The Church Ladies Read online

  “The boy reads at a tenth grade level.” Duncan defended his choice of reading material for his son.

  “It’s not all about I.Q.”

  I felt a sense of despair just then, as if they were all slipping away from me sooner than they ought to be—even little Angus, who by all rights should barely know his ABCs. He had let me down. It had been his job to keep me from feeling old and used up, from being the only one left on the Starship Enterprise, while those I loved glittered and sparkled and were transported away, leaving nothing behind but the circles on which they once stood.

  “Let’s just get home,” I said.

  I wanted to open up my kitchen drawers, slide out my old Henckel knives and start chopping away I wanted to smell baking bread and browning butter, frying potatoes and crisping bacon, and strong, black coffee. I wanted to turn on the little CD player in my kitchen and put on the Mamas and the Papas and think about how summers used to be when songs like that played on the radio.

  I wouldn’t dream of leaving Duncan. Ever. Ever. Would I? Well, maybe not today. But a girl could dream. Oh, God. How can I even think such thoughts?

  To obey is better than sacrifice, the Old Testament says. But sometimes obedience is a sacrifice. All the harder to be cheerful about it.

  Angus squinted against the sunlight slipping through the rolled-down van window, the only mode of air conditioning the revolting, rusting vehicle could sustain for the past three summers. He began to read again as we bobbed our way down Church Street toward the IGA for the pound of bacon I forgot to buy the day before. No surprise there. One day I’ll start making lists, but not yet. I don’t want to admit the gray matter is beginning to droop a bit.

  The words of C. S. Lewis remained in Angus’s book this time, though, his mouth echoing the church signs.

  “Free coffee at the Southern Baptists!”

  Five second intervals lapsed between announcements. “Modern worship at Aunt Chris’s church.… The United Methodists say their church is ‘a place where you can be yourself—whomever you love.’ What does that mean, Mama? And shouldn’t that be whoever?”

  I remembered the gossip my best friend Chris Knight told me regarding the new twilight gay/lesbian ministry at Centennial United Methodist. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

  “Oh, look, the Wesleyans have ‘the old time religion for today’s generation.’ And the Episcopals want people to ‘come as you are.’ How can you come as anything else?”

  I love it when his little brows go together like that, but I wish Angus would stop reading. Still, I can’t help watching in fascination as his pale blue eyes skitter back and forth, rapidly bouncing from sign to sign. I loathe the standards, banners, and posters that honkey-tonk “the sacred side show” as the townspeople of Mt. Oak have rightly dubbed Church Street. The spirit of competition from the hotels, motels, and restaurants out by Lake Coventry has infected the religious community, and I don’t like it one bit. It takes the dignity away, as though winning souls is a race to be won, a fight to be fought … well, okay, St. Paul couldn’t have been wrong. But surely he didn’t mean this.

  “ ‘When you’re fightin’ for souls, it takes no prisoners!’ ” I heard Harlan Hopewell, pastor of Port of Grace Assemblies of God Church and famous televangelist, boom this during the rebroadcast of the live, Sunday telecast last Thursday on SFBN—the Spirit-Filled Broadcasting Network. Hard to believe Mount Oak ground out such a glitzy, slick ministry like the Port of Peace Hour. The woman with the big, frizzy, red hairdo that sings and cries seems to be a caricature of sorts. But she loves Jesus. That fact couldn’t be plainer. She wears her affection for “my Lord and Savior” as she always calls Him like a badge of honor. Which is more than I can say for myself. Maybe one day I’ll give up this fight. Maybe one day I’ll truly become a pastor’s wife like that lady and not some half-rate actor trying to play the part.

  Monstrous Mt. Oak First Presbyterian rolled by next. All brick construction, three-story Corinthian pillars looming with an air of disapproval over the Chippendale handrails angling up beside the brick steps. “Well, lookey there.” Angus pointed to the crisp white letters arranged behind the locked glass door of the classically structured sign near the street. “ ‘Sanctuary open 24 hours because you never know when the Spirit’s going to move.’ It looks like even the PCA Presbyterians think they’ve got themselves an angle now.”

  Statements like these frighten me the most. Suddenly my son’s tears over Aslan’s death on the stone table gave me a great deal of comfort. “Read your book, Angus.”

  “But didn’t you just tell Dad—”

  “Yeah, I did. And you can wipe that smirk off of your face right now, Right Reverend Fraser. I’ll just run in for the bacon. Can you let me off at the door? The last thing I want is for this hair of mine to frizz up in the humidity.”

  Duncan pulled the van up in front of the IGA, and I bounded out.

  “Hey!” he called.

  Much to my chagrin, Duncan motioned me around to his window. If I didn’t get that bread rising soon, we wouldn’t eat before three. Maybe some prepared fresh dough would suffice just this once, the cinnamon kind with the white icing.

  Ha! That sure would get Duncan’s goat! I held back a chuckle as I leaned my forearms on his door.

  He leaned forward, speaking softly. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard with the kids, and I know I don’t always make things easier for you. But I love you. You do know that, don’t you?”

  I felt the familiar, unwanted flood of memory at his tender words. Oh, Duncan, what have I done to us?

  He wasn’t called Jody any longer; he was called Joseph. He had a degree from the University of Maryland, and he had filled out to man-sized proportions with beveled biceps and tanned legs ending in feet that looked good in rugged hiking sandals. He was apologizing that it was he who was going to oversee the remodeling of my kitchen and dressing room even though his degree was in architecture. I remembered that his father, Frank Callahan, had redone the kitchen seven years before when we moved into the gracious old house near the Maryland Golf and Country Club. He had done his best to live up to his nickname “The Casanova of Countertops,” and his advances just plain gave me the willies. The job had gone three months over schedule and fifteen thousand dollars over budget. I wondered why this young man, Joseph, felt the need to apologize for his presence when I welcomed it, not only because he was already establishing a reputation for excellence but because he was even more beautiful in form and face than the bag boy down at Safeway. These days, with the way Duncan constantly put in seventy to ninety hours a week with his computer firm, my eyes wandered more and more in the direction of bag boys and cabana boys, bag boys and life guards at the club, and bag boys. Joseph Callahan seemed like the height of maturity compared to my normal, safe fantasy fare, and he’d be remodeling my kitchen for the entire spring.

  “No need to apologize at all, Joseph. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  And a minute later when his callused yet sensitive fingers slid against mine as he took the mug, I knew a mixture of fear and excitement so potent I wondered if I should flee from it, confront it, or wear it like a peignoir from Victoria’s Secret.

  Even five years later, that feeling is easily recalled. The clarity of the memory, the way my pulse quickens and my color heightens frightens me. I honestly can’t say I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Are there any nunneries left around these parts?

  “Believe me, you don’t have anything to apologize for, Duncan. I’m sorry I overreacted about the book. I’m sorry about everything.” More sorry than a woman could be for this many years without the chivalrous aid of Prince Valium. Sometimes I envy those sixties ladies who took downers and didn’t trim the fat off of their T-bones before pan frying them in butter.

  I leaned in and felt his mouth on mine. Familiar lips, unexciting but reliable. Duncan said what he always says when I apologize to him. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, sweetie.” Only Duncan did
n’t know what he was really saying or he’d never say that or anything even close to it.

  “You go ahead on in, babe. Wouldn’t want that hair of yours to frizz.”

  I heard his words behind me as I stepped up my pace and rubbed the tickle above my lip, courtesy of his mustache.

  So I bought the thick-sliced hickory bacon, my reward for surviving another service as the pastor’s wife of Highland Kirk Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. What a frustrating position. Unpaid, too, mind you. Did IBM expect their managers’ wives to do half the work just because she’d said “I do” over two decades before?

  I think not!

  Calm down, Poppy. Just calm yourself right down.

  Two

  I believe the worst part of being a pastor’s wife is living up to that verse in the Bible that talks about an elder having his family in order. I’m trying hard. I really am and all I can say is, boy, am I glad people can’t read my mind. It’s one thing to act the part, but thinking it is another matter altogether. Talk about unruly. We were very up-front with the session regarding our family when Duncan interviewed. Our daughter, Paisley, had not yet made the decision to follow Christ. She still hasn’t and is proud of that fact, claiming she isn’t some mindless sheep like the rest of us.

  The session knit their brows in concern and offered to pray for her. But it wasn’t until Duncan said she’d already moved away from home that the board told us it wouldn’t affect their decision to hire him. At first I thought, “Well!” and branded them hypocrites. Now, I just don’t know. I mean nobody wants trouble, and who can blame them?

  The worst part of the day awaited me, and my stomach soured as I grabbed another box of animal crackers for the glove box and jogged to the IGA checkout counter.

  Paisley had arrived from Lynchburg for a visit the night before. The women’s college graduate, with a fresh bachelor’s degree, would be heading off to start her master’s degree in three days. And she deigned to grace Mount Oak with her glorious presence, if she did say so herself, “But only for a few days, Mother.”

  Mother. Muh-therrr.

  I cringe at the memory of Paisley’s tone of voice. I don’t remember my I.Q. dropping seventy-five points, but apparently Paisley has been informed otherwise. There was no way the twenty-two-year-old would have been talked into going to church with the family. And brunch with bacon? Out of the question. These days, Paisley doesn’t put much more between her lips than dark green salads with a frightening amount of curly things. Where she gets her protein, I’ll never know.

  When we pulled up into the drive, Paisley was just swinging her final leg into her car. I closed my eyes. Oh, God, give me strength. Help me not to open my mouth. I never figured I’d ever feel dread at the sight of one of my children. And I’ve asked myself over and over how it ever got to this.

  Paisley climbed back out.

  Paisley wore those awful multipocketed hip-huggers sewn from an old army parachute, and a cropped black tank top she simply didn’t have the shape for. Talk about ribs!

  Duncan hopped out while I helped Angus climb down from his car booster. “Where you goin’, sport?” he asked her.

  Paisley slammed her door and skipped over to her father in that college girl way, fluid hair flashing an accordion shine as it bounced up and down. She put her arms around his neck. “Daddy!” She kissed his cheek. “I’m glad I caught you. Mitch is having a gig down in Greensboro tonight!”

  Don’t say ANYTHING!

  “Heh.” Duncan emitted a very fake chuckle. “That’s great, hon.”

  Oh yeah, right, Duncan. What a crock! Our daughter is going to one of those smoky, drug-infested goofball clubs where the mediocre music blares so loudly it crackles the eardrums like tissue paper, and that’s the best you can do?

  “When will you be back?” I tried to stop the words midflow as they rushed out, but they seemed to come alive, losing all the characteristics they had been born with in my brain. Just a factual question, nothing more. But my vocal chords ignored the blueprint I’d drawn, creating a Frankenstein monster of accusation, come to live on its own to maim, destroy, and pick flowers with everyone but Paisley.

  Duncan tried to run interference. “Popp, she’s twenty-two.”

  Traitor.

  “Preach it, Daddy.” Paisley chipped at the red-black lacquer on her pinkie nail, digging away at the small amount of progress I felt I had made during my daughter’s four years away at college. When I say liberal arts I mean liberal arts! And to think we paid all of that money to have her brainwashed. Only God Himself will get through to that child, and I want to be as far away as possible when the real battle seethes. Some things even a mother doesn’t want to be around to witness. I think all of us know how much pain we can truly handle.

  If only Paisley could see inside my heart. If only she could remember what it was like to be held in my arms the way I remember holding her. My firstborn. My baby girl.

  Paisley quarried a nail clipper out of a small, molded, black plastic purse shaped like an eggplant. “Mother, can’t I just go to a club, watch my boyfriend play, come home, and that be the end of it? I’m not going to drink. I’m not going to take drugs. And I promise I won’t even have premarital sex tonight if it’ll keep you quiet.” She clipped her pinkie nail.

  “Paisley, I was just wondering what time you were coming home. That’s all. I wasn’t telling you not to go. And I thought you and Mitch had broken up.” I hated the defensive tone in my voice, the way my head shook back and forth like one of those Asian child dashboard ornaments. I am the mother! The mother! Why do I always feel like I’m on trial?

  “Whatever.” Paisley held her hand up like the people on trashy talk shows, giving me that “talk to the hand” garbage. So much for all I tried to teach her about respecting her elders.

  I felt my face flush, and I clenched my fists, watching as my daughter chucked the nail clipper back into her purse.

  Duncan’s arm slipped around my waist at the precise moment I gagged down my frustration. “Go inside,” he whispered into my ear. “You know whatever you say won’t do any good.”

  Why did he have to aggravate the situation by making it “good cop, bad cop” all the time? Don’t I know what Paisley really needs? I am the female, right? Don’t I have the inside scoop?

  “Come on, Gus, let’s go.” The fire inside of me lowered at the cool touch upon my little boy’s bony, vulnerable shoulders. “How about if I read you some Curious George?”

  “Curious George? Don’t hold him back, Mother,” Paisley ordered. “You’re always trying to make him into something he’s not.” She yanked open her car door for the second time that day. “The child should be in a program for gifted children. We’ve got ourselves a living, breathing, genius and you feel you’re qualified to do what’s best for him. We learned all the drawbacks of homeschooling in Sociology of Education.”

  The sharpness of Paisley’s voice assaulted the back of my head. Well, lah-dee-dah, Miss Twenty-Two-Year-Old educational authority of the universe. My own dissatisfaction with her abhors me. Maybe Duncan was right. Maybe I really should get inside and start the coffee. The Lord knew I needed a cup about now! I picked up my pace, determined to get to the kitchen before Paisley said another word.

  “Now, Paisley,” Duncan began, sounding like the Father Knows Best guy, Robert something or other. “Your mother is doing what we both think is best.”

  Oh, man. I felt the blush climb higher on my face and picked up my pace. Get inside, Popp!

  “What she thinks is best.” Paisley whipped her long, newly blackened hair into a ponytail.

  “What do you mean?” Duncan asked in his typical naïve manner. “Your mother is one of the …”

  But I tuned him out and continued my clipped pace to the house. I just couldn’t listen to Paisley’s never ending drone. Not now.

  I yanked open the screen door.

  If Paisley still lived at home, my quandary over whether or not to flee would be a no brainer. Th
ey say confession is good for the soul, but if I ever told Duncan about Jody … well, I can’t even begin to guess how the conversation, much less the future, would turn out.

  I followed Angus into the living room heading straight for Curious George. At least I could always count on The Man with the Yellow Hat to do the right thing by George. To just be nice. Why couldn’t Paisley just be nice?

  “She’s not like you, Mama.”

  Angus’s voice startled me. I had no idea I’d said the words out loud.

  I heard Paisley’s tires crunch the gravel of the drive as she drove away. Two minutes later the smell of bacon skirled in from the kitchen. After finishing the book, I went in to begin making a pot of coffee but saw that it was already brewing.

  “What am I doing wrong, Duncan?” I began to peel potatoes for home fries, turning on a warm stream from the faucet.

  “It’s not just you, Popp. Paisley’s responsible for her own actions now. She’s an adult.”

  “I’ve failed her, though. Isn’t it my responsibility as the mother to make sure that she learns how to be a woman?”

  He shuffled the bacon on the griddle with a long fork. “You can only do so much, sweetie.”

  I adjusted the temperature of the running water, a bit cooler and it would be just right. “She thinks I’m a monster. And she thinks you’re so nice. I feel unsupported by you, Duncan. Like I’m the only one who’ll say it like it is with that child.”

  “I’ve always had a soft spot for her, Popp. You know that.”

  “But don’t you worry about her?”

  “All the time.”

  “You don’t act like it.” Drat this peeler. I need to buy a new one, but I forget every time I’m in the store. “And you never reprimand her.”

  “If we both jumped on her all the time, she’d never come home. And what good would that do?”

  That was the truth. But it didn’t seem like a tactic James Dobson would approve of!