Embrace Me (7 page)

Harlan's toupee is the talk of our town. It just gets bigger and bigger like some sort of reaction in a chemistry class. “Reverend Hopewell, nice to see you. Cold day.”

“Same tomorrow. I always did love a cold Thanksgiving Day.”

Charmaine nodded. “Over the river and through the woods and all of that.”

“I saw your CD in the music store, Mrs. Hopewell. How's it doing?”

“Pretty good. Why don't you have a seat with us after you order? In fact, you just sit down and I'll get you something. What would you like?”

“Just black coffee.”

Harlan nodded. “Now that's a real coffee drinker. Good boy.”

I actually took it with cream at home, but black puts you on top at the coffee shop.

Charmaine scurried up to the front, her cloud of red hair giving fair warning to anybody in her way. I could have learned a lot from her if I hadn't been so bowled over by her fame, a fame, I admit, that she herself didn't give even a thought to.

Charmaine drank her coffee the way she liked her coffee.

I set the pen and notebook on the boardwalk, light up a smoke, and close my eyes against the noontime sun. We never came here in the winter, and I don't know why not. This beats the crowds of summer hands down. Maybe this would be a good place to start over. A beach ministry. Trade power for cool. It could work.

Rolling up my sleeve, I inspect the slight festering on the circular sores. But I can't seem to stop the burning. I don't know, I should probably ask Hermy to find out why I do this. Tell him it's for research for my writing, that I'm taking a break from my memoir to write a story about a self-mutilator. That seems to be all the rage these days. Only I'm not a teenager. There's the hook.

Instead of lowering the glowing cigarette I reach for my pen. Seagulls pull apart a Burger King bag that blew out of the trash can.

So Charmaine returned with a coffee and set it down. “I got a carry-out cup because you look like you're headed somewhere, and I don't want you to think you have to sit here and while away the day with old Harlan and me.”

“Thanks. I'm just headed out of town for the holiday.”

“Family?” Harlan forked up some cake.

“Yes.”

There you go, Father Brian, another lie. The sins are starting to add up, aren't they? And a willful lie at that. That's got to be a mortal sin.

Charmaine settled herself into her chair. Very slim-figured, almost boyish, zinging with energy and power—maybe not the way I'd come to value power but a sort of tough-skinned quality, a rootedness that wouldn't budge easily. “This is providential because you've come up in conversation around the Hopewell house lately.”

“You sure have,” Harlan said. “Quite a bit.”

“Good stuff, I hope.” Dorky card played nicely.

She batted my arm. “Of course, you silly. What's not to like about a nice guy like you?”

Even she was fooled. Good.

Harlan wiped a crumb from his mouth. “Yep. We were talking about needing some new lifeblood on
The Port of Peace Hour
.

You ever watch the show?”

“Sure. Almost every Sunday night.”

“You do?” Charmaine's brows rose. “Oh, that's so good!”

Harlan scratched his head, digging deep to get the itch beneath the grid of his wig. You know how rumors go about a small town. I'd heard from several sources that Charmaine tried all the time to get him to ditch the thing, but he refused. I also heard that at least he takes it off in the house now.

Do priests gossip like we do?

My red hair was such a calling card and the women in the congregation seemed to like it. People think redheads are nice for some reason.

You have to go out of your way to offend people.

Harlan said, “So, Drew, we were talking about having you come on
The Port of Peace Hour
at least two or three times a month.

We're going to start taping segments on a living room-style set that we'll insert between the preaching segments and Charmaine's musical numbers. Just kind of informal, chatty stuff. We need to give our viewers something new. And we think you're it.”

Some of the locals call it The Port O Potty Hour.

“I see. Well, sure. Glad to help.”

“See, Harlan? I told you he'd do it.” Charmaine leaned forward.

“You have that hungry look about you.”

It felt like we stood in a tunnel together, just Charmaine and me, the air a chilly knife between us, the bricks glaring white in fluorescent lighting.

Just as I was about to excuse myself, the door to the coffee shop swung open and two women entered to the clanging of Indian bells against the glass and the smell of fresh air and perfume.

Charmaine stood to her feet. “Miss Mildred!”

The older of the two women, both black and stately, turned her head in our direction. She smiled, lifted a hand, and slightly wiggled her fingers.

“Charmaine Hopewell. And Reverend Hopewell. How're you doing?”

Harlan stood to his feet, a real gentleman. I stood to mine. “Mildred, this is Drew Parrish, pastor over at Elysian Heights.”

“Oh, my, yes! I heard good things about you, Reverend. Good things!”

That day, Mildred gushed over my church and all that had been happening there. She praised the choir and the children's ministries; she lauded our women's Bible studies and our men's groups.

I drank it all in, the last thing I needed in a million years.

But she couldn't have known that. Miss Mildred just encourages people.

Later that night I head over to the rectory. Father Brian answers. Recognition dawns as I step into the porch light. “Drew?”

“Good memory.”

“You okay? Wanna come in?”

“No. I don't know what I want. I was out walking, having a smoke, and I saw the rectory. I don't know. It's late. I shouldn't have bothered you.”

“Let me get my jacket. I could use the exercise.”

He appears a minute later in a green down jacket, a black skull-cap, and a pair of black knit gloves. He looks seventeen. The pressed grey slacks are the only giveaway he's not entirely what he seems.

We head south on Baltimore Avenue, past bars, music stores, and T-shirt shops.

“So what's on your mind?”

“I don't know, just writing all this stuff down is like dragging up a bucketfull of slop, and I haven't begun to reach the dregs.”

“Repenting is never easy.”

“Don't give me too much credit. I'm at the confession stage. I haven't said I was sorry to anybody.”

Father Brian shoves his hands in his jacket pocket. “Okay, so you're confessing, but not repenting.”

“That's right.”

“Usually the two go together.”

“I'm not ready to ask forgiveness.”

He nods. “Got it.”

We turn on First Street, head toward the beach in silence, and finally step onto the oceanfront porch of The Plim Plaza. Father Brian points to a couple of rocking chairs and we sit watching the frigid breakers on the wide beach in front of us.

“You're pretty hard on yourself. I can tell,” the priest says.

“You don't know the half of it.”

“You almost done writing things down?”

“No. It's a long story.”

“They usually are. If you start at the true beginning that is. So, your congregation. Do they miss you?”

I shrug. “Don't know.”

“Did you just pick up and go?”

“Yeah. About a month ago. I mean, I was going through the motions. I'd been doing that for years, actually, but it was finally starting to bother me.”

“Conviction of sin will do that.”

Well, he doesn't mince words. “I couldn't go through the motions anymore. So I left. Called it a sabbatical.”

“It is one. You were right to do that. We all need breaks.”

“It's more than just a break.”

“What made you finally crack and get out of town?”

“There was a pipe burst in my apartment building, ruined most of my stuff, put me out. Seemed like a sign.”

“So it seems. And what of your faith?”

“I don't know.”

“That's a good first step.”

“I don't know if I believe in the kind of God I preached about anymore. Maybe I never did to begin with. Is that a sin? I just don't know.”

“Were you raised in church?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember who you thought God was back when you were a child?”

“My mother taught me about Him. She was the prophetic sort.”

He nods. “And your father?”

“My father saw Mom as his chief embarrassment, his cross to bear.”

“What of his faith?”

I just shake my head. “He's a complicated man.”

“Ah.”

“I mean, who are we to judge, right?”

“It's a hard call. On the one hand we are told we will know the followers of Christ by their fruit. On the other hand, only God knows the heart and many shall say, ‘Lord, Lord.'”

“Exactly. So what's the answer?”

“I think Jesus said it all when the other disciples grew angered at James and John for asking to sit at His right hand and His left. Do you remember what He said, Drew?”

“‘You don't know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?'”

He waves a hand. “No, not that part. The next part.”

“‘To sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.'”

“In other words, mind your own business. Your father is in God's hands.”

“And if you know my father, you'd have to wonder what God thinks He's doing.”