Trust in Me (5 page)

“I don’t know how you put up with it,” she added.

“My personal penance.”
That and hearing about you with other guys
. “So, why’d you call this late?”

“We missed Sunday’s phone call.” Since they’d parted company when they’d graduated from New York University fifteen years before, they’d spoken on the phone every Sunday night all through his divinity school training, her move to the Midwest to get away from
him and his God
, she’d said heatedly, and even after she got married; that had been the hardest time for Linc.

The hardest period in their relationship for her had been when he’d accepted this ministry in their hometown. She’d come to New York unexpectedly for his graduation. After the outdoor ceremony, he’d taken her and Beth to dinner in the Village and when they were finally alone, Margo had begun to tell him what he’d prayed for years to hear.
I left Guy, Linc. I’m moving back to New York. Maybe we can
...

He’d stopped her words with his fingers against her lips. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done, telling her he was returning to the town she despised. To embrace religion, which she saw as a curse upon mankind. She’d refused then, to finish what she’d begun to say. In his lowest spiritual moments, Linc still argued with God about the timing of her change of heart. Naturally, like every time he squared off with his Maker, God won. Linc never had a prayer of beating Him out, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

“Linc, did you doze off? I asked you a question.”

On cue he yawned. “Nope, I’m here.”

“Christ, that church is draining you.”

“Don’t swear, honey. It makes me mad.”

In a serious tone she said, “I hate to make you mad.”

“Then tell me why you called.” He hesitated. There were a lot of minefields between them, most of which they were both pretty good at sidestepping. One, Linc always skirted the most carefully. “How was your business trip to Boston?”

A long, thoughtful pause, giving Linc time to picture her. He could imagine her stretched out on her five-hundred-dollar bedspread in her expensive co-op on New York’s Upper East Side, maybe a little jazz crooning softly from her stereo in the corner of her bedroom. She was probably wearing her favorite bedtime outfit—silk pjs or nightgown. In college, she’d often worn his T-shirt and boxers, as they were roommates—and more—all four years. Deep red hair, the kind found in a Renaissance painting. Big cat eyes that got almost green when she was angry or aroused. A body that, in his street days, he’d called stacked. Thoughts of her body made him uncomfortable. As usual. No doubt about it, Margo was more tempting than all the scarlet women of the Bible put together.

“The trip was interesting.”

She said no more. Always a clue to her state of mind.

“Did Pretty Boy wine and dine you?” Linc usually tried to hide his dislike of Margo’s colleague, Philip Hathaway; in meditative moments, he even admitted to himself and to God that he was jealous. Tonight, he was whipped, so he wasn’t as quick to camouflage his un-Christian feelings about the jerk.

For eight years Margo had sung Hathaway’s praises. As Executive Vice President and right-hand man of the CEO of CompuQuest, the computer firm where she worked, Hathaway had escalated her career fast and a little too carefully for Linc’s taste. If the guy hadn’t been married with two daughters, Linc would have been more concerned. But with her background—Margo’s father had been legally wed to another woman when her mother had gotten pregnant—Margo would never become involved with a married man.

“Linc, did you hear me? I said Boston had a lot of nice restaurants and things to do.”

Not what I asked
. “Oh, good.” After waiting for her to say more, and she didn’t, he asked, “Did you get the account?”

“Yes, Philip handled it beautifully. Laufler’s gave us the whole shebang.”

“Wonderful.” He asked God’s forgiveness for lying. Sinking back down onto the couch, he stared at the ceiling. He could hear a tree limb bat against the window outside. “So you’ll be busy?”

“Yes, but I was hoping to see you soon.” A long pause. “I miss you.

A chorus of angel voices couldn’t have sung sweeter words. “I miss you, too.

“Can you get away for a weekend and come up again? I loved having you here after Christmas.”

“Not right now, honey. That was only a few months ago. A minister can’t be gone on too many Sundays.” Especially one in his circumstances. He’d taken this job with a ragtag congregation ten years ago knowing he’d be minister, mechanic and all-around handyman; knowing what the demands on him would be. Though most of the time he believed it to be an opportunity from God, tonight, tired and alone, everything felt like an obligation.

“Ah, yes, of course. Mother Church. She sucks you dry, Rev.”

Margo said
church
like most people said
cancer
—with horror and a lot of fear. Though she loved Linc, she despised anything to do with religion. Understandably so, after her mother turned born-again and took her twelve-year-old daughter to live in a cult-like commune just outside of Glen Oaks. When Virginia had died ten years before, Margo had still been estranged from her.

“No rest for the wicked,” he joked, trying to lighten the pall that was cast over their conversation every time they discussed his calling and spiritual beliefs.

Again, there was a confessional-like silence on the other end. Finally, Margo spoke. “You’re the only truly good man I know, Linc.”

Linc sat up straight and hiked the phone to the other ear. “Margo, something
is
wrong. Tell me.”

“I’m just tired...and lonely tonight.”

“Come home, then.”

She snorted. “Glen Oaks is
not
my home. It’s just the place I grew up.”

Very fast
, Linc knew, since he’d been partly the cause of her quick rise to adulthood. He’d given her her first cigarette, her first swig of Jim Beam, her first joint.

And, God forgive him, her first taste of sex.

“Bad choice of words. Come to see
me
, then.” When he got no response, he said, “And Beth. The Council’s meeting Friday night; she could use your support. You know how Ronny adores you.” Still no answer. So he asked for God’s understanding and added, “Annie told me the next time I talked to you to tell you to call her. She’s tried to reach you several times.”

“Is she all right?” He heard the distress in Margo’s voice, shared it. They were both protective of Annie Lang after what she’d gone through. Of all of them—the kids of Glen Oaks who’d been hell on wheels in their teens—Annie had suffered the most from her disastrous past.

“As right as she ever is.”

“Linc, Annie’s problems are
not
your fault.”

Yeah, sure
. “Well, why don’t you come to Glen Oaks this weekend and see how she’s doing in person?”

“Are ministers supposed to use blackmail?”

No, and they’re not supposed to lust after old girlfriends, either.
“My God will understand.”

Unfortunately, Margo didn’t believe his God existed. And if there was anything Abraham Lincoln Grayson knew without a shred of doubt, it was the reality of his God.

“I wish I believed that,” she said flippantly.

“I wish you did, too.” After an uncomfortable silence, she said, “I’ll think about taking the train up on Friday.” They chatted for several more minutes, until Margo yawned and so did he. “Well, talk to you Sunday, I guess.”

“Unless I see you first.”

“ ’Night, Linc. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And that, he told himself, as he plunked the phone down into its cradle, was precisely the problem. Linc did indeed love her. But not as she’d meant the declaration, as a friend. Nor even the love-everybody type his Christian doctrine professed. No, Linc loved Margo in a carnal, passionate way. He loved her like a man, with bloodlines tracing back to Adam, David and Lot. The devil could taunt him all he wanted with that frailty, but nothing would change it.

Still enervated, Linc rose from the couch and wandered over to his desk. It was old and scarred but served its purpose. He dropped down in the flea-market chair, propped his feet on top of a pile of paperwork, linked his hands behind his neck and closed his eyes. He was bone weary but he knew if he went to bed, he wouldn’t sleep. He never slept well after he talked to Margo.

Nope, he’d lie there in bed or on the couch and remember. Sometimes it was the radiant sparkle in her eyes when she discussed her latest project. Sometimes it was the long span of her legs encased in black stockings. And sometimes he went to the past. It was then that his sins haunted him, emotional bullies that took on a life of their own in the middle of the night.

“Damn!” he said aloud. If only he could undo what he’d done all those years ago—starting with introducing his sister and his friends to street life. Linc had been their leader and couldn’t bear to think of the criminal activities he’d instigated for the Outlaws, as they’d pretentiously called themselves.

He glanced up at the wall over his desk. Hanging on it was a hand-carved oak cross. Margo had given it to him when he’d graduated from divinity school. It meant so much to him because he knew how she felt about religion, yet she’d transcended those feelings to buy him the gift. How appropriate—this wooden symbol of atonement. Because where Margo was concerned—and Beth and Annie—Linc had much to atone for.

Deciding he needed some focused prayer tonight, he stood, found his way in the dark to his bedroom, stripped off his clothes and lay on the bed. Its springs protested his weight loudly as he sank in, closed his eyes and linked his hands behind his neck again.

Once Linc had discovered that prayer was simply having conversations with God, he’d settled into comfortable and frequent dialogues. Though a few of his professors at Union Divinity School would have been outraged at this definition of prayer, others would have expected it from Linc, their most unorthodox graduate student.

Margo thought he was crazy.

Speaking of which, buddy.

Yeah, I know. She’s on my mind too much.

No, not too much.

You aren’t upset about the, ah, the fantasies, are you?

Sex doesn’t upset me, Linc. I invented it, remember. And when it’s loving and good, it’s fine by me. You know that.

Well, I’m just making sure. They’re pretty prevalent lately.

As usual, you’re too hard on yourself. You’ve done a lot of good this week.

Not with Rosa.

Ah, Rosa.

What’s going on with her?

That’s why I sent her to you. To figure that out.

You still won’t give me any answers, will you?

No, but I’ve given you the heart and soul and mind to find them on your own.

Should I go over there tomorrow?

What do you think?

I think it would be a mistake. She’s afraid of her husband and I’d make it worse.

There are other ways to help her.

She needs someone to listen to her mostly.

Yes, just like Margo.

Back to her again.

You never leave Margo. You carry her around in your heart wherever you go. You always have.

Remember
Wuthering Heights
? Where Catherine says she is Heathcliff? Sometimes, I feel like that. That we’re a part of each other

You are. I don’t throw people together by accident, you know.

Yeah, I know. That’s why you sent me back to Glen Oaks, right? To make up for all the sins I committed here.

Linc, Linc, Linc. Now you’re making me angry. Guilt is the devil’s instrument, not mine. What you were at seventeen made you the man you are now. You’ve got to find a way to deal with that.

Help me.

Always.

But help Margo first. Even though she thinks you abandoned her

I never abandoned Margo.

I know that.

And there are no “firsts” up here. I’m God. I can do more than one thing at a time.

o0o

AFTER she hung up from talking to Linc, Margo stared at the phone as if it were a mechanical problem needing to be solved. Its navy color fit the decor of the room perfectly. Greens, blues and a touch of mauve made her favorite room picture perfect. The entire co-op, its furnishings and closets full of designer clothes were exactly what Margo had always wanted in life. That and her job as an executive in a fast-rising computer firm.

And Linc Grayson, a little voice nagged.

Well, at age thirty-six, two out of three weren’t bad.

She sipped the hot chocolate she’d made when she couldn’t get Linc earlier. But the drink didn’t calm her tonight. Rising, she crossed to the windows. It was pitch black out and when she placed her hand on the glass, it was cold. Her breath left a circle of fog on it.

Margo felt cold inside, too. Because of Philip. She could still see him standing at the connecting door of their hotel rooms dressed like he’d walked off the pages of
G
Q. She could still smell the citrusy scent of the aftershave he always used. She could still feel his strong fingers grip her arms and pull her close to kiss her. She’d sent him away, of course, but the sense of betrayal and disappointment that had swamped her was deep. The next morning, professional concerns had arisen. What did his actions mean in terms of her working relationship with him? She’d admired his business savvy and respected his expertise for seven years. He was the main reason she’d joined CompuQuest. She’d even spent time with him and his family: business dinners, holiday parties and some social events. He had two beautiful daughters in high school. Damn it, why had he done something so stupid?

She thought back to that morning; he’d been apologetic but not...really sorry....