The Deweyville Church Secretary, Devil's Basement

By Johnnie McDonald

Speeding down the highway of life becomes more than a metaphor when Jackie McGrath is arrested after twice breaking the speed limit on her way from her job as the secretary for the First United Methodist Church of Deweyville to the Gone Native Casino. Watching her new convertible being hauled off to impound while she is handcuffed and hauled off to jail is about to put her over the insanity limit and into a full blown asthma attack. What else can possibly go wrong for a woman who once played tennis with the country club set? Plenty. For starters, she has two ex-husbands and the third soon-to-be-ex, the two-timing boy toy, is bleeding her dry. Her house is in jeopardy of being taken by the bank; her teenage son has decided to attend the Religion Within Reach church where Gospel Bob has invented a new religion; one of her four jobs requires her to sit with the recently deceased; and she’s having nocturnal fantasies about the very married chief of police.

The church should be Jackie’s sanctuary, a place of rectitude and harmony where her job is to write the newsletter and type sermons on tolerance, but one calamity after another puts her in the middle of the biggest scandals in Deweyville. First, the elderly organist, who might have been a bank robber, has a coronary while playing for a wedding. Jackie’s flamboyant best friend Gerié is fired for coming out of the closet, and she endeavors to help him get his job back as the church organist. Then there’s the matter of sin, a lot of sin. Her pastor might be having an affair, and a teenaged parishioner is claiming the choir director fathered her baby.

If keeping the flock of crazy characters in line isn’t enough, the boiler blows up in the church basement, and a body is discovered in the wreckage. Not only is the chief of police hanging around the church while investigating the crimes, he’s making Jackie feel guilty about her impure thoughts. And the new boiler man, Rusty, is giving her the jitters. Unlike her ex-husbands, Rusty is a real man, one of those tight-lipped guys with a tool belt, a lot of common sense, and a disappearing act.

Our heroine is attacked by one of the church’s most reputable citizens when she discovers him searching for the bank money in the basement. Finally, Jackie must deal with the newest in a long secession of ineffective pastors. The latest one has a little OCD going on, and wants to fire her because he believes she has too much influence on an eccentric congregation he doesn’t know how to handle.

All Jackie wants to do is sleep, play a little Texas Hold’em with her casino money, and land the starring role in the latest little theatre performance. Falling for the boiler man is not on her complicated To Do List, but when he offers to help relieve her stress the old fashioned way, she can hardly resist.

“Devil’s Basement” is the first in this hen lit series about “The Deweyville Church Secretary.” Slightly irreverent, a tiny bit naughty, it's totally fun and funny. If one were to dig around, one might find some similarities to a real live person in a very real town, but Jackie and Deweyville are fictional—fictional and fun. D’ville is written by the Carroll sisters from Oklahoma, Frankie and Johnnie, definitely not fictional characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johnnie McDonald
• Release date: Jun 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301248919

Johnnie McDonald

"The first child will be called John and the second one will be named Frank." Mr. Carroll was true to his words, even though two daughters were the outcome. Mrs. Carroll added some ie's to the names and tacked on ugly middle names (which they will not divulge) and the Carroll sisters proceeded to grow up hearing the old song: "Frankie and Johnny" sung everywhere they went in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the beginning, Frankie and Johnnie were embarrassed by their boy names, but when teenage years rolled around, their monikers gained them a lot of attention. Frankie hopped into Johnnie's Studebaker and they cruised Boot's Drive-in, where the sister team attracted boys with their bell-bottoms, wit and names. Frankie Carroll and Johnnie Carroll McDonald have teamed up again to write a series of hen lit novels. And what qualifies them to be authors? Johnnie, somewhat buttoned up and motivated, heeded their mother's advice to be all that she could be, earned an MBA and honed a successful career as a human resources administrator. Frankie, emulating their gregarious father, took a different path. While also establishing a career, she acted in and directed little theater, and played a little poker on the side. Extensive life drama, travel, and motherhood were thrown in the mix to enrich their creative imaginations. Frankie resides in Tulsa where she works in the health career industry. Johnnie sits lonely at the computer in the foreign land of New Jersey, where she puts on the paper the crazy plots she and her sister cook up.

Book preview

THE DEWEYVILLE CHURCH SECRETARY,

DEVIL’S BASEMENT

By

FRANKIE CARROLL

AND JOHNNIE MCDONALD

Copyright 2013 Frankie Carroll and Johnnie McDonald

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

READ THIS. IT’S IMPORTANT

FOR BUD CARROLL

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

WHAT’S NEXT FOR JACKIE?

READ THIS. IT’S IMPORTANT

Frankie and Johnnie want you to know that Jackie McGrath is not a real person. Jackie’s friends, family, and church congregation, as well as the zany characters created in this book are products of their warped imagination. The town of Deweyville does not exist, except perhaps in a parallel universe. The Gone Native Casino, the Deweyville Delight, Religion Within Reach, and other fictional places mentioned were invented for your reading pleasure. Any resemblance to persons living, about to live, living no longer or the undead, is purely coincidental. Get over it.

FOR BUD CARROLL

We can still see him: a cigarette dangling from his lips, smoke curling up into his blue eyes, cards clutched to his chest, a cuss word on the tip of his tongue. Sitting at the kitchen table, the loser of the game of Spades soon to be sweating over the dinner dishes, Bud dispensed jokes and humorous anecdotes to his daughters.

He made us laugh, he made us dream.

Thank you, Daddy.

PROLOGUE

Let’s consider our moral compass shall we? You’ve got your sex in the city, desperate housewives in the suburbs, blow jobs in the oval office, and digit dexterous sexting teenagers everywhere. And how are these sins of the flesh being dealt with in the good ole Bible belt? Our Christian leaders are urging us to carry the torch across the land for a return to decency, to set an example to others that virtue and morality are God’s standards and should be upheld even when humankind is going to hell carrying a knock-off Prada bag.

I am a resident of one of these devout hamlets, a town of approximately 45,000 population with eighty churches located somewhere on the Great Plains where wheat and oil, cattle and corn, generate the livelihood of the state in which it is situated. It is a town I have dubbed Deweyville, as I wish it to remain incognito out of kindness to and protection of its inhabitants.

Along with the edicts of the Ten Commandments and the teachings of the Old Testament, Just Say No to temptation is the common theme the various church groups in our community agree is the answer to all the devil’s temptations. Now, I am possibly the least prudish and the most liberal of the members of the First United Methodist Church of Deweyville, and I don’t perceive our minister’s call for proselytization to be a paradox. Rather, I acknowledge the frailty of the human condition, the weakness found in all men, and I have concluded his sins to be relatively harmless in the scope and context of more severe transgressions. For I am aware of the failure to Say No, not only of our good reverend, the minister who summons sinners to repent their evil ways from his altar high above the seated minions, but also of the failure of the woman who sits in pew six, the couple who sit in pew fourteen, and the family man who sits dead center in pew one of our supposed hallowed sanctuary. As I glance down at the choir resting behind the minister, their royal blue robes and white collars making a fashion statement for the righteous, I recognize at least three backsliders who are nodding in the affirmative each time the minister makes a fervent plea to Say No. I am familiar with these abundant failures of the spirit and the body, these sins perpetrated by the errant flock, because I am an employee of the First United Methodist Church of Deweyville—I hear, I see, I am told all. I am: The Church Secretary.

CHAPTER ONE

Sean, what’s going on down there?

I dunno, Mom. I keep giving her the signal to start the processional, but she ain’t paying attention.

Oh, sh—Shechem. The bridesmaids are ready for their cue. That old bat’s probably forgotten which version of Mozart she’s supposed to play. I blew out an exasperated breath and swiped at the moisture pooling between my breasts. Listen. Tiptoe over to the organ and help her get back on track. Just give her a little nudge.

She’ll get mad at me, Mom. The last time I reminded her it was time to start, she slammed the lid on my fingers.

Mrs. Pack is always mad about something and I’m sick of her theatrics. We’ve got eight fidgety girls lined up in the foyer and pretty soon they’re gonna start sweating through their ugly fuchsia dresses. Rings under young ladies’ armpits will not be attractive. Whom am I calling young ladies? Not a lady in the bunch. They’ll be drunk as harlots and screwing the groomsmen before the night is over.

Awright. I’m going. Jeez. Sean put his walkie-talkie in his back pocket, and the added weight pulled his low-riding jeans close to a Calvin reveal. His tennis shoes squished when he sneaked from his appointed position behind the partially open door at the front of the church to the organ. With his fifteen-year-old shoulders hunched and his eyes boring a hole in the floor, invisibility was what he was aiming for—it wasn’t working. From my vantage point in the balcony, I could see the heads of the wedding guests pivot toward the organ. Sean tapped the seventy-four-year-old woman on her skinny shoulder. She didn’t respond. Sean leaned over and I assumed what he might be whispering in her ear, Mrs. Pack. Mrs. Pack, it’s time to play ‘Andante.’ She didn’t budge. He poked at her a little harder and her head, with its tightly permed and dyed-red hair, tilted slightly to the left. Her bony hands were poised over the keys, but they made no effort to commence depressing them. Sean looked up at me and pulled out his walkie-talkie. Mom, I think Mrs. Pack farted. Maybe she’s in shock outta embarrassment.

The creepy-crawly sensation of prickly heat spread across my arms, up my torso, and onto my face. I stuck a wad of Kleenex between my damp boobs and tried to keep my voice from raising an octave when I told my son what to do. Put your hand under her nose, Sean. See if you can feel her breathe.

Ugh. Okay. There was a slight pause. Don’t feel nuthin’.

Seba and Shem. Lean in and put your hand on her chest and….

What? You want me to cop a feel of old lady Pack’s boobs? Mom! That’s gross.

Her breasts aren’t on her chest anymore, Sean. Just do it and then feel for a pulse in her neck.

Mrs. Pack had finished playing Handel’s Air for more than five minutes and the guests were clearly getting antsy for the ceremony to begin, squirming in their seats and talking to one another behind cupped hands. Mom, Sean hissed, old lady Pack’s stiff as a board. I think she’s dead and I’m gonna barf.

No, no, don’t throw up and don’t let her fall over. I’ll be right down. Sephar, Sidon, and Shechem. If Mrs. Cunningham comes out of the changing room and transforms, I’ll blow a gasket. Stay calm, Jackie, just stay calm. You can handle this. When I say I glide, it’s a part-run/part-shuffle, an attempt to appear businesslike and unhurried when I am on a mission of life or death—in the world of wedding ceremonies any little hitch is a life or death ordeal. I threw myself down the stairs leading from the balcony and then I glided on my five-foot-three frame, a frame not quite as slender as it used to be, up the side aisle and to the front where Rev. Dr. Lawrence T. Carmichael, the groom, and the groomsmen were waiting with inquisitive scowls. I took the minister by the elbow and led him away from the flower-covered altar to where Sean was trying his best to minimize his body. After I advised Carmichael the ceremony would require some stalling because the organist was no longer capable of playing, he asked, Why not? to which I responded, It is my firm belief she is…well…her time on earth has expired. He sniffed the tainted air and immediately returned to the pulpit to inform the crowd there was a problem with the sound system. I heard him saying, Did you hear the one about the Baptist minister, the rabbi, and the priest?

While gliding my way down the side aisle on my way to the narthex where Maddie Cunningham and her mother, Madge Cunningham, were waiting for their cue, I was also on my cell phone punching in a number I knew by heart. When the intended party answered with a "Bonjour, I wasted no time with pleasantries. Get to the church as fast as your Cooper can fly, Gerié. It’s the Cunningham Monster Truck Rally, and the wheels have flown off. It’s an emergency of the utmost. I need you to play the Mozart ensemble."

I’m fired and banned, Jackie, an indignant voice responded. Or don’t you remember?

Doesn’t matter. Your talents are needed and there’s no time to haggle. What are you wearing?

"Tut-tut. If it’s an emergency, you shouldn’t worry about what I’m wearing, now should you? I’ll be there in less than ten. Au revoir, mon ami."

After summoning Gerié, I glided into the pressure cooker with its thick stew of hyper-hormones and grand yet unattainable expectations, a dangerous mix that could blow the lid to kingdom come with even the slightest of mishaps. My face at this point was beet red, and the wad of Kleenex between my ample breasts was saturated, but I kept my voice steady as I relayed to Mrs. Cunningham and her daughter, the soon-to-be Mrs. Morris K. Byron IV, the organist had taken ill and a replacement was on the way. The entire ceremony would be delayed by only minutes. I talked fast, left no time for comment or question, and eased the door closed. In my overactive imagination, I was positive a transformation might be taking place behind the door—the bride, looking like a sleek, white convertible, was in danger of mutating into a black, fire-breathing beast threatening to spew its blistering breath and break down the door. The mother of the bride, resembling a red Hummer, was already beginning to rumble. It wouldn’t take much for her to morph into a behemoth with earth-pulverizing wheels, willing and able to mow down everything in her path. I knew I had to keep this wedding from turning into a rally or the monster transformers would become uncontrollable.

Bless their pea-brained little minds, without tying them together with rope, I worried the fidgety bridesmaids might wander off. I ordered them to stop their giggling and to stay put. I haven’t been able to figure out what has happened to the female gender since the sexual revolution. I burned my bra in the seventies, but these twenty-something ninnies seem to have fried their brains and scorched their morals with a curling iron. And from what I’ve heard, the Cunninghams’ seventeen-year-old daughter, Julie, also in the wedding party, has quite a locker-room reputation—but that’s just what I’ve heard.

I checked on the state of affairs: Sean was standing vigil beside the possibly comatose, most probably dead organist; Dr. Carmichael was doing his impression of a stand-up comedian playing for a room full of Republican conventioneers; and the bridesmaids were playing with their hair, adjusting their faux silk dresses to create more cleavage, and thumbing messages on the cell phones they weren’t supposed to possess. I glanced out the window and saw a chartreuse green MINI Cooper come barreling to a stop in a whirl of gravel dust. Its occupant was out of the car and running, or should I say sashaying, toward the rear entrance of the church. He moved so quickly the image was a blur, but I recognized the hot-pink scarf billowing out behind him, the pink slacks and white belt, the sockless loafers, and the highlighted hair. Gerome, or as his close friends call him, Gerié, was on a mission to save the day and regain his position as the church organist.

I continued my glide to the front of the church and toward the organ. I smelled Mrs. Pack before I reached her, and I was positive death had come at its appointed time, although not an opportune one for wedding choreographers. You see, that’s what I am: a wedding choreographer, sort of the Bob Fosse of Deweyville. My job is to make sure the mother of the bride doesn’t have a reason to put out a contract for a hit on me because the execution of events wasn’t flawless. I don’t plan the event, I just ensure the ceremony runs smoothly, and I videotape it for posterity. And to keep my sanity, I pretend these ceremonies are something other than an exercise in vanity.

I eyeballed Sean, who was appearing alternately pale and green. I kept my voice as low as possible when I told my son we were going to move Mrs. Pack, bench and all. I’m going to push the bench while you pull, Sean. We’ll scoot her through the door into the sacristy.

His eyes bulged and he gagged. I’m gonna hurl, Mom.

No hurling. Do you understand? You can hurl once we get her out of here. Wait. I put my hands over Mrs. Pack’s in an effort to remove them from the organ keys. Her hands were already cold, stiff, and curled, and her elbows were permanently bent. Oh, sh—Shela! I muttered when I realized we would first have to pry her hands from the organ, or they would end up dragging across the keys, playing an impromptu scale. I scooted the bench out about a foot without too much trouble. Okay, Sean, pull. I pushed, Sean pulled. The legs of the four-legged bench scraped and screeched across the wooden floor, and the woman’s legs and feet angled behind her. Mrs. Pack wobbled right against Sean’s shoulder. He gagged. Mrs. Pack wobbled left against my shoulder. I gagged and used my head to scooch her back to the middle. Sean, her feet are dragging on the floor. Try to pick up the bench a little. We grunted as we hefted her frail body and the bench off the floor, and Mrs. Pack did a pretty good job cooperating with our attempts to remove her from the scene. With only a slight sway, she remained upright, her hands still positioned and reaching for the keys she had so loved to hammer. As soon as we had the bench and its occupant behind the door, Sean left to do his hurling in the bathroom.

Gerié was awaiting my signal, and when I gave him the nod, he pitched his pink scarf, grabbed another bench, and hurried to the organ, where he immediately began playing Mozart. Carmichael delivered the punch line to his comedy routine and I gave the go-ahead for the ditzy bridesmaids to start their strut. I needed to return to the balcony to my job as videographer to the local celebrities, but I was no longer gliding. I clumped up the stairs with a lot of huffing and puffing to find the camera still running: a video of Mrs. Pack’s last hurrah was recorded for future viewing.

While Maddie Cunningham was promising to obey Morris Byron IV in front of one hundred and fifty friends and relatives, an ambulance was summoned and advised to come forthwith without sirens. Geneva Pack was still sitting on her bench when the paramedics pronounced her DOA, lifted her, bench and all, into the ambulance and drove out of the parking lot to the Deweyville General Medical Center.

* * *

My job as filmographer of wedding marvels was done for the evening, and all I wanted to do was put my feet up in front of the tube, watch a little tennis, and zone out. Sean was in his room doing what teenagers do, which meant I didn’t have a clue whom he was chatting with online or texting on his cell; I was too tired to spy or nag. Rambo was on my lap and Rocky was at my feet, both of them smelling up the place like dogs enjoy doing. Lately, I haven’t minded dog hair on the rug or muddy paw prints on the kitchen floor, or even the occasional drinking out of the toilet bowl when Sean leaves the lid up. Body heat from furry canines is better than no heat at all, and their sloppy kisses and wagging hind ends remind me something appreciates me at the end of the day—it’s definitely more action than I was getting from my last husband.

Rambo is a cute little ball of fluff, one of those adorable Scottish terriers who loves to be cuddled, and despite his size he is the alpha male who tries his best to keep Rocky in line. Rocky, a handsome 115-pound husky with piercing blue eyes rimmed in black, is a demented specimen of the breed. He skulks and sneaks, steals food, and when left unattended, howls in a high-pitched noise that disrupts the neighborhood. The wolf gene in my husky is dominant—the inbred need to run unfettered makes him go ape wild if he happens to escape the confines of the fence in search of whatever fantasy lies on the other side. The last time he got loose, Rocky was on his way to the next county, running as if he were on the open tundra, his tongue hanging out, while I chased him with the leash, substitute-swearing at him with Old Testament begetting names. If I switched the names, Robbie for Rocky, the descriptions would be virtually identical, except Robbie weighed more and instead of stealing food, he stole my money. Robbie was my third husband, and he managed to hurtle the marital fence on more than one occasion in his hunt for a younger, skinnier version of me with blonde hair and a big chest. In retrospect, an invisible fence with the resultant electrical shock for sniffing too close to the edge might have worked on both my husband and my dog.

My coworkers haven’t gotten used to calling me Jackie McGrath yet. I decided taking back my maiden name was a prudent choice given the number of AKAs on my list of other names you are known by requested by the IRS, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and Dillard’s Department Store. I was recently in a local watering hole with some of my friends when a man asked to buy me a drink. I’d been married for five years to Robbie and the attention was flattering. As soon as we exchanged names, the name list became capital letters in my head. My would-be suitor’s last name was Long, a common name, but the ramifications were calamitous. You see, my first husband was Leon Peter, my second husband was Martin Wood, and my third husband was Robbie Dick. Gerié loves to tease me about my names: Jackie Peter–Wood–Dick. I definitely cannot add Long to the list or any names such as Small or Little or Johnson or Cox. Yeah, taking back my maiden name is a good idea; even my mother, who has a longer list of aliases than I do, approves of the idea. Besides, my graduating class of nineteen…(oops, almost gave it away) will be able to find me easily for our next reunion. Not that I would be difficult to track down. I’ve never lived out of the state, never done much traveling, just moved down the road a ways from my hometown to Deweyville, where I have lived and worked for over twenty years.

My primary job is that of secretary for the First United Methodist Church of Deweyville, and as such, I have a variety of duties ranging from keeping the coffeepot filled and toilet paper on the roll to scheduling meetings. Using desktop publishing software, I compose the church newsletter Sowing Seeds, which I privately refer to as Mowing Weeds, then print, fold, and mail. I make event announcements sound exciting so members will attend them. I write obituaries and birth announcements, birthday and anniversary congratulations, engagement and wedding news. For the myopically challenged, I create a screen presentation for Sunday-morning services so the congregation is able to read the words to the hymns or the excerpts from God’s Word on a giant television screen—no hymnals or Bibles necessary. If an occasion requires a bulletin, I prepare it; if an event needs a photographer, I take pictures; when the minister writes a sermon, I type it. In fact, I take my computer home with me on many nights and plug away while watching golf and tennis tournaments with the dogs hovering over me, their dribble splattering onto the laptop. For the many hours spent at the church and working at home, I am paid a modest salary.

I recognize the voice of every person who telephones the church, including the mayor, because I also serve as the church receptionist. As the portal through which our members seek spiritual guidance, I have become the person everyone trusts with their news, their gossip, their complaints, and their unsolicited suggestions. Our church has a large, fairly affluent congregation with several members whose ancestors founded the town, whose grandparents helped build the church, and whose husbands or grandchildren, as the case may be, run the banks, the major businesses, or are the nouveau elite—that would be the doctors and the lawyers and the occasional state congressman. This ruling class of the church tends to feel a certain entitlement and can get a little pushy. The Deweys, Byrons, and the Cunninghams are cases in point and complicate my life on a regular basis.

The triumvirate is another example of perpetual harassment and a reason for my daily exhaustion. I refer to Bill Barton, Walt Owens, and Warren Muskey as the unholy threesome, and I do so because of their puritanical attitudes and their personal interpretations of the Book of Discipline which governs the manner in which United Methodist churches operate. As the eldest, most influential members of our staff parish committee, they determine practically every decision and expenditure affecting our local activities. If I could just write my articles without all their constant interruptions, I think I would be more content, but I suppose the drama is part of the territory. You see, in small towns the hospitals, the high schools, and the churches are where lives transpire and conspire, and I usually find myself right smack dab in the middle of the evolution of hometown trials and tribulations. If my job description were updated it would include: counselor, confident, peacemaker, negotiator, matchmaker, and fixer.

Without additional remuneration, I tape every Sunday morning and evening service, and I operate the audio/visual equipment that makes Dr. Carmichael, or the Rev, as I have dubbed him, a local personality. Our pastor is a tall, good looking fellow, broad shouldered with thick, brown hair and hazel eyes, perfect features for achieving celebrity status. When the overhead lights bathe his wavy locks, he comes to life in living color on both sides of the sanctuary. Towering above the congregation on the giant twelve-foot by twelve-foot screens, every back-row worshipper can gaze into his hazel eyes, or observe the pores of his skin and the sheen of sweat on his upper lip when his sermon fails to obtain the wished-for response. I have learned not to pan to the choir, especially to Mr. Reams, who picks his nose, or to Mrs. Garten, a sloppy woman with a mustache. Because I don’t make a lot of money for the above-mentioned functions, no overtime pay, no hazardous duty stipend, no stress-related bonus, I have taken on additional employment in the last couple of years. The wedding choreographer and videographer are jobs I perform upon request and for which I am paid extra.

After Sunday-morning services, I hurry home to take a catnap and then return for evening services and to my third paid job as the babysitter in the newborn nursery. A few weeks ago, Mrs. Gruene, one of our members, brought her grandbaby into the nursery, and we started talking about the many hats I wear because of the extra cash, and she asked me if I wanted another job. Mr. and Mrs. Gruene own the Deweyville Funeral Home, and she told me they needed someone to be an on-call evening sitter for the departed. I said I would think about it and did. There were a couple of cons on one side of my list, such as the ick factor, but the pro’s outnumbered the negatives: (1) I could take my computer and do church work; (2) it would be quiet except for the occasional hysterical crying or fainting; (3) the departed would make no complaints or demands like the church members or have diaper blow-outs like the babies in the nursery; and (4) I might make enough extra money to keep from filing bankruptcy or losing my house. I took the job although I thought watcher of the dead was a more fitting job title than sitter.

On Monday night I will sit with Mrs. Pack while visitors get one last look at a woman no one in town could stand because of her bitchiness and bossiness. I assume it will be a quiet night, no melodramatic tears or hanging onto the casket, and I can write her obituary for Mowing Weeds while I’m watching, a bit of a twofer. According to Mrs. Gruene, when the well-wishers arrive, my job will be to greet them, escort them to the showing room, offer them refreshment and a seat. I am to ensure plenty of Kleenex is on hand. The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday, and Dr. Carmichael will say a few words to a handful of the faithful, and then Mrs. Pack will be taken to the Deweyville Memorial Cemetery for internment. I doubt anyone will brave the heat to make an appearance at the grave site.

There it is: a sad description of a middle-aged woman with a teenage son, three ex-husbands, four jobs, two dogs, and a house in jeopardy of going back to the bank. I’m in need of a diet, a bleach job, and a car that doesn’t spit its fluids all over the road. There’s scant food in the kitchen that doesn’t come out of a blue box with instructions stating, Add ¼ cup water and microwave for three minutes. I currently have no local prospects for a man in my life, and I’m not sure I trust my ability to recognize a suitable candidate if one were to campaign on my doorstep. I dearly love to sleep, but I stay awake because I’m a fraidycat—I flinch every time the house creaks or the wind moans. Because of the insomnia, I’ve become addicted to late-night television, especially sports. Attractive or pretty are adjectives ascribed to my looks in the past, although handsome and good-looking are the new adverbs I hear more often. Unlike those on Oprah who brag about being nifty-fifty, I’m squeamish to own up to my age. Even though the numbers don’t add up, I fib, mumble fortyish, and bat my eyes. In fact, I’ve deliberately confused myself about my actual birth date so I don’t break a commandment when I say I’m younger than I am. Interesting and intelligent are applicable attributes, but bad luck seems to have attached itself to my leg like a spider vein.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I will fall out of bed at an ungodly hour to tape the morning service. I plan to sneak in and out of the sanctuary on my way to the catbird seat in the balcony, staying out of sight of the morphed mother of Maddie Cunningham. Once Madge gets a look at the video of the lifeless Mrs. Pack being hauled off in front of her snobby friends, I’m certain she will come hunting for me, blaming me for my failure to predict the organist would suffer a coronary during her daughter’s wedding. She’ll catch up with me at some point, and I’ll get a history lesson as well as a reaming out. I’ll have to listen to a lengthy harangue that her daughter’s new husband’s father, Morris Byron III, is the president of Deweyville Petroleum Company, and some of her Dewey ancestors, although the lines cannot be accurately traced, helped build the town, facts she takes every opportunity to repeat. If the newlywed Maddie Byron wasn’t on her honeymoon somewhere in Fiji, there would be a transformers tag-team match ready to flatten me with their monster wheels.

After I checked the locks on the doors for the third time, I said goodnight to Sean, and Rocky and Rambo, and I flopped into bed. I plumped my pillows and hit the DVR. Thinking it was just another ordinary day at the First United Methodist Church of Deweyville and in my life, I tried putting the Cunninghams and Mrs. Pack on the back burner while I watched a tennis ball go back and forth until my eyes get blurry.

CHAPTER TWO

Peering down into the crowd on Sunday morning from my little refuge, all seemed quiet and orderly, perhaps because the Cunninghams were absent. The Rev was preaching a middle-of-the-road sermon about the value of hard work, a subject not likely to be debated later, and he was winding down when I heard something hitting against the window behind me. Rain wasn’t in the forecast and the sun had been shining brightly when I pulled down the shade before starting the video. The noise was brief and I assumed a bird had flown into the window. I redirected my attention to the sermon. The Rev was droning along with his final prayer when something smacked the window a second time. I locked the spotlight onto the Rev, rose, and peeked through the drawn shade. Water was dripping down the window, but it wasn’t raining. I staggered backward as if I might get drenched when water pelted the window again. Between pelts, I managed to get a clear view down below. Someone was standing in the front lawn with a green garden hose and aiming it at the building…turning it off…turning it on…aiming it high…aiming it low. My first brilliant conclusion: Sunday morning was definitely not a time for a scheduled window washing.

Another splat. Uh-oh! Beard. Long, blond hair. White robe and sandals. Deweyville’s self-proclaimed John the Baptist or JTB, as we refer to Johnny Blanchard’s second self, was apparently baptizing the church edifice. His plan for the exiting members was up to speculation and I speculated his plan might be