Providence: Once Upon a Second Chance

by Chris Coppernoll

  “Jack, Angela and I belong to a ministry that plants churches in different parts of the world, to reach out to others, teach English, and whenever possible, share the message of Christ.”

  “Where are you headed next?” I asked.

  “After the first of the year, London. I have a feeling we’ll be there a long time.”

  Jenny took on the role of table host, directing the flow of conversational traffic, asking everyone to share what they’d been up to lately.

  “Mike is working in the state attorney general’s office. This is apparently his crowning moment of glory, since he can’t stop talking about it,” Tessa said.

  “Hey, it was my number-one law-school fantasy! What can I say?” Mike blushed.

  “Meanwhile I’m still struggling away in private practice. I did however bring on a paralegal in October, and it’s helped enormously.” Tessa sipped from her glass. “What about you, sister?”

  “My free time’s been gobbled up by a pilot program Dr. Holland launched in Providence. We’re researching the needs in the inner city. This semester we’ve mostly just been taking stock of the situation because there’s so much that needs to be done. No one’s sure how to approach the task. Every time we think we’ve seen everything there is, another layer appears.”

  “And what about you, Jack?” Angela turned her gaze from Jenny to me. “What’s your first year of college been like?”

  “It’s been extraordinary, Mrs. Cameron. Sometimes it’s hard to believe I was in high school eight months ago.”

  Tessa raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m sure your parents are proud of you. Jenny’s told us how focused you are on your work … and school.”

  “My mom is, I think.”

  “Jack’s parents divorced when he was young,” Jenny said.

  I was sure she’d already told her mom about my situation.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Jack. Do both your parents still live in Iowa?”

  “My dad’s in California. We don’t see him much anymore.”

  Tessa excused herself and went into the kitchen.

  “Do you know what you’d like to do when you get out of school?” Howard asked.

  Tessa returned carrying in a real New York–style cheesecake. “Okay, everybody. Here it is … the best cheesecake on the planet, FedExed in fresh this morning from Montell’s in Lower Manhattan.”

  The five of us oohed and aahed. She set out dessert plates, and the smell of brewing coffee wafted in from the kitchen.

  “You were saying, Jack?” Howard and Angela may have been scribbling notes in their mental personnel files, but it didn’t feel that way. I would have been more nervous had I known Jenny had never brought a boy home before.

  “After college? I know I should have this all figured out, but—”

  “Nonsense,” Angela said. “What young man’s ever had his life course mapped out by his freshman year of college? I know Howard didn’t.” She touched his arm and smiled at him. “He knew his purpose and calling were to serve the Lord. That’s what first brought him to Chicago, but that was it. Howard and I met in college when he was a freshman and I was a junior at school. My father and mother had been missionaries in India and the Philippines. I knew God was calling me, but Howard was just open and waiting.”

  “She told me we were going on a world cruise.” Howard said, getting the night’s first big laugh.

  “Oh, I did not!” Angela said. They looked as if they’d fallen in love in October along with the rest of us.

  “Jack, I believe the Lord has wonderful things in store for your life, and if you’ll watch for those things, follow His leading, He’ll take care of the rest.”

  Angela’s words proved true over the years, as true as refined gold. But at the time, I couldn’t possibly comprehend their meaning.

  “I haven’t known you long, but you’re a special person, I can tell. I’m thankful you’re spending Christmas with us.” With that Angela raised her glass to me, and I felt accepted.

  “Thank you.”

  After dinner Jenny and I sat alone on the sofa in the rec room downstairs. Our long day of adventure was winding down, tempered by a good meal and the late hour. We rested. Jenny stretched out across the red plaid couch, strands of chestnut hair falling across her face.

  “I think you were a hit with my family,” she whispered, her eyes barely open.

  “They’re wonderful. You’re lucky to have them.”

  “I don’t see it as luck. I think of it as the Lord’s blessing.”

  “Okay, then, you’re blessed.” Eyes closed, she smiled.

  I’d seen Jenny’s genuine faith at work in her daily life. Seen it in the title of a book she carried called A Woman’s Field Guide to Faith by Allison Miller. The small devotional went everywhere with her, stuffed into her red book bag with the rest of her textbooks. I’d seen it at Dr. Holland’s clinic when she kneeled to comfort a worried child, or patiently explained something to a mother who spoke only broken English. She was gracious in response to the frustrations of life or when facing disagreeable, unhappy people.

  “Did you ever go to church?” Jenny asked. Her eyes opened in the soft glow of a lamp.

  “My parents took us when we were little, but I don’t remember much.”

  “We’re going this Sunday. Will you come with us? There’s also a Christmas Eve service we attend every year.”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering if I could find there what the Camerons had discovered in the house of faith.

  “You know God loves you, don’t you, Jack? I mean, someone has explained this to you?”

  “More or less.”

  “This visit could be good for you in a lot of ways,” she said sitting up, more awake now. “Are you getting used to me in your life?”

  “Too much so,” I said, not thinking.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sometimes I think we’re getting too close, and that worries me.”

  Jenny turned on another lamp, brushing the shade tassels with the back of her hand.

  “Why would that worry you?” she asked.

  “Worry’s not the right word,” I said. “I mean to say I get confused sometimes. You’re graduating from college next year. I’m just getting started. I don’t know what’s going to happen then. Don’t you ever think about it?”

  We’d rarely talked about the future, but as all young people in love know, it’s an issue, whether spoken or not. Our romance was intrinsically tied to who we were as students. A hedge of immaturity blocked me from seeing what it could be after college.

  “Jack, honey, what I think about us is that I love you.” Jenny parsed each word. “When I think about the future, I think about us. What we could be like.” Her voice was calm and confident. “I think we could be good together, really good.”

  She crossed her legs Indian-style and held both my hands. “Jack, do you remember me telling you I grew up part of the time in England?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When I was a teenager, I used to sit up at night and look out my bedroom window, asking God if He had chosen a special man to be my husband someday. I didn’t think he’d be English, but I believed God had someone special, somewhere. He could be anyone in the world, even someone on the other side of town.”

  She stared into space, the golden lamplight painting a halo around her hair. “If it’s the Lord’s will for me to have a husband”—Jenny wrapped her fingers around my hand and squeezed them—“I’d so love that future to be with you.”

  At forty the phrase “I’d love that future to be with you” demands a response. Hearing that as a teenager, the proclamation was enough in itself. The discussion needed go no further.

  I realize the phrase “This was all so new” doesn’t delve very deep. But I’d never held a woman so long that hours and even days later I could still feel the texture of the fabric she wore against my fingertips, or the soft touch of her face resting on my shoulder. I’d never known the
responsibility that comes with the realization that there’s nowhere else on earth she’d rather be than with me. I was old enough to be in love, just not old enough to know what a rare thing it is.

  Jenny reached for a thin tangerine blanket resting on the back of the sofa and draped it over both of us. She found her place cuddled against me where her body fit perfectly with mine. I moved my lips toward hers, and we kissed. In the world we see with our eyes shut—she was making a pledge, securing a bond. She was giving me her heart and saying a promise to stay in love forever.

  The basement door opened with a scrape, and we heard Angela’s voice at the top of the stairs. “Jenny, it’s nearly midnight. You need to let Jack get some sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  I have fond memories of the days when Jenny and I, though legally adults, were still under the watchful eye of her protective parents.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said, and we heard the door upstairs close again.

  Quietly, and without fully understanding, I surrendered myself to her that night, clueless that twenty years later I would still be thinking about that moment. That I would write about it until the hands of an antique clock ticked 2:37 a.m.

  On that night twenty years ago, I didn’t think about the next day or the day after that. We were together, and there was nowhere on earth I’d rather have been.

  ~ NINETEEN ~

  Motoring

  What’s your price for flight?

  —Night Ranger

  “Sister Christian”

  “We’ve finished our response to the Abbott piece. We’re releasing it to the press this morning.” Arthur Reed was ready for a fight. “Susan and I worked on it last night during the drive back to Indy. I think you should know, we’re not going easy on him.”

  “Can you read it to me over the phone? I need to know exactly what you mean by ‘not going easy.’”

  “Ah, not just yet,” Arthur said. “I’ll fax you an approval copy later this morning.”

  It was Monday morning. D-day for the defensive press blitz Arthur was eager to launch.

  “Susan wants to get this thing serviced as widely as possible before journalists leave their desks for lunch. She’ll send it to newspapers, wire services, print media, television and radio stations, Web bloggers, and gossip columnists. Everywhere McKinney and Company has contacts. She’ll send out over fourteen hundred e-mails and faxes by day’s end.”

  “Impressive,” I said.

  “I want you to consider letting Susan set up something on cable. We could definitely do O’Reilly. That guy hates your guts. His senior producer has already called my office twice this morning. They’re planning to rip into you on tonight’s program. I guess he has strong feelings on nonprofits that abuse their privileged status.”

  “Sounds like a lot of fun, but I’m working on another plan.”

  For all his protests, deep down I suspected Arthur liked what was happening. Some of it had to do with book sales, but mostly I think he just liked being involved in big-league play. His premier author was a sudden celebrity immersed in a big scandal that required a bigger response. Arthur enjoyed life supersized.

  “I want you to reconsider. They would give you twenty minutes. We could fly to New York this afternoon, and you could tell your story to the world—clear this all up before you go to bed tonight.”

  I picked up the remote that was sitting next to a candy dish filled with red and green M&M’s and clicked the TV back to life. The same incomplete story cycled at the bottom of the screen. “I’ll pass.”

  “So what is this other idea of yours?”

  “I’ll tell you soon enough, but no TV appearances, okay?” I said.

  “What we’re doing here requires a team effort. We need to all be on the same page. If you have a plan that’s—”

  “Don’t push me, Art.” The abrupt interruption shut Arthur off like a spigot. “You and Susan have your work to do, and when it comes time to tell you what I’m working on, I will. That should happen soon enough.”

  “How are you coming with the book?” Arthur shifted into his other topic of personal interest.

  “Don’t ask me about the book again either. You’ll have it on time,” I said.

  There was silence on Arthur’s end of the line. For three years he’d gotten everything he wanted, but an arrow shot into the sky climbs only for a while before returning to earth. Arthur’s arrow had peaked. I owed him a book, not my life. In spite of the day’s deafening chaos, there would come a day when all the frenzy and fireworks would be over. For now, our friendship would continue walking on broken glass.

  “Whatever you say, Jack.”

  An hour later I drove north up I-65 toward Chicago on my first manhunt. I planned to ferret out an ace journalist who fit the description of a coward and a liar. I was working from a loosely fitted plan, one having to do with an up-close-and-personal confrontation. It was something I doubted Bud Abbott had ever seen as a reporter inside the walled city of the Chicago Tribune.

  I’d lived in the windy city for a short while, so I knew to exit at Lake Shore Drive and work my way over to the Tribune building on Michigan Avenue. Even with the fresh lakefront snowfall, I was downtown by midday and parked in a structure adjacent to the building. I crossed Michigan and entered the revolving doors.

  My honest and famous face worked like a charm, a dual set of keys opening the gates from the ground floor up to the receptionist on the Tribune floor. I wound my way through an enormous room filled with small brown cubicles and found Bud Abbott eating lunch in his. I stood in his doorway, immediately grabbing his attention.

  “Clayton?” A nervous thirtyish boy of a reporter looked up at me. His expression froze. He was probably wondering if I’d managed to sneak an Uzi into the building.

  “It’s me, Bud,” I said, sounding more like Dirty Harry than Jack Clayton, benevolent, best-selling author.

  He reached for the phone but stopped short, his hand suspended in midair at the end of a long, thin arm, a slight tremor visible at his narrow wrist. I’m not a big guy, but the surprise of showing up, an arm’s length away, inside a claustrophobic cubicle stopped Bud Abbott dead in his tracks. Raw emotions read like newsprint on his face.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “That’s right, Bud. I want something. You’re going to give me exactly what I came in here for.”

  I could see dozens of story lines playing out in his eyes. Could a reclusive writer snap under the pressure of a newspaper story? Could bad press make a narcissistic hermit leave his shanty for the big city with vengeance on his mind? Would tomorrow’s headline read: TRIB WRITER SLAIN AFTER CRITICAL STORY?

  “What do you want?” he asked again, the words coming out so dry, they almost snapped off in his mouth.

  “I want you, Bud. I want the next month of your life. I’m going to come live in your house, eat in your kitchen, and watch your TV. And you’re going to let me do that, because the story you wrote was a lie. You don’t know me, Bud, but you’re going to get to know me, and after you do, you’re going to set the record straight.”

  Jesus commands us to love our enemies. When someone strikes your cheek, turn and give the other. If they demand you carry their pack for a mile, carry it two. I had caught Bud’s flaming arrow and was now returning it to his door in singed fingers.

  Bud Abbott didn’t know whom he was dealing with. No one knew the real Jack Clayton or why he avoided the public. Perhaps Bud wondered if there really were dark and sinister reasons. Dumbfounded, he sat in silence, open-mouthed and squinty-eyed behind wire-framed glasses.

  “What do you really want, Clayton? If you’ve come here to play mind games, forget it; I don’t play. If you’re mad about the story, write a letter to the editor. Other than that, get out of my office, or I’ll call security,” he said and stood to the fullness of his six-foot-two frame.

  Now I wondered if I’d be the one taking it on the chops.

  “You called me for a
n interview, Bud. You’re not going to throw me out for coming all the way to Chicago for it, are you?”

  His eyes rolled upward. We both knew he hadn’t expected an interview that day. He’d just wanted to shake me up, to cause me to say something foolish in anger. For all the highbrow acceptance-speech pronouncements journalists make about the power and salience of the press, to some it was merely a game.

  Abbott’s weekend piece had run all across the nation, flying off newspaper stands and onto cable TV. Even his editor had called him at home. It was more sensational than Bud had dreamed.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re agreeing to an interview with me?” he asked, a prosecuting attorney questioning a witness on the verge of self-incrimination.

  “Under certain circumstances, yes.”

  “What circumstances?” He sat back in his chair.

  “It’s not a traditional interview, Bud,” I said, making sure he was locking in on my words. “I’m giving you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask me any questions you want through a series of interviews—exclusive interviews. And then you’ll finish writing my last book.”

  Blitzed, Bud shook his head in disbelief.

  “Fame, fortune, and unprecedented access to the country’s most notoriously sought-after interview. Only a fool would say no, Bud. What say you?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am serious. I need a finished draft in eight weeks. Are you going to turn down my offer for an interview?”

  This wasn’t a ruse. I was making a real offer, and a doggone good one. When Bud’s head cleared, he’d soon see the sales possibilities, the boost to his career, the cable-news interviews, even if I did turn out to be a total loon.

  He bit on the end of a yellow pencil, then clicked it across his teeth.

  “You think it’s a trick,” I said, “but it’s not. You’ll get what you want, and I’ll get what I want.”