The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck

by Bethany Turner

  “But it could be,” she proclaimed as she grabbed my phone and hit the answer button as she handed it to me.

  I stepped away with a laugh and a roll of my eyes. “Hello?”

  “Morning, kid.”

  “Hi, Joe. What’s up?” I sighed into my cell. I hadn’t expected it to be Ben, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed that it wasn’t.

  “Dane is Ralph’s son. Why didn’t you tell me that Ralph and Meggie had a son together, Sarah?”

  “What in the world are you . . . Oh.” I smiled. “You finished The Thorn Birds, I take it?”

  “Why didn’t she tell him sooner? But at the same time, how stupid was Ralph that he never figured it out? How many times did people have to comment on the resemblance between them? Come on, man. Use your brain.”

  “Did you need something, Joe?”

  “Oh yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I think you should write your Christian romance.”

  I did a double take to the phone. “What? Are you serious?”

  “Yep. Go for it. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and I really think that if you can crank it out pretty quickly, the publishers will be gung ho about anything you write. I’ll find a way to convince them it’s a brilliant move. You’ll probably have to do tons of interviews about all your new salvation stuff when the time comes, so that readers understand what in the world is going on, but hey . . . all press is good press, I figure.”

  “Joe, you’re the best! Seriously the best. I’m sorry about all of those horrible things I said about you.”

  He was silent for a moment. “What horrible things? I don’t remember you ever saying any horrible things.”

  I smiled. “Well, no, I didn’t say them to you, obviously.”

  “Hardy har har,” he said, trying not to sound amused. “Now listen, kid. I’ve got some ground rules for you.”

  “Rules?”

  “Well, not rules exactly. Just some guidelines. Some suggestions, you could say.”

  I didn’t like where it was heading, but I also didn’t think I could look a gift horse in the mouth at that particular moment.

  “Okay, what are your suggestions?” I tightened my grip on the phone, very much unwilling to put up with any funny business, and I hoped that my voice conveyed that.

  “Well, obviously, there’s going to have to be some sex.”

  I was tempted to hang up on him, but I knew from past experience that he was relentless when it came to calling back. And that eventually just got annoying.

  “Do we have to go through this again, Joe? It’s a Christian romance. Let me clarify one more time: Thorn Birds is not a Christian romance. Please don’t use that as your litmus test.”

  “Get ’em married then, Sarah. I mean, Stollen Desire could practically have been a Christian romance if Alex and Annie had been married, right?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, and I laughed hard. “You’re an idiotic man, Joe Welch, but you do entertain me. I’ll give you that.”

  “Sarah, listen to me—”

  “No, Joe. For once, you listen to me. Can you trust me that maybe, just maybe, I have my finger on the pulse of what women want to read more than you do? I mean, I did a pretty good job hitting the target last time, I would say. Can you just admit that I found a way to bring the innermost desires of women to the very public and, in retrospect, shameful forefront? I’m telling you, Joe. I can do it again. You have to trust me.”

  “So,” he began skeptically, “the innermost desires of women involve less sex? You get them all in a frenzy, and then you want to return them to the monastery?”

  I couldn’t help but have such a warm affection for my clueless dork of an agent. “Monasteries are for monks, Joe. I think you mean convent.”

  “Ooh! There’s a story for you! A woman mistakenly gets sent to a monastery, and she’s there with all of those monks who . . . what? What vows have monks taken? Silence and celibacy, I would guess. Right?”

  “Did you ever watch Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Joe?”

  He scoffed. “Please. I’m a little more masculine than that.”

  “Really, Father Ralph de Bricassart? You’re going to go there, are you?”

  He quietly cleared his throat once more. “You were saying?”

  Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Now that was when the entertainment industry knew how to market to women. The audience got to see nothing more than a few kisses, spread out over a couple of years, which somehow seemed borderline erotic. The eroticism stemmed from the built-up sexual tension, which was a direct result of the waiting. But the waiting wasn’t preached to us. It was just a result of love and respect and a sense of propriety. And then, when the waiting finally came to an end on their wedding night . . . wow.

  They were in the train, heading to their honeymoon, and Sully slowly, with excruciating deliberation, lowered each of the blinds on the windows—one by one. And then they shared a passionate kiss on the bed—still fully clothed—and the camera panned away, stopping on a lamp on the wall which was shaking from the motion of the train, matching the quivering action of wholesome women everywhere.

  Fade to black. End of season.

  “That was hot, Joe! Seriously.” I had no idea if I was getting my point across or not, but he was being very quiet, which I knew from experience meant one of two things: he was listening and considering, or he had put me on hold, without telling me, to take another call.

  I looked quickly over at Piper apologetically, though it was her fault I had taken the call, of course. Still, I felt bad that it was taking so long. She smiled and waved off my apology. I had no doubt that she still thought I was on the phone with Ben. I would hate to disappoint her when I returned to the table, but hopefully I could make up for it with news of the green light I had just received.

  He exhaled, as frustrated with me as ever, but by virtue of the fact that he’d kept listening, I knew I had him. “You’ll have that?” he asked, resigned to let me have my way. “Shaking lamps and a satisfying payoff for the reader?”

  I silently mouthed an excited “Yes!” for no one’s benefit but my own. “Oh, I’ll have that, Joe. I’ll have that in spades.”

  There was a brief pause before he said, “So apparently when you win an argument, you start talking like a 1920s gangster. Is that it?”

  “Don’t be such a bluenose, Joe. It’s going to be a sockdolager. A real cat’s meow, see.”

  “Just send me something as soon as you can,” he said with a groan before hanging up.

  I returned to the table, about to burst. “Guess what, guess what, guess what?” I trilled.

  Piper looked about ready to burst herself. “Oh my goodness! Ben asked you to marry him!”

  I stopped in my tracks and then started laughing. “There is so much wrong with that idea, Piper. We just met.”

  “I’m just saying, if you’re going to keep me waiting this long, it better be something big . . .”

  “You’re the one who made me answer the call! Besides, if he proposed over the phone . . .” I didn’t need to finish that sentence.

  “Sarah, I was kidding!” She laughed. “So what then? Tell me, tell me!”

  There was a moment of disappointment when she learned it wasn’t even Ben on the phone at all, but as expected, she got over it pretty quickly when I told her my Christian romance idea had leapt over its first major hurdle. I was going to write it with or without Joe’s blessing, of course, but knowing that I would retain my agent, and that Joe would have my back with the publishers, and that I could use my Raine de Bourgh notoriety for good instead of evil . . . that was pretty exciting. It was the open door that I felt God was preparing me for.

  “Good call with Dr. Quinn.” Piper nodded as she took a sip of her coffee. “I haven’t thought about that show in years.”

  “Honestly, neither had I. It just came to me.”

  “Isn’t it funny,” she mused, “how we didn’t need sex for that to be sexy? I mean, we never saw Jane Seymour�
�s side boob—”

  “And Joe Lando never so much as took off the traditional Native American wedding shirt Cloud Dancing had loaned to him! But there are lots of things like that. Think about your beloved Mr. Darcy.” I smirked.

  She raised her eyebrow and said nothing.

  “We love men who are willing to wait for us and work for us. Mr. Darcy just went off and made himself a better person until Elizabeth was finally ready to love him.”

  “Ooh!” she exclaimed. “King Edward gave up the throne for Wallis Simpson. The more sacrifice the better, I say!”

  We laughed and drank coffee, and I knew she was looking for a good opening to ask, once more, about Ben. I was grateful that she didn’t ask right then. The segue was almost too obvious. Then again, maybe it wasn’t to her, or anyone else. But it was to me. What would Ben have to sacrifice in order to be with me?

  “I think there’s a pretty decent chance he may be starting to fall in love with me, Piper.”

  “Ew, what?” She spit out a bit of coffee and then quickly grabbed a napkin to clean it up. “Isn’t he kind of old?”

  Oh good grief.

  “Not Joe, you dork!” The segue had, in fact, only been obvious to me, it appeared. “Ben!”

  “Ooh! Ben! Yes, that’s much better.” She leaned in and spoke softly. “Did he tell you that already?”

  Of course he hadn’t, but I knew it wouldn’t be long if the emotional intensity between us escalated as quickly as it had started. I’d had my embarrassing little slip about loving him, but mercifully we hadn’t spoken of that since. I did sometimes wonder how those milestones would come along, since we’d already done so many things out of the traditional order during our short time together. I think, as schmaltzy as it sounds, “love at first sight” wasn’t a far-off description from what we had felt. And we both knew it. So when would be the right time to say it?

  “No, of course not. We’re so new he hasn’t even told me his birthday yet.”

  “Hope it’s not today . . .”

  “You know, that day Ben and I met . . . he felt something too.” I blushed, no longer underwhelmed at all by his compulsion to walk down the hallway.

  “Well, yes. That was made quite obvious by the little heart-shaped eye arrows he kept sending your way all through the service.”

  “No, I mean he felt that feeling of fate, or instinct, or whatever you want to call it.”

  My best friend was speechless for a moment, which I don’t think I’d ever witnessed, apart from the one time I’d suggested we try drinking tea instead of coffee. She wanted to speak and ask questions, I could tell, but she just couldn’t, so I answered the questions I knew were flowing through her mind.

  “He told me he had no reason to be going that way down the hall right then, before the service when we bumped into each other. And”—I bit my lip, caught up once again in the magnitude of my attraction to Ben—“he said it was the same thing when he kissed me. He felt that he just . . . had to.”

  “So what can you possibly be afraid of? God doesn’t trick us, Sarah. He doesn’t set us up to fail.”

  “I guess.” I sighed. And then my mind came to rest on the one thing I had tried not to think about, though of course it had found its way into every single thought I’d had for the last twelve hours or so. “You know Laura, the lady who took Maddie to lunch on Sunday?”

  “Oh my gosh, you mean the one who looks like Rachel McAdams?”

  For just a moment I tried to picture Rachel McAdams in order to make the comparison, but all I could see in my mind were scenes from The Notebook, and before too long, images of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling making out in the rain gave way to images of Laura Bellamy and Ben Delaney.

  I cleared my throat and tried to clear my mind of that Nicholas Sparks–infused torment. “Oh, I don’t know. I thought she looked more like Scarlett Johansson.”

  “Yes!” Piper exclaimed. “That’s much better. She’s pretty close to Rachel McAdams, but she’s more voluptuous and sultry, like Scarlett.”

  Oh, that was helpful.

  “Well, Ben very nearly got engaged to her back in college.” I knew I was pouting, but I couldn’t help it.

  I knew that he’d thought he’d made it clear that “Miss Laura” and “the Bellamy girl” were one and the same. He was completely open with me, at least through his intent, so that wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was that she was in his life at all. She was clearly not over him, she was clearly using Maddie to get closer to him, and it was clearly just a matter of time until they started making out in the rain.

  But I knew Piper would set me straight and put it all in perspective for me. “I have nothing to worry about there, right?”

  “I mean, realistically I don’t think you need to be worried about Ben, but . . .” She spoke calmly, but her eyes betrayed her. “She flirted with him right in front of us. In church! It was bad enough, but knowing they were once that involved? Yeah. You should at least keep your eye on that situation, Sarah.”

  My eyed pooled with tears.

  “Hey,” Piper began as she scooted her chair closer to me and wrapped her arms around me. “I just mean you need to watch her. Ben only has eyes for you. I promise you that. If I had to guess, I would say he is utterly oblivious to her flirting, and her perfume—which, I have to say, is probably the most exotic scent I’ve ever . . .” She trailed off as she looked over at my face, close to hers now, and caught my death stare. “Sorry.”

  “I just feel so out of my element. Why me? Why would God bless me with this man? And don’t get me wrong. I mean, I am so glad it’s me, but how can I possibly be the right woman for him? Considering everything in my past, and the fact that I’m a new Christian who barely knows Cain from Abel.”

  Piper laughed and, as was usually the case, I couldn’t help but laugh with her. “That doesn’t matter, Sarah. It really doesn’t. Nothing says you have to memorize the Bible in order for your relationship to work out, or for your life to work out. Besides, Ben knows the Bible pretty well. At least I’d hope. I’d imagine he can help you learn all the Bible stories you’d ever want to know. Right?”

  “Yale Divinity School.” I smirked.

  “Wow. Bible nerd.”

  I laughed. “That’s what I said!”

  “Okay. So he knows his stuff. Bible stories aside, let him know how you’re feeling about some of these insecurities. And then pray through it together. That’s really the only advice I have. This stuff doesn’t happen every day, Sarah. God’s not going to help you escape bondage and wander through the desert, only to abandon you as you search for the Promised Land.”

  I was still in Genesis in my Bible study, but I’d seen The Ten Commandments, so I was able to somewhat proficiently carry on with that conversation.

  “But Moses didn’t even get to go into the Promised Land, did he?”

  Piper reached over and put her hand on mine. “No, he didn’t. But that wasn’t God’s fault.”

  Well, no pressure there.

  13.

  Your Pot Holders Are No Good Here

  “Go fish!” Maddie squealed with delight as I gave yet more evidence that I am the world’s worst Go Fish player.

  For an hour, through three games in a row, I had accused both the five-year-old repeat victor and her daddy of cheating, but we all knew that I was just really bad at the game. It doesn’t seem like a game that you can really be good or bad at, does it? Alas, I was really bad. I tried so hard to pay attention and remember who was asking for which card, but almost without fail the card that I would be sure Maddie had just received from Ben was actually the card I had already asked for, and I would have to go fishing once more.

  Her giggles made it a complete pleasure to lose, of course. And watching Ben’s amazement, and the way he couldn’t help but laugh each time the hilarity ensued, was nothing short of rapturous. It wasn’t just his laughter—though I couldn’t imagine ever getting enough of it. It was more the way he would look at m
e as I put all of my effort into keeping a straight face. His eyes said it all—like he’d been so sure that there would never again be such joy in his home.

  It had been a month since sushi. Well, it had been a month since the first and second sushi. We’d had much sushi since then, but we considered that first sushi to be the real beginning. We’d managed to keep a very low profile, and there had been no fallout whatsoever to stem from the pastor dating Raine de Bourgh.

  Yet.

  I don’t think many people knew that I was Raine de Bourgh, and I think even fewer people knew that we were dating, so that could be why, but I chose not to think of it that way for the sake of my own sanity. When they found out, it would be a catastrophe. When they found out, we’d have to go into hiding, like the von Trapp family. When they found out, Ben might decide I’m not worth the trouble.

  No, I couldn’t think about that. That was, however, my biggest fear. Actually, that’s not true. That was my second biggest fear. My biggest fear was that he and I would fall too much in love with each other to walk away, even if that’s what God wanted us to do. The very last thing I wanted was to come between Ben and God, but each time I let my worry overtake me on that subject, Piper insisted I wasn’t giving either one of them enough credit. Touché.

  Didn’t it make sense that the only reason God had made Ben and me so undeniably certain that we were supposed to be together was because we would need that to hold on to when outside forces threatened to tear us apart? Something had to be on the horizon. However, even I, in all my fretful consternation, knew that I couldn’t let all of that get to me. If I didn’t find a way to control the anxiety, I knew that Ben and I would be history before you could say “Laura Bellamy.”

  In the weeks prior, I’d taken advantage of subtle opportunities to work Laura into the conversation and find out all I could, and what I discovered was mostly what I already knew. Ben considered her to be one of his closest friends, and he honestly and sincerely didn’t recognize her attraction to him anymore. Actually, attraction isn’t the right way to describe it. If a cheetah spent nearly twenty years hunting an antelope and had never given up the hunt even when it appeared a lion was going to swoop in and claim the antelope as its own, and it stood prepared to attack anything and everything that got between itself and its prey, would you say the cheetah was attracted to the antelope?