The Oldest Sin (28 page)

Grabbing her purse, she switched off the computer and headed for the door.

She had some serious reading to do!         ,

After dumping the cartons of take-out food on die counter, Sophie pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and sat down at the kitchen table. She removed the diary from her purse and began to read. Most of it was duff — easy to skim and dismiss. The real story didn’t seem to start until midterm, when Ginger was offered a new job on campus. And then, nothing stood out as particularly important until early March. This was the point where Sophie began to read critically.

Half an hour later Bram breezed in through the back door. “Lucy, honey, I’m home,” he crooned. He examined die small cartons briefly and then said, “Are we expecting company? You bought enough for an army.” When she didn’t respond, he walked over, bent down, and whispered in her ear, “Did you invite the Mertzes without consulting me first? If you did, you’ve got some serious ‘splaining to do.”

She patted the side of his face but kept on reading.

“What have you got there?”

“Ginger’s diary.”

“What!” He grabbed it out of her hand, examining the front cover. “Is this a joke?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“But —” He seemed at a loss for words. A rare occurrence in the Greenway-Baldric household. “When … How —”

She plucked it back. “Sit down,” she said, motioning him to a chair. “I’d read you what I’ve discovered so far.”

“Let’s go in the living room. I want to be comfortable when I hear this.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

“My, aren’t
we
in a pliant mood.”

“You could say that,” she said, brushing her lips against his as she got up.

Once ensconced on the couch, Bram put his feet up on die coffee table, leaned back, and clasped his hands behind his head. “Start with how you found it. I don’t want to miss a thing.”

Sophie briefly recounted the story.-When she was done, she paraphrased the first hundred or so pages. “The diary actually begins on the first day of class. We were ad staying in different dorms then — the same assignments we’d had for the previous year. The new assignments weren’t posted until a few weeks into the new term. That’s when we ad found out we’d been banished to Terrace Lane. Nothing of much significance happens until Ginger is offered a new job right around the end of November. I think this is important, so I’m going to read it to you verbatim.”

“Read away,” said Bram, closing his eyes. Sophie began:

Isaac Knox called me into his office this morning. I expected to be chewed out because I’d been tardy to class a couple of times, but instead, he offered me a secretarial job. Can you believe it? I’m going to be working for him! In the administration building. I’m so thrilled, I can hardly stop smiling, singing, praising God! This means a raise in my salary, too. And it means I won’t have to walk all die way down to the press building every morning. Isaac is incredibly kind — and handsome! I suppose I shouldn’t say something like that about one of the elders, but I can’t help it. I also can’t believe that out of all the coeds on campus, he chose me!

“She doesn’t say anything else about the new job until several weeks later,” said Sophie. “Oh, I should tell you that the only ministers who actually had offices in the administration building were Isaac Knox, Hugh Purdis, and Howell Purdis. All the other ministers had their offices in the annex about a block away. But, of course, they were in and out all die time.”

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to being around so many ministers. Sometimes I feel so nervous, I could just crawl in a hole. But then I tell myself, God must have put you here for a reason. Just smile and act natural. The act-natural part is hard when Howell Purdis walks by your desk I can hardly believe I’m that close to God’s apostle. Yesterday he stopped and asked if I liked my new job. All I could do was nod. He must not mind tongue-tied young women, because he smiled at me for a long time, even sat down and told me about some church area he was going to visit next month. He doesn’t like to fly. Can you believe it? God’s apostle doesn’t like to dy. I thought only people like me ever got scared, but I think that’s so human — so real. Isaac has been helping me with my shorthand. I’m getting better. He even suggested that I come by after hours to practice.

“A come-on if I’ve ever heard one,” snorted Bram. Sophie’d wondered the same thing. She flipped a few more pages. “Most of this next part is about moving into Terrace Lane. I didn’t realize it at the time, but from the first week, Ginger and Cindy were at odds. If it wasn’t how the desks should be arranged, it was how to handle die leftovers. I just figured they liked to argue, but it was more than that. It was a very real personality clash. I’d forgotten this, but Ginger mentions how often Cindy complained about the way the women in the Bible were treated. At the same time Cindy always had all these big ideas about her future. Unfortunately, in die church, she had very few career options. That was the basis of the huge fight she and Ginger had toward die end of the term.”

“I’m glad you brought that up,” said Bram, absentmindedly scratching his chest through his shirt “You alluded to their fight a couple of times before, but you never told me what it was about.”

“Well, to make a long story short, Cindy wanted to work in the letter-answering department. Because of the radio broadcast and the Bible correspondence course, the church got lots of questions from people ad over the country. The problem was, up until then, only men had answered letters. They weren’t actually doing the job of a minister, so they didn’t have to be a firstborn —”

Bram interrupted her. “You mean to be a minister in that church, you had to be a firstborn male?”

“Absolutely. In the Old Testament God used the Levites as priests. But after Christ came, we moved into the New Covenant Dispensation. Jesus was Mary’s firstborn son. Thus, he was firstborn of the flesh. And, he was God the Father’s firstborn son. So he was also the firstborn of the spirit He set the standard for the New Covenant We believed — as a matter of faith — that the disciples were also firstborn males.”

“You took it on faith?”

“It’s what Howell Purdis taught.”

“I see,” he said, continuing to scratch his chest. “And if he told you the world was flat, you would have believed that, too?”

“I hate to say it, but yes, I probably would have.”

“So, since Hugh Purdis was his firstborn child, he could be a minister.”

“Exactly. But women, even if they were firstborn, weren’t allowed to preach. There’s a scripture somewhere in one of the Epistles that says women aren’t allowed to speak in church. I don’t remember where it is anymore, but it was Cindy’s contention that it had nothing to do with answering letters. As long as she could prove she was qualified — that she had the requisite biblical understanding and the ability to write clearly — then she should be allowed to work there. As you might expect, since it had always been one of die men’s jobs, the pay was better. So she petitioned Hugh Purdis — he was in charge of the department at the time — to work answering letters. She made her case in a short position paper. The next week during assembly, Hugh announced that he was going to allow Cindy to take the same test as the men. If she passed, she could start work immediately. Well, of course, Cindy was thrilled, but the controversy it created spawned a minor firestorm. Everyone on campus was taking sides. Some thought Cindy should be allowed in, some thought it was nothing short of blasphemy.”

“So what happened?” asked Bram.

“Well, Cindy brushed up all weekend on church doctrines, and on Monday morning she took the test with the rest of the senior men.”

“And?”

“Three days later the results were announced. She’d failed.”

“That surprises me.”

“It surprised all of us, including Cindy. She was completely devastated. She couldn’t understand it, so she asked to see the test. It took a while, but she finally got it back When she did, she realized immediately that something was wrong. And the tests were typed, so there was no way to ted who’d altered it, but none of the responses were hers. She told Hugh Purdis what had happened, but since she had no proof, he wasn’t sure how to handle it. And then, when he suggested she take the test again, the men put up such a stink that he had to rescind die offer. They said it constituted ‘special privilege.’ “

“Bastards.”

“I agree.”

“But what’s this got to do with Ginger?” asked Bram.

“Several weeks before she died, she told Cindy the truth. She’d been the one who’d altered the test. Since she worked in the dean’s office at the administration building, she had easy access to it. She felt strongly that Cindy had no business trying to do a man’s job. If Hugh Purdis wasn’t going to be strong and deny her request, Ginger felt it was up to her to see that God’s will be done.”

“Nasty.”

“Everyone at Terrace Lane pretty much agreed with that assessment. We all thought it was horrible. Maybe, deep inside, Ginger came to feel the same way and that’s why she couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. At the time I guess I thought her admission was prompted by her failing health. She hadn’t been feeling wed and we all feared the worst. I figured she was trying to come clean, to make some sort of amends.”

“How did Cindy take it when she found out?”

“She was furious. She stormed around the apartment for days, even threatened Ginger physically a couple of times. Nobody believed she meant it, of course, but it was still pretty intense. Then, all of a sudden Cindy just shut down. At first she wouldn’t talk to anyone. Later she directed the ‘mute but smoldering act’ only toward Ginger.”

“You think it was an act?”

“No. She meant it all right. After she found out the truth, she took the story to Hugh Purdis. Unfortunately, by then, so many other senior women had come forward demanding to take the test, he’d called a halt to the whole thing. So, in effect, Ginger had won. And Cindy, I have no doubt, never forgave her.”

“Do you think Cindy had anything to do with Ginger’s death?”

“It never occurred to me, not even for a moment I knew there was a lot of bitterness between diem and that Cindy refused to be in the apartment while Ginger was dying. But later, after the college doctor came and pronounced her dead, it was all forgotten.”

“Why’s that?”

“There was no point.”

He turned his head and looked at her. “Meaning?”

“The church doctor established the official cause of death. We all saw it.”

“Hey, I thought you didn’t believe in doctors.”

“We didn’t but it was a legality. You had to have an infirmary and a doctor on staff if you were going to call yourself a college. I don’t know all the particulars, but that’s what I was told. Our doctor’s name was Harbaugh. He used to be a practicing GP before he joined the church. Howell Purdis hired him to look after sprains, minor injuries — that sort of thing. But he still kept his license. Every now and then he’d give someone a vaccination, but he’d barely scratch die skin. And then he’d rub a slice of lemon on it to suck anything out that might have penetrated. It was a joke.”

“So, can I assume this doctor was in Howell Purdis’s pocket?”

“I suppose a case could be made, although I’m not sure he would have lied for him.”

“And what did the good doctor say was the cause of death?”

“Ovarian cancer.”

“But if that’s true, Lavinia’s suspicions are groundless. Ginger died of cancer. End of story.”

“If,”
said Sophie. It was a big word.

Closing his eyes again, Bram said, “So continue with the diary.”

Sophie turned to the next page. “This is the first place that I felt the tenor of her writing had changed.”

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and wish I were prettier. I know that’s just female vanity. My body is the temple of the holy spirit, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t such a big temple. But I’m working on that. I’m going to fast every other day until I lose fifteen pounds.
And no more popcorn!
Then maybe — oh, don’t be so silly. Nobody’s ever going to look at you twice until you’re thin. Especially
him.

“I guess that lets your friend Bunny off the hook. It was a guy.”

“So it would seem,” said Sophie. She continued: We had lunch together today. Sort of a picnic. I don’t think he wanted us to be seen, so we got in his car and drove down by the arroyo. It was sunny and windy, and our paper plates blew away. I chased them until I fell on die ground laughing. He touched my face, told me he thought I was beautiful. What’s happening to me? I’m fat and ugly, and he says I’m just fine — that girls like me need to develop more confidence. He says he wants to help. He scares me, sometimes. He’s so powerful, so filled with the holy spirit. And yet he’s so gentle. I never think about our age difference. Sometimes I don’t know what’s happening to me. All I do is think about him. In class, at work, at dinner. Just listen to me. I’m acting like there’s something between us, which, of course, there isn’t. He was just trying to be encouraging. He likes me, but he called us friends. And that’s what we are. Just friends.