Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Markie
“I’m so glad to see you this morning,” Pastor Reed says, shaking my hand as I enter the sanctuary.
“Good morning to you.” I smile and hurry along to make room for Mrs. Trumbull.
The church is a flutter of activity. Members of the congregation hang out, catching up on the week’s activities while they wait for Violet Crowder to begin playing the piano.
Everyone in Sugar Creek knows that when those first notes are played, you better be finding a seat or you’ll get a side-eye from the pastor.
“Hey, honey,” Lolly says, coming at me with outstretched arms. “How’s my girl?”
“Hey, Lolly.” I kiss her cheek as she pulls me into a hug. “You look pretty today.”
“In this old thing?” She scoffs. “Thank you, sweet girl. Now, you remember that there’s no Sunday dinner today because I’m going with my girlfriends to a little winery over by Knoxville.”
I smile at her. Lolly’s social life is fuller than mine. She and her group of friends are always on the go—visiting wineries, gambling at casinos, and baking pies for the elderly, as Lolly calls them, at the nursing home. Mira and I pointed out once that the nursing home residents were her age.
We never made that mistake again.
“I remember,” I say. “Have so much fun. And bring me back a bottle of wine, please.”
She leans forward, whispering in my ear. “I’ll bring you two. And, although Jesus turned water into wine, let’s not talk about that too much in church, okay?”
I laugh. “Fair.”
“I’ll say goodbye after the service,” she says, patting me on the arm. “I need to go visit with Jessie Mae. I heard she fell out in her garden on Thursday, and I want to check on her before we sit.”
“Go. I’ll see you later.”
I say hello to a few people as I make my way to my seat.
My head throbs from the wine that Nettie and I consumed before finally falling asleep last night.
I couldn’t make sense of what happened at Patsy’s, and Nettie was virtually no help considering that her advice was to show up at Jory’s house with nothing on but a raincoat and check his restraint again.
So I drowned it all with a bottle of red and passed out.
Not the healthiest decision that I’ve ever made, but you can’t win them all.
“Hey,” I say, grabbing an open seat next to Astrid and Gray in the row in front of Gianna, Audrey, and Brooks. “How are you guys—”
“Markie, there you are.” I turn, irritated at the interruption, and find George Mathers peering down at me.
He’s in the same blue shirt and black tie that he’s worn every single Sunday since at least 2000.
“I was hoping to run into you this morning. We were getting prepped for the pickleball draft, and I noticed that you didn’t list a partner. ”
“My bad.”
“You have one, don’t you? I mean, I figured it was just an oversight on your part.”
“Yes,” I say, trying to keep my head steady so a wave of vomit doesn’t roll in. “I must’ve forgotten. I’ll email his name to you when I get out of here.”
He smiles. “Very good.” He waddles off toward the back of the church, adjusting his tie as he goes.
I begin to finish my sentence to my friends but am cut short again by the chirping of my phone … and those around me.
“Ladies,” Brooks says as if he’s shocked. “This is the house of the Lord. The least you can do is put your phones on silent mode.”
Gianna leans forward, her voice hushed. “I’ve seen the texts you send from the house of the Lord. Shut it.”
A round of giggles erupts from my friends as I silence my texts and open the group chat.
Nettie: Anyone wanna go to brunch?
Audrey: We’re all at church. Wanna come?
Nettie:
Mira: We’re coming. Running late.
Gianna: Better hurry. Violet just started playing “Amazing Grace.”
Mira:
The notes of the hymn fill the air, lulling me into a sense of peace.
I’ve always loved this one, as it was Pop’s favorite.
And something about the melody pulls me out of the slightly perturbed mood that I woke up with.
I almost crawled back into bed and said screw it, but church is like the gym.
Getting there is sometimes like pulling teeth, but once it’s over, I’ve never regretted going.
“Good morning,” Pastor Reed says as the hymn ends.
The light shining behind him is a colorful array, thanks to the beautiful stained glass windows on either side of the building.
“It’s wonderful to see so many smiling faces this morning.
I hope you’re ready to dig into the Word because I woke up today bursting with excitement to share this message. Can I get an amen?”
“Amen,” we all say, some of us more enthusiastically than others.
“Amen,” he repeats, walking around the pulpit.
“Let’s start this Sunday morning by taking up the offering.
And while we do that,” he says, motioning for the teenage boys who pass the plate down each row to get started, “let me take a second to go over a bit of church news with you all. Starting with the next potluck date.”
I pick up my phone.
Me: Are you here, Mira?
Mira: Just sat down in the back. Every seat up there is taken.
Me: Can you put some money in the offering plate for me? I have no cash.
Mira: Yup.
Me: I’ll pay you back. Thank you.
I smile at the boy who hands me the plate, pretending to drop money into it. Then I pass it to Astrid. I don’t know why we can’t modernize this practice. Remembering to bring cash on Sunday mornings is a struggle I seldom win.
My phone vibrates against my leg, so I pick it up.
Gianna: EXCUSE ME, MARKIE ST. JAMES.
Me: ??
Gianna: I just got a text from Bobbi, our real estate agent. She was in Piper’s this morning for breakfast and was told that you and Jory Plath were seen coming out of the bathroom at Patsy’s last night. CARE TO EXPLAIN?
Gianna: That’s not a question. EXPLAIN.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
I didn’t think about this. How did I never think about this? A line of women last night watched Jory and me leave. Of course, the town is going to talk. That’s what small towns do.
My stomach gurgles as a small burst of adrenaline fires through my system, upsetting the already unstable contents of my stomach.
Mira: Okay, we had to stop at the gas station on the way here because I drove the truck last and refuse to gas it up. Anyway, Lora said she heard the two of you were dating. Apparently, something happened between you, Jasper, and Jory last night? I was going to ask you about it after church.
Audrey:
Gianna: It would be wrong for us to all get up and leave right now, right?
I grimace, typing my response.
Me: Yeah, probably. But I’m suddenly nauseous, so I think I’m going to go.
Gianna: If you get up, I’m following you.
Astrid elbows me in the side, but I don’t look at her. Mostly because I don’t know what to say.
This just got seriously out of control.
Me: Look, it’s complicated.
Gianna: Let me uncomplicate it for you.
Astrid: She knows how to have sex, Gianna.
I stifle a giggle, grimacing as my brain feels like a knife sliced through my skull.
Me: Can we talk about this later?
Gianna: I don’t know why we can’t talk about it right now.
Me: Look around.
Gianna: Done. I see Brooks. That tells me this conversation is not the first semi-inappropriate text exchange that’s ever happened from these pews.
Audrey: True.
Me: It’s a long story. We don’t have time to go over it all.
Gianna: I HAVE TIME. I don’t understand half of what the pastor says to begin with.
I roll my eyes, swiping out of the text thread when my phone vibrates again. This time, there’s a new text from an unknown number.
My foot taps the floor. Astrid places her hand on my thigh to still it. She gives it a gentle pat once I stop moving, then returns her hand to her lap.
I stare at the text on the screen, wondering how he got my number—by nine in the morning, at that.
Unknown: Can we talk?
Me: Depends on who this is.
I already know who it is, but I’ve made wrong assumptions before. Like last night.
Unknown: It’s Jory.
I drag in a lungful of air and blow it out slowly, saving his name in my phone.
I don’t want to talk to him. I mean, I’ll have to talk to him at some point.
I’ll probably even want to talk to him eventually.
But not when my head feels like nails are being driven into it, and not when I haven’t had coffee, and definitely not when I haven’t been able to wrap my head around how I feel about last night.
About … us. I mean, there isn’t an “us,” per se, but his words keep rolling through my mind.
“You deserve better than this. What kind of man would I be if I had sex with you, in a public bathroom, after you’ve been drinking?
I let this go too far tonight, and I’m sorry.
It’s so easy to get carried away when I’m around you because, I mean, just look at you.
But I would be a total asshole to do this. ”
So, yeah, there isn’t an us, exactly, but those words don’t match that conclusion.
Gianna staring holes into my back doesn’t help, either.
“This morning, we’re opening our Bibles to Proverbs, chapter fourteen, verse twenty-nine. It reads, ‘Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.’ Let’s read that one more time.”
I stare at the pastor. You’ve got to be kidding me.
I swipe back to the group chat.
Astrid: See, Gianna? God’s talking to you. Have some patience.
Gianna: You’re hilarious.
I go back to Jory’s text and stare at it before typing out a response.
Me: I can’t really talk right now. I’m in church.
Jory: Okay. But can we talk later? I don’t really know how things ended last night, and I want to be sure we’re still good.
I roll my eyes at his words but smile anyway.
Of course, he wants to make sure we’re still good. That’s half my problem with this guy. He’s almost too damn good.
If I didn’t know that there’s a bad boy somewhere inside that delicious body—and I’m never wrong— then I might blow him off. But the way he handled Jasper last night gives me hope. I might be down, but I’m not out.