A Place Called Hope: A Novel

by Philip Gulley

  “He’s in trouble, just like us,” Ruby said. “The superintendent has ordered meetings not to hire him.”

  “I like him already. What did he do to make the superintendent mad?”

  “He was my cousin Miriam’s pastor, and according to her he married two women.”

  “He’s a bigamist?” Wilson asked.

  “No, I mean he conducted the wedding for two women. But he didn’t mean to. It was an accident. At least that’s what Miriam said.”

  Wilson chuckled. “That’s quite an accident.”

  “So no one will hire him. Care for another piece of pie?”

  “Thank you, yes.” Wilson Roberts had developed a noticeable paunch since starting their search for a pastor for Hope Friends Meeting.

  Hope Friends had opened its doors in 1979, begun by twenty ambitious Quakers. They had met in the basement of a bank, then in a school gymnasium. Within a few years their numbers had swelled to over a hundred and fifty and Ruby Hopper had donated a piece of ground to the meeting, a ten-acre grove of beech and hickory trees. They had built a meetinghouse there, which proved to be their downfall. If they had kept things simple they would have become the largest Quaker meeting in the state. Instead, they fell victim to hubris, believing their growth was a result of their charm. They were now down to twelve Quakers. Twelve discouraged Quakers, all of whom were on the search committee when it began three years before. They had dropped off one by one, disheartened by the lack of progress. Wilson Roberts had stayed on for the pie and because of his secret infatuation with Ruby Hopper, and Ruby was still at it because she never quit anything.

  So far they had interviewed eight pastors, who suddenly found opportunities elsewhere when they discovered the size of the meeting. Their last interview had been the month before, with a candidate who had spilled what appeared to be motor oil on his shirt and not bothered to clean it. Ruby could have forgiven that oversight, but he also had dirt under his fingernails, oily hair, and said the word ain’t six times.

  “I don’t want to be a snob,” Ruby Hopper told Wilson, “but is it too much to expect a pastoral candidate to take a bath? Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.”

  A lesser woman would have given up, retired to Florida, and joined the Episcopalians, but Ruby held fast. She mowed the meetinghouse yard, kept the meetinghouse clean, and just the month before, at the age of seventy-five, had climbed up a ladder and cleaned the gutters. Wilson had held the ladder.

  Wilson Roberts and Ruby Hopper had known each other since high school, when she was a looker. He had never married, hoping he and Ruby might end up together, though he failed to mention that possibility to her and she had married someone else, an accountant who was good with numbers but not so skilled at love. Or long-term commitments. While vacationing in North Carolina, he had waded into the ocean, began swimming east toward England, and was never seen again. For all she knew he had made it to England. Ruby had waited five years, then had him declared dead so she could sell his car.

  It had happened decades before, but Wilson Roberts was not one to act in haste, and had been waiting for the right moment. He had been all set to ask her to dinner the day she cleaned the meetinghouse gutters, but the mood wasn’t conducive to romance, so he put it off. He was hoping their search for a pastor would bring them together, that she might fall in love with him over a résumé and kiss him smack on the lips, but she’d managed to restrain herself.

  Their monthly meeting of the pastoral search committee was winding down. Wilson was finishing his second piece of gooseberry pie and Ruby was writing out their next steps.

  “I will call Sam today, and hopefully set up a time we can meet with him. Is there any day that isn’t good for you?”

  “I can do it any day,” Wilson answered. “Delicious pie. It’s not just anyone who can make a gooseberry pie.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Feel free to take the rest of it home with you.”

  She covered the pie with aluminum foil and ushered him to the door. He had begun lingering after their meetings, dropping hints about dinner. She was desperate to get another member on the committee so as not to be trapped alone with Wilson every time they met. She had even suggested they conduct their meetings over the telephone, but he had opposed the idea.

  “Communication is more than words,” he’d said. “I always told my salesmen that. Look a man in the eye when you’re selling him a bathtub. You got to be able to read him. If I said that once, I said it a million times.”

  She could read Wilson Roberts’s facial expressions, thank you very much, and didn’t like what she was seeing. Having tried her hand at marriage, she wasn’t eager to repeat it. Not even with Wilson Roberts, who had made a fortune selling plumbing fixtures, owned half a trailer park in Florida, and drove a top-of-the-line Cadillac, even though he was a Quaker and should have known better.

  No sirree, Bob, no marriage for her. Not to a man who talked incessantly about bathtubs and sinks and shower stalls, whose idea of sophistication was a pink toilet. She was perfectly content, or at least would be once they hired a new pastor to help her kick this meeting in the pants and get it moving forward.

  21

  Sam was taking a nap when the telephone woke him up. He’d been up late the night before, unable to sleep after learning Harmony Friends Meeting had hired a new pastor. In the back of his mind, he’d nurtured the hope they might call him to say a mistake had been made, that they had acted in haste and wanted him to return to his job. But the hiring of Paul Fletcher had scuttled that possibility. The finality of his situation hit hard. His days of pastoring in his hometown were over. Maybe his chances of pastoring anywhere were over. He’d contacted a dozen churches that were looking to hire a minister and not one of them had bit.

  He reached the kitchen phone on the fifth ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello. Is this the Gardner residence?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “My name is Ruby Hopper and I’m calling—”

  “Not interested. Take my name and number off your calling list, please.”

  “Wait, don’t hang up. This isn’t a sales call.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they always say. I don’t want to hear a sales pitch. I don’t want to take a survey. I don’t want to talk about insurance, credit cards, or mortgages. My roof is fine. I don’t need new gutters. And my basement is dry.”

  “I didn’t call about any of those things. I’m the clerk of the Hope Friends Meeting pastoral search committee, and am calling to see if you might be interested in talking with us about an opening we have.”

  An opening!

  “Excuse me, what church are you from?” Sam asked.

  “Hope Friends Meeting.”

  “Hope Friends Meeting,” Sam repeated. “Oh, yes, you’re up in the city, right?”

  “Not right in the city,” Ruby explained. “We’re south of the airport, just outside the city. In the suburbs, actually.”

  “Yeah, I remember now. You’re the ones with the meetinghouse in the beech trees. I went to an American Friends Service Committee meeting there about ten years ago.”

  “Yes, that’s us.”

  “I thought you closed your doors,” Sam said. “I haven’t heard anything about you for a while.”

  “The superintendent is under the impression we don’t matter, but I assure you we are very much alive.”

  Sam was suddenly intrigued. Any meeting on the wrong side of the superintendent had to be doing something right.

  “We understand you’ve been let go by Harmony Meeting,” Ruby said. “Is that right?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Miriam Hodge is my first cousin. She explained your situation to me. We were hoping we could meet with you this week to discuss an opportunity for ministry. Perhaps tomorrow evening.”

  “I’ve been in touch with several churches,” Sam said, which wasn’t technically a lie, since he had, in fact, been in touch with severa
l churches, though none had been in touch back. “Could I check my calendar and call you back?”

  “You certainly may.” She gave Sam her phone number, thanked him for his time, said good-bye, and hung up.

  Sam hurried down the stairs, two steps at a time, to the junk drawer in the kitchen, where he found the book of statistics for Quaker meetings. Hope Friends Meeting… weekly attendance: twelve… annual pastoral salary, not much, but better than nothing. It beat sweeping hair at the Kut-N-Kurl.

  But, geez, only twelve people, Sam thought. How in the world can they afford a pastor?

  He waited an hour before calling Ruby back. No sense in letting her think he was desperate.

  “Hello, Ruby Hopper. Sam Gardner here. I’ve managed to free up tomorrow evening, so I’ll be happy to come your way. Would you like my wife to come, too?”

  “That is entirely up to you. We would enjoy meeting her, but we are very aware that we’re interviewing you, not her.”

  Sam was impressed. He had heard of churches who hired pastors without trotting their spouses through a dog-and-pony show, but had never personally encountered one.

  “I will leave the decision to her,” Sam said, though he had no intention of doing so. Barbara was going whether she wanted to or not. He would sooner take on a terrorist cell by himself than face a pastoral search committee without backup.

  “In any event, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening, at seven o’clock, at our meetinghouse.”

  “See you then,” Sam promised, happier, as his grandpa used to say, than a possum in a corncrib with the dog tied up.

  22

  He walked to the library to deliver the news to Barbara in person. She was in the fiction section, in the T’s, organizing the Mark Twain books, and was less than enthusiastic when he told her the news.

  “You mean I’ll have to quit my job? I just got it,” she said. “And Addison is in his senior year of high school. We can’t ask him to move right now.”

  “I thought we’d discussed this,” Sam said. “He was going to stay here with my parents.”

  “Then he graduates and joins the army and we don’t see him for the next four years, plus we miss most of his last year of school. I’m not going to do that, Sam.”

  “Maybe I could move up there and start the job and you could move after Addison leaves. I could always come home on Sundays and Mondays.”

  “You would want to be away from us?”

  “I don’t want to, no. But I’ve been without a job for over a month now, and meetings aren’t exactly lining up to hire me,” Sam said. “I can’t afford to be picky.”

  Barbara had dispensed with tidiness and in frustration was cramming Mark Twain books on the shelf every which way.

  “What do you know about this meeting?” she said. “Hope Friends? I’ve never even heard of it. What do they pay? How many people attend? Can we even afford to move?”

  “I don’t know what they pay. I don’t know their theology. I haven’t even met them yet. I know the superintendent doesn’t like them. That’s probably a good sign. Come with me tomorrow night and we’ll find out these things together.”

  He decided not to tell her that Hope Friends had only twelve members. Better she find that out gradually, preferably from someone else.

  “Sam, I don’t want to move. Our friends are here. Our family is here. Your parents aren’t getting younger. They’re going to need us more and more. And you want to move somewhere we don’t know a soul.”

  “You didn’t honestly think we could stay, did you?” Sam snapped. “Look around, Barbara. No one wants me. You think I want to be a paperboy again? Or sweep hair? There’s nothing here for me. I can’t even face people. I feel like a failure. As for our friends, most of them are in the church, and I don’t see them standing up for me.”

  “Maybe you should have stayed on and fought it out,” Barbara said, her voice rising. “Maybe if you hadn’t given up so quickly, maybe our friends would have spoken up. They probably thought you wanted to leave.”

  The library had grown quiet. The patrons were listening, while pretending to read. This was better than any book, the former Quaker minister and his wife arguing in public. Two pacifists going at it like cats in heat.

  “I can’t talk about this right now,” Barbara said. “I have to get back to work. Let’s discuss it tonight.”

  “Fine,” Sam barked, and stalked off.

  After Sam left, Barbara went to the restroom to cry. She wasn’t sure about her tears, whether they were sad or angry, and thought maybe a little of both. Sad and angry. Sad for their family and the strain they were under, angry at Sam for his odd mix of passivity and bullheadedness.

  She washed the red from her face, then returned to the checkout desk.

  “Are you okay?” her boss, Janet, asked.

  “Sam wants us to pack up everything, and leave our son and family and friends behind so he can pastor a church in the city, and we’re almost broke, but other than that, everything’s fine.”

  Janet smiled sympathetically.

  “He hasn’t had any luck finding work, has he?” Janet asked.

  “Not yet. But I’ve told him it will take time and to be patient.”

  “I’m not taking sides, but look at it from his point of view. He’s been providing for you and the boys all these years, and now he’s unable to. He’s probably worried and depressed.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Barbara conceded. “But if he were just patient, I’m sure something would come along here.”

  “I’m not so sure. There aren’t that many jobs in these small towns, unless he wants to drive over to Cartersburg and work at Wal-Mart.”

  Barbara knew Janet was right, but she hated the thought of moving. Couldn’t bear leaving behind the stretch of dining room wall where the boys’ heights had been marked in pencil. Someone else would buy their house, move in, and paint over their lives. It made her almost gag to think about it.

  23

  It took five blocks for Sam to cool down. He rounded the corner to home and saw a police car parked in his driveway, its red light revolving. Bernie Rogers, the town’s policeman since Sam’s childhood, had retired. The town’s new police officer, whom Sam hadn’t met, was standing at Sam’s front door. He was young and bald, wearing a bulletproof vest, and appeared itching to arrest someone. Sam immediately thought of his sons. Lord, let them be safe, he prayed.

  “Are you Sam Gardner?” the officer asked as Sam approached.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “What’s wrong? Are my sons okay?”

  The officer pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket, flipped it open, then said, “A Mr. Dale Hinshaw has filed a complaint against you. He says you have church property you’ve not returned. A key. Is that right?”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Is this a joke?”

  “Theft is never a joke, sir. Do you have the key?”

  “Somewhere, I suppose. I can’t find it. I haven’t used it in years. We don’t even lock the church door.”

  “Sir, I’ll need you to give it to me.”

  “I just told you I don’t know where it is.”

  “Are you refusing to return the key to its rightful owners?”

  “No, I’m not refusing. Didn’t you hear me? I don’t know where it is. I’ve lost it. It’s gone. If I had it, I would be happy to return it.”

  The top of the officer’s head was turning red, the veins in his neck throbbing. Sam wondered why so many police officers shaved their heads.

  “Don’t you worry about sunburn with a head like that?” he asked the officer. “I’d wear a hat if I were you, or grow some hair. One or the other.”

  “Sir, I’m going to take you in. Please step over to my car.”

  “Take me in?” Sam screeched. “Take me in where? We don’t even have a jail. What are you going to do? Lock me in the trunk of your car? Now you listen here, young man: I’ve lived in this town my entire life. I’m old enough to be your father. I’m not
going anywhere but inside my house. Now step aside.”

  He was in the county jail in Cartersburg until the next morning. Barbara had phoned Owen Stout, who’d phoned the sheriff, who had called the state office of homeland security, who reduced the charges from terrorism to resisting arrest. Barbara found the meetinghouse key on top of the clothes dryer, where she had put it the year before after removing it from Sam’s pants pocket. She had been after him forever to empty his pockets before tossing his dirty clothes in the hamper, but he never did, so she let him stew in jail overnight to contemplate his bad habits.

  Barbara picked him up and took him to breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, though they couldn’t afford it.

  They sat drinking coffee, waiting for their food.

  “So, jailbird, what time tonight is our interview at Hope Friends?” she asked.

  “You’re going?”

  “Well, yes, I’m going. If you want us to pack up and move halfway across the state, you better believe I’m going.”

  “What about Addison’s schooling?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve never in all my life known Quakers to make a quick decision. I figure it will take them three months to decide whether or not to hire you, in which case Addison will only have two months left at school. I’ll stay behind with him, get things packed up, sell the house, then come be with you after he graduates.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t like the idea of us being separated. If they can’t wait until Addison is done with school, then I’ll know it’s not where I’m supposed to be. Besides, if he’s going off to the army, I don’t want to be gone from him, or you,” Sam said. “I had a lot of time to think while I was in jail, and from now on my family comes first.”

  Barbara leaned across the table and kissed him.

  “It feels great to be a free man again,” Sam said, stretching his arms and inhaling deeply. “Though I must say, prison turned out to be a good thing for me. I learned a lot about myself.”

  “Then it was fifteen hours well spent,” Barbara said.