Can I Get An Amen?

by Sarah Healy

  “He’s not my boyfriend. We went out a few times, during which he never told me the truth about what he did.” I found myself quickly trying to unweave the fabric of what Mark and I had become, pulling at the loose threads and frayed edges of our relationship, not knowing where to stop, not knowing whether to unravel it completely.

  “He didn’t exactly lie,” rationalized my mother defiantly. “Churches are nonprofit organizations.”

  I couldn’t even summon a response.

  “He’s a good man, Ellen. He had every option in the world and he dedicated his life to Christ.” To hear Mark put in those hokey, idiomatic terms made me want to plug my ears and scream, but my mother went on. “If you had just stayed to hear his sermon, you would have seen what he’s all about. I’ve never heard another minister preach so beautifully on God’s love.”

  “Look, Mom, I’m sure he is a wonderful, talented preacher and a good, kind man.” My intonation indicated that there was a large and burdensome but…

  My mother turned to me, her pool blue eyes looking so much like Kat’s. “So what’s the problem?”

  I contemplated the answer to that question all afternoon, right up until the moment I walked into the little café at Back Door Books. Mark was at the table where we had sat just a few weeks ago. He had a glass of water in front of him.

  “No coffee?” I asked as I hung my coat over the back of the chair.

  “I was waiting for you.”

  Walking up to the counter, he ordered a black coffee for himself and a latte for me.

  “Here,” I said, trying to hand him a five-dollar bill to cover the tab.

  He looked down at the folded money in my hand like it was a particularly mean-spirited joke. “It’s okay, Ellen. I’ve got this.”

  We took our seats back at the table and Mark stared into his coffee cup.

  “I’m really sorry that things turned into such a scene today at church,” I said awkwardly, the words not feeling right in my mouth. “Did everyone… understand?”

  “It was fine,” he said, his words so quick and reassuring that I was sure it wasn’t fine, that it was uncomfortable and difficult. “I’m just sorry you had to find out that way.” His being a minister seemed shameful and secret, and I shifted in my chair as I remembered him up behind that pulpit. As if reading my body language, he continued. “But I am not ashamed of what I do, Ellen. I should have told you in the beginning, but I didn’t and I’ve been trying to figure out how to make you understand why. And I think the best way is to ask you this: if you knew I was a minister, would you have acted differently around me?”

  Yes.

  His eyes searched mine. “Would you have been able to get to know me, the way you did?”

  No.

  I’m sure he knew my answers, as the questions were for my benefit, not his. He went on. “But I should have accepted that. I should never have misled you. I was weak and I regret that.”

  It was here that I was supposed to say that I understood, that I knew what it was like to fear divulging the truth. Instead I said, “Is this why… the other night…?”

  “Yeah,” he said sadly, quietly. “I let it all get out of hand.”

  My voice lowered to a near whisper. “Have you ever been… with a woman?” He looked disappointed that this was my first line of questioning, that my insecurities had elbowed their way to the front of the line.

  “I wasn’t always a minister, Ellen,” he said simply, and I recalled the way he had touched me that night.

  “What made you want to join the church?” I had to force myself to say the sentence fluidly, naturally. As my mother had put it, Mark had every option in the world. And I probably would have been thrilled with his choosing any one of them over this one.

  He sat back in his chair and, with crossed arms, studied the edge of the table. “I was working on my doctorate. My focus was on economic solutions to poverty in the developing world. My parents were missionaries and they saw God as the only way to improve people’s lives. They thought that if you had Jesus, everything else would fall into place and God would take care of all your needs. I fought against that idea; I wanted to develop the policies that would accomplish all that. It was when I was writing my thesis that I had a sort of epiphany, I guess it was—about me, about who I was.

  “My father had come to visit me in New York. He had me go with him to a shelter run by an old friend of his for runaway teens. Some of these kids had fled the most appalling circumstances. We spent the night just talking with them, hearing their stories, listening. They were so grateful to have someone listen. It was God that was working through my father that night, allowing these kids who felt like no one cared for them to feel his love.” He was now looking me in the eye, speaking with a kind of restrained passion that I was sure he brought to his sermons. Though I maintained eye contact, I uncomfortably judged the proximity of the other patrons, whether they were within earshot, whether they could hear Mark sounding like this, sounding like a Christian.

  “I don’t know; I guess I realized then that if my thesis, this thing I was pouring hundreds of hours into, did as much for one person as my father did for dozens on that night, I’d be lucky. I wanted to help people in a tangible, one-on-one way. I wanted God to work through me.”

  But, I thought. But. My objections were nothing I could verbalize. “Is this something you think you’ll do forever?”

  He paused for a moment. “I don’t have any plans to leave the ministry right now. Not with God doing such amazing things at Prince of Peace.”

  Instantly, the life we would have if we stayed together played out in my mind. In rapid succession I pictured myself in Mark’s house, surrounded by his books, my legs stretched over his lap. I pictured trips to Africa. I pictured adoption. But when I started to panic, when the picture became too vivid, was when I saw myself sitting in the front row of Prince of Peace Church. It was then that I again felt the urge to run for the door. Because the problem wasn’t that I was afraid I didn’t fit there, but that I did, that I had been drawn blindly to an inevitability. That I was destined to sit wringing my hands and waiting for a deaf God to solve my problems. That religion would define me. That I would become my mother. That I already had.

  I met his eyes. “I admire you,” I said, my voice heavy with caveats. “But, Mark…”

  He leaned closer, his forearms resting on the table. I thought about what a compelling policy maker he would have been. “I understand it’s a lot to digest,” he said patiently. “And I know that my choices have implications for whomever I am with, both good and bad. But I really care about you, Ellen.” He laid his warm hand on top of mine.

  “Mark,” I said, not knowing how to say what came next. We sat in silence for a second before I continued. “I care about you, too. I just…” I couldn’t stop thinking of my grandmother, the preacher’s wife.

  He only nodded, expecting as much. He slid his hand slowly away and gripped the handle of his coffee mug.

  And suddenly I wanted desperately to get away. “I better get going,” I said, my chair screeching against the tile floor as I pushed it back to stand.

  “Ellen?”

  I looked him in his eyes.

  “Take care of yourself.”

  My heart ached. He was altruistic and good, too good for me, to the very end.

  . . .

  My mother was waiting for me in the kitchen when I got home. “How was your date with Mark?”

  “You mean the Buddhist?” I asked sarcastically as I sloughed off my jacket. I irrationally felt as though our breakup was her fault. It was her fault for having a Jesus fish on her car when she picked me up at school and sending me to Christian camp. It was her fault for telling me to “rest with the Lamb” and that I should cast my burdens at the “foot of the cross.” She did this. She made this happen. It was so much easier for me to resist what my mother believed than to divine my own faith. It was so much easier to blame.

  She gave me a look.
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br />   “Listen, Mom, I don’t think it’s going to work out with us,” I said, wanting to cushion the blow. Mark was a dream come true, an answer to her prayers. She was like an old Italian mother coaxing her firstborn son into the priesthood in order to get a backstage pass into heaven.

  “Don’t write him off, Ellen,” she commanded. “Give him a chance. You only just started dating.”

  “I know.”

  “And I can’t understand how you would view his being a minister as some kind of flaw.”

  “All right, Mom,” I said, as I tried to escape the kitchen, feeling suffocated, as if the neck of my sweater was too tight. “We’ll just see how things go.”

  “Hold on a second. I need to talk to you.” Sidestepping the island, she scurried up next to me. “Have you told your brother and sister anything about what I told you about Daddy and me?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

  Having already assured her that I wouldn’t discuss things with Kat and Luke, I was thrown by her need for additional assurance. “No,” I said, my voice softening as I was reminded of the reality of her situation. “I haven’t told them.”

  My mother nodded in relief. “Your father wants to tell everyone all at once,” she said, her red sweater looking too bright, too festive for her pale, gray face.

  I knew how Luke and Kat would react. Like me, they would cling to an ignorant, desperate optimism. This was when we still had the luxury of believing that it wasn’t quite real, that it was going to be a close call and cautionary tale. Do you remember when Mom and Dad almost lost the house?

  “When?” I asked, wondering at what time, besides Christmas, we would all be together again.

  “I don’t know, Ellen,” said my mother impatiently before taking a deep but unsatisfying breath. “Your father has it all worked out.”

  . . .

  I tried not to think about Mark the rest of the day, but my mind veered in his direction, again and again.

  “Why couldn’t he really be a Buddhist?” I asked Kat, my cell phone pressed surreptitiously to my ear as I drove into work the next morning. “I could get on board with Buddhism.” It was after I said it that I realized I was only half kidding.

  “Why? So you can trade one ideology that probably isn’t true for another that probably isn’t true?” asked Kat harshly, hyperintolerant, as ever, of hypocrisy. “So you can hang out with Richard Gere and wear prayer beads and talk about being an old soul?”

  Better than hanging out with Mel Gibson. “Relax, Kat. I was just joking.”

  “I don’t think you were.”

  Screw you, Kat. I didn’t want to be challenged. “Whatever. Listen, I’m at work. I gotta go,” I said as I slowed for a traffic light a few miles from the office.

  . . .

  I wasn’t deep into the day before I had to field several calls from Parker, who was obsessing over that evening’s party. “I want to make sure you are there at least an hour before the guests arrive.”

  “That’s no problem,” I said in the same chipper yet professional tone I had taken to using almost exclusively with Parker. “I’ll leave right from here.”

  Philip sauntered out of his office as I was hanging up.

  “Is Parker driving you nuts?” he asked apologetically, adjusting the collar of his overcoat.

  “Oh, no.” I laughed unconvincingly. “She just wants everything to be perfect. I understand.”

  Philip sat on the edge of my desk, an uncharacteristically familiar gesture that I attributed to the somewhat more relaxed vibe that permeated all offices during the week before Christmas. “She gets so worked up about this kind of thing. Frankly, I can’t wait until it’s over.”

  My only response was a smile, in hopes that Philip would move along. I wasn’t interested in engaging in personal banter with Parker’s husband, even if he was my boss. But Philip didn’t take the hint.

  “So, do you have any plans for Christmas?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said lightly. “I’ll be spending it with my parents.”

  “They’re friends with the Arnolds, right?”

  His body language was so informal that I straightened up and stiffened in compensation. “I suppose you could say that.”

  “I think Parker has us going to their Christmas party.” He arched his back in a little stretch. “She’s been going to some women’s group at Lynn’s house and can’t say enough about her. I must hear Lynn’s name”—he paused to make an accurate estimate—“six times a day.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” I said. My tone was perfunctory.

  Philip rolled his eyes. Unlike Greg, who was adoringly amused by Jill’s idiosyncrasies, Philip seemed to merely tolerate Parker’s. “Yeah, well”—he drummed his fingers over my desk—“if Parker calls, I have a meeting in the city. I’ll be home in time to go to the party together.”

  As Philip walked away, I stared at his back, noticing that he didn’t have his briefcase with him.

  . . .

  I stood just inside the doorway to Maramar, where I had been for at least an hour, ready to escort guests to the large and lavishly decorated private dining room that the Kents had reserved.

  “Make sure they don’t set up the raw bar until the very last minute,” ordered Parker into her cell phone. “I would die if someone ate a room-temperature oyster.”

  “I’ll tell them,” I said, just as I had told the florist to pluck any spotted petals from the cerise rose and green hydrangea bouquets, as I had told the waitstaff to be sure that the wine was served from decanters, “but with bottles displayed so that the label shows.”

  I heard the clatter of Parker’s stiletto heels before I saw her. She marched through the door, which Philip held open for her, and immediately searched for me, disappointed, I could tell, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

  “How is everything going?” she asked as Philip took her coat. “Does the room look good?”

  “It looks beautiful,” I said, though Parker would not be satisfied until she saw it herself.

  “Does it feel tight with the banquet-style tables?” She took a discreet but distinctly appraising glance at me. I was wearing a black turtleneck and black pencil skirt with black, kitten-heel boots. I didn’t have on an apron, but I was, as requested, wearing the all-black attire of the rest of the staff.

  “No, it’s great,” I said. “That was a good call.” Parker, on the other hand, was dressed to be noticed, with a strapless fuchsia satin cocktail dress that was tight over her chest but belled out into a tulip skirt that accommodated her enormous belly. She had on sexy heels that added at least five inches to her frame and her hair was pulled into a chignon with her bangs grazing her brow.

  “Philip, honey,” she said, as she rested her fingers on his upper arm, her voice an octave higher than when she was speaking to me, “let’s go back there. People should be getting here soon.” I could see that she was taking to heart Lynn Arnold’s lessons on how to be a “fine Christian wife.” Philip probably got back rubs, blow jobs, and beer in frosty mugs brought to him on wooden trays with a little bowl of smoked scallops.

  The guests began to arrive soon after, and I greeted them cordially. Good evening. Are you here for the Kent party? Right this way. I knew how to hold my hands behind my back and smile; Horton had trained me for that. And I wasn’t surprised when they looked through me when asking the whereabouts of the restroom, or when they followed silently without a pleasant word. I was, after all, the help.

  When the Arnolds arrived, and Lynn saw me, her face instantly lifted into a practiced smile, the kind she could probably hold for hours at a time during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

  “So nice to see you, Ellen,” she said, stopping just a few inches too far away for her greeting to be considered sincere.

  “Good to see you, too,” I said.

  “So, I hope you are still coming to our party next week.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” The immobility of her smile indicated that she wished I would. Her d
istance suggested that she was fully aware of the severity of my parents’ financial troubles. To the Arnolds, losing your money was worse than having a divorced daughter. It was worse than having a pregnant teenager or a gay son.

  As the party reached critical mass, the chatter in the room became a laughter-punctuated buzz. I stood on the sidelines, rendered redundant, as I knew I would be, by the very capable staff of the well-respected restaurant. I was there because Parker was in the position to tell me that I had to be. So I stood in the corner and watched as Parker sought to be the perfect hostess, twirling between conversations and giving face time to everyone in the room. She rested her hand on her swollen belly and nursed her glass of San Pellegrino, every so often directing Philip this way or that. The evening, it seemed, was orchestrated to show Philip exactly how valuable she was, how lucky he was to have her. All powerful men need their Jackies.

  As the cocktail hour ended, I approached Philip and Parker to let them know that the guests could be invited to take their seats. They were talking with the Arnolds and Parker’s parents.

  “We need to get you into the attorney general’s office, Philip,” said Edward Arnold as he snatched a duck spring roll off a passing tray.

  Philip took a sip of his wine. “I’m not nearly altruistic enough to go into public service,” he said, to his audience’s riotous de-light. It wasn’t funny so much as true.

  “That’s the problem. No one in his right mind would take that job,” said Parker’s father. “That’s why our government is run by idiots.” Lynn stood by with her hands crossed in front of her, listening to the men, while Parker’s mother looked vacantly off in the distance, like a socialite of old, anesthetized by privilege. Privilege and something darker.

  The meal was beautifully prepared and expertly served. Philip gave a lovely toast, thanking his wife for putting the evening together and his friends and colleagues for attending. I didn’t know if anyone noticed that his speech was beginning to slur.

  After dessert, the guests began to trickle out and Philip took his post at the bar with a few other men around his age, some of whom I would learn he had known since he was a boy. They had gone to school together, played on the same hockey teams, gone on ski trips, and spent time at one another’s summer homes. Parker looked like she was beginning to flag, taking a seat on a stool and glancing at the clock every few minutes. When the Arnolds came to say thank you and good night, Edward commented on it.