Heavens to Betsy (30 page)

“I’ll take it,” I tell the woman, and she’s ecstatic. I’m a little ecstatic myself until I see the total for my new purchases on the charge slip.

“Is there a problem?” she asks.

“Oh no. Not really.” I’m glad they don’t have debtor’s prison anymore, or else I’d be hauled off like some poor woman in a Charles Dickens novel. All I know for sure at this moment is that who I have become now fits into two Ann Taylor shopping bags. Tailored, but not stuffy. Colorful without being over the top. Womanly without being wanton. Well, okay, only a little bit wanton. Just me. Betsy. Trying to be faithful the best way I know how and no longer afraid of what the church might do to me. In fact, now the church might want to be afraid of what I might do to it.

Touché, Edna.

“It’s for a good reason. So I won’t try and run away.”

“What were you drinking when you thought of this?”

“Diet cola.”

“Couldn’t you do things the normal way and just go talk to him?”

I sigh. “LaRonda, when have I ever done things the normal way?”

“I see your point.”

LaRonda is so happy that I’ve maneuvered myself into a commitment with Church of the Shepherd. You’d think she’d be more supportive of my trying to make a commitment to David.

“It’s a symbolic gesture,” I argue.

“It’s crazy,” she replies. She rolls a tube of the lip balm between her fingers, stacks it on top of the bandanas, and sighs. “Oh, all right.”

I try to keep the triumph out of my smile. “Can you do it this afternoon?”

“Why the hurry?”

“Because I can’t afford to let any other woman get her claws in him. I almost blew it with the whole Cali thing.”

An indignant protest leaps to my lips before I see that she’s teasing me.

“I wasn’t
that bad”

“Well, between you and David, you made a good effort at humiliating the poor girl.”

The truth of her insight subdues me somewhat. I didn’t mean to buy my own happiness at the expense of Cali’s. At least David broke up with her of his own volition.

“What are you going to wear?” LaRonda asks.

“My secret weapon.”

“The chiffon blouse?”

“Nope. I don’t want to be holy or hottie for this. Just me. Just Betsy.”

“Well, Just Betsy, you’d better get going if you’re going to pull this off. What time do you want me at the church?”

“Four o’clock?”

“I’ll be there.”

I stop, look her in the eye, and smile. “You’re a good friend. And I’m really going to miss you.”

Tears well up in both our eyes. “I know, sweetie. I’m going to miss you, too. But I won’t be gone forever.”

“Yeah, but it will feel that way.”

When we say good-bye, I hug her extra tight. A piece of me is going to Africa, and a piece of LaRonda will stay here. There’s solace as well as sadness in that fact. That’s what makes true friendship worth the cost.

“It’s only temporary,” I remind her. “The search committee will be looking for a new senior pastor. And then we’ll see what happens.”

The temporary nature of the arrangement doesn’t seem to faze Angelique, though. “I guess we will” is all she says.

I try to spend the afternoon focusing on next Sunday’s sermon, but the events of the past two weeks make that rather difficult. I’d rather daydream about David than study Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in the original Greek.

Somehow the time passes. At four LaRonda appears in my office doorway. Together we head for the bridal dressing room at the back of the sanctuary. I have the pink dress in a plastic cover, and she’s brought her cosmetic bag of tricks.

“Nothing heavy,” I warn her, and she just grins.

“I found the perfect shade of lipstick,” she says.

“What? Clergy Coral?”

“Nope. Neutral But Naughty.”

That’s the final confirmation. My best lipstick shade turns out to be the one that just brings out my natural color.

LaRonda arranges my hair in a casual but sophisticated semi-upsweep, and I slip into the delicate pink slides I found at Payless. Tiny pearl earrings and a matching bracelet later, I’m done.

LaRonda’s beaming. “This is your best look yet, Betz.”

I’m not the hottie of my first makeover. I’m not the passive princess of the fund-raiser. I’m me. Sexy but sweet. A woman who’s been called to a mostly male profession but retains some claim to her femininity.

“Wish me luck.” All those butterflies that found refuge in the sanctuary after that last wedding have taken up residence in my stomach.

“Luck.” LaRonda gives my shoulders a squeeze. “But you already have everything you’re going to need.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Yesterday, as I sat in the comfort of my living room, a diet cola in hand, the whole steeple scenario seemed like a stroke of brilliance. Now, though, as I climb the stairs to the sanctuary balcony and LaRonda helps me up the ladder leading to a door high in the wall, I’m questioning the wisdom of my idea.

“Angelique knows to send David up here?” LaRonda asks. She guides my high-heeled feet from below, one precarious rung at a time.

“He thinks I need his opinion about a moisture problem.”

“Is there actually a moisture problem?”

“I have no idea.” I climb through the door into the steeple itself. It’s like standing at the bottom of an elevator shaft. To my right a rickety ladder rises to a frightening height. Above I can see the trapdoor that leads to the next level.

LaRonda climbs onto the platform next to me. “Are you planning to go all the way to the top?” Church of the Shepherd is known for the exceptional height of its steeple.

“I think the first level is far enough.”

“Right.” I take a deep breath and wonder whether this would be the time to mention I’m afraid of heights. I forgot about that, too, in the excitement of my brilliant idea.

“Get going.” LaRonda nudges me.

I swallow the lump in my throat and reach for the ladder. It’s apparently held together with paper clips and baling wire.

“My first act as temporary senior minister is to order the property committee to build a new ladder for the steeple.”

“Climb, Betsy.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

How many senior ministers can say they’ve climbed their steeples in a dress and heels?

I thought I was afraid of the personnel committee. I thought I was afraid of telling David the truth about my feelings for him. Next time I think I’m too scared to do something difficult, I’ll go climb the steeple to put things in perspective.

Rung by rung I make my way. It takes approximately three and a half years to get to the trapdoor. With one hand in a death grip on the ladder, I slide back the bolt and shove the door open. It flips back on its hinges with a thud and a cloud of dust.

It takes some wriggling, and one of my sandals almost slides off my foot to plummet to its death, but I manage to worm my way onto the platform.

“You okay?” LaRonda yells up to me.

“I think so.”

“I’m going to duck out of sight.”

“Okay.” I wish my voice didn’t sound so forlorn.

There’s not much to do but look out over the west side of downtown Nashville, so I pace, shivering in the cool March air. That works for a few minutes, until my cheap-but-fetching shoes start to chafe. I’d kick them off, but I don’t want to step in the bird droppings.

For me, anticipation is always the worst part of any confrontation.

Finally, I hear the sound I’m both hoping for and dreading. Someone’s climbing the ladder.

“Betz?” David’s baritone reverberates from the emptiness below.

“Up here,” I squeak, then stop to clear my throat and try again. “I’m up here.”

The ladder creaks ominously, and with a flash of panic I fear I’ve lured David to an untimely death.
Please, God, not before I’ve had a chance to kiss him again.

Fortunately, his head appears through the opening in the platform, and he hoists himself over the side. Looks as if I won’t have to explain to St. Helga’s why their pulpit is empty.

“Do you do this often?” He rolls to his feet and then stands, swiping his hair out of his eyes.

For a long moment, there’s silence. Then he exhales noisily. “What’s going on?”

“Would you believe I’m ready to talk?”

Ever so casually, I sidle over to the trapdoor and lean down to flip it closed. David frowns. “What’s that for?”

“I don’t want anyone to overhear us,” I say casually.

“Who in heaven’s name is going to overhear us up here?”

“Oh. Yeah. No one, I guess.”

“And since when is a moisture problem confidential?”

I can’t tell from his expression whether he’s clueless about what I’m up to or being deliberately obtuse. Okay, this isn’t going quite as I planned. David walks over to one of the walls and kneels down to inspect the slats, but the line of tension in his shoulders beneath his jacket tells me maybe he’s not entirely oblivious to what’s going on. For one thing, he hasn’t commented on my dress at all, and I’m pretty sure he knows enough about women to know we don’t normally wear pink slip-dresses to work.

He reaches in his pocket, pulls out a penknife, scrapes away some paint, and probes the wood underneath. “It’s rotten all right.” He stands up and turns toward me. “You spend a lot of time up here?”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Okay, he’s noticing the dress now, if not before. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me and making a concerted effort to keep his gaze above my shoulders.

“You didn’t need me to tell you that wood is rotten.”

“No.” I shift from one high heel to the other and resist the urge
to dig my toe into the thick dust on the steeple platform like a kid who’s been called on the carpet.