by Davis Bunn
“Manuela had trouble getting legal status.” Brent started the car and pulled from the curb. “I had my lawyer help her. She took care of me through the worst of it. She came to see me in the city lockup. I asked her to stay with Celia.”
Jerry rolled down his window and adjusted the side mirror. “I wasn’t talking about the maid.”
Brent pulled up to the stop sign and looked hard at his passenger. “Now I know you’re talking about Candace Chen.”
“Her too. Sure.”
“Sorry, Sport. Celia Breach loathes the sight of me.”
Jerry kept fiddling with his mirror. “Drive on.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve seen that guy before.”
“What guy?”
“Keep driving.” Jerry leaned back in his seat. “The guy in the car behind us. I saw him before. Twice for certain. Maybe more.”
Brent locked his eyes on the road ahead. “Where?”
“Outside Bobby’s office in Nashville. He was arguing with a cop after parking in front of a fire hydrant. Then I saw him again when you picked me up at the airport. I recognized his car as soon as we came out of the house.”
“It might be just a similar car.”
“I’m not wrong about the guy following us.” Jerry glanced over. “And I’m not wrong about Celia Breach.”
9
Stanley Allcott climbed into Liz Courtney’s car. “Remind me again where it is we’re going.”
“I’m not too sure about that myself. Which is why I asked you along as backup.”
The former pastor settled himself more deeply into the car’s plush confines. There was room enough even for his massive frame. “I’d have offered to drive us. But I doubt you’d find my pickup as comfortable. What kind of car is this?”
“Infiniti. Top of the line.” She glanced over. “What, you men are the only ones allowed to enjoy your toys?”
Stanley waited until she was on the eastbound highway headed to Houston. “So there’s this group of rich guys who get together and pray.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“In Houston.”
“All over.” She drove like a man, gunning the supercharged engine, muscling smoothly into the fast lane. “The reason I decided on making this trip is because I want to make sure the backers of the project are as real as Bobby Dupree. He said they’re doing this as a collective. He’s been made chairman. Over thirty investors are involved. Everything he told me, I liked. If it’s real.” When traffic eased beyond the city limits, Liz punched harder still until she settled on a steady eighty-five. In the wasteland between Texas cities, speed limits were posted for tourists.
The meeting took place in one of the steel and glass skyscrapers that dominated the Houston skyline. Liz parked in a downtown lot. They walked the pedestrian tunnel system that laced together the business district and came up the escalator to find a young man standing by the guard station. “Are you Mrs. Courtney?”
“That’s right. This is Reverend Stanley Allcott. I hope it’s all right that I brought an escort.”
He led them to the bank of elevators. “The folks upstairs don’t run a closed shop, ma’am. Some meetings are private, but mostly they’re just … well, you’ll see.”
The floor was high enough for the boardroom windows to reveal a backdrop of sunset and tankers and harbor lights. A distinguished gentleman Liz recognized from the cover of business magazines introduced her around the table. They found places. The host asked, “Who’s in charge tonight?”
“I believe that would be you, Harry.”
“Can’t be. I was in the hot seat last week.”
“Try six months ago.”
The woman seated next to Liz was richly Hispanic in coloring and Caribbean in accent. She explained, “Harry doesn’t like leading because he can’t make us behave.”
“Be quiet, Consuela.”
The lady smiled at Liz. “See?”
Harry gave them a brief formal welcome, calling Liz and Stanley by name, mentioning that Bobby Dupree was their sponsor. “Okay, let’s open with a prayer. Who’s got issues and needs?”
The stuff was standard. Spouses, business, children, friends. The friends list was perhaps longer than normal. People from all over. People in missions. People in distant lands. But still pretty much what Liz heard every time believers got together. She openly studied the people as they talked. They numbered perhaps forty in all. Half sat around the long table, the other half around the walls. Some wore suits, others were more casual. Liz nodded to several she recognized from meetings, conferences, or television talk shows. There was one marked difference. Each time a need was mentioned, there was a pause. Then one person made a note in his or her Bible and said, “I’ll pray for them.” If it was in response to someone in the room, that person inevitably said thanks. Finally the woman next to Liz leaned over and explained, “They’re committing to pray about this issue every day for a month.”
Liz glanced across the table. Stanley had heard the woman. He mouthed the word Wow.
Harry finally asked, “Anybody else?”
Then Liz surprised herself.
“Actually, I’ve got a prayer need, if that’s okay.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“One of my very dearest friends is why I’m here tonight. His name is Brent Stark. Some of you might know his story. Bobby Dupree wants him to direct a film. Brent is terrified of failing Bobby, failing himself, and failing God. I’d like to ask for prayer support.”
Harry made a note. “Bobby’s on my list already. I’ll pray for Brent as well.”
She swallowed hard. “Thank you, Harry. That means more than I can say.”
They stood then and clasped hands and prayed. When they were done, they remained standing, their heads bowed. Someone started singing “In the Sweet By and By.”
The singing was fine. The feeling was far better. When they began the first chorus, “We shall meet on that beautiful shore,” the people to either side of Liz released her hands so they could raise theirs upward. The next round of the chorus, Stanley began singing a harmony line with “the sweet by and by,” his bass echoing in balance to the others. “The glorious gift of His love, and the blessings that hallow our days.” Liz stopped so she could just stand and let the sound resonate in her heart. “We shall meet on that beautiful shore.”
When they were seated, Harry said to Liz, “This year, we’re studying Matthew.”
Stanley caught her eye once more and mouthed, This year.
“Our aim is not to progress at any particular speed. Each week, the leader takes as long a passage as he or she wants. He talks for a while, and then others chime in.” Harry found his place in the Book and said, “Tonight’s passage is one verse long. Chapter four, verse one. ‘Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.’
“I’d planned on doing the entire desert story tonight,” Harry went on. “I’ve always had problems with this passage. I skip over it every chance I get. Studying for tonight has made me look not just at the words, but myself. I guess that’s what’s intended. But it’s been very hard on me.”
Harry swiped off his reading glasses. “Y’all know what Doris and I have been going through. I got elevated to the driver’s seat and the first thing I learn is my predecessor falsified three quarters of earnings. Overnight our company loses half its book value. Two of my board members are indicted. And then after four months of courtroom hell, my son …”
Harry stopped. Just stopped. The woman next to Liz wrote one word. Leukemia.
The boardroom waited with him. No pressure. Nobody was going anywhere. Harry’s voice was roughened when he finally continued. “Most of my life, faith was something I left at the door to the golf club bar. Doris and I’ve been through our hard times, sure, but like a lot of couples we just soldiered on. We figured it was about par for what we had and how we lived our lives. Then four years back, we had our own lit
tle epiphany. I won’t go into that. You’re here. You know what I’m talking about. The Spirit began working in our lives and our marriage. I got involved with you fine folks. Hope became a word with a completely different meaning. And joy. And life.”
He stopped and looked around. “I’m telling this all out of order.”
The woman next to Liz said, “You’re doing fine, Harry.”
“If one of my aides gave me a report this mangled, I’d send him back to the mailroom.”
“We’re your friends,” the woman replied. “And you tell it any way you like.”
A man further down the table said, “Long as your heart comes through in the message, you’re taking the right course.”
Harry went on, “Look at the verses just before the one I read you. Jesus is baptized. The Spirit arrives in the form of a dove. God’s living presence descends from heaven and resides among us again. This is what we’ve all been craving, am I right? To feel that incredible high of God’s empowerment. But what happens? I’m not talking about six years down the line. This is what happens the very next moment. How does God reward this young man He’s just called His own beloved son? He sends him out to be tortured!”
Harry glared around the table. “You know how that makes me feel? It makes me furious! I’m so angry at God I can’t get to the next line! I’ve been stuck here all week! So here I am, supposed to be leading you folks closer to God, and all I can say is, Enough! I’m done! I’ve been tortured enough!”
He wheezed hard. Not a cough. A whispery breath of knifeedge pain. The woman next to Liz said, “Harry?”
“I’m all right.” He reached for his glasses. “Let’s move on.”
The entire room watched this captain of industry unable to fit his glasses back on his nose. His hands trembled too hard.
“Harry.” The woman reached across and took his hand. “Look at me, Harry. It’s all right. We’re here for you, brother. Just relax now.”
Across from Liz, Stanley cleared his throat. “I’m the stranger to this room. But I’m feeling God punching me in the heart, and I’d like to tell you why.”
A woman in the far corner said, “Say it.”
“I spent nineteen months in prison for gambling and drinking away my church’s building fund. Among other things. This passage was one of those I spent a lot of time running from. And I tell you the truth. I don’t know what Paul found in prison. For me, it was not a time of answers. It was a time of asking . What meant the most to me, what I’ve taken from that time in the bowels of hell on earth, was learning which questions were important enough to keep asking until I was pretty certain of the answer. May I?”
Stanley reached over and slid Harry’s Bible in front of him. But he did not read anything. Instead, he set both of his hands upon the open page. “Here’s a question I thought was important enough to pray over. Did Jesus know? And here’s the other. Did Jesus know why?
“Was the Son of Man sent out there to be tested? That’s what the pastors tell you. He was to know the temptations of mankind. He was to be tried and, like you say, tortured. But did He know this? Did he have advance knowledge? Because if He did, to my mind He went into this thing with the battle already half won. The worst part of my own dark nights has always been how unexpected they are. How totally and utterly helpless this lack of foreknowledge leaves us. We have no chance to prepare! We have no way to get ready! Or do we?
“So that’s one question. And the other, now. Did Jesus know why? Do we? How many of us here know why we’re tried by life until it’s over and the pain is removed? And if Jesus did not know, could it be that He went into this with another reason entirely? Something more than temptation and thirst and loneliness and burning heat and hunger. Something beyond the torment.”
Stanley caressed the pages, big roughened hands tracing words like a blind man reading Braille. “I think He was at His most human here. I think He didn’t have a clue. And I think there was a purpose beyond the temptation, the one He did not know until after. And that was a question. The one each of us must ask at some point or another. The question is this: Who am I, and why am I here?
“The reason I can even suggest this is what comes after this passage. ‘From that time on Jesus began to preach… . ’ Not before, when the Spirit came. After He came back. Why is this timing important? We have no answers to these questions except through prayer. And I prayed on this for months as I lay in my prison bed and listened to the prison clamor. Why after His desert experience? Because in His time of testing, Jesus was broken. This made His experience out there the most human of His time on earth. Why? Because Jesus learned what it meant to become crushed into the earth. Through this, it became a time of His revelation. He in His divine nature looked beyond the death of thirst and famine and pain and temptation, and saw His role in eternity. To live and die for us.”
Stanley shut the Bible and slid it back over to Harry. “That’s one ex-con’s opinion, for what it’s worth.”
Liz could not reach the entire way across the table. But she slid her hand as far as it would reach across the cool polished surface. Not just closing the distance. Humbling herself. She said to Stanley, “I’m going to tell them.”
Stanley just nodded.
Liz remained in that position, staring at him as she said, “Stanley was my pastor. I was on the board of elders. I discovered the missing funds. I testified against my own pastor in court. I listened to his sentencing. I stood and watched them drag him away in chains. Four months later, I lost my husband to a massive coronary. That was over four years ago. I still have nights when I lie in my lonely bed and wonder if God was punishing me for what I did.”
“No, Liz,” Stanley said. “No.”
“I’m so sorry, Stanley.”
“You did what you had to do.” He settled his bulk upon the table to reach her hand. “You did right.”
“After what I just heard you say, I think maybe I can lay that old ghost to rest.”
At the meeting’s close, Harry gave Liz a brotherly embrace. “You and your friend are welcome back here any time.”
“I want that,” Liz replied. “I want that a lot.”
The drive back from Houston took place in the silence of friends needing time to digest. Liz only spoke when they hit the Austin city limits. “Where should I drop you?”
“I left my truck at the church. Liz …”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
“Go ahead and say it.” When he remained mute, Liz said, “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. So tell.”
“I lost my wife eight years back. My kids were both gone. One lives in Boston. We don’t talk, though I’ve tried hard as I know how. The other is my best friend, but she’s married to a neurosurgeon in Denver. When Cindy passed …”
Liz said softly, “I know.”
“I’m not making excuses. There are a lot of empty nesters who lose a spouse and they don’t descend into the nightmare of booze and gambling and theft. It was all my fault. I pretended I could handle the loss of my true love, and I ended up a hollow shell. A pastor on the outside, and inside, nothing.” He shifted in the seat. “The reason I bring this up, I didn’t know what you were thinking in your own dark hours.”
“How could you? I’ve never mentioned it to anyone before tonight.”
Stanley shifted around so he could look at her full on. “That was real back there, wasn’t it?”
Liz pulled into the church lot and parked. “It sure seemed that way to me.”
He reached over and touched her hand. A surprisingly gentle contact for such a big man. “I caused a lot of people pain. You included. You had a sick husband. You were trying to cope with new responsibilities at the bank. You discovered a crime I had committed and went through the agony of deciding to go public. You did what you thought was right, and then you felt punished for your deeds. It’s my fault. I want to tell you how sorry I am. You’re a good wom
an, Liz. The best. You deserve a lot better than what you got.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I tell the folks I mentor that a simple acceptance of the apology is enough.”
“They’re lucky to have you. Your proteges, I mean.”
“Thank you, Liz.”
“I accept your apology, Stanley.”
He released a breath neither knew he had been holding. “Thank you.”
They sat in the dark lot, friends. Stanley said, “I better go.”
“Thanks for coming tonight.”
“It was one of the nicest things I’ve experienced in a very long time.”
“You want to do it again next Thursday?”
“Any time, Liz. I mean that.”
10
Candace Chen stayed at Celia’s far longer than the four hours measured out on the clock. She remained long enough to borrow one of Celia’s swimsuits and go for a paddle while Celia made notes on her script. Long enough to walk into the kitchen and chat with Manuela about her secret chili recipe and watch the Guatemalan shape her special pan-baked bread. Long enough to slip from the sofa onto the floor, so she could slide her legs under the coffee table and start making notes of her own.
Long enough to have the characters on her pages waken from their six-year slumber. Long enough to taste that long-forgotten spice, the flavor that burned and hurt and created more hunger than it satisfied.
Celia was sprawled on her back, two of the sofa cushions elevating her head, her painted toenails twiddling on the sofa back. She slapped the script shut, rubbed her eyes, and said, “Now tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I thought that was what I’ve been doing since the guys split.”
Celia kept her hand over her eyes. “I mean, tell me what you’ve been working out, down at the level below your words. I’m only asking because I can’t figure out what my own inner voices are saying.”
Candace slipped up and onto the sofa. She curled her feet under her. Gripped her ankles. And wondered at her willingness to trust this woman. An actor of the female variety. The same specimen that had shredded her the last time she dared enter the cave of cinematic shadows.