The Friend Game (Games for Two #1)

Chapter 26

“OH, THANK YOU, dear. Yes, that cupboard to the left of the sink. Thank you.” Etta Dashwood settles back against her chair with a sigh as I do as she says and put the box of instant mashed potatoes in her cupboard. “Such a sweet girl, thank you, honey.”

“My pleasure,” I tell her as I continue taking items out of the grocery bags. Etta is about a hundred (her words, not mine), but has the fiery spirit of a much younger woman. I just so happened to sit next to her the first Sunday I went to Grace Canyon, and she asked me if anyone had ever told me I looked like a young blonde Rita Hayworth.

Naturally we became fast friends. You simply can’t have someone compare you to a woman famous for being beautiful without feeling endeared to them. Her usual home nurse is out sick today, so I volunteered to help her out after school. We just got back from the grocery store, where she rode around on a motorized scooter and pointed out items for me to get for her. I tried to tell her I could go myself, but she told me she likes to get fresh air. Plus, the butcher is a hunk. Again, her words, not mine.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you seem a bit subdued today, Hannah,” Etta says as I place bananas in her fruit bowl on the counter.

“Oh really?” I try to sound nonchalant, even though she’s absolutely right. It’s the Saturday of one of the longest weeks of my life. Lexie hasn’t found anyone to replace me as the art teacher, but the threat still looms large over my head. Plus, the deadline for submissions to the art show is coming up this Wednesday, so she’s been on me like white on rice trying to wheedle my decision out of me. I haven’t dared to tell her that I already submitted Caroline’s drawing piece. Yesterday she told me if I didn’t give her a decision by Monday, she’d be forced to take matters into her own hands, since, in her opinion, substitute art teachers really shouldn’t have jurisdiction over matters such as who gets their art pieces submitted to a prestigious art show. The board meeting is coming up this Thursday, so I’m hoping I won’t be a substitute teacher for long, but in the meantime I’m left worrying about what exactly Lexie is going to do when she finds out it’s too late for her to do anything–Caroline’s piece has already been submitted for the drawing category and Mia’s stunning clay vase has been submitted for the pottery category. No take backs.

On top of all that, I haven’t talked to Luke much at all since our FaceTime call last Tuesday night. We spoke briefly last Wednesday, and it turned out he’d had a similar reaction to Ellie walking in on our phone call. We’ve decided to step back from nightly phone calls for a while, well we both pray about next steps.

It’s the right decision.

But it really stinks.

I miss him like crazy.

“Man trouble?” Etta hits the nail on the head with her first guess. “Don’t tell me Pastor Abbott broke up with you.” I’m so shocked I almost drop the can of baked beans in my hand.

“W-what?” I sputter. “Broke up with me? No, of course not. You can’t break up with someone that you’re not even in a relationship with. Gosh. No. What even gave you that idea?” I’m blubbering on, the walking embodiment of Queen Gertrude’s famous “the lady doth protest too much,” line.

“My, my, my, this is much worse than I thought,” Etta says with delight. “You love the man.”

“What!” This time I do drop what I’m holding. Thankfully I’ve moved on from the can of beans to a loaf of bread–which hits my toe without causing injury. “I do not love Luke.” Etta gives me a knowing smile and I realize my error. “I mean, Pastor Abbott,” I correct hastily. “I do not love him.”

“No need to be coy with me,” Etta declares, grabbing her cane and getting to her feet. “I know love when I see it, and you my dear are in love.” She waggles a finger at me, then makes her way slowly out of the kitchen.

“Wait, Etta!” I exclaim, abandoning the groceries and hurrying after her. “You can’t just say something like that and then leave !”

“Oh, I’m sorry to upset you, dear,” she says, not appearing the least bit sorry. “But when you’re as old as I am, it’s best to head straight for the bathroom at the first urge you have to go.”

“Oh.” Some of my outrage deflates. “You’re going to the bathroom. Well, okay then.” I step back, ready to let her go and pick this back up when she’s finished.

“Don’t know why you’re stopping,” Etta calls over her shoulder. “My nurse always stands outside the door, just in case. Seems to think there’s a chance I might kick the bucket mid-pee.”

“Don’t you dare kick the bucket before you tell me what you meant by knowing love when you see it,” I tell her, earning myself one of her throaty laughs.

“Oh you really are a riot, Hannah,” she croons. “I can see why he loves you back. ”

I trip over my own feet, narrowly missing taking her down in the process. Wouldn’t that have been the perfect end to this crap week: bowling over a little old lady and landing her in the hospital.

“Wait, you think Luke loves me back?” I breathe, but she’s already shut the bathroom door behind her and misses the question.

Which is good. Because I realize I’ve slipped up again. Not only by using his first name, but by saying loves me back . Which implies that I love him.

Which can’t be true. We haven’t even gone on a date yet. We’re only friends! And anyway, I refuse to rush into falling in love with a man again. I got badly burned the last time I fell in love too fast.

Moment of truth though…I’m not sure that I ever actually loved Marshall. I thought I loved Marshall, but lately I’ve been wondering if maybe what I really loved was the idea of Marshall, not Marshall himself. After all, he was a successful, handsome, well-respected man who’d taken interest in little old me. Dating him gave me clout as both an artist and a woman. To catch such a man’s attention gave me a sense of worth that I’d never fully had before.

It was a heady and addicting feeling that made me overlook the problems in our relationship; at least until the biggest problem in our relationship (aka the fact that he was secretly engaged the entire time) revealed itself in the form of his fiance?e showing up on my apartment doorstep.

I shudder at the memory. After she discovered that Marshall had been cheating on her, she broke off their engagement then headed straight over to my apartment. Giving me far more grace than I think I could have in her shoes, she let me know of her existence and told me she thought I deserved to know that Marshall was a cheater. A week later I’d shown up on Jill’s front porch, a shell of my former self.

I lean back against Etta’s wall as I wait for her to finish in the bathroom, my mind roving back over the emotions and trials of that time period.

Yes, Marshall did a number on me, but I’ve spent the last year attempting to bounce back from that. I’ve been focusing a lot on remembering that my true worth doesn’t come from any man or any human at all for that matter—it comes from God. Funny, though, how sometimes your head can know something to be true, but your heart refuses to cooperate.

Still, my self-willed heart aside, I don’t want to tie my worth to anyone ever again. So how do I form a relationship with a man that’s separate from my opinion of myself? I admit that I want Luke to think I’m funny and for him to enjoy talking to me and—to my shame—perhaps most of all I want him to think I’m attractive. But what I don’t want is for Luke’s opinion to be what gives me my worth.

My worth needs to come from God, and He’s already given me that worth through Jesus’ death and resurrection. So long as I have faith in what He’s done for me, nothing I do or say can add or detract from that. He has made me holy and blameless in His sight.

I suppose the dilemma this leaves me with then is how to recognize real love when I see it. But I have told you, a still small voice seems to whisper to my soul. Love is patient and kind.

I think of Luke high-fiving all of the kids as he walks up the aisle before Wednesday morning chapel, being sure to hit every hand in his path. Of Luke, listening to me talk about my day, sincerely interested in what I have to say. Of Luke, working so hard to get more scholarships to kids who need them.

Luke is patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way.

Marshall loved nothing more than to hear other people praise his work. Don’t get me wrong, every artist enjoys a bit of adulation now and then, but Marshall acted as if he expected it everywhere he went. On the flip side, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Luke boast about anything.

It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Luke hasn’t held my lie against me, instead he not only forgave me, but took some ownership of his own mistakes. Perhaps it’s time for both of us to rejoice in the truth, though, rather than hiding the feelings growing between us from the Grace Canyon congregation.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Together I think we can bear and endure whatever comes next. If I have Luke and we both have Jesus, what do we have to fear from man?

These things, the ones listed in 1 Corinthians, are the things I should be measuring love by. And while Luke certainly seems to live his life by this set of characteristics, what’s standing out the most to me is the way he makes me want to live that way too. The way he spurs me toward living a life that reflects the love of Jesus—a love which so perfectly demonstrates the words in these verses.

“Good golly. I think I do love Luke,” I breathe. Of course it’s at that exact moment that Etta opens the door and steps back out in the hallway.

“Well, of course you do,” she grumps, stamping her cane on the ground. “The heart-eyes you wear to church every week gave that away a long time ago. Now what are you hanging around here for? I’ve got my groceries and there’s a Matlock marathon starting in five minutes, go get your man!”

“Etta, I can’t just go tell him. He has his contract with the elder team to think about.”

“Oh, that old thing,” she dismisses my concern with a wave of her cane, missing hitting me by mere centimeters. “They did that more for his benefit than anything else. They’d be happy to have him taken off the market.”

“What are you talking about, Etta?” I ask her in bewilderment.

“Didn’t you know? Deacon Hebert came up with the idea because he wanted Pastor Abbott, or Luke as some of us get to call him,” she waggles her thin white eyebrows at me, “to be focused on the church, but the rest of the elder board only went along with it because they were worried about the effect he’d have on the single women of the congregation. They didn’t want some sort of Bachelor: Pastoral Edition to take place. You’ve seen the man, without that contract in place mandating his singleness, they’d all have descended on him like vultures to roadkill.”

That is a disturbing piece of imagery.

But also, I have seen the man and her assessment is wholly accurate.

“If you take him off the market, though, they’ll all just have to calm down. And better now than before March 1, in my opinion. Don’t give any of ‘em a chance to try and get their hooks in ‘im. Morgan Plosner has already been trying that with her whole I accidentally made too much of this fried chicken and I thought of you, Pastor Abbott. I’m sure a single man like yourself could use a home cooked meal .” She bats her eyelashes. And okay, who the heck is Morgan Plosner? She made him dinner? I haven’t even made him dinner!

“Oh don’t worry, dear.” She reaches over and pats my hand. “He’s not interested in Morgan Plosner.”

“How do you know?” I ask, because I’m weak and insecure and fully imagining Morgan to look like an early 2000’s version of Angelina Jolie.

And we all know what she did. All of these years later my mom is still upset on behalf of Jennifer Aniston.

“Oh honey,” Etta gives me a knowing look, “because I saw the way he kept sneaking glances at you on Sunday morning. Looked like a lovesick puppy, practically drooling over you.”

I blush at this assessment. As agreed upon, Luke didn’t come over and talk to me this past Sunday. After almost a week of not talking to him every night, it was a total bummer– even if that was the whole point of me not telling him I was going to his church in the first place .

I talked to lots of other people after church, staying and visiting for close to an hour, but Luke and I were like two planets orbiting each other, but never meeting. I expended a lot of focused energy on not looking his way, so I missed any glances he made in mine.

And also, possibly missed Morgan Plosner hitting on him with fried chicken!

Which is actually a good thing, because I don’t know that I could have controlled my feet or my mouth if I had seen it.

“Oh and he also told me so,” Etta adds.

“He what?” I gape at her.

“He told me he wasn’t interested in Morgan Plosner,” Etta elaborates. “I spoke to him on Sunday after church–you know he always manages to find me and check how I’m doing, such a good man, that one. Anyway, I asked him straight out about Morgan, because I wanted to be able to report back to you. ‘No, ma’am, I am not interested in her.’ That’s what he said to me.” She grins. “Then he looked your way again. Smitten kitten, that one.”

I’m not fully sure how I earned so much of Etta’s loyalty, but boy am I glad I did. She is some kind of force.

And I am smiling like a mad woman.

“Well, now, enough talk! Go tell him, enough is enough! Scoot, scoot!” She starts brandishing her cane at me, using it to nudge me out of her house .

“Okay, okay, Etta,” I say with a nervous laugh. “I’m going.”

I hurry out of her house and down to my car before remembering that Luke is having dinner with his parents tonight. I can’t exactly crash that. Can I? I mean, I’m sure George wouldn’t mind, but I’ve never met his mom, and I’m not sure what kind of impression I’d make storming into her home uninvited to profess my love for her son.

Anyway, I don’t even know where Luke’s parents live.

I slump in my seat, feeling dejected. My phone buzzes with a text and eagerly I snatch it from my purse, imagining that it’s Luke texting that he can’t stop thinking about me and is desperate to see me immediately! But no. It’s only Jill asking if I’m still babysitting the kids tonight.

Whoops. Forgot about that. Guess I’ll be spending my night with Liam and Ellie instead of professing my love to Luke.

When I get home, Jill and Max are waiting for me at the front door, both dolled up for the black tie dinner they’re going to.

“Liam is in his room playing with Legos,” Jill tells me in a rush. She checks her watch. “And Ellie should be home any minute. She was at the Stone’s house all afternoon, so Lexie will be bringing her home. ”

Oh yay. I don’t get to see Luke tonight but I do get to see my number one critic. Whoop-de-doo.

“Thanks again, Hannah, for babysitting,” Jill says, bending to give me a hug. She smells good, like Chanel no. 5 and happiness.

My heart pings. I want to smell like happiness.

Luke . Maybe I’ll break my own rule and talk to him at church tomorrow. Obviously I won’t tell him I love him in front of all those people, but a simple hey, there stranger would surely be appropriate.

Maybe I should make some fried chicken.

I’ve never actually made fried chicken before but the internet can teach you anything. Plus, if Morgan Angelina-Jolie Plosner can do it, I’m sure I can.

I’m contemplating the merits of taking Liam and Ellie to the grocery store for the ingredients, when the doorbell rings.

Shoot. Lexie. I take a few deep breaths, which do absolutely nothing to steady me, then swing open the front door.

Lexie stands there, looking immaculate as ever, an off-putting smile on her face that suggests she’s pleased about something. In front of her Ellie and Mia are huddled together, each drinking from a Starbucks cup full of a pink beverage. When they see me they both let out squeals of delight and charge at me, drinks first.

Needless to say, I come out of the three-way hug with a splotch of pink liquid on the hem of my shirt.

“Girls,” Lexie cries in dismay, “look what you’ve done to Hannah’s t-shirt!” For a second my heart softens toward Lexie Stone. The stain really isn’t that big a deal, but it’s nice of her to correct them on my behalf. Of course then she keeps talking and the feeling sort of just floats away. “We need to be careful with food and drinks even around cheap clothing,” she continues briskly. “Ellie, why don’t you take Mia inside and the two of you can look in the laundry room for something to help with the stain. And apologize to Hannah.”

The girls do as she says, both shouting apologies to me as they go. I open my mouth to tell her not to worry about the stain seeing as this is a “cheap” shirt and all, but she cuts me off.

“Well, this is fortuitous actually, getting a chance to talk to you alone for a minute,” she says. “Have you given the art show submissions any more consideration?”

“You know,” I say with faux regret, “it’s the weekend, which means I’m not working right now. I really like to keep some separation between my work life and my home life. ”

“Those are pretty sounding words, Hannah,” she replies, “but if you’re not careful, soon you won’t have a work life and a home life to separate.”

“We’ll see about that,” I answer, pasting on a sickly sweet smile despite the way my insides are squirming from her words. I just need to put on a brave face until she leaves, then I can go break down in the bathroom. “I’ve got my speech all prepared for the board meeting.”

“A speech. Isn’t that cute?” she mirrors my faux smile. I don’t get a chance to respond because Ellie and Mia come sliding back into the foyer, Tide stick in hand.

“Here you go, Aunt Hannah,” Ellie trills, breathing hard from her sprint.

“Thanks, Ellie Bean.” I reach over and give her arm a squeeze. “And you too, Mia,” I tell the other girl who beams up at me.

“Well, we’d better be going,” Lexie announces. “Come, Mia.” Mia does as her mom says, but then just as they’ve turned to go, Lexie turns back to me, the cunning smile she wore when I first opened the door back in place. “By the way, I enjoyed having Ellie over today. Her visit was very,” she pauses as if to search for the right word, “informative,” she concludes. She takes Mia by the hand and tugs her down the steps.

I’m frozen in place as I try to figure out the meaning of her words. Informative? What could Ellie have told her that would put such a devious smile on her face?

All at once it hits me. My FaceTime call with Luke that Ellie walked in on. Did she mention it to Lexie? My heart is a stone, sinking to the floor. No, surely not. Anyway, it was just a phone call. Not exactly damning evidence.

But maybe enough to poke a hole in Luke’s good character.

Well that’s that. Luke and I are going to have to come forward about our friendship and hope that Etta is right about why the elder team made him sign the contract in the first place.

At least, I hope that’s what Luke will want to do…But there’s a chance he’ll decide this thing between us isn’t worth risking his career.

I guess that’s a chance I’m going to have to take.