Potter Springs (10 page)

“Thanks so much, you didn’t have to-” All the faces, the sincere smiles, combined to overwhelm Amanda. She couldn’t arrange
her own expression in an appropriate response.

But no one seemed to notice, or mind in the least.

“It’s nothing. Really, we’re just busybodies and wanted to be the first to get a good look at you.” Shelinda laughed and covered
the casserole with foil. “If I get to vote, I think you’ll do just fine.” She pointed a spatula. “And don’t you talk her ear
off, Peggy. We want her to
like
us.”

“Shelinda, hush now and get on out to the truck.” Peggy flapped her arms. “You can start with the kitchen things.”

“She’s bossy, but good as gold, Mrs. Reynolds. I’ll catch up with you later. Maybe have coffee or something.”

The woman’s easy manner and offer of companionship pulled at Amanda. She sensed a future friend here. “Please, call me Amanda.”

“Amanda then.” Shelinda nodded with a smile. “Welcome home.” The ruffled lace curtains on the back door fluttered as she stepped
out into the garage.

Home. She sat in a cool metal card chair in the quiet of the empty den. The house wasn’t much bigger than a cracker box, but
the voices outside remained thankfully muted.

Peggy’s pants made scratchy sounds as she seated herself next to Amanda.

Red and orange streaks filtered through the high windows from the backyard. Leaves swayed, making cutout pictures of light.
A tree. My backyard has a tree.
She’d taken trees for granted in south Texas. Not anymore.

Potter Springs hadn’t been quite the Mayberry she’d hoped for. But not as bad as she’d feared either.

Dusty on the outskirts, flat all the way through. But green in town, just like Mark had said. Their postage-stamp lawn, the
tree, the shrubs here and there. Green meant someone took the time to water. To nurture. Making green must take a long time
in the Texas Panhandle.

Amanda wondered if she’d ever be green again.

Soft hands covered hers and squeezed. Peggy shifted on the chair to get closer. “Now, tell me, honeygirl. How was the trip?
How are
you?”

And to Amanda’s surprise, waves of unshed tears rushed from her eyes and made dotted patterns on Peggy Plumley’s polyester
pants.

T
he church resembled a Monopoly house with four square sides and a low-pitched roof. A slender steel gray steeple drove up
into the sky like a solitary fence post, and variegated bushes surrounded a brick sign with
LAKEVIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH
etched into deep grooves.

Mark climbed out of the passenger seat of Ervin’s white double-cab pickup. A pungent aroma wafted from the blacktop parking
lot. All around the brown building, prairie flowed like a gentle pond. Long grasses fluttered like cattails in the breeze.
The plains were dry as stacked hay, without a lake in sight.

“Lakeview?” Mark asked.

“No lake,” Ervin confirmed. He nestled a wooden toothpick between his teeth. “But you gotta admit, it’s quite a view.”

A bird called high above, soaring under the wisps of clouds. A tractor far down the road turned off the main route. The grinding
machinery puffed dirt in its wake.

Ervin tossed a set of keys into Mark’s chest. “For your office. And that.” He pointed to a small pickup, blue with white lettering.
LAKEVIEW COMMUNITY
, it read, with a stylized lake and tree on the side. “For running around in,” Ervin explained. “Smokes a little, but it’ll
get you from here to there.”

“Thanks.” Mark shoved the keys into the pocket of his khakis.

They entered the building through a side door with a metal frame and handle. Ervin pushed easily inside.

“Not locked?”

“Nah. Not during the daytime anyhow. We don’t have much worth stealing. They want it bad enough”-the door squeaked behind
them-“come on in and get it.”

The interior smelled like an old school library, of books, dust and gathered bodies gone stale. “Down here’s the sanctuary.”
Ervin disappeared through double oak doors. Mark followed.

Inside, pews lined straight across with an aisle dividing them. No stage, but a simple oak communion table had the familiar
words on the side:
THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.
It had been a long while since Mark had seen an altar like that.

“It’s not so fancy, I know,” Ervin’s voice echoed in the sanctuary. No elegant Muzak filled the silence. “But we’re doing
a fall fund-raiser, to spruce up the place a little. Get some greenery. Peggy says we need more greenery.” At this, Ervin
placed his hands on his hips, an old coach surveying the playing field. With his belly pushing the elastic of the coaching
shorts to maximum support, his white legs encased in tube socks and tennis shoes, Ervin couldn’t look any more opposite James
Montclair if he’d tried.

Mark didn’t guess that Ervin tried much, as far as appearances went.

“You’ll be wanting to see your office.” Ervin led him down yet another hall, another door. Seated at a small desk, a gray-haired
woman in a violent polka-dot dress attacked a typewriter with a vengeance.

“Hi, Letty!” Ervin called above the
rata-tat-tat
as if greeting a long lost friend.

“Hello.” Letty scowled, her fingers frozen above the keys.

“This here’s Letty Hodges. Letty, meet Mark Reynolds, our new associate pastor.”

“Mr. Reynolds.” Letty nodded in greeting and adjusted Coke-bottle glasses farther up her pinched nose.

“You can call me Mark.” He offered a hand. For the briefest of instances, he thought she’d refuse. But then she grasped it,
brief and cold, leaving behind the distinctive odor of Ben-Gay.

“You may call me Ms. Hodges.”

“Miss Letty’s my best gal Friday,” Ervin said. “Actually, my only gal Friday. Been working here long ’fore I ever showed up.
Came with the building, I think.”

For this, Ervin was rewarded with a one-sided sneer, which might have been Letty’s excuse for a smile.

“She’ll work for both of us till the board sees fit to throw us more money for another assistant. She’s more’n glad to help
out, though. Aren’t you, Letty?”

“I’ll do my best.” She shuffled papers on her desk and heaved a great sigh.

“I won’t add much to your load,” Mark offered. “I’m pretty self-sufficient.”

“Just make sure you give me notice.” Letty sniffed. “I’ve got plenty to do as it is. And I don’t make coffee.”

Mark thought a retreat at this point might be his best strategy. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Hodges,” he lied.

She made no reply, but the typewriter roared back to life.

Ervin laughed at her rudeness. “See you later, doll!” He yelled to Mark over the noise, “Let’s go see your office!”

They stopped in front of a putty-colored door with a small sign,
JANITOR’S CLOSET
. From inside, sounds of a deep bass thumped under a steel guitar. The music drifted out in patterned bursts.

“Is this … ?”

“No, no. I just want you to meet Benny. Benny!” Ervin pounded on the door. “Benny, it’s me, Erv. Open up!”

The knob rattled and a skinny teenager holding a half-eaten bag of Cheetos answered. Benny wore a black T-shirt that read
SMOOTH.
He wiped his fingers on it, leaving orange streaks like snail trails. Behind him, the closet contained shelves of industrial
cleaning supplies, a stack of black rubber trash cans, a dusty vacuum and a portable stereo. “Yeah?”

“Benny, meet Mark Reynolds, our new associate. Mark, this is Benny Ripple, one of our junior custodians.”

Benny tossed his greasy hair in a gesture of greeting. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Mark answered in kind. “Cool shirt.”

A flash of respect crossed Benny’s pockmarked features. “Thanks.”

The closed door muffled the thumping music again, and Mark and Ervin continued on their way. As they walked, Ervin explained,
“Benny’s a good kid, but he’s had a hard run. Him working here is … a favor for a friend.”

Mark nodded.
A favor for a friend.
He remembered James Montclair handing him the number in the hospital and wondered if he was yet another favor from Ervin
Plumley. At this point, he didn’t care. He needed the job.

The associate’s office was tucked around the corner from the janitor’s closet. The door had no nameplate, or even a number.
In fact, nothing suggested it wasn’t a restroom or an extension of Benny’s hangout.

“Used to be a book room. Storage for the library,” Ervin said. Inside, a teacher’s desk and two plastic chairs completely
filled the space. Wallpaper, printed with a faux paneling design, peeled away at the corners. On the right hung a city map
of Potter Springs. An oversize calendar, torn to September, covered the warped wood desk. The only decorations consisted of
fresh ivy in a daisy pot and a
FARMERS FIGHT
coffee mug full of sharpened pencils and blue pens.

“The plant’s from Peggy.” Ervin indicated the container. “Greenery.”

“Tell her thanks for me.”

“Don’t have a computer yet. Got a line on a used one, though. Should be here by the end of the month. Until then”-Ervin yanked
hard on one of the drawers-“you’ll have to make do with these.” He lifted a stack of yellow pads.

Mark thought of his state-of-the-art computer in Houston. His executive mahogany desk. “That’ll be fine.”

“Why don’t you try it out?” Ervin pulled back the plastic chair with great aplomb.

Mark obliged, arranging his long legs under the desk. If he stretched his feet far enough forward, he’d be able to kick his
door shut without leaving his chair. He pulled a pad of paper to the center and scribbled his name on it. “Works great!” He
felt like an idiot.

Ervin stood at the bookcase. “There’s plenty of room for your things, and, hopefully, we’ll get you a stipend to buy whatever
else you might need.” He ran his hand down the metal shelves, the corner of which edged up to a woven shade. “What’s this?”
Ervin tugged at the tweed fabric, which had to be thirty years old. Dust flew as the shade curled up.

“Well, I’ll be!” Ervin looked like he’d just discovered plutonium. “Didn’t know this room had a window. Maybe we should swap
offices.”

Outside was a view of the parking lot and a rusty Dumpster with paper cups spilling out of garbage bags. Blackbirds scattered
like cockroaches at the noise from the window.

Not quite the wall-to-wall windows from Mark’s former office, with the breathtaking view of downtown Houston.

“Oh well.” Ervin sighed at the unappealing sight. “Can’t win ’em all.”

Mark watched the birds descend again, scavengers on the trash. Their ebony feathers shone, as if they’d pomaded them before
making their daily rounds.

“Listen,” Ervin said. “I’ve got someone else I want you to meet. Dale Ochs, chairman of our board. Sells house policies when
he’s not hanging out up here. Kind of the king of the overseers as far as the deacons go. Takes his job real serious.” Ervin
winked. “Mighta taken yours too, if he’d been the one deciding. We’ll do lunch on the square, at JoJo’s Steaks ‘n’ More. You’ll
find it. It’s next to the jail.”

AT JOJO’S, MARK
sat at a shellacked pine table and ordered iced tea from a paper menu. Nearby, farmers with weary eyes and tall boots thickened
the air with cigarette smoke. Apparently, the smoking section entailed all the windowed areas, with the center reserved for
nonsmokers.
A handy system,
Mark thought, wiping his watering eyes.

Ervin entered, hollering hello to several patrons who waved back. Next to him stood a short man in stacked boots. The man
had tight curls at the nape of his neck and a proud, beakish nose. He held his arms about four inches away from his torso,
and after approaching the table, nearly crushed Mark’s hand with the strength of his shake. “Dale Ochs, glad to meetcha.”

All three men ordered prime rib, the daily special. The steak arrived well done, covered in dark gravy and mashed potatoes.
Mark eyed the brown meat, knowing full well he’d ordered his rare. He’d never seen prime rib served with gravy in his life,
but decided not to push it. He finished his salad, pure iceberg with slivered carrots, preslathered in ranch dressing.

“Dale here’s done a great job with our board.” Ervin scooped some gravy from his dinner plate and dribbled it on his salad.
“Set up a new system for communion to the shut-ins and snowplowing in the winter. Beats anything we’ve done in the past.”

“I’d like to hear about it.” Mark tried not to watch Ervin as he chomped the now tan-colored lettuce.

“Sure,” said Dale. “I’ll do you one better. Come on to the next meeting and we’ll sign you up a spot. Put you on the communion
rotation. That is, unless you don’t want to get your hands dirty.” Dale set his iced tea down. A gold pinkie ring twinkled
at Mark.

“Not at all.” Mark forced himself to be pleasant in the face of the man’s obvious baiting.

“Communion’s not hard,” Dale commented. “Basically, we air out the faithful geezers, pour a little juice down their throats,
lead them in a prayer or two.” Dale’s silverware scraped through the overcooked meat as he sliced in precise squares. “After
a couple of rounds with me, you should be able to keep up.”