Company 39
The clergy meeting ended at twelve-thirty. Darlene appeared in my doorway and I knew instantly that she was someone who had been doing this long enough to time it perfectly.
“Attendance folders to the meeting room,” she said. “They'll want them for the close.”
I gathered them, knocked and went in. Judah was at the head of the table, mid-sentence, and he glanced up when I set the folders down. Just a glance. Back to whatever he was saying before I'd fully turned to leave.
I told myself that was normal. He was running a meeting. I was dropping off paperwork. The fact that I noticed the glance at all was my problem, not his.
I stepped outside into the noon heat and almost walked directly into a cream Jaguar parked across two spaces like the lines on the asphalt were a suggestion someone hadn't gotten around to reading.
I stopped.
The man leaning against the hood had his face tipped up to the sun, eyes closed, a joint burning down between two fingers. I could smell that earthy singe of MJ wrapping around the church.
Dark blond hair. Shirt open at the collar. Someone who had nowhere to be and nothing better to do.
Mrs. Arceneaux and Mrs. Cormier were already in front of him, which meant this had been going on for a while.
“This is church property,” Mrs. Arceneaux said. Her hat was doing something architectural in her agitation.
The man didn't open his eyes. “Yes ma'am.”
“You cannot smoke that here.”
“I'm outside.” He took a slow drag, exhaled toward the sky. “Technically I'm smoking at the sun.”
“Young man—”
He lowered his chin and finally looked at her. “Aunt Ida.”
Mrs. Arceneaux's spine went rigid.
“Your potato salad at the Easter potluck has gotten worse every year for a decade,” he continued, pleasant as sin, “and not one person has said a word because they're all scared of you. I'm not. Shut your fucking mouth and go find something to arrange.”
Mrs. Cormier made a sound I didn't know the human throat could produce.
Mrs. Arceneaux tried to. Failed. Opened and closed it.
She was seething a specific kind of fury — a woman told off by blood and couldn't decide which was worse — the insult or the audience. She turned on her heel and Mrs. Cormier followed, like a tail that couldn’t quite afford the luxury of disobeying an old fury (or maybe old money) like Mrs. Arceneaux.
They retreated toward the garden with their dignity held together by sheer force of will.
He watched them go, satisfied, before his eyes landed on me.
“You're new,” he said.
“You're observant,” I said back.
That got a real grin out of him. “Billy Arceneaux.” He straightened, holding his hand out for me.
“Mercy.” I took it and to my surprise — he brought it to his lips and kissed my knuckles.
He grinned against my skin and let go, returning to his previous place, leaning against the car. “Hell of a name.” He looked me over. “You work here?”
“I do.”
“Since when?”
“Monday.”
“He hire you?”
I didn't ask who he was. We both knew. “Yes.”
“Hm.” He dropped the joint, stepped on it, and pushed off the hood. “How's that going?”
“It's been a week.”
“Long enough to have an opinion.”
“It's fine,” I said. “It's good.”
He looked at me like I'd said something funny. Didn't laugh though. Just filed it away somewhere. “Sure it is.”
The church doors opened behind me.
Judah walked out first. The deacons filtered out around him, dispersing toward the lot, and Sister Ruth gave me a nod on her way past that I couldn't fully read. Then it was just Judah at the top of the steps, looking down at Billy with an expression I couldn’t read.
“You're early,” Judah said, checking the watch on his wrist.
“I'm on time. You ran long.”
“I told you one o'clock.”
“It is one o'clock. Somewhere.” Billy spread his hands. “I've been communing with nature. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“You've been harassing your aunt.”
“She started it. Easter potluck, 1987. My mother cried.” He glanced at me, back at Judah. “You've met Mercy.”
Something moved through Judah's face. There and gone before I could catch it. “Would be odd if I hadn’t. I hired her.”
“What do you think of her name?” Billy’s grin was stretched wide now. “Mercy,” he tasted it again. “Your department of expertise, is it not, Preacher?”
“God grants mercy,” Judah corrected.
Billy gave him a pointed look. As if saying — sure.
Judah came down the steps and looked at me, his pale eyes lingering on me longer than he’d dared all day. “How’s the shower?”
“The shower?” I blinked at him.
“Darlene told me yours wasn’t working,” Judah said and his eyes gained an odd glint.
“It’s not,” I said, a sudden heat sneaking into my cheeks, reminding me of just how well Darlene’s shower had worked. “I tried calling the plumber but he’s down with the flu.”
“In the middle of July?” Billy asked, a dark blond eyebrow cocked.
I shrugged. “That’s what I was told.”
“Fucking astounding, isn’t it Beaumont? Such a fine town, this St. Frank, and yet we have just the one plumber. Ever thought about investing in the local blue-collar trade?”
Judah shot him a look. “I can come by later. Take a look.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to bother you—” Yes. Yes I would.
Billy pulled a face. “It won’t be a bother, Mercy. Certainly not to our Judah.” He stepped over to Judah and snaked an arm around his shoulder, clapping his chest — grinning like a child in a candystore.
Judah’s his eyes went to Billy.
“Then it’s settled!” Billy laughed. “He’ll come by at ‘round eight, yeah? Don’t go to sleep just yet, doll face.”
“Inside,” Judah hissed.
“Why? It's cooler out here now.”
“William.”
Billy sighed and pulled away from Judah. He caught my eye as he turned. His expression said see what I deal with and isn't it great simultaneously and somehow without contradiction.
The door closed.
I stood in the full weight of the noon heat with the Jaguar and the dead joint and the smell of expensive cologne still hanging in the air.
He’ll come by at ‘round eight.
That sentence played over and over in my head.
Billy dropped into the chair across from Judah's desk and got straight to it.
“Man named Hall. Been in town four days, staying at the Prosperity Inn, paying cash for everything which makes him more noticeable, not less.” He stretched his legs out. “He's been talking to Thibodaux Junior, two of the dock workers from the March run. Tried to get in to see old Herbert broad.”
“She run him off?”
“Chased him down the driveway with a broom.” A pause. “He's not law. The questions are too loose, too scattered. But somebody gave him enough of it to make him come down here, and now he's trying to put flesh on it.”
“Fontenot.”
“That's what he's thinking, judging by everything.” Billy watched him. “You want me to handle it?”
“No.”
“Judah—”
“No.”
One word. The conversation ended on it. Billy had known him long enough not to push past it. He sat back and looked at the window instead — the oaks outside, the moss hanging dead-still, the afternoon going nowhere fast.
He thought about the girl at the front desk. The way Judah had looked at her coming down those steps and then very deliberately stopped.
“The new one,” Billy said. “She going to notice things?”
“She's been here five days.”
“That's not a no.”
Judah said nothing, which was also not a no.
Billy reached over and picked up the small wooden cross from the desk.
He'd been touching crosses — playing with crosses — occasionally burning crosses — since they were teenagers and Judah had never once stopped him, which he figured meant something.
He turned it over in his hands. “She actually believe? The God stuff?”
“Yes.”
“For real, or the Sunday kind?”
“For real.”
Billy set the cross down. Looked at Judah, who was looking at his desk, his jaw set. He was debating a particular something that he didn’t want to put into words just yet.
“You're going to do something stupid,” Billy said.
“I don't do stupid things.”
“You do. A certain kind of stupid.” He stood and picked up his sunglasses. “You're patient about it first so it doesn't look it. But it is.”
Judah looked up at him.
Billy held up one hand, already moving to the door. He stopped with his hand on the frame. “God help her,” he said. “Genuinely.”
He left before Judah could tell him to.
I was ready. I waited. Clock kept ticking, mocking me with its long hands. I decided he wasn't coming, and then…
Then came the knock.
I'd done everything right. Showered — at Darlene's, again, with considerably more self-control than Wednesday — changed into something that wasn't trying too hard, which required two attempts because the first thing I put on was trying extremely hard.
Made sweet tea I didn't want — and which now was shoved deep in the fridge because it reminded me of how hard I was trying not to look like I was trying.
I sat on the couch with a book I didn't read. A romance that wasn’t rated PG.
I watched the clock move from eight to eight-fifteen to eight-thirty.
He's not coming, I decided at eight-forty. Billy pushed him into it and he thought about it and decided against it and that's fine. That's probably better.
I changed into sleep shorts and a tank top and washed my face and was reaching for the light when the knock came.
I stood in my bathroom doorway for a second.
Then I went to the door.
He was in a plain white t-shirt and jeans, which was the first time I'd seen him in anything that wasn't a dress shirt or a suit jacket, and it did something unfair to the general situation. Not to mention he had tattoos! I mean holy shit — apologies, Lord, but this is not taking the good Lord’s name in vain because…
Well. I mean that took me aback. Not to mention he had a small toolbox in one hand.
He looked at me — at what I was wearing, at my clean face, at the very obvious evidence that I'd given up on him — and said nothing about any of it.