Just Like Heaven

by Barbara Bretton

Not much to report. We met for three hours. You have lots of support so that’s good, but the bishop has the last word. If you can update your c.v. to showcase what you’ve been doing the last two years it would be a BIG help. We’ll need it ASAP, like in the morning. You’re young enough for an all-nighter, right? Wish I had something solid for you but I tried. Most of your congregation is behind you, Mark, but the new guy is definitely something special. If we fight hard enough I know we can bring Clennon back around.

  Maggy

  * * * * * *

  TO: mboyd@nh2day.net

  FROM: mark.kerry@mklj.net

  SUBJECT: RE: vestry meeting

  How about I give Clennon my updated c.v. in person? I could fly up tomorrow night and be in his office first thing Wednesday morning. You and the vestry have been fighting my battles for me. Time I got a little bloodied too.

  Let me know, ok?

  MK

  * * * * * *

  TO: mark.kerry@mklj.net

  FROM: mboyd@nh2day.net

  SUBJECT: RE: vestry meeting

  GREAT IDEA. We’ll make it happen. I’ll phone you when I have it nailed down. I think tonight calls for a few extra prayers, don’t you?

  Maggy

  He shut down the laptop, locked up the house, and went to sleep.

  Kate’s house—the next morning

  “You won’t be here?” Kate popped out of her bedroom, wet hair tumbling over her shoulders, and grabbed her mother’s sleeve. “You can’t leave me here alone!”

  “I’m taking advantage of the situation,” Maeve said, blue eyes twinkling, “and going out for a late lunch with Amelia and Sunny. You’ll be in good hands.”

  “I was counting on you being here with us,” Kate said. “You know, in case conversation falters.”

  “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “Please!” Kate wasn’t too old to beg. “If you’re not here it will look like I think this is a date or something.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Of course it isn’t. This is a thank-you lunch, that’s all. I’m repaying a debt of gratitude.”

  “You could always write a check to his favorite charity, honey. That would cover it.”

  Maeve looked altogether too amused for Kate’s taste. “I already thought of that but he nixed the idea.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to feed him lunch.”

  “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Kate flew down the stairs at her mother’s heels and had to stop at the bottom to catch her breath. “Wasn’t this in one of your books? Matchmaking Magic or something?”

  Maeve checked her hair in the hall mirror. “Matchmaking and Magic, but you were close, honey, and yes, you’re right. I am doing this on purpose.”

  Her mother’s admission knocked the wind from Kate’s sails, and she sank down onto the bottom step and buried her face in her hands. “I thought you were supposed to be taking care of me while I get back on my feet, not torturing me.”

  “I talked it over with Gwynnie and we both agree this is the right thing to do.”

  “Wonderful. Now you two are talking about me behind my back.”

  “We’ve always talked about you behind your back,” Maeve said, hunting around for her purse and car keys. “You just weren’t paying attention.”

  “He’s going to know you set this up.”

  “You’re a forty-one-year-old woman. I don’t think he expects you to need a chaperone.”

  “I’m a postcardiac patient. I need supervision.”

  “He’s a trained EMT. You’ll be in good hands.”

  “I still have to shower, blow-dry my hair, figure out what I’m going to wear and—how could I forget?—put together a fabulous lunch for the man who saved my life.”

  Maeve took Kate by the hand and led her into the kitchen. “I made the lunch,” she said as she swung open the door to the fridge. “Sesame chicken on a bed of bok choy with julienned vegetables and a Thai-influenced dressing. Peach iced tea. Mango sorbet for after.”

  “This is so wonderful!” Kate peered into the fridge like a kid on Christmas morning. “I can’t believe you did this for me, Mom.”

  Maeve sighed in pretend exasperation. “It’s nothing to cry about, honey. It’s what mothers do. You know that.”

  It wasn’t exactly something her mother had ever done before, but Kate was too busy sniffling into a square of Bounty to quibble. These random acts of kindness were going to be her undoing.

  “Finish blow-drying your hair,” Maeve ordered. “I’m going into town to see if Fran made those delicious brownies today. That sorbet might be a bit too precious for your Father Mark.”

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur of expectant primping. The last time Kate could remember putting so much effort into her appearance was the night of the St. Aloysius High School Christmas Festival during senior year. That was the night she and Ed made love for the first time and, quite probably, the night Gwynn was conceived.

  She fiddled with the flowing sleeve of her deep peach silk sweater. At least she knew one thing for sure: no babies would be conceived between the salad and the sorbet. That crazy out-of-control feeling that had possessed her Sunday night in the parking lot of The Old Grist Mill had dissipated itself, for which she was deeply grateful. She no longer worried that the sight of him on her doorstep was going to fling her backward into romantic chaos and hopeless longing. She might still be crying her eyes out at the drop of a kindness, but her brief infatuation with romance seemed to have run its course.

  Nobody needed to know she had fallen asleep last night with the laptop on the pillow next to her just in case he sent an e-mail or tried to IM his regrets at three in the morning and needed an immediate response.

  At twelve forty-five she walked into the living room and pirouetted for Maeve. “How do I look?”

  “Like a dream.” Her mother looked up from her magazine and considered her. “You’ve always looked beautiful in that color.”

  “What about the skirt?” She did a half-turn and looked over her shoulder. “Does it make me look too fat?”

  “It makes you look wonderful.”

  “Maybe it’s too dressy for a Tuesday lunch. I’ll be right back.”

  Five minutes later she was back downstairs in her most flattering pair of jeans, the gorgeous peach sweater, and ballet flats. She’d gathered her hair into a casual topknot, letting tendrils and waves fall where they might. Makeup, a little perfume, her favorite earrings, the ones that looked like captured sunlight.

  “What do you think?” she asked Maeve, who was taste-testing the peach iced tea.

  “You were right.” Maeve nodded her approval. “That’s absolutely perfect.”

  “I sound like Gwynn, don’t I? What’s happening to me?” She never wasted time debating outfits and hair-styles. Even as a teenager she had known what worked on her and what didn’t and never turned to Maeve for help.

  “Everything’s all set,” Maeve said, scanning the kitchen one last time. “I think I’ll go.”

  “You can’t go yet. He isn’t here.”

  “It’s eight minutes to one.”

  “What if he doesn’t show up? I’ll be here all by myself.”

  “I have my cell with me. If he doesn’t show up, call me and I’ll come right home.”

  Maeve’s mind was made up and she was gone with five minutes to spare.

  Kate was amazed by just how much worrying, fussing, and doubting a woman could cram into three hundred seconds. She questioned the lunch, her hair, her sweater, the sugar level of the iced tea, the existence of God, the old Latin mass, the flavor quotient of sesame seeds, Gwynn’s choice of mate, and why she had ever thought inviting an Episcopal priest to lunch was such a great idea.

  And then she heard the sound of an ancient Honda in her driveway and saw a tall, dark, and handsome man on her front porch and everything else fell away.

  Eleven

  He knew exactly what he was going to say when
she opened the door. He had worked it out on the drive up to Coburn, practiced the timing while he waited for the florist to put some fussy shiny paper around the pot of showy flowers. Funny without being over the top. Warm without being smarmy. Neutral without being cold or distant. Writing an Easter Sunday sermon was easier, but finally he got it nailed.

  He had the patter. He had the blooms. He even had a sunny day.

  The whole thing was perfect, or would have been, except for the fact that the second she opened the door and he saw her standing there in a pair of jeans and a silky sweater, his brain short-circuited.

  She looked fresh and young and as far as he could see she wasn’t even wearing any makeup. Her hair was piled on top of her head but tendrils of shimmering auburn had escaped, framing her face with softness. She was exactly what God had been aiming for when he created Woman. Was she beautiful? He wasn’t sure. The world’s opinion didn’t matter. The only thing he knew for certain was that he wouldn’t change a thing.

  She wasn’t smiling. She stood there looking at him with the same expression of surprise that he imagined was on his face too. Surprise. Shock. That sense of recognition he had felt each time he saw her, as if everything that had ever happened to him in the past, every triumph, every mistake, every dream lost and then found again, had been preparation for this moment.

  Somewhere on another street a car horn blared, breaking the spell they were falling under.

  “You’re right on time,” she said with a wide and happy smile. “Come in.”

  “Traffic was light,” he said, catching the intoxicating scent of her skin as he stepped into the hallway. “That shortcut you gave me was great.”

  He handed her the pot of flowers and her smile grew wider. “I love tulips,” she said. “I’ll replant the bulbs in the yard this autumn and have blooms next spring.”

  You would think he had won the Oscar when all he did was pick the right plant. “Something smells great,” he said as they walked toward the back of the house. “Sesame?”

  “I’m impressed,” she said as they entered the kitchen. “I’m not sure I could have picked that out on my own.”

  “I lived over a Chinese restaurant when I was in seminary.”

  “Did you?” She opened the fridge and withdrew a large glass pitcher of something amber. “Maeve and I lived over a Hungarian restaurant when I was in sixth grade. I acquired a taste for chicken paprikash and violins that I can’t seem to shake.”

  He suddenly noted that there were two plates on the counter, two glasses, two sets of silverware.

  “Where is your mother?” he asked. “I thought she would be joining us.”

  “So did I.” Kate opened a drawer and withdrew two freshly pressed linen napkins the color of summer sunshine. “She’s off having lunch with two of her cronies.”

  “And your daughter?”

  She turned away from him slightly as she reached for the tray leaning against the counter. “She went back to work yesterday.”

  “So it’s just us.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s just us.”

  “Good.” Great time for his internal censor to take a hike. She either hadn’t heard him or was kind enough to pretend she hadn’t. He needed all the help he could get to keep from saying something so ridiculous he would have to leave the state six weeks early just to save face.

  “I read Maeve the riot act. I was afraid you’d think—” She swallowed the rest of her sentence. “Believe it or not, I used to be an intelligent, sophisticated woman.” She pointed to herself with a broad, almost comical sweep of her hand. “This really isn’t me.”

  “I rehearsed a speech on the drive up here.”

  “You did not!”

  “I was practicing it in the florist shop. The clerk thought I was a head case.”

  “Isn’t this ridiculous?” she said, pouring them each a glass of whatever it was in that icy pitcher. “We’re acting like we just met. We’re old friends.”

  “Eight days and counting.” He took the glass from her. “Peach iced tea?”

  “Don’t tell me: you lived above a tea shop when you were in college.”

  “I saw the empty cans of peach nectar.”

  “I wish it were champagne,” she said, “but alcohol is off-limits to me right now. Actually, if you’d like champagne we have a split in the fridge that I’d be happy to open for you.”

  “Alcohol is off-limits to me too,” he said. “And not just right now.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t ask questions and this wasn’t the time to volunteer his life story. She poured them each a goblet of peach iced tea.

  “Cent’anni,” he said. “One hundred years.”

  “Cent’anni,” she said, and then he watched, amazed, as she burst into tears.

  He put down his glass and rounded the counter to where she stood sobbing into a yellow napkin. “Was it something I said?”

  She shook her head and struggled to pull herself together. “Don’t pay any attention to me.”

  As if that were possible.

  She managed a rueful smile. “I know it’s hard to believe, but the real me only cries at christenings.”

  He handed her a fresh napkin, which she accepted gratefully. “Nothing you can do except ride it out. It’s part of the process.”

  “Well, I’m not too crazy about the process. I’m known as a hardheaded businesswoman. I have my reputation to consider.”

  “Businesswomen don’t cry?”

  “Not in the dairy aisle at ShopRite they don’t. I made a holy show of myself yesterday over a display of low-fat cottage cheese. I’m going to have to change markets if this keeps up.”

  She said it with a self-mocking laugh in her voice that was as telling as it was endearing.

  “Are you usually this hard on yourself?”

  “You have a degree in psychology as well as theology?”

  “Just an observation.”

  “It’s absolutely gorgeous outside,” she said, gesturing toward the French doors. “How would you feel about eating on the patio?”

  Which pretty much answered his question.

  Kate didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t agreed to lunch on the patio. All she did know was that the room had grown too small for the emotions swirling about like mini-twisters. If they stayed in that room much longer, anything could happen.

  He saw her too clearly. Most people thought she sailed through life on a wave of self-confidence, but he knew otherwise.

  He was one of those rare men who pitched in without waiting to be asked. He carried plates and platters and pitchers and set them up on the table while she started the coffee, dug up the dessert dishes, and sneaked into the bathroom to check her hair and makeup.

  Finally they were seated opposite each other at her glass-topped table. The sun was warm for early spring and the skies were deep blue and cloudless. Even nature was on their side.

  “Springtime in New Jersey,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “It doesn’t get much better than this.”

  “You’re right.” His gaze roved the expanse of garden and lawn stretched out before them. “And I thought nobody did it better than we did in New Hampshire.”

  “You’re from New Hampshire originally?” So that explained the vaguely Yankee accent she had detected.

  “Born and raised so far north we were honorary Canadians.”

  She laughed. “I used to spend time around Laconia. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.”

  “Vermont gets all the hype,” he said, “but we deliver the goods.”

  “ ‘Live free or die.’ ” She quoted the state motto. “It’s pretty hard to beat that sentiment.” She gestured toward their lunch. “New Jersey’s bounty. Enjoy!”

  He hesitated for a fraction of a second, just long enough for her to notice, before he picked up his fork.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Do you need salt?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

 
Then it dawned on her. “Did you want to say grace?”

  His smile was easy and unembarrassed. “I just did but if you’d like to join me, I’d be happy to say it again.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, reaching for her glass of iced tea. “I’m fine.”

  He nodded and speared a piece of chicken with his fork.

  “What I mean is, I don’t usually say grace.”

  He popped the piece of chicken into his mouth. “No problem.”

  “I don’t have anything against saying grace,” she went on, “it’s just that it isn’t part of my routine.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation, Kate. It’s fine.”

  She put her cards and her glass of iced tea down on the table. “I haven’t been to church since nineteen ninety-three and the last time I said grace I was wearing a St. Aloysius uniform and studying for the SATs.” What on earth was wrong with her? Talk about too much information.

  “Roman Catholic?”

  “Yes, and the word lapsed doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  “I’m not wearing the collar today,” he said. “I’m not here to judge you.”

  She fiddled with her dessert spoon. “I don’t even know why I told you all of this. It just popped out when I realized you were saying grace.”

  “Religion is a touchy issue in our society. Most of us would rather talk about our sex lives than our religious beliefs.”

  He smiled and her discomfort melted away.

  “I thought money was the touchy issue in our society,” she said, reaching again for her iced tea.

  He shook his head and speared some bok choy. “Believe me, religion has it beat. We’re becoming a largely secular society and that puts people of faith on the other side of a cultural divide.”

  “Separation of church and state,” she reminded him. “That’s a good thing.”

  “Agreed, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. Religion makes a lot of people uneasy.” He gestured toward himself. “That’s why I’m not wearing my collar today.”

  “Because it would have made me uncomfortable? I don’t think it’s possible to be more uncomfortable than I am right now.”