The Sisterhood of the Queen Mamas (4 page)

“Why not?” Bernadette asked, you know because she was making a sales pitch.

“Why not?” Maxine echoed because she so clearly wanted to be sold.

“Those tiaras are for weddings, proms and quinceañeras.” I speak more than the basic awkward Spanish that everyone in Texas has mastered. So I knew exactly how to pronounce the word for the celebration that Hispanic families have for a fifteen-year-old daughter becoming a woman. “Those are three things that have no bearing whatsoever on your everyday life, Maxine. Or mine.”

“Or
mine,
” Bernadette whispered, eyes averted.

That did it. Made me feel a perfect heel. And suddenly I had yet another person who by their very presence in this place had touched my tender heart. I wanted to grab Bernadette by the hand and tell her not to give up hope. She might be long past her own quinceañera and prom, but one day she could have a daughter…especially if things worked out with that new minister. And a wedding…The new minister was
single,
after all, and
looking.
Why not allow a bit of speculation and hope? One should always hope.

“Though, from what I’d heard, she shouldn’t hope for too much in the looks department.” This aside came from Maxine.

The new minister wouldn’t break the camera in the wedding photos, but he wasn’t movie-star handsome. Or even reality-show-TV attractive. But he had a good sense of humor and kind eyes. That’s what Maxine’s church secretary had heard, via the child-care director, via the wife of the chair of the selection committee. The man had kind eyes.

“Don’t forget, we need you and your sewing machine at the church every evening this week to help make costumes for the play at the end of vacation Bible school, Bernadette, honey,” shouted a woman in a red hat hauling a plaid bag in a rectangular wire-framed cart from one booth over. “Most of the volunteers can only work one night, maybe two, so we’re counting on you to be there Monday through Thursday.”

“Of course, Mrs. Davenport. I’ll be there.”

I looked at Bernadette, who had her head hung just low enough to give a glimpse of how much the demands of her life had worn away at her.

Bernadette deserved a man with kind eyes.

But I didn’t take her hand or try to give her comfort. I may be pushy, a bit too proud and past my prime, but I am not a fool. I know that even the most encouraging of words from a plump old lady in the flea market would not hold any value for a woman that age.

In a lot of ways, the real reason people like me and Maxine fit right in here at the Five Acres of Fabulous Finds is that we’re yesterday’s goods ourselves. Discarded, to some degree, by people who once cherished us but now see us
and quaint and perhaps cute but not really useful anymore. What could we possibly know about a modern single girl’s problems? What could we possibly have to add to help her cope with a world that we fit into about as well as June Cleaver would fit with those Desperate Housewives?

I’m realistic enough to know that Bernadette would think that way.

She’d be wrong. But her way of thinking would stop her from listening to what we had to say anyway, so why push more problems on her?

“What did you find today?” she asked, quick and bright, as if maybe she suspected I was toying with the idea of foisting some advice on her and had to be stopped. “Any of those Royal Queen party plates you two love so much?”

“Royal Service, Hostess Queen pattern. And no.” Maxine plunked the canvas bag that she used for carrying around her purchases on the counter. She had that look in her eye. The same look I’d seen the first time she and I had met. It spoke of a young bride’s dreams of owning one nice thing, just for herself, bumping up against the harsh realities of a young minister’s budget and expectations. That look was all longing and wistful, a bit sad but tinged with gracious acceptance. “We didn’t find any Hostess Queen today.”

“Yet,”
I added, emphatically. I know it’s corny but I do believe that someday Maxine and I will each own a complete set of Royal Service Hostess Queen partyware of our own. “We still have another acre and a half to explore.”

“I got a couple vintage aprons, very cute.” Maxine pulled out a yellow piece of fabric with big red apples stitched on it.

“And I bought a mint-condition eggbeater.” I didn’t open
my bag, just pantomimed the motion of cranking the handle of a small appliance.

Bernadette made the motion right back at me. “An egg—Do you
need
an eggbeater?”

“You’d be surprised.” I laughed. Actually, I’d bought it out of pure sentiment. I remembered my elderly neighbor having one just like it. I grew up in a house with a Sunbeam stationary mixer myself. Anyway, the vendor said a man had almost bought it to crush flat and use in a “found object” modern-art piece, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to it, so I rescued the thing. But I didn’t confess all that to Bernadette, or else she’d never take romantic advice from me, ever, because she’d forever suspect I was just trying to save some piece of human junk from hanging in life’s gallery of bad art. I know God doesn’t make junk, but at that age, a lot of women don’t realize it yet. So I smiled and said, “Even us mild-mannered minister’s wives run across our share of bad eggs that need whipping into shape.”

As an afterthought, I shot a glance in the direction of the health-food salesclerk with the toxic attitude.

Bernadette shut her eyes. “I know your heart is in the right places, Mrs. Pepperdine, but you can’t whip an egg into shape once it’s already been hard-boiled.”

“Hard-boiled? At her age? I don’t believe that. Do you, Maxine?”

“No, I don’t. She may want everyone to think that about her. To give the idea that she is already hardened through and through. But look at the way her eyes dart around all the time.
And
she bites her nails, the act of someone consumed by conflict, not crammed with confidence. And even
though I do not at all get what she’s going for at all with her style, she does make an effort with her hair. Those are signs that she’s scared inside and wants to be liked.”

“Maxine’s right.”

“That doesn’t mean we should mix in,” Maxine added.

I opened my mouth to protest, but Maxine didn’t give me a chance.

“Not when we have Bernadette here, and the case of the perfectly marriageable new minister—”

“Sounds like you’ve got wind of our big news, ladies.” Helen Davenport, who I know mostly from seeing her name on the interfaith committee membership rolls that she loves to
sign
up for but hates to actually
show
up for, stuck her head over Maxine’s shoulder. “A single minister! Can you believe it?”

“God works in mysterious ways,” Maxine muttered.

“But certain Tiara Madres operate right out in the open,” I murmured right back at her, before turning to Mrs. D. “Which is why I’m not one bit shy about saying that when your new man arrives I hope you and all the good ladies of your church will make sure he crosses paths with our Bernadette as often as possible.”

“Oh. I, uh…” Mrs. Davenport glanced from me to Maxine to Bernadette, who had her hand over her eyes. Then she sighed and swung her icy gaze back to me again. “I’m afraid you’re a little behind the times on our big news, Mrs. Pepperdine.”

I blinked.

Maxine scowled.

Even Bernadette peeked through her fingers at the woman tugging at the brim of her fancy hat as she chat
tered on merrily, as if everyone standing there would understand her point of view, without exception. “Our new minister arrived two days ago. But you shouldn’t count on anyone…‘crossing paths’ with him for a while now.”

“What?” Bernadette’s hand dropped to her side. The color drained from her face, leaving her looking like a child having the gate closed in her face and being told the roller coaster she’s waited all day to ride is full. I mean, even if she isn’t sure she’d wants to take that ride, she doesn’t want to have someone else tell her she
can’t.

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Davenport gestured with tight, nervous waves of her hands. “Absolutely everyone in the church has already filled his calendar up. He’s single, you know, and a whole lot of us have unmarried granddaughters we wouldn’t mind seeing married to a man of God.”

Not only had Bernadette been shut out of her chance to get on board, she’d been pushed aside by line jumpers. She sighed again, low and soft and under the radar.

“Excuse me.
Excuse
me.” Not one bit concerned about staying off anyone’s radar, Jan Bishop Belmont made her way up the aisle like Moses trying to part the Red Sea. Step, step, stop and press your palms together, then yank them apart, straight-armed and with no qualms about smacking a few people in the shoulders as you do. “What if there was a real emergency here? What if EMTs needed to get through here? Or the police?”

I looked at Maxine and sighed, knowing she’d pick up the “There’s another case that needs our help” message in my expression.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No. No way, Odessa.”

I smiled.

“I promise everyone here I am going to do something about this place,” Jan hollered, which you might think was incongruous for her, but if you think about it, being an ex-cheerleader, she had a good set of lungs and a way about her that made hollering sound downright inspiring. “Changes are coming, my friends. Just you wait and see.”

My smile slipped into a smirk, I could feel it happening and didn’t even try to stop it. Changes coming. I liked that. Not in the way Jan meant it. But looking around me, first at the snarling darling health-food diva, then at righteous rampaging malcontent Jan, then at sweet, downtrodden, zaftig Bernadette, I couldn’t help thinking that a few changes were long overdue around here.

“Don’t forget, Bernadette—” Mrs. D. hurried off without a backward glance “—Monday through Thursday, we expect to see you in the basement, at your sewing machine!”

Yes, when it comes to churches, there is a hierarchy.

The workers and the whiners, those behind-the-scenes and those who rush the stage when they see a chance to gain the spotlight. The line of people who want a new minister’s attention can be seemingly endless. And sometimes the one who is first in line for everything else doesn’t even get a spot when it comes to getting the good stuff.

That was Bernadette Alvarez. And because she wanted to keep everyone else happy, she accepted it.

Lucky for her, she had me and Maxine to make sure she didn’t have to!

“T
hat right there was the exact moment that Odessa set her feet—set
our
feet—on the path that forever changed the lives of those ladies, and I dare say her own, as well.”

“
Forever,
Maxine? Well, slap a sparkly crown on your head and call you ‘Your Highness,’ because you’ve just become the Queen of Blowing Things Way Out of Proportion, and done it all in a single word. Forever, indeed!”

“Oh,
I
am the Queen of Blowing Things Way Out of—Have you listened to yourself lately, dear?”

“Yes, but I am always like this. That makes Out of Proportion my natural domain. Whereas you, Maxine…”

“Whereas I stand by my original statement. What you started that day set us all off in whole new directions. Not a bad thing, I’ll grant you that, but a done deal. That’s how it is with you, Odessa. When you make up your mind that something has got to change,
well, those involved might as well get out of your way, because changes are coming and nothing is ever going to be the same again!”

“I can’t argue with that. I guess.”

Clink.

“And I am jumping in here to say that what seems like an everyday ordinary circumstance might just be the thing that sets you off in a whole new direction. Just like Odessa did. Keep your eyes and ears and hearts open, sisters. Because God has wonderful plans for you—even in the midst of some harebrained plan of your own!”

Sometimes in life, a thing just comes to you. Some might call it an inspiration, a creative spark. Others might say it’s completely logical, that instant when the jagged pieces of the puzzle we call life fit together into a vague but recognizable shape and our brains make that leap toward the larger picture. I think it’s a God moment, when the Lord, from whom nothing is hidden, opens our own poor, weak human eyes and shows us the truth of a matter.

It all seemed so simple. So clear. So inescapable. Jan Bishop Belmont needed to stop thinking about something other than her own woes. Bernadette Alvarez needed to start thinking about her own needs now and then. All
we
needed was to get them together, working toward a common goal, and that just might solve both of their problems.

Christians are called to be the body of Christ. We are often reminded that that means we each have important but vastly different roles in the church. A hand is not a foot, and the tongue is not expected to provide the same information as the eye. All separate. All divergent. All necessary to keep the body functioning and productive.

It is a pertinent and profound illustration of how things
should be. Church. Body of Christ. Working in unison, each to the health, edification and glory of the whole. That’s the model.

We are also told that sometimes we must not let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. A more complex model, to be sure, and to some it might seem a setup for chaos and conflict. It’s that second model, I suspect—the right hand keeping secrets from the left—that the Lord had in mind when He looked ahead and considered the formation of that thing we call a committee.

“Instead of trying to close the place down, I wonder if maybe we shouldn’t be trying to find a way to better police the goings-on there” was all I said that day. The next thing I knew, I was the head of an action committee looking into safety issues at the flea market.

“I am going to resign from this, I tell you that, Maxine.

As soon as we see who all shows up and it’s clear there are better choices than me to lead this mess, I am going to quietly bow out.”

Maxine showed no sympathy at all. Not a lick. “Oh, Odessa, you never did anything
quietly
in your entire life.”

“Quiet or kicking and screaming, I am getting myself dis lodged from this mess as quickly as humanly possible.”

Maxine scooped coffee grounds into a filter with so much I-told-you-so energy that I feared it would make the ensuing brew bitter. “You should have seen this coming.”

“How? How could I have seen this coming? All those years as a minister’s wife, and I never headed up a single committee.” I laid small white napkins on the table at the center of the basement room in the Castlerock Church of
Christian Fellowship. “You know, because I never wanted to take up a position over David’s flock like that.”

“Well, your David doesn’t have a flock anymore, Odessa. And
you
do!” Another scoop. Maxine was making some strong coffee there. Which shouldn’t have surprised me, because she didn’t have any problems making strong statements to go with it. “A flock of misfits and malcontents. If you don’t establish your place over them from the get-go, they will eat you alive.”

“I haven’t had my breakfast yet, so I am pretty hungry but I don’t think I’m
that
hungry,” said an amicable male voice. And in
he
walked.

He,
of course, being the SIPYCM. The Still-in-Play Young Christian Male, Reverend Jake Cordell.

The denim blue of his shirt struck just the right contrast with his khaki pants and the leather portfolio under his arm. The gold of his simple wire-rimmed glasses highlighted both the first touches of silver in the dark brown hair at his temples and the warm glow of his deeply tanned skin.

Outdoorsy, I decided on the spot. Yet intellectual. And understated. The term
handsome
did not pop into my head.

I glanced at him again. He had long fingers, no rings, and his shoes were both a bit too worn and a bit too casual for the rest of his outfit.

That last bit, about the shoes, let me know that not only was he not seriously attached to any female, but he probably didn’t live close enough for his mama to know how he went out of the house every day, either. Shoes will tell, y’all. Young single ministers often don’t have the ego or the fashion sense to care about the shape of their footwear. And they certainly don’t have some female dragging them down
to the mall to take care of that kind of thing on a regular basis. It’s just not a priority.

Oh, and by young I mean he was young enough to be my son, probably, provided I had married right out of college and had a baby straight away, which I did. I’d peg this fellow somewhere between a mature-edged thirty-four years old and a baby-faced thirty-eight.

The whole deal, sizing Jake Cordell up from spectacles to scuff-marked shoes, probably took an entire three seconds. I was just getting an overall sense of the fellow, after all, keeping in mind that no matter what I thought, his congregants had already determined to keep him away from our Bernadette. So, yes, I will be brutally honest, I was looking for reasons that was a good thing. Why our girl was better off putting aside any notions of getting to know the man as anything other than a spiritual caregiver.

Acceptable, I decided, trying to picture Bernadette standing next to him. But not exceptional. Our Bernadette, with her most gracious and gentle spirit, her womanly curves, her dark eyes and even darker hair, deserved someone…

He flashed a big ol’ smile at me and Maxine. I caved right there on the spot.

Bernadette deserved a man with a smile like that.

“What a cutie-pie,” Maxine whispered. She’s allowed, of course, going back to that being-old-enough-to-be-his-mama thing. She hurried toward the man, her hand extended. “I’m Maxine Cooke-Nash. My husband is—”

He did not merely take Maxine’s hand, he enveloped it in both of his, holding it more than shaking it. And there was that smile again. “Actually, I met your husband the
other day, Mrs. Nash. Fine man. I’m so glad to be able to serve on this committee with you.”

It is a testament to the power of that smile that neither Maxine nor myself bothered to correct his use of only half of her legal surname.

“And I’m Odessa Pepperdine.” I held out my own hand, and I have to say I may even have sighed a little when he took it and held it a moment. Not the sort of gushy, girly, getting-a-crush-on-the-new-minister kind of sigh I’d had to suffer through more than once when my David was young. But the sort of sage, have-I-got-a-girl-for-
you
kind of sigh that meddling Queen Mamas have sighed since they first got the idea that young people might need a little help in the matchmaking department.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Pepperdine.” His smile broadened.

“Odessa. Please call me Odessa.” I didn’t mention my David or his retired status. Maxine had rightly pointed out that this committee was my flock—should I decide to stay with it—not my husband’s. It was important for me to stand on my own merits here, and take the leadership role as an individual. Besides, I’m no fool. A fellow like this, if he realized he was serving on a committee with two former minister’s wives and a darling single member of his congregation—He’d run for the hills. And he was wearing the shoes to do it in.

“Fine. Odessa. I want to thank you for thinking our church was the place to hold your first meeting. And for inviting me to be a part of your…what are we calling it? An exploratory committee? An action council?”

Action council.
I liked that. Had a ring of importance
about it. “Action council. Yes, I very much think that’s what we should call ourselves. The Five Acres of Fabulous Finds Community Action Council.”

Maxine leaned in to mutter in my ear. “Five Acres of Fabulous Finds Community Action Council? Sounds like something out of the old Saturday-morning cartoon shows! We won’t have to wear those stretchy bright-colored superhero costumes, will we? Because I don’t care how much Lycra you weave into a fabric, they all have their breaking point.”

I would have chided Maxine, but of course she’d hardly said the words when the image popped into my head of the two of us in shiny black-and-gold outfits with the Royal Service Hostess Queen logo on the front, leaping around the flea market. Of course I laughed.

“We’ll try to keep it more low-key than that,” I promised her. “Maybe just some fancy capes and a couple of those tasteful tiaras you’re always trying to talk me into buying.”

Reverend Cordell chuckled, and it dawned on me he had heard every last word.

So I plastered on my most dazzling expression, then used one hand to fluff my puffy hairdo and the other to take his arm as I cooed, “We know this girl, the sweetest girl in the world, if you ask us. Who sells them—”

“The tiaras, not stretchy missus-size superhero costumes,” Maxine explained.

“Yes, the tiaras. Among other things, down at the flea market, on weekends. Bernadette Alvarez?”

The name didn’t seem to register with him.

“She’s a member of your church.”

“Oh. Uh, great. Is she…is she any relation to Roberto
and Gloria Alvarez? I’ve seen their names on dedication plaques all over the church.”

“Their daughter,” Maxine said, while I was busy thinking that the man had not rolled the
r
properly in pronouncing Bernadette’s father’s name. Most people wouldn’t have cared one bit. Roberto Alvarez would, especially coming from a man who might someday supply him with grandbabies.

Of course, the whole issue of grandbabies was getting ahead of the game at this point. Still, in the cutthroat game of prodding up-till-now-commitment-phobic Christians of a certain age toward their own happily-ever-afters, you had to consider every possible outcome.

“She’s going to be serving on this committee,” I said, a bit distractedly. Thoughts of babies and matchmaking and suddenly realizing I might have gotten into something that I really had no business mixing into—church and family politics—had a way of doing that to me. “You’ll meet her any minute now. Along with lots of other people. I hope.”

He nodded. “It sounds like the perfect way for me to really get my feet wet in the community.”

“You go to that flea market, you
will
get your feet wet.” Jan plunked a coffee cake on the table, not sixteen inches from where we stood, then dropped her gaze to the minister’s shoes.

If she wanted to make a snarky remark about the effect of flea market mud puddles on his footwear, she kept it to herself. As she would. The woman was nothing if not focused, and today she had come with her sights set on just one thing. “That place is a pigsty and a menace and I say let’s set the wheels in motion to shut it down.”

“Hello, Jan.” I pulled out a chair, wearing what I suspect
Maxine might have called my “game face.” “Thank you for coming today. If you’ll have a seat, we’ll begin our meeting in a few minutes.”

“Fine.” She sat on the edge of the seat, leaning forward just enough that it seemed she might, at any moment, leap up and rush off. To where or to do what, I couldn’t imagine. “But I hope this doesn’t take up too much time. I left my husband at the physical therapist, and I have to pick him up in one hour.”

I glanced at the clock over the doorway. “Well, I’m sure we can—”

“One hour.” She plucked up a napkin, draped it over her nervously jiggling knee and began looking about the room.

Maxine appeared at her shoulder with a small white cup. “Some coffee?”

“Yes. I can see that.” Jan studied the dark liquid, but did not take it. Instead, she wet her lips, raised her head and spoke in the general direction of the door, saying, “Is this everyone you anticipate coming? Where are the rest? Ten people signed up to serve on this oversight committee.”

“Action council.” I skimmed off the wax paper covering the still-warm coffee cake Jan had brought and inhaled the damp aroma of buttery cinnamon and brown sugar. How a woman so transformed by unhappiness could produce such a confection, I just didn’t know. Good cooking, I had always believed, was an extension of the cook. It came from the heart. I couldn’t help but hope that this delicious offering meant there was still some sweetness left in the woman before me. I had to think that, or I suspect I’d have resigned my chairpersonship on the spot. “We’ve decided to call it an action council.”

“At least ten names, Mrs. Pepperdine.” Jan smacked the back of one hand into her open palm, making me feel as if she expected me to produce that list, and those people, on the spot.