The Happy Hour Choir

by Sally Kilpatrick

  I was almost used to the sight of him in his undershirt sweating like a Calvin Klein underwear model at a French Riviera photo shoot. Not that I’d contemplated what that might look like. At least not too often.

  “And good morning to you, too, Beulah. How’s your day been so far? Mine has been fantastic! Thanks for asking.”

  “I get it, I get it,” I said with a sigh. “I’m very sorry for being rude, but I can’t take it anymore. You have to explain all of this, this mess to me.”

  “I’m listening,” he said. His tone was inviting, but his posture suggested he wasn’t that far along on his sermon. Either that or he wanted me to leave him alone after our “indiscretions” in The Fountain then later in the hospital chapel. I shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable being in his presence. Ironically, only a few moments before, he had been the first person I wanted to tell about everything I had learned in the past twenty-four hours. Now I didn’t know where to start.

  “Tiffany’s father, who’s really her stepfather, has been molesting her. He’s the father of the baby.”

  Luke winced and leaned back in his chair, his attention now riveted on me.

  “He also came by last night, drunk as a skunk, to throw bricks at my house.”

  “Is everyone okay? Are you okay?” Luke’s hands clenched the arms of his desk chair, ready to leap from his seat and right some wrongs. “Did you call the police?”

  “Yes, I called the police this time. We’re fine,” I said, watching him relax back into his chair before adding, “But then I found out Ginger had a miscarriage when she was younger and an alcohol problem before I came along.”

  His smile turned into a frown by fractions of an inch. Finally, he said, “And what about you, Beulah? What’s the rest of your story?”

  “What does my story have to do with anything?”

  He rubbed his temples and wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow. I sat back a little farther because I knew my deodorant couldn’t keep up with the oppressive heat in the non-air-conditioned building. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “No. I know why bad things have happened to me,” I blurted. The same reason you’ll kiss me once or twice but not seriously consider dating me.

  “Oh?”

  “Because I’m a bad person.”

  He stared at me forever, and it was so quiet in that church that the only thing I heard was the incessant whir of the box fan and the refrigerator across the building humming to life.

  “You can’t be serious.” Gone were any traces of irritation or sarcasm. “You can’t really believe—no, I can’t ask you. I’m already too close to you to be able to counsel you.”

  “Counsel?” I wasn’t there for counseling. Was I?

  He was already fishing through his top desk drawer for a business card. “Here. This is the info for the Reverend Grace McDonald. She’s a very, very good Christian counselor.”

  I knocked the card from his hand. “I’m not seeing a shrink—Christian or otherwise.”

  He opened his mouth to speak. “I want to help you, but the lines between us have already been blurred. I don’t think it’s—”

  “There was a boy. And a backseat. Then I did something stupid, and I got pregnant and broke my daddy’s heart. Which caused him to have a heart attack. And my mother disowned me. Then, after all that, the baby died. That’s what happened.”

  He opened his mouth and then clamped his lips back together. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to ask me more questions, if he wanted to try to push me off on the counselor again, or what. He was torn. I could see the anguish in his eyes.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “I suppose this is the part where I tell you that it rains on the just and the unjust. I guess I should remind you of free will or that what God does may not make sense to us because we mortals aren’t privy to God’s divine plan. I could tell you one of a million things, but the truth is . . . I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know why bad things happen to good people. I live each day on faith that there are forces at work beyond my ken. I do my best, I say my prayers, and I try to listen to what God tells me to do. But I can’t tell you why Miss Ginger, of all people, had to get cancer. I can’t tell you why Tiffany’s father did such horrible things to her, or why your baby had to die. I can’t even tell you why my mother had to be in the path of that drunk driver, or why I . . .” He paused, and I realized I wasn’t the only one with secrets.

  “. . . I’ve done some of the things I’ve done,” he finally finished.

  Like kissing me? Or something worse? I swallowed hard. Why had I come here? Why did I have to talk to Luke?

  He leaned back in his chair. “The longer I live and pray, I learn the truth of ‘Ask and it shall be given.’ The problem is we usually don’t have a clue what to ask for.”

  How could I feel better and confused all at the same time? I got up to go.

  “And, Beulah?” When I turned at the doorway he stood by his desk with his hands in his pockets. “You’re not a bad person. You’re one of the best people I know.”

  “You know it’s really hard to believe you, based on what happened between us. If I’m such a good person, then you wouldn’t have been ashamed to kiss me.”

  His eyes flashed. For a moment I thought he might take the bait. “I held the doors open for you. You’re the one who walked away.”

  Pain slashed between my ribs, and again I walked away, this time before he could see the tears stinging my eyes.

  I wasn’t thinking straight when I left Luke’s office. I couldn’t have been thinking straight because I did something I hadn’t done in a long time, if ever.

  I went to the Dollar General and picked out the prettiest fake flowers I could find, then I drove over to Grace Baptist Church before I could stop myself. The cemetery where my daddy rested lay beside the church, but far enough away that I took the gravel road that ran along the outer edge of the graveyard.

  I had already stepped out of the car when I realized a dusty red Ford Explorer was parked on the other end closest to the church. And that Explorer belonged to my mother.

  I wanted to turn and drive away, but she had already seen me. She stood by my daddy’s grave with her hands on her hips. She had put on another ten or fifteen pounds, all of which had landed in her belly. Even from a distance I could see her hair was now entirely gray. She was beginning to stoop, too. For the first time I thought of how life had been steamrolling over her all these years with one tragedy right after another.

  My feet moved me forward just as they had driven me to the Dollar General then here without consulting my brain. I clutched the two bunches of fake daisies to my chest like a shield, wondering if God had a whacked sense of humor. Of all the days for me to decide to visit my father’s grave, why did it have to be the day my mother was there?

  “Beulah.” My mother’s eyes ran up and down me in appraisal.

  “Mother.” I nodded. My heart hammered against my chest, and bile crept up my throat.

  “You’re looking good,” she said, but she was staring at the marker.

  “Thanks. You are, too.”

  She waved away the thought, and I was surprised to discover I was only half lying. She did look good to me.

  “I hear you’re playing piano for County Line now.” Her hands traveled back to her hips, her position of superiority when I was a child and she could tower over me. Now she had to look up a few inches, thanks to osteoporosis.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I winced, ready for the ten-minute diatribe about hypocrisy.

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it. Maybe I’ll see you around.” With a curt nod, she turned to go.

  “Maybe,” I murmured under my breath as I watched her pick her way around the graves and back to her car. I had the inexplicable urge to check all over for bruises or for scratches, but there were, of course, no physical wounds. Emotional wounds maybe, but, for the first time, I saw her emotional scars, too
. Maybe her heart had pounded at the thought of seeing me. Maybe she had wondered what sort of cruel joke would send her daughter to the cemetery on the one day she decided to visit her husband’s grave.

  She drove off, and I turned my attention to Daddy’s grave. The front of the double marker contained his name and dates on one side and already had my mother’s name and birth date on the other side. The little d was already underneath, as though waiting for her to keel over so someone could chisel in that last date for the stone to be whole.

  Even the position of my father’s grave at the outer fringe made me wonder if I’d pushed him to the outskirts of the cemetery just as I had pushed him into an early grave. As a former pastor, shouldn’t he have been closer to the church where the lots were spaced out more? Or were pastors with pregnant teenage daughters pushed to the side?

  “Daddy, I’m sorry,” I said as I took the daisies and stuck them firmly in the ground behind the marker. “I’m so sorry I disappointed you like I did.”

  If I expected the heavens to open and a loud voice to boom, “Beulah, your father and I forgive you,” then I was destined to be sorely disappointed. Nothing happened. A car in need of a new muffler passed behind me. Two bobwhites called to each other from one thicket to another. A lizard skittered over the marker to my right.

  The wind caught the branches of the trees around the cemetery, whipping them in another direction as I walked up the hill to another grave along the fringe. I stopped cold. Flowers sat just behind the smaller marker with the engraved lamb. I hadn’t been here in years because I couldn’t bear it, so who had left flowers? It wasn’t Ginger—she would have told me.

  The crisp, white, fabric lilies danced in the breeze, perfectly pristine without a hint of dirt. I jerked around. There, several markers behind me, an identical bunch of lilies bobbed behind my father’s tall headstone. I fought back tears. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat at the realization that my mother had been putting flowers on the grave of the grandbaby she’d never met.

  Chapter 19

  I have always hated handbells.

  Some say they’re the tongues of angels, but I see them as expensive and impossible to keep clean. Playing them requires such concentration and precision that they aren’t fun. People ringing those bells are so focused on studying the music that they can’t look up and smile.

  Also, handbells reminded me of the music they play in funeral homes. Old Mr. Anderson had music piped through the entire funeral home, chime-like music played at half speed.

  And then there was the fact that Lottie Miller loved her new handbells.

  Luke gave the Happy Hour Choir the day off, but I still had to play the piano for introductions and things like the doxology. Supposedly, he wanted to let Miss Lottie show off her new toys, but I figured it had more to do with the fact that I didn’t show up on Wednesday to give him any song numbers. Ginger insisted on going to church anyway, even though Tiffany and I tried to convince her otherwise. Tiffany sat with Ginger while I played piano, but Lottie took over the rest of the service. She guided her bell ringers through the prelude, through the anthem, and through the offertory. She also had a postlude picked out, as she was only too happy to inform me.

  Luke cleared his throat a lot that Sunday, and he didn’t give his best sermon. From my perch in the choir loft I counted over forty heads. An improvement or friends of Miss Lottie? Only time would tell. Despite the lackluster sermon, Miss Lottie was tickled pink after church.

  “Why, today has been an inspiration, a revelation, wouldn’t you say? I think we should have the handbells every Sunday, don’t you?” Miss Lottie batted her eyelashes furiously, but her Ship of Flirtation had sailed many, many years ago. Probably met a fate similar to the Titanic, too.

  Luke cleared his throat. “I think we can easily open up one Sunday a month for the handbells. That okay with you, Beulah?”

  Before I could say fine by me, Lottie’s face gathered color. “Oh. I should’ve known you’d be looking to her for approval.”

  “I don’t need her approval,” Luke said, his voice growing dangerously low. “I thought, however, it would be polite to ask.”

  “Ask her?” Lottie sneered. “I’ve been singing in this church for the past forty years or more and I’ve never once been asked my opinion. I should have known she would end up cozying up to you.”

  “Enough!” His voice reverberated off the walls, and we were all taken aback. “Miss Lottie, I have tried to be nice, but I’ve had enough. You will stop insinuating there is some kind of inappropriate relationship going on between me and Beulah. Futhermore—”

  Miss Lottie’s eyes bugged out of her head as she pointed a finger in his face. “We could have you defrocked. I will call Tom Dartmouth the minute I get home!”

  “You go ahead,” Luke challenged. “See how far it gets you.”

  I had no clue what defrocked meant, but I didn’t like the sound of it. “Don’t cast aspersions on this man. I did kiss him, but he was smart enough to turn me down.”

  Miss Lottie’s bosom heaved up and down, her face now a dangerous shade of purple. Fortunately, almost everyone had left, but there were a few stragglers just in front of the door who had turned to watch the fireworks. She pointed one fat finger at me, the undersides of her wrinkled arms wiggling, her double chin jiggling. “You, you. Yes, you brought all that riffraff in here. You threw yourself at this fine young man while playing piano in your den of iniquity. You have no business telling me when I should or shouldn’t play my handbells. You shouldn’t even be here until you get your head screwed on straight.”

  “And that’s enough from you.” Ginger stood at Lottie’s elbow with her hand on the end of one pew and Tiffany’s hand under her other arm. Her bottom lip trembled with rage, and Tiffany’s face was an ashen white. At that moment my heart squeezed with pain. I could handle being called riffraff, but Tiffany deserved better.

  “Look at this one here,” Lottie said, unable to stop now that she was on a roll. “You been teaching her how to act, Beulah?”

  “Miss Lottie, it isn’t your place to pass judgment. If you can’t be civil, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Luke said. He gently took the older lady by the arm and escorted her down the aisle.

  “I have to put up the handbells,” she said. “Don’t let any of them touch them. They’ll get their nasty, oily fingerprints all over them—”

  “They’ll be taken care of,” Luke said through his teeth. From the tone of his voice, I could only hope he meant melting them down and selling them for scrap metal.

  “If I leave, I am not coming back!”

  How I wished that were true.

  The last of the crowd reluctantly dispersed at the sight of the minister and the church’s self-proclaimed music star coming down the aisle. I thought I caught a glimpse of Goat Cheese Ledbetter out there and wondered what he could possibly be up to. He studied Luke and Miss Lottie, and I wondered if he could hear what they were saying. Luke’s voice came to me as a measured murmur, but Miss Lottie squawked like an enraged parrot.

  I don’t know what made me do it, but I planted a thumb on the biggest of the handbells, satisfied by the perfect whorls it left behind. Then I tried my index finger on another bell. I planted pinkie fingerprints all in a row on the smallest one.

  “Beulah Louise, you stop touching those handbells!” Ginger yelled so loudly I was afraid she might burst a blood vessel.

  “But she is so mean! And she was mean to Tiffany! And Luke, too!” I touched another bell three or four times, my eyes never leaving Ginger’s. She reached across and slapped my hand. I was acting like a toddler, so it was a fitting punishment.

  “The time for an eye for an eye has passed,” Ginger said.

  “Oh, no. We’re not doing the turn-the-other-cheek routine,” I said, shaking my head. “She made Tiffany cry. She doesn’t have any idea what it’s like to be Tiffany or to be me. And she threatened to defrock Luke, whatever that means!”

&nbs
p; Ginger gave me an arched non-eyebrow that suggested she had heard about our not-so-clandestine chapel kiss. “And just what is going on between you and Luke?”

  I scanned the sanctuary to see that everyone but Tiffany had finally filed out. Probably to get a better view of the fireworks outside. “He kissed me in the hospital chapel.” And the emergency room. And in The Fountain, but who was counting?

  Ginger’s eyes lit up. “Good!”

  Tiffany quit sniffling and looked up. That was the end of another dream for her.

  “No, Ginger, not good,” I said. “He apologized for kissing me, so his charity only extends so far.”

  “Now, Beulah—” Ginger’s mouth had pulled back to one side, the expression that said I was being melodramatic. Luke chose that moment to interrupt her.

  “Beulah, Tiffany, I’m very sorry I didn’t get Miss Lottie out of here before she said those hurtful things. She and I have had a discussion, and she has something she would like to say to you.”

  Tiffany and I looked back at Miss Lottie, who, bless her heart, had tears in her eyes. Her “I’m sorry” came out breathy because she was about to lose her voice to sobs.

  My eyes went to Tiffany, but she shook her head back and forth, so I apologized for the both of us. Even if she didn’t deserve it. “I’m sorry, too, Miss Lottie.”

  Miss Lottie waddled off. Luke stalked up the aisle. One glance at the handbells, and he looked back at me with fire in his eyes. “Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

  “Not my strong suit,” I said.

  He exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to have to ask you to clean those after lunch.”

  “Why don’t y’all go ahead to lunch, and I’ll clean them now,” I said as I sat back in the first pew and crossed my legs.

  “If that’s the way you’d like it,” he said. “Ladies?”

  Tiffany helped Ginger start down the aisle. My stomach growled, and I clamped a hand over the traitorous organ. Luke paused where he was opening the cases for the handbells. He had heard my stomach. “You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met.”