Chuck’s assistant, Mike, had arrived fifteen minutes earlier with a large, dense chocolate cake, the bribe in the plan for that night. Dianna looked surprised at the arrival of the cake, but not as suspicious as Justine, who was starting to add up evidence that some covert operation was in the works. But not until Chuck plunked a can of whipped cream down next to the cake on the kitchen table did Justine pull Beau aside and share her suspicions.
Dianna insisted on cutting the cake, intent on managing at least the size of the portions for the kids who were present, Maggie, Gretchen and Luke. Somehow, Luke had never seen the spray-on whipped cream before and he laughed hilariously at the sight and sound of a little mound of white squirting noisily onto his small slice of cake.
“Do again!” Luke shouted and laughed, after Gretchen’s cake received the same treatment. The crew was filming, but at times, they would get into the mix to stir things up a bit, counting on cutting themselves out of the footage later.
“You gotta do a big blast!” Chuck said, grabbing Dianna’s hand as she held the can over Maggie’s cake.
It appeared intentional to Justine that Chuck not only forced Dianna to spray far more of the whipped cream, but he turned the spout toward Maggie so that it drew a rough letter “c” on her chest. Maggie instinctively grabbed at her shirt in self-defense and modesty. Luke laughed louder and waved his plate of cake around in ecstasy, flipping his desert to the floor, a chocolate and cream pile. That stopped him in mid-motion. He stared down at the cake and then looked up at Dianna. “Oh-oh,” he said with a little grin.
Beau was laughing, he scooped Luke up and whisked him away from ground-zero of the high calorie mess accumulating on the table and floor. This is where Raylynn stepped in, putting a hand on Maggie’s back.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, so we can put you back into the shot,” she said, in a voice that Justine thought sounded much too rehearsed. Maggie was dabbing at the smeary mess on her pink shirt with a dishtowel, leaving a dark pink stain behind. She looked at Raylynn and nodded, allowing herself to be led out of the kitchen, toward the stairs.
Maggie began to wonder why Raylynn had to come up stairs with her, but when she got to her room, Raylynn seemed to think the same. “You can take care of yourself, of course,” she said. “What was I thinking?”
Making noncommittal noises, Maggie shrugged and watched Raylynn turn away, as she focused on getting a different shirt. That focus was what Raylynn, or rather Chuck, had counted on. With Maggie thinking Raylynn was headed back downstairs and the people downstairs thinking she was with Maggie, she snuck down the long hallway to get some digital photos of the various bedrooms, using a tiny camera with which Chuck had armed her. But, just when she found what looked like the newly-repaired master bedroom, Justine reached the top of the stairs.
“Raylynn? What are you looking for?”
Raylynn spun around, tucking the little camera in her right hand jacket pocket when it was away from Justine. She opted for a half-truth.
“Sorry, just being nosey. Maggie and I both realized that she didn’t need my help. I was just sorta looking around before heading downstairs.”
As plausible and honest as that sounded, Justine knew that it wasn’t the whole story, but she felt as if she had done enough and didn’t pursue any more of the truth. She waited for Raylynn to join her at the top of the stairs, following the nervous production assistant back to the first floor.
When they returned to the kitchen, Justine could see the exchange of looks between Chuck and Raylynn, and she knew that she had interrupted something. What occurred to her was that they might have planted a hidden camera in one of the bedrooms, though that idea hadn’t occurred to Chuck . . . yet.
This was just the one of several attempts to get deeper into the sleeping quarters, and deeper into the lives of the family. Chuck showed less and less interest in the healing meetings and spent more and more of his credibility trying to make excuses to film at the house. Finally, Beau, Justine and Miranda met with the production team to air the conflict out.
They met with Bill Hollis, Chuck and Raylynn again, but this time in the production offices. The first episode was to air in a couple of weeks, an episode that featured more of the family and less of the healing than Beau and Justine had hoped. As an introductory episode, that didn’t seem unreasonable, but they suspected that the change signaled an attempt to redirect the series.
“Anyone want coffee, latte or anything?” Bill said, as they settled into his office, which looked as if someone had dumped the contents of an electronics workshop into a luxury executive suite. Chuck fiddled with an old digital camera as he sat on the couch next to the door, Bill behind his desk, and Raylynn in a puffy chair with her feet up on a coffee table. She had moved aside two laptops and a stray camera lens to find room for her feet. The guests sat in chairs arched around the front of Bill’s desk.
Bill aimed for the heart of the discussion. “Chuck tells me you have some hesitation about the direction of the program.”
Nodding, with his lips pursed and a brief glance at Chuck, Beau replied. “We do. It seems that The Healer is less about healing than we had hoped.”
Bill nodded, an exaggerated gesture meant to emphasize his total understanding of Beau’s concern. “I know that you all want the world to know about the healing and all that stuff, and I appreciate that, I really do. But our market research has shown that our best bet for getting people to watch is the family. They want to know more about the family and aren’t completely sure that they believe in the healing stuff.”
Beau raised his eyebrows. “Is this a change from what you found before you pitched the program to us?” He knew enough about show business to catch Bill in a corner.
“Well, not a big shift, but there is definitely a shift. In our earlier research, we were focused on whether the public wanted to know more about you, and that answer was clearly ‘yes.’ We didn’t get so much into exactly what they wanted to know.” He picked up a tennis ball that had been sitting on his blotter and began to squeeze it. “But don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of people that wanna see the healing stuff, and we’re gonna show it. We’ve got some pretty spectacular footage already, and we can cut in more, of course. But I think we have to pull people in with a more personal perspective at first, then hit ‘em with your message.”
Beau thought he knew the answer to the next question, but felt he had to ask what Bill was afraid to say. “What exactly is it that Mr. and Mrs. America want to know about our family?”
Bill tossed the tennis ball back and forth between his hands, his elbows resting on the arms of his tall desk chair. “You know, they’re fascinated, of course, with how someone lives who has such an extraordinary gift. But, to be honest, we’re getting the most intense interest over some of the more nontraditional aspects of your . . . ah . . . family arrangement.”
Justine jumped in. “You want footage of Beau in bed with his harem of wives.”
Bill stopped tossing the ball and stared at Justine, glanced at Beau, and then looked back at Justine. He seemed to be assessing how to take her statement, but couldn’t detect any sign of humor in her face.
Raylynn shifted uncomfortably, pulling her legs back and trying to sit up straight in a chair that invited her to slouch. Chuck busted in, thinking a more honest approach would work best with his stars.
“That’s exactly what people wanna see,” he said. “And, why not? You’re not ashamed of how you live. Why not let the world see how good life can be?”
Beau and Justine looked at each other. Miranda cleared her throat, raised one eyebrow and cocked her head at Beau. Her face seemed to say, “If you don’t wanna say what has to be said, I will.”
But Beau had no problem speaking for himself. “Well, Bill, it seems to me that we have come to exactly that parting of the ways that we had anticipated when we wrote up the contract. We’re not gonna be your holy-roller version of the playboy mansion. We’re not interested.” He stoo
d up, towering over Bill’s desk. Justine and Miranda followed.
Bill just stared up at Beau, looking more nonplussed and intimidated than anyone in the room would have expected.
Justine grinned. “It was nice to meet all of you,” she said, looking from one to the other of the three stunned people still seated.
“I’ll walk you out,” Raylynn said, standing up and avoiding eye contact with either Chuck or Bill. This added to Bill’s shock, the whiff of mutiny in the air prolonging his silence.
When they had begun padding down the wide, carpeted staircase to the ground floor, Bill finally reached his door, and found his voice. “You sure there’s not some room to compromise on this?” He still held the tennis ball, and his fingertips showed red and white from his tight grip on it.
Beau stopped and looked at Bill with the patience of a seasoned therapist. “No, Bill, we expected this all along. But we felt we were supposed to give you a chance until it happened. No compromise on this one. You know how to reach our lawyers.” He smiled slightly, no sign of tension, let alone animosity.
Again, Bill fell into stupefied silence at the unprecedented collapse of one of his shows. “But, they seemed like such nice people,” he finally said, to no one in particular, after Beau and the three women had disappeared down the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, Raylynn spoke in huffing spasms. “I’m so glad you guys figured it out. I’m glad you called it off. It was driving me mad, all their tricks and schemes.” Her lower lip quivered and she ratcheted in a halting breath.
Justine reached over and took her arm. “You come by any time you like, Raylynn. You’ll always be welcomed.”
The tall brunette looked like a little girl receiving her first puppy, her eyebrows arching above her angular nose, a tilted grin skewing her long chin. “Thanks, Justine. I will come by. I won’t be able to stay away.”
Still standing in the ornate lobby, her brown flats slightly pigeon-toed on the caramel and white marble floor, Raylynn watched them swing through the large glass doors trimmed in brass. She suddenly felt that she knew how so many women came to live in that house.
The Meeting
Instead of celebrating the approaching debut of their new show that weekend, Beau and several family members joined old friends for a healing service at the church that still felt like their spiritual home. As it turned out, that Saturday night healing meeting up at Jack Williams’s church would be referred to around the movement as “The Meeting,” for months, and even years, afterward.
No one knew for sure how many times Beau had presided at healing services in Jack’s church. The first time had been nearly ten years ago, when Beau was new at leading a whole meeting himself. And this would be the last time.
After a flowing and climactic worship set which already knocked dozens to the floor, Jack took the stage with his tiny lapel microphone clipped to the collar of his green flowered Hawaiian shirt.
“I gotta tell you,” he said, a tipsy drawl to his voice that few had ever heard before. “I have a feeling that this night is gonna be really special.” With that, he collapsed to the floor and began to laugh hysterically.
Though this sort of thing happened in that church every week, in almost every meeting, it didn’t happen to Jack Williams. No one would accuse him of being resistant to the influence of the Holy Spirit, but that influence rarely sent Jack flat on his face in front of a full house. A mixture of laughter and hushed awe greeted the sight of the world-renown senior pastor rolling around on the stage in hysterical laughter. Beau took Jack’s indisposition as his cue to mount the stage and start the healing.
He had already discovered what Jack was trying to say, that something unusual was in the air at church that night. Five feet from where Jack lay cackling on the floor, Beau rocked for a second, an uncharacteristic wobble for him. It looked as if a very localized earthquake was tossing the stage in waves. He looked up at the crowd, which had settled into a whispery buzz. Later, those present would claim that they felt something waiting to explode before Beau brought down the house. Some even reported hearing the people around them suck in their breath, expecting all Heaven to break loose. And some claimed to see a golden cloud descend on the first twenty rows or so, when Beau made the pronouncement which would ring on as his most memorable words.
“Let the unstoppable healing power of God Almighty fall on this room, right now.” He chopped with his right hand as he said, “now,” and several hundred people fell to the floor simultaneously. The Internet video—which would be seen by tens of millions of viewers within weeks—showed an uncanny coordination of individuals from one end of the room to the other. From the stage, it looked like a large hand suddenly pressed down on the crowd and flattened a quarter of them. Then the hand lifted and squashed another large section. The third press from that hand wasn’t necessary, because the vast majority of those still standing keeled over at the sight of so many being knocked to the ground in front of them. The room rang with the sound of relieved laughter, shouts of deliverance and howls of rejoicing.
By Jack Williams’s count—from the video record, interviews and written testimonies—nearly two thousand people were instantly healed of an extreme spectrum of physical, emotional and spiritual ailments. But he missed all that when it started, because all he could see was the carpet on the stage.
After Beau made his famous declaration, he stumbled forward a step and then appeared to be blasted off his feet by the same force that flattened the first wave of people being healed. Microphones worn by both Beau and Jack seemed to pick up a primal sort of howl that arched through the air as Beau left his feet and skidded into the drum shield. The drummer tried to get up to help Beau but he too flew backward, doing an awkward three quarter flop that left him on his face as well.
Sara Claiborne was not one of the inflated number of people who later claimed to be at that meeting. But she did happen to be watching on her computer, from home. Her work schedule had demanded that she return to her apartment from the church, instead of sticking around for Beau’s meeting, as she sincerely wanted to. When the first wave of people crumpled to the floor in unison, Sara fell off her bed, toppling over and landing nearly squarely on her head. The first miracle was that she didn’t break her neck, or even raise a bump on her head. The second miracle was that an uncomfortable lump, that regularly swelled and dissipated with her monthly cycle, had disappeared from her lower abdomen. She lay laughing on the floor for nearly two hours, her only break coming in slow seasons of weeping.
The first few waves of power that flattened the room and freed so many people at once were not the end of the meeting. For hours, people lay on the floor, some completely unable to move, others undulating like a pile of prone dancers, accompanied by intense tears or drunken laughter. When Beau managed to stand, he helped Jack to his feet, and the two began to stagger around the room, propping each other up, and adding more healings and miracles to the first layer that had landed on the room.
During this tottering tour of the room, many people reportedly were relieved of medical devices, replaced by healthy limbs and eyes and audio nerves. Hundreds of these claims were later corroborated by doctors. Perhaps the most startling healing miracle, one that was partially captured on video, was the restoration of an Iraq War veteran’s amputated arm. Both Beau and Jack fell to the floor crying like babies as the man stood feeling his face with his new fingers and clapping his two good hands together in front of him, a huge grin on his face and a glassy glow to his eyes.
Anna Conyers had been unaware of the meeting scheduled that night. But a friend at the church she had begun attending texted her soon after the seats in Redwood had been emptied by that invisible hand. Her friend had been watching via Internet since another friend of hers had texted her from the floor of that meeting.
On her laptop, the video image of hundreds of people lying among the chairs, in the aisles and even on top of each other, initially baffled Anna. Her friend had alerted her to
check it out, but without any explanation of why. The young reporter assumed something had gone wrong, even stretching to try to imagine what sort of weapon could have knocked so many people unconscious at once. But, when the rocking camera angle settled on a pair of young girls lying on the floor with euphoric looks on their faces, Anna remembered her baptism experience. Something had not gone wrong, something had gone amazingly right, she decided. And she watched for two more hours, as people lay crying, laughing, or singing worship songs. One of the musicians managed to stand at a microphone with a guitar to accompany the holy circus with familiar songs of praise.
Anna was, of course, most fascinated with the stretch of video showing Beau and Jack, their arms around each other like wasted drinking buddies trying to find where they had parked their car. Along the way, they seemed to find spectacular miracles instead, tipping them off their ledges with outstretched hands and tear-filled healing commands. She laughed as the audio engineers kept changing their mind about whether to mute the microphones attached to Beau and Jack. The uneven volume and often incoherent speech of the two men mixed over each other and added a comic bent to the situation, at least for the Internet viewer. Anna stopped laughing several times during their staggering mission, however, to cry; at the wonder of a woman with a glass eye receiving a new natural eye, or a boy with severe nervous system disabilities jumping up from his wheel chair. When the man with the missing arm received a genuine replacement, she swore aloud and then clamped both hands over her mouth, embarrassed by her lack of self-control, and unhinged by the impossibility of what she saw with her own eyes.
If You Really Knew Me (Anyone Who Believes Book 1) Page 28
