If You Really Knew Me (Anyone Who Believes Book 1)

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  “No,” Anna said. “I just covered that meeting and then followed Beau around for a while. One thing I asked him and some of his friends and family was how that meeting affected them. That kept your father’s name in my head ‘til now.”

  “Oh, yeah. That makes sense.”

  “Wait,” Anna said, turning to the obvious question. “If you’re Pastor Claiborne’s daughter, what are you doing here?”

  For the first time in the conversation, Sara wondered whether she should be careful what she said to the press. She didn’t agree with her father about Beau Dupere, but she didn’t want to embarrass him publically. “Are you gonna write about it if I tell you?” Sara said.

  “Not if you don’t want me to,” Anna said, still not the controversy-hound that some of her colleagues would be in such a situation. She felt some sympathy for this young woman. “I’m Anna Conyers, by the way.”

  Sara shook hands and tried to remember where she had heard that name before. Then it occurred to her. “You wrote that long story on Beau in that paper.”

  Nodding and tamping down a spark of pride at being recognized, Ann said, “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “I really liked it,” Sara said. “Oh, I’m Sara.”

  “Hi, Sara. I’m glad you liked it. I worried that it exposed too much of the Duperes’ personal lives.”

  Sara pursed her lips a moment. “Yeah, I could see that. I don’t think it helped any of the folks that didn’t trust him already. But I loved learning more about him and his family. It made me feel more comfortable with some of what I was feeling from being in his meeting once.”

  “This was your second time in one of his meetings?” Anna said.

  Sara snickered. “Yeah, I guess they’re not all this dramatic, huh?”

  Anna laughed. “I sure hope not.” Then she took a chance. “I’m hungry. You wanna grab a bite to eat and compare notes. It sounds like you and I have been studying Beau for about the same amount of time. And I’d like to hear your story.”

  Sara shrugged slightly, liking Anna in person even more than her writing. ”That sounds good. Now that you mention it, I am really hungry.”

  Sara collected her purse and followed Anna up the aisle. Anna had dropped her phone and notebook back in her bag, not planning on any more pictures or questions for her article.

  She set aside her anxiety about whether she could convince her bottom-line beholding editor and publisher to show the world what really happened there that night. Their only motivation would be selling papers. Certainly, a good resurrection story would sell a few papers, she hoped.

  Glad to Be Back

  Beau and Maggie left early the next morning to catch a flight south toward home. They knew the family would want to see them as soon as possible, and they both felt like zoo animals in a glass display case. Beau wanted to escape more questioning by the FBI, feeling more like a suspect than the victim, after a meeting that morning. The vicious intensity of the arguments between federal agents, all clearly out of their depth, squeezed Beau out the door. The distractions of finger-pointing and damage control dropped Beau off their radar long enough for him to escape. Home would be the best place to think about what had happened, to recover from the shock of confronting death in such a startling way.

  In the airport, Beau stopped briefly to read the subtitle to an article in the San Francisco newspaper. “Feds Say Dupere was Shot and Recovered.” Of course, he hadn’t dipped into the jet stream of speculations about what had happened, but Beau found that headline a very odd way to describe someone killed and resurrected. He failed to comprehend the political correctness that the FBI had risked, unaware of the prevailing opinion that he had faked the murder and the miracle.

  Knowing Maggie’s continued sensitivity on the topic, Beau didn’t comment aloud, but thought of Anna and wanted to hear from her about what people were saying. To him, that approach held more promise than watching the news for himself.

  Travelling anonymously had become impossible. While he had been a celebrity in certain circles before, Beau had generally travelled without attracting a crowd. If not for the perfect tan, perfect hair and perfect teeth, which added up to movie star in most people’s minds, he might have never heard those common words, “You’re him, aren’t you?”

  After the assassination, no one even bothered to ask; they just nudged the person next to them and pointed, unless they wanted an autograph. Beau had never signed autographs before, rarely ever asked for one. But, in the waiting area by the gate and even on the plane, a constant line of three or four people stood waiting for Beau to sign a copy of the newspaper, or any stray scrap. He refused to sign any body parts. Maggie shook her head at these requests, but said nothing.

  Beau called to ask Miranda to send a limo with added security, to help them push through the crowd at LAX, expecting the spotlight to be even brighter on that end of the flight. Once they took off, Beau sat back in his first class seat and reached over to hold Maggie’s hand. He knew she needed some comfort and assurance from the father she had lost the night before. During the flight, his big hand on hers, he sent healing to that trauma. Maggie closed her eyes, alternately shedding silent tears and beaming a tight-lipped smile. Because of her lifetime of experience with healing, she was able to receive the restoration of her soul that coursed from her father’s hand like a blood transfusion. Beau found a more cheerful and relaxed daughter at his side when they landed.

  Going beyond his request, Miranda had sent a driver and two security guards to help Beau and Maggie get through the airport, alerting LAX security as well. Miranda was not the only one to whom it had occurred that someone might just try to test Beau’s rate of return, copying the assault of the night before. Just like the cops in Oakland, the airport security took the threat seriously, without addressing the oddity of having to provide protection to a guy because he had recently been killed and resurrected.

  After her father’s attention on the plane, Maggie laughed at the crush of reporters who had learned of Beau’s return by some mysterious means. She felt like a Hollywood star, following security to her waiting limo with flashes and shouts all around her. The reporters called her name, as well as her father’s, in their efforts to get a good photo. Just before the limo door closed, she heard someone shout, “Maggie, how does it feel to raise your father from the dead?”

  Not since the last presidential election had the nation been so clearly and starkly divided as they were over the story of Beau Dupere’s death and resurrection. Experts and pundits declared, without any shred of doubt, the impossibility of the story on one channel, and documented the extensive evidence that it had indeed occurred on another. Fortunately, for Beau and his family, they were already in the habit of ignoring the mass media and their manufactured crises and causes. On the other hand, they couldn’t escape the crowd of protesters outside their own home.

  Back in Malibu, through the limo window, Beau saw the multiplied mob, lining the street for several blocks now. Some held signs that read, “FAKE,” among other new messages. He decided it was time to move the family to a new location.

  For her part, Maggie ignored the furor outside her tinted windows, focusing on texting her brother in Argentina, instead.

  Justine stood by the front door, her arms crossed over her chest, a broad smile on her face. It was one of those June days cooled by a breeze off the ocean, sunny and bright, and invigorating. Justine’s face matched the weather. She hugged both her husband and daughter with the intensity of a catcher on a flying trapeze, but shed no tears, and eventually let go, so that others could get in on the action. Olivia, Peter, Luke and Emma waited their turn behind Justine.

  Beau kissed and held Olivia for a half a minute. She didn’t restrain her relieved tears, leaking the same sort of emotional trauma that Beau had sensed in Maggie. He knew then that it would be foolish for him to approach his death with such carefree boldness the next time. He could see the scars on his family, like the paths of erosion in loose soil
after a heavy rain.

  Riding into the house in the arms of his little clan, Beau was changed that day, and a brief exchange of eye contact with Justine told him that she knew it too.

  Parting Ways

  Even though Jonathan Opare had stayed at Dixon Claiborne’s church through the early days of opposition to Beau Dupere, he couldn’t get comfortable with so much open antagonism among Christians. But it was Treena, his apple-cheeked wife whose smile was famous in the church, who first declared her need to escape the tension between her faith and the culture that had grown up at their American home church. Not until the church’s aggressive rebuttal of the resurrection story, however, did Jonathan finally agree to look elsewhere for a church family while they lived in the States.

  Unlike many U.S. Christians, the Opares would not be content to simply slip into an empty pew and then slip out, reviewing the service like a movie or play on the way home. After researching their options, they scheduled joint or single interviews with senior church staff and asked preemptively what they thought of Beau Dupere and his resurrection story.

  Winifred Whiting pastored a predominantly African American church on the north side of Parkerville. Though the congregation belonged to a denomination with ties to churches he knew in Ghana, Jonathan had learned that traditions faded in American churches faster than affiliations changed, so he assumed nothing when he entered Pastor Whiting’s office late in June.

  Winnie, as she liked to be called, had hair the color of steel wool and a round, almost girlish, face, which was a lighter, more golden brown, than Jonathan’s. Her eyes, however, were exactly the same deep brown as his, and her smile reminded him of his wife. She wore a traditional shirt from Zimbabwe, that Jonathan recognized.

  “Are your ancestors from southern Africa?” he said, after they shook hands and each took a seat next to Winnie’s desk, where four cherry wood and black leather chairs sat facing each other.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Winnie said. “I don’t know my detailed family tree, really. I acquired the shirt on a ministry trip with some folks from the church and an organization we support, one that works with local churches in areas suffering rampant poverty.”

  They talked for a while about that ministry, essentially as a sort of social warm-up exercise. Jonathan knew that Treena had informed Winnie of their search for a new church when she set up this appointment. An economist by education and habit, he wondered how much of what this bright pastor said constituted marketing. He smiled on the outside while suppressing his critical graduate school habits inside.

  After a pause in that pre-agenda conversation, Jonathan transitioned to the purpose for his visit. “As you know, my wife and I are looking for a church where we can be active and feel like part of the family,” he said, initially leaning away from the particular concerns that had sent them on this search.

  “So what are you looking for in a church home?” Winnie said, smiling in a way that felt to Jonathan like a practiced gesture. Again, he suppressed his instincts to analyze and critique.

  “Well, we live here in town because my wife’s job is here, and I am close enough to commute to school just two or three days a week. So we want a local church that can be part of our connection to the people around us, here in Parkerville. We know that this limits the selection more than if we were to move to the bay area, closer to school. But we like the less urban environment here. So we’re not looking for a perfect fit, just a place that shares what we value.”

  “What would you say is a value that your current, or should I say your former, church didn’t welcome?”

  Jonathan guessed that Treena had revealed some of the reasons for their transition, but he didn’t think Winnie was asking a question to which she knew the whole answer, so he took her question at face value.

  “We have a pretty good idea of what your church is about, we know some folks who attend here. But I want to hear you speak specifically to the current controversy over the ministry of Beau Dupere,” Jonathan said.

  Winnie’s eyebrows shot up but the rest of her face remained placid. She did straighten her back and glance at the ceiling for just a moment, revealing a bit of discomfort with such a direct question. “Beau Dupere? Well, we don’t have an official church position on his ministry. I suspect a few of our people are much more familiar with him than the majority are. We are not part of the group of churches vocally criticizing him, but neither are we in any way associated with him or the churches he’s affiliated with.”

  That sounded like a good answer to a question from a newspaper reporter, as far as Jonathan was concerned, but it didn’t reveal much about the heart of the pastor on an issue deeply dividing Christians that summer.

  “Are you avoiding the issue in order to keep as many people as possible comfortable in your church?” Jonathan said, sounding more like a probing reporter than he had intended.

  Winnie laughed uncomfortably, her smile diminishing quickly. “I supposed a skeptic might see it that way. But, I think I’m just being realistic. I don’t know Beau Dupere. I’ve never even been in one of his meetings. I can think of two or three people in the congregation, however, who credit him with healing them of some significant ailment.” She took a deep breath, having caught herself tensing over these questions and reminding herself that she had nothing to defend. “Those healings, and other second-hand stories, lead me to think well of him, in general, as a healing minister. But that doesn’t mean I endorse everything he does. Even if his healing is from God, not all of what he does is necessarily consistent with what God wants, I believe.”

  Jonathan paused, smiled at her and adjusted his tone of voice. “I’m sorry if I sound like a grand inquisitor trying to convict you of something,” he said with a relaxed chuckle. “I don’t know any more about the man than you do, I guess. But I do know that people aren’t treating him the way they should, whether they know as much about him as they claim or are as uninformed as you and I.”

  He shrugged and tipped his head slightly to the right. “I don’t suppose you have an opinion on the truth of his resurrection story then?”

  “Well,” Winnie said, “actually, with so much heat being generated over the accusation that he faked resurrection, I have had to decide for myself, though I’m not speaking about it in front of the whole congregation.”

  Jonathan thought he knew her decision, but waited patiently to hear her finish her statement.

  “I think it would be saying quite a lot about the man if he went so far as to so convincingly falsify his death,” Winnie said. “I am definitely not inclined to believe he is such a monster as that. And I think Christians had better check themselves if they want to assert that resurrection is impossible.” She punctuated her conclusion with a slow upward nod and slight twist of her head, aiming her right eye at Jonathan as if in challenge.

  “I like the way you stay neutral about something even when others are flying off the handle on both sides. And still state so clearly what has to be obviously addressed,” Jonathan said. “I think we will be quite comfortable here.”

  The relaxed slope of Winnie’s shoulders and one more deep breath matched her body language to her words in a way that Jonathan could trust. He suspected Treena would like this woman pastor for lots of other reasons too.

  “I expect you will see Treena and I on Sunday,” Jonathan said, standing and extending his hand.

  Standing with him and shaking that hand, Winnie added. “Not all American Christians like to fight. It just seems like that on the news.”

  They laughed together and Jonathan nodded deeply, knowing exactly what she meant.

  Party Splashing

  When Anna finally saw the Dupere’s again, it was a Friday evening in mid-July. She had received a call from Miranda, saying that Beau and Justine were going to a party and wanted her to accompany them. She had grown nervous while they stayed in exile during late June and early July, not sure that she still had their trust, or perhaps their friendship. When Miranda
invited her to the party, Anna didn’t assume it was time to set aside work and just accompany them as a friend. She seized the opportunity, instead, as time to follow up with Beau and his family, to finish her article on the assassination. She still assumed that her role in their lives was primarily that of reporter. That night, she would be a particularly well-dressed reporter, her favorite little black dress and spiked heels squeezed on for the party.

  Having always considered herself a fairly plain girl, the idea of attending a Hollywood social event deeply intimidated Anna. As usual, Beau and Justine moderated that feeling as soon as they greeted her at their front door.

  “Oh, Anna, you look beautiful.” Justine said, hugging her as soon as she reached the porch. Beau stood behind Justine, smiling. “We missed you, and kept you in our prayers every day.”

  This intrigued Anna in so many ways that it left her speechless. She even forgot to doubt the sincerity of Justine’s compliment on her looks. While Anna stood there, staring at Justine with her mouth propped open half an inch, Dianna stepped out onto the porch, straightening her silky blue dress.

  Justine glanced at Dianna and then back at Anna. “Dianna, this is Anna. Anna, Dianna.”

  Beau joked. “Wow, I hope you don’t have to do that again. It nearly made me dizzy.”

  Dianna and Anna shook hands. Dianna spoke first. “I wanna start right off by letting you know that I don’t blame you for any of the things people have been saying or doing.” She smiled. “We can’t control the way people respond, we just have to do what we’re called to and let the results take care of themselves.”

  Beau stepped in again. “We all know that you’ve been taking heat right along with us, and without all the support we have around here.”

  Instead of apologizing to them, as she had longed to do for weeks now, Anna was receiving their sympathy. By this time, she had given up on being able to untie her tongue for the rest of the evening.