The Big Bang (8 page)

Frank bowed his head and meditated on understanding.

“Happy Easter.” Tim Trautman made his way to the front of the line and extended his hand. “This is Theresa; our daughter, Lauren; and the boys, Timmy and Jacob.”

“Nice to meet you.” Frank shook with the wife and all three children. “How are you enjoying our Easter festivities?”

“Wonderful,” the wife said.

“We’re impressed with just about everything we’ve seen around here so far,” Tim said. “I’m anxious to get involved in the community.”

“So I’m told. I plan to hold you to that.” Frank smiled and turned to the Trautman kids. “You three ready to get involved in an Easter egg hunt?”

“Can we go in?” the bouncier of the two boys asked.

“Can I go, Dad?” The daughter looked longingly toward the teens clustered around Evangeline in the corner. “I’m already supposed to be helping.”

Frank patted the daughter’s shoulder. “Can you tell Evangeline to start handing out baskets and to make sure the big kids don’t hog everything when things get rolling.”

“Sure.” Their pretty, raven-haired daughter disappeared into the crowd.

“Can we go too?” the other boy asked.

“We probably should give him our check,” Theresa said. “The kids are anxious.”

The bathroom door squealed open.

Frank turned to watch Hope emerge and join her husband.

“Tim?” Theresa said to her husband, who also seemed distracted by the Jordans.

“Of course.” Tim reached into his suit coat without looking down.

With the Jordans in near handshaking distance, Frank found himself torn as to whether he should greet them before accepting the Trautman donation, or hold off until just after. He settled on a friendly, no-hard feelings wave while Tim fumbled for the check.

“I think we’re holding up the line, honey,” Theresa said.

Hope and Jim made their way over and stopped directly behind the Trautmans.

A folded slip of safety-blue paper appeared between Tim’s fingers. “Got it. A token of our commitment to our new community,” Tim said, loudly enough for Frank to anticipate a healthy number.

“Hope.” Leslie Pepper appeared beside the Jordans. “I have a friend you need to meet. She loved the furniture you picked out for our family room and patio and she wants to talk to you about doing some work in their master.”

Before Frank could either catch a glance at the check, or give an approving smile to Hope, she was being led away.

Trautman, who was holding his check and seemed about to hand it over, turned and instead placed it atop the collection pile.

Face up.

***

Eva Griffin leaned against the cool tile corner of the cafeteria and inhaled the last of her second donut before her dad spotted her and called her out for gluttony. The tangy jelly threatened to congeal in the back of her throat while she watched him shake people down for money. “I can’t believe the spell didn’t work.”

“My mom told me that your dad told her he was super sick and stuff.” Libby Estridge grabbed a chocolate egg from its hiding place on the windowsill, unwrapped the foil, and popped it in her mouth. “I say that counts for something.”

Her dad’s booming, fake-friendly laugh bounced across the room as he glad-handed Lauren Trautman’s parents and pushed them through the cafeteria doors so he could move on to his next victim.

“Not enough,” Eva said.

They all watched as Lauren, fully working it, with straightened hair, a killer black skirt, and ballet flats, appeared from behind her mountain of a mother and scanned the room.

“Her top totally rocks,” Hannah said.

“So does her skirt,” Margaret said. “It’s Abercrombie.”

Eva waved her over.

“Do you think Tyler was right about the new people not being ready or powerful enough or whatever?” Libby asked as Lauren started toward them.

“The book said all we needed were thirteen willing souls.” Eva shrugged. “We definitely had them.”

“Maybe it was a full moon problem,” Margaret said.

“The moon phase shouldn’t affect nuisance abatement spells.”

“Maybe we missed a chant or an ingredient or something?” Hannah asked.

Eva gave her the evil eye.

“Well it did rain.”

“Made it worse. Mom and I had to redo like everything for an indoor Easter egg hunt.”

Hannah took another candy from the kiddie stash. “Just saying…”

“Hey.” Lauren joined the group. “Your dad wants us to start handing out baskets to the little kids and stuff.”

Eva rolled her eyes.

“Eva’s bumming about the spell,” Hannah said.

“At the moment, I’m bumming more about dealing with all the booger-nosed monsters all hopped up on sugar.”

“Speaking of which, are you wearing Pink Sugar?” Margaret asked.

Lauren nodded and stuck out her wrist.

“Smells like strawberry candy on you.”

And popularity. With her shiny hair and sweet dimples, Lauren was so anti-witch, her presence alone should have been enough of a catalyst for the spell to work.

Across the room, while her poor mom slaved away selling raffle tickets and baked goods she made but wouldn’t eat, her father was practically drooling all over Hope Jordan and that smokin’ husband of hers.

“Tyler was right about one thing; the spell definitely didn’t go how it was supposed to.”

Lauren looked up and around the room. “Have you guys seen him yet, today?”

“Tyler?” Hannah asked.

“Like here?” Margaret asked.

Lauren’s cheeks seemed to color. “Since it’s Easter and all, I figured…”

“Reverend Griffin and Mr. Pierce-Cohn are full-on enemies,” Libby said.

“He’s also half-Jewish,” Eva said.

“My bad.” Lauren opened the napkin she was clutching in her palm and began to chow down on a chocolate bunny like she hadn’t eaten in a week.

Eva sighed and started toward an unmanned table full of Easter baskets. “My dad’s going to bite my head off if we don’t get to work.”

***

Frank shook hands with Jim Jordan, but looked past him at the collection plate.

He hadn’t imagined that extra zero on the Trautman check.

One Thousand and xx/100.

Despite the statement inherent in leaving a big check faceup for all to see, the sudden, exhilarating boost in funds made it that much easier for Frank to slip a friendly arm around Hope. “I think I may owe you an apology.”

Never mind that Pierce-Cohn owed her the bigger apology for being a desperate letch in the first place. Or that no matter what her current state of mind, the Jordans would one day thank him when they had children who spent countless hours enjoying blissful outdoor play in plain sight of home. And, if by some sad twist of The Lord’s plan, Hope was never blessed with the offspring she so wanted, the real estate appreciation, especially with a never-to-be obstructed view, would certainly ease the pain of a move to a loft in LoDo or some other trendy, more adult-oriented community. “About the playground going in across the street…”

It took everything he had to merely hand her a Kleenex and not wipe away the stray tear that drifted down her cheek as she looked up at him with her clear, blue, already contrite eyes.

Surely, her apology would follow.

“I want you to know I do understand the construction process may be stressful in the midst of your attempts to start a family. And, for that, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll be nice when it’s done.”

Jim, who seemed unmoved in one direction or the other, nodded.

“I prayed on this and I’ve been assured that, in the long run, you’ll enjoy all the benefits of having such a strategically placed playground across the street.”

Hope’s pretty face still seemed awash in pain.

He reached out, gently placed his hand atop her silk headband, and bowed his head. “Lord, help Hope to conceive a healthy baby. She asks for your intervention in everything she tries and has faith in you, for you said none shall be barren, may your will be done. Amen.”

Both Hope and Jim smiled.

“The Lord wants you to have what you want,” Frank said, anticipating the apology for her shortsightedness in signing P-C’s ill-fated petition that would soon follow.

She merely nodded in agreement.

L
aney reclined in her Jacuzzi tub, a library copy of
Bring It On
in hand, Celine Dion on the CD player, and her head on a lavender-scented aromatherapy pillow.

Happy thoughts or your favorite tunes can instantly transform your well-
being.

She added a capful of organic bubble bath to the water.

If you want to change your life, think positive!

She’d opened the book before bed. The idea of drawing happiness, good health, and abundance through positive thought hooked her on page one, and she couldn’t put it down. Instead of her usual irritation over being congested, overweight, short of cash, and relegated to mat Pilates at the rec center, she’d fallen asleep picturing herself with clear sinuses, taut and toned as Hope Jordan, and working out at the private studio on Parker Road. Her hot-yet-enlightened instructor, complete with washboard abs and tan legs, would flash his approving grin as she stretched across the Reformer machine. From there, who knew what exercises were in store?

For the first time in months, she awoke in the morning before her alarm. She went downstairs, fully expecting to find Steve slurping his coffee like he was in a hurry to go somewhere besides the recliner, and the girls foraging for their usual breakfast of a Red Bull and a PowerBar. Instead, they’d all left early: Steve probably for an early tee time he’d sleep off the rest of the day, and the girls for a makeup test or bring-your-grade-up extra-credit session.

Still…

She decided to show The Universe she meant business by substituting her morning toast for egg whites and heading to the gym for a workout during the 8
A.M.
time slot she planned to someday enjoy with Justin.

Or, maybe, his name would be Julian.

Start with something small, like willing a checker to open up the line for you on a busy day at the grocery store and see what happens.

Of course, Justin/Julian wouldn’t be small.

As she eased into her well-deserved, post-workout bubble bath, she turned the page to a chapter entitled, “Money! Money! Money!”

Half an hour later, filled with
gratitude
for what she already had and what would soon be hers, having
imagined
closings in the pipeline, checks in the mail for real estate and all her sideline businesses, and feeling truly
happy
, knowing that was the fastest way to bring in as much money as she could imagine, she put the book down and closed her eyes again.

“Bring it on.”

With a contented sigh, she refreshed her bath with more hot water, grabbed the remote, and flipped on the tub deck TV while she awaited her good fortune.

Martha Stewart’s face filled the screen.

An omen for business acumen and financial redemption if ever there
was one.

***

Maryellen Griffin loved Mondays.

She loved pulling into the lot of the Melody Mountain annex branch of the public library, walking past the Quiznos, veterinary clinic, and U-Frame-It that shared the L-shaped strip mall. She loved the sound of her key in the lock, the click of the lights, the colorful blip as she turned on the computers, and the overflowing return bin she needed to reshelf. She loved that budget cuts stipulated only one senior staffer for the first two, gloriously quiet, nearly patron-free hours at the start of the week.

Stowing her purse and a post-Easter brown bag lunch of celery sticks, grapefruit wedges, and half a chicken breast in the drawer beneath the circulation desk, she sat down and turned on the staff computer.

Maryellen especially loved the Monday after Easter. Another year would pass before the stress of organizing an egg hunt, shopping for a dress to complement Frank’s purple robe, or listening to his
the Lord wants you to have what you want if you give money
sermon she’d committed to memory six Easters ago when he was called to make the leap from full-time parishioner to part-time pastor. By scheduling herself for the opening shift, she’d not only miss this year’s rundown of each check amount and who from, but possibly the initial transition into Memorial Day planning mode. Best of all, she managed to slip out of bed, shower, dress, and get out of the house before Frank woke up and rubbed up against her for morning sex. He’d be more insistent, rougher, and certainly more vocal than usual tonight.…

Tell me how good I was yesterday.

Tell me how bad you want me.

Tell me you want it as much as they want me to build them a big church.

Tell me how big and hard I am.

Tell me
…

She sighed.

Even though she was alone, she did a quick scan of the tables and stacks filling the space once slated to be a Dress Barn. Satisfied no one was looking over her shoulder, she double-clicked on Internet Explorer and, like every Monday, typed in the website for the Denver Public Library. She clicked on
about the library
for the scroll-down menu and went to
jobs.

She liked the suburban public library system, and the convenience of living and working in the same neighborhood couldn’t be overestimated.

She closed her eyes.

But what if she didn’t live in the suburbs at all, but in a little bungalow on a shady tree-lined street in Congress Park or Sloan’s Lake?

Frank would never live in a bungalow, or anywhere as diverse as Sloan’s Lake.

She scanned the listings.

Shelver, Ross-Barnum Branch (20 hours)

Shelver, Hampden Branch Library (20 hours)

Education Program Assistant, Various Branch Libraries (40 hours)