“Sorry to disappoint you,” Charlie said.
“What happened?”
Charlie’s enthusiasm for his near-death experience was growing, and he recounted, with several dramatic embellishments, how Krista had, in his words, “plucked him from the jaws of death.”
“What we need,” Bob said, “is a photographic reconstruction. Charlie, you lie down there on the floor.” He marched over to Krista and led her beside Charlie. “Krista, you kneel down and put your hand on Charlie’s chest just like you did. Then maybe if you could lift your other hand up to heaven, like you’re commanding the Lord to heal Charlie. That’ll add a little pizzazz.”
Krista had severe misgivings, but Charlie was desperate to have his picture in the paper, so she went along, despite her better judgment.
“Now on the count of three, you both look at me and smile,” Bob said.
“One, two, and think of your wedding night, three,” Bob said, then clicked the shutter and smiled happily. “The Sausage Queen just got bumped to page two.”
As he watched from across the basement, Sam felt prickly with envy—warm and flushed and slightly mad. Krista had been in Harmony a scant two months and she’d already cured Fern of warts, served on the front line of the Chicken Noodle Dinner, saved a life, and had her picture taken for the front page of the Herald.
It had taken him six years working the Chicken Noodle Dinner to be promoted to the lemonade line, and the best he’d done in the Herald was page four, when Bob had printed his and Barbara’s engagement picture seventeen years before.
Even as he was consumed with resentment, he knew it was wrong but felt powerless to repent, so strong were his feelings. And when he left the meetinghouse an hour later, his family in tow, he was preoccupied with concern for his employment and more than a little grouchy, snapping at his family and being a general pain in the posterior the rest of the day.
A good night’s rest restored his mood, and after breakfast Sam walked to his parents’ house, where he found his father out in the garage, gassing up the lawn mower.
“Hi, Dad. Whatcha doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Filling the mower with gas,” Sam ventured.
“You got it.”
“If you need me to mow, I’ll have to go back home and get my old tennis shoes,” Sam said. “I don’t want to get these grass-stained.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll do the mowing.”
Sam went inside, where he found his mother seated at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.
“Did you know Dad is going to mow?”
“Yes, he woke up this morning bound and determined to mow. I told him not to, that it was too soon after his operation, but he says he feels fine.” She shook her head, exasperated. “Why don’t you go out there and stop him?”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah, right. I’m sure he’ll listen to me.”
“What should we do?”
“Well, I think I’m going back to work,” Sam said.
“I thought you had another month off,” his mother said.
“I guess that’s technically true. But since I took off to help with Dad and he’s doing fine, I’m sure they’ll be happy to have me back early. Besides, it’ll save them from having to pay two pastors.”
The Quakers, Sam had learned over the years, were never as excited as when they were saving money.
Coincidentally, the elders were meeting that night. Sam ate an early supper and arrived at the meetinghouse a little before seven, just as the elders were pulling into the parking lot.
Miriam Hodge opened the meeting with a devotional thought, offered a brief prayer, then welcomed Sam to their meeting. “So what brings you here this evening? We weren’t expecting you, since you’re still on leave.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” Sam said. “Dad’s doing better, and I’m ready to come back to work.”
His statement was greeted with silence as the elders glanced awkwardly at one another.
Miriam Hodge was the first to find her voice. “We’re certainly glad your father is better, Sam.”
“Yeah, Sam. That’s great news,” said Asa Peacock.
“Does this mean Krista has to go?” Bea Majors asked, clearly disappointed at the prospect.
“I thought you were supposed to be gone another month,” Harvey Muldock said.
“I was,” Sam said. “But now that my father is better, I thought I’d come back.”
“Why don’t you take another couple months off,” Opal Majors suggested.
“Now there’s a thought,” Harvey Muldock said.
This wasn’t going quite the way Sam had hoped.
“I just thought if I came back now, it’d save the meeting from having to pay two pastors,” he said.
“Oh, it’s not that much money,” Bea Majors said. This from the woman who in 1976 had demanded the church switch from Kivett’s Five and Dime toilet paper to Kroger toilet paper in order to save eleven cents, ultimately costing the meeting Ned Kivett’s tithe. Now she was spending money like a drunken sailor.
“I hate to see us break our word to Krista,” Asa Peacock said. “We told her we’d need her at least three months.”
“It wouldn’t be good to break our word,” Miriam Hodge agreed.
“Besides, I was hoping she’d cure me of my arthritis,” Bea said. “If we let her go now, I can kiss that good-bye.”
“Maybe I could have a go at your arthritis,” Sam said, growing desperate.
“Nothing personal, Sam,” Bea said, “but I’ve been on the prayer list three years now, and all your praying hasn’t done diddly-squat for my arthritis.”
“Maybe I could pray for you now,” Sam suggested.
He bowed his head, reached over to Bea, who was seated beside him, laid a hand on her gnarled, arthritic fingers, and began to pray for the Lord to heal Bea of her wretched malady. When he finished praying, Sam looked at her expectantly.
She wiggled her digits, then winced. “No good, Sam. I guess it’s up to Krista now.”
“It’s just as I suspected,” Opal Majors said. “The power’s gone out of you. Why don’t you take another couple months off and get right with the Lord.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Asa Peacock said.
“Of course, you’d still be on the payroll,” Miriam Hodge added.
“I’m sure Krista wouldn’t mind staying an extra month,” Harvey Muldock said, visibly pleased by the possibility.
The longer Sam stayed at the meeting, the worse his predicament grew. He excused himself before they decided to get shed of him completely.
It took him ten minutes to walk home. By the time he arrived, he had worked himself into a lather.
“You won’t believe what happened,” he told his wife.
“What?”
“They the same as gave me my walking papers. I went there to tell them I was ready to come back to work, and they gave me an extra month off. It’s clear they don’t want me back.”
“Sam Gardner, you are one odd duck,” Barbara said. “You’ve been complaining for years that you’re overworked and underpaid. Now they want to give you paid time off and you’re upset.”
“You like her too, don’t you?” Sam said.
“Like who?”
“Krista. You like her sermons better than mine.”
“Sam, jealously doesn’t become you.”
“Jealous? Who said I was jealous? I’m not jealous.”
Barbara sighed.
“Yes, I enjoy her sermons. But I like yours too. I think the meeting is fortunate to have both of you.”
“Now my own wife has turned against me,” Sam muttered, stalking from the room.
He busied himself at his workbench in the garage, building a doghouse. Barbara readied the boys for bed, gave him an extra hour to cool off, then went outside to gauge his mood.
“What are you building?”
“A doghouse.”
“Who for?” Ba
rbara asked.
“Us.”
“We don’t have a dog.”
“I thought we could get one. That way I’d have at least one member of this family who was loyal to me.”
She clenched and unclenched her fists, fairly vibrating with anger. “I’m going to bed. If you want to stay outside and feel sorry for yourself, you can, but I don’t have to sit around and watch.”
“I guess that proves my point,” Sam said. “I have a problem and you don’t want to be around me. If you were a dog, you’d be happy to be with me.”
“If I were a dog, I’d bite you.” She turned, walked to the garage door, then stopped. “You coming to bed anytime soon?”
“Probably not. I want some time by myself.”
“Okay, then. See you in the morning.”
“Good night,” Sam said.
“Night.”
For early autumn, it was a steamy night. Sam raised the window over his workbench and looked down the alley just as Shirley Finchum walked past with her dog on a leash, making their evening rounds.
“Hi, Mrs. Finchum,” Sam said, peering through the window screen.
She gave a slight jump. “You startled me, Sam.”
“Sorry about that.”
“What are you doing in there?” Shirley asked.
“Oh, just puttering around.”
“How’s your dad?”
“Much better, thank you.”
“I heard the new pastor healed him,” she said.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sam said. “All he had was indigestion.”
“They’re saying he was dead and she brought him back to life.”
“You know how rumors get started,” he said dismissively.
“I was talking with Jessie Peacock today at the grocery, and she mentioned how much they all like her.”
Sam frowned.
“Well, just between you and me, I don’t hold with woman ministers. You know what the Bible says about them, don’t you?”
It baffled Sam why people felt obligated to quote the Bible to pastors, most of whom had read the Bible, some more than once.
“It says a woman shouldn’t teach a man is what it says,” Shirley continued.
“Yes, ma’am, it surely does.”
The Bible also said disobedient children should be stoned to death, but Sam didn’t point that out. These were dark days, he reckoned, so he would take his friends wherever he could find them.
Seventeen
Fern Strikes
Fern Hampton stewed in her juices that week, waiting for Krista to phone and apologize for her outrageous behavior. But she heard not a word. Indeed, no one from the meeting had called to plead forgiveness, and each day that passed heightened her fury. That Friday, she gathered the official minutes of the Friendly Women’s Circle from her basement and marched down to the meetinghouse, where she dumped them on Frank’s desk.
“What are these?” Frank asked.
“The minutes from the Circle. I’m quitting the church.”
She stepped back, her arms folded across her chest, glaring at Frank and savoring the moment.
At this point, she knew, he’d plead with her not to act hastily, to please reconsider, that they couldn’t manage without her.
“I’ll be sure to pass them along to the Circle,” Frank said. “Is that all you wanted?”
Fern had been a member of Harmony Friends all her crabby life, and her parents before her, and it had come to this—dismissed as one would toss away a soiled tissue.
Frank glanced at his watch. “Lunchtime. Gotta go. Been nice seeing you, Fern.”
With that, he was out the door, like a man fleeing a tornado’s approach.
Fern slithered into the pastor’s office to hiss at Krista, but it was deserted, not a soul in sight. Then she strode through the meetinghouse, room by room, collecting the artifacts her family had donated over the years—the Frieda Hampton Memorial Clock, The Fleeta Hampton Memorial Pulpit Bible, and the Fred Hampton Memorial Pulpit Chair, where Sam sat each Sunday, before that interloper had come along.
Sam had bellyached about the chair since his first year there. The back was carved in the shape of an eagle, its beak facing forward, jabbing him smack between his fourth and fifth vertebrae. But no other pastors had ever complained. Pastor Taylor had sat in that very chair each Sunday for thirty years with nary a whimper. Pastors these days are whiners, Fern thought. She hauled the clock, Bible, and chair to her car, lifted them into the trunk, then sped away, her tires flinging pebbles against the side of the meetinghouse.
Krista walked around the corner just as Fern was fleeing the meetinghouse. Ordinarily, she entered through the back door, but this time, following a peculiar hunch she couldn’t quite explain, she went through the meeting room to the office, which was how she noticed the sacred treasures were missing.
Someone had stolen the church’s Bible! The nerve! She hurried into the office and dialed the police department, where Myron Gillis, only three days on the job, was itching to make his first arrest. Though Myron had never been trained as a police officer, he had the benefit of needing a job the same time his uncle, Harvey Muldock, had been charged with the responsibility of hiring a new officer for the town.
Myron listened carefully as Krista described the car she’d seen speeding away from the meetinghouse. He thanked her, assured her the treasures would be safely returned, then dashed to his car to track down the desperado who’d masterminded this blasphemous act. He caught up with Fern on Main Street, at the stoplight in front of the Harmony Herald building. Bob Miles watched from the front window of his office. This was the juiciest bit of news he’d witnessed in some time—Fern Hampton busted by the police. He typed away as the drama unfolded outside the window.
Being new to the job, Myron Gillis hadn’t developed a keen sense of proportional response. After finding the Bible, clock, and chair in Fern’s trunk, he handcuffed and escorted her to the backseat of his cruiser for a ride to the police station for interrogation and possible torture for stealing the sacred artifacts of Christianity. He’d known Fern all his life, but it was always the ones you knew who turned out to be secret agents of terrorist regimes.
Bob considered intervening, then decided against it. Journalists, after all, were to report the news, not thrust themselves in the middle of it. Instead, he snapped a photograph of Fern being hauled away, then hurried to have the film developed at the Kroger, where Shirley Finchum’s daughter saw the evidence of Fern’s headfirst fall into disgrace and phoned her mother to report Fern’s plight.
The problem with being Fern Hampton is that your reservoir of goodwill is so shallow no one is inclined to come to your aid. Fern was given one call, which she used to phone Bea Majors, who was busy in her flowerbeds and couldn’t get there until the next day. In the meantime, Shirley was working the phones, informing the populace of Fern’s felony, which was how Krista learned about it.
She arrived at the police station just as Officer Gillis was fingerprinting Fern to check for past offenses.
Krista asked him to release Fern. “I didn’t know it was her,” she explained. “We certainly don’t want to press charges against one of our church members.”
“She told me she’d quit the church,” Myron said. “So now can I arrest her?”
“Please let her go,” Krista said. “It was all a misunderstanding.”
Myron frowned. “That don’t take care of everything. I can drop the theft charges, but I still got her for assaulting a police officer. She kicked me in the shin and said us Gillises didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain.”
“I’m sure she regrets that,” Krista said.
“No I don’t,” Fern said. “I meant every word. I taught all the children in that family, and they were all dumber than doorknobs.”
“How about just one night in jail?” Myron pleaded.
“Go ahead, lock me up,” Fern said. “I’ve got nothing to live for anyway, now that I’ve be
en kicked out of the church.”
“Fern, you’ve not been kicked out,” Krista said, helping her from the chair.
“It’s clear I’m not wanted. No one’s phoned or stopped by to see me.”
“I’m sorry, Fern. I had no idea you were this upset.”
“Well, you should have known. You’re a minister, after all. You should know what I’m thinking.”
Though Krista had only been pastoring two months, she had already observed a curious phenomenon—her parishioners were under the impression she was a mind reader, knew what they felt, knew when they were sick, indeed knew all manner of trivia about them without their ever telling her.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Fern. You should have called to tell me you were upset, and I would have visited you and we would have talked.”
“Go ahead, blame it on me. I knew you would.”
“I’m not blaming anyone. We parted company under difficult circumstances, and I thought it wise to give you time to cool off.”
“So you knew I was mad and didn’t do a thing about it,” Fern said. “Some minister you are.”
With that, she gathered her purse, glared at Myron Gillis, harrumphed at Krista, and marched from the police station.
“Wish I could have put her in the slammer,” Myron Gillis said.
“Wish I would have let you.”
Krista rose early the next morning, spent several hours on reading assignments and a paper for school, then drove to Cartersburg to meet a childhood friend for lunch. It was a difficult hour. Her friend’s mother had passed away the week before, and Krista spent much of the hour listening to her friend lay bare her suffering. Reaching across the table, Krista held her friend’s hand.
Across the restaurant, obscured by a palm plant, Fern Hampton peered through the fronds, aghast at Krista’s conduct. She’d gone to the Wal-Mart, then had stopped for lunch, inadvertently stumbling into a den of iniquity! If she hadn’t seen it, she wouldn’t have believed it. But who could deny it now? Krista Riley, seated in a public restaurant holding hands with another woman. Right out in the open, in front of God and everyone.
Fern scrunched down behind the palm plant so Krista wouldn’t see her and watched until Krista and her friend rose to leave, when they embraced one another, said good-bye, and exchanged air kisses.
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