The Church Ladies

by Lisa Samson

  Mildred hooted. “They were so disgusting nobody would volunteer to clean them!”

  I took my first bite of fish, and I’d been about to say, “We had those at my church growing up,” but I opted for another bite of fish instead.

  “So the deacons put them on either side of the room. One near a window and the other near the door. But what no one knew, not even my Jesse David, was that there was a hornet’s nest right outside the window, and the sexton, Mr. Hall, had forgotten to put the screen in that window in the spring.”

  I got up to turn on the coffeepot.

  “That regular or decaf, Penelope?”

  “Regular.”

  “Good. Cause I’m coming back out with you to your studio. You’re going to finish that painting tonight.”

  “I am?”

  “Yep. The Lord told me that, too.”

  “Okay” No sense in putting up a fuss since I was going to lose anyway. And if the Lord told her that, who was I to argue?

  “But what about the hornets?” Angus’s voice sounded too strident in the same room as a good fish supper.

  “Well, you know how a fan works. It sucks the air in from behind. And these fans were so big, they sucked more than just air. They sucked in those hornets and started shooting them all over the room!”

  “Did any of them make it through the blades alive?”

  “Most of them. One shot down into Brother Tyree’s potatoes, and he was the lucky one. Poor Missus Purnell got one down her blouse, and let me tell you, hornets can sting more than once, or at least that one could!”

  With a twinkle in her eye, Mildred picked at her fish. “I tell you what, we were hopping down in that hall more than at any service we ever had. Even my Herman Winfred, who wasn’t my Herman in those days, had a hornet after him, and he was running in circles with his hands up in the air shouting, ‘Glory! Glory!’ ”

  “So who turned off the fan?” Angus asked.

  “Not me! I was having too much fun watching from my place at the deep fat fryer. Finally my Jesse David went over and pulled the plug. Just pulled the plug. Hornets swarming around like … well, like a swarm of bees.”

  “Sometimes it’s up to the pastor to keep his head,” Duncan said.

  “You’re telling me. He was a good man, my Jesse David. A good man. I miss him. Those were the hay days of our church.”

  “How long has he been gone?” Duncan reached for his glass of Coke. The pastor in him came out in a way that I had to admire. His sermons may be shredded wheat, but his shepherding is Red Velvet cake with cream cheese icing and decorations that don’t make one wince from too much sugar.

  “Ten years now.”

  “I wish I could have met him.”

  “Me, too. He’d tell you how to straighten out that Miss Poole!”

  Duncan shook his head. “I don’t know if even the Right Reverend Jesse David LaRue could do that. Now she’s threatening all manner of things about that stained glass window behind the choir loft.”

  How come he hadn’t told me this before now? “What do you mean?”

  Oh, that’s right. It was the old “wait until someone else is around” tactic.

  “The stained glass window is leaking terribly. Something happened when they repaired the roof.” Duncan took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. “I suggested that maybe we’d want to replace it with plate glass. The view is beautiful, Poppy. Looks right out over the lake.”

  I suddenly wondered what on earth I had in common with the man I married. How could someone in his right mind equate stained glass with plate glass? “But there’s always been a stained glass window there, Duncan. It’s a magnificent piece.”

  “Do you realize how much it will cost to have it restored? Almost five times as much as replacing the window. And it will look out over the lake, for cryin’ out loud.”

  “But, Duncan—”

  “Look, I know you’re all artsy and everything, but we’re talking twenty thousand dollars. What do you think, Miss Mildred?”

  The jazz singer held up her hands, the fingers fluttering. “Uh-uh, Pastor Fraser. Don’t be asking me that. You know I’ll side with my sister in Christ no matter what the matter is.” She winked at me. “It’s a man’s world here in the church, baby. We ladies have to stick together.”

  “You said it,” I agreed.

  Duncan brightened his voice. “We can talk about it later.”

  “I think the woman’s said all she needs to say,” Mildred said decisively, obviously using her age to her advantage.

  Angus finished up the last of his applesauce. “Can I have some more?”

  “Aren’t you going to eat your other piece of fish?” I asked.

  “No. I’m not as hungry as I thought.”

  Duncan stabbed the fish with his fork and lifted it over to his own plate.

  Drat! I wished Herman Winfred had caught more fish. Typical of Duncan to just take it without asking if I wanted any.

  I watched as his fork descended down sideways and cut the piece in two. The biggest half ended up on my plate. His eyes twinkled into mine, and I knew my thoughts hadn’t been lost on him.

  School had ended two days before, and now the kids were off to camp because I sent them off at the beginning of the summer. I needed that break after all the running around I did during the school year. So the silent sunshine that spilled across the new countertops and warmed the polished granite seemed luxurious. I thought of Jody and looked at the sparrows on the woodwork underneath the top of the island, thinking they were a message to me now that I was all alone and the kitchen was almost finished with only the cabinet doors needing to be hung.

  He came through the door without knocking, his hair sweaty and curled, and his eyes fell on me boldly, those eyes that made me feel like warm tomato aspic ran through my veins, pumped through my veins, thudded like Indian war drums through my veins. When he set down his toolbox, I offered him coffee with my mouth and offered him so much more with my eyes, and he held out his hand, his big callused hand that was just like the one that reached up and lightly touched my temple.

  Nine

  The screen door of the kitchen slammed behind Robbie. My heart leapt. I hate to admit that—that my son’s presence thrills me like it does. But my infidelity gave birth to a severe honesty. I can’t deny that Robbie needs me more than Duncan does, and he gives back more than Duncan does. He still kisses me when he comes into the kitchen for breakfast, and here on February 14, 11 P.M., he arrived home from his shift at Jeanelle’s Juicy Burgers. I hadn’t heard anything from Duncan since lunch, heard nothing about sweethearts, seen no paper cards, and tasted no chocolate candies. Only an hour remained until Valentine’s Day bid adieu for another year. Against my better judgment, I always hold out hope for the holiday.

  Robbie dangled a Jeanelle’s bag. “Mayo with fried onions.”

  From behind his back he whipped out a green glass vase of three pink rose buds he’d probably gotten from the refrigerator florist at Broomheller’s IGA before work. The three little blossoms looked wilted and greasy, and I knew they’d never bloom. The poor darlings were the prettiest flowers I’d ever seen. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mom. I forgot to put them in the fridge at work.”

  I pulled him into my arms, eyes blurring with tears. He is so beautiful, too. My eyes closed, and tears spilled quickly down my cheeks. “Thanks, Rob.”

  “Shoot, Mom. It’s only a burger and three dead flowers.”

  His voice resonated deep now. Like a real man’s. I cleared my throat, opened my eyes. “I’ll just get a plate.”

  Three minutes later he shuffled up to the attic with a bowl of Magic Stars, ready to study for an algebra test. I consumed the burger and figured half a pint of Ben and Jerry’s would be fitting as long as I was gorfing. Bloated and filled with five different kinds of fat, I stared at the back door waiting for Duncan to skulk in. He promised this career would be different. He said Christians understood the importance of family. I suspected he l
eft out the word supposedly on that one. Because I realized that the word supposedly should have been uttered a lot and it wasn’t. If he’d said supposedly about those things, my expectations might have been subconsciously lowered. But as it stood, I expected the life of Father Tim and Cindy and her cat from Mitford. Yes, the folks of Mount Oak were quirky and kind, and it was such a beautiful town, but I brought me along for the ride. Even with all that niceness and beauty crammed down my throat, it failed to erase that part of me that I suppress every day, the part that dreams of flight and is jealous of her best friend’s beauty and goodness. The part that tries its best to stay hidden from the church people.

  So I decided that eating the remaining half-pint of ice cream would give me something to do as I watched the kitchen door and waited for Duncan to walk in. He finally did at 1 A.M., just after I admitted to myself I’d gone over the edge into a size sixteen and called up a twenty-four hour catalogue’s eight hundred number to order a pair of jeans and two new pairs of khakis.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose and turned away from me. “Hiya, Popp.”

  “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

  “I know. But we had session meeting, and I thought tomorrow we’d go out for a nice dinner. Just the two of us.”

  “Robbie’s working. Did you get a babysitter for Angus then?”

  “Uh—no.”

  “No, you didn’t because you just now thought about that dinner, and you’re trying to placate me. You’re trying to make me think this is something you’ve been chewing on all day, that you couldn’t wait to get home and take me to bed.”

  He just stared at me, saying nothing. Not too late to take the high road.

  “This is the third night in a row you’ve been home after midnight, Duncan.” So much for the high road.

  Was it really starting all over again?

  “I’m sorry, babe. With the window controversy and all … and Miss Poole has been horrible. We had so much on our agenda tonight. It seems the fact that I spent four hours with her yesterday evening made no difference.”

  I was too frightened to feel sorry for him. One of those moments pounced down when I thought if I had to live exactly like this for the rest of my life, well, I might just as well close my foot in a bear trap or something. Yes, I couldn’t find a nicer guy than Duncan. But being a nice guy didn’t always cut it. Didn’t he realize our marriage had shifted, that he was once again living with a walking time bomb?

  “Poppy, please. I can’t help it when stuff like this comes up. It comes with the territory.”

  “That’s the problem. It doesn’t matter where we are; the territory starts to look the same. You promised me that once you graduated you’d have more time for us. Do you think because you walk across the lawn and spend thirty minutes eating lunch with us that’s enough?”

  “Come on, Popp. I’m tired. I don’t need this right now.”

  I felt a hysteria bubble expand my throat. “Are you even capable of needing us?”

  He set his briefcase down on the butcher block with a loud thunk. “Look, I’m keyed up right now. It was a long night. I was expecting you to have a little pity or, wishful thinking, that maybe you’d be asleep! But here you are, barking on your chain as usual. I’m going running.”

  “There’s a cold rain out there.”

  “No different than in here. Just go to bed, why don’t you, Poppy?”

  He walked by me. Just walked by me. Stunned and sheepish and feeling stupid and petty and exactly like that kind of female no self-respecting woman admits she is, I seethed with fresh anger. Duncan had never talked to me like that before. Yes, he’d been upset with me. But he’d never said anything so mean. Had never used canine expressions. It must have been some meeting, but that didn’t excuse his conduct. The creep.

  My hands shook as I rinsed out the ice cream bowl, and I felt needy and wanting again. Why does he have that kind of control over me? Whenever he gets miffed at me, I feel like I’m suddenly losing him, and I agree to all sorts of things.

  Well, not this time. I couldn’t afford to just let him walk all over me again. I wouldn’t sit still while he turned this career into just another excuse for workaholism, and a holy excuse at that.

  Duncan slammed out of the front door, avoiding me as I stood in the doorway in between the kitchen and the living room. He wore the running shoes I bought him for Christmas as well as the green, waterproof jogging suit with reflective patches. Well, at least he wouldn’t be hit by a car before he got back. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about that!

  Maybe Duncan had a point about my being in bed.

  Tiptoeing to Angus’s room, I checked to see if he was covered and sure enough, he’d kicked off the blankets, and his feet felt like cooler packs with toes. So I tucked him in again and said a prayer for him because life can be a curse as well as a blessing. Jesus already lives inside of his heart, so I knew he wouldn’t be alone in his trials. But sometimes Jesus doesn’t speak too loudly, and when a person is deaf like me, it can make things difficult. So I prayed for good ears for him, and maybe while God worked on his ears, He’d sharpen up mine a little, too.

  In the bathroom, I took off my clothes and threw them in the hamper. In the darkness of my bedroom I scraped open my top dresser drawer and put on an old pair of boxers and a T-shirt. Duncan’s castoffs. Soft and spare.

  The fire left me.

  As I turned to get in bed, my foot kicked my suitcase. I lugged it out and stared at the fine leather.

  Duncan watched me packing. The kids were home from camp now, and I had to get away—now—now—now. Jody had been everything I thought Duncan would be, and I had been a fool after that first time to think the end would come, and we would just leave it at that. But after our times together he would really talk to me and laugh with me and trace my jawline with his index finger and say how he always thought I was so pretty, even when he’d been helping his father on my first kitchen years before. I’d calculated that the last time Duncan told me I was pretty was at my brother’s wedding three years earlier when I wore this horrible apricot taffeta affair, affair definitely being the wrong word because gowns weren’t affairs, and neither were receptions and elegant gatherings. Affairs “happened,” and then they were planned, and soon one was so caught up in the excitement and the glory and the need. The need was an amazing thing to be taken along in, and it was a wonderful need like a ride in a 1963 Triumph TR3 convertible over the Bay Bridge. I wasn’t going to stop that car as long as I lingered in Hunt Valley and Jody breathed and ate and slept only five minutes away and called me from his car phone just to say sweet things and tell me I was pretty, truthfully, to have someone so beautiful think I was pretty meant more than I wanted to admit, but it wasn’t worth this.

  Not anymore.

  Three weeks of unadulterated adultery had to be enough, or this would become a way of life, and I’d start rationalizing and making it everyone else’s fault. Or worse, I’d leave everything else behind just to be with Jody, to lie in his arms and feel admired like one of those sexy women in the movies or on TV, a woman whose smile meant something to somebody.

  “I’ll just be gone a couple of weeks, Duncan.”

  “But all the way down to the Outer Banks?”

  “Look, I’ve paid for the rental house out of my own money.”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  “It can’t be about me.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Look at me! Do you even think I’m pretty anymore?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  I kept telling myself it had been about the sex, all about the sex.

  I lived out of that suitcase for the rest of that summer away in North Carolina. Two weeks stretched into four, and then two months crawled by on bloody knees there at the dark brown house up at the northern stretch of the beach, nestled behind dunes covered in sea oats. Only I knew I paid for the entire summer in advance. Josh
and Chris had come down for a couple of weeks, and I never told my best friend why I stayed away from home until school started again. So I painted all those lighthouses down there, pretending to the world that’s why I had come. I refused to wear sunblock, burning my skin to blisters at first, baking it to leather by the end of August, only to come home to Duncan’s spiritual revival.

  The old radiator clicked beside me.

  What did you just do, Poppy? Why should he want to come home when you’re acting like such a shrew? What bride ever dreams she’ll turn into a shrew? Not me. As a new bride I thought, I’ll rise above all that. I’m not a typical woman at all! I’m not marrying because I need to. I’m marrying because I want to. And then the years go by, and you find yourself losing any patience you’d ever had. You find yourself being silent on the phone when he calls to tell you he’ll be late when, really, not many husbands even bother to call. You find that you’re feeling sorry for yourself when, really, you’ve got a nice roof overhead, decent clothing, and food on the table. And sweet kisses on the cheek, temple, forehead, and mouth.

  If I had been able to catch up to Duncan then, who ran like wind with hair, I would have. My mind filled with the picture of him running, running. Breathing fully, freely, eating up the miles of road beneath his feet. Was he running from me?

  I decided to set out the mug filled with Hersey’s Kisses I bought him at Java Jane’s that morning. My own desperation filled me with dread.

  Am I alone in these feelings? Do I simply expect too much?

  The phone rang. I scooped it up before it finished the first jangle, praying nothing had happened to Paisley

  “Mrs. Fraser?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Keith Haring. From over at Mount Oak Community?”

  “Oh yes. One of the deacons I think Chris said?”

  “Yes. Chris wanted me to call you.” He paused. “I don’t know how else to tell you this, Mrs. Fraser, but Josh is dead.”

  I gasped, almost dropping the phone.

  “Yeah, he died about three hours ago.”