay.” I’d been planning to shred some documents and go by the bank to make a deposit. Of course, the documents weren’t going anywhere. Since the cash had been intended for Chad’s birthday, it was headed to our personal account and could also wait. I slipped the envelope full of last week’s love offering into my purse. Getting to go home early was an unexpected boon. I even had a roast in the Crock-Pot. I might actually get to do some reading if we went home. I loved to read and had time to do so at work, but Chad said it looked unprofessional.