At the end, I say a brief prayer and sit back down on the preacher throne.
The funeral director looks shell-shocked. Matt Carter has steam coming out of his ears, but, then, when doesn’t he? The Judge has put away his penknife, and Mrs. Tompkins is pursing her lips as if she’s sucking the world’s sourest lemon.
And I realize that in dying, Mavis Carter may have finally contributed to the betterment of her church.
Preaching a funeral service on no notice turns out to be far easier than meeting David that afternoon. Normally after I do a funeral, I receive an honorarium from the family. It’s not usually a large amount, but in a low-paying profession like the ministry, it’s always a blessing. I give ten percent to the church, and then I use the rest to splurge on fun things like rent and groceries. Today, to no one’s surprise, I receive no honorarium. In fact, Matt Carter refuses to speak to me after the service.
So I arrive at the bowling alley later than originally planned. We’re lucky to get a lane. The folks in the Saturday-afternoon leagues are filing in, and a smoky haze drifts over the well. The sharp crack of pins against the hardwood and the jeers and cheers of serious bowlers punctuate the eighties rock music blaring from overhead speakers. The pungent aroma of stale beer and greasy chili dogs assures me that David will be in hog heaven.
In fact, he’s already there and looks as if he has been for some time. I stop at the top of the steps to admire his form. I mean his bowling form! He looks so competent as he squares up to the lane, strides forward while arching his left arm back, and then in a pretzely kind of way, twists his body and releases the ball with swift, deadly accuracy.
The pins at the end of his lane crack with a satisfying resonance. His spine straightens, and the fist at his side clenches with satisfaction. He’s not the type to pump his fist or high-five, my David. Just that clenching of his fingers to show his satisfaction with what he’s done. And the fact that I know the meaning of that gesture speaks of an intimacy born of long years of friendship. Can I really risk that for a little romance?
David turns, sets me, and smiles sheepishly. “I couldn’t wait,” he confesses, nodding toward the lane. His ball reappears in the return with a hiss and a thump.
I look at him, standing there in jeans and a long-sleeved Rugby shirt, and to me he looks better than James Bond in a tux. And I know I’m a goner. Whatever happens, I can’t go back to pretending he’s only my friend.
“Got your shoes?” he asks.
Weakly, I hold up the fashion-challenged green and red lace-ups.
“Great.” His smile takes on a teasing slant. “I knew you’d love the shoes.”
How can I not laugh and smile back? I sink into one of the plastic chairs and change my shoes while David looks for a ball I can actually lift. The only bowling balls I can use are the kid-size ones, but my fingers don’t always fit into the holes. By the time I’m laced up and ready to go, David’s secured a lightweight ball that will work.
“You go first,” I suggest, and he agrees. He bowls a strike and tries not to look too triumphant.
“Come on, Betz. Your turn.”
I’d rather have lunch with Edna Tompkins at a Daughters of the Confederacy meeting where they discover I’m a Yankee by birth. But I’m also no coward. So I grab the ball, march to the little arrows on the floor, and try to imitate what David did. Only I’m right-handed instead of left, and my ball doesn’t quite fly from my hand with the precision of a cruise missile as his does. Instead, it drops to the lane with a thunk! and bounces into the gutter.
My shoulders slump, and I decide to pout. “Can we get them to put the gutter guards up?”
David looks horrified. “Gutter guards are for kiddie birthday parties.” He frowns for a moment. “Okay, let’s try this.” He grabs my ball from the return and steps up to join me on the platform. “You just need to quit overthinking it and let your natural rhythm take over.”
Natural rhythm? The only thing rhythmic about me is the accelerated pounding of my heart when David spins me to face the lane and stands close behind me, one hand on my left shoulder and the other on my right arm just above my wrist. The weight of the bowling ball in my hand is nothing compared to the sudden leadenness of my feet.
“Let me guide you,” he says in my ear, and his breath tickles. “Okay, now take three steps and then release.”
Steps where? Release what? My brain is mush, and my body is completely liquid. David’s hands propel me forward, and I scramble not to trip over my own feet. The ball drops from my fingers and almost lands on my toes. It rolls like a tortoise up the lane, and for a blissful eternity I stand there watching it with David pressed against my back. I can feel his breath as clearly as my own. We’re frozen in time, or at least the time it takes my pathetically thrown ball to meander to the end of the lane. It delicately brushes against a pin, which slowly tips over like a drunk slithering to the floor.
David stiffens and then steps away. “Well, that’s an improvement,” he mutters as he walks toward the scorers table. His words are like a razor across my soul, even though I’m sure he didn’t intend me to hear them.
I join him at the table, wedging myself between the chair and the sharp Formica edge. “David, if you’d rather, I can just watch you bowl.” The tension between us is as thick as the smoky haze.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He punches my score into the computer without looking at me. “I never bowl alone.”
“Me neither,” I say, deadpan.
He laughs and slumps back in his seat. Just like that, the tension diffuses, and it’s simply me and David hanging out, like always.
Ten frames, then ten more. Time flies. David consumes two chili dogs and, ever mindful of my Weight Watchers points, I settle for diet soda.
Were shucking our rented shoes when David suddenly turns serious. “Betz, are you okay?”
We’ve avoided talking about my decision to accept the interim senior-minister position, but clearly it’s the elephant in the living room. Or bowling alley, as the case may be.
“I guess.”
“I know you wanted me to be more excited for you.”
My chest tightens. “Yeah, I did. But it’s okay.”
David reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Not really. That’s why I asked if you’re okay.”
It’s the moment. It’s the absolutely right time to broach the subject of my newly discovered feelings for him. I take the deepest breath ever. “It’s just that…”
I can’t go on. A long silence.
“Just that what?”
I study my socks, not daring to look at him. “It’s not really about the church. It’s more about me.”
“Yeah?” He’s studying me, not his socks. I both love and fear being the focus of David’s scrutiny.
“I guess you could say I’ve been lonely lately.”
Okay, that’ll work as an entrée.
“What about that guy?” He’s suddenly focused on unlacing his shoes.
“That guy?”
“From Valentine’s Day. The one who picked you up that night you looked so…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. Weird was, I believe, his exact word for my appearance on that occasion.
“Oh, James. That was just LaRonda’s brother. He’s a friend.”
“I’m a friend, and you never dress like that when we do stuff together.” He actually sounds the slightest bit jealous.
“I was just trying out the new me. From the makeover.”
He slips from the bowling shoes to his Merrells, flipping one shoe in his hand like Mister Rogers. “Betz, there’s nothing wrong with the old you.”
No, nothing at all. Except that the old Betsy can’t attract the one man she wants to notice her as more than a friend.
“The male population of Nashville would not seem to agree with you on that issue.”
“You don’t need a man. You just need a friend.”
“I have plenty of friends, thanks.”
&n
bsp; Tell him, tell him, tell him.
Suddenly, David snaps his fingers. “I know what you need.”
My heart leaps. “Yeah?”
He stands up, bowling shoes in hand. “Come on.”
Now he’s a man on a mission. He grabs my hand and tows me out of the bowling alley, stopping only long enough to turn in our shoes. We head for the Volvo, and he opens the passenger door. “Get in.”
“What about my car?”
“We’ll come back for it. First, we’re going to solve your problem.”
My heart starts knocking louder than the Volvo’s engine. I didn’t even have to say the words! David has figured it out. Where are we going? Back to his place? to my place?
He pulls out of the parking lot. “Where are we going?” I ask.
He grins at me from the driver’s seat. “You’ll see.”
A fish. The man took me to PETsMART and bought me a fish. A betta, to be exact. A fish that can’t be put in the same tank with any others because it will attack and kill them.
“Now you won’t be lonely.” David’s so pleased with himself I can’t bear to rain on his parade. He sprang for the whole thing—the bowl, the food, the gravel, and, yes, the fish.
“How could I be when I have Simon Peter for company?” My smile feels as watery as the fishbowl is going to be when I get home and fill it up. Only David could buy me a fish and name it after the world’s most famous fisherman.
David takes me back to the bowling alley and shifts all of Simon’s paraphernalia to my car.
“Hot date tonight?” David asks when he hugs me good-bye. I’m too distracted by the feel of his arms around me to answer immediately.
“Hmm. Oh, date? No. Not unless you count Simon here.” I swallow and force myself to ask the fateful question. “How about you and the new lady?”
A shadow passes over his face. “We’re going to the movies.”
I can’t prevent the sting I feel. I can’t make myself indifferent to how much it hurts to hear that while I’m good enough for Saturday afternoon, I’m not good enough for Saturday night.
David shifts from one foot to the other. “But I’m telling her absolutely no ice cream afterward. That’s your territory.”
So what? New Girl doesn’t need ice cream. She’ll probably get something far sweeter on her lips by the end of the evening.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“You’d better.”
And then the weirdest thing happens. Neither of us leaves. We’re just standing there in the parking lot of Melrose Lanes, a few inches apart, as traffic whizzes by on Franklin Road.
I try to think of something, anything to fill the silence. “Hey, do you still have that tape of the makeover segment?” I ask. “My mom wants to see it. She says it will give her hope I may one day provide her with grandchildren.”
Oddly enough, David turns a light shade of pink. “Um, actually, I think I erased it.”
“Oh.” I think I swallowed one of the bowling balls because it feels as if one has taken up residence in my stomach. Even at my cosme-tological best, I’m apparently not worth a second look.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t sound overly apologetic.
There’s another long silence while even more traffic whizzes by. Finally, David releases us from the spell. “Well, good luck with your sermon tomorrow.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
And then he turns away. Simon Peter and I watch David get into his car and drive off. And then we do the same. Because no matter how much it hurts, I have to keep moving. I have a fish to care for.
Ever since I became a minister, my heart skips a beat every time the phone rings. Most of the time it turns out to be an ordinary phone call, not a crisis. It’s my mom with her biweekly nag about my lack of a boyfriend or LaRonda wanting to bounce part of her sermon off me. Or Edna Tompkins calls to see if I’ve run the latest errand she’s dreamed up for me. Usually, I get nervous for nothing.
But when the phone rings on Saturday night, it’s never good. I’m settled into the cushions of my Salvation Army couch watching reruns of Law and Order when the phone rings, and I know my evening is about to take a departure from its expected course.
“Reverend Blessing? This is the emergency room at Vanderbilt Hospital. We have a Velva Brown here who asked that we call you.”
The M&M’s I’ve been binging on coalesce into a lump in my stomach. I thought the worst thing that could happen tonight would be David out on a date with another woman.
“What happened?”
“She lost consciousness and fell. We’re running some tests, but it doesn’t look good.”
Of course it doesn’t look good. The woman is ninety-four. Falling is not exactly a recreational activity at her age. But I refuse to believe that anything is going to happen to her. Not to Velva.
“I’ll be right there.”
I don’t care that my hair is sticking up in three directions or that I’m wearing my tackiest sweats. I grab the car keys and my purse from the table beside the door and race into the night.
The emergency room is the great leveler of the human race. Rich, poor, black, white, English as a first language, and English as a second. Knife wounds, weed-whacker mishaps, flu, and broken bones. Everyone here is suffering.
After passing through the metal detector, I check in at the desk. The words, “I’m looking for one of my parishioners” are the universal pass code to get beyond the waiting room.
Velva’s in one of the treatment bays with a curtain pulled partially around the bed. I wince at the sight of her hooked up to multiple monitors, an IV tube attached to her hand. The worst thing is that they’ve had to intubate her. An oxygen mask covers her face, and she’s unconscious.
It hurts so much. I know I’m supposed to be professional and maintain my equanimity, but this is my Velva. I move to the side of the bed opposite the IV so I can take her free hand. Her fingers are cool and stiff in mine.
She rouses at the pressure of my fingers. Her eyes flicker open, and I realize she’s regaining consciousness. She pulls her hand away to reach for the oxygen mask and the plastic tubing they’ve run down her throat.
“No, Velva. You can’t.” I grab her other hand and hold it in mine. Her eyes are two pools of pain. “I’ll get the nurse.”
But before I can call for help, the nurse is there. She whisks the curtain back with no-nonsense efficiency and examines the mysterious tubes and dials on the IV stand. “She’s a tough one to keep under. Is this your grandmother?”
“No. I’m her pastor.”
The nurse purses her lips. I don’t have the time or the inclination to take umbrage at her disapproval of my profession. She can purse all she wants as long as she keeps Velva from pulling that tube out of her throat.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.” The nurses hair is slicked back into a merciless ponytail, but she’s about twenty years too old to have any hope of the hairstyle making her look younger. “HIPAA, you know.”
I’d like to get my hands around the throats of the fools who wrote the so-called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the new federal guidelines for sharing patient information. It’s hard to get permission to disclose medical information from a sedated woman who’s got a tube shoved down her throat.
“Please. I won’t say you told me anything.”
The nurse takes pity on me, perhaps because my hair actually looks worse than hers. She glances back over her shoulder to see if anyone is listening. And then in a conspiratorial whisper, she says, “We’re waiting for the results of the MRI. She’s having TIAs, and her hip may be broken.”
She confides the information as if she’s telling me the best place to score heroin, but I don’t care. It’s so unfair. A broken hip at Velva’s age can be deadly, and the TIAs, or ministrokes, mean she’ll only be that much more unsteady if she does manage to get back on her feet.
The human b
ody doesn’t give way with dignity or ease. It’s as if Velva’s body is getting revenge for having been kept alive so long. “Can you give her something to put her back to sleep?” The nurse scowls. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” I know the woman’s tired. She works long hours, and patients generally give her the same kind of trouble parishioners give me. But Christian forgiveness is not exactly what’s flowing through my veins right now.
“Just help her. Please.”
She does. After five more minutes of struggle, some doctor authorizes an increase in the medication. Velva slips into a chemically induced sleep. The ER buzzes around me, a typical Saturday-night festival of gunshot wounds, vomiting teenagers, and wailing mothers. I pull up a rolling stool and claim my spot by Velva’s bed. The staff can shoot me as many dirty looks as they like. I’m not going anywhere.
Around 1:00 a.m., two orderlies arrive to move Velva to a regular room. She’s been admitted to the hospital. At 2:00 a.m., the floor nurse orders me out of the room and tells me to come back tomorrow. At 3:00 a.m., at home in my own bed, I drift off to sleep, with a vague remembrance that I have to preach in the morning.
The alarm didn’t go off. I can’t believe this. Why in heaven’s name didn’t the alarm go off?
I scramble from my bed forty minutes before the early service at Church of the Shepherd is scheduled to begin. I’d planned to spend my Saturday night carefully laying out my clothes, pampering myself with a bubble bath and a loofah, and going over my sermon. Instead, I spent it in the ER, and now I’m flying around my bedroom, digging out my black pumps from under the bed, and yanking my funeral suit from the overstuffed closet. My shower lasts approximately thirty seconds, and there’s no time for six styling gels and a straightening iron to achieve my hottie hairstyle. Instead I let my curls go wild. There’s not even time for coffee. I’ll have to make do with the battery acid they serve in the fellowship hall.
Heavens to Betsy Page 10