my kitchen. Soon. Maybe tonight. The last thing I need this Christmas is for my mother to come into my house and start throwing out little hints about me being messy or, worse yet, putting on an apron and starting to clean. The minute she walks into my house and starts picking up things, or pulls my vacuum out of the closet, I feel like I’m nine years old again.
I leaned against the counter, tapping my foot while Abigail opened a kitchen drawer and looked through a blue-flowered file folder for my card.
“It’s not here,” she said, frowning. “Hilda must have moved it. I’ve told her a million times … Never mind. I’m sure it’s on my desk.” She walked to the hallway.
“Abigail, it’s all right. Really. Why not wait and give it to me later?”
“No. It’s a birthday card and I want to give it to you on your birthday. Come on.”
I followed her down the hallway and into the dark living room, completely unsuspecting until Abigail turned on a table lamp and everyone I know and care about in New Bern—Evelyn, Charlie, Garrett, Franklin, Ivy, Virginia, Tessa and Lee, Madelyn and Jake, Dana, Wendy Perkins—jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!”
I stood frozen, utterly shocked. Evelyn came over to give me a hug. “Don’t be mad. I told you that we weren’t planning on giving you a surprise party at the shop. You didn’t say anything about a party off-site.” She laughed and everyone joined in.
My plan for celebrating this birthday was not to. But when I saw my friends popping up from behind the furniture like jacks-in-the-box, complete with silly grins and funny paper hats, I reconsidered.
After the shouts and the hugs, the kisses and congratulations, Evelyn and Madelyn brought out a beautiful cake, shaped like a bed and draped with a fondant icing quilt in pink, green, and white patchwork squares with four tall pink and white twisted candles, like four carved bedposts on each corner of the cake.
“Oh my!” I exclaimed, leaning over and gently poking the fondant with my finger to confirm that it truly was a cake. It looked so real, like a quilt on a doll’s bed. “Who thought this up?”
Virginia, who, in her eighties, is more on the ball than most women half her age, waved her hand over her head. “Guilty!” she called out. “Though it wasn’t exactly my idea. I saw something similar on the Internet.” That’s what I mean about Virginia; though her specialty is meticulously and exquisitely handmade quilts using heritage techniques, she is always willing to try new things. Virginia has more Facebook friends than I do.
“And Madelyn baked it,” Tessa added, beaming as proudly over her best friend’s accomplishment as if it had been her own. “Isn’t it amazing? You know, if Madelyn hadn’t decided to become an innkeeper, she could have made her living as a baker.”
I looked up at Madelyn, who was shooting a look at Tessa. When Madelyn, widow of an infamous Wall Street financier, was living a glamorous life in New York, the paparazzi followed her everywhere. But now I’ve noticed that she doesn’t really like being the center of attention.
“It’s beautiful, Madelyn. Too beautiful to eat.”
“It better not be!” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I spent all morning baking it. Go on, Margot. Blow out the candles before the bedposts burn down.”
“Yeah,” Garrett, Evelyn’s son and the Cobbled Court Quilt Shop’s official “web dude,” agreed. “Get on with it, Margot. I’m starving!”
I leaned over and pursed my lips, ready to blow, but was stopped by Ivy, who cried, “Wait a minute! Don’t forget to make a wish.”
I paused for a moment, wondering what to wish for. It seemed I already had so much. But then I remembered what Abigail had said about Reverend Clarkson in the car and what I’d said back: “You can never have too many friends.”
Closing my eyes, I made a silent wish about myself and friendship and Reverend Clarkson. When I was done, I leaned down again and blew out all four candles in one breath, never supposing anything would come of it.
6
Philippa Clarkson
I have to go to the bathroom. I really, really do.
If Tim were here, he’d give me a hard time for not remembering to go before I left. But why would I? It was always his job to remind me. Well, not his job exactly, but he always did remind me and I came to depend on him for that. And so many other things. Funny the things I miss about him, even now. Funny to think I’d ever miss being teased for having a bladder the size of a thimble.
I could have gone when I stopped for gas near Sturbridge, but the line to get into the ladies’ room ran out the door. Why can’t people who design buildings figure out that women need twice as many toilets as men? It’s all a matter of clothing complications and personal plumbing. Don’t architects take anatomy in college? Anyway, I didn’t stand in line and wait because I was afraid I’d be late to meet this person … what was her name?
I’d written it down on a scrap of paper and stuck it in my coat pocket before I left, but repeated groping through my pockets unearthed only an ATM receipt, a business card for my gynecologist, a used tissue, and three cherry-menthol cough drops. I have a cold.
I have to go to the bathroom and I have a cold and, for the life of me, I can’t recall the name of the very first person I’ll meet from my very first congregation. This does not bode well. Why can’t I remember? I’m usually so good with names.
I’m nervous, that’s why. Who wouldn’t be? Getting your first pulpit is as good a reason as any for a case of nerves, especially under these circumstances.
What is that woman’s name? I know it starts with an “M.” Mary? Marion? Margaret? That’s it. Margaret. I think it was Margaret … or something like that. No, it was Margaret. Definitely. This is no time to start second-guessing myself.
But it’s hard not to. I’ve been waiting for a church of my own for so long. And I don’t just mean the months since I finished seminary, months spent living at my parents’ house while meeting with and being rejected by various pastoral search committees. I’ve been waiting for this moment, or rather been drawn to it, for most of my adult life.
The calling to ministry is exactly that, a calling, a thing you respond to not because you want to but because you have to. That’s how it was for me. When I was little, people always used to pat me on the head and say, “So, are you going to be a minister like your dad when you grow up? Are you going into the family business?”
I never came right out and said, “No way!”—pastors’ kids tend to learn the art of diplomacy at an early age—but that’s what I was thinking. I knew exactly what responding to the call to ministry entailed. As a child, I wanted nothing to do with it.
What I did want was money in the bank, a nice car, bright red with a convertible top with an enormous dog who would sit in the backseat, marriage and a family, at least two kids and preferably three, a big home with one bathroom for every bedroom plus one more for show, and my name on the deed. No more parsonages for me.
Everything started off according to plan. I received a scholarship to James Madison University, beginning in the business school because I figured that was the surest path to getting a balanced checkbook and the deed to a house, hating it, transferring to marketing, then communications before making peace with my inclination to the helping professions and landing in the department of social work.
So I wouldn’t have a big bankbook or a big house, but at least I’d have a paycheck, chart my own course, and be doing something meaningful. At least I’d avoided the religion department. That had to count for something, right?
Wrong.
I liked social work, but something was missing. I tried changing jobs. If working with seniors wasn’t filling my cup, then maybe helping hospital patients would, or working with kids. Each job was satisfying in its own way, but it wasn’t enough. The