on the Maundy Thursday service?” Father George asked.
“I think I have it about finished,” said Brenda.
I froze, the coffee cup just touching my lips, as an icy feeling crept up my spine; in spite of myself, I looked over at Marilyn. She was avoiding my gaze, fighting to keep a smile off her lips.
“I went over all the material Father George gave me,” Brenda said to me, in that wonderful tone of voice with which she used to terrify children, “and so, when designing the service, I used the traditions of the Episcopal Church as well as incorporating some other denominational material and several ideas of my own.”
The worship committee looked over at me.
“I’m sure it will be wonderful,” I said, sweetly. “Sometimes it’s a really good idea to design your own services. People will find it very meaningful.” It was a sarcastic comment, but I did my best to kept all the disparagement out of my voice. If the words hadn’t come out of my very own mouth, I might have thought I actually meant them. Marilyn, across the table, was not fooled. She was losing her battle and had started to chew on her tongue.
“George,” I said. “Seriously. You know, you don’t really have to ‘design’ services. It’s been done. They’re right there in the prayer book.”
“Oh, I know, Hayden, but I thought that Brenda needed the experience of planning the Maundy Thursday service. I gave her all the literature as well as the prayer book. It’ll be fine.”
“That’s great,” I said, with a big smile.
Chapter 3
“ You married?” she asked, sipping her drink with the slurping sound of a dentist’s vacuum, the one that hangs on your lip like a giant fishhook and hoovers up your spit before it overruns and dribbles onto your bib.
“ Nope.”
“ Seeing anyone?” I liked a woman that got right to the point.
“ Now and then,” I said. I tried to think of Francine, but my mind kept leapfrogging like a Greek sailor back to the vision in front of me. I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t help myself.
She shrugged. “Well, maybe we can get together some-time. You know, off the books.”
I nodded, trying to maintain eye contact.
“ Anyway,” she said with a smile, “I’m from the bishop.”
“ The bishop?” I frowned. I knew all of the bishop’s gals, and Memphis Belle wasn’t one of them.
“ Not your bishop. The Presiding Bishop.”
“ Ah,” I said with a nod. “The Presiding Bishop.” The fog was clearing. My bishop had quite a stable, but this filly was something special. The Presiding Bishop was the bishop’s bishop. The king bishop, if you will. And, as the saying goes, it is good to be the king.
Memphis Belle and I spent the rest of the afternoon up at my place, engaged in a steamy theological discourse about the American view of eschatology and dispensational pre-millennialism.
Nah. Not really.
• • •
“This is just awful,” said Meg, joining me at my table at The Ginger Cat.
“I thought you said you didn’t hate it.”
“I wasn’t talking about your writing, which is not especially awful. Just moderately awful.”
“What then?” I asked.
“I just got appointed to a church committee.”
“It’s a bad one?”
“It’s the worst one. I was put on because I’m on the vestry and someone thinks that I’d be a good chairman.”
“Chairwoman,” I corrected. “It’s because you’re so irresistible. What’s the committee?”
“Chairperson. It’s the committee to decide how to spend sixteen million dollars.”
“Yikes,” I said, “but don’t you mean four million? Four million a year for four years. That’s what the settlement was.”
“Yes, that’s exactly right,” said Meg. “But the bank’s accountants have now decided that it would be in their best interest to pay the entire amount this fiscal year rather than to stretch it out. They’ve got their reasons I suppose, and whatever their rationale, we’re going to have sixteen million