Beyond the Pale

by Jennifer Millikin

  Finn swings his head from one side to the other. “We both know you don’t want to drink that. What do you want?”

  I look at him and try not to blush. “Almond milk caramel latte.”

  Finn bends down so his face is only inches from mine. “I don’t know if you’re trying to save money or calories, but you deserve to have whatever you want.”

  He places a kiss in the exact same spot as Brady did last night, and goes to the counter to order.

  The rest of our time together is not as intense. For the next half hour, I tell Finn about Laine and my job and Dallas. Three sets of doors lead into the coffee shop, and one of them is locked, and my storytelling is punctuated by our laughter when people try to open the locked door. We slip into Old Finn and Old Lennon, and it’s glorious.

  When it’s time for me to head over to the church, Finn pulls a laptop from a bag I hadn’t noticed beneath the table. He opens it, and I lean down to hug him, sneaking a peek at his screen. I don’t understand what I see; it looks like he raked his hand over the keyboard fifty-seven times.

  “See you soon,” I say, straightening.

  Finn winks and turns his attention to his screen.

  I leave, tossing my empty paper coffee cup in the recycling as I pass, and walk out to Laine’s car. I can feel Finn’s gaze burning into my back, and I’m sure he’s wondering why I’m driving an expensive car, but I can’t afford more than black coffee.

  The church is huge, bordering on megachurch. It takes up so much real estate that when the people who go there ask for directions, they use the word ‘campus’. The preschool rooms are on the west side of campus. Pastor Blake’s office is in the east part of campus. Of course, Pastor Blake, also known as my stepfather, is no longer here. I don’t know who took over for him. After revered pastor Theodore Blake died the day after we graduated high school, I stopped going to church. My mandatory presence was no longer required, not that any of the churchgoers would’ve wanted to see my face anyhow.

  Thanks to my stepfather’s former role here, I have a good idea where the current pastor’s office is. Which means, I have a good idea of where to find his assistant, Wilma.

  The buildings are all tanned stucco monstrosities, and the office building is no different. I pull open the metal door with the handle padded to keep the intense summer sun from burning people’s hands. My stepdad’s office was four doors down on the right, and just like I thought, there is a placard on the wall declaring this to be Pastor Thomas’ office. I step inside and walk up to the desk where a large woman with white curly hair and a floral pattern dress sits.

  “Wilma?”

  The woman's eyes lift, her fingers poised on the keyboard. “Yes, dear. I’m Wilma. And you are?”

  “Lennon Davies.”

  I see it. It’s only there for a tiny second, but I see it. Fear. Exactly what I was expecting.

  Wilma quickly paints over the feeling with an apologetic smile. “Right, yes. I should’ve recognized you.” She searches my face, then says, “You resemble your mother.”

  A laugh builds, but I manage to keep it inside. Whoever my father is, I take after him. Aside from the dark hair, I look nothing like my mother. Wilma just lied in God’s house.

  “Anywho…” Wilma stands and comes around the desk. Her dress falls all the way to the floor, and on her feet are thickly cushioned sandals. Wrinkles feather almost every inch of her exposed skin. She looks like the quintessential old woman.

  Her hands reach for mine, and my breath catches. She squeezes me tightly and shakes her head as if there is something she just doesn’t understand. “Your mother had the most generous heart. She was always the first to offer her help, no matter the task. She organized the annual bake sale, helped plan and run vacation Bible school, and took control of the meal train for those who were ill or unable to cook for themselves.” Wilma’s eyes fill with tears. “We just couldn’t believe it when... when…” Her breath catches.

  “It’s okay,” I say soothingly, extricating one of my hands and patting her forearm.

  Wilma lets me go and walks back to her desk for a tissue. She dabs at her eyes and sniffs. “You must be devastated. A heart attack at such a young age.” She shakes her head at what she believes is a travesty.

  “Yes,” I reply. Now both of us have lied in God’s house.

  “I know it’s not pleasant, but as her only family, you’re going to have to make some decisions.”

  I blink at Wilma. She’s leaning on her desk, the used tissue balled up in the hand she’s using to support her weight.

  “What kind of decisions?” I knew I needed to come back here, but I never actually stopped to think about everything I’d need to do once I got here.

  “The funeral arrangements. Usually the family makes those plans.”

  “Oh. Right.” What was I thinking? Of course I’d have to plan the funeral. And it can’t be the kind of funeral my mother deserves. If my mother was as well-loved as Wilma believes she was, the people in this place expect something worthy of that. If I grab her urn and run, I’m going to give this town even more to whisper about.

  And then it hits me: I don’t even know if she’s being buried or cremated.

  “Wilma, I don’t have any idea where to begin.”

  Wilma’s hand swipes at the air in front of her. “Don’t worry, Lennon. First you’ll meet with Pastor Thomas, and we’ll go from there.”

  “Great.” I nod, glancing at the open door a few feet past Wilma’s desk. “Is he in?”

  “He was on his way down to the sanctuary. He should be back any minute though. He was going to get my great-granddaughter and walk her back.” Her face lights up with realization. “Actually, you might remember her. She was in your Sunday School class. Ellie Chapman?”

  I taught Sunday School my senior year of high school, and it was the only bright spot in an otherwise dreadful Sunday morning.

  A smile turns up my lips. “I remember Ellie. She was adorable. She carried around a stuffed tiger and liked me to count the number of goldfish she got in her little paper cup.”

  Wilma beams. “That’s our Ellie. You’ll get to see her in a minute. She came to watch choir practice. Music makes her happy.”

  Wilma’s voice catches on the word happy and her eyes fall to the top of her desk. She clears her throat and reaches down to straighten a stack of papers that already look pretty damn straight to me.

  The brief friendly air between us has evaporated. “I’ll just take a seat then,” I tell her, sinking into one of the two chairs in front of Wilma's desk.

  Wilma sits back down in her seat, and I pull out my phone. My email is mostly junk, but I like to go through it every day and delete all the crap. Makes me feel accomplished.

  The feeling of being watched comes over me almost immediately. Finally, after I’ve deleted email number twenty-seven, I look up. Wilma is slow to avert her gaze, but to her credit, at least she tries.

  “Did you know my stepfather, Wilma?” I don’t need to be a mind reader to know what it was she was thinking about.

  Wilma flinches. “Yes. I’ve been a member of the church for twenty-seven years and was on the welcoming committee when Pastor Blake took over for Pastor Johnson. I became an assistant when Pastor Thomas arrived.”

  I nod once, slowly. “I see.”

  “I don’t know the details of things, Lennon. Just the gossip.” She sniffs. “Not very Christian of the gossipers, if you ask me.”

  My chin tips to the side. “And yet…”

  Wilma chuckles softly. “Nobody is perfect.”

  My expression hardens. In my unfortunate experience, the people who portray perfection are the furthest from it.

  A noise sounds in the hallway and Wilma looks past me, her thin lips lifting into a smile.

  Behind me, I hear the deep baritone of a man’s voice, followed closely by girlish laughter. I stand up just as a man walks through the door with a young girl by his side. There are some remnants of the little
girl I knew, but mostly she looks like a whole new person. Quickly I try to calculate how old she is, but I can’t remember if she was four or five when I had her. The hat she’s wearing only adds to the challenge of correctly guessing her age.

  The man, who is probably about five years older than me, looks at me, his face in an easy, welcoming smile, and extends a hand. “I’m Pastor Thomas.”

  I blink twice, thrown off by his youth. “Lennon Davies,” I respond, placing my hand in his. It’s warm and soft, and his smile is so pretty it should be considered a sin. Good boy vibes seep from every pore of his body. He and Brady should be best friends and go on some kind of rescue mission.

  His smile falters the moment I say my name. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He nods as he speaks, his eyes somber. “I know I speak for everyone when I say we’ve all suffered a tremendous loss. Not as tremendous as yours, of course,” he adds quickly.

  I nod and tell him thank you. It’s a perfunctory response if there ever was one.

  I look to Ellie and smile. She attempts a smile, but it doesn’t quite make it. She has dark brown hair nearly the exact shade as mine, and eyes that are even darker.

  “I don’t expect you to remember me, Ellie, but—”

  “Elliot,” she says in a strong, confident voice, glancing at her grandmother, then back to me. Her voice takes me by surprise.

  I feel some weird sense of pride that she’s not afraid to correct a stranger. Extending a hand, I say, “Elliot, it’s—”

  “It’s Ellie, really. Not Elliot,” Wilma interrupts, a shred of annoyance in her voice.

  Elliot’s mouth sets into a grim line, and I picture her retort bouncing around inside her mouth.

  “Well, my name is Lennon, and it’s not Lenny or anything like that. Just Lennon.”

  Elliot’s frown slips and her lips form a semblance of a smile. She sets her hand in mine and shakes it with the strength of a full-grown human. “You were my Sunday school teacher when I was little.”

  “Yep.” I nod.

  “You counted my crackers for me.”

  I laugh. “I was just telling your grandma about that, and also—”

  “Ellie, let’s let Lennon do what she came here to do.” She places a hand on Elliot’s forearm and eyes her meaningfully.

  Elliot’s eyes widen. “Oh, right.” She looks at me like she wants to say more, but her discomfort is evident.

  I squeeze her shoulder lightly. “It was good to see you again, Elliot. You’ve grown into a lovely young woman.”

  I turn my attention back to Pastor Thomas, so I can accomplish what I came here for.

  Taking a deep breath, I say, “Arrangements need to be made for my mother. Can you help me get them started?”

  “Of course, yes.” He steps aside and motions back to his office. “If you’ll follow me through that open door, we can begin to plan her service.”

  Casting a quick glance and smile at Elliot, I follow the pastor’s footsteps into his office.

  He shuts the door behind me and settles into his seat. He’s quiet for a moment, his hands steepled beneath his chin. To avoid looking at him, I look at his framed degrees. When I look back at him, he’s still staring at me.

  I clear my throat, my mind grappling to come up with a sentence that won’t make whatever this is any more awkward, but the good boy pastor beats me to it.

  Eyes locked on mine, he says, “Word on the street is that you killed Pastor Blake.”

  6

  Now

  My whole body is stiff. Arms, legs, even my toes.

  “I’m not responsible for his death.” My voice is cool, but inside I’m hot, hot, hot.

  That terrible night teeters on the periphery in my mind, the memory threatening to dislodge itself from its place in the locked trunk in the back of my mind. The room I’m sitting in is bright, but bits of dark night float through my vision. The smell of pine furniture and manly cologne compete with the scent of his shampoo and I feel his breath, sour and unwelcome, and then later, the acidic bite of our fear.

  That night was bad enough, but to then be hauled into the police station for questioning? Eight years later, and though it’s no longer by law enforcement, I’m still being questioned.

  Pastor Thomas’ fingers remain steepled beneath his chin. His eyes on me, he says softly, “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

  My chin juts out, lifts high, and my eyes scrunch. “Is that right?”

  He nods but doesn’t speak. The silence stretches on, and I’m nearly ready to reach across the table and squeeze some words from his mouth.

  My hands fist and my fingers intertwine on the top of the desk. That should keep me from strangling the pastor. Finally, I’d be guilty of the crime they fear I committed.

  When he finally speaks, he says, “The real victims of his death are his children.”

  I frown, his statement throwing me. Whoever is supplying this guy with his information has been telling him lies.

  “Pastor Blake didn’t have children,” I inform him, my voice even.

  “Sure he did,” Pastor Thomas says, sitting up and dropping his hands to his desk. He points at me. “You, for one.” He points back at himself. “And me.”

  My teeth clench. “I was not his child. But your existence? That I can't explain.”

  He leans back, his hands settling in his lap. “I was raised by a single mom. She didn’t tell me about my father. Not until four years ago, after she died, did I find out the truth. I came here looking for him. The ladies of this church were very happy to share with me all the details of the untimely passing of their cherished pastor. The story of his death sounds like gossip, yet it has a ring of truth to it.”

  “It does not,” I grit out. “You shouldn’t take everything you see and hear at face value. Surely you know the Devil dances in the background, looking for the chance to create mayhem.” My tone is mocking. “I believe they covered the proclivities of the Devil in theology school, yes?”

  Pastor Thomas barks a laugh. “Once or twice, yes.”

  I lean forward. “Did you just happen to share the same career choice as your dad, or did you go to school to follow in dear old daddy’s footsteps?”

  “I was already a pastor. Joyful Noise happened to be in need of one.”

  I cock my head to the side. “How convenient is that?” My voice is saccharine, and obviously fake.

  Reaching out, I snatch a small notepad off his desk and a pen. The notepad has the words Jesus Is My Homeboy embossed onto the top. I hastily write down my phone number, then toss it in front of him and stand.

  “I came here to plan a funeral. The next time I hear from you, it’ll be with a list of what needs to happen so I can get my mother in the ground and get the hell out of this place. And to set the record straight, I didn’t kill your father. He was probably eaten up inside by the sheer fact that he was a deplorable excuse for a human.”

  Pastor Thomas stares at me, his lips parted, and once again, he has no words.

  I slip out of his office and walk toward Wilma’s desk. Her back is to me, and beside her, in a chair that has been pulled up to the computer, sits Elliot.

  They both look at me.

  “Wilma, it was nice meeting you. Elliot, it was nice seeing you again.” My gaze lands on Wilma. “Please let Pastor Thomas know I’ll expect his call by tomorrow morning.”

  She looks at me tentatively. Maybe she thinks I’m going to become unhinged at any moment. Given the conversation I’ve just had, it’s possible.

  “Will do, Ms. Davies,” she answers warily.

  “Lennon,” I remind her. Being called Ms. Davies makes me think of work. And my work, although sadly necessary, is nothing short of depressing.

  I wink at Elliot and back out of the small room, making my way down the too-familiar hallway.

  “This is better than I remember it,” Brady says, biting into a green chili chicken sandwich.

  “Um hmm,” Finn and I mumble, our mouths full of the sa
me.

  At a little hole in the wall at the northernmost point of Agua Mesa, lives the best sandwich that has ever been created. When Finn called this afternoon and asked where I wanted to eat, my answer was automatic.

  “Can’t get this in Chicago.” Brady wipes his mouth with a flimsy paper napkin. “It’s all deep-dish pizza and pickles on hot dogs.”

  “This exists in Texas. But for some reason, it’s better here.” I take another bite.

  “How about you?” Brady asks Finn. “Do they have green chili in Silicon Valley?”

  Finn shrugs. “I’m not sure. I didn’t make it out much. I worked constantly and ordered delivery from the same four places.”

  “But not anymore?” Brady asks, his tone light on purpose. He glances at me, then back to Finn. Yesterday afternoon, after Finn left my mom’s house and Brady and I were on our own for dinner, we imagined the type of job Finn had before he landed in the space between jobs. Brady suggested whatever he did it was probably borderline illegal, and I guessed he was working with the government to dismantle Russian hacking rings. The thing is, either of these guesses could easily be true.

  Finn shakes his head.

  “What happened?” My arm reaches, my fingers touching his forearm.

  Finn shrugs, his thumb running across the space between his chin and lower lip. “Two failed apps.”

  “I read somewhere that you can’t make it in Silicon Valley until you’ve had a least two failed start-ups. Or apps, in this case.” Brady pushes a few fries into his mouth and shrugs.

  A smile tugs at the corner of Finn’s mouth. “Something like that, yeah.”

  The fingers I have on Finn’s forearm dig in a little deeper. His gaze falls on me.

  “You’re lying,” I say in a low voice.

  He sighs, his expression exasperated.

  I look at Brady. “Maybe your guess is right after all.”

  He points his cup at me before capturing the straw and drinking. “Your guess might be right also.”

  “Would you two knock it off?” Finn says irritably. “I was fired, end of story.”