Almost Friends

by Philip Gulley

  As it turns out, the Methodists didn’t work out. Neither did the Presbyterians. They presented her with a numbing list of requirements designed to weed out the feeble and uncommitted. Krista studied their lists, mentally toting up the years before ordination, and concluded she’d be eligible for retirement before she’d preached her first sermon.

  The Quakers, however, fewer in number and desperate for new members, received her with open arms.

  “We’d be happy to have you attend our seminary,” the dean said, walking around his desk and closing the door, lest a prospective minister escape. “We have grants and loans and work-study programs. We can put you right to work. Several small meetings in the area need pastors. You can have your pick.”

  The Quakers’ desperation should have made her suspicious, but after years of hearing NO! to her dream, Krista’s jubilation was high, her defenses low, and she enrolled on the spot.

  “Classes start the first of September,” the dean told her. “Welcome to seminary.”

  The dean went on, describing the many details of graduate school. Krista took notes, growing dazed by the torrent of information flowing her way.

  He paused. “Any questions?”

  “Where will I live?” Krista asked. “Is there student housing?”

  “Not exactly. But a number of Quakers close to here rent out rooms to our students.” He pulled a paper from the top drawer of his desk and ran his finger down a list of names. “Hmm, now, let’s see. Frances Drake. No, she’s a bit of a crank…Ginette Wilson. Oh, she passed away. Can’t stay with her.” He dutifully crossed her name off the list. “Here we go. Ruth Marshal has room. I think you’ll get along well with her.” He reached over, picked up his phone, and dialed her number. “Yes, Ruth Marshal, this is Dean Mullen.”

  His destiny apparently determined at birth, the dean of the seminary was aptly named Dean.

  “We have a woman student who needs a room. I thought I’d send her over if you’re still interested.”

  Sitting across the room, Krista could hear Ruth Marshal’s voice over the phone. “Does she smoke?”

  “Do you smoke?” the dean asked Krista.

  “No.”

  “No, she doesn’t smoke,” the dean reported to Ruth Marshal.

  “She doesn’t drink, does she?” Ruth Marshal asked.

  “How about alcohol?” the dean asked.

  “Not so anyone would notice,” Krista said, smiling.

  “She appears quite sober to me,” the dean said over the phone.

  “Well, send her over then,” Ruth Marshal boomed.

  It was only two blocks away, so Krista walked, following the dean’s directions. It was a pleasant walk, down a street tunneled in by oaks and maples. Ruth Marshal lived in an old house, a bit worn around the edges, though the hedges were neatly clipped and the lawn freshly mowed. She was seated on the porch swing, awaiting Krista’s arrival. She showed her through the front door. The scent reminded Krista of her grandmother’s house—a hint of antique dust, English muffins from breakfast, and Murphy’s Oil soap.

  Ruth guided Krista up a broad walnut staircase that positively gleamed. “You’ll have the whole upstairs. A bedroom, a sitting room, and a bath. It’s all furnished. We’ll share the kitchen and dining room. We clean up after ourselves. And I won’t eat your food in the refrigerator if you don’t eat mine.”

  As they toured the three rooms, Ruth Marshal reeled off more rules, all of which sounded tolerable to Krista, though a little persnickety.

  “You’ll need to close the windows during rainstorms. I do washing on Mondays, so you’ll need to have your dirty clothes and bed linens in the basement next to the washer by eight in the morning. Gentleman visitors are confined to the downstairs living room and can stay no later than nine o’clock. And please don’t use Comet on the tub and sink. It scratches the finish.”

  Krista nodded, beginning to wonder what she’d gotten herself into.

  “Any questions?” Ruth Marshal asked.

  “I think you’ve covered it all, Mrs. Marshal.”

  “Call me Ruth. We Quakers don’t hold with formalities. Oh, and I almost forgot, we have quiet hours. Radio and TV off by nine o’clock. I like to end my day with peace and quiet.”

  “I’ll probably be studying,” Krista said. “Quiet sounds good to me.”

  “I think we’ll get along fine,” Ruth Marshal said, shaking Krista’s hand solemnly.

  “How much is the rent?” Krista asked.

  “Two hundred dollars a month, but that includes breakfast and dinner. You’re on your own for lunch.”

  “Oh my, that’s very affordable.”

  “I can charge more if you’d like,” Ruth Marshal said, not cracking even the hint of a smile.

  “No, two hundred is fine.”

  The arrangement was solemnized over a glass of iced tea on the front porch.

  Krista had a number of questions she wanted to ask Ruth, including whether she was widowed or divorced or hopelessly single like herself. But Krista remembered her lessons from long ago, learned on Mrs. Harvey’s front porch, and she steered their conversation toward less private matters—the weather and what Quakers believed and the general state of world affairs. Before Krista realized it, two hours had passed and the ice in her glass had melted to water.

  She excused herself to drive home, where she spent the following days sorting and packing and giving away. It was amazing how much she’d accumulated in fifteen years of home ownership. But a yard sale dispersed most of her belongings, and the rest she passed along to her niece. Freed of possessions, she felt light, as if she could take flight and glide among the clouds.

  She didn’t know much about the Quakers, though Ruth Marshal had spoken a bit about simplicity, of focusing one’s life on persons rather than things, and Krista was intrigued by the notion. Of course, now that she was unemployed, simplicity seemed an especially wise choice. Her house sold within three weeks—it was as if God was confirming her plans—and three days before classes began she was comfortably settled in the upstairs of Ruth Marshal’s home.

  That Sunday morning she went with Ruth to her first Quaker meeting for worship. They began with a hymn—Quakers, she discerned, were not accomplished singers—then settled into silence. A half hour passed with no one saying a word, leaving Krista to wonder what Quaker pastors did and whether they were even necessary. But finally a man, seated on what Ruth Marshal called the “facing bench,” stood and spoke on the topic of peace. In his opinion, there wasn’t enough of it, and Quakers weren’t doing all they could to remedy the situation.

  A few people, mostly older men, appeared displeased with his message, and one even stood and said that living in peace wasn’t always possible.

  “That’s George Bales,” Ruth Marshal whispered to Krista. “He was in the Second World War. He always speaks whenever the minister preaches on peace.”

  Listening to their exchange, Krista tried to imagine someone standing during Mass to challenge the Catholic priests she’d known, but couldn’t. Quakers were certainly a feisty bunch.

  Neither the pastor nor George Bales seemed angry, just sincere, and after a few careful questions they both fell silent. Ten minutes later worship concluded when the pastor rose, walked over to George Bales, and shook his hand.

  “I don’t get the point of it,” Krista said to Ruth Marshal on their walk home from meeting. “He’s the pastor, but people obviously don’t feel required to do what he says. What’s the point of even having a minister?”

  “That’s an odd question, coming from you.”

  “What do you mean?” Krista asked.

  “You’ve been told all your life by your pastors that you can’t be a priest, yet you felt free to disagree with them and pursue your calling.”

  “Well, yes, but that’s different,” Krista said. “They were wrong.”

  “And who is to judge that? Perhaps they were right. Since we don’t know, doesn’t it seem wiser to allow each other
the privilege of thinking for ourselves?”

  “I suppose so,” Krista admitted after a moment’s thought. “But then why have a pastor?”

  “We don’t hire pastors to tell us what to do. We invite them to be part of our community and help us think.” Ruth Marshal chuckled. “Oh, every now and then we’ll get a pastor who tries to boss us around, but we whip them into shape pretty quickly.” She leaned closer to Krista, as if confiding a secret. “We Friends don’t take kindly to orders and creeds.”

  Walking along, in the tree-cooled shade, taking care not to trip on a root-heaved piece of sidewalk, Krista had the feeling that whatever she was taught in seminary wouldn’t be nearly as helpful as what she would learn from Ruth Marshal.

  Eight

  A Stirred-up Town

  At precisely midnight, just as Sam Gardner had settled into a comfortable sleep after two hours of tossing and turning, the telephone jangled him awake. He grabbed for the handset, which was ordinarily resting on the night table beside his bed, but couldn’t find it. It rang a second time, waking his children.

  “Where’s the phone?” Sam asked his wife, nudging her awake.

  “If it isn’t on your table, I don’t know where it is.”

  It rang a third time.

  “The phone’s ringing,” their son Addison yelled from his bedroom.

  “I’m aware of that,” Sam shouted back.

  Sam was on his feet, stumbling around their room in the dark, when he stepped squarely on his belt, nearly piercing his foot with the prong of the buckle. He collapsed on the floor in a writhing heap, clutching his foot, muttering a variety of ill-chosen words under his breath.

  The phone rang a fourth time.

  “Watch your language,” Barbara said. “The children are awake.”

  “I stepped on my belt buckle,” Sam said. “I think my foot’s bleeding.”

  “How many times have I told you not to leave your belt on the floor?” she asked.

  The phone rang again.

  “Can we have this discussion later?” Sam asked. “Why don’t you help me find the phone?”

  “I remember where it is now. Addison left it on the kitchen table.”

  Sam raised himself slowly from the floor and hobbled down the stairs to the kitchen, where the phone was indeed lying on the table under the newspaper. It took three more rings for him to find it.

  “Hello,” he yelled into the phone.

  “Hello, this is Dale Hinshaw.”

  “Hi, Dale,” Sam replied, silently seething. Dale Hinshaw! Of course, it would be Dale.

  “And I’m calling on behalf of Harmony Friends Meeting to say God loves you and so do we! This is the day the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

  It was Dale, but his voice sounded different, more detached, almost mechanical.

  “If you were to die today, do you know where you would spend eternity?” Dale continued.

  “Dale, what are you doing? It’s midnight. What do you want?”

  Dale didn’t respond, except to drone on, repeating several Bible verses, inviting Sam to join them for worship at Harmony Friends Meeting the next Sunday at ten-thirty, then disconnecting the call with a firm click.

  Sam hung up the phone, though he’d no sooner set it down than it rang again. He snatched it up and stabbed at the talk button. “Hello,” he barked into the mouthpiece.

  It was Frank, Sam’s secretary. “Dale just called me. I think he’s gone off the deep end. He sounded funny and wouldn’t answer me. He just went on and on about getting saved.”

  Sam had heard stories about people snapping under the pressures of life and had always suspected Dale was especially at risk.

  “Let’s talk about it in the morning,” he told Frank. “I’d like to get some sleep.”

  But sleep would not come because of the phone calls that poured into his house. After numerous calls from irate citizens, he took his phone off the hook and fell into bed. By then he was too mad to sleep, and at seven o’clock, his eyes feeling heavy and scratchy as sand, he rolled out of bed, limped to the shower, and prepared for his day, which was already promising to be the worst one of his life.

  “Who was that on the phone last night?” Barbara asked at the breakfast table.

  “Which time?” Sam grumbled, then yawned.

  “I only heard it the one time.” It astounded Sam how deeply his wife could sleep.

  “We had close to a dozen calls last night,” Sam informed her.

  “My Lord, who died?”

  “No one. Apparently, Dale has had some kind of breakdown and started calling people.”

  “If you had told me someone had gone off the deep end, Dale Hinshaw would have been my first guess,” Barbara said, with a sip of her coffee.

  “Well, it isn’t funny. He got everybody upset, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.” Sam wondered why people couldn’t time their mental breakdowns with more consideration for others.

  He finished his breakfast, carried his dishes over to the sink, kissed Barbara good-bye, then walked the three blocks to the meetinghouse. It was a lonely trek. People glared at him from passing cars and shop windows.

  Frank met him at the front door. “Dale’s in your office,” he reported. “And so is Miriam Hodge. And boy, is she mad. I didn’t think she ever got mad, but she sure is now. I had to sit Asa Peacock in between her and Dale.”

  “Asa Peacock’s in my office too?”

  “Yep, and Owen Stout and Mabel Morrison and Bob Miles.”

  Sam walked into his office, wading through a sea of humanity to his desk, where he sat down and invited everyone to do the same.

  “Well, what brings you all here?” he asked brightly.

  They turned and frowned at Dale.

  “Sam, I told ’em you agreed it was a wonderful idea,” Dale said.

  “Sam, what in the world could you have been thinking?” Miriam Hodge asked, with an uncharacteristic edge to her voice.

  “What did I say was a wonderful idea?” Sam asked.

  “Our new Scripture greetings ministry,” Dale explained. “Remember, I told you all about it. I won the jingle contest, and first prize was a computer disk that had all the phone numbers in the town on it. I just had to record the message and stick it in my computer, and it automatically calls everybody. Slickest thing I’ve ever seen. Didn’t count on this happening, though. You should have warned me, Sam.”

  “I should have warned you? I had no idea you were doing it.”

  “See, the problem is that I set it to call everybody at noon, but I couldn’t remember if noon is PM or AM. I guess we got it wrong, didn’t we, Sam?”

  “Dale, stop saying ‘we,’” Sam barked.

  “It’s an outrage,” Mabel Morrison sputtered, with a thump of her cane. “Assaulted in our very own homes. I’m on the no-call list, buster. No telephone solicitors can call me. It’s against the law. A ten-thousand-dollar fine. And don’t think I won’t report you to the attorney general. In fact, I already have.”

  Owen Stout, assuming his lawyerly pose, pulled his reading glasses from the breast pocket of his vest and peered at a sheaf of papers. “Actually, Mabel, as I explained to you earlier, churches are exempt from the state’s no-call law. Nevertheless,” he said, directing his gaze to Dale, then to Sam, “the church could be sued for harassment.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Sam said. “Dale won’t be calling anyone else.”

  “Well, about that,” Dale said. “I’ve got my computer programmed to call everyone for thirty days. But now that I know noon is PM, I’ll get it fixed.”

  “Dale, I don’t want you phoning anyone at midnight or noon,” Sam said. “People don’t want to be bothered. Take that disk out of your computer and don’t do it again.”

  Sam was having a deeper appreciation for the Luddites every moment and was mightily tempted to take a sledgehammer to Dale’s computer.

  “Mabel, I’d like to apologize to you on behalf of the church. I can
assure you it won’t happen again,” Miriam Hodge promised.

  Mabel, somewhat mollified, rose from her chair. “I guess you can’t keep an eye on all the nutcases,” she said, glaring at Dale.

  Bob Miles, who’d been sitting quietly in the corner taking notes, lifted a camera from a bag at his feet. “While we have everybody here together, let’s get a picture for the Herald. Everyone give me a big smile. On the count of three. One, two, think of your mother and smile, and three.” His flash lit up the room.

  “Bob, please don’t write about this,” Sam pleaded. “The church doesn’t need bad press.”

  “Can I take that as an official ‘No comment’?” Bob asked, pulling his notebook from his back pocket.

  Sam sighed and glanced at his watch. Eight forty-five and his day had already gone to Hades in a handbasket.

  His father had tried to warn him that ministry would be like this. Sam still remembered the day when he’d told his parents he felt called to the pastorate.

  His father had buried his face in his hands and groaned in deep, existential pain. “A minister? Why a minister? Why not be a lawyer? You’d make a good lawyer. But a minister? It’s the worst job in the world, let me tell you. People calling you all hours of the day, complaining about first one thing and then another. Rotten pay. And forget about job security. You make the wrong person mad and you’re out the door like that,” he said, with a snap of his fingers.

  Sam’s mother had smiled sweetly and patted his knee. “It is a rotten job, dear. Are you sure you want to do that with your life?”

  “Well, I thought I did,” Sam had said.

  Now there are days he wishes they’d have clubbed him over the head until he’d come to his senses. Today was one of those days.

  Frank shooed everyone from Sam’s office, then settled himself into the chair across Sam’s desk. “Well, you really blew it this time,” he said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Sam protested. “How come everyone’s blaming me?”