Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good

by Jan Karon

  ‘From literature that comes with th’ spray tan deal.’

  Wanda whipped around with the coffeepot.

  ‘Is that you, Mr. Skinner?’

  ‘It’s me, all right.’

  ‘Just back from the Sunshine State?’

  ‘Just back from A Cut Above,’ said Mule, ‘where they have the amazing, not to mention revolutionary, spray tan technology. Why be pasty when you can be tan?’

  ‘It is not the season yet for people to be tan,’ said Wanda. ‘We get tan in summer when we garden and play golf. If this weather keeps up, we will have snow in here before the leaves turn.’

  ‘So you garden?’ said Mule. ‘And play golf?’

  ‘I kill plants and can’t hit a ball. I was usin’ a general example.’

  ‘So,’ said Mule, ‘are you goin’ to do a little something to, you know, live up to your new name? To, like, make people feel good?’

  ‘How people feel is their business, not mine. If they like to feel good, fine. If they don’t, fine. I’m here to give you a decent cup of joe and a great hamburger.’

  He raised his hand. ‘I’ll have the hamburger.’

  ‘Same here,’ said J.C.

  ‘Okay, that’s what I’m havin’,’ said Mule. ‘All th’ way, but hold th’ onions.’

  ‘All the way comes with onions,’ said Wanda.

  ‘Right, but hold ’em.’

  Wanda rolled her eyes. ‘I was warned.’

  ‘Who warned you?’ asked J.C.

  ‘The poor woman who owned th’ place before I bought it. She said th’ turkeys will make you crazy.’

  ‘Double fries on th’ side,’ said J.C. ‘And double aioli.’

  ‘And you, Father?’

  ‘Pickle. No fries.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Wanda. ‘One more thing, Mr. Skinner. We’re supposed to be pasty in autumn, that’s what autumn is for, to rest our faces from the harmful rays of the sun.’

  Wanda moved on.

  ‘She has not rested her face in a coon’s age, I can tell you that,’ said Mule.

  J.C. stared into his empty coffee mug. ‘What ever happened to the waitress with a heart of gold?’

  ‘Lunch is on me,’ said Mule, waving the chit.

  • • •

  ‘GO HOME and get some clothes on, buddyroe.’ He slapped Mule on the back as they left the café.

  ‘And wash that stuff off!’ said J.C.

  ‘Won’t wash off, that’s how you get your money’s worth. It has to wear off.’ Mule zipped his fleece-lined jacket, grinned, headed to his vehicle. ‘I don’t care what you turkeys say,’ he hollered from the curb. ‘I’m tan, you’re pasty.’

  ‘You’re goin’ to like Thursday’s main feature,’ said J.C.

  Wind rattled the scaffolding, hammered them as they walked across Main.

  ‘Don’t count on it.’

  ‘You’re goin’ to like it big time. It was Vanita’s idea. She’s a sharp little writer. Adele’s making news next week. Front page, four-color. Don’t miss it.’

  ‘Great. Can you talk about it?’

  ‘I could, but then it wouldn’t be news.’

  He was impressed that the Muse editor never scooped himself.

  ‘So,’ said J.C., stopping off at the bank, ‘you still don’t want to hear what’s goin’ on at Lord’s Chapel?’

  ‘Out of my precinct.’

  ‘Talbot has a habit, you know. Women. Paid.’

  ‘Enough,’ he said, meaning it.

  Since he’d sat in a car most of yesterday and running today was not going to happen, he would compromise with a power walk up Lilac, and around the block to home.

  Abe Edelman, owner of Village Shoes, peered out the window and threw up his hand.

  The marching band . . .

  ‘Hey, buddy.’ He kept going, breathing hard.

  ‘What’s with the Mustang?’ said Dooley.

  ‘Carburetor, heater, radiator, clutch.’

  ‘Don’t get another old car.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a new one. What do you think?’

  ‘BMW X1.’

  ‘You’re lookin’ for something hot to drive when you come home.’

  Dooley’s cackling laugh.

  ‘What else do you have in mind?’

  ‘You’d like a Jeep.’

  ‘I don’t need to go off-road or splash through mud puddles.’

  ‘What are you doing? Running?’

  ‘Walking.’

  ‘So you want a boring vehicle?’

  No, he didn’t want boring; life was short and getting shorter.

  ‘What’s the least boring vehicle to get me to Wesley, and down the mountain on the rare occasion, and over town in bad weather?’

  ‘A Mini Cooper, Dad. Clubman hatchback. Plenty of room for Barnabas. Twenty-seven miles per gallon around town, thirty-five on the highway when you come to see me in Athens. Cynthia would love it.’

  ‘Very small,’ he said, thinking of eighteen-wheelers, propane tankers . . .

  ‘You don’t need big to run to Wesley.’

  ‘What about emissions? Maybe a Prius . . .’ He wouldn’t mention the meeting with the bishop, not now.

  ‘Mini Cooper, Dad. I’ll go online and shoot you some info.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His head was spinning, he was freezing.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Dooley.

  Someone had stopped by Happy Endings since he’d passed earlier. Strips of paper were taped to the window. Where no tape secured the paper, the wind passed beneath; hand-printed words shuddered and danced.

  We read to know we are not alone. CS Lewis

  Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. Emilie Buchwald

  Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book. Thos à Kempis

  Pray for Hope!

  • • •

  HE WANTED TO BE A SHEPHERD; he wanted to serve others. He was hardwired for that—that would never change—and here was his opportunity. Why was he wrestling with it?

  Timmy had laughed and handed over the pacifier—a sacrifice, the gift of himself to the stressed-out bald guy with the worried look on his face.

  He needed to do that—hand it all over. Right away. Now.

  How long had it been since he’d sat on the stone wall above the valley and prayed through a sunset? It seemed years.

  • • •

  ‘AN AMAZING THING HAPPENED,’ said his wife, putting eggs in the fridge.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Irene McGraw wants to give us those wonderful portraits, all five, for the hospital auction in June. She says they make her sad, she needs to let them go.’

  ‘This is hardly an art-buying community,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll have to depend on the Florida crowd, bless their hearts.’

  The Florida crowd had bailed them out more than once—a new furnace for Lord’s Chapel being one example. As for donating the Mustang, he didn’t know how that would fly in view of the diagnostic. ‘Are those self-portraits of her as a child?’

  ‘She says the self-portraits are in the eyes of the subject.’

  ‘Who’s the subject?’

  ‘She didn’t say, she didn’t seem eager to talk about it. If I were a dealer, I’d put quite a price on them, but of course she doesn’t have a name in the art world.’

  She poured two glasses of juice, passed one to him. ‘She really shouldn’t donate them, they seem so personal to her.’

  ‘A great start for the auction,’ he said. ‘Well done. What’s the plan for the campaign?’

  ‘A new wing.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘We’re going for a new wing with twenty more beds, which will make forty-five.’ />
  His wife was beaming. ‘I’m believing we can auction Irene’s paintings for big money, plus raise enough to meet the goal.’

  Should he pitch in and give a hand? He’d been a donor for twenty years, had even been asked to serve as the director at one time. It was his favorite charity, hands down, but his mother’s money was running out and his gifts in the future would be comparatively modest. After years of giving, he was, in effect, spent. He couldn’t think about it now.

  She was talking hospital business while searching his face for some clue to his thinking about yesterday. But he had no thinking to speak of.

  ‘I’ll certainly bid on one,’ she said.

  • • •

  DRIVING HOME from the hair salon in Wesley, Esther Cunningham could see that the sunset would be a whopper. She didn’t usually notice such things—that was the kind of stuff Ray got a kick out of. Excited as a kid, he’d say, Look at that sunset, Honey Bun! Or, Hey, Doll Face, get a load of that apple tree in bloom! Or, How about that rock over yonder, see th’ nose an’ all, it looks just like Muhammad Ali.

  If she stared herself blind, she could not see Muhammad Ali, but maybe Teddy Roosevelt if she strained herself. And clouds—Ray loved to study clouds. He could see such as Ben Hur driving the chariot behind a gazillion horses, and pigs, and angels, and somebody on a unicycle, and a woman looking at herself in a mirror.

  Speaking of which, she pulled down the sun visor and looked in the mirror. She had requested a style like the Queen always wore—a curl on either side of her forehead, with no part. Twice she had said, No part. But plain as day, in a straight shot down the middle, there was a part.

  She made a left at Lilac and was putting on the turn signal for Church Hill when she spotted Father Tim walking up Lilac, quick as a field hare. What was he doing out this time of day at his age, and in this raw cold, plus walking uphill so fast? She didn’t believe in walking uphill if it could be avoided.

  She remembered how he once swore off driving a car. He had hoofed it for seven or eight years, just gave up driving altogether, for Lent or Advent or some such. Baptists weren’t required to keep up with the church calendar, which was dandy with her. Easter was Easter and Christmas was Christmas, why confuse people with all those other holidays deeply unknown to the ordinary person, like sitting around in a dark sanctuary with no flowers on the altar, not even any candles burning, the way the crowd at Lord’s Chapel did at Advent, or was it Lent?

  At least she’d gotten her hair done before the meeting with Andrew Gregory tomorrow. If the matter of age came up, she had a bulletproof vest, namely a list from the Internet that said, in part, ‘At one hundred, Grandma Moses was still painting. At eighty-five, Coco Chanel headed up a design firm in Paris, France. At eighty-nine, Albert Schweitzer was running a hospital in Africa.’ She was going into that meeting like Sherman took Atlanta, while Ray sat in the car and prayed.

  • • •

  AS HE CRESTED THE HILL, there were the blue-dark mountains and the hanging orb above. Jupiter was out, or maybe Saturn, he wasn’t so good with planets.

  He was infernally pestered by the image of the empty slot in the rack. How had Sammy come in? They locked their doors now, it was a fact of life since three robberies in a neighborhood behind the hospital.

  Sammy needed a lot of help, probably beyond anything he and Cynthia could give. Not least, he needed hard and satisfying work that wore deeply on the muscles and released the sleep-inducing cytokines currently making news. Hard work and hard rest may not solve everything, but maybe they could help. Harley’s lawn jobs around town were already drying up, leaving Sammy way too much time and energy.

  He would immediately put Sammy on the Lord’s Chapel rose garden, which he heard was sorely neglected—out of sight, out of mind was the problem, it was too hidden. Maybe the nearly three dozen bushes should be moved to the lawn facing Main Street where more people could enjoy them. Right there was a task for a small army, with maybe a little something for Coot Hendrick to get at with rake and hoe.

  He sat on the stone wall, barely cognizant of the panorama of the evening sky.

  The hedge would be another project—the cleanup, pruning, and mulching would take a minimum of two days for Sammy, probably three—and the birdbaths would need scrubbing out. Sammy would take pride in all that. If they could make it happen before late October when Dooley came home . . .

  As for the old Sunday school, circa 1916 or thereabouts, it was crammed to the rafters with decrepit pews, battered hymnals, moth-eaten banners—the detritus that comes from being an ecclesial storage unit. The youth group—that was the ticket—they could spend a few days cleaning it out and top things off with a yard sale. Of course, he’d heard the youth group was dwindling, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

  Then there was the issue of someone to assist him in the church office. Who, he had no clue; five-plus years is a long time to be off any turf, but Bill Swanson would know. Emma would be after him like a beagle after a fox, but he couldn’t do that again. Absolutely not. Someone young, upbeat, cheerful . . .

  He felt the cold of the stone seeping into his very marrow—his body had been present on the wall for twenty minutes according to the illuminated face of his watch, but his mind had been down there—ripping out briars, fertilizing roses, working with the youth group as he’d done so happily in years past. And yet, when he tried to see himself in the pulpit at Lord’s Chapel, he could not.

  The many petitions of his heart and Cynthia’s would serve, but in the end, one supplication alone was equipped with all that pleases God.

  He prayed the prayer that never fails, then made his way home at a trot, eager to see the light in their window and feel the consolation of a fire.

  • • •

  ‘I NEED TO TALK, SON. Is this a good time?’

  ‘Sure. What’s up?’

  He walked around the room in robe and pajamas, the cell phone pressed to his ear. ‘This is confidential.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘I’ve been asked to come back to Lord’s Chapel. For an indefinite period. Until they find a new priest.’

  ‘Are you thinking about it?’

  ‘Constantly. I just don’t know what to think.’

  ‘I hear something in your voice. What’s th’ deal?’

  ‘Strictly for your ears and none other. Father Talbot is leaving the priesthood and divorcing his wife. There’ll be a good bit of outrage and instability in his wake.’ Dooley knew about rage and instability.

  He was pleased that Dooley took his time with this.

  ‘That would be a really hard thing to take on,’ said Dooley. ‘Why would you want to do it?’

  ‘I need to make a decision, fast. Will you pray?’

  ‘I will. For sure.’

  When he hung up, he realized he hadn’t answered Dooley’s question—a question he hadn’t honestly asked himself.

  He slipped the cell phone into his robe pocket. Why would he want to do it?

  The thought that followed literally took his breath away.

  He didn’t want to do it.

  Not at all.

  Chapter Ten

  That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.—Amos Bronson Alcott

  A good book has no ending.—RD Cumming

  He read the quotes that had gone up, and with some satisfaction taped his own contribution to the glass:

  wear the old coat and buy the new book {Austin Phelps

  There. A community billboard of sorts.

  ‘Lord,’ he prayed, ‘make me a blessing to someone today.’ That had been his mantra in years past when unlocking the door to the church office. He jiggled the key the way Hope had instructed. Not working. ‘It’s a very old lock,’ she’d said. ‘I’ve grown to like it.’ Hope was a romantic, bless her heart.

&
nbsp; More jiggling.

  ‘Father, up to your old tricks?’ The owner of Village Shoes was unlocking his shop next door.

  ‘Abe! Which old tricks would that be?’

  ‘Breaking and entering!’

  ‘Ha. Right. I’m working here today, giving Hope a hand. Drop over for a cup of coffee if you get a chance.’

  ‘Will do. We’ll be proud to have you on the street. That lock is a coronary.’

  The key found the sweet spot, the lock gave forth a soft click, the door opened.

  Books! He could smell them. After being cooped up all night, they were crazy to give out their pulpy aromas.

  As his dog sniffed about for the cat, he hurried to the finicky thermostat and cranked the heat up according to instructions.

  Out of Dooley’s old yellow backpack he unloaded water bowl, food bowl, kibbles, coffee beans, a wrapped sandwich, an apple, an orange, a roll of toilet paper which Hope confessed was currently in short supply at Happy Endings, and a coffee mug printed with, I don’t have a short attention span, I just . . . oh, look! A squirrel!

  He stooped to the coffee maker and studied it, frowning. With some misgiving, he dumped the specified quantity of beans into the grinder bin and hit On. Nothing happened. He flipped the switch to Off, then again to On. Zero.

  Nothing worked these days. You could not gain entry into packaging of any kind, nor could you depend on On or even Off to mean what they promised. It was a black mark against society in general.

  He was considering a dash to the Feel Good when he spied a note pinned to the corkboard.

  Fr T, coffee machine unplugged. Plenty of change in drawer. Yesterday’s sales great. U R very sweet to do this. Call if U need me. # on door at wall phone. Thnx for making deposit by five.

  Marcie

  He watched the beans grinding with industrial vigor as he filled the water bowl for Barnabas. The antique furnace was heaving around down there; a giant throbbing could be felt in the floorboards. He flipped a couple of wall switches—Beethoven’s Ninth, third movement, was succeeded by a constellation of reading lamps lighting the room.

  And there went the Muse truck up the street and the sound of this week’s edition smacking the front door. No way would he fetch it in and trouble his head—he would depend on the greater diversion of the Times, albeit last Sunday’s edition.