The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck

by Bethany Turner

  “When we say we love Bridget Jones’s Diary, or whatever, but we could just do without the language and sex, that’s exactly what we mean! Just take out the bad language and the sex. We don’t mean take away the humor or the attraction between the characters, and replace Hugh Grant and Colin Firth with, I don’t know, Harvey Keitel and Billy Dee Williams.”

  I smiled. “Lando Calrissian kissing Bridget in the snow, after buying her the new diary at the Cloud City boutique—that just doesn’t do it for you, huh?”

  She laughed. “Not really. But you know, that scene is a perfect example. ‘Nice boys don’t kiss like that’ is this fantastic moment. Would it really have been any less sexy if Mark Darcy had just said, ‘Oh yes they do,’ and not thrown in the curse word? But no, it seems like it’s either that or Anne of Green Gables.”

  “Hey!” I acted wounded, and it was somewhat genuine. “I love Anne of Green Gables!”

  Piper’s face contorted as she said, “Me too, actually. Bad example. But you know what I mean.”

  I did. I knew exactly what she meant. Now I just had to figure out a way to convince my agent, my publishers, and the entire literary world that I was the best one to tackle it.

  The problem was this: I knew that a good “middle ground” Christian romance needed to be written, and I honestly thought I was the best person to write it. But I had no idea how to do it. I mean, what right did I have? I had been a Christian for only days. What did I know of what Christian women wanted?

  My knowledge of the desires of Christian women could be summed up in two words: Ben Delaney.

  I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, and I felt guilty about that. I did. I couldn’t explain it. Yes, I’d felt a sensual stirring when I met him, and I’d felt it every time I’d thought of him since, but it wasn’t lust. I just couldn’t escape the thought that what Ben and I shared that Sunday morning had made me feel many things—and none of them had felt forbidden.

  I was obviously incorrect about that, no matter how I felt, and God was clearly teaching me a lesson or something. But the feeling was enough to inspire me to try to write a realistic Christian romance. I wanted to explore the temptations that Christian men and women experience while in pursuit of a Christ-honoring romantic relationship.

  I think that a large percentage of the non-Christian world believes that sexless relationships prior to marriage are a myth. Well, they are a myth in relationships between attractive Christians, right? Can a handsome guy and a pretty girl really stop at kissing? Movies and television certainly don’t portray that it’s possible, do they? I don’t know that most people think of it in those terms, it’s just that I don’t think most people really think of it at all. You meet someone, you date, and at some point you sleep together—that’s the worldview. And that was my view, prior to my salvation.

  Actually, that’s not true. It’s not as if there in the parking lot of the high school I asked Jesus to come into my heart and then suddenly felt my spiritual chastity belt lock, with the key magically being transported to my future husband. Once again, I didn’t think about it. I was not at all aware that anything had changed in that regard until the moment I met Ben.

  I’ve never been more attracted to a man in my entire life than I was to him, instantly. I really do mean never. Not Patrick, not Ryan Gosling, not Paolo, the beautiful Colombian waiter at my favorite restaurant. And that’s saying something.

  Patrick is an incredibly handsome guy. No doubt about that. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think he was attractive—but there have definitely been varying degrees to which I have been attracted to him. If I had to pinpoint the moment when I realized I was no longer attracted to him at all, it would have to be a moment that occurred about a week before Breegate. I was feeling a renewed, and obviously short-lived, determination to add some spice back to our marriage. It was so clichéd and predictable. I’d bought a very sexy little designer black negligee, filled our bedroom with candles, scattered rose petals on the bed . . . the whole nine yards.

  He walked in from work and there I was, looking like a million bucks if I do say so myself. I was ready to do anything that he wanted, and he had to have known it. I knew that our marriage was strained and I knew that he had been avoiding sex (with me, anyway), but he was still a warm-blooded American male, and I should have been irresistible.

  “I noticed the credit card bill was higher than usual. Now I know where my money went, at least.”

  Strike one.

  “Geez, Sarah. What if I’d brought somebody home from the office tonight and we’d walked in on you dressed like that?”

  Strike two.

  “I guess we can mess around a little, but I have an early morning meeting, so we need to make it quick.”

  Strike three, and you’re out!

  We did not mess around that night. In fact, we never messed around again. I’m pretty sure I still loved him—to some extent at least—but from that moment on, I didn’t want him. Not sexually anyway. I wanted him to love me, but that was about it.

  “So, do you want to grab coffee before church tomorrow?” Piper snapped me back to reality.

  I laughed an empty laugh. “I think I need to find a different church.”

  “Oh, Sarah,” she whined. “No. I want you to go with me!”

  “And I want to go with you. But not there. I can’t just act like . . .” I took a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to God about it, like you’ve been telling me to, and I’m praying so hard for God to take care of my attraction toward Ben, Piper. But I just can’t go back there. I just feel like going will be like saying, ‘Hey, God, please take away my desire for alcohol, and please give me all the wisdom I need to handle it while I walk into this bar and stare at a pitcher of beer for a while.’ I’m trying to trust that God will take care of it for me, but I think I need to do my part.”

  Piper went all weird all of a sudden, adjusting her position and looking at me with huge saucer-sized eyes that were inexplicably full of humor and bewilderment. “I’m going to tell you one of my favorite passages of Scripture, Sarah,” she began, and I leaned in, anxious to learn whatever I could. “First John 5:14–15. ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.’”

  “Exactly!” I said, sitting back in my chair, pretending to have a confidence that I didn’t really possess. I didn’t understand what the verses meant, or at least I didn’t understand what they had to do with anything right then, but it sounded like I had gotten out of going back to Mercy Point, so I was fine with playing along.

  “In other words”—she smiled a huge smile, which disturbed me a bit—“sometimes he gives us exactly what we ask for, but it turns out that we didn’t really know what we were asking for in the first place. But he knows, and he knows what’s best for us, and we can rest in the assuredness that, for instance, when we ask him to take care of something and we take certain steps to take care of what we asked him to take care of, and we don’t really rely on him to take care of it—”

  Hadn’t I said “Exactly!” convincingly enough? I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what she was rambling on about. I only knew that each word of explanation Piper threw out left me more and more confused.

  “Piper!” I had to stop her. My brain was starting to hurt. “What are you talking about?”

  She stood up abruptly, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered, “Pastor Benjamin just walked in and he’s heading this way.” Then she exited out the opposite door from where Ben had entered.

  I believe that God has a sense of humor. But I didn’t find anything very funny about my situation at that moment.

  “Sarah, are you okay?”

  Oh crap. Were my eyes actually closed? Yep. They were. I quickly considered my options to determine the best way out of the situation, but I decided there wasn’t a best or even a less-than-mort
ifying way out of the situation. I ended up kind of squinting one eye open, and even still I couldn’t filter out his effect on me. For one second I thought about bringing my hands up to my eyes and peeking through my fingers, like I was ten years old again, watching Children of the Corn at Mindy Corbin’s sleepover.

  “Oh, Ben, hi,” I said, ever so awkwardly. “Or, um, I guess I should call you Father Ben. Father Benjamin. Wait, no, not Father. You’re not Catholic. Neither am I! And any other use of the term ‘Father’ would just be . . .” I scrunched up my nose as I made it all worse by the second. “So, what? Reverend? Pastor? Brother? No, that’s just as weird as Father . . .”

  Oh dear Lord, please just let the giant, suspending CUP-A-JOE sign fall on me right now and put me out of my misery. But please don’t hurt Ben. Or damage his beautiful face.

  He smiled, I melted, and the CUP-A-JOE sign couldn’t even do me the simple courtesy of falling on top of me and crushing me to death.

  “Just Ben.” He laughed, somewhat nervously.

  There was such a different atmosphere between us than there had been in the hallway at church. It wasn’t that the attraction we had felt toward each other was gone. It just didn’t seem like we were comfortable with it any longer.

  I certainly wasn’t.

  “Well, ‘Just Ben.’” I smiled, desperate to hold on to my dignity. Somehow. “I’m glad you came over to say hi. I was just heading out, actually. Look at us,” I said nervously while moving my eyes around in an attempt to look at absolutely anything besides us. “Wasting away a beautiful Saturday, drinking coffee all day.” I scowled as I glanced out the window at the sun beginning to go down, though the sun had been hidden by gray, dreary clouds for most of the “beautiful” day anyway.

  “Actually, I just got here.”

  “Oh, and you haven’t ordered yet? You should probably go do that. Forgive me for holding you up.”

  “I ordered online. I think that’s mine.” He pointed behind me to the pick-up window.

  “It’s probably getting cold. I’ll let you—”

  My bottom got slightly off the chair before he sat down where Piper had been just moments ago, before she abandoned me in my hour of need. As he sat, he grabbed my hand, and I couldn’t help but lower back into the chair. I wish I could claim I decided to sit back down because I knew I was strong enough to face him, but in reality my knees gave out the instant he touched me.

  “Sarah, I think we should talk about this. I really don’t want any awkwardness between us.”

  With all the might I could muster, I pulled my hand away from his. I wanted it to stay there. I wanted to touch him and never stop ever, ever again, but apart from the obvious moral implications I feared for my own soul, I was also worried for him. The new pastor did not need to be seen holding hands with a woman who was most assuredly not his wife. He seemed to flinch just a little as I pulled away, as if I had stung him.

  I sighed, feeling as if I should apologize but then realizing that was preposterous. I felt so conflicted. Was he feeling the same way? Lead me not into temptation, I prayed, all the while unable to block out the vivid imagery of things that had not yet occurred. Things that could never occur.

  “There isn’t anything to talk about,” I said with a forced smile on my face. “It was—”

  “I should have told you,” he blurted out. “I should have told you, right away, but if you lead with something like that, two minutes after you’ve met someone, how do you not look insane? I thought you were feeling what I was feeling, but what if you weren’t? If I’m trying to play it cool and stay at least a little bit guarded, how can I possibly lead with that?”

  So it was true. He was married. I hadn’t allowed myself to truly believe otherwise, but the confirmation stung nonetheless.

  My betraying heart leapt all the same at his words, knowing that he was indeed experiencing the same emotions I was. Had he also pictured our future together? Had he allowed it to get that far? No. Because he knew there could be no future together. Ben wasn’t tied down by ignorance as I had been.

  In the midst of the gratification that came from knowing he’d felt a connection, I became indignant with righteous anger. This man was supposed to be a man of God. This man had been chosen to lead the church to which my best friend belonged, and he had the moral character of, well . . . my ex-husband!

  I couldn’t help but wonder if any of Patrick’s mistresses had ever felt this way. Had they thought they were in love with him? Had they been so overwhelmed by the emotion that they had to fight to maintain control? Had some of them been deceived by hope, even for a moment, that he was the man God had designed just for them?

  I knew that my hope to maintain my dignity was lost. I didn’t have any doubt that every single thing I was feeling was etched across my face for him to read, but I just couldn’t help it. I felt betrayed by Ben.

  “Oh, Sarah. I’m so sorry.” It was obvious that he wanted to step in and do something, but he didn’t know what to do. This was more complicated than the standard conversations with distraught members of his congregation, I was guessing. “I know that I should have told you. I do. I get that. But I also had no way of knowing that it would upset you this much. Truthfully, you could have just as easily not had a problem with it, right? But still, I should have told you.”

  Excuse me?

  “Not had a problem with it? Are you kidding me?” I suddenly didn’t have any difficulty at all allowing the righteous anger to win out. “What sane, self-respecting woman wouldn’t have a problem with it, Ben? I mean . . . you’re a pastor! You’re my pastor.” I didn’t believe it was important at that moment to tell him that his first Sunday had been my first Sunday as well. “Of course it’s going to affect me!”

  He looked as perplexed as I felt all of a sudden—and, unbelievably, somewhat offended. Really? He was offended? “I’m sure there are plenty of women who would be fine with it,” he said quietly.

  Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I was fuming as I grabbed my purse and silently thanked God for making it so incredibly easy for me to walk out of there. “You’re disgusting,” I spat as I stood.

  “Disgusting?” he repeated in shock, standing to face me.

  “Yes, disgusting. You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe there are women out there who wouldn’t have a problem with it. Who would be fine with it. But I am not that type of woman, Ben. I’m divorced from a man who put me in situations where I was on the other side of this sort of thing, and my heart goes out to poor Margaret!”

  I stormed out, propelled by my conscience and unresolved emotions from the past. I was feeling all sorts of girl-power confidence, like I’d stepped out of a Shania Twain song, but I was also so sad to see the dismantling of the image of Ben I’d hoped to carry with me forever. It was, apparently, an image I had created for myself.

  “Who’s Margaret?” I heard him shout from behind me.

  I exhaled and rolled my eyes, in disbelief that I had actually spoken aloud my made-up name for Ben’s wife.

  “Or whatever your wife’s name is,” I said as I began walking to my car a little more quickly.

  He picked up his pace to keep up with me. “Christa. Her name was Christa, but I really don’t understand why your heart goes out to my dead wife.”

  I stopped in my tracks, huffing and puffing ever so slightly from walking so quickly. His dead wife. His dead wife?

  “Then what in the world were you talking about?” I asked, turning around to face him—something I hadn’t thought I would ever do again.

  He ran the rest of the way to stand in front of me, and I couldn’t help but observe that he wasn’t breathing heavily at all. Knowing his wife was dead had apparently allowed me to spend a moment dwelling on his very nice physique once again. Man! You’re a disappointment, I seemed to hear Shania grumble at me. He just stood there for a few seconds, not taking his eyes away from mine, and I could see the wheels turning.

  Finally he broke the silence, and not in
a way I had expected. He started laughing, and while I didn’t understand what was so funny, I did love the sound.

  “You thought I was married?” he asked.

  “Well, I mean . . .”

  “And you thought I was surprised you weren’t okay with the idea of having an affair with a married pastor?” He was still laughing, and I felt my cheeks getting warm. I still didn’t get the joke, but I had a feeling I was going to feel like an idiot once I heard the punch line. “Well, Sarah, under those circumstances, I just can’t for the life of me imagine why you thought I was disgusting.” The laugh transformed into a sly smile.

  I wanted to ask for clarification, but I was too afraid to speak. There was just no telling how I would put my foot in my mouth next.

  “The woman in my life is named Madeline, and she’s five.” He looked down, I think uncertain of what my reaction would be. “Christa died of breast cancer when Maddie was eleven months old. That’s what I should have told you. I should have told you I have a daughter. But we’d just met, and there was no rational explanation for the way I was feeling. ‘Hello, practical stranger who is making me feel things I haven’t felt in four years.’” His eyes met mine once more, and I again lost the ability to breathe. He continued, but his voice was lower and the emotion behind every word he spoke threatened to overpower me. “‘Nice weather we’re having, welcome to Mercy Point, and oh yeah, I have a daughter.’ It just didn’t seem like the time to bring it up. I was going to tell you about Maddie right after the service and invite you to go to lunch with us, but Mrs. Coughlin came up and talked to me and you ran away. I knew I’d blown it.”

  My heart ached. “Why in the world would you have thought I would run away because you have a child?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It makes sense to think that not everyone would want to date someone who—”

  “You were thinking about dating me?” I asked, pretty much disregarding everything else he was saying. I chose instead to focus on the word that finally assured me that I hadn’t imagined something which didn’t exist. Yes, all of the words he’d said over the course of the minute or so prior had indicated the same thing, but finally there was a word that was unmistakable. There was no way I could have misinterpreted that one.