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eerie, maternal tone she affected when addressing an underling of any kind, “do you honestly think that is the best way to comport yourself at a place of business, especially when you are representing the business of God Almighty?”
    Poor Serena —yes, he’d remembered —looked toward the other girl and, stricken with confusion, said, “I’m sorry?”
    “Give her a break, Aimee.”
    She whirled on him, and for a moment he enjoyed a hero’s status as the pretty Serena sent a grateful smile from behind Sister Aimee’s elbow.
    “Are you encouraging this young woman’s flirtatiousness, Mr. Moore?”
    “Perhaps I am,” he said, growing bolder.
    “At least have the decency not to indulge in such right under my nose,” she said, but a tug of a genuine smile was already forming. “And not on my time clock.”
    He sent Serena a wink —something he’d done fewer than a dozen times in his remembrance —and followed Sister Aimee through the lobby to the conference room, where yet another impressive piece of furniture, this time a massive oak table, dominated the room. Twelve chairs were spaced evenly around it, ten of them filled with men of all ages and shapes. Two were empty. One conspicuously so, as its back rose high above the others at the head. The other, his, fifth down on the left. It could have been filled by anybody or, Max was certain, left empty, and no one would be the wiser.
    “My apologies, gentlemen, for starting late,” Sister Aimee said, heading for her seat with the assurance that somebody would be waiting to go through the gentlemanly ritual of holding it out for her. “Mr. Moore has had some disturbing news from home —home, was it? —and we have been in a time of prayer.”
    Max made his way to his own seat, saying, as both apology and explanation, “My uncle passed away.”
    As a single unit, they nodded, expressing as much sympathy as each was capable. These were, after all, businessmen —lawyers, radio-air salesmen, publishers, public relations managers. Even the artists in their midst were of a commercial ilk, creating on command and within a specific frame.
    Here he had brought all his journalistic dreams, heeding a call from one of Sister Aimee’s varied pulpits where she spoke of bringing the Word of God to those who might never hold a Bible. A magazine of Truth for Today, its audience the very Bride of Christ. The title —the Bridal Call . When he had worried that he, a bachelor and a young one at that, might be unworthy of editing such a publication, she’d laid her hands on his head and anointed him, declaring him equally worthy and chosen and hired.
    And then he’d taken his spot at the table, much as he did right now.
    Sister Aimee led them in an opening prayer, as she did every meeting —every gathering, in fact —and this time he dutifully bowed his head and closed his eyes, lest somebody else equally bold catch him in his disrespect. He even joined his mind and heart to her words as she acknowledged God and his power and sovereignty in their lives and homes and streets and government.
    “Reaching to the height and breadth and depth of our humble temple, in the waves that carry your message through the air, in every word and page of our magazine, we dedicate the hours of our days . . .”
    She never spoke that she didn’t sound like a million lost souls would find their way to salvation through her voice.
    Max didn’t need salvation, not in the same way Uncle Edward did. He tried to imagine Uncle Edward sitting in this chair, his fingers stained with ink, the iron-colored rim of hair tufted in all directions from being pulled asunder with each new idea. He would have lasted about thirty seconds into Aimee’s prayer before pushing himself away from the table and declaring it was time to stop yammerin’ already and start talking about how they were going to fill twenty-eight pages when the presses rolled next Tuesday. The publishing world had been his