AT WHAT SEEMS THE APPROPRIATE TIME
(Set after A Priest Walks into a Bar)
The man's got a point.
Among other things.
But she can't abide that racing-pulse, flush-in-the-cheeks, swirling-stomach feeling she gets when his face is inches from hers. Nor can she accept that he has challenged her to find someone who challenges her, gotten in her face to tell her to find someone who will get in her face, and called her on her bullshit by telling her she needs someone who will call her on her bullshit.
One strike in his favor, though. She's thinking.
The problem with the year she's just survived is that messy used to be easy to spot. She could see it coming a mile away, usually dressed in something sporty and making eye contact a little too briefly. These days nothing turns out the way she thinks it will, and messy could be anywhere. Could be some random cowboy. Could be across the bar from her. Could be across the desk from her.
If she isn't careful, this thinking thing is going to get to be a habit.
Damn him.
She tells Father Gabe about her church, a church where cookies and justice hold equal weight, a church that is all about finding the balance. For every cookie, a doughy center, and for every lie, a truth. Back home, she lets Jinx pull almost a quarter of the brochures out of the box before she loses her patience. Some of them are so old they don't even have a website. In the end, she lets her mother choose. She will go on the vacation her mother always wanted.
Vacation is about escape from reality, which in her opinion breaks one of Father Gabe's commandments, albeit one he himself didn't mind breaking once in a while. Escaping from reality means lying, but it will get Jinx off her back, get Stan off her back. Get him off her back.
On the plane, her mind is blank. So blank that when her companion calls her Kitten, she does not throw him through the tiny acrylic window beyond which the ocean is beginning to look downright dreamy. Kitten. A woman in red in a waterfront hotel room. A woman who does not think, who is not challenged.
It is a wonderful, peaceful week-long lie.
Afterward, her travel companion leaves messages he thinks are witty, wonders why she doesn't return his calls. She sits in her empty house, listening to the drip-drip-drip of a faucet no doubt left running when Brandi took off. Holds the box of useless, outdated travel brochures to her ear because she imagines she can hear the ocean. Distracts herself by throwing freezer-section cookies into the oven without preheating. Wonders if the bars are still full of cowboys at this hour.
Left alone, she can't help but think. His challenge stands.
A week ago, she told the Father that she believes in telling the truth to the ones she loves at every possible turn. What she didn't take the time to explain was that possible, for her, means something different than it does for most people. Technically, she supposes that when her best friend challenged her that day in the office, it would have been possible to tell him the truth then and there. Possible in the way that she had air in her lungs and he was standing in earshot.
Tonight, the truth seems more possible than that. Possible not just physically, but mentally. So when the preheat light goes off and she figures the cookies are probably half done, she empties her voice mail, then hits her first speed dial.
"Marshall."
His voice is like land after a long flight home from an unfamiliar place. She has trouble getting her prayer to come out.
"Want a cookie?" she finally asks.
There is a pause. A moment where she isn't sure whether he's going to let her accept his challenge.
"I'll take 'em out of the oven early," she offers.
"I'm there," he replies.
Her church is in session.
