From the Heart Read online

  The line went dead and my appetite with it, which says a lot. Pastor Bob Normal, whom I had begun to secretly and in various muttering times call Ab, apparently was taking over my life in ways that are abnormally annoying even for him.

  It took me twenty-five minutes flat to jump into tan slacks and a blazing pink cotton T from the last Victoria’s Secret sale and drive to church, just two miles north of the condo. I like to think I’m hip but I’m unhip about mega churches. Give me a steeple and a cross? I’m good. That said, when I drove up to Desert Hills a few weeks ago, I thought I’d stumbled into the Silicon Valley. The building humongous, all windows and sand-colored brick, stretching greenbelts and a flagpole plunked in the middle of it all. The cross? Good question. I asked, too. There isn’t one outside, and that, I was told, goes along with the new trend to make the worship center more available to all people. Call me old-fashioned—wait, don’t you dare. Yet, it’s been my thinking that a church isn’t a church without looking like a church. Since I didn’t get a vote—and since I was only filling in for the youth pastor, I probably would never get one—on this issue I kept my lips sealed. I know that’s a shock.

  Faced with a crisis at home and one at church, I gingerly parked my scuffed SUV in the “staff” zone and slapped the sunscreen over the dashboard so that later, when I left for the day, I wouldn’t scorch my bountiful backside, and straightened my spine. Like a courteous little soldier, I marched up the marble walk to face my fate. I had barely plastered on a tooth-brightener smile when the pastor met me as I whooshed through the automatic doors into the Foyer of Heavenly Conditioned Air.

  “’Bout time you’re here. Memo’s on your desk. Questions? Vera’s got it,” said the senior minister, all this with the palm of his hand facing my face.

  There was this thing about him that brought out a feeling of grease in me, like the kind that forms on the top of simmering spaghetti sauce when you use cheap hamburger.

  He cocked his Elvis-impersonator head. “Yes?”

  I was grateful the man wasn’t psychic, but I refused to talk to the hand so I waited until he dropped it. “Good morning, Pastor. How are you today? Questions about what?”

  “Board decided. Youth group. You. VBS. Great opportunity.”

  “Excuse me?” I shivered. “Repeat that, please.”

  “No can do. Off to a fundraiser breakfast. Think again, Pastor Jane, if you have any notions that this place—” He waved a hand around the cavern of the foyer and then swept it toward the marble floor. “—Well, if you think for one second the church is financed by prayer. Money talks, not just here, but everywhere. Vegas is no different. Never kid yourself about that.”

  Taking yet another cleansing breath, I touched the sleeve of his blue silk suit jacket. “Vacation Bible School starts Monday. And where did you leave that reality check? Today is Friday. You’re saying that my youth group will handle it?”

  “What don’t you get, Pastor Jane?” It came out in a huff as he smoothed the sideburns that went out in the seventies.

  Trust me, the man was not into retro. He’d just forgotten we were in the twenty-first century, and possibly women didn’t always do what big old strong men ministers said to do.

  The gauge on my internal combustion steam-ometer was shouting, “Danger, danger, run for your life.” Alas, being low woman on the church totem pole didn’t give me any wiggle room. Even if you were on my side, and even if I’d become Old Faithful and blown my cool, I would have been out the door and on the pavement before you could say, “Amen to that, sister.”

  I bit my tongue, really, clamped it so I didn’t shout how he could have found other flunkies to do his bidding, because Ab was in a heated discussion on his cell.

  “For golly goodness’ sakes, hold it, will you?” he said to the phone. He pulled it away from his ear and turned to me, his eyebrows knit together. We were so close I could see stubble from a unibrow. I might be his flunkie of the month, but the unibrow produced wonderful waves of superiority in a deliciously perverted way.

  “Now what is it? Jane, are you or are you not a minister? Then minister. For heaven’s sake, do the job you’re being paid to do, which if you’ll check your business card, madam, it is to be a minister. Organize VBS.”

  “Yes, of course,” I snapped. Flunkie or not, he was the boss, even if the last twelve hours had been rotten.

  “Then why are we having this conversation? Get on it or get out.” His cheeks became blotchy, and I believe I was about to get a royal chewing out when Vera’s five-inch platform heels came clopping down the marble hall. We both nodded as she walked by and, not for the first time, I wondered what control the secretary had over the minister. Suddenly he was all milk and honey when he said, “Listen, Jane, you’ve come highly recommend, can do miracles and walk on water, that kind of stuff. We’re excited to have you here at Desert Hills. You know what I’m talking about, even with your very public mishap, shall we call it, and I know you are capable. Besides, these are little children, not something like the hardcore hoodlums you personally arrested while preaching in Los Angeles, in that ’hood. I’ll be praying for you. Hey, we’ll get the entire prayer chain to jump on this. Works for me,” he said. He patted me on the arm and began talking about market gains, and I knew that was the end of our meeting.

  Then he topped the icing on the cake with, “We’re praying for you.” Who the “we” were I had no clue, but he beat all land records as he dashed to the silver Lexus parked next to my dusty SUV.

  I’ve been a happy camper, a cranky one, and also ticked off big time. Right then I skidded to a halt in the third category, with black marks on the pavement of my mind. Let the cookies crumble where they may. Handling sixty puberty-crazed kids in a youth work program, preparing sermons, doing outreach at shelters and missions, keeping tabs on activities, and counseling kids and their parents was making my half-empty cup permanently slosh all over my good intentions. Vacation Bible School? Nietzsche said that which doesn’t kill us will make us stronger. And when I get to heaven if Mr. N is there, I’m going to give him a tiny little bit of my mind. I give pieces of my mind out so often, you realize, that I can only spare a bit, but Nietzsche is going to get it.

  Pastor Bob’s comments about, “This place is not financed by prayer. Money talks in this city,” irked me and made my breakfast lurch and become a fat belch.

  My office is barely big enough for a woman with skinny thighs to move to the desk, but I made it anyhow. I poked the memo, moving it with one finger. I read it. I flopped in my typing chair. Then read it again.

  I’ll cut to the chase. The pastor and the board, with pressure from parents who had decided that they wanted VBS, but never got around to organizing one even though all the advertisements went out to the community over the last month, voted last night that the teens, who didn’t work during the day, could run it. Of course, mind you, no teens had volunteered nor heard about this, and their youth minister, moi, didn’t know nothing no how, either. Bottom line? Two hundred children would show up at Desert Hills at 9:00 A.M. Monday morning, and I was to give them a week of Godly training. Oh, me and whatever teenagers I could scrounge up in just over forty-eight hours.

  You might wonder what happened to the children’s ministry leader who should have been in charge of VBS. Me, too. Every workplace has skeletons, yet Desert Hills seems to be over its national average. “Oh, just taking some time off.” “Guessing she needs a vacation, baby on the way and things.” “Something like a sabbatical.” Even Vera looked off into the distance and got a soft look on her drill-sergeant face, which was so nipped and tucked it was hard to tell if she was smiling or grimacing. Only thing she said was, “You’ll need to talk to Pastor Bob about this, Jane.” So I stopped asking because my first question about the children’s ministry leader had to be to good old Ab Normal himself. Clashes happen, even in churches, and the District Council in its w
isdom sometimes pulls ministers away from their flocks, such as me being yanked screaming and kicking from that inner-city church. Somebody was bound to spill the beans eventually. See, contrary to the word on the street, I can be patient.

  A few minutes later Vera dropped her plentiful posterior in the straight-backed chair across the desk from me, plunked a cup of coffee in front of me, and rolled her big brown eyes. The need to know what happened to the previous children’s minister was far, far away in another galaxy.

  “Read it? Didn’t have the heart to tell you over the phone.”

  “I know VBS is good for kids and great PR, but honestly, Vera, can I handle this?”

  She tipped back the coffee mug, pursed her lips, coated deeply with layers of pink and lined with red, which perfectly matched the Hawaiian print of her form-fitting shirt. Vera wiggled her eyebrows up, squished her nose and said, “Beats the heck out of me.”

  “Thanks a bundle.”

  Holding the doorframe to the cubicle Vera said, “Harmony Miller is waiting to see you. She’s got a nasty bruise on her arm. Thought you should be the one to ask about it.” Then she lifted her eyebrows, and I saw a fleeting bit of grandmotherly emotion cross her eyes. “Want me to stay?” Again, as Vera reached for my now-empty cup, even her face, plasticized by surgery, softened.

  “Is she in your office? She wasn’t in the foyer when Pastor Bob and I had our chat.”

  “No, think she went to the kitchen to help prepare the lunch the women’s group is taking to the rescue mission. The Daily Bread Team feeds about hundred each day and sometimes more on Fridays. But hey, you know that, since you’re there often enough. Either you like what they’re doing or you’re going for the free lunch—just kidding.”

  Have you ever noticed when people say, “just kidding,” they’re really not kidding at all?

  • • •

  I saw the bruise before I focused on Harmony. It was fierce and covered much of her forearm, more purple than black. I’d always thought she looked like a very young Meg Ryan, but her vocabulary could have made a sailor squirm, until I reminded her that even this kitchen was part of the church. Lately it would only make a Marine squirm.

  “What’s on the menu for the Daily Bread today?” I flopped an arm on her shoulder and felt her stiffen before she wiggled out. I dropped the arm. She wouldn’t have been the first kid, or adult, to show dislike for a pushy preacher. Second guess? More bruises under her scruffy T-shirt.

  “Chicken or cheese sandwiches, pickles, chips, and fruit,” she replied and moved out of my reach, rubbing her shoulder. “Always, coffee, water, soda, and milk, too. We’ll leave the platters of veggies, hummus, and pita bread for the crowd that comes at night.”

  “Sounds better than the stuff I have at home. Harmony, you wanted to see me?” I asked in a light, hopefully non-threatening way. I stayed close, but didn’t touch.

  “No,” she snapped in response.

  Harmony wasn’t like the whiney kids in the youth group. This was the first I’d seen she had a temper and honestly? It made me feel a micron better because all the fight hadn’t been kicked out of her like some of the kids that I’d known who had been tossed from one foster home to another.

  We both stared at her feet in dusty, ragged, high-top basketball shoes and then, I hope without her knowing, I allowed my gaze to travel to her face, noting she could be the Goth poster girl since black was the only color of her wardrobe. As I looked into her blue eyes, I could see a frightened little girl in there. I continued, “Vera said you asked for me. I have time now. Want to come to my office with me or when you finish?”

  She turned away. I wondered if she was willing her eyes in another direction, then she turned quickly, only to turn away again before saying, “I didn’t want to talk to you. Vera said I should.”

  “We’re finished here for now,” said one of the women, placing the sack lunches in a box. “Thanks, Harmony. See you at the mission? You can get a ride over with me in about an hour if you’re going to help serve again today.” I waved to the ladies and then whispered to Harmony, “Want to head out of here and get something cold and slushy at Starbucks?”

  Harmony looked at me for the briefest second. We walked into the hall and toward my office and then she finally said, “I gotta’ find a better place to live.”

  I would have closed the door, but there wasn’t one. Taking a breath, I vowed to respond in my quiet voice, even if I were shocked, which I knew I’d be. “Are you hurt? Were you assaulted? Did someone touch you inappropriately? Molest you?”

  Chapter 2

  It’s the media’s fault, you know, that when you think of Vegas, you think of beautiful people having the time of their lives, living large, spending free, and doing stuff that would make their granny’s hair turn even bluer. Don’t get your knickers in a knot. Las Vegas is fun to visit, and at least eighty-five percent of the area is a fine place to live, work, and raise a family.

  The media, advertisers, and who knows who have created an adult playground where the neon lights, four-story-high fountains, and even art museums rub belly buttons with addicted gamblers, hookers, and half-wits who come to drown their troubles in the flash, glitz, and glitter that’s Vegas, baby.

  Don’t believe me? Drive off the Strip just a mile, and the city, like the rattlers found just miles from New York, New York and Paris casinos, will rise up and let its fangs sink into you. Actually, it could pluck out your heart if you have one. It makes you wonder why so much poverty lives like bosom buddies with the likes of lush casinos and high-rise resorts. And mega churches. If you’ve ever flipped the remote control and stopped at Cops, you could have seen what it’s like where the Vegas tourists don’t frequent.

  As Harmony and I sat trying not to look at the bruises on her arm, I thought of this. Harmony lived under the glamour radar, way below it, like a piece of paper that’s picked up in the desert wind and tossed around. As with other kids in my pastoral care, her world involved struggles with the courts, little financial support, foster parents who have forgotten why they got into fostering, and the scum that prey on street kids. It took about two minutes when I came on board as the youth minister to figure this out, and I still can’t get my heart to mend.

  Harmony was one of the lucky ones—then, at least—as she did have a foster home, a clean bed, and food if she stuck around for meals. It was better than when I’d first met her and she was living beneath an I-15 overpass.

  “Harmony, look at me. Who hurt you like this? You have legal rights, you know, even if you’re not an adult.”

  “No, ma’am, no one did anything to me like you’re thinkin’,” she said, and tried ineffectively to pull the sleeve of her shirt over her elbow.

  What I had been told about Harmony, I hated. This I got from the gossip grapevine of the kids in youth group, where the haves and the have-nots were divided like the North and South in the Civil War and no Abe Lincoln in sight. Wise up, sure, I listened to gossip. At the core of every good lie is a nugget of truth; the point of being a minister is to tell the difference. While I wasn’t a pro, I never hesitated to go to the source and find out what the score was. Last week, I cornered Harmony and asked straight out. It was simple, and she told me in simple sentences. No mom was ever mentioned, and she’d been dragged around with her dad. A few years ago, he was sent to prison for embezzlement and fraud as a result of his gambling addictions. He was serving time in the state prison system.

  “I thought you were with a new foster family until your dad gets out of prison? He’s about to be released, right? End of summer, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” A flicker of something was in her eyes, definitely not hope. That made me squirm.

  Then the flicker fluttered out, and she withdrew into a robotic stare focused somewhere above my head.

  She stood planted as if she might decide to run, so I
walked to the other side of the desk and sat down, piled papers that didn’t need to be straightened, and tried to pretend everything was right in every way. “What happened? Sit down.”

  Apparently I passed her test because she sat in the straight chair and said, “The foster care people are nice enough.”

  “Just nice enough wouldn’t have caused those bruises. Did they hit you?”

  “It was a birthday party for someone, at least that how it started, and what the balloons said that were tied to the trash can near the front door. Lots of people there, motorcycles on the lawn, and I went to the room I share with another girl to hide after some jerk rode a Harley through the kitchen.”

  “You were part of the party?” It wouldn’t have been the first time, and Harmony would not be the last to get mixed up with a mess that even adults shouldn’t mess with. “Is that how you got hurt?”

  “That was later. The other girl? She left. Told me I should, too. About a half hour later, the fighting started. Dishes and furniture crashing. I got out when these guys, friends of the foster parents I guess, came pounding on my door. Asking me to party.” She nibbled at a fingernail that was already too short, slowly looked at me and said, “I got out the window.”

  “You’re on the second story, Harmony, right?” I’d dropped her off after a church dinner one evening. She’d pointed to a room, dimly lighted, at a house with peeling stucco, a car on jacks in the front drive, and graffiti on the wooden fence surrounding the yard.

  “Yeah, I jumped then tumbled on the old sofa they pulled outside a few weeks ago, when they had a fire in the living room.”

  I wondered for the millionth time why some adults bred. Shouldn’t there be a Brady Bunch Bill, with a seven-day waiting period or something like that? It’d save kids like Harmony from a miserable childhood that would haunt them forever. I forced myself back to reality and the girl in front of me. Harmony was battered, tattered, and didn’t smell too grand either, if you want to know the truth.