Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Nessa
Wandering down a deserted hallway, she asked herself why– why? –she had insisted on meeting Matt here. Yes, sure, he had to be here all day, since early this morning, for obvious reasons. It was Sunday, after all. It would have been a long round trip to leave here to pick her up, and she was a capable, independent woman.
But she had always hated not knowing where she was going; the only thing worse was not knowing what she would find when she got there. Were these teenagers so cool, so self-confident, that anything she said would be met with patronizing smiles at how hopelessly out of touch she was? Like, they were only there so they could list the extracurricular on college applications?
Or were they tough and sullen, some adult forcing them to be there for a community service deal, nothing relatable that she could possibly say?
By the time Matt stepped out of a doorway and into the hall ahead of her, she was deeply repenting any attitude her teenage self had shown to any hapless adult volunteer in her orbit.
"Hey, there you are! Did you have any trouble finding it?" His warm hands reached for hers and she felt something in her release, lungs able to breathe in a little bit more, mind able to downshift a single gear, the world just a bit better when she was in his presence.
He was warmth personified.
"Oh, no. Google Maps, you know, and no traffic. Is there a bathroom..?" What she needed wasn't a toilet -- it was the reassuring check in the mirror: lipstick in place, hair more or less where it was supposed to be, eyes wiped clear of consternation.
Just a moment to collect herself.
"Sure, of course, see that door on the left? Just come on in when you're ready, everyone's here." Half turned away, he spun back on his heel and kissed her lightly on the lips. "You look great. I knew you would."
Doubtfully, she headed off to see for herself, but there were really no adjustments to be made. The blue chambray swing dress and flat sandals she had decided on were cute, comfortable, and unlikely to offend anyone: not too long, not too short, not frumpy, not revealing. Best of all, they were from her own closet, things that reflected her own personality rather than a role she was playing.
No influencer freebies. No product placement. No coordinated look she was trying to convey.
Just her. Pure Nessa.
The presenters at the Oscars are probably less nervous than this, she told herself. Stop .
When she walked into the meeting room, it turned out to be more of a living room, with a fireplace, a rug, a sofa and upholstered chairs, tables and lamps. Extra folding chairs had been set up, too. The obligatory refreshment table was covered with sodas, doughnuts, and bags of chips, little handwritten signs indicating which snacks were gluten free, vegan, or dairy free.
Ashanti would have a fit , she thought.
An older woman wearing jeans, sandals, and an embroidered blouse approached her. "I'm Barbara," she said, smiling. "You must be Vanessa."
"Just Nessa. Hi."
"Thank you so much for coming. You probably get worn out with going to Matt's church events."
Fortunately, he appeared at her side before she had to confess that this was her first.
"Don't scare her, Barbara, I'm trying to break her in gently."
Barbara’s smile widened, the skin around her eyes moving up with authentic mirth. "We'll be happy to see you at First Parish whenever you have time. Matt's only been here a few weeks and already we've had more excitement than, oh, since the immigrants were bused here last summer." Barbara’s wry smile widened. “Or since the Women’s Alliance switched from the old Mr. Coffee machine in the small downstairs kitchen to a cone-based Cuisinart.” She winked.
"Yeah, let's–hey, guys? Let's get started," Matt said to the room. There was a general slow movement toward the sitting area, some kids opting for the floor. As she took a seat next to Matt on the sofa, Nessa was aware of curious looks in her direction. No condescension, no smirks, no rolled eyes.
She breathed a little easier.
This was the first time she had really seen Matt in his professional role, other than officiating at weddings, of course. Totally at ease, he took charge of the meeting without actually seeming to. It wasn't so much charisma, she thought–the charismatic people she had observed had a sort of performative quality to them. Matt had a natural ease with people.
He liked them, and they liked him back. All ages, apparently.
His work was so different from hers. At Wedding Protectors, every step was carefully planned out, all contingencies imagined and tracked, every schematic a group effort that left as little uncertainty as possible for each wedding. Long meetings, project management, attention to detail, and lots of smoothing of emotions made for stretched-out days. Weddings were touchstones in people’s lives, fraught with emotion, laden with nostalgia, and as Nessa reflected on how different the offices at Wedding Protectors were from the quiet, mellow scene before her, she couldn’t help but find herself curious about Matt’s daily life away from her. Seeing him in a new setting, watching how others perceived him, made a thrill run through her.
Here, Matt’s very presence and people skills were how he navigated his work hours. She knew from talking to him that he sat on committees, counseled struggling parishioners, visited the ill in hospitals and nursing homes, and – of course – wrote and delivered Sunday sermons.
Teens in a youth group in a smelly basement room weren’t part of Nessa’s vision of ministry, but Matt had said they were no different than facing a room of nine women over seventy in the Women’s Auxiliary last month.
If she remembered correctly, he’d even said, “The teens were less mouthy.”
"So," he began as he faced the youth group, "this week's meeting is a little different, I guess. If you need to check in with Barbara on any of your individual projects, there'll be time for that at the end. Right?" Barbara nodded. "Okay. Ah, if anyone doesn't know who I am, I'm Matt Draper, and I'm the interim minister here at First Parish while Dr. Thomas is on sabbatical. Also, on my own time, I'm on Instagram and TikTok talking about ways to get strong and stay healthy, so it's possible you might have seen that."
Kids met each other's eyes or whispered something, and you couldn't miss a girl's voice in the back saying, "God's Gift!"
"Yeah," Matt said, addressing it directly as a few teens smothered giggles, "I know some people call it that or, I guess, call me that, but it's not my idea and I wish they wouldn't. Which is basically why we're here to talk to you." Giving Nessa's hand a quick squeeze, he said, "This is Nessa Martini, and she works in the events business, but she's also an influencer. And, lucky me, my girlfriend."
From the expressions on the teens’ faces, it was obvious that this was not your typical youth group meeting. No one looked bored, rebellious, or distracted by their cellphone; they looked like they were seated in the front row of the movie theater, waiting for the newest Rob Olivetti film to start.
Or maybe Chris Allister.
Nessa's eyes went wide as a vague plan began to form in her head.
“When I say lucky me,” Matt went on, “I’m not being modest–I really mean luck had something to do with it. Because Nessa and I set ourselves up to fail over and over. And not just in our relationship, but in our careers. I mean, I don’t exactly think of the ministry as a career–and we can talk about that some other time–but over the past month or so, my calling in life, which is obviously extremely important to me, has been put in jeopardy more than once by social media posts.”
“Some were ours, but some were posted by other people,” Nessa put in tentatively.
“Is this, like, you mean, the honey run?” asked a boy sitting on the floor. Matt and Nessa exchanged here-we-go glances.
“That was basically where the problem started,” Matt answered. “How many of you saw that?”
Almost everyone raised a hand, and the ones who didn’t looked like they might just be shy about saying so.
“The lesson there was: Everyone has a camera, and the context of a photo is not always going to be explained. Even the guy from my gym who posted that probably didn’t know that I’d been challenged by a firefighter to run carrying someone’s weight. He just thought what I was doing was funny or weird and would get some kind of response from his friends. Which it did.”
Barbara nodded. “I saw it, and that was when I talked to Reverend Draper about the situation and asked him to speak to us.”
“Which brings us to the next point, which is also about context. Because there was nothing really wrong with that video or photo, right? I mean, the owner of my gym would say that what was wrong was that it was potentially unsafe and bad for his equipment, and he wouldn’t be wrong, but it was only inappropriate because some people have an expectation about how I should behave. I am a minister. I have a responsibility to ensure that people feel comfortable confiding in me, that they feel I am–I don’t know–discreet and thoughtful and not superficial or…” he trailed off, clearly struggling to articulate his point.
Nessa put her hand on his arm. “Superficial is kind of where I come in,” she said to the group, with a self-deprecating smile, a few teens chuckling. “Matt is talking about being aware of how things can look to people who don’t know you. And like he said, in addition to my day job, I’m a brand ambassador, or an influencer, or whatever you want to call it.”
“We’re talking about a lot of followers here,” Matt contributed. “Anybody here..?”
Every girl in the room and two boys raised their hands.
“Oh! Hi,” Nessa said to them, feeling oddly shy. “Sometimes I meet followers but not like this, not to actually talk to. So, um, thanks. I appreciate you guys. But what I wanted to say was, Matt and my best friend, Olivia, they made me rethink the whole concept of beauty. I realized I’ve been too focused on the kind of beauty you can buy. So you’re going to see a change in my posts. I mean, I’m still going to be showing, like, a great new lipstick or whatever, but also things that you don’t have to buy, that don’t cost anything.”
“Like love?” gushed a girl with long black braids, her eyes so wide the whites of her eyes seemed like fresh canvas, brown irises full of teen adoration.
“Yes,” Matt said, squeezing her hand just enough for her to feel it, but not enough to be seen. “Like love.”
“Isn’t being an influencer all about what you see?” asked a girl sitting next to the one with long braids, her hair covered by a hoodie, though an eyebrow ring glimmered in the light. “Instagram’s all about what the grid looks like. Colors, palettes, all that. And TikTok is about making videos that get eyeballs. Are you, like, one of those self-hating people who does a cool thing but then you trash it later?”
Matt’s mouth opened like a fish on land.
Nessa, though, knew exactly what to say.
“What I was posting before made Matt think I might only be interested in what’s flashy and new and expensive, and that’s not who I am at all. We’re all deeper than our surfaces. Every single one of us. The problem with social media is that it only shows what we choose to show it, and because it’s all visual, it’s all about appearances. Filters make it easy to look unblemished, but also unreal. You can show a picture of someone doing good things, but you can’t actually show their goodness. You have to experience it.”
The door to the hallway opened and she heard the rustling sounds of someone entering quietly, but she didn’t look away from her audience until a small body leaned against her legs.
“Charlie! What are you doing here?” Tommy’s daughter, her dark hair in a braid, looked up at Nessa’s astonished face, giggling.
Matt stood and strode over to Tommy, who was hesitating by the refreshment table, and they shook hands. Tommy picked up a few munchkins and a paper napkin, then followed Matt to the sofa and handed the goodies to Charlie.
“This is our friend and Nessa’s neighbor, Tommy Levitt. And Charlie. I asked Tommy to come today–we just met on Thursday night,” Matt explained. “It, ah, didn’t go well."
All the boys and a few girls snickered.
"Maybe you saw the evidence of that, although I hope not.” The laughter made it obvious plenty of them had.
“Not my finest moment,” Tommy said ruefully.
“Nessa and I had a misunderstanding that afternoon, a pretty big one,” Matt started, but Nessa interrupted.
“It was another problem over a post! Someone I met at work took a video, and I was in it, and it looked sort of, ah, intimate but it wasn’t –”
“Chris Allister, right?” The girl’s voice was enthralled. “The necklace?”
“Right.” Matt drew out the word, catching Nessa’s eye, and she got his message. Intimate wasn’t a good direction to go in.
“What’s innamit, Daddy?” Charlie asked, her mouth full of doughnut.
“It means, when grownups are very friendly,” Tommy answered quietly. He’d brought a small backpack with him, from which he produced a handful of plastic animals. Kneeling on the floor, she began setting them up, no longer interested in the adult conversation around her.
Thank goodness.
“Anyway,” Matt went on, “I got the wrong impression on that and on a few other things, too. Like Nessa said, I had the idea that she was maybe too interested in appearances and maybe that wasn’t such a good fit for me, for a minister. But instead of talking about it, asking questions, I assumed I knew what was happening because, hey, I saw the photos, right? So I got upset and left and went to the gym to work out. And when I got there, I told my friend about it, or at least some of it. ”
“Dr. Draper?” One of the boys had half raised his hand.
“Oh, call me Matt! What’s your name?”
“Ben.”
“Okay, Ben, what’s your question?”
“I was wondering what gym you go to–I follow your workouts on TikTok.”
“Ah. Let’s talk about that after the meeting, okay?”
Ben knew when an adult was shuffling him off. He looked disappointed, but Nessa was well aware that Matt was just protecting his own privacy, and would later use the conversation with Ben as an opportunity to talk about broader issues around boundaries.
“As I was saying–”
“My daddy goes to the gym,” Charlie piped up.
“Oh, I know, sweetie,” Matt said with some irony in his voice. “Your daddy is very strong.”
Tommy shrugged self-consciously but Charlie nodded happily.
“My friend helped me remember that what you see on your phone screen isn’t the whole story, and what someone looks like isn’t the whole person. I knew in my heart that Nessa is an awesome person, someone I want to spend time with and get to know better, but I was judging her by what I saw online. As soon as I realized this, I wanted to get together with her and explain and apologize. So I went back to her place. Tommy, you want to take it from here?”
Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, Tommy cleared his throat. “Yeah, so I was coming home from the grocery store and there’s this guy walking in the entry ahead of me, right? And he calls somebody on the intercom. I’m minding my own business, just going home after work, but I hear him say Nessa’s name and she sounds upset, like, emotional. She’s my next-door neighbor. I yell, ‘Nessa, this guy bothering you?’ And she says, ‘I don’t know, maybe.’ Then he says, ‘It’s okay, I’m her minister .’”
Tommy, with an unsuspected flair for a comedy monologue, paused and raised a skeptical eyebrow. His audience, who had arrived that afternoon expecting to hear updates on bake sale proceeds to fund the group’s week with Habitat for Humanity, howled. To be invited to laugh at the acting leader of their church parish was unprecedented in their experience; it had certainly never happened when Dr. Thomas was in residence.
Not that he ever did anything funny.
“Hey!” Matt protested. “Be fair! I said I was ‘ a minister,’ not ‘ her minister’!”
“Whatever,” Tommy conceded, clearly beginning to relish this. “I open the outside door and prepare to escort him out, and what does he do?”
This was a rhetorical question, but the kids had ideas.
“Begin reciting the seven principles?”
“Take a video?”
"Do a honey run?"
"Break out the coffee hour coffee?"
“No, but hold that thought. He sees that the inner door is still cracked open, so he makes a break for it, and before I know it, he’s pulled the door shut behind him and I’m alone in the entry. I can see him inside, running for the stairwell.”
The kids literally could not believe their ears; they were looking at Matt with disbelief and something like awe on their faces.
“By the time I get the door unlocked again, he’s gone, but I know where he’s going, right? To Nessa’s. And I’m thinking, this guy, he’s no minister . So I run up the stairs after him, and sure enough, when I get close, I see he’s talking to Nessa through her door. So I tackled him.”
“You tickled him, Daddy?” At a loss, Tommy didn’t answer immediately, but Charlie was very concerned. “Because my teacher says you never, ever touch somebody unless they say it’s okay. Not ever.”
“Your teacher is right, honey. I shouldn’t have done it.”
"Remember," Barbara added, looking at the teens, then smiling at Charlie. "Consent matters. Even young Charlie understands that."
Satisfied, the little girl went back to her imaginary jungle, but Nessa knew where the story was headed.
“Charlie,” she whispered, “I’m going to the bathroom. Want to come?”
"No. I peed before we walked in."
More snickers. Nessa steeled herself for the next part of Tommy's story.
Tommy became even more dramatic, gestures big, voice bigger. “And then I did something else I probably shouldn’t have done. I kneed him in the–”
“I think they get the general idea,” Matt interrupted. “Big misunderstanding, right? Huge. I was just there to apologize to someone I care about. Tommy was just trying to protect his neighbor from what looked to him like imminent danger. Everybody had good intentions. But things happened fast and by then, I was in no shape to explain. We both assumed based on what we saw on the surface.”
Tommy laughed through his nose. “He didn’t really look all that dangerous to start with, and Nessa said he wasn’t, but you never know for sure, right? I figured he’d be less likely to try anything if he knew I had evidence. So I took out my phone and I got some photos of him there on the floor, and then I went home.”
The two men exchanged glances. Matt went on:
“And I got up and went in and apologized to Nessa, and she accepted, and we’re feeling good about that and talking and then… my phone buzzed. I checked it in case there was an emergency, and there was this photo of me on the floor, all curled up, with a caption that basically says, beware of this guy.”
“I’ve been in plenty of situations in my life that I wouldn’t want anybody sharing with the whole world,” Tommy said seriously. “Nessa and, uh, Reverend Draper came over and explained the whole story and I took the post down but, once something is out there, you can’t ever totally take it back. The internet is forever. I felt bad, so I wanted to come here today and maybe help you guys avoid having something similar happen. I wouldn’t want my daughter to run into a problem like this someday.”
At that moment, Charlie climbed up on his lap; he kissed the back of her head absently. Phones were being passed wordlessly from hand to hand as the teens who had screenshotted the post in question shared it with those who might have missed it.
Matt resumed speaking. “Nobody in this whole mess had bad intentions. The guy who posted the video of me running with Nessa, he saw something he thought was funny. When Nessa posts about style, she’s pursuing her passion, sharing something she’s really good at. The necklace video, well, that was basically harmless–at least no harm was intended. Those guys are in front of cameras all the time, they were just fooling around. Tommy thought he was protecting his neighbor and other potential victims of some predator. You can see how important it is to remember that one click, one upload, can change everything. And it might not be your click.”
“Thank you so much for sharing all that, Matt, and Nessa and Tommy, too,” Barbara said after a pause. “Are there any questions?”
No hands went up, and Nessa saw her opportunity.
“You–you’re trying to raise money, right?” she asked Barbara and Matt.
Barbara laughed ruefully. “We’re perpetually trying to raise money. Habitat for Humanity is our traditional commitment for our teen program, but since we had the immigrant families with us, we’ve added a few more. The parish also tries to support Father Joe’s homeless shelter. There’s always a need.”
“I was thinking. I have that necklace, you know, from the video? It’s worth something, and if we auctioned it off, I think it would raise some money. Couldn’t we?”
Matt was looking at her in amazement; his jaw actually dropped open a little.
A girl sitting cross-legged on the floor spoke up. “If we promoted it online, we’d get a lot more bidders, right? Is that, like, legal?”
The adults in the room looked at each other questioningly.
“I think so,” Matt said slowly. “I know I’ve seen online auctions to raise money for public radio. We’d have to run it by a lawyer, I guess, but it’s a good idea.” He turned to Nessa. “Thank you. That’s–unbelievably generous.”
“We’d be taking something that almost changed my life in a negative way and using it to create change in a positive way. It would be good karma.” Thinking that she might have misspoken, she whispered to Matt, “Do you believe in karma?”
“Yes, we just don’t call it that,” he smiled. “We call it serving on the pledge drive committee. You earn all the good karma there, working a thankless job.”
“Hah!” Barbara said, laughing. “As for karma, I do,” Barbara said, beaming. “I’m a Buddhitarian. And I call this the best karma I have ever heard of. As far as I’m concerned, Nessa, from now on, you can walk barefoot through fire and karma will protect you from any harm. Not just because of what we’ll be able to do to help families in need, but also because I will never have to produce another loaf of zucchini bread for another bake sale as long as I live. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Standing up, she added, “It’s five o’clock, so we will adjourn. Thank you all–Charlie, too–for your time and for sharing your story. Our next meeting will be two weeks from today, and I hope to see everyone then–bring your friends!”
Instantly, there was a rush to the sofa where Matt, Nessa, and Tommy were just getting to their feet.
“Nessa, could I just get a selfie with you?”
“Me, too!”
“Let me get one of the whole group,” Barbara offered, and everyone crowded together except Charlie, who had discovered the source of the chocolate munchkins.
“Whoa, whoa!” Matt called out, laughing. “And how are these shots being posted?”
“Friends only?” someone answered. “Or maybe friends of friends?”
“Since everyone here knows they’re in the photo, I think public posting is fine. The important thing is just to think about it first, right?” He looked at Barbara, who said:
“At the beginning of the year, anyone in the group under eighteen had to have their parents sign a media waiver. Remember?”
Murmurs and nods followed.
Turning back to Ben and his buddies, Matt answered their questions about Vince’s gym, about their specific fitness goals, and from one shy kid, about where he’d gone to college and divinity school. Eventually, the teens had all dispersed to the parking area, to meet a parent or drive home themselves. Tommy had separated Charlie from the snack table with promises to come back another time, so only Barbara was left, pulling on her jacket.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to clean up?” she asked, looking around doubtfully at the detritus: powdered sugar, used paper napkins, half-empty bottles of water. Folding chairs to be stacked.
“No, you did the set up. I got this,” Matt told her.
“Nessa, I don’t know what to say,” she went on, zipping up, “and for me to be speechless is very unusual. I can’t wait to tell Dr. Thomas about your donation. I’m so glad I asked you to join us today!”
“Be careful,” Matt warned her jokingly. “With this kind of fundraising success, they’ll never let you step down from running the Youth Group. You’ll be doing it when you’re a hundred.”
A look of genuine alarm crossed Barbara’s face, and Matt chuckled. “Here’s what you do,” he advised. “When you’re ready to stop, just tell them you’re taking a sabbatical in Patagonia. They’re used to that. They’ll probably call me to replace you.”
“So noted.” Squeezing his hand and kissing Nessa on the cheek, she left them.
They looked at each other.
“I need coffee,” he said. “You want some?”
Nodding gratefully, she followed him to his office, where he pulled out a desk drawer and extracted a pouch.
“My emergency supply. Not freshly ground this minute, or even this morning, but still better than what’s in the kitchen.”
“Was that… weird?” she asked anxiously. “I should have talked it over with you first, I know, not sprung it on you like that. Was it too much? We should have sworn them all to secrecy. I messed up, didn’t I?”
“No! You absolutely did not mess up! You did a wonderful thing out of the goodness and generosity of your heart. They will never forget that– I will never forget that! You’re not regretting it, are you? Because if you are, we can undo it right away. It’s not a binding contract and everyone will totally understand.”
“No! I don’t regret it at all, just the opposite! I already tried to return it to Chris and he said no. Plus, this is way better than giving it to Natalya when she asked for it for my sisters.” Nessa rolled her eyes. “As if.”
“Your stepmother asked for the necklace?”
“I’ll explain later. And she’s not getting it. Well, unless she wants to bid on it.” That made Nessa snort, Matt giving her a funny look. She collected herself and added, “But I do wish I’d donated it more, ah, anonymously.”
“People would have figured it out pretty quickly, considering the viral video, don’t you think? It’s hard to be anonymous these days.”
“I’d be the first-ever anonymous influencer.” One side of her mouth curled up in a smile.
“Always a trendsetter.” He smiled back. Dropping the packet of coffee on his desk, he walked slowly and deliberately to where she stood leaning against the high back of the visitor chair.
Putting his hands on her upper arms and looking straight into her eyes, he said seriously, “I was so proud to say you’re my girlfriend, Nessa.”
“I was proud when you said it.”
His kiss began as gentle and tender, and she felt appreciated, almost as if he were honoring her for being who she was. Returning it, she felt completely present in the moment: tasting his mouth, feeling his rough cheek against her skin, inhaling the scent of his skin.
She wanted to stay like this forever but suddenly, their desire for each other–never far below the surface–ignited. His breathing changed, becoming somehow more urgent, and she moved even closer to him, the full length of their bodies pressed together. In response, his palms slid down her back, cupping her and pulling her in, and she felt how hard he was.
“Are we alone?” she gasped. “Is everyone..?”
His expression was dazed, like someone waking from deep sleep, but then her words registered and he strode quickly to the door. The lock clicked and the overhead lights went out, leaving the office lit dimly by the waning sun.
The glow was enough to find her.