The Church Ladies

by Lisa Samson

  Chris shook her hand. “I hear you compose music.”

  “I sure do.”

  “What a wonderful gift.”

  India sat back down. “Can’t sing well, though. I leave that to Mrs. LaRue and Charmaine. Not that they’d ever sing my kind of music.”

  “And you’ve just met Joanna,” I said.

  Mildred stood at the head of the table. “Sit down now, everyone. It’s time to eat.”

  Chris hardly said a word during the meal, but I had never seen her eat so much food at one time. She packed away at least four pieces of roast beef, two helpings of mashed potatoes, and one and a half mounds of green beans.

  “Did you know that Joanna is a church lady, too?” Mildred asked me.

  “No.”

  “Uh-huh. Her husband’s the pastor over at Centennial United Methodist.”

  The twilight gay/lesbian ministry church. Well, apparently the pastor wasn’t living an alternative lifestyle! Trying to picture a meeting night of the twilight group in Mount Oak, well, I figured maybe three people might show up. Tops.

  Joanna wiped her mouth, set her napkin by her plate, and pushed out her chair a little. Crossing one leg casually over the other, she wore gorgeous cream-colored linen slacks so impeccably cut they could only have been tailored just for her. She picked up her water goblet as though it were a wine glass and said, “Well, if that’s all one needs to qualify as a church lady, I suppose I fill the bill.”

  Oh yes! She chaired that meeting for the May festival last fall.

  “Joanna was on Wall Street for years,” India said, obviously impressed.

  “How did you meet your husband then?” Mildred asked.

  “Oh, I used to summer at Lake Coventry. A solitary vacation, mind you. And he was a lifeguard. It was the summer before his last year at seminary.”

  “You must miss life in the big city,” I said.

  She flipped one side of her dark brown pageboy back over her shoulder. “I do. Very much.”

  “So, what brought you here tonight?” Mildred asked, sitting back down with a topped-off potato bowl.

  “India brought me along. She said we both could use the support of other women involved in the church, and it was a good cause.”

  Chris shifted in her seat.

  A good cause, eh?

  My eyes met Mildred’s. Change the subject! I tried to vibe her. Change the blasted subject! Mildred nodded.

  “Well, let’s go pray then.”

  And so we did, Charmaine and Miss Mildred and Sunny really getting into it.

  “Thank You, God, for preserving Chris this far,” Mildred began.

  “Yes, Lord!” Charmaine said. “Once again we don’t understand, for although You’ve lavished upon us so many things, we know You never promised we’d always understand.”

  Sunny jumped in. “But that’s what makes faith faith, Lord Jesus.”

  “Amen!” Mildred raised a hand. “ ‘Without faith it is impossible to please Him.’ ”

  “We believe that, Lord,” I told Him. “We believe that in the light of eternity this will all make sense. And if we can’t see that as ever being a possibility, help us to know that it’s true. That you can take any situation and beautify it with Your holiness.”

  I held Chris’s hand and watched from beneath half-shuddered eyes. India still examined each woman present, and Joanna Jones-Fletcher fell asleep. Mildred took up the prayer, and I listened as Charmaine mumbled something I didn’t understand, softly very softly. And Chris cried, but she muttered, “Yes, Lord. Yes, Father,” and I had to believe that God was using us just then to strengthen His child, His Christine. And I looked around the room after the final amen was said and counted myself privileged, no blessed, to be in the same room as these women.

  “So what did you think?” I asked Chris on the drive home. We’d stayed late with Miss Mildred, hearing all about the uppity pastor’s wife and the upcoming gigs. Mildred even mentioned Herman Winfred, saying that maybe she needed to make him a more permanent part of her life, that maybe the other side of the porch swing needed a regular rear end to cover it.

  Fat chance, I thought. Miss Mildred give up her independence? Yeah, right. Unless Herman was a Milquetoast, and he didn’t seem like a Milquetoast. Milquetoasts stayed away from strong-willed women like Mildred Grace LaRue.

  “I’m glad I went,” Chris said. “I didn’t get a real feel for that Joanna girl. Or India either, for that matter. But the others really seem to care.”

  “Oh, they do.”

  “Although if that Sunny girl had called me ma’am one more time …”

  “I’m with you, lady.”

  In order to get from Miss Mildred’s home to Chris’s, a trip through town was necessary. The IGA would close in five minutes. “Would you mind if I stopped at the grocery store?” I asked.

  “Okay.”

  “You want to come in or wait in the car?”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  I hurried into the store, ignoring the dirty look from the cashier, and ran back to the Slim Fast aisle. After being with all of those slender, beautiful women, I realized it was time to do something definite about my weight. Something proven. Something mindless.

  The dark chocolate looked like a flavor that would keep my interest over the long haul. I wasn’t all that great at diets. I knew this going in and had no delusions of grandeur.

  I paid the $4.20 and went back to the car.

  “What’d you get?” Chris asked.

  “Slim Fast.”

  “Oh, Poppy. Why?”

  “I’m a size sixteen, Chrissy. I’ve never been a size sixteen in my life.”

  “Who cares about what size you are when you’ve got big brown eyes and thick, dark curly hair?”

  Yeah, right. I started the engine. “But you’ve got to admit it. I’ve gained some weight.”

  “I can’t tell the difference. Honestly.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to see it if somebody paid you to. You’re not an outward appearance type of woman.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “A huge one.”

  “Good,” she said.

  I pulled out of the parking space and sped across the empty lot. This was a great car.

  We drove the mile to Chris’s in silence. When I pulled up into the drive, Chris cleared her throat. “I called a lawyer today.”

  “How come?”

  “I think I might press charges.”

  “Against who? The boys? The fraternity?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I just want to find out what my options are.”

  “Okay.”

  Chris picked up her purse and drove her vision into my gaze. “I know it won’t bring Josh back, so you don’t have to say anything like that.”

  “Okay. Is it an inner soothing thing, though, Chris? Something to concentrate on to help the pain?” I mean, is that what grieving women do?

  “I don’t know what it’s about, actually. I just can’t let things lie the way they are right now.” She put her hand on the handle and opened the car door. “Will you take me up to Baltimore soon?”

  “Name the day.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Popp.”

  I would have said something like, “That’s what friends are for,” but it sounded wrong in my mind, so I knew it would sound triply wrong hanging in the air between me and Chris.

  “If I can keep one other set of parents from suffering like this, don’t you think I should?”

  “Yes, Chrissy, I do.”

  “Don’t you think that’s only right?”

  “I think you have to do it if you think you should.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks for tonight.”

  “Sure.”

  “I really didn’t want to go, you know.”

  “I know. But you did, and it took a lot of strength,” I said. “You wanna walk tomorrow morning?”

  Chris nodded. “I may just meet you at Java Jane’s.”

  “Really?”
r />   “Yeah. But I’m just getting regular coffee.”

  “That’s all I usually get in the mornings.” Well, sort of.

  She slid a leg out of the car, her sandaled foot resting on the blacktop of the driveway. “Good. Okay, well, see ya.”

  “Bye.”

  I watched her as she negotiated the walk, the light by the door catching her blond hair. Yeah, she was coming back to life all right, but it was sad because her life had changed. There are some things we can never completely drive out of our minds as long as we live.

  Chrissy’s eyes had changed forever. Part of the light in them had passed on to the next world with Josh.

  I drove myself to the lake, pulled up to the boathouse, and walked out to the end of the pier. There, with the moonlight silvering the lake, I downed all four diet shakes, crushing each can, one by one, and throwing them into the trashcan.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. I examined the lines around my eyes, the way the corners of my mouth drooped a little, and realized that yes indeed, I looked my age. I didn’t used to. The thought depressed me almost as much as the day I looked down at my hands and saw Mother’s there holding the paintbrush. A lot of women say they seem to be turning into their mothers, but I refuse to admit any such thing. And there is nothing to admit because Fidge is still a social-climbing creature, a butterfly who’s given herself wings of gold, wings that glimmer expensively but weigh her down considerably.

  At least that’s what I say.

  What would my mother have been like had she learned to be content with her life? I had no idea. Maybe she would have been like my Aunt Lucy, Gary’s mom, who still lived in Hamilton and owned cats.

  I twirled the few stray curls around my face and pursed my mouth. I realized years ago I would actually go through my entire life having never really seen my face. Sure, I’d spot my reflection in the mirror, in windows, in clean plates, and on the spout of the bathtub. I’d catch myself in the polished top of my dresser and sometimes even in the back of a spoon, but they were only images, moving snapshots. I’d see myself in photos, too. But I’d never actually see my face. Perhaps the closest I might ever come to it would be if I bent down and saw myself reflected in the eyes of Angus or Robbie or Paisley. But only if the light was right.

  I backed away from the mirror.

  Time to clench my way through the task at hand. The annual Mount Oak Crazy Days of May all committee meeting would begin shortly. Of course, the various committees had been meeting since January, but I was only called to this meeting to give a report of the progress of Highland Kirk’s booth. We’d been discussing whether or not to sponsor the goldfish game this year along with the Boston cream pie setup. Miss Poole thought “the change of pace might be nice, dear.”

  I wanted to say, “Okay, but only if you’ll swallow one alive.” However, knowing Miss Poole’s drive to get her own way, she might have taken me up on it.

  The good thing about tonight, however, was that Miss Mildred had to go, too, since she was providing the music. It was the town’s bicentennial year, after all. Two hundred years of Mount Oak.

  Yikes.

  The phone rang. Miss Mildred was in a panic. At least for Miss Mildred. “So, since me and the Jammers are going to be the entertainment, do you think I should go against my normal green and wear something red, white, and blue?”

  “For tonight?”

  “No, for seven o’clock tomorrow morning! Of course tonight!”

  “It’s just a meeting, Miss Mildred. I doubt if it’ll matter much. You always look nice no matter what you wear.”

  “I’m just trying to keep professional. If I’m wearing red, white, and blue sequins at the gig, I’m thinking I should be wearing red, white, and blue at the committee meeting.” Her throat was opening wide again, I realized.

  “Yes, then. You should. Do you have a white jacket?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Okay. If you’ve got a blue skirt and a red blouse, I’ve got a wonderful scarf you can borrow.”

  Silence.

  “What is it, Miss Mildred?”

  “I’m not used to borrowing things, Penelope Heubner. You should know better than to even ask.”

  I felt my heart sink. First Chris. Now Miss Mildred. Seemed I’d become an expert at offending people without trying. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s it look like? It’s not something equestrian or with golf nonsense on it, is it? I know you used to be one of those country club, horsey types, and I’m wondering if I should trust one of your scarves.”

  I laughed at the heavy doubt weighing down Miss Mildred’s tone. “What if I told you it was just like a flag, but the stars were embroidered with pearlescent threads, and the stripes were outlined with coordinating sequins?”

  “You kidding me?”

  “Nope. Paisley was Aunt Sam as she called it, for a figure skating routine when she was ten. In fact, you can have it if you want, and then there won’t be any borrowing factor.”

  “You sure you won’t wear it yourself?”

  This time I was silent.

  A warm, Mildredy chuckle caressed my ear. “I’ll be over to your house at a quarter after seven to get it.”

  “You want to ride together?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to take me for a ride in your sassy new automobile.”

  After I hung up, I found Duncan in his study. “Got some Mildred LaRue style CDs for the car?”

  “You know it, baby.”

  A stuffed vinyl CD holder was ready and waiting by the kitchen door ten minutes later.

  Eighteen

  The smell of cut grass lined the breeze, and flowers hefted up new perfume into the air. The freshness of a well-wintered lake coming to life once more brought a twitter of excitement to my heart. I don’t know why I don’t just give up the charade and admit I love this place, all committee meetings notwithstanding.

  Lake Coventry parades its finest in the month of May. The flowers had not yet grown gangly. The grass, now a darker green than during its initial rise from dormancy, grew thick and lush, bolstering itself for the intense heat July and August promised. And the stems of the columbines that most Mount Oakers seemed to adore still grew short. I hate when they get so long by the end of the summer, overeager somehow, the blooms trying to get somewhere they aren’t supposed to go. Columbines can be devious flowers if one truly gets to know them. Sure, they seem fanciful, perhaps even lifted from the pages of a storybook, but I suspect they know exactly what they are doing.

  I backed out of my driveway, shoving the gearshift quickly into first.

  Late. And it was all Miss Mildred’s fault. I love Miss Mildred with all my heart, but being late really gets my socks in a twist.

  I have many sins. Nonpunctuality is not one of them, although it does lead to an extreme judgmentalism in the direction of those who can’t seem to get their act together in a timely manner.

  Miss Mildred, not a particularly punctual person to begin with, had wavered and waffled over whether or not to wear the scarf. The conversation extended into the drive over. “You’re from Baltimore, Penelope. What would Francis Scott Key have thought of this scarf?”

  “Miss Mildred! You’ve got to be kidding! Francis Scott Key?”

  “Well, him writing about ‘the flag was still there’ and all. I don’t think he had a sequined scarf in mind.”

  “I know he didn’t, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have approved. And besides, what in the world difference does it make if he wouldn’t have?”

  Mildred studied me. “I have a kinship with Francis Scott Key, Penelope. He named the poem “The Star Spangled Banner,” and my band is called The Star Spangled Jammers, and therefore, I feel I owe something to the man. You’ve got to admit that using the word spangled was genius on his part. It could have been the star spotted banner or the star dotted banner. It could have even been the star littered banner, which would have been a downright awful name for a jazz singer’s band.�
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  “But he’s been dead for years, Miss Mildred.” We passed by Josef, bent over his strawberry pots. He didn’t wave. Must not have recognized my new car.

  “Well, so has Moses, but people still go to temple.”

  I laughed. “Oh, come on! You can’t compare Francis Scott Key to Moses!”

  “Why not?”

  “Miss Mildred! Moses was … well Moses! Leader of the nation of Israel. Deliverer from slavery.”

  “God delivered them from slavery, Miss Heubner.”

  “Well, yeah, through Moses though. Don’t get touchy now, Miss Mildred. I mean, Moses is looked upon as the founder of the law, the—” I heard a snort beside me.

  Mildred laughed silently but deeply, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.

  I blew out a sigh. “That was not nice and you know it. Leading me on like that. Francis Scott Key, eh?” I allowed the right side of my mouth to lift. “I’ll show you Francis Scott Key, Madame LaRue. And speaking of rue—” I almost ran into a phone booth near the Exxon.

  “Calm down, Penelope. I was just having a little fun with you. I can’t believe I strung you along for so long with this one. Francis Scott Key! What did that man ever do for me?”

  “He gave you the name for your band,” I said, concentrating on my driving a bit more. “You said so yourself.”

  “Okay. That is true.” Mildred leaned forward and turned on the stereo.

  “And don’t you go razzing on Francis Scott! Fort McHenry is my favorite place in the world. It’s where Daniel Peverly kissed me on my ninth grade field trip. My first kiss right there in the dungeon!”

  “I thought you went to an all girls’ school?”

  “I did. His class from public school was there the same day. He went to our church.”

  “Any other kisses from him after that?”

  “No. Yuck.”

  “Yeah, first kisses are usually like that. What CDs you got? Herman Winfred keeps telling me we got to get us a CD player in the Impala.”

  “Have a look through the case. Duncan made sure you’d be happy right before we left.”