The next time Devon came out of the kitchen, he saw his new fishing friend, JJ, there with his dad. Mr. Josh had a guitar slung over his shoulder, and he was trying to show Mr. Sammy how toplay while JJ and Miss Becca watched. It was a dancy, silly kind of beat, and Miss Becca was bobbing her knees to it, and she’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail. His chest felt tight, and he was just starting to feel the slightest bit jealous of JJ, standing there with her, all swaying and smiling, when they both turned, and JJ grinned, and Miss Becca motioned him over, caught him in a hug, and then suddenly everything was all right again, and he wondered why he’d felt that way to begin with. Mama always said jealousy was a downright rotten way to feel, one of the seven deadly sins for a reason.
“A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot,” Mama would say, from Proverbs. She’d said it the first time after Devon had complained one day about wanting the Lego ninja set he’d seen on television, the big set that came with the gold sensei, especially after one of the kids at school bragged about having it.
JJ came back to the dish room with him and Marla, helped scrub and stack dishes and run plates, and when he’d left—early, he and his dad had to be somewhere at the crack of dawn the next day, he’d told Devon—JJ had hugged him and told him to come fishing sometime soon.
“We won’t be there this Sunday, but next weekend for sure,” JJ’d said, and then he was gone and Devon and Marla were in their dishes groove, singing and dancing and blowing bubbles.
“Well, this is certainly where the party is!” he heard and looked over to see Miss Becca standing there, smiling and watching them fan bubbles around.
“Hey, Miss Becca! You know Miss Marla, from my school?”
“Marla Bryant, and it’s good to see you, Rebecca.” Marla waved. “I’d shake your hand, but I’ll get you all wet.”
“Good to see you!” Miss Becca smiled back. “Actually, I came to pitch in, if you need the help. They sent me to tell you it’s over and time for the volunteers to eat.”
“Throw on an apron and we’ll make quick work of it.” Marla motioned to the hooks on the wall, where some aprons hung.
Devon wrinkled a nose. “It gets pretty messy.”
Soon she was following their lead, rinsing utensils and plates and setting them in the big industrial dishwasher.
“This is pretty expensive equipment for a church in a small town,” she said.
“Oh, we got the dishwasher when the Chinese food place closed a few years ago,” Marla said, searching the cabinets behind them for the detergent. “Figured we’d need it, and church and community members chipped in quite a lot, really on faith. That was when this ministry first got going. You were probably this big then.” She smiled at Devon, held her hand low to the ground.
“Marla’s first lady here, so she knows all this stuff,” Devon said.
“First lady?”
Marla laughed. “He means the preacher’s wife.”
“Ohhhh.” Miss Becca blushed. “Sorry. I don’t know all the lingo.”
Marla waved her hand. “No one does, don’t you worry about that!”
“Do I hear my beautiful bride back here?” came a booming voice, and they all looked up to see Rev round the corner.
“And I hear my handsome husband.”
“Hey, Rev!” Devon turned off the spray. “This is Miss Becca. The one I told you about.”
“Well, hey there, Miss Becca.” Rev smiled at Devon. “Hey, Devon.”
“Nice to meet you, Reverend Bryant.” Miss Becca said.
“Just Reverend is fine, or Rev. That’s what most people call me, anyway.” Rev leaned over, kissed his wife, and loosened his blue-green tie, pushed up his shirtsleeves. “How about we eat, and then can I pitch in, too?”
Marla giggled. “You have the best timing in the world, love.”
“All done!” Devon said, set the last plate inside the washer.
“Rev has seminary on Fridays and all day Saturday,” Marla explained. “Finishing his doctorate down in Columbia.”
“He used to be here every single Friday, but now he usually gets here at the very end,” Devon said.
“One more semester of coursework, and then it’s all writing till the end. Then I can be here all the time,” Rev said.
Devon tried to untie his apron, which he’d somehow managed to triple-knot. Miss Becca bent down, helped him with the knots. Then they all headed out to the front room, where the remaining volunteers were sitting at one of the long tables.
