The Church Ladies

by Lisa Samson

  “Hanging on a hook on the back of the pantry door.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever get these churches back on speaking terms?” I asked.

  “We won’t. But I wouldn’t call it a lost cause just yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because sometimes God’s just got plans.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  “ ’Course it is, Penelope. Mildred LaRue doesn’t lie.”

  “Never?”

  “Not about the Lord.”

  That, heaven only help us all, was the truth.

  Twenty-eight

  After refusing a ride home from Miss Mildred’s, I walked down Highland Lane, slowly negotiating the two miles that separated the bungalow from the farmhouse. Saundra had shown up in a maternity dress.

  I suppressed a grin. She won’t start showing until at least the sixth month. I guessed Saundra truly expressed herself through her clothing. Miss Mildred talks about her hiding behind her fashion, but if anyone knows how to speak using colors, textures, and all manner of trim, it’s Mildred LaRue. Maybe that’s why Miss Mildred and Saundra understand each other so well now.

  Pastor Phelps smiled like someone coming out of the theater after a good movie. “Thank you for taking her to the doctor’s, Mother LaRue. I get a little leary around female doctors.”

  “You’re not the first man to feel that way, Pastor,” I said.

  “You just leave everything to me,” Mildred assured him.

  The way he kissed his wife then, so tenderly and kind, hit me with a force I’m glad I didn’t foresee. Because just then, I realized that lately I’ve been on the receiving end of kisses just like that. Duncan’s kisses were so tender now, so purposeful yet sweet. They held within them enough power to make me stay and enough pain to make me leave. When he kissed me with such trust and intimacy, I felt The Masquerade grow larger. I saw myself for the shadow I was, and as hard as I had tried to forget, the truth within our marriage was gone. I could not get around it. I could not break through it. I could not get under it. I could not get over it.

  I just couldn’t get over it.

  One thing remained certain; I couldn’t live like this anymore. He’d been trying so hard lately. The studio. The car. And, if I were honest, he did all sorts of little, nice things for me. Everyday things. So what if he forgot Valentine’s Day? That happened months ago. Didn’t I need to be understanding? Didn’t I need to count my blessings?

  What a sinner you are, Poppy.

  The apostle Paul said, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

  Oh, Jesus, I’ve been so involved in all the tasks, all the chores, all the duties, I’ve forgotten You. I’ve been looking at the other branches forgetting You are the vine. I am a woman of unclean lips in a nation of unclean lips. I’ve taken in Your Word Sunday after Sunday, have led studies and prayed out loud, and yet my heart has grown fat and dull, sluggish and tired. I’ve forgotten how to abide in You, and it isn’t working anymore. It just isn’t working.

  I would never be restored without that confession of which the verse spoke. I’d given it enough time. But how could I tell him? Oh, Jesus. How can I tell him?

  After walking for thirty minutes or so, I turned down the driveway that led into the church. The narthex doors yawned wide, breathing in fresh air to sweeten the sanctuary.

  The Saturday morning buzz of deacons and devoted ones filtered into the sanctuary. Someone was vacuuming the Sunday school rooms in the basement. Elder Barnhouse sat in the pews straightening the hymnbooks and pew Bibles with a ruler, while Bercie, in a pink tennis skirt scattered with green frogs, dusted the communion table and the pulpit.

  “Do you know where Pastor’s water glass is?” she called to her husband.

  “It’s not there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Must already be down in the kitchen. I’ll go down and make sure there’s a clean one ready for the morning.”

  She looked up at me standing in the doorway “Well, hey, Mrs. Fraser!”

  I have told the woman at least a hundred times to call me Poppy. Clearly a lost cause.

  “Hi, Miss Bercie! How’re things coming?”

  “Oh, fine. It’s gonna be a nice service tomorrow. Pastor’s talking about grace.”

  “My personal favorite,” said Mr. Barnhouse. “Without it, the rest means nothing. Hear you had a good trip. We were praying.”

  “Thanks. It was nice.”

  “And your folks were well?” asked Bercie.

  “They were fine.”

  It amazed me how some of the parishioners remembered every little detail. If I prayed like they did … well, maybe I wouldn’t be such a mess!

  “Is Duncan here?”

  “Back in the office.”

  “Okay, I’ll go find him. You all take care!” I said with a wave.

  And they waved back and told me they’d see me bright and early in the morning.

  Down the hall toward the offices, my sneakers squeaked on the white speckled squares of taupe linoleum. A regular, metallic thump echoed from the secretary’s desk. I poked my head inside to find Miss Poole officiously stapling the new announcement sheet she decided to spearhead, “To keep the bulletin from being such a bulky mess, Penny, dear.”

  When I read the last typo regarding the Low Self-Esteem Support Group that meets over at India’s church, I knew it had been the straw that had broken the maven’s back, so to speak. The Low Self-Esteem Support Group meets at St. Edmund’s Episcopal this Tuesday at 6:30 P.M. Please use the back door. Not the front door as it should have read. But I had to give her credit for sailing the winds of diplomacy this time. Maybe Ira suggested it. So now, all I had to do was the drawing on the front each week. Duncan’s been talking a lot about gift-based ministries these days. And honestly, I was suspicious about it until someone gave me a job I loved.

  Which reminded me. I’d better get home and do that drawing. Duncan would have to give out more details about the sermon than just “grace.” I mean, it surely reigned as the most beautiful characteristic of God’s plan for His people, but some more information would be helpful.

  “Hi, Miss Poole.”

  Magda Poole looked up, her long earrings with the silver Indian coins on the bottom swaying front to back. “Hey, Penny. Have a nice trip?”

  “Yeah. It was fine. Sad in a lot of ways, but …” I shrugged. “How’s the announcement sheet coming?”

  “Wonderfully. It’s going to be much better now.”

  I took no offense. The woman spoke the truth.

  Duncan came in with Angus at that moment.

  “So can you give me more info on your sermon?” I asked my husband. “What aspect of grace are you talking about?”

  “Grace greater than all our sins,” he said. “Like the old song.”

  Miss Mildred’s message to me, too. Hmm. Okay, Lord.

  Five minutes later I settled myself in my studio, ink bottle open, and a freshly cleaned silver-nibbed pen in my hand.

  Grace.

  How does one draw a picture of grace?

  I set pen to paper, and the ink flowed in a turgid, glistening line. My wrist moved slowly as I outlined a rude cross and upon its surface inscribed many words. Painful words so familiar to humanity itself.

  Selfishness.

  Pride.

  Thoughtlessness.

  Hatred.

  Bitterness.

  Anger.

  Materialism.

  Jealousy.

  Adultery.

  And at the bottom of the page sat one word, heavily inked on the outline of an eraser. It said GRACE.

  Grace that pardons and cleanses within.

  Glory to His Name.

  “You just have to take it, Penelope. God has already forgiven you. Jesus has already died for whatever you did.” Miss Mildred’s words filled my brain. “Trust and Obey.”

  In thin, light pencil, I drew the s
uffering Christ, muscles straining, head bowed beneath the heavy, thorny crown.

  Oh, Jesus, I prayed. Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I’m asking You one last time to forgive me.

  I climbed in bed that night. Duncan slept soundly beside me, having turned in early. And for the first time in many years, I was actually looking forward to Sunday.

  He took it all to the cross with Him, and He said, “It is finished.”

  I hummed “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” on the way to Bill D’s after Sunday service. The choir had sounded as horrible as ever. Duncan’s sermon had basically been boring, but I found myself reading forward from his text in Ephesians and enjoying it immensely. After all, if I couldn’t keep my mind on my husband, St. Paul wasn’t a bad alternative.

  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

  Rich in mercy. Rich in mercy. My God is rich in mercy. Indeed that mercy, that grace didn’t diminish my sin, it merely rose larger, richer, and more beautiful so that it might cover it completely. The same grace that covered my sins saved me. If I couldn’t trust myself, I could certainly trust my God, my God so rich in mercy, so filled with love that He gave His precious Son for me.

  After the service I made rounds with the church members, gladly, for the first time since arriving at Highland, and I prayed that God would extend a portion of His mercy into my hands, so that I might help distribute His love.

  Once the church parking lot had emptied and we’d piled in the car, Duncan announced we’d have brunch out. Fine by me. Bill D’s makes biscuits fluffier than Gabriel’s wings. Once in town, Angus and I hopped out of the Subaru, and Duncan drove off to park somewhere along the square. Taking his little hand in mine, I walked inside the cool of the restaurant and said hello to Bill. He found us a good seat near the air conditioner.

  Duncan laughed when he came in and saw I’d already loaded up my plate with biscuits and gravy. “Looks good. Maybe I’ll live a little this morning and get the same.”

  “It can’t hurt you, Mr. No Flab.”

  By the time Duncan returned with an identical plate to mine, India Clemmings had joined us. “I just finished up, but I thought I’d bring my tea over and visit.”

  I introduced her to Duncan as “The Ladybug Girl.”

  “So that’s your car out there by Java Jane’s?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So,” I said. “What’s been happening over at the Episcopals since the Crazy Days thing?”

  India curled her lip. “Nothing! Bunch of stick-in-the-muds. They’re blaming it on everybody else. Especially you guys with those Boston cream pies and all.”

  A scapegoat.

  An Old Testament institution made into a Christian tradition. According to The Proper Christian Ladies’ Handbook, a scapegoat could be found most anywhere. But the quicker the better. Of course, if one took the blame and acted humble, that was even better!

  “Miss Poole really stirred something up that time,” I said.

  “I know. I think the churches have finally done it for good.”

  “There’s got to be some way we can make amends.” I swirled an extra biscuit around in some gravy.

  India started picking apart a paper napkin. “I don’t know how. How can we get along with Mount Oak when we can’t even get along with each other?”

  Duncan planted his fork in a small wedge of potato. “You know, this is the hardest part about being a Christian in my estimation.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s knowing deep down that it should be better, that it could be better if we all learned to control ourselves. It’s knowing that we’ve got the greatest power source available to help us, and all we do is get in our own way.”

  I could say, “Amen to that,” and I did.

  “All one has to do is read the epistles. Paul begs for unity. So there was a problem with this from the very start.”

  “So what’s the answer?” India asked.

  “Humility. He didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped. But He humbled Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant.”

  I thought about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, like Miss Mildred said. Dusty, dirty feet, washed by the spotless Lamb of God.

  Fifteen minutes late for the Monday prayer meeting, Chris rapped on Mildred’s kitchen screen door.

  “Come in!” everybody yelled.

  I stood to my feet and pulled out the chair next to me. The flesh on Chris’s face emitted a glowing blush, and her eyes radiated excitement. “I’ve got the best news!” she said in contained jubilance, circling around the table on the rattiest pair of flip-flops I had seen in years. Must have dug them out of some storage box in the attic.

  Miss Mildred asked what it was and got up to pour Chris a long glass of iced tea to go with the barge-sized platter of fried chicken sitting in the middle of the table. Sitting next to a quiet yet pleasant Saundra Phelps, I had already done the disappearing act on three thighs.

  “Jason Harkens lost his fraternity sponsor! There’s no way he’ll be able to return to Hopkins to finish up this year!”

  I dipped my head, shook it, and said, “What?”

  Mildred patted Chris’s hand. “Sit down, honey. The heat must be getting to you.”

  “No! It’s really great news!” Nevertheless, she did sit down, and grabbed a drumstick off the platter.

  Joanna Jones-Fletcher said, “Well, first tell me who this Jason Harkens is.”

  In between bites of chicken, Chris told us the whole story. “And so this is the idea I got when I talked to him on the phone tonight. What if we got a scholarship fund together for a worthy Zeta Chi member? What if we got the town to help with a bang-out fundraiser to establish the Joshua R. Knight Scholarship fund?”

  India nodded. “It’s a good cause. Education and all.”

  “Just to a member of Zeta Chi?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes. That would be the point,” Chris said. “It would make the fraternity never forget what happened, but it would be redemptive.”

  I looked at the others. “I like it. What do you think, Miss Mildred?”

  “I’m all for it. I’ll sing at the fundraiser. For free.”

  I stood to my feet and got the small pad Miss Mildred had sitting by the phone on the counter. Pen, too. “Okay, music’s taken care of.”

  I sat back down and started to write. “Oh, Miss Mildred! Green ink, too?”

  Joanna lit up. “I loved the GLOs in college. I’m all for this idea. And maybe it should be a lacrosse player. Your son played lacrosse, right?”

  Chris nodded. “A Zeta Chi member of the lacrosse team.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, writing it down on the pad. “I’ll get my dad to do the legal work for free.”

  “You can count on me for the public relations and the advertising,” said Joanna.

  Sunny blushed some more. “I don’t really know what I could do.”

  My sorority instincts kicked back in with a vengeance. “You’ll do the name tags and table arrangements, Sunny.”

  “Okay. I think I can handle that.”

  “Of course you can!” Charmaine piped up for the first time. “What about me? If Miss Mildred is going to do the music, well, I’m fresh out of talent then.”

  Chris said, “We’ll count on you to emcee. And maybe I could be a guest on the Port of Peace Hour. We can get donations from across the country that way.”

  “I’ll have to convince Harlan,” Charmaine said. “But I’ve got a lot of leverage on that show that I never use. I say the time has come.”

  Saundra Phelps just smiled and ate saltines. So much for no nausea, poor thing. She didn’t pray out loud later on, but her heartfelt amens, her soft �
�Yes, Father Gods” gilded the feathers on our wings of prayer.

  I told Duncan all about it that night as we climbed into bed.

  “Wow,” he said. “Think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew with this one, Popp?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you wouldn’t want it any other way, is that right?”

  “You got it, Right Reverend Fraser.”

  He took my hand and caressed my face.

  Monday night. All right.

  Twenty-nine

  India had the right idea with the ladybug angle. And I told her so as we breakfasted together early one morning before she had to be at church for work. We sat in Java Jane’s, engulfed by the velvet chairs. Eating strawberry cream cheese scones, we drank coffee and got to know each other some more. My perception that India could probably be categorized as the classic loner seemed to be accurate. The oldest of two girls, musically inclined since the age of five, she’d never really cared much about socializing with friends. Didn’t need it. Not when a girl had Bach and Beethoven for her best friends.

  “I think ladybugs are kind of a universal symbol for happiness,” India said. “They make me feel so tender inside.”

  “It’s that rhyme.” I bit off a comer of scone.

  “Ladybug, ladybug”?

  “Yeah. Think about it. Every time one lands on your arm, don’t you feel sorry for it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Exactly. I mean, the poor dear has lost all of her children. And in a fire.”

  India shook her head. “Oh, no, no, no. I always assumed she’d made it home in time!”

  “Not me. Worst case scenario every time.”

  “Really? You don’t think she made it home?”

  I laughed. “It’s just a nursery rhyme, India.”

  “Well, I know, but still.”

  “I think most people take your view of it. They’re not lost causes like me.”

  India wrinkled her nose pleasantly, but I couldn’t help but notice she offered no argument about the “lost causes” statement.

  I pulled a list out of my purse. “Okay, so the pastor of your church is all for helping us with this?”

  “Yes. He said the gardens in back would be in full summer bloom by then, and he’ll make sure the courtyard bricks are blasted clean with the hose.”