Love Finds You in Branson, Missouri

by Gwen Ford Faulkenberry

Then again there was the exotic texture of adventure, rugged and leathery, coupled with a smoothness—the cashmere—of their conversation. It was rare for her to feel so comfortable so quickly with another person, especially a man. And in the truck today being together was as easy as slipping into her favorite jeans. It felt like well-worn denim. Sturdy. Chic. Something that would never lose interest or go out of style.

  I’m probably totally overanalyzing everything.

  Ellie drew her leather clutch closer to her and scanned the room. It was filling up. What a motley crew. The myriad characters making up the congregation were as varied as her feelings about Will. On the row in front of her was a Hispanic family and, beside them, an Indian woman in a purple sari. On the other side of her was a Caucasian couple probably in their sixties—he in a gray suit and tie and she in a navy dress—more the type of people Ellie was used to seeing at church. The woman was in animated conversation with the sari lady, who burst out laughing at something the Caucasian woman said.

  Across the aisle was what could have been the Joad family from The Grapes of Wrath. Sitting one row behind them, by herself, was a girl who appeared to be about twenty. She was incredibly skinny, had creamy white skin, and wore dark jeans and red Converse sneakers. Her T-shirt was black and depicted some band unrecognizable to Ellie. All down one arm was a tattoo of the ocean, with whitecapped waves crashing across her bicep and rolling into a shore lined with tropical flowers. She had a nose ring through her septum—like a bull, Ellie thought—and her top lip was pierced. Her hair was maroon and worn in tufts just below her ears, which were pierced with what appeared to be small film canisters. Her large hazel eyes glanced up and caught Ellie staring. Ellie tried to look away but was somehow held in place by the girl’s steady gaze and forgiving smile. When an acoustic guitar started to play, the girl turned her eyes toward the stage. Ellie’s eyes followed and rested on Will.

  He was sitting on one of the folding chairs in the background of the stage. His designer jeans hugged his waist and legs just the right amount and draped loosely at the bottom over chestnut brown cowboy boots. His button-down shirt, a paisley print in orange tones, was the perfect complement to his sandy red hair. His eyes shone like the water of the lake behind her condo.

  Will exchanged a smile with the tattooed girl but then fixed his eyes downward. His fingers took on a life of their own, becoming an extension of the guitar…as if the guitar, his fingers, and all of Will were one. He continued playing softly, a tune Ellie didn’t recognize.

  A man with dreadlocks rolled in a wheelchair down the center aisle and turned to face the crowd. He lifted a microphone from his lap. “I’d like to welcome you all this morning. We are glad you’re here.” His smile was so genuine Ellie felt almost burned by its warmth. “In a moment Will is going to lead us in some praise and worship time, but first let’s pray and dedicate this time to the Lord.”

  Many people bowed their heads, but Ellie noticed the man leading the prayer neither bowed his head nor closed his eyes. He spoke, as though continuing the conversation he’d already begun: “Father, thank You for this day, for this time, and for this place to gather together. We invite You to come, Holy Spirit, and fill our meeting with peace and purpose. Lead us in truth and let us leave here closer to Jesus than we were before we came.”

  There was no “amen,” at least not from the man in the wheelchair. He merely smiled again and rolled himself back down the aisle to the place where he would sit at the back during the service.

  Will stood then and, carrying his guitar, walked to the front of the stage where a microphone was fitted to his height. He looked out at the crowd, briefly making eye contact with Ellie, then said simply, “Worship with me.” The words of the songs were projected on the white wall behind him.

  Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.

  Open the eyes of my heart.

  I want to see You.

  I want to see You.

  (repeat)

  To see You high and lifted up,

  Shining in the light of Your glory.

  Pour out Your power and love

  As we sing, “Holy, holy, holy.”

  (Back to chorus)

  Holy, holy, holy.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  You are holy, holy, holy.

  I want to see You.1

  Ellie didn’t sing. She read the words on the wall and listened to Will and scanned the scene around her. She had never been anywhere like this before. Church for her was a ritual one performed most weeks, a type of penance for wrong done—for the cumulative wrong of human existence. The experience she was familiar with was in a lot prettier setting with stained glass, an organ, and other normal churchy stuff. It was full of normal people, like the couple by the lady in the sari. Will’s church was not normal. But that didn’t mean Ellie didn’t like it. It was merely foreign—like the first time she went to Germany. A completely different country.

  “McKenna, come up here and help me out. You know you want to.”

  Will’s speaking voice broke Ellie’s reverie. She instinctively turned to the tattooed girl and saw her blush, running a hand through her hair and smiling. She looked tentative, a bit embarrassed.

  Then Will said, “Who thinks I need some help? You guys want McKenna to come up here and sing?”

  Everybody started clapping and some motioned to the girl, who rose from her seat. In a few strides she reached the makeshift stage and, in a lithe movement, was beside Will. She grabbed a mic from one of the stands. Will changed chords, and Ellie heard a woman’s voice ring out a personal invitation so deep and soulful it appeared impossible to come from so small a package. But there she was—waiflike, yet commanding. McKenna seemed to speak directly to Ellie as she sang:

  “Come, now is the time to worship.

  Come, now is the time to give your heart.

  Come, just as you are to worship.

  Come, just as you are before your God.

  Come.”

  She repeated, and Will joined her with a tenor part that wrapped around McKenna’s voice like half of a double helix. They broke into the bridge:

  “One day every tongue will confess You are God,

  One day every knee will bow.

  Still the greatest treasure remains for those,

  Who gladly choose You now.”2

  It was more than just a song. A world of sonic colors opened as the sound enveloped Ellie, as if originating from inside her head, her heart. She felt drenched in the atmosphere of what Will had called worship.

  Something was happening. Ellie didn’t know what, but she could feel a shift in her soul. She’d never thought about God in such personal terms—in fact, doing so embarrassed her. She usually equated such familiarity with the hokeyness that ran rampant in Missouri. On how many road trips between Hermann and St. Louis had she and Beecher amused themselves by poking fun at the slogans of wayside churches?

  CH CH: WHAT’S MISSING? UR.

  Or the creatively threatening WITHOUT THE BREAD OF LIFE, YOU ARE TOAST.

  Then there was the blatant, late-summer scare tactic: IF YOU THINK IT’S HOT HERE, IMAGINE ETERNITY IN HELL.

  Their all-time favorite, the one that almost made Beecher wreck the car, was one they saw on an egg-shaped contraption of a church in the middle of a cow pasture: JESUS GOT ‘ER DONE.

  But what Ellie witnessed now, in this crazy warehouse of all places, was completely different. It could not be laughed off, disdained, or ignored. For the first time she tasted a flavor new and distinct from the religious fare she was used to.

  * * * * *

  “Ellie?”

  The quiet time at the end of the service was over, and Will, finished with the music, took his seat beside her and brushed her hand.

  Ellie, still processing her thoughts and feelings about Will’s “church,” turned to him and smiled. “Sorry. I’m ready, if you are.”

  He gathered his Bible in one hand. The guitar, in its weathered-looking case, was in the other.
Ellie noticed with some amusement that it had a Smokey the Bear sticker on it right next to a peace sign.

  “Would you like to get something to eat?”

  She rose to her feet. “Sounds good.”

  They walked out to the truck, Will introducing Ellie as his friend to the few people who lingered. He opened Scarlett’s passenger door first. When the guitar was secure under the seat, Ellie climbed in, and Will closed the door behind her. Then he went around to the other side and took his place behind the wheel.

  He cocked his head toward her. “Is there something you’re in the mood for?”

  “I like Olive Garden.”

  “Then Olive Garden it is.”

  * * * * *

  The wait at Olive Garden was forever. Ellie started to apologize, but Will said it didn’t bother him, unless she needed to get back, which she didn’t. In fact, the thought of her quiet apartment was a little less than pleasant at the moment. She was glad for more time with Will. They sat together on a bench in their own world, in the middle of a crowded Olive Garden veranda.

  “Ah, look at all the hungry people. Where do they all come from?” Will’s British accent, coupled with a feckless smile and his reference to the Beatles’ classic, cracked Ellie up.

  “Church, like us, and Eleanor Rigby, for that matter.”

  He nodded. “And Father MacKenzie. Let’s don’t forget about him.”

  “I love that song.” She grinned.

  “Me too.”

  “You want to hear a story about me?”

  “I’d like nothing more.”

  “Well, I don’t know how, but I managed to never hear that song until I was in college.” Ellie twisted a strand of her hair around her right index finger.

  “Really?” His eyebrow quirked in amusement.

  “Really. My mom hates the Beatles, so we never had their music around the house. That’s a story for another time, but what I wanted to tell you is that ‘Eleanor Rigby’ was in our literature book for Comp two, my very first semester of college.”

  “You were in Comp two your first semester? How did that work?”

  “I tested out of Comp one.”

  “Hmm. Cool.” Will stretched out his long legs in front of them and crossed his boots. “So ‘Eleanor Rigby’ was in your textbook. I like it.”

  “I did too. There was a lot of neat stuff in there—I think it must have been my professor’s choosing. But anyway, we were doing the section on poetry, and we started with the theme of isolation. We did several Langston Hughes poems, and then this one called ‘Incident,’ by Countee Cullen, and ‘Richard Cory,’ about a guy who commits suicide. Then we got to ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ and Star, one of my classmates, said she knew how to play it on the guitar and sing it. ‘Awesome, do it tomorrow then,’ my teacher said. ‘Class dismissed.’

  “The next day Star brought her guitar to class and sang the song. Turns out she was a lounge singer.” Ellie chuckled. “We all started singing with her, me reading the words from the textbook, and the professor used the moment to talk about art as an antidote for isolation. It was one of the greatest moments of my college career.”

  “That’s awesome. I never had anything like that happen to me in an actual class.”

  Ellie stuck out her lip, mocking him. “Poor Will. I can imagine. It must have been terrible for you studying under Steven Spielberg.”

  Will’s eyes widened. “How did you know about that? Anyway, he wasn’t my professor, obviously.”

  Was he blushing? “I googled you. Sorry. It was my brother’s idea. He’s a bit, shall we say, inquisitive. And protective. Takes the big brother role to a whole new level.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like a good guy.”

  “He’ll do in a pinch.” Ellie smiled facetiously.

  “Tell me more about your family. What’s your father like?”

  She paused. “That’s not an easy question, Will.”

  He leaned toward her, looking into her eyes. His voice was a gentle caress. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something painful. You don’t have to answer.”

  To her amazement, Ellie found herself wanting to talk to Will about her father—a subject she rarely discussed with anyone. “No, I mean, I wish I knew. He left us when I was a little girl, and I’ve never seen or heard from him since. It’s like he vanished into thin air.”

  “Wow. That’s brutal. It must have been very hard on you, growing up.”

  “My mom, Katherine, is amazingly strong. She compensated in every way possible, and her father, my Opa, lived with us after that. He became a father figure in my life, I guess. He’s wonderful. But nothing can replace your dad. It’s kind of like a gaping hole in my life, and my brother’s too, though he doesn’t admit it.”

  “Your dad must have been—must be—a jerk.”

  Ellie didn’t know why, but Will’s deduction made her feel defensive. She crossed her arms and averted her eyes, not saying anything.

  In a few seconds, the buzzer Will was holding lit up and began to vibrate somewhat violently.

  “That’s us,” he said, rising.

  1. “Open the Eyes of My Heart” lyrics by Paul Baloche (Integrity Music).

  2. “Come, Now Is the Time to Worship” lyrics by Brian Doerksen (EMI Christian Music Publishing).

  Chapter Seven

  Ellie liked the stucco walls, festive pottery, and strings of bare, clear lightbulbs that were the standard décor of any Olive Garden. The framed pictures of sunny-faced Italians, gathered for meals under market umbrellas on city piazzas or against the backdrop of a terraced vineyard, reminded her of Katherine, Beecher, and Opa. In many ways her life had been so privileged—vacations in California and various European wine centers, where Katherine and Opa researched and networked, and where she and Beecher learned that the world was big—yet the family portrait was always incomplete. At twenty-two, Ellie still missed her daddy. Still struggled to understand. Still wondered if he might be out there…somewhere…missing her too.

  Her stream of consciousness was interrupted when Will returned from the men’s room. He slid into the booth, on the bench across from her, and leaned his head across the table. He spoke softly, yet with intensity. “Hey. Ellie.”

  Her eyes met his.

  “I’m sorry for calling your dad a jerk. Can you forgive me?”

  Will’s eyes were pleading, and Ellie’s heart turned to mush. She looked back down and started fiddling with her fork.

  “There’s nothing to forgive, really. It’s a bad situation, and your judgment was fair. I’ve said it myself plenty of times.” A tear slipped out of the corner of one of Ellie’s eyes and slid down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand.

  Will waited.

  “It’s just that I still love him. Beecher—my brother—gets angry if he talks about it. But me, I get weepy and stupid like this. That’s why I usually avoid the subject.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid.” Will’s eyes held her in their gaze for a long moment, broken only when the waiter, no bigger than Frodo Baggins, approached their table with salad and breadsticks.

  “Freshly grated cheese?” He held the grater at attention over the bowl of salad. Will looked to Ellie, who nodded at the waiter.

  “Say when!” The waiter cranked and cranked while Ellie grinned wickedly at Will. After there was a small mountain of cheese shavings on their salad, Ellie held out her hand like a policeman. Frodo appeared very relieved as he exited their table.

  “So, how ’bout you tell me about your family? Or is that a loaded question too?” Ellie took a bite of salad.

  “It’s loaded.” Will smiled, revealing a row of white teeth that would have been perfect except one of the two front teeth was slightly crooked. “But not in the same way as yours.” He offered her a breadstick. “I was raised in Chicago. Went to a small liberal arts school there called Columbia—some of this you may know from the Internet. My dad was a truck driver, and my mother worked as a teller at the bank
. I am an only child, and, in my mother’s words, ‘an accident.’”

  Ellie gasped. “She told you that?”

  “Let’s just say she’s not the motherly type and leave it at that for now.” Will tore a breadstick in half. “My dad was kind to me, but he wasn’t around very much. I don’t know what his life was like on the road. I know he worked hard. He and my mother fought a lot. He died of a heart attack when I was twenty. My mother remarried six months later to an investment banker—an old guy—and they live in Nevada on Lake Tahoe. I don’t see them very much.”

  “I’m so sorry about your dad. How in the world did you end up in Branson?”

  “It’s a long story, but the short version is that I inherited some land on Table Rock Lake through my dad’s side of the family. I didn’t have any reason to go back to Chicago, but I was ready for a change after being in California and doing the movie thing. I thought that was my dream, but it turns out it wasn’t.”

  “Wow. That’s unbelievable to me.”

  Will snorted. “Why?”

  “Because it’s my dream. Or something like it. Not movies necessarily, but serious acting on a world stage, like Broadway. I can’t imagine being a part of that world and choosing to leave it.”

  “You don’t have to be on Broadway to be a serious actress.”

  “Will, I didn’t mean—”

  “Now I understand your hesitation when I first called you about playing Sammy.”

  Ellie blushed. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to play Sammy. I’m just being honest with you about my dreams.”

  “Here’s to honesty.” Will held up his water glass and Ellie clicked it with hers.

  “I think toasts are more effective when it’s not water in the glass.”