War Room (6 page)

The receptionist was pretty and young and had a killer smile.

“Lindsay Thomas, how are you?” Tony said, turning on the charm.

“I’m fine,” Lindsay stammered. “Mr. . . .”

“Tony Jordan. We met a few months ago. I came to see Dr. Morris.”

“That’s right,” she said, blushing. “I can’t believe you remembered my name.”

“I like the name Lindsay, so it was easy.”

More white teeth showing. She picked up the phone. “Let me see if I can get him for you.”

Tony smiled and leaned a little closer, close enough to smell Lindsay’s perfume.

Elizabeth arrived at Twelve Stone Realty and finished the process of entering Clara’s house into the multiple listing service. She met with Mandy and Lisa, who were talking about the latest scuttlebutt in town
 
—the city manager who had taken charge of some dilapidated old homes and blighted areas in the city and turned things around.

“We need more leaders like C. W. Williams,” Mandy said. “I’d vote for that man for president.”

Elizabeth brought up Miss Clara’s property, showed them the comps in the area and the asking price she’d been working on, but their conversation quickly turned to more personal matters. This was what generally happened at work. One or more would start talking personal issues and they would be off down that road until a phone call interrupted one of them.

Mandy was a managing partner of the firm. She was always dressed well and prided herself in making Twelve Stone one of the top firms in the region. No detail escaped her on contracts, and she only hired those who passed her checklist.

Lisa was one of those
 
—she had been working at the firm two years before Elizabeth had signed on. She was younger than Mandy but cared for all the details that Mandy didn’t have time for. The three of them worked as a team, though they had their moments of disagreement.

Mandy scrolled through some listings on her laptop as Elizabeth steered them back to the Williams property. Lisa took notes and asked good questions.

“Is she motivated to sell?” Lisa said.

“I think she’ll sit tight for the right offer,” Elizabeth said. “She owns the house outright.”

“Where’s she moving?” Mandy said.

“In with her son. He evidently lives pretty close to her.”

Mandy glanced at Lisa and something passed between them. The two seemed to sense something was wrong with Elizabeth. Was it the look on her face? They’d asked when
Elizabeth walked in, and she’d said it had been a tough weekend at home but tried to leave it at that.

“Would you please just tell us what’s going on at home?” Mandy said. “Your face says you’ve been through a tragedy.”

Elizabeth sighed and spilled the story about Tony and their less-than-stellar conversations. Lisa sat a little closer to the edge of her chair and bore down on the truth that the main contention rested on the money Elizabeth wanted to give her sister.

“I knew it,” Lisa said. “It always comes back to money.”

“Oh, but it’s deeper than that,” Mandy said. “The money is a surface issue.”

“We’ve gone around and around over this,” Elizabeth said. “My sister and her husband have gone through a tough time and I think they deserve the help.”

“And what does Tony say?” Mandy said.

“He says Cynthia married a bum.”

“Is he a bum?” Lisa said. “Because there are bums out there.”

“Let’s not bring your personal life into this,” Mandy said to Lisa, smiling at the jab.

Lisa rolled her eyes and looked at Elizabeth. “So what did you do? You transferred the money to your sister’s account, right?”

“No, I took it from savings to checking. I was going to write her a check, but the way Tony reacted, I think I need to transfer it back.”

“And what are you supposed to do about your sister?” Mandy said.

Elizabeth sighed. “I don’t know what to do. Darren is having a hard time finding a job. But Tony has judged him as unfit. And he thinks it’s my sister’s fault. Can you even believe that?”

“Well, if my man said that to me, I’d be angry too,” Mandy said. “We don’t fight much anymore. After thirty-one years of stalemates, it just is not worth it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t put up with it,” Lisa said. “His money became your money the minute he said, ‘I do.’ So I’d give it to my sister anyway.” She paused. “I don’t even like my sister.”

Mandy looked up from her laptop. “Just be careful, Elizabeth. You do not want World War III to break out in your home.”

“No, I don’t. But there are days, Mandy. There are days. . . .”

Mandy gave her a sympathetic look.

Elizabeth didn’t have the heart to tell them about what had happened in church and the sick feeling she had about Tony’s ogling the young lady who passed them. She pushed the memory down and told herself it was just one time. One little slip. There was no pattern there. She should just move on. Stop thinking about it.

“It’s hard to submit to a man like that,” Elizabeth said.

“You know what my mama used to say to me?” Mandy
said. “She used to say that submission is sometimes learning to duck so God can hit your husband.”

Elizabeth laughed, but the pain was still there. “It’s tough being a woman.”

“You got that right,” Mandy said.

Elizabeth looked at her watch. “I need to pick up Danielle and her friend at the community center. You guys okay without me?”

“We’ll get along,” Mandy said. “The question is, what’s going to happen between you and Tony when he gets home?”

Lindsay let Tony through the door that led to Dr. Morris’s office. He thanked her and watched her walk away. She had called ahead to a nurse who met him and led him to the samples closet.

“You can just use the third shelf down,” she said when she unlocked the door. “Leave the door open and I’ll come back and get it later.”

He found the samples closet full, but there was a space in front where the literature and his business card could go. He pulled the Predizim boxes out of the case and placed them on the shelf. If he had left them in the case, it would have been easy to see there were bottles missing, but this way no one could tell. And what doctor was going to check whether they had been given six bottles or eight?

“You must be Mr. Jordan?” Dr. Morris said as Tony passed.

Tony smiled and shook the older man’s hand. He had gray hair and was balding.

“Dr. Morris, yes, I’m Tony Jordan. Brightwell Pharmaceuticals. We met last March.”

“I remember. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine. I saw your write-up on new stimulants and you showed interest in Predizim, so I just left you a case in the samples closet.”

Dr. Morris smiled. “Oh, fantastic. I appreciate that.”

“It’s no problem. You’ll easily find them. It’s the third shelf, blue caps. What I need you to do, though, is just sign this receipt to show that I left them with you.” He held out his digital device and the doctor signed the screen with a finger. “Now, Dr. Morris, if you need any more, you just let me know and I’d be glad to bring some over.”

“Thank you, Tony. We’ll try them out.”

Tony shook hands with the man and smiled. “Sounds good. We’ll see you again.” He turned to leave and said over his shoulder, “And I’ll be looking forward to that next article.”

The man laughed and thanked him, and Tony quickly walked to his car.

Tony pulled into a scenic overlook and took a picture with his phone. The view was amazing, the rolling mountains and trees coalescing in perfect symmetry with the low-hanging clouds. It looked like a postcard. He spent so
much time driving from point A to point B that he rarely stopped to actually appreciate the beauty of nature. He rarely slowed down, period.

The view made him feel small, the way you feel when comparing yourself to something vast like the ocean. Perhaps that was why artists came to places like this, to record themselves in comparison with that which can’t truly be captured on canvas or through a lens.

The pastor had talked about people’s lives being like a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow. And even though Tony was still young, there was a sense of the years passing by too quickly. Danielle had been a baby just last week, it seemed. Now she was ten. Tomorrow she’d be getting married.

When they married, he and Elizabeth had both been happy, starting out on a journey together and moving in the same direction. But somehow, the journey had brought them to a place where neither was happy and he felt like they were moving in separate directions, pulled apart at the seams. Wasn’t life supposed to be about happiness? Wasn’t life too short to argue all the time? It was clear that they were at odds about so much, not just the situation with Elizabeth’s sister. Elizabeth picked at him over such little things, things that hadn’t bothered her early on but now seemed so big to her.

He stared at his phone, then pulled out the business card Veronica Drake had given him. Seeing Lindsay at the medical center had reminded him how many fish there
were in the sea, so to speak. And while he wouldn’t cheat on his wife, just dipping his toe in the water felt good, exciting.

He looked out at the expanse before him. There was beauty in the world and he was missing it. If he didn’t take advantage of it, his window of opportunity would close. He dialed her number and heard it ring, then her voice mail answered. “This is Veronica Drake. Please leave a message.”

He put a smile in his voice as he spoke. “Veronica, this is Tony Jordan. We met a few days ago after I met with Mr. Barnes. Hey, listen, I’ll be coming through town next week and I was wondering if you could recommend a couple of nice restaurants. Feel free to call me back at this number. Take care.”

Tony ended the call and drove away, looking out at the beauty of the vista. In the distance, just pushing toward the range of mountains, were ominous, dark clouds.

As soon as Clara met Elizabeth Jordan,
she’d known this was the person God had brought. Elizabeth was beautiful, prim and proper, well-dressed, competent, and in control. She looked like she’d just stepped off the pages of
Success Journal
, if there was such a thing.

But Clara could sense Elizabeth was wearing a mask. It was nothing people could see on the surface, but something deeper.

God did not talk to Clara about people she met for the first time. In fact, people who played the “God told me” card annoyed her. She believed you got into trouble when God became your personal genie who wanted everything in
life to turn out the way
you
wanted it to and spoke to you every moment of the day.

She did believe, however, from the minute Elizabeth set foot in her house, that God had brought her for a reason. Clara didn’t know why or what was happening in her heart, her family, or her marriage. But she had enough faith to not have to know any of that.

Clara added Elizabeth’s name to a list on the wall of her closet and asked God to help her see what Elizabeth needed most. “Lord, help me say the right amount. Not too much, not too little. Draw her to Yourself through me, if that’s Your will. And make me a faithful witness for You because, Lord, You have been faithful to me.”

At the end of the prayer, Clara asked God to help her sell her house. She had almost forgotten that part. But she’d found that’s what God would do to her soul
 
—He would take the things that felt so big and show what was really important.

“O Lord, You know I have a big mouth. But You can use anything that’s surrendered to You.”

Life was best at the point of surrender. It was there that she saw God do His special work. And it was that surrender Clara hoped to see in Elizabeth.

That evening she called Clyde and they talked about the weather and Clyde’s work for the city and some big decision he had to make and what Sarah was into. At the end of the conversation she said, “Now what color carpet did you put into that garage apartment you made?”

“Carpet?” Clyde said. “Why in the world would you want to know what color
 
—?”

“Because I want to know if my curtains are going to clash with the color scheme.”

Clyde paused a moment. “Mama, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I don’t know what you think I’m saying, but there was a Realtor at the house this morning and I’m supposed to sign some papers tomorrow.”

Clyde cackled and called Sarah to the phone. “You have to tell her what you just told me. She’s not going to believe it unless it comes from you.”

It was the happiest Clara had heard her son in a long time. And that made her feel warm all over.