Grounded (31 page)

Finally Estelle spoke. “I think I understand it now. Your purity message …”

Grace stared at the tissue she was absently shredding in her lap. “Yeah. I told God over and over I was so sorry. Thought maybe I could make amends for my sin by preaching a purity message to other teens, keep them from making the same mistake I had—though I didn't dare tell anyone about my ‘mistake.' So I started encouraging other kids in my youth group to take the biblical view of sex seriously, to wait until marriage. My parents seemed really proud of me for being so outspoken, so later when my singing career took off”—Grace shrugged—“it just seemed natural to tell young people they were ‘worth the wait.' And I thought it was true until …”

Grace stared at the empty place on the lamp table where the framed photo of her and Roger, taken at their engagement party, had stood.

“Until?” Estelle prodded gently.

“Until Roger dumped me.” Kicking off her shoes and pulling her feet up onto the couch, Grace hugged her legs, resting her chin on her knees.

“Oh honey, just because Roger broke your engagement doesn't mean you're not worth the wait. Those're two separate things.”

Grace just hugged her knees for a long moment. Then she sighed. “Guess I know that, logically. But it doesn't feel that way. Sometimes I think God is punishing me for that abortion by dangling the promise of marriage in my face, then snatching it away
again.” She turned her head slightly to look at Estelle. “What do you think about all this?”

Estelle seemed to be studying her. For several long moments she didn't say anything. And then, gently, “What do I think? I think that if you're looking for a new theme, you might start by meditating on the meaning of your name.”

Grace shut the door behind Estelle, then stepped over to the window to watch her neighbor walk across the street and disappear into the two-flat.
Meditate on the meaning of my name?
Odd thing to say after she'd just spilled her guts about the painful memories that'd been haunting her recently.

Frankly, after scraping her insides raw and bawling like a baby for the past hour, she felt exhausted. She didn't even have the energy to go back to the piano, much less “meditate.” Maybe after a nap she'd feel like practicing again …

But even though she stretched out on her bed and turned on a fan to create a soothing white noise, Grace couldn't fall asleep. Estelle's words kept tumbling through her thoughts.
“Meditate on the meaning of your name …”

Wasn't like it was all that complicated. Her name was Grace. “We're saved by grace”—she'd heard that a lot growing up. Salvation was God's work, not ours, wasn't that it? That was the thing about Christianity—salvation was a gift we accepted by faith, not a list of things we had to do to earn it.

She hadn't especially liked her name as a teenager. Grace … It had seemed
too
religious, like waving “I'm a Christian” in people's faces, especially when she wanted to just blend in with the other kids at school. Too old-fashioned too, when other girls in her class had cool names like Nicole and Tiffany and Amber. At least she hadn't been named Faith or Hope like two of her friends in the music program at Greenville College. The girls had joked that she
should change her name to Charity—“Then the three of us could go on the road as a gospel trio!”

By comparison, the name Grace felt pretty harmless.

But Faith and Hope had married college sweethearts and she'd lost touch. Of the three, she was the only one who'd moved professionally into the contemporary music scene. The name Grace actually worked for her in that context. It created a subtle “respectability” and spiritual tone that helped build her reputation as a solid Christian artist—at least that's what her first agent at Bongo had told her. “Don't make up some crazy stage name,” he'd warned. “Stick with Grace Meredith. It's a good name.”

In spite of her meandering thoughts, she finally fell asleep until the familiar throb of the guitar-strum ringtone woke her. A heavy weight on her stomach seemed to pin her down as her hand groped for the phone—“Uhh, Oreo, get
off
me!”—but she finally found it and yawned, “Hello?”

“Grace? That you?”

Grace sat up, pushing the cat off the bed. She could barely hear the caller because of the background racket on the other end. “Yes, this is Grace. Who's this?”

“Estelle Bentley! Sorry for the noise. I'm at work and it's the middle of lunch … 'scuse me a sec.” Estelle's voice dropped into the background. “I already
said
, no seconds till everybody's been served … Yes, that's the rule!” Then she was back. “Sorry 'bout that. Here, let me find a quiet corner …”

Phone to her ear, Grace turned off the fan and wandered toward the kitchen to make some coffee.

“Okay, I'm back,” Estelle said. “You still there?”

The background chatter and banging dishes in Grace's ear had muted. “I'm here.” She filled the carafe with cold water, spooned coffee grounds into the filter basket, and turned the coffee maker on.

“I've been thinkin' about our talk this mornin', and I wondered if you'd like to come to work with me tomorrow.”

Grace blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Come to work with me tomorrow—visit the Manna House Shelter, I mean.” Grace heard a deep-throated chuckle on the other end. “I know, I know, it's last minute an' all that, but a while back you said you'd like to hear more about what I do. Hearin's one thing, but seein's a lot better, an' Friday's always a special day. There's a young lady I'd like you to meet, 'bout your age, she leads a Bible study here Friday mornings. Powerful good stuff. Anyway, God dropped it into my spirit to ask if you'd like to visit tomorrow, might be a real pick-me-up for you right now …”

Grace rolled her eyes. She had a natural suspicion of anything that smacked of “
God told me
…” “Uh, I don't know, Estelle. My assistant is coming tomorrow, we've got some work to do, and I—”

“Well, bring her too! Been wantin' to meet her, anyway. It's just a few hours, 'cause all I gotta do tomorrow is make lunch, don't have any classes to teach in the afternoon. Rain's s'posed to let up tonight, be a beautiful day tomorrow. It'd do you some good to get out and about—oh. Speakin' of rain … did I leave my umbrella hangin' on the railing outside your front door?”

In spite of the fact that Estelle's call felt like being swept along by a tsunami, Grace actually liked the idea of getting out of the house and visiting the shelter where her neighbor worked—though it took two cups of coffee to unfog her brain and think about it. She called Sam to see if she'd like to come with her—“Or if not, you could come to work later, say around two?”

“No, no, I'd love to come with! What time do you get back from Curves … nine? And she wants to leave at ten? Tell you what, I'll be there at nine, get a bunch of fan mail answered for an hour, and then do whatever else we need to do when we get back. I've heard of Manna House before, but never been there.”

True to her word, Sam was waiting on her front steps at nine the next morning dressed in jeans, white tee, and a skinny jean jacket when Grace pulled up in front of the house after her stint at Curves.
Sam hefted the big black umbrella still hanging from the railing as Grace came up the walk. “Yours?”

At ten o'clock, when Estelle yoo-hooed outside where she was waiting in the RAV4 with the motor running, Grace locked up the house and headed for the Bentleys' car. She knocked on the driver's side window with the handle of the black umbrella. “It's sunny today,” she grinned, “but you're going to need this again one of these days—it's April after all.”

“Thanks.” Estelle chuckled, hauled the folded umbrella through the window as Grace and Sam climbed in from the other side, and a minute later headed east toward Lake Shore Drive.

“Thanks for inviting me too,” Sam said from the back seat. “I've often heard about Manna House but don't know anything about it. Who are the women you serve?”

Estelle practically hooted. “Who
aren't
the women we serve! We got our share of drug addicts who've hit bottom, prostitutes who're trying to get away from their pimps, some single moms who just couldn't make ends meet, and others whose circumstances took a nose dive in this economy through no fault of their own. Even one woman who used to live in one of these fancy high-rises”—She pointed out the window at the luxury towers they were passing along Lake Shore Drive—“who got kicked out by her husband and ended up with blocked credit cards and no place to go. She also happened to be our program director. Now
that's
a story.” Estelle chuckled to herself, and Grace wondered what the rest of the story was, but the Manna House cook was already on to other stories of women who'd been in and out of the shelter.

To Grace's surprise, they'd been on Lake Shore Drive only a few minutes when the little black SUV took the Irving Park Road exit into the Wrigleyville North neighborhood, jogged a few streets, and pulled up in front of a brick church crunched between a Laundromat and an apartment building.

“A church?” Sam said, gawking at the fairly new building as they got out. But several women were lounging on the stone steps, a
couple of them smoking, as Grace and Sam followed Estelle toward the building.

“Hey, Miz Estelle! What's fer lunch?” a weathered-looking white woman of indeterminate age hollered.

“Menu's posted in the kitchen!” Estelle said mildly, pushing a doorbell.

“See ya got some new helpers,” another snickered. “Guess I don't need ta show up for lunch duty today.”

“Mm-hm. No lunch duty, no lunch,” Estelle shot back, her grin taking out any sting. “These are my guests, Grace and Samantha.”

To Grace's surprise, three of the step-sitters stood up to shake their hands, and the others gave a nod or “Nice ta meetcha.”

A buzzer allowed Estelle to pull the solid oak door open, leading into a pleasant vestibule. She introduced them to the receptionist sitting in a glass cubicle—a pretty, young Asian woman—signed them all in, then led them through two swinging doors into a large room. “Hey, Precious!” Estelle called to a thirtysomething black woman who was pushing an odd assortment of overstuffed chairs, loveseats, and folding chairs into a semicircle facing a large mural on the wall opposite the doors. “Mind giving my guests a tour? We have some time before the Bible study, unless you've got kids to look after.”

“Nah, they're all home with Sabrina … Hi! Name's Precious.” The thin, wiry woman pumped their hands with a firm grip. “C'mon, I'll show you around.”

As Grace and Sam tromped after their guide—starting with the main floor, which contained the big lounging area, and behind it a schoolroom, a small playroom with toddler toys, a tiny prayer chapel, and a TV room—they learned that Precious had once been a “guest” at Manna House, but now lived with her daughter and grandson at the House of Hope, a six-unit building designated as second-stage housing for single moms with kids. “But I volunteer here at the shelter whenever they need me—and they
always
need me for somethin'!” The wiry woman laughed. “Usually come Friday mornin's to give Edesa a hand an' take care of her babies so she
can teach the Bible study, 'cept my Sabrina kept 'em today. You two stayin' for the Bible study?”

Grace followed Precious up a flight of narrow stairs to the second floor. “I guess so. Whatever's going on today.” She was surprised to see how neat everything was in the bunkrooms—six rooms, four bunk beds in each, beds made up, with a central lounge and bathrooms and showers off to one side. A few of the bunks were occupied by women napping or reading or doing their nails, which made her feel like an intruder. Grace was relieved when Precious led them back down the stairs, past the main floor, and down to the lower level, which housed the dining room and kitchen, where Estelle was bustling around behind a steel counter. They only had time for a quick glance at the side rooms—a rec room with a Ping-Pong table, a laundry room, and somebody's office—when Estelle hollered, “Almost eleven! Edesa's ready to start. I'll be up in a minute.”

A smattering of women of different ages had settled into the semicircle, though several others were still scattered around the room reading magazines or playing cards or snoozing. “Guess attending the Bible study isn't mandatory,” Sam murmured to Grace as they settled into two folding chairs in the second row.

“Buenos días, mis amigas!”
beamed a pretty black woman standing in front of the semicircle, taking Grace by surprise. She was definitely dark-skinned, with tiny braids similar to Sam's twists pulled back from her broad forehead, but her accent was heavily Spanish. “Welcome everyone. I am Edesa Baxter—and I see we have some visitors with us today … Oh, there you are, Estelle. Do you want to introduce your guests?”