The First Ladies Club Box Set

by J B Hawker

  “When I asked her, she said the basement and attic are full of it. These two pieces in the garage were just the easiest for her to get to. I don’t think she does stairs, anymore.”

  “The sculptures look quite nice here, don’t they? If these sell as well as I think they might, you and I should go over and offer to take a look at the other things for her.”

  “That sounds like fun. I’ll suggest it when I deliver her proceeds from the sale of these.”

  “Scott’s not coming home for lunch today. Would you like to come over and eat with Rosamund and me?”

  “Sorry, I’m committed to joining the Lunch Bunch today for our weekly sack lunch and prayer meeting.”

  “Of course. I forgot you attend, too. We’ll have you over another time.”

  Naidenne felt a twinge of guilt for not participating in the lunchtime prayer group, too.

  She supposed it was selfish, but on office days she enjoyed getting home for lunch and was reluctant to add another weekly church obligation onto her schedule.

  “That reminds me, I’ve got some errands to run before lunch. I’ll take these old boxes back with me,” Shirley said.

  “See you later.”

  Shirley left and Naidenne went back to her paperwork and was undisturbed the rest of the morning.

  Setting the sign to let people know she would be open again after lunch, she locked up and went home.

  Chapter Four

  When Naidenne returned home for lunch, she was surprised the parsonage was empty.

  There was a note on the counter from Rosamund, “Lunch with Len…back before supper.”

  Naidenne smiled and then set out the fixings for a tuna sandwich.

  Sitting at the kitchen table eating her lunch, she thought back to the years when solitary meals like this had been her everyday routine.

  She thanked God, yet again, for bringing Scott into her life.

  There was a time when she would have shuddered to consider spending time with a member of the clergy, when she consciously avoided so-called men of God, but after meeting Scott she’d discovered there actually were men who lived up to that description.

  Naidenne seldom thought about it, now, but when she was only thirteen, she was repeatedly raped by a traveling evangelist whom her parents invited to stay in their home during a revival campaign.

  When she told her mother what was happening, that saintly woman told her to be grateful to have the attentions of such a godly man and to keep her mouth shut, so she didn’t destroy his ministry.

  The experience left Naidenne with a rather dim view of organized religion and a permanent lack of respect for her mother.

  It had taken Scott to show her a different aspect to the church and those within its circle.

  Washing her cup and plate, she glanced again at the note from Rosamund and wondered where Len had taken her for lunch.

  *

  In Cannon Beach to the north, Rosamund sat at a linen-draped table with a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean.

  She and Len had finished their entrees and were lingering over coffee and dessert.

  “How’s that chocolate soufflé, Rose?” Len asked. “Looks lighter than air. I hope it has some real flavor.”

  “It’s delicious! The raspberry syrup has just the right blend of sweetness and tang to complement the chocolate. This whole lunch is just wonderful. You are always so good to me.”

  Len ate the last bite of his apple pie and put down his fork.

  “I wanted this lunch to be special, you know.”

  “Oh, it is, but you always treat me special, Len.”

  “That’s because I care about you, Rosamund.”

  “I care about you, too.”

  “Do you? I wonder.”

  “Why do you say that? Have I done something to upset you?”

  “It’s more what you haven’t done. I think you know what I’m talking about here, so don’t be coy.”

  Rosamund looked down at the remains of her dessert. The moment she’d been dreading had arrived.

  “Well?” Len prompted. “Do you love me, or don’t you?”

  “I do! More than you can ever know.”

  “Well, then, why do you keep putting me off? At our age we can’t afford to play games, Rosie.”

  “I want to marry you. I really do. It’s just…”

  “Just what?” Len pressed.

  Without warning, Rosamund began to cry. Embarrassment turned her tears into sobs.

  “Gosh, don’t cry, Rosie! I didn’t mean to make you cry. Please stop.”

  Len scooted his chair closer, patting Rosamund clumsily on the shoulder.

  “There, there, it’s alright. I won’t rush you. I’m so sorry, dear. Please don’t cry.”

  Rosamund’s sobs subsided into hiccups and sniffs as she dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.

  “I’m sorry, Len. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Forgive me, please.”

  “No, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have bullied you like that. We can just forget everything I said. Except don’t forget I love you…and whenever you’re ready, I want you to be my wife… now don’t start crying again, please.”

  Rosamund excused herself to wash her face and regain her composure in the ladies’ room while Len paid for their lunch.

  Looking at her splotchy face in the mirror, she thought it was a miracle anyone could want to marry her. She felt tears threatening to fall once more.

  “Rosamund Davidson, you are a fool!” she told her reflection.

  Len was so kind, but his patience wouldn’t last forever. If she hadn’t known it before, today’s lunch date would have convinced her.

  *

  Back in Bannoch, the Lunch Bunch meeting at the church was breaking up.

  “Goodbye, Pastor Scott. See you at Bible Study,” Hazel Gooding called as she pulled herself up the steps from the basement social hall.

  The remaining handful of older women gathered up their things and laboriously climbed the stairs to the parking lot while their pastor lingered in the fellowship hall looking after them with a thoughtful expression.

  When this noon-time prayer group first started the idea was to provide a convenient time and place for working people to gather on their lunch breaks to pray for their co-workers and the community.

  It was hard for busy people to take a night out during the week for such gatherings and this seemed a good solution.

  Women in the church who did not work outside their homes volunteered to provide sack lunches for the others, to make it easy for workers to drop in to eat, pray and leave; getting back to their jobs on time.

  At first, the congregation was enthusiastic about the project and made a point of encouraging each other and members of the community to attend. Gradually, many volunteer lunch-makers dropped out. A meagre response from the community discouraged others from participating. Scott felt continuing these half-hearted efforts drained the resources and spirits of a congregation.

  He proposed cancelling the project, but, as with many church programs, once begun, no one wanted to acknowledge failure by ending it.

  As a pastor, he would rather see ineffectual programs dropped and the energy used, instead, to assess the real needs of the community and to find out where those needs were matched by the resources of the congregation.

  Scott firmly believed any church which was genuinely seeking God’s will would find it…and if God allowed a congregation to continue, it was because He had work for them to do… in the very place they were planted and with the abilities and talents already present within the congregation.

  Like many others, his congregation frequently bemoaned their lack of resources to support the programs they saw in other churches; they wanted to put on grand musical productions, but had few musicians, or to sponsor a foreign missionary when they couldn’t even figure out how to fix the roof without cutting their pastor’s pay.

  Scott’s philosophy was to find out what a church could do and then
do it. Do it boldly and do it well.

  One idea, since the congregation had aged and had few young families, was for the church to start an “Adopt-a-Grandparent” program providing afterschool care and mentoring for children in the community whose parents work and who had no local extended family.

  However, the board did not want to pursue his plan when Scott suggested it. They said it would be too much work and probably wouldn’t bring in any new members, anyway.

  Rather than regretting what they lacked, Scott felt they should take advantage of their abundance.

  Every church has an abundance of something. Theirs just happened to be old people.

  Identify your abundance and find a matching need to fill with it, was his motto.

  The Lunch Bunch program had seemed to fit with this philosophy but, as it turned out, the Bannoch community hadn’t seen the need for it.

  Scott told his people, over and over, how important it is to get out of the church and into the neighborhoods to find out which needs the community recognizes.

  It was discouraging for him to realize, after all his years in Bannoch, he still hadn’t been able to persuade the people into his way of seeing things.

  Perhaps it was time to move on. He’d run out of new ways to try to reach the people. Maybe they had become so used to his voice they were no longer listening.

  Scott turned to his computer and pulled up a listing of churches with open pulpits and active search committees, just to see what his options might be.

  *

  When Naidenne returned from her office that afternoon, she spied Rosamund’s handbag on the hall table and knew she was home, so she was surprised not to find her in the kitchen.

  Going upstairs, Naidenne tapped on the closed door of her sister-in-law’s room.

  “Rosamund, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, dear, just a bit of a headache from the long drive,” Rosamund answered through the door. “We went all the way to Cannon Beach for lunch.”

  “Can I get you something?” Naidenne asked.

  “No, thanks. I’m just lying down with a cool cloth on my head. I’ll be up to fix dinner soon.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll throw something together. Would you like a tray in your room?”

  Rosamund reluctantly opened the door. Her eyes were puffy and red.

  “No, that won’t be necessary. I’m feeling much better.”

  “Are you sure? You’re not coming down with something are you?”

  “I am feeling a bit sniffly. I suppose it might be a cold, or allergies, maybe. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Well, you go lie back down. I’ll come up when dinner’s ready and you can tell me then if you’d rather have yours on a tray.”

  Naidenne frowned as she went down the hall to her room to change clothes.

  Rosamund looked very much like a woman who had been crying, and crying hard, not like she was coming down with an illness.

  Naidenne said a quick prayer for her sister-in-law as she pulled on one of her pairs of high-water jeans and went downstairs to find something for dinner.

  When she heard Scott come in, Naidenne called out, “I decided to fix hamburgers. Will you barbecue them, or shall I pop the patties under the broiler?”

  Without answering his wife, Scott came into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her, taking solace and drawing strength from the physical contact.

  “What’s the matter, Scott?” she pulled back, looking with concern into his eyes.

  “Nothing, really. I just missed you today. Guess I’ve been dipping my toes into the slough of despond. You are my restful arbor, my love.”

  “That’s very flattering, Pilgrim, but can you leave the arbor long enough to heat up the grill?” Naidenne asked, in an attempt to lighten Scott’s mood.

  “Sure. Now I’ve had my batteries recharged, I’m ready to keep on going and going and going. Just let me change into my chef’s hat and apron.”

  He patted Naidenne’s bottom and ran up the stairs to change his clothes.

  Naidenne was setting out toasted buns and condiments when he reentered the kitchen in T-shirt and khaki shorts.

  “Where’s Rose? Is she dining out again tonight?” Scott asked.

  “She’s upstairs lying down. Said she had a headache.”

  “Sounds like you think there is more to the story.”

  “When I got home and checked on her, she looked like she’d been crying. I’m afraid she and Len may be having problems.”

  “That’s too bad. I like Len. But, if you’re right, there’s nothing we can do about it. They are both adults and will have to work it out on their own.”

  “Oh, I know that. Still, you should be gentle with her when she comes down to eat. Don’t let on you know she’s been upset.”

  As it turned out, Rosamund decided to stay in her room and skip dinner. Her excuse was a late and large lunch, but in truth, she was still too agitated to eat.

  Finally over her crying jag, Rosamund paced around her bedroom, pausing now and then to stare out her window at the treetops swaying in the gathering darkness.

  After one such interlude, she gave her head a shake, squared her shoulders and walked purposefully to her desk, where she opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a box of stationary.

  With an air of decisiveness, she sat down and began to write. When finished, she folded the sheet of paper and put it into an envelope.

  Pausing for just a moment and taking a deep breath, Rosamund crossed to her closet, pulled an overnight bag from the top shelf and laid it on her bed. She quickly filled it with toiletries and clothing, zipped it up and set it by her door.

  She stepped onto the landing and called out a cheerful, “Goodnight!” down the stairs to Scott and Naidenne before returning to her room.

  After waiting what seemed hours after hearing Scott and Naidenne come upstairs and settle in for the night, Rosamund felt certain they must finally be asleep.

  Tiptoeing along the hall and down the stairs, she placed her envelope on the dining room table and let herself out the back door, locking it softly behind her.

  She drove out to the highway where she paused to decide whether to turn north or south before flipping on her left turn signal and pulling out into the late-night flow of traffic.

  Chapter Five

  “How foolish I am to be running away like this,” Rosamund chastised herself as she drove through the night.

  The unlighted coastal highway was lonelier after dark than she remembered. Even the usually heavy tourist traffic was sparse, as most travelers had already wisely turned into a brightly lit motel for a good night’s sleep.

  Driving at a steady five miles per hour under the posted speed limit, she was occasionally overtaken and passed by a more impatient driver who soon disappeared down the highway. Each time, the passage of the bright lights momentarily blinded Rosamund, reminding her of why she seldom drove at night.

  Her eyes were readjusting from the bright beams of a passing car when she saw something rush across the highway in front of her.

  Thinking it was a deer; she braked hard and swerved to the shoulder to avoid a collision.

  Her car’s engine stalled from this rough treatment and she sat, shaken, beside the highway as the motor ticked, both she and her car attempting to cool down.

  Rosamund’s heart rate was just returning to normal when a dark form loomed up in the side window.

  A man, his face partially obscured by long, unkempt hair, knocked on the glass.

  “Do you need a hand, lady? Open up and I’ll help you, and maybe you can give me a ride,” he urged.

  Rosamund reacted instinctively, quickly turning the key in the ignition and stepping on the gas. The tires spun in the gravel before the little car shot out onto the highway, leaving the surprised stranger shouting after it.

  “Oh dear, that wasn’t very charitable of me,” she said. “He must have been in desperate straits to be alone on foot out here.”

&n
bsp; Thoughts of the Good Samaritan and those less-good folks who had passed the poor injured man by in the parable almost caused Rosamund to go back and see what the stranger needed.

  Before giving in to that generous impulse, her more pragmatic nature asserted itself. A woman alone on a deserted highway in the middle of the night had no business stopping for any strange man who sprang up out of the darkness.

  Instead, she made a mental note to call the State Police once she got to her motel in Gold Beach. She would tell them where she encountered the man and let them attend to his needs.

  With her mind made up, she continued her journey.

  *

  “Naidenne, did you see this?” Scott called to his wife the next morning.

  “What ‘this’ do you mean?” she responded from the kitchen.

  “There’s an envelope on the dinner table…from the handwriting I’d say it’s from my sister.”

  Naidenne dried her hands on her apron, came out of the kitchen and found Scott in the dining room reading the note.

  “Good grief!” he exclaimed.

  “What? Tell me, please,” Naidenne urged.

  “She’s gone. My sister got some sort of bee in her bonnet and says she’s going to take a few days away to gain perspective. Says she isn’t very good company and doesn’t want to impose her mood on us. What hogwash!”

  “Does she say where she’s gone?”

  “Not really. Just going to stay some place quiet, so she can think and pray.”

  “Is there any clue as to what is bothering her?”

  “Not that I can see. Here, read it for yourself.”

  Scott handed the note to Naidenne and the couple walked into the kitchen as she read Rosamund’s message.

  “What should we do, Scott?”

  “Nothing to do. She’s a big girl. If she wants to hare off like this, there’s nothing we can do. I’m not about to go after her and drag her home, even if I knew where she went.”

  Scott sounded angry, but Naidenne knew it was because he was worried about his sister.

  “Has Rosamund ever done anything like this before?”