“Yeah.” I nodded demurely. “Then it’s off to the big leagues. You’ll probably forget all about me.”
He looked at me seriously. “I’ll never forget you, Lynn.” He paused and said, “You’ve got a little ice cream on your lip.”
I grabbed my napkin out of my lap, but before I could wipe away the offending drops, his lips were on mine. It goes without saying that I’ve had a special place for chocolate ice cream ever since.
That memory had cheered me right out of my black-veil-wearing depression. And, at that exact moment, a tall, slim man who looked to be in his early thirties walked down the aisle in the most glorious vestments. He had that adorable hair with enough soft curl to make him look boyish but not enough length to make him look unkempt. I’ll admit that the vestments did make him look even more regal, but, combined with his warm eyes and gentle pat on my shoulder as he walked by, I thought that if I’d been fifty years younger, this man could have been just the right kind of charming.
I was entranced by his sermon, a moving dialogue that spoke to both the spirituality and the levelheaded nature of the typical Christian: what God is telling us and a step-by-step plan for figuring it out.
Over lemonade on the lawn, in a perfectly pressed collar, the man who I had discovered was the new associate pastor walked over to where Annabelle and I were chatting, and, though I knew she was married, I couldn’t help but think how I had dreamed of one of my daughters or granddaughters marrying the pinnacle of the perfect Southern man, a vestige of my late father-in-law: an Episcopal priest. I didn’t want to, but there just wasn’t a thing I could do to keep from thinking how this was the kind of man my Annabelleshouldhave married.
“Hi, Annabelle,” he said, reaching over and taking her hand in both of his.
Then he looked to me. “Mrs. White. We’re so pleased to have you with us today.” He smiled like a little angel, this wholehearted grin that made him even more endearing. “We’d love to have you visit with us anytime.”
He put his hand on Annabelle’s arm and said, most confidentially, “I’m not sure if you’d be interested, but I’m looking for someone to help Junie out.” He nodded his head toward a little lady that must have been my age. “It would be something to get you out of the house just until you found the right job.”
My heart was racing. If he’d asked me, I can tell you right now what I would’ve said. But, Annabelle, she didn’t say yes right away.
“Well,” Annabelle said, a hair flirtatiously, “I better walk through those four steps, make sure the Holy Spirit is telling me that’s the right thing to do, and then I’ll let you know next week.”
He laughed. “Glad my sermon had an effect on you.”
Annabelle swore that I was insane, that my long-standing Episcopal minister dream had made me crazy. But, standing between those two kids on the lawn with the lemonade, I’d say that sermon wasn’t the only thing that had an effect on her.
Annabelle
Perfect Seeds
The first year of marriage is the hardest. Lovey always told us that adjusting to living with another person, no matter how much you love them, can be tricky. But I think when you get married in three days, the first year of marriage is like that glorious first year of dating. Your nerves prick when his hand brushes your leg, you count the seconds until you are together again. You frivolously worry if you’ve texted him too much that day and play games with yourself:I’m not going to say anything back to him until he texts me twice in a row.Or,I’m not going to look at all of his Facebook pictures again until I’ve finished this load of laundry.
When you’ve only known each other as long, that first year is magic. So, it’s the second year, or, if you’re us, about eighteen months in, when the dew finally wears off and the grass loses some of its luster. But I don’t think either of us could have acknowledged that that’s when we started to hit a bit of a rocky patch. It is only in retrospect that I can even see the shift, the minor turn in the earth thatgives you vertigo. We weren’t fighting or anything. It was just that, all of a sudden, a relationship that we both knew was going to be endlessly thrilling became mundane.
Maybe it was that Ben was back working at a job that, to put it mildly, didn’t get his creative juices flowing like they once were. When he wasn’t singing, I wasn’t his muse, and, quite frankly, I had a bit less time for musing anyway. My new boss, Father Rob, affectionately nicknamed Priest Charming by his parishioners, had taken what was supposed to be a part-time job and made it full-time demanding.
I was more than a little intimidated walking into the church office that first day. I loved the look of the Saint Catherine House, its aging brick and white picket fence, the idyllic little flower garden. The impossibly tall ceilings inside, huge, light-filled windows and comfortable furnishings made it feel more like home than work. But I didn’t have a firm grasp on my actual responsibilities, and my doctrine was a little rusty, since I hadn’t been a regular church participant since high school. But I was excited to be getting out of the house and doing something,anythingthat felt like it had purpose. Plus, it was a great way to take my mind off of not being pregnant.
“Oh my Lord, I’m so happy you’re here,” Junie said as soon as I walked through the door my first morning, my arms overflowing with homemade muffins of every kind. That they were homemade by Emily could be our secret. Junie rushed to hug me, squishing the muffins into my chest, and, as I laughed, Priest Charming appeared from around the corner, raised his eyebrows at me in surprise and laughed too.
“Junie, do we need to watch that video on sexual harassment again?”
That was the moment I realized that this job was nothing like I thought it was going to be. I had assumed Rob would be as stuffy and uptight as his clerical collar.
I had also expected to get right down to business, to engross myself in spreadsheets and contact lists and bulletin proofs. But, instead, Rob said, “Okay. Let’s get in the car.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, imagining myself at some poor parishioner’s bedside, solemnly holding the prayer book as Father Rob read him his last rites. So I was more than a little surprised when he said, “Strawberry picking, of course.”
I thought maybe that was some sort of first-day-on-the-job welcome or something, but, when Junie said, “Better you than me,” I realized that seemingly unrelated field trips must be a part of the job description. As Rob opened the door of his Audi convertible for me, he said, “Don’t you love the first strawberries of the year? I think strawberries instantly make it feel like summer.”
I nodded. “Ialwayssay that. And not those grocery store, middle-of-winter strawberries either. Real, ripe, minute-old strawberries.” I put my seat belt on as he pushed the top down, and, though I was wondering how an associate pastor could buy an Audi convertible, I kept the thought to myself. Instead, I asked, “Is there a reason we’re going strawberry picking?”
“I’m sure there’s a reason,” Rob said. “I’m just not sure what it is yet.” He grinned at me.
“I’m confused.”
“Well, every night before I go to bed, I ask the Holy Spirit to put something on my heart that I should do that day. So every morning I wake up with a distinct urge to complete some task—sometimes mundane, sometimes off the wall.”
“So how do you know that it’s a message from heaven? I mean, how do you know it isn’t just the aftermath of a dream or a random thought?”
