The Turning (15 page)

Craig loved having a reason to grin. “Doesn’t that just sound like God at work.”

“I’m calling to ask if you would please look over our response. And if you feel like God is at work here, help us get out the word.”

“Gladly.”

“Thank you. And one thing more. Pray for us, if you would. And allow me to contact you again once we know something more.”

“I’ll be waiting for your call, Ruth.”

“Thank you, Craig.”

He cut the connection, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Well, now.”

His wife asked, “That’s why you two are meeting?”

“Jason just showed me the ad.”

“Do I want to see it?”

Craig looked at his wife. “It’s just awful.”

“Maybe later, then.”

Jason no longer looked so distressed. “I can’t believe what just happened.”

Craig nodded and said to the young man, “I don’t have an answer for you. Except to pray for some clear direction from the Lord.”

Jason rose to his feet, shut his laptop and stowed it in his backpack, and revealed a truly magnificent smile. “For the moment, that is more than enough.”

“You’re going to stay in your job?”

“For the moment,” he repeated, pointing at the phone. “In case they need an insider.”

WESTCHESTER COUNTY

A
n hour later, Jenny read out what she claimed were John’s own  words, fashioned into a statement. John saw the delight on all the other faces, but he himself was still trying to come to grips with the fact that they expected him to talk in front of the camera. His reluctance and his doubts apparently meant nothing to them. In fact, they only seemed to strengthen their confidence in him.

Ruth returned to the porch, listened in approval to John’s first attempt at reading Jenny’s pages, then said, “You and Heather, come with me, please.”

She led them through the kitchen and dining area, leaning heavily upon her cane. One of the kitchen workers must have noticed a disturbing change, for she called over, “Are you having a spell, Miss Ruth?”

“I’m fine.”

But the young woman watched her with mounting concern. “Should I get your medicine?”

“No, thank you.” Ruth crossed the main foyer and entered a hall leading into the east wing of the one-story house. She led them into Bobby Barrett’s study, and John stopped in the doorway.

Behind him, his wife said, “I remember this room.”

The desk and the big academic Bible on the carved reading stand, the bookshelves with their leather-bound volumes, it was all like he had seen on the weekly broadcasts growing up. Before he had gone and thrown his life away.

Ruth’s voice called to him from a side alcove. “Come on in here, please.”

John followed Ruth into a walk-in closet holding about a dozen suits. Beside them were a pair of shelves with starched shirts still in their laundry packets. Silk ties. Three pairs of polished shoes.

“I gave everything to the homeless shelter but these.” Her hand stroked the sleeve of a grey pin-striped suit. “I suppose some of the people around here presume I’m holding on to these like they are part of some shrine. Which is ridiculous. But I did so love watching Bobby prepare.”

“Ruth …”

“Bobby only wore these when he was preaching. He said it was part of putting on his game face.” She turned around, her eyes overly bright. “You and he are almost exactly the same size.”

“I can’t,” he said. “Those are his preaching clothes—”

“They were.” She drew him forward. “I think you’d look good in navy.”

Heather said, “Try it on, John.”

“But—”

“You didn’t bring a suit. You need one.” Heather sorted through the shirts. “This one will look nice on you.”

Ruth selected a matching tie. When she saw that John had not moved, she said, “Bobby would want this, John. I’m certain of it.”

“My name is John Jacobs, and I am speaking to you from the headquarters of Barrett Ministries.”

They had brought him over in a van. Their entire group came, and all of them had some compliment over how he looked, how the clothes suited him and the moment. Alisha kept working her laptop, reading off names of churches to Ruth, who noted them in a small, hardbound notebook. John had no idea what importance it held, but he suspected it was somehow tied to what he was about to do. Aaron and Yussuf and Richard tossed ideas back and forth with Jenny Linn, apparently working on concepts for future broadcasts. John had difficulty hearing anything over the thundering of his heart.

“Today one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates has declared on national television that hope is dead. I am here to say that their message is wrong.”

The broadcast team was prepped and ready. They were young and dynamic and very professional. The producer knew John was a total beginner, and worked to make him as comfortable as possible. The television prompter was stationed a few inches from the camera eye, so John could read while appearing to look straight at the audience. A dot of red fingernail polish was painted in the prompter screen’s right corner. The producer suggested John hold his gaze on this one point, otherwise his eyes would appear shifty. The producer was a young man in his late twenties, who slipped the headphones around his neck and read through the speech with John four times, coaching him on when to breathe and when to punch a word. The young man’s name was Kevin Burnes, and John suspected he would be quite handsome if he cut his hair and tucked in his shirttail. Kevin held to a perpetual smile, with a gentle voice that steadied John.

But the real help came from another direction.

“The world has been granted a gift of eternal hope. The Bible states this, and I am here to tell you that the gift is real. Jesus died to make this available to each and every one of us who seek him. He is there, and he is calling to us. His hands are outstretched, waiting for us to realize what it means to live with hope.”

In the moment when the makeup lady finished dabbing powder on his nose and forehead, John felt overwhelmed by an adrenaline-drenched panic. The lights came on, bright as electronic suns. People scurried in the shadows beyond the lights’ reach. And then it happened.

“The Mundrose broadcast makes a mockery of God’s eternal promise. They do this for profit. God offers hope for the sake of our souls. A choice has been set before you. I am here today to ask you to act.”

At that moment, John found his fear subsiding. What was more, he sensed people praying for him. He did not hear their voices. He did not need to. But he knew they were gathered with hands clasped, praying for him to do this.

John sat in a mock version of Bobby Barrett’s study. In the pastor’s own suit. Waiting while they tested his voice for level and gain. So he could speak to the world. And do this because in the silent intensity, he knew he was following God’s design for this time. He
knew
this with utter certainty. And suddenly his fears held no significance whatsoever.

“At the bottom of your screen is a website where you will find a list of sponsors that stand to profit from Mundrose Entertainment and their message of despair. You will also find a list of alternate products. I am asking you to consider switching brands. Send these people a message in the only language they understand, money. The fate of souls, now and those still to come, hangs in the balance.”

LOS ANGELES

W
hen Trent woke up, he had no idea where he was. Sunlight fell through a window to his left, spilling across a floor of hand-cast Mexican tiles. Gradually the previous day’s events flowed into his brain. The flight on the private jet, the meeting with the world-famous director, the confrontation with the Hollywood publicist, the advertisement, the web-based response. Trent had remained in the broadcast studio for hours, watching the response grow to his concept.
His concept
. Gayle had finally given in to exhaustion and left sometime after one. Trent could not possibly have slept, not after the publicist announced their ad had become the most watched video on YouTube. The limo had finally driven him back to the hotel under a rose-hued dawn.

The Bel Air Hotel bungalow was not luxurious in any standard sense. The antiques were rough-hewn, the floor tiles cast by hand. The bedroom’s chandelier was simple brass. The four-poster bed would have looked at home on an upscale ranch. Trent emerged from the bathroom and realized that probably had been the designer’s intention, to create the homey feel of an elegant hacienda inside a Hollywood hotel.

Then he heard the knock on the door. Trent slipped into trousers and crossed the parlor. “Yes?”

“It’s Gayle.”

He opened the door to find her holding a silver tray containing a coffee thermos and single cup. Trent greeted her, then hurried back into the bedroom for a shirt. When he emerged, she was holding out a steaming cup. “Thanks.”

“You have a call with Edlyn in—” Gayle checked her watch. “Now, actually.”

His phone rang. He took time for a couple of hasty sips, then answered, “Good morning, Edlyn.”

“Is your computer running?”

Gayle must have known what was coming, because she was already at his desk, booting up. “Five seconds.”

“Go to the website for Barrett Ministries.”

“I know that name.” He passed on the name to Gayle, then remembered, “Isn’t he dead?”

“Yeah, a couple of years ago. Okay, click on the tab labeled
Hope Now
.”

A face Trent did not recognize popped into view. The man’s name meant nothing. “Who is John Jacobs?”

“No idea.”

The man looked like a plumber, was what Trent thought—big and relatively fit but certainly not made for the camera. He spoke in a flat Midwestern voice, poor inflection, and Trent caught his eyes shift once as he followed the teleprompter. This John Jacobs was criticizing their advertisement. He talked about Jesus. He announced the website, listing all the Mundrose sponsors. Then he stopped cold. No fade out, nothing. The screen flashed the same website. Start to finish, one hundred and twenty-five seconds. A ridiculous length.

Edlyn said, “Click on the web address.”

He did so, and watched an astonishing array of names come into focus. There were two lists, actually. One was headed,
Mundrose sponsors
, and the other,
Alternate suppliers of similar products
. Trent rubbed his face, wishing he was more awake. “Should I be worried?”

“Are you kidding? This is fantastic.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Apparently this guy’s little diatribe was shown on the screens of several thousand churches this morning. Pastors all over the nation started their sermons with clips from our advert, gave their little talks, then finished with this John Jacobs here, whoever he is. A pastor in Austin, Craig Davenport, started this rolling. Or so I’ve been told.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow. You say this is good news?”

“Our publicity department is breaking out the champagne. They could not have designed a better response. Remember
Pretty Woman
? Some church group tried to set up a boycott. The film grossed over half a billion dollars. By some accounts, the boycott added a hundred mil to the total.”

“They’re doing our job for us,” Trent realized.

“There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Edlyn confirmed. “We want you to stay out there a couple more days, build on this with a second ad.”

“I can do that.” His mind gradually accelerated. He felt fragments of a new idea begin to swirl in his mind.

“Because this is your first top-level assignment, we want Gayle to remain there as your support.”

Trent struggled to fashion a response that would not reveal how delighted he was with this bit of news. All he could come up with was, “Understood.”

But Edlyn must have taken his hesitation as concern, for she said, “We’re not spying, Trent. Well, we are, but in a positive sense. Now give me Gayle.”

He basked in the glow while Gayle spoke briefly into his phone. The clock on the side table said it was three in the afternoon. She hung up and said, “It sounds as though I’ll be around for a bit longer.”

“Have dinner with me.” The words were out before he had a chance to come up with reasons not to speak. “Two colleagues, a free night, nothing more. Please.”

She was dressed in what he supposed was LA casual-chic, pastel shorts and a cotton top shaped like a man’s dress shirt but with short sleeves. But her smile, for the first time ever, seemed genuine. “I know just the place.”

WESTCHESTER TO WASHINGTON DC

The filming had left John so exhausted he barely managed the walk back to the stone cottage, where he undressed and collapsed into bed. He woke up after midnight to find Heather sleeping peacefully beside him. Ravenous, he quietly crossed the starlit courtyard, entered the main kitchen, and ate two bowls of cereal. He sat on the porch for a time, welcoming the night-clad solitude. He remained unsettled by how everyone seemed so comfortable with him being the spokesman. As he stared at the stars draped overhead, he recalled sitting in front of the camera, only this time he felt as though all his faults and all his mistakes were there on public display. Finally he returned to the cottage, slipped into bed beside his wife, and gave in to slumber.