Chapter 2: Parishioner

He called the next day, however. After thanking her for the company at lunch, he asked her to out again in two weeks. The second lunch was like the first. He called on Monday and asked her out in two weeks’ time. He attended the next Sunday, and she went to the Petersons for dinner. Nobody in the congregation invited her for the next week. Without consulting her, maybe without discussing it with each other, Blake and the congregation had divided her Sunday afternoons neatly. The third week, Blake at least took her to a different restaurant without asking for her recommendation. Still, he didn’t come in; he didn’t kiss her good night.

He called that Monday, however, and invited her to another lunch in two weeks. She accepted. The intervening Sunday, she had dinner with the Watkins family. The next Saturday, she went to bed early. She could feel she was coming down with a cold. She barely woke to the alarm that morning. She had kicked the blankets off during the night. Despite the inadequate furnace in the parsonage, she felt like she was burning up. Getting out of bed was a tremendous effort, and she realized that she was seriously sick. There was no way she could lead a service that morning. She managed to call the District Superintendent but got his answering machine. She called Joe Englehard, chair of the pastor-parish committee, to tell him that she couldn’t make it. “You know, David Blake?” she croaked. “Professor Blake? He’s an ordained minister. See if he can lead the service.” Then she crawled back to bed. By then, she was shivering, and the blankets didn’t seem to help.

Blake called Wednesday. “This is David. I hope you are feeling better.”

“Better. Not good.”

“I’ve been going through the Old Testament -- Lectio Divina -- so I preached on Exodus. It wasn’t a passage from the lectionary, but you didn’t give me much warning.”

“I didn’t have much warning, myself.”

“Well, they were kind afterwards. They did get some sort of service. Anyway, Sunday is the first Sunday of December. You celebrate Communion on the first Sunday of the month, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to do it? Frankly, you still don’t sound recovered.” She still didn’t feel recovered. She felt, actually, more dead than alive.

“Could you? And I’m sorry to miss the lunch.”

“I’ll call your district superintendent and establish my bona fides. Don’t worry about the lunch. I’m sorry, too, but I’m sorrier that you have to go through the sickness.”

“It’s only a cold. I keep telling myself. It feels more like the black plague.”

“I’d bet against the black plague, but have yourself checked out. It’s an upper respiratory infection; I can hear that over the phone. But people die from the flu, and you could have pneumonia.”

“I’ve been to the doctor.”

“Good. I’ll call your DS.”

And, he did lead the service that Sunday. She dragged herself there and heard him preach from the lectionary. She half- expected Englehard to ask why she couldn’t preach like that, but all he asked her was about her recovery. She was back in the pulpit the next Sunday, and she felt almost recovered. He called that Monday.

“This is David. You sounded much better, yesterday. Have you recovered, or was that a false dawn?”

“You always identify yourself. And it’s never Dave. I think I’ve recovered. It was only a cold.”

“One of those things which they describe as, ‘it’s not fatal; you only wish it were.’”

“Pretty much.”

“I wondered if you think you’ll be recovered enough next Sunday to go out for another lunch. That was supposed to be an invitation; I’m sorry if it sounds so convoluted.”

Recovered enough? She’d get up off her death bed to go out with him. Then, she remembered that she had stood him up earlier. And she couldn’t go that week.

“That’s the potluck. Are you coming?”

“Of course! Where two or three Methodists are gathered together, there shall a potluck be also.” She laughed. “I’ll bring my famous Pauline chili.”

“Who’s Pauline?”

“You don’t know her. I chopped her up to add to the chili. No. ‘Pauline’ is an adjective. I make the chili according to the directions of St. Paul. Well, I’m keeping you. Bye.”

He’d been in an awful hurry to hang up. But, then, it might have been avoiding the obvious questions about St. Paul. There was no entry for ‘chile’ or ‘chili’ in her concordance; she wasn’t surprised.

There were five long tables for the potluck, with places for eight at each table. He didn’t try to sit at her table. Two more tables held the serving dishes. His chili was hot, which might be a mistake with this crowd. People were complimentary, though. Not many men cooked around Independence. “Well,” he said in a voice which comfortably carried this small group, “I tried to follow the advice of Paul. He says to cook chili a long time over very low heat, so all the flavors mix in -- but the dish isn’t scorched.”

This was too much. Jen said, “I had a thorough introduction to the letters from Paul taught by an excellent professor. The course didn’t mention chili.”

“I can’t see how it missed it. Somebody have a Bible?” Don Montgomery was sitting at the same table. He pulled out his pocket New Testament. “Excellent, please read First Corinthians, Chapter seven, verse nine.”

Montgomery looked up the text. He laughed and passed the book over to Blake. “You read it.”

“For it is better to marry than to burn,” Blake read. Jen wasn’t the only one who groaned. This led to more jokes in the same vein: how we know that God plays baseball, the name of Jesus’ dog.

Blake answered that one. “His dog was named ‘Physician.’ For in Verse 23 of the fourth Chapter, Luke records Jesus as saying, ‘Physician, heel!’”

When everything was cleaned up, he offered her a ride back to the parsonage. She was tempted, but there were a dozen people listening whose rides she had rejected in the past. “It’s only a short walk.”

“I’ll walk you back, then. Let me put this in the trunk.”

He walked her to her door. It was now or never. “Would you like to come in?” she asked.

“Thanks.”

Now what could she offer him? Coffee seemed a little weird; she had none made, and the church women had poured out pots a few minutes ago. She didn’t need to offer anything.

As soon as she closed the door, he took her in his arms and kissed her. That was sudden. It was also delightful. She put her arms around him. “You don’t know,” he said, “how long I’ve wanted to do that.” Well, not as long as she’d wanted him to do it.

She snuggled against him. “The first day?” She hoped that seeing her in a leadership role the first time he attended this church had changed his picture of her.

“Not quite. I tried to teach the course without my glasses. No reason for you to remember. Anyway, fourth or fifth class, I gave up. I wore the glasses and could see you clearly. Stupid of me to have deprived myself of that sight for so long.”

He’d been attracted back in class! “You never showed it.”

“Well, I tried not to. What would your classmates have said! Still, I’m not sure I hid it all that well.”

She kissed him for that; well, for something. He licked her lips at the start of her kiss, then inserted his tongue. A shock ran through her when their tongues met. She tried to unzip her coat and failed. She stepped back to remove it. He pulled his off, as well. Then he tossed it towards the couch.

This time, their bodies met when they kissed. His tongue explored her mouth while his hands explored her back. One settled on her rump; the other held the back of her head. She was out of breath when he broke the kiss.

“It is as good as my dreams,” he said. She was glad she hadn’t been the only one dreaming of this. “I’m going to leave while I can. I’ll call.” Then he walked out the door, carrying his coat.

She needed a change of clothes, at least. She’d been sweating; inability to feel anything wasn’t the only problem caused by kissing while wearing a winter coat inside. She suspected that the food smells weren’t the only ones on her clothes, either. It wouldn’t do to have her parishioners get downwind of her while she smelled like a cat in heat.

She made a few necessary phone calls; she’d cut way back on hospital and nursing-home visits while she suspected that she was in the contagious stage of her cold. Phone duties over, she drew herself a luxuriously hot bath. She was wallowing in the depth of the water, in her memories of the afternoon, and in her imagination of taking it further, when the phone rang. Getting out of the hot bath and going downstairs to answer it would just risk a relapse of the cold. Besides, David didn’t call on Sundays. She let the answering machine get it.

When she did listen to the messages, though, it had been David. Well, she had his phone number. She dressed in a warm nightie and robe and got comfortable before she dialed.

“David Blake.”

“This is Jen. You called.”

“I didn’t mean for this to be on your bill; I’ll keep it short.”

“I’m in a comfortable chair. I meant for it to be a long call. Minimum salary isn’t that minimal.”

“Well, I’m not too bright, but sometimes ideas do get through. Y’know, your congregation wants to feed you on Sundays. There is no reason that I have to compete with that. I know about committee meetings; Lord, how I know. Still, are you available any weeknights? What’s your schedule this week?”

Was he talking about taking her out this week? She could cancel the meetings. “I have trustees on Wednesday and choir practice every Thursday.”

“I have late afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Would Friday cut into sermon prep too much?”

For a date with David, she’d wing it. For that matter, she wrote more than half her sermons on Saturdays as it was. “Friday would be fine.”

“Expect me then. Parsonage at five o’clock?”

Five was a little early, but she wanted to see him. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him to come later. For that matter, maybe she could ask him in. “I’ll expect you then.”

On Friday, he waited on the front porch and escorted her to his car. “Look, I’m sorry for springing this on you,” he said when he was behind the wheel, “but I wanted to see the state of the roads first. How would you like to eat in Chicago?”

Ride with him for more than an hour each way? That sounded delightful. Besides, sometimes she had to escape the country. “That sounds lovely. But it means two round trips for you.” Of course, she should offer to drive her own car. But she wanted to sit beside him.

“No bother. The roads are fairly clear. Probably less driving than you do on a hospital-visit day.” That was an exaggeration. “Have you ever eaten Korean?”

“Bulgogi?”

“Bulgogi is to Korean cuisine what McDonald’s is to American. Feeling adventurous?”

She was feeling very adventurous. “Let’s.”

“You were a great hit on Sunday,” she told him. Then she saw that he could take that two ways. He’d been a greater hit with her than he had ever been with the potluck, but maybe she should stick to the public appearance. “People were talking about you before and after the trustees’ meeting.”

“My popularity didn’t extend to my cooking. I don’t think anyone but myself took seconds on my chili.”

“You know what Johnson said about women preaching?”

“When a dog walks on its hind legs, you don’t ask how well he does it?”

“Right. Well, I think these people regard a man’s cooking the same way. Ted Jackson and George Blum are widowers. They brought the store-bought desserts.”

“My mistake was trying to vary the recipe for what I imagined the crowd would like. I used half the hal-uh-pain-yoess that I would have used for myself.”

Jen noticed that Greek words weren’t the only ones that David seemed to pronounce like the people who invented them. “The hot peppers?”

“Yeah. I figured that bunch for favoring blandness, so I only used two. And I cut them into very small pieces, too.”

“Yours wasn’t the only chili there.”

“I noticed two bean dishes. They looked identical to me.”

“Mrs. Benson’s chili. She brings a smaller pot without any chili powder for the people who don’t care for it.”

“That must have been the batch I took. But I thought it was better to take from the larger pot.”

“That’s chili in Independence. A sprinkling of chili powder for the adventurous.”

“Look, Korean food might be a mistake.”

“That’s Independence. I’m Jen. Anyway, they liked your jokes.”

“That’s Independence, you’re Jen.”

She decided to let that pass. “And they said you preached a good sermon, too. A couple of the men were talking about ‘Dave,’ though. I wondered whether I should correct them.”