Charlotte Rogan - Now and Again

“Can I have a couple of days to think about it?” he asked.

“Two days,” said Winslow. “We meet back here in two days to make a plan, and the sooner we execute it, the better. It would be a lot easier to do this with your help, Houston, but we’re prepared to do it without you.”

That evening, God finally broke His silence. The pastor was watching the news and trying to figure out how he was going to sneak a million dollars past the church finance committee while Tiffany paraded around in her apron and lace panties as she put the finishing touches on a new recipe. On the screen, a panel of experts was opining on the war and whether or not it was right to show photographs of coffins to the American people. A high-level memo on torture had been leaked, and new information about the man who had written it was coming out. Price had skipped both breakfast and lunch and he was only half paying attention because his stomach was growling and his head felt a little feverish and light.

“Guess what’s for dinner,” Tiffany called out.

It was Italian night, and she wanted him to guess from the smells emanating from the kitchen what she was making. It obviously contained tomatoes and basil and garlic. And the lid was rattling on the big pot, so he guessed she was boiling water for spaghetti or the colorful rotini she liked. “Rotini with marinara sauce,” he called out, and the thought of the tough little spirals becoming pale and flaccid in the seething water made him dizzy and a little desperate, as if a similar fate lay in store for him.

Just then, the television showed a general — or perhaps it was a retired general. He’d missed that part when he was talking to Tiffany. Whoever it was, he was saying, And when I stand up before Christ, I want there to be blood on my knees and my elbows. I want to be covered with mud. And I want to be standing there with a ragged breastplate of righteousness. And a spear in my hand. And I want to say, “Look at me, Jesus. I’ve been in the battle. I’ve been fighting for you.”

Startled, the pastor turned up the volume. He wished he had one of those newfangled systems that allowed a viewer to replay the segment. Would a general really say those things? And then he knew it hadn’t been the general talking at all. It had been God talking to him through the general. And now God was talking through a woman donating a sack of clothing to the local homeless shelter ( Clean house and do good at the same time! ) and through a life insurance team with its performance trophy ( Join the winning team! ) and through a man showing off his compact car ( So roomy, you could hide a million dollars in the trunk! ). It seemed God’s message was that he could avoid being a loser by joining the winning side, and he could avoid unnecessary questions by routing the money for the website through a charity such as Tiffany’s Mothers of Mercy group. He’d have to figure out how to tell Tiffany so she wouldn’t become suspicious, but it was a good solution to the problem. Thank you, Lord, he thought just as Tiffany called him in to eat.

“Just in time,” said the pastor. “I was feeling a bit woozy just now.”

“You’re half starved, not to mention overworked. A little food is bound to make you right as rain.”

Tiffany had made a vegetarian dish, and the pastor ate it with relish.

“No meat?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I’ve been rethinking my policy on that.”

Two weeks later, a small cadre of council members met and made an anonymous offer to buy the website.

11.3 Tula

At the spring assembly, Mrs. Winslow stood backstage holding a clipboard and checking names off of a list as the girls arrived. “It’s hard to believe you’re almost a senior,” she said to Tula. “Do you have exciting plans for the summer?”

“I’ll probably get a job,” said Tula without conviction. “And I’ll work at the clinic, but of course that doesn’t pay.”

Tula had worked as hard as anyone on Sammi’s great men of Red Bud project, but where she once had felt like a central spoke in the functioning of the assembly, she now felt herself spinning helplessly at its rim.

“I guess you’ll start looking at colleges too,” said Mrs. Winslow, as if she didn’t know that without a scholarship, Tula had no way to pay for books, much less living expenses and tuition. “You need to get in line,” she added with an uncharacteristic wink. “The procession is about to begin.”

The music started up, and the girls moved forward using a mincing step that made their gowns appear to be gliding of their own accord. After the procession, Mrs. Winslow stood at the podium and gave a speech about unity and transitions. “This is a happy occasion. A time to be happy about the office you receive and also about the office your friends receive. You are all sisters and you are all equal. Success for one is the same as success for all.”

“ That’s not true,” Tula whispered to the girl standing next to her. The speech had tapped an evolving vein of cynicism, and even though it shamed her to acknowledge it, she persisted. “Who believes that? Only people who are rich and successful, that’s who.”

“Shush,” said the girl, adjusting her bouquet of sunflowers, which was identical to the bouquet carried by all of the rising seniors. When it was time to light the candles, the girl rushed energetically forward, as if to make up for Tula’s rudeness.

Tula performed her small role in the festivities with a sinking heart. She had imagined the graduating girls dressed in long white dresses and the younger girls arrayed around them in a rainbow of colors as they walked in formation around the room before singing the song they had practiced and learning the results of the vote that would determine which of her classmates would step into prominent positions for their last year as Rainbow Girls. She hadn’t dared to imagine herself as the new Worthy Advisor, but she saw herself in the lesser role of jewel officer, standing at the Worthy Advisor’s side and filled with gracious benevolence for the girls who hadn’t been elected to any position whatsoever. Most of all, she had imagined that white would have a new meaning not only for her, but for the entire assembly. That dream had shriveled and died, but as the lower positions were announced and hers wasn’t among the names called, she started to wonder if she might be elected Worthy Advisor after all. She had worked diligently. Everyone liked her. And hadn’t Mrs. Winslow just winked at her? Mrs. Winslow never winked! Tula quickly calculated that if Sammi and another popular girl split the vote, she had an outside chance at winning. She hardly dared to think of it, but it wasn’t inconceivable that the cards would fall in her favor after all.

One by one, the newly elected girls floated across the room to stand on the dais with the outgoing officers until there was only one more result left to announce. Tula’s hopes rose and sank with every beat of her heart. Sammi was popular, but she had become increasingly bossy over the last few months, so perhaps the girls had tired of her. In fact, it was highly likely. But when the drumroll sounded and the new Worthy Advisor was finally announced, Tula was shocked but not really surprised to hear Sammi’s name instead of her own. The meeting hall erupted into whistles and applause. Tula clapped her hands automatically, but when she looked around the room that had held such promise for her, tears welled in her eyes. Each time they threatened to fall, she reminded herself that the eighth bow station with purity as its central tenet still existed, if only in her heart. And purity included feeling happy for Sammi. Mrs. Winslow was right about that. It also included making something of herself no matter how insurmountable the obstacles in her path.