Reinventing Leona (18 page)

She checked the center console for the bottle of antacids J.D. downed for the indigestion that turned out to be heart trouble. Pouring the last of the chalky tablets into her hand, Leona prayed her arteries were clogged, and that maybe she’d drop over before facing Ivan.

Next door to the paper, a grimy haze coated the diner window, distorting the cup-and-saucer-shaped neon sign into a saggy-looking eye. But the Koffee Kup had been there so long that the regulars, retired men escaping honey-do chores at home, did not need a clear view of the flickering advertisement. Locals called the restaurant the Dirty Spoon, but never to the face of Ruthie Crouch, the plump proprietor. Legend had it that during the Korean War, Ruthie’s flat-footed husband ran off with a soldier’s widow, leaving Ruthie with a bun in the oven and keys to the greasy cafe. To her credit, the crusty woman had made a successful go of both.

Leona reached across the stained passenger seat and opened the glove box. She extracted a bulging envelope of newspaper clippings. Every article submitted to the paper about Mt. Hope’s church picnics, fund-raisers, and Christmas pageants had been saved, each piece secretly affirming her efforts had been worth the time and trouble. On the top of the little stack rested her most cherished work: her husband’s obituary.

In the past week and a half, she had nearly worn the inky-black words off the page running her finger over the newsprint during the sleepless hours of the night. Leona held up the scissored strip to the afternoon light streaming in through her van window.

James David Harper, loving husband and father, left this world with honor and dignity.

Did the concise wording make it appear she callously dumped J.D.’s full life into a trash compactor, snapped a switch, and allowed a machine to spit out a justified-two-inch-wide-shortened-condensed man? J.D. Harper’s accomplishments could have filled a book. Anyone would be a fool to attempt to sum up such a fine man.
What made me think I could do it?

A tear splashed on the thin paper, dousing the
left this world
to illegibility. Leona folded the newspaper write-up carefully and laid it on the pile. She dug a tissue out of her borrowed bag, flipped open the visor mirror, and dabbed at the streaks of mascara running down her cheeks.
What a mess.

She checked her watch. If she hurried, she could run into the Koffee Kup, duck into the bathroom for face repairs, and maybe even down a few swallows of Ruthie’s stout coffee before her interview. A little caffeine might loosen her toes and steady her nerves. Leona returned the clippings to the envelope, stuffed them into the file folder, then tossed the bundle onto the passenger seat. She killed the engine, grabbed her keys and purse. When she stepped outside, the wind cut through Roxie’s worsted-wool jacket and rattled her fragile bones.

The bell above the diner door jingled as Leona bustled inside. The smell of the lunch special, fried chicken livers and mashed potatoes, mingled with the lingering odor of fried eggs and bacon from the breakfast special. Doubting Roxie’s extra spritz of perfume would hold up to the stale assault of the hash house, she was tempted to prop the door.

Ruthie Crouch dragged a sponge over the deserted lunch counter. “You need somethin’, Leona?”

“A mirror. Oh, and a cup of coffee, please.” Leona smoothed her windblown hair into place.

“You know where the washroom is.” The veteran server tossed the sponge over her shoulder. It landed with a splash in the tiny sink behind her. She pulled a pad out of her apron pocket and scribbled Leona’s order. “After you get cleaned up, I’ll get that coffee out to you.”

“I’m in a bit of hurry, Ruthie. I’ve got an appointment.”

“I guess that explains why you’re gussied up in that Brewer woman’s clothes.” She stuck the pencil behind her ear. “Trying to get yourself a job?”

Leona’s skin bristled against her borrowed blouse. “Yes.”

“About time.”

Amazing how all those hours spent doing the jobs at church that no one else wants do not count as real work.
Fighting the urge to point out that Crouch rhymed with
grouch
, Leona stormed toward the bathroom. As she passed the last booth, a glint bounced off the dome of a familiar bald head and halted her hasty retreat.

“Howard?” Leona backed up, cocked her head to the side, and perused the sticky table littered with half-full coffee cups and a stack of papers. “Harold? Hank? What are you guys doing here in the middle of the afternoon?”

Color emptied from the faces of the three board members stuffed in the back booth like too many socks in an underwear drawer.

“Leona.” Howard crammed papers into a folder and snapped it closed. “What a surprise.” He pushed the file toward the flushed-faced fellows wedged on the opposite side of the table. “Don’t you look nice this afternoon. Good to see you somewhere besides your mother’s rehab room.” Howard slithered over the cracked vinyl, coiling his rangy frame on the edge of the seat. “Care to join us?”

“Thank you, but I’m really in a bit of a hurry. I’ve got an interview with Ivan in just a few minutes.”

“At the newspaper?” Harold’s voice croaked with more of a hopeful air than an inquisitive one.

“Yes.”

“So we’ve heard.”

Word travels fast
. Discovering the elders knew of her job interview shouldn’t have fazed Leona. But the pointed reminder that the pastor’s wife’s business was considered public domain, and therefore fair game for the rumor mill, grated her nerves. Leona gritted her teeth. “When Ivan brought over some extra copies of J.D.’s obituary, he suggested I come by and talk to him. He says Modyne’s husband is insisting she retire by early spring so they can hit the road in their new RV. Henry’s afraid they won’t get to spend a dime of their children’s inheritance if they don’t put the pedal to the metal.”

The men smiled politely at her smoke screen of humor. Making light of people’s inquiries had proven to be her only line of defense in preserving her sanity after years of continual prying into her private life. However, if smoke failed, she’d even been known to start a few forest fires of her own just to throw the curious bloodhounds off the trail.

Howard shimmied free of the booth and took Leona’s hand. “Good girl. Glad to see you taking the bull by the horns. Getting on with your life.”

His used-car-salesman tone nettled Leona. The last time Howard Davis good-girled her, she ended up teaching the hormonal junior high girls for ten years. Leona cut her eyes at Harold and Hank. Something was not right about the way they were squirming. Either those two guys were in serious need of a little more elbow room or they were in cahoots with Howard. She counted their lack of direct eye contact good reason to suspect the latter.

Alarm bells reverberated in her mind. Trying to think over the clanging racket, Leona stalled for time. “It’s not been easy, but by God’s grace I’m making it.”

“Amen.” Harold gulped down the remains of his cup of cold coffee.

“And amen.” Hank nodded.

Silencing his sidekicks with a look, Howard swiveled Leona toward him, her back to the table. “Grace is the only way any of us are going to get through this terrible tragedy.”

Proceeding with well-honed caution, Leona sweetened the saccharine edge curdling her tongue. “I’ve been meaning to call you, Howard. I think you did a fine job Sunday filling in for J.D.”

“Well, your husband left some mighty big shoes to fill. But I’m glad you brought up the subject of the pastor’s job, Leona.”

“You are?” Leona’s eyes darted around the empty diner looking for clues that would shed some light on this awkward meeting. Her sights landed on Ruthie’s craned head. When the startled woman ducked her pudgy face and attempted to busy herself pouring coffee, the peal of emergency sirens kicked in, drowning out the alarm bells tinkling in Leona’s head.

Howard cleared his throat, shifting from one expensive-slack-clad leg to the other. “The pulpit is a heavy burden. Proclaiming the Word of God takes a lot out of a man.”

Leona stiffened. “Church work can kill you if you’re not careful.”

“My point exactly.” Patting her hand, Howard gave a concurring nod, as if his sudden conversion to her side should soothe the bitter welt death’s sting had left upon her tongue. “I don’t know how long I can carry the burden of preparing sermons, what with a trailer of next year’s Caddies fixing to hit my lot just any day.”

Capping the anger ready to spew forth like Old Faithful, Leona stewed, unwilling to be the first to play her hand in this game of church politics. Yet unwilling to let it drop. “Watching J.D. prepare week after week, nobody understands that heavy responsibility more than I.”

“Then you’d be the first to say Mt. Hope cannot allow J.D.’s vacated pulpit to remain at the mercy of whoever is available that week? Folks come to church expecting a first-rate worship experience. You and I both know how much the success of that
experience
hinges on the pastor’s sermon.”

The room spinning like a merry-go-round in an amusement park, Leona reached for a vintage channeled-back diner chair to steady herself. Strangely, her mother’s words from long ago zipped through her mind. “Hang on to the center pole, Leona, or the thing will sling you off.” Every time her thoughts whizzed past Harold and Hank, their faces grew redder and redder, as if risking a good breath might expose them to the treachery rotting their sorry hides.

Realization juiced Leona’s frozen joints into action. She whipped herself around, the chair toppling with a clatter on the black-and-white tiles. She snatched the folder off the table. “These are résumés, aren’t they?”

“Now, Leona, don’t get yourself all worked up.” Howard took a step toward her.

Reeling and dizzy, Leona waved the file in his face, papers flying everywhere. “J.D. has not even had time to color-code his suits in the closet of his hilltop mansion, and you’re already boxing up his office for the next guy.” She slapped the empty file down on some dried mayonnaise, knocking over two coffee cups. “Is that why you suggested I needed to find a job less than two weeks after my husband’s death?” Leona gasped. “You’re kicking me out of my home. That’s it, isn’t it, Howard Davis? You’re putting me out on the street with nothing.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Why? I’ll tell you why. So you can hire yourself some thirty-year-old whippersnapper, his Barbie-doll wife, and their two-point-five children.”

“Now, calm down, Leona. We don’t know who we’re looking for at this point. We just started getting inquiries.”

“You expect me to believe résumés just miraculously showed up in the mail? Howard, if you’re going to claim that, then you’re going to have to finally admit the power of the Holy Spirit.” Leona watched a cornered look flash across Howard’s face. “I didn’t think so. So you tell me, how did the word get around that Mt. Hope’s pulpit was empty?”

Harold ripped a handful of napkins from the tabletop dispenser. “Well, we might have taken out a few advertisements in some church publications.” He mopped coffee off the stained pages.

“Was this shenanigan executed before or after my husband lost his life working for you bozos?”

“Now, Leona. You know we’ve been satisfied with J.D. all these years.” Howard attempted to lead her away from the crime scene, but Leona planted Roxie’s heels on the checkerboard tiles, locked her knees, and refused to budge.

“Don’t give me that. Every church is looking for someone who is thirty and photogenic. You’ve been thinking for some time that J.D. and I are old and shriveled up.”

“Leona, you’re far from shriveled—”

“Don’t try to placate me, you bald-headed buffoon. You just wait until J.D. hears about this—”

“Leona.” Howard put a hand on her shoulder, sorrow softening his firm touch. “J.D. is dead.”

The whammy of the elder’s words smacked with the force of a cast-iron skillet swung against a hard head. Without a preacher, Leona Harper was not a preacher’s wife. Without her husband, what in the world was she?

Leona pivoted in her borrowed slingbacks, then charged toward the door. She marched past the diner proprietor leaning against the counter. “What are you looking at, Ruthie Crouch? Haven’t you seen a homeless person before?”

Hitting the door with gusto, Leona pushed it open. Stomping over the threshold, her heel caught in the cracked weather stripping. When she tried to jerk it out, the shoe broke free, but the stiletto remained wedged deep in the aged rubber. “Hell’s bells.”

Leona heard the door’s faint jingle behind her as she limped back to the van. If Roxie wanted the rest of her expensive shoe, she could march her bright ideas down to the Dirty Spoon and pry it loose. As Leona pawed through her borrowed purse searching for her keys, she felt the wind whip her hair in a million different directions. She unlocked the door, climbed in, then sank into the driver’s seat. Placing her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, she let her head drop at twelve.

Lord, what in the world am I going to do now?

* * * * *

An insistent
tap, tap, tap
on the van window roused Leona’s pounding head from the wheel.

“You coming in?”

Deacon Tucker held up the broken heel like it was the championship trophy of the senior citizens’ church bowling league.

Leona rolled down her window. “Where did you get that, Ivan?” She snatched the heel from the newspaper editor, then hurled it to the floorboard.

“Ruthie brought it over. Said my next headline was slumped over the wheel of a rattletrap vehicle parked in front of her establishment. Claims your loitering is ruining her business. She’s threatening to have you towed.”

“What a sweetheart.” Leona let her aching head fall back against the seat.

“Nothing a little salt and light couldn’t cure.” Ivan opened the door. “Come on. Let’s get you in where it’s warm.”

As she stared at his proffered hand, shame washed over Leona. She couldn’t believe how quickly she had released the hand of God and charged out on her own. Did she think the answer to her dilemma was awaiting her arrival on the other side of that hashery door? No. Nothing in life had ever come that easy. But did her lapse mean she had to be homeless? In an instant, fear raised its ugly head, swallowed her shame without choking, belching any chance she had at peace.
What am I going to do?