The Church Ladies

by Lisa Samson

  I had always figured as much. Most women do figure as much. But it wasn’t something I wanted to admit out loud like Miss Mildred did.

  A breeze caught at the kitchen curtains forcing the sheers farther into the room. It delivered the scent of spring and a freshly cut lawn somewhere nearby. Duncan would be resuming his groundskeeper role soon. But I wasn’t going to complain about the weather. It had given me a boost. Chris, too. “I meant to tell you on the phone, Miss Mildred. Chris came out of the house with me two days ago for a walk.”

  “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Mildred raised a hand.

  “Thank You, Jesus,” Charmaine cried.

  I wondered briefly what planet I suddenly inhabited. Presbyterians didn’t act like this, for goodness’ sake. We didn’t even shout “Amen!” But it touched a place within me, a place I might never really learn to locate on my own, but one I respected when so easily exhibited in someone else.

  “How did Chris cope with it?” Mildred asked.

  “Well, we went at 4:30 A.M. because she didn’t want to run into anyone and have to hear condolences.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Charmaine said. “The poor thing.”

  “That little boy of yours was right, Penelope. We should have been praying a long time ago.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I’m Calvinistic enough to believe we started just when we were supposed to.”

  I completely disobeyed The Proper Christian Ladies’ Handbook and the chapter on appropriate uses of systematic theology. Only in Bible studies are such uncomfortable doctrines to be mentioned and usually only in the presence of those like-minded. If I had to bet money, Charmaine was a free-will type like Miss Mildred.

  To my limited knowledge, The Handbook for Christian Men has no such regulation.

  Charmaine suddenly sat up straight and stiff in her chair. See? Said the wrong thing again, Poppy!

  “Did you hear that?” she asked, eyes so round I thought she might blacken her eyebrows with some of the nutty brown mascara brushed carefully on her lashes.

  I braced myself for the coming onslaught.

  “What?” Mildred asked. “You hear something other than Poppy’s Calvinism?”

  “Uh-huh. Sounded like it came from the porch.”

  I felt the hair follicles on the nape of my neck bunch together. “You think someone is out there?” I whispered. I never lasted through the night at slumber parties. When they started telling stories like the man with the golden arm, or thump-thump-scratch, I was out of there, running for the phone to call home.

  Mildred stood to her feet. “Calm down, girls. I’ll go see who it is.”

  A definite thump shook the floorboards now.

  “I know I’m a scaredy-cat,” Charmaine said. “But one time we had a burglar, and now I jump at the least little thing.”

  Mildred pulled open the kitchen door and hollered into the darkness, “Who’s there?”

  “We just came to pray!” a youthful, female voice cried.

  “It’s all right, ladies,” she said from the porch. “It’s just that sweet little blond girl from down at the IGA.”

  “Sunny?” I stood up.

  “And who you got with you?” Mildred ushered the newcomers into the warm kitchen.

  “This is India Clemmings,” Sunny said.

  I had never seen the new woman before. If one could have taken Sunny and turned her upside down and inside out, this woman would have resulted.

  I was happy; however, that someone else in the kitchen sported a bigger waist than I possessed. It didn’t seem to matter that the woman was at least fifteen years younger with glowing, ruddy skin and impossibly huge brown eyes. She tripped over the threshold as she walked into the room, but caught herself immediately. Laughing a nervous laugh, she held up a foot entombed in a biker boot with a sole thicker than a top-of-the-line porterhouse. “Someday I’m going to give up my boots, but for now, I guess I’ll just keep tripping everywhere I go.” The nervous laugh sounded again. Her warm, mellow voice belonged to an opera singer or something, not this girl whose garb proclaimed that she had alternative music and frappachinos pumping through her veins.

  She shoved a pair of sunglasses into her pocket.

  I liked her right away. “Come on in. Miss Mildred just made some coffee. And for the record, I think your boots are very cool. That jacket is great, too.” Leather. Hip length. And hand painted with pictures of long dead composers.

  Mildred pulled down mugs while I scraped in an extra chair from the dining room and made introductions. “Have a seat. I’m Poppy Fraser, and this is Mrs. Mildred LaRue.”

  Mildred offered a quick flicker of a wave.

  “And I’m Charmaine Hopewell.” Charmaine started slicing up the hot milk cake.

  Sunny pulled out the remaining kitchen chair. “India’s the music minister over at St. Edmund’s Episcopal.”

  Episcopal? I thought, as I spooned strawberries onto the cake slices. When I thought “Episcopal,” nothing registered but robes and well … robes. How sad was this?

  “Seems we got more than our fair share of church ladies here tonight,” Mildred said. “And musical ones, too.”

  “Not me.” Sunny lowered her lithe body into her chair and set her white vinyl purse in her lap just so. I stole a look under the table. White shoes, too. Now where did that child’s mother go when fashion etiquette needs began to surface? Good heavens, she was wearing black panty hose with them. Well, just because a person was saved from the fires of hell did not mean she was saved from her own poor taste.

  Oh, brother, Poppy.

  And what does it really matter anyway? Sometimes I hated my own snobbery. For someone who hated legalism, I sure had a lot of rules! But it seemed that Mother had never stopped sitting on my shoulder pointing out faux pas.

  As Charmaine said before, God doesn’t see that stuff. You know, I think He put that verse in the Bible about His not looking on the outward appearance to free us—and to prick at us when we find ourselves judging someone by something as insignificant as her clothing. Some church women judge clothes on the quality, others judge it by whether or not there’s one place to put your legs or two.

  Charmaine, not exactly tasteful in that purple, leopard print satin blouse tucked into purple leather pants, not to mention the green scarf with coordinating high-heeled boots, jumped right in. “I’m so excited to meet you, India. I was over at the Christmas handbell concert y’all did a few months ago. You wrote some of the music, didn’t you? I remember seeing the name India beside some of the pieces, and I recalled thinking about India somebody-or-other in Gone with the Wind and all.”

  India ran her hand through extremely short brown hair. “A few of them. It was a good autumn for me, creatively speaking. I’ve seen you on TV.”

  Charmaine waved one of her beautifully manicured hands. “Oh, please. Don’t mention that.”

  Sunny took a cup of coffee from Mildred. “I met India two months ago at the grocery store. She drives the cutest little car you ever saw.”

  “What is it?” I asked, knowing I would be mortified when I viewed it next to my heap of a van out there at the front of the house.

  “It’s a red Volkswagen with black dots!” Sunny said. “It looks just like a ladybug.”

  Wow, a girl who writes handbell pieces, wears biker boots, and drives a Volkswagen that looks like a ladybug. Now Paisley could take lessons from this girl on how to be unique without being sullen. How to be childlike not childish.

  “I just like ladybugs,” India said.

  “That’s nice.” Mildred handed her a glass of water. “I like hummingbirds myself.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me bringing India along,” Sunny said. “But I was walking up the road, and she was passing by—”

  “You walked here?” Charmaine said, clearly horrified.

  “Well, yes, ma’am. You see we don’t have but one car and—”

  “—and her husband doesn’t know she’s coming,” India
supplied, setting her left foot on her right knee. “He’s out of town tonight and tomorrow.”

  “He’s still in school over at Valley Baptist Seminary,” Sunny explained. “That’s when he goes.”

  Mildred crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. “Why are you sneakin’ here, child?”

  Sunny’s glance at India filled up with something very, well, very cloudy. “Mark isn’t much inclined to what he calls ‘ecumenical nonsense.’ ”

  “Oh,” Mildred said. “So why are you disobeying him then?”

  The girl looked up, straight into Miss Mildred’s gaze. “I don’t know.”

  “An honest woman. Good for you, child.” Mildred took a plate of dessert from Charmaine who, I noticed, didn’t cut a piece for her svelte, TV self.

  Mildred waved her fork at the lot of us. “Eat up, girls. We need to be about the Lord’s business now.”

  India didn’t pray, and she watched the entire while, I realized, sneaking glances from time to time. But her face was sad, and I prayed silently for her, somehow able to feel the desolation so obviously present in this young woman with a ladybug for a car.

  We stormed heaven that night with our prayers. We broke down walls of fear and doubt and claimed promises on behalf of Chrissy, and in the claiming for her we remembered that they were given to us as well.

  “Oh, my loving Father,” Charmaine had begun, and goosebumps spread themselves out on my limbs as she took us all before the throne of grace. She prayed with such passionate intimacy with God, such childlike devotion. He wasn’t just her Father, He was her Daddy. She reminded us all through her prayers that Jesus sent the Holy Ghost to comfort us in situations like this and to guide us through them.

  The Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, whatever name He is called by, was called upon frequently that night. And I felt Him there, really there in our midst, and there were times I dared not open my eyes in fear of sending Him away by my own sinfulness. Thank You, God, my heart frequently raised the words. Thank You for letting us meet with You here.

  Sunny’s soft voice began, her words belying her youth, and she called upon God, entering the throne room of prayer as someone very familiar with the chamber, very comfortable with her surroundings, yet still in awe, still aware that she talked to the King of kings and Lord of lords. “Dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for listening to our prayers and petitions,” she began. “We thank Thee for giving us the words to say and the voices with which to speak them where we are gathered, more than two or three, Lord, in Thy midst.”

  Isn’t it wonderful, that verse that says, “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you?” God comes near. We don’t have to go to some special prayer building in some special city in some special country. God comes near to us, right where we are.

  We stayed long into the night, Sunny and I asking questions of Miss Mildred and Charmaine, the veteran pastor’s wives. When Sunny asked, “How do you let all the criticism roll off your back?” Mildred replied, “It’s like anything else, baby. You just get used to it, take it as part of the job.”

  “That’s not encouraging, Miss Mildred,” I said. “It could take years.”

  “Oh, it does take years! Believe me!” Charmaine’s eyes softened. “But after a while you really do realize that if you don’t let them roll off, they’ll chip away at your heart until there’s nothing left. It’s all about whether you really want to love people or not, Poppy.”

  I remembered that verse in the Bible about loving those who don’t love you. How it basically says, So what’s the big deal if you love those who bless you? Even sinners do that! But loving those who curse you, criticize you, examine every little thing you do while wearing a pair of negative glasses, well, that is, as Charmaine might say, “A whole nother matter.”

  “Besides,” said Mildred. “Harboring it all just makes you bitter. And that never helps anyone, least of all you.”

  Bitterness. That sure hit the mark.

  “Do you feel you have to be friends with the women in your church?” I asked Charmaine.

  “Friendship has many levels, Poppy. I may not have this kind of conversation with many of the church women, but I love them in Jesus.”

  Mildred said, “Mmn-hmn. Never underestimate the value of that.”

  Back in the late seventies I heard a song where the writer was begging Jesus to let him see the world through His eyes. On the way home I prayed that prayer much the same, but my version exchanged the words church ladies in place of the word world. And why in heaven’s name did I think I was so much better than they were, anyway?

  I pulled into Highland Kirk’s parking lot, stared at the dark mass of building against a sky of backlit indigo. Does love have to feel like love to be love? Is obedience to God ever hypocritical? I would ask Duncan, but there are some things a girl has to find out for herself.

  I almost asked Duncan, “How long has it been since we’ve done this?” but successfully bit it back before it popped out. I seemed to have a more highly developed ability in the speech control department when eating at Josef’s French Country with Duncan than in driveways with Paisley. I wanted nothing to come out incriminating or house Frau-like. I wanted him to know I appreciated tonight because it hadn’t been a spontaneous measure on his part. It had been in the works for at least a week.

  I knew this because he’d snuck his navy blue pinstripe to the A-1 Dry Cleaners, and the lady there had given me his order, too, when I went in to pick up the linens I’d dropped off just after Christmas. Thank God, and I literally meant that, I had enough foresight to fill the woman in on the situation, girl talk style, and told her to button her lip and save the suit for Duncan.

  Josef’s is a compact, rustic little restaurant. Only about ten or twelve tables, prix fixe menu, and talk about desserts! Not only is their sugar content probably more than two back-to-back cans of Coca-Cola, but they’re so lacy and artistic, one almost hates to eat them. Almost.

  Duncan sipped on his water. “I don’t know why we don’t do stuff like this more often.”

  I successfully bit back the obvious retort. “I’m glad we’re here, though.”

  It was a good moment for me, just then. Duncan looked so nice, his peppered, thinning hair combed perfectly and, now that it was warmer, his tanned neck contrasting with a beautiful blue, starched button-down. I adored button-downs, thought them sexy on the right guy.

  I forcefully shoved Jody aside, but not before realizing a blue oxford button-down would have looked ludicrous on him. Wow, quite a revelation! I concentrated on my husband instead. “So tell me about your day, and by the way, the tie looks good.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled and lifted the pointed end, examining the fine pattern on the ice green tie. “Fidge came through this year, didn’t she?”

  I lifted my glass. “Here’s to my mother then.”

  His brows lifted. “You must be in a good mood.”

  “I am,” I confessed. “I really am.”

  There must have been something to that St. John’s Wort thing after all. Maybe I should listen to Mother more often. Or maybe I’m not giving credit where it is due. Life’s loads had certainly become a little easier to bear since the Monday night prayer meetings had begun.

  The sweet thing about Duncan is that he doesn’t take me to a nice restaurant to relay some important news, to soft sell some big change he wants to foist upon me. He takes me out to be with me, and he concentrates on me completely.

  Unfortunately it only happens once or twice a year. But if it happened more often, I’d feel more guilty about The Masquerade, so maybe it is for the best. Maintenance is what it is, truth be told. Why do married couples let themselves get so busy they only have time for maintenance? And, shoot, I am just as guilty as Duncan. Well, almost, anyway. I cannot award him the upper hand completely.

  We ordered something horribly expensive for two and talked about our lives.

  As we pulled into the driveway, Duncan turned to me and said, “Close your eyes,
Popp. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “Okay.”

  He stopped the van, turned off the engine, and came around to my side. The door opened with a loud groan, and I felt his hand on my arm.

  “Okay, get out and put your other hand on my arm. I’ll walk you over.”

  This was different. Especially for Duncan.

  We slowly walked together to the front of the van and a little bit beyond. Hard to tell, really.

  “Okay, you can open your eyes now.”

  I did. There before me sat a brand-new car, a glistening green Subaru wagon. A darling car. A four-wheel drive, ride through rivers and fields and look cute but understated, classy but frugal car. A wonderful car for traveling far and wide.

  I turned to Duncan, tears in my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  Robbie and Angus bounded out of the house, clapping and hollering.

  “I told you she’d cry, Dad!” Angus shouted.

  “Yep, Dad.” Robbie thumped his father on the back. “Tears of joy.”

  Sixteen

  Chris’s cheeks held color for the first time in weeks. April was winding down now, and the high rarely dipped below the mid-seventies these days. We had taken several rides in the ski boat together. Jesus called Himself the living water, and I can see why He did. Water is so flowing and free and so needed. Hold it in your own little container and keep it there and it’ll stagnate. I’ve tried so desperately to figure Jesus out in my mind, and one of these days I may stop seeking to place Him in my own Jesus-shaped cistern and just go with the flow of Living Water, moving in faith that I’m not paddling down the river Styx, but sailing free and clear down the Jordon with no one at the helm but the Spirit of God.

  “I come so that you might have life and have it more abundantly,” Jesus said. Drink up, Poppy. For heaven’s sake, drink until you cannot drink any more.

  I prayed the same for everybody I loved just then, going down a quick checklist in my mind. I prayed for Chris, too, as we sped along the surface of the water, not saying much of anything. Chris drove sometimes, standing, letting the air scour her bronzing skin.