Heavens to Betsy (33 page)

She smiles. “Let me tell her you’re here.”

Alice waves me into the foyer, and I wait there patiently while she goes to tell Edna the preacher’s paying an unexpected call. Normally, it’s an event that will make even the most seasoned parishioner quake with fear, but I’m sure it won’t throw Edna off balance. I mean, we
are
talking about the woman who showed no qualms about framing me for felony theft.

Alice returns and leads me to the sun porch. Edna’s there, ensconced in a comfortable chair with the newspaper on her lap and a
cup of tea at her good elbow. She’s wearing the sling, which must make the newspaper a little tricky to handle. In the bright morning sunlight, she looks older and feebler than she did at the personnel-committee meeting a few days ago. Her back-comb droops from its once-formidable heights.

“Good morning, Edna.”

“Betsy. This is a surprise.” A surprise akin to having an emergency appendectomy, judging from the way her lips are thinned.

“I apologize for not calling first.”

She makes a face that indicates she’s not shocked at my lack of manners. “What more do you want from me?” she snaps. “I would have thought you’d be home gloating.”

To my surprise, a stab of compassion pierces my midsection. As unpleasant as Edna has been to me, I know I’m probably the one person at Church of the Shepherd who understands what it’s like to be shamed for who you are. For better or for worse, Edna and I are joined in a bizarre form of spiritual unity.

“I wasn’t aware I had anything to gloat about.”

She rolls her eyes. “Let’s not pretend here, Reverend. You have what you want. And you have Marjorie’s support, so why shouldn’t you be feeling a bit smug? I think I would, in your place.”

Well, at least she’s honest. She probably would.

“I don’t think my ministry is a competition,” I say instead. “At least, I don’t want it to be.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’ve brought you something.” I take two steps toward her and hand her the folder. She takes it from me with her one good hand and lays it in her lap.

“Aren’t you going to look at it?”

“I know what’s in it. A request I resign my membership from the church, with a possible admonition to be grateful you’re not turning me in to the police.”

Okay, that shocks me. “You’re kidding.”

Edna glowers. “I never
kid
, Reverend.”

A fresh wave of sadness washes over me. In Edna’s mind, that’s how church works. And maybe in a lot of places, that’s true. While I can’t change what happens in other churches, I think I can change Edna’s view of ours. At least I’m going to try.

“It’s not a request that you resign your membership.”

“Then what is it?”

“Look and see.”

She frowns, shoots me a dark look, and then opens the folder in her lap.

“These are some sort of application forms.”

“Yes.”

She studies them for a long moment, and I let her. To my surprise, her hand, fingering the forms, shakes visibly.

“This isn’t funny, Reverend.”

“No, it’s not,” I agree.

And then an expression crosses her face that I usually see only when someone’s child or spouse has died. Tears pool in her
eyes
, but she’s not about to let them trickle onto her cheeks. Her shoulders begin to shake like her hand.

“It’s too late,” she whispers.

I close the remaining distance between us and kneel by her chair. “You know, Edna, I’ve only just learned it’s never too late.”

“They’d never let me,” she says.

“On the contrary. They’d be thrilled to have you.” I cross my fingers behind my back, a little prevarication for a good cause.

“I’m too old.”

“You’re the voice of experience.”

“I’m not smart enough.”

“On the contrary. You’ve chaired almost every committee in this church, run the women’s auxiliary, and served as treasurer. Anyone who can do what you’ve done at Church of the Shepherd all these years has more than enough brains for this. Trust me. I speak from experience.”

“I’ll look like a fool.”

I smile at this and pull a tissue from the box on the table next to her. “Well, you’ll be in good company. Everybody does there at one time or another.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. Then, “There’s one more problem.”

“What?”

She inclines her head toward her injured shoulder. “I can’t write until I get my arm out of this sling.”

“Not to worry.” I laugh and dig in my purse for a pen. “I can be your scribe.”

And that’s how I came to be sitting in Edna Tompkins’s sunroom, filling out her application forms for Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Next to me, David stands tall and handsome. The organ swells as the pipes ring out the last notes of “The Wedding March.” It’s the lifetime commitment I’ve always wanted. A deep connection through all the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” No more loneliness. No more isolation. I look up to keep the tears from flowing.

David shoots me a lazy, thrilling smile, and it’s all I can do not to melt into a puddle at his feet. How unfair that a man can have this effect on me whenever he chooses. My only consolation is that I’m pretty sure I have the same effect on him.

Who’d have ever thought I’d be standing here at the front of the church with David? Certainly not any of our parishioners. Because it’s the first “mixed” wedding Church of the Shepherd and St. Helga’s have ever done.

I return David’s smile and then take a deep breath. With a calm
demeanor that doesn’t reflect my inner turmoil, I open my officiant’s book and begin.

“Dearly beloved…”

No, I’m not performing my own wedding ceremony. David and I are sharing the honors for the couple standing before us. Lisa’s one of David’s parishioners, and Kevin is one of mine. David and I are currently locked in a struggle to the death over whose church gets the newlyweds. It only occurred to us a day or two ago that the couple in question might want to have some say in the matter.

I’m amazed, when I think back over the past few weeks, how my life has changed in such a short time. The folks at the law school seemed relieved by my decision not to matriculate there. Evidently they had such a high acceptance rate this year, they don’t know where they’re going to put all the students.

I’ve already taken Edna over to visit the divinity school and meet a few of the professors. It took me a week to get her past the fact that so many seminarians now sport multiple body piercings.

I drove LaRonda to the airport and have already exchanged a couple of e-mails with her. And I’m doing well with maintaining my new look in my own way, although some of my church members still think I should be covered from head to toe like a kid wearing a bed sheet as a costume at Halloween.

As for David, well, let’s just say we’re trying to figure out how you go from being best friends to boyfriend and girlfriend. For one thing, I’ve learned that he no longer takes my helpful criticisms in quite the same spirit.

Will there be a wedding for us? you ask. I don’t know. I hope so. At thirty I don’t want to wait forever. But I’m just getting on my feet
at Church of the Shepherd, and that’s my focus right now. Okay, it’s not my only focus, because David and I see each other every day. But I’m trying not to turn into the pathetic, clinging sort of girlfriend who text-messages her guy thirty times every hour.

This wedding may turn out to be my best one yet. I finish with the Declaration of Intent and hand it off to David for the wedding homily. Since we’ve been working on it together, I pretty much know it by heart.

“Marriage should be a challenge,” David says, barely looking at the text in the notebook as he delivers the words in his delicious baritone. “But it should also be a comfort.” Ironic that two unmarried people are standing up here preaching to a congregation full of people who have actual experience with the subject, but we do our best. That’s all any minister can do. I finally figured that out. You may never be enough for everybody, but from time to time, you’re enough for somebody.

I take over and do the vows. All the other pieces speed by, and it flows so easily between the two of us. I’m having such a good time, the bride and groom are a mere afterthought. Until I accidentally say my name and David’s in place of Lisa and Kevin’s.

Oops.

Oh well. I always tell brides that every wedding has to have at least one significant gaffe, or the marriage won’t last.

David and I follow the wedding party down the aisle as the organ sounds out the recessional. We reach the gathering area just outside the sanctuary, and David takes my hand in his. “Come with me,” he whispers, and I follow willingly.

We’ll resurface in time for the reception. I promise. And this time I won’t be going alone.

With any luck, it won’t be the last.

It’s enough to make a grown woman giggle. Or purr. Or both.

I can’t believe we’re here at LaPaz, David and I, being escorted to our table by a hostess barely old enough for a training bra. Fortunately, I know David well enough to know he won’t give the teens budding figure a second glance. The menu, now, that’s another story. Until he’s dithered sufficiently over his choice of entrée, he won’t pay any attention to me—which may be a good thing given that I’m sure I still have some tinges of toner around my hairline. Once he’s settled on his choice for dinner, though, he’ll focus all the charm and intelligence in those big brown eyes right where they belong. On me.

Let the games begin.

“Your server will be with you in a sec,” chirps the hostess as she cuts her eyes at David. She’s regarding his clerical collar with interest—not an unusual occurrence, I’m afraid. When David and I were just best friends, as we’ve been for the past eight years since divinity
school, I laughed off the female fascination with his “uniform.” But now that we’ve found true love and are officially on our first date, I don’t find it quite as amusing as I used to.

“Mmm,” David mumbles as he peruses the list of quesadilla options, oblivious to the hostess’s last, lingering look. Even if I wore a clerical collar—and in my denomination, we don’t—men would never find it as sexually appealing as women seem to find David’s.

Figures.