Beyond the Farthest Star (6 page)

P
ASTOR ADAM WELLS WAS FUMING.
The sight in his rearview mirror as he drove away from home revealed Anne tossing the hymnal into the trashcan. What’s more, while he was not entirely sure, he thought he saw her put another cigarette between her lips.

The wording of the promise he had exacted from her struck him: “Don’t let me catch you smoking again …” “All right. You won’t.”

He almost slammed on his brakes. The image of racing back to confront Anne—maybe even shake some sense into her—was powerful. “Control,” he told himself. “Anne and Maurene don’t deliberately set out to frustrate and antagonize me, it just feels that way.” Through clenched teeth he muttered aloud, “Happy thoughts.”

But the “happy thoughts” seemed to do as much good for him right now as all their family counseling had after Anne’s latest fiasco.

The resentment still had not left him when he wheeled the beige family sedan into the center of town. Before the hour Adam had allotted to work on this week’s sermon, there was time for a cup of coffee with Sheriff Burns and the mayor. Neither were members of First Church, but it was good politics to cultivate civic leaders, especially in a town like Leonard, where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

There was a line of cars three deep from the only four-way stop in town. What was holding things up? Adam craned his
neck. Sometimes ag equipment, like cotton harvesters and hay balers, crawled across the center of town. Nothing like that was in sight.

Maybe it was Mrs. Sterling. The ninety-three-year-old widow still piloted her giant boat of a ‘58 Cadillac, though she had to sit hunched forward over the steering wheel to see out and never drove more than fifteen miles an hour.

Adam’s hand hovered over the horn button. Sometimes it would be such a relief to not be a pastor, not to have to maintain a supernatural standard of behavior seven days a week. If only he could express what he was really feeling.

The thought vanished at the sight of the Leonard Fire Department’s pumper truck and a Leonard police patrol car blocking the street. Ahead and on his left Adam caught sight of a band of yellow ribbon that television programs had taught him meant “crime scene.” It was at the town square, not far from the nativity scene.

Adam wheeled his car into a vacant parking space. “Can’t be a murder. Not in Leonard. What’s this about?” The pastor corrected his earlier thought. The amber banner was around the crèche … or what was left of it. The box frame representing the roof of the holy stable was still upright, as was the nativity star on its peak. But below that point all was … ashes.

Standing shoulder to shoulder amid a small crowd of onlookers were Adam’s expected breakfast companions, the sheriff and the mayor. Adam walked directly toward them but was intercepted by his church secretary, Margaret Collier.

“They’re all ashes, Pastor Wells,” Margaret shrieked.

Margaret always conveyed information, good or bad, with great gusto. Even this confusing circumstance was no exception for the animated black woman.

“Ashes? Who? What’re you saying?”

“The Lord, fer starters. And Mary and Joseph. ‘Long with the
shepherds and all three kings, includin’ that African-American Ethiopian brother.”

By now Adam had reached the remains of the display, still smoldering feebly.

Margaret grabbed Adam’s arm and pointed upward. “Just the magi’s star is still standin’. Praise Jesus, it’s a miracle.”

Overhearing Margaret’s commentary, Sheriff Burns detached himself from the mayor and approached Adam. “Mornin’, Pastor. Seems John Cutter got a little carried away last night.”

“
Little
ain’t the word for it, and you know it, Sheriff,” Margaret corrected.

“All right, Maggie,” Burns said patiently. “Just let me—”

“And I don’t care if the former sen-a-tor is s’posed to re-store Main Street. Huh! S-I-N, sinator, is what he is! Burned up the Lord on high and prob’ly blasphemed the Holy Ghost at the same—”

Margaret’s screeching attracted a crowd interested in the gossip.

Sheriff Burns rebuked her. “All right, now, Maggie! Just calm down, will ya? Give me a chance to talk.”

But Margaret was still not ready to give up her stage. “Even got hisself an attorney so he can get the law to finish the job his gasoline and matches could not, Pastor.”

“Attorney?” Adam said dully, feeling the familiar throbbing pain beginning at the back of his neck and shooting upward.

“Go on, Gene,” Margaret demanded of the sheriff. “Tell him.”

The sheriff looked around and in a lower tone said forcibly, “Which I will if you give me the chance, Maggie. But not out here.” Turning to Adam, he suggested, “Let’s go to my office, Pastor. I’ll explain there.”

Dark-blue roofs and upper walls capped the red-brick lower battlements of Leonard High School, home to 278 Fighting Tigers. Football season was over, but wrestling and basketball were well underway. Excitement at the approach of Christmas vacation was growing, and the air was full of good cheer.

Mrs. Harper, the Supreme Head of the English department, did her best to squelch any such unliterary, boisterous behavior. She ran a tight ship. There was no nonsense to the serious business of learning semicolons and dangling participles.

Mrs. Harper, who also taught one class of World Literature, resented not being the department chairperson over both English
and
Social Studies. She resented having thirty students in her classroom when she had insisted that real learning was not possible with more than twenty-five, and she resented the addition to her well-ordered domain of the black-clad form of Anne Wells.

The glare Mrs. Harper bestowed on Anne every time their eyes met underscored the animosity.

From her seat two-thirds of the way back and on the left side of the room, Anne studied Mrs. Harper. The best single word to describe the instructor, Anne decided, was
tight.
Every part of the middle-aged teacher shouted it. Mrs. Harper’s gray hair was pressed to her skull in tight curls. Her mouth clamped shut with tight, disapproving lips. Her eyes had a tight narrowness to them, and she spoke in clipped, tight phrases.

“Now I know everyone did their English assignment and can’t wait to share it in front of the class. To give us all the privilege of your poetic vision. So who’d like to go first?”

Mrs. Harper also disapproved of letting students write poetry. Wasted effort, in her opinion. Let them read the great masters, but let their writing be confined to proper prose in short, tightly written sentences. Anne thought that having Mrs. Harper ask you to read your own poetry aloud was like feeding a chicken
carcass to an alligator. With a little luck only the chicken would be devoured … and not your arm.

A chorus of groans rose from the classroom. Anne noticed with amusement that everyone tried to look anywhere else other than at Mrs. Harper.
If the alligator doesn’t see you, it won’t leap.

But this was silly and could go on forever. Anne raised her arm.

Now it was Mrs. Harper’s turn to stare at the ceiling and out the windows. When no one else volunteered, she said with evident resignation: “Miss Wells … wonderful.”

What’s the complete opposite of enthusiasm?
Anne wondered.
Apathy isn’t strong enough because Mrs. Harper is really hostile.

Retrieving her painting, “Sunny Days,” from the back of the room, Anne placed it on an easel at the front of the room. Some of her classmates regarded the black-on-black rays with curiosity, some with indifference, and one—cheerleader Susan Dillard—with apprehension.

Susan probably thought the monsters in
Scooby Doo
were frightening.

Opening her notebook Anne read:

Anne saw uneasiness cross Susan’s face and a newly stiffened granite quality to Mrs. Harper’s. Nevertheless, she continued:

Susan looked as shocked and horrified as if she’d just found a worm in a salad.

Mrs. Harper, who boasted that nothing ever disrupted her ability to remain in control of any situation, looked slightly stunned. “Well, thank you, Miss Wells, for your poem entitled ‘Some Happy Thoughts.’ ”

Maurene, still in bathrobe and slippers, wandered about the parsonage’s dining room. The walls were lined with crates awaiting opening and unpacking. She bristled at the memory of Adam’s words. It was
not
true that they were three addresses behind in getting their possessions sorted. Well, perhaps two or three crates were still labeled as having come from Michigan, which
was
four moves ago now, but not
that
many.

A blank, legal-sized yellow pad lay beside her Bible on the coffee table in the adjoining living room. Maurene was reminded of her speech for the ladies’ luncheon, now only—she glanced hurriedly at the wall clock—three hours away. She circled the coffee table warily, as if the blank pad were a serpent.

Plenty of time to pull together an address worthy of a former high school valedictorian. This was no time to be distracted with unimportant matters like unpacking.

“Take that, Adam Wells, Miracle Preacher Boy,” she thought. Her sense of injustice at his remarks now calmed, she sat on a sofa with a firm resolve to deliver the best speech a pastor’s wife had ever given.

But where to begin? It was the height of the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps something about “The True Gift of Christmas”? That would be appropriate and easy to pull off.

Maurene again eyed the notepad with uneasiness. Blank pages were always so intimidating. The very thickness of the writing
tablet seemed designed to be an accusation of inadequacy:
You’ll never be able to do this! What makes you think you have anything to say that anyone wants to hear?

Accusatory—
that was the word.

Maurene scanned the room, seeking inspiration. Her gaze fell on the cover of one of her favorite romance novels. It was so inviting, so tempting, like luscious fruit.

She turned quickly away. Where was that Scripture about salvation being the free gift of God, so that no one should boast? That was about gift giving, right?

Maurene felt herself drawn back to the wavy-haired Edwardian-era male on the book cover. Strong and gentle, passionate and understanding, impetuous but not demanding.

“Perhaps just ten minutes,” Maurene promised herself. Ten minutes to calm her nerves and relax herself. Her thoughts would flow so much better afterward, she was certain.

Then Maurene told herself sternly that she must not touch that book right now. She knew how the hours would pass with the pages and the daydreams of the romance she would never have, and how frustrated with herself she would be afterward.

Maybe what she needed was a short nap. That was it: a brief rest before launching into writing.

A smile played across Maurene’s lips as she dozed. Lord Nathan … Chadwick Castle … being rescued from all unreasonable demands.

When the phone rang, she awoke with a guilty start. She could not speak to anyone right now. Better let the answering machine pick up. Maurene rubbed her eyes with both fists, trying to get her world back into proper alignment.

As the phone clamored through four rings, she glanced back at the clock. Where had the time gone? Two hours had passed. Now there was barely enough time to get dressed for the luncheon.
Who would be calling her now, anyway? All the people she knew in Sticksville—she corrected herself sternly, in Leonard—were already gathering to lay out their homemade fried chicken and macaroni salad and sweet-potato pie.

Maurene had heard of the latter but never sampled it. She could certainly manage several bites of most anything the cuisine of Leonard offered, as long as it didn’t include boiled okra. She’d been offered that dish once at a pastor’s conference in Waco and nearly barfed at the sight of its stringy, slimy, snotlike consistency.