I was in the kitchen, rinsing off the stew pot, when Mike leaned against the island and posed the question, holding a cup of decaf I’d freshly brewed after supper. I had to admit, after having made not only my mother’s award-winning beef stew from scratch but accompanying yeast rolls for dinner, I didn’t know what to make of his question.
I placed the pot in the drying rack and wiped my hands on a towel. “I don’t have anything against hospitality. I’m a fan of it, to be honest. More hospitality, I say.”
“No, I mean the hospitality committee at church. What do you have against leading the committee? I’m pretty sure there is something in the Bible about it being a good thing, entertaining angels and all.”
I pulled up a stool. Kevin was downstairs, finishing up some homework. He’d come home today still buoyant at my Trout concession, and I’d even received a thank-you from Coach Grant. I hadn’t told Mike yet. In fact, I hadn’t told anyone. The truth was, I still couldn’t look myself in the mirror.
I’d caved.
And soon I’d be the laughingstock of the town. I started to think perhaps this might be a small glimpse of how the virgin Mary had felt, holding in a secret, waiting for the town to suggest she’d lost her mind as well as her morals. Not that I’d had any heavenly visitors declaring my sacrifice a divine plan, but in my small way, I hoped to be an example. A servant. Someone who extended her hand—or rather, her fin—for others.
I sipped my coffee, a raspberry chocolate mix from the newest gift shop in town. Why aren’t those brews ever as good as they smell?
I put down my cup, making a face. “Let me get this out into the open. I like hospitality. I think it’s a good thing. I’ve made coffee cake for after-service fellowship three times a year for the last fifteen years. I’ve faithfully supplied my tuna casserole to the church potlucks every quarter. It’s just that I don’t have any desire to command a troupe that doesn’t need a leader. Gretchen and her gang have run the Christmas Tea since the early 1900s. It’s the same thing every year—Jane plays a few hymns; we have a reading and then the buffet of Swedish meatballs, lefse, Jell-O salad, bread pudding, and Russian tea cakes. Everyone loves it, and my policy is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“But what if it is broke?” Mike sipped his coffee, looking at me over the rim. “What if God has bigger plans for you, and the tea, this year?”
“Have you and He had a conversation about Gretchen’s meatballs?” I stood, grabbed a broom, and started on the floor.
Silence bled into my sweeping.
“What if we have?”
I stopped, looked at Mike, who’d turned away and stared at his reflection in the dark window. A dusting of snow from the roof blew across the porch light as the wind kicked up.
“Okay, I have a confession to make. I thought you needed something to spice up your life, so I . . .” He turned toward me, and his expression mirrored the time he’d backed my car into the trailer, leaving a hefty dent. “I volunteered you for the position.”
His words went through me slowly. In nearly thirty years of marriage, Mike had never volunteered me for anything. Not a carpool, not a shift on dispatch, not a teaching position at VBS. Even when he served as an elder in our church, he’d refrained from suggesting anything that might take my time away from our family.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t hear you.”
Mike set down his coffee. “This stuff is awful. Please don’t buy it again.”
I took his cup, tossing the contents into the sink. “Repeat yourself.”
“I hate the coffee—”
“Very funny.”
He sighed. “Okay, I’ve been watching you. And since the kids left, you seem . . . busy. But not yourself. I know you miss them, and I thought maybe using your incredible ability to get the job done for good in the church would help both you and our congregation. I thought you needed a change.”
I hadn’t missed his use of the word incredible. But I narrowed my eyes at him.
He swallowed. “The thing is, it’s not about the fact that you make amazing cookies. Or have always organized this family like a drill sergeant.”
“I know you mean that in the nicest of ways.”
“It’s that maybe God has something in store for you this year. I don’t know what it is, but I just . . . well, I wanted to help.”
I had no words for that. There were times in our marriage when I didn’t understand Mike. Like the time he took up wood carving and made us a homemade headboard. Or constructed a remote-control airplane from scratch, crashing it on its maiden flight. Or even invested in exotic fish, finally filleting them and serving them up with clarified butter. He picks up hobbies like I do new shoes. I had the sudden, wretched sense that perhaps he’d turned his hobby attention toward . . . me.
Hadn’t raising five children been enough? What if I wanted to take time off? maybe eat out of a box for a change or, egads, not fix dinner?
A little niggle inside made me wonder if perhaps he might be feeling the same twist of panic over our long stretches of silence.
But signing me up for a new job wasn’t the answer. Didn’t he know me at all? Couldn’t he see that while I could organize my army of offspring, my leadership talents ended there?
For a second I experienced the very mean urge to put his name down for sculpture class at the Community Art Colony.
He’d probably love it.
Dancing! I could sign him up for dancing lessons. . . .
As far as the hospitality committee and the Christmas Tea went . . . “What do you mean by broken? Have you even been to a tea?”
Mike smiled. “No. But I notice you don’t attend every year.”
“I don’t like meatballs.”
“I don’t think you’re the only one.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I just think that maybe you could make this the best Christmas Tea ever.”
In the back of my mind, I heard a memory ringing. I swept the dust into a tiny pile as it came to me. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever—it was a book I’d read aloud to the children when they were small, about a woman who breaks her leg and the victim who must take over running the pageant. As I recall, it turned out to be a catastrophe.
The comparison didn’t bode well for my future. I swept the dust pile into the garbage can. “Well, I haven’t heard from God, Mike.”
“Have you even considered that He might have a plan for you in this?”
“A plan to saddle me with making coffee cake every Sunday for a year?”
Mike took the broom from me. “Maybe there’s more to the word hospitality than cooking up potlucks and serving coffee.”
I knew, of course, that had to be true. After all, the Bible wouldn’t say such things as “Offer hospitality to one another” if it didn’t have merit. Eating together had been a common activity for the early church and for every decent church since.
The significance of this eluded me, however, especially as I called the committee meeting to order the next day at high noon.
Gretchen, Rachel, Muriel Schultz—who was a distant cousin of Gretchen’s and the head of the Knitters Club—and fellow hospitality newbie Jenni Simpson, who also led the Mother’s Day Out group, had dropped everything to attend our hastily arranged meeting.
According to my wall calendar, I had just over five weeks to pull together our tea. I had started to grasp why the menu had remained unchanged for decades. With the timing of the new committee chairs, the deadline rolled in too quickly for a new chairperson to spice up the event.
That, and the iron fist of Gretchen Gilstrap left no wiggle room. She had everything spelled out, down to seating arrangements, and when she thumped a box down onto the table in front of me as we began the meeting, a chill streaked up my spine.
“I’ve put it all together in a file box for you, including the recipes, past menus, past prayers, and the array of hymns we use.” She took off the lid to reveal hanging files, all colorfully organized.
Once upon a time, I’d dreamed of such organization in my home office.
“You should call the newspaper about ten days beforehand—they have the usual copy and just need your go-ahead. And Jane needs the hymn lineup soon so she’ll know what to practice. And . . . when you’re ready, I’ll bring over the Christmas china. It’ll need to be hand-washed, of course, but I’ll be there to help you.”
Christmas china? I scrolled back through my memories and emerged with nothing. Did we use that every year? My delinquency turned me silent.
Gretchen probably thought I was overwhelmed with joy.
I flipped through the files, not sure what to say, where I fit in, why I’d even been chosen for this. A warm body does not a chairperson make.
And no, I hadn’t had a chat with God about it yet. My anger at Mike kept me from acquiescing to the idea that the Almighty might be at work in my life. Shouldn’t He talk to me first?
“Can I say something?” Jenni raised her hand.
Yes, you, in the back row, with the nursing baby and size two figure? Just wait until you’ve had five of those bouncing bundles of joy.
“Of course.”
“Well, I was just wondering if maybe we could have something different this year. Like, I don’t know . . . how about an Asian theme? maybe Thai food? I just love lettuce wraps.”
Gretchen stared at her as if she’d suggested dancing nude through the sanctuary.
I cleared my throat. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt—”
“It’s a Swedish tea,” Gretchen said quickly, chasing her words with a smile I thought would crack her face.
Muriel still hadn’t recovered from Jenni’s suggestion. She placed her hand palm side down on the table, as if to steady herself.
“I know,” Jenni said. At her feet, her three-month-old began to squirm. She picked her up from the carrier and cradled the infant on her shoulder. “It’s just that we have meatballs every year and—”
“That’s the point, dear,” Gretchen interrupted. “That’s what makes it so special.” She put her hand on the baby’s back. “Is she sleeping through the night yet? Mine slept the night through at one month.”
Jenni looked up at me. I just sat there wondering where my voice had gone.
“The point is to invite the community, right?” Jenni’s voice had lost some of its gusto. “I was thinking that some of the young moms I know might enjoy something different.”
“It’s a Swedish tea,” Muriel said, as if just now catching up.
Rachel, who had yet to acknowledge the fact that she and I ever had a conversation about my involvement with the committee, leaned forward. “You know, we need to remember that we need to live in peace with one another. If we pray about this, I know God will provide the right answer.”
I stared at her, sure that somewhere in there, she’d spoken truth but unable to get past her fairy-tale smile. From a dark place inside me, I imagined that Rachel had come from some distant land where there was constant singing and laughter and small animals could talk and sew.
Jenni’s baby had begun to fuss. “I have to feed her. Do whatever you want. I’ll be in charge of day care.” She put her child in the carrier, stood, and slung her stylish baby bag over her shoulder. “I just wish we weren’t caught in a time warp.”
Even I felt the zing of her words as she walked out.
Muriel, still a couple steps behind, stared after her, frowning.
Gretchen crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head.
“Oh, dear,” Rachel said.
Maybe Mike had been right. Maybe there was more to this party than the meatballs.
Like, World War Three.
I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and scored a turkey for 99 cents a pound. Although there would be only four—four!—of us for Thanksgiving, I purchased a ten-pounder so we’d have leftovers for a week or so.
As I turned to leave, I picked up another one. This time I went for the twenty-pounder, my mind calculating my Christmas crowd.
Sitting side by side in the cart, the two turkeys seemed a visual metaphor of my life. Abandoned at Thanksgiving. Abundant at Christmas. I quickly filled my list—bread for homemade stuffing, sweet potatoes for pie, golden potatoes to mash, corn for pudding, Jell-O for salad, and cranberries for the turkey.
Just because my entire troupe couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving didn’t mean I’d skimp for those who did. Maybe the rewards of their efforts would trickle down to the others. I wasn’t above bribery to lure my children home as often as possible.
I checked out and noticed the slate gray sky as I drove home. Although we’d had a light snowfall during the last game, only the barest covering still glazed the ditches and fields. We needed a snowstorm, something to brighten up the gray days, to turn Minnesota into a winter playground.
Our Labradorish mutt, Gracie, met me at the door, her body wriggling with joy. Clearly she had something to tell me as she raced through the house, turned, and barreled back toward me at full speed. I slipped by her at the last second, then set the groceries on the counter. She came bounding back and I rubbed behind her ears. “What is it, girl?”
She broke away and ran to the living room, barking. I sauntered in behind her.
Draped across the sofa, as if it had trekked in from the lake and decided to take up residence in my living room, lay Bud’s Trout costume. All ten feet of glistening, scaly fish body. The head had been propped up on the pillow, the mouth hanging open, the tail unrolled onto my end table over my gold touch-on lamps.
Gracie barked again, as if to say, “Holy smokes, Mom, what did Dad catch now?”
“Very funny, Kevin.” He must have come home over the lunch hour at school or, worse, before practice with his buddies, and arranged the sea creature on the sofa. I hated to think just how many people participated.
I walked over to the head. Picked it up. Stared at the eyes. As big as my fists, they stuck out like tennis balls, green and black little slits that looked more monstrous than fishy. I suppose it gave a threatening look to an otherwise helpless creature. Inside, a mesh pocket for Bud’s—my—head held the piece in place. I debated trying it on, then put it on a chair instead.
Maybe I should try the suit first.
I picked it up, inspected it. I had thought it was made of something stretchy, but the fabric turned out to be canvas, a grayish material that had been painted to sparkle and shine. It had no zipper, just pulled over one’s head. As I stood there, strategizing my attack, a smell hit my nose like a bulldozer. Twenty-plus years of body odor—probably from those days when an orange hunting suit would be too sweltering (which begged the question, what exactly did Bud wear when he didn’t wear his hunting suit?)—erupted from the costume. I held it away from myself, eyes watering.
Not in a million, billion years . . . I felt sick and slumped onto the sofa.
“You’re the greatest, Mom!”
I heard it over and over in my head to the tune of the pep band and the school song. One game. I had promised Kevin one game.
And he’d remember this forever. Sadly, the entire town probably would too.
I went to the bathroom, grabbed the lilac-scented air freshener, and doused the Trout. It got a full body spray and then a second coat. Twenty minutes later, the suit emanating the cloying scent of floral body odor, I pronounced it wearable.
The sun had begun to slink below the horizon. Mike would be home in an hour, and then I’d have some ’splaining to do. Unless I hid the suit until game day.
My pride heartily endorsed that option.
I would simply try it on quickly, to see if we needed any adjustments beyond refragrancing the costume, and then tuck it away in the garage, maybe under the lawn chair covers, until Saturday’s game.
I decided to go in from the top. I sat on the sofa and began to tuck the body up over mine. However, I hadn’t accounted for the miles of canvas material that refused to bend as I attempted to force my feet to the bottom. Not only tha
t, but the neck caught just below my hips, and I realized that I’d have to attack from a different angle. I stretched the costume along the living room floor, then, getting on my hands and knees, wriggled into it, arms upstretched to slide into the fins. I popped my head through the top and rolled onto my side, kicking my feet free. A good foot of material hung past them, but I might be able to pin it up. Or duct tape it. Or sew it with heavy-duty fishing line, suitable for a fifty-pound muskie.
I discovered that the fins had hand holes, access for such useful things as attaching the head. But first, I had to get up.
I rolled to my stomach and, realizing I couldn’t move my legs, returned to my side, where I drew up my knees. Sweat had started to break out along my back and the body odor revived.
Somehow, using all the arm strength I possessed, and thankful that I’d beefed them up with the two turkeys I’d hauled home, I pushed myself to my hands and knees. Instead of putting one leg out, I simply straightened my legs, leaving my hands on the floor.
My eyes began to water from the burn in my hamstrings as I reached for the sofa, then the table, and finally worked myself up to a standing position.
I was breathing like a sprinter by the time I got vertical. And I still had yet to move. I pictured Bud’s antics on the bench and wondered how he’d had the strength to walk, let alone jump.
No wonder the poor man had a heart attack.
Which reminded me that I needed to send Marge a card.
I pulled up the edge of the costume and found that the cutout legs allowed more movement than I imagined. I decided to take a little gander in the mirror.
I shouldn’t have. I stood there in front of the bathroom sink, speechless. What had looked like a sleek lake creature on Bud resembled on me a rumpled, fat wide-mouthed bass who’d eaten one too many worms. Instead of running down my back in an intimidating razor, the dorsal fin wobbled and lurched as if the fish had hit a metal piling hard early in its life. I couldn’t even walk right. The costume made me lurch from side to side.
I was a drunk, fat, crippled bass.
Kevin would be horrified.
I had to get out of this costume. And out of town. As quickly as my SUV would carry me.
The Great Christmas Bowl Page 4