Crossroads

He found it necessary to clear his throat. “I’m not sure I’d have time to listen to all ten of the records, but I could certainly—”

“No, I don’t want to be greedy. You should get home.”

“I’m not in any rush.”

“Plus, what if I decide to get high with Larry’s pot? They say it’s great for appreciating music, but I don’t imagine you’d consider that a meaningful reason to break the law.”

“Now you’re teasing me.”

“You’re such a square, it’s irresistible.”

“I already told you I’m open to experimenting with you.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what to do with that.” She laughed. “Has the church ever had to excommunicate someone? I could see me being the first, if it came out I’d lured you into reefer madness. You’d see me down at the A&P, wearing a scarlet letter.”

“R for reefer,” he said, trying to keep up with her.

“R for Russ. It could also stand for Russ.”

He couldn’t remember her having spoken his first name. It was somehow astonishing that she even knew it, so breathtaking was the intimacy it seemed to promise.

“I’m willing to take the chance if you are.”

“Okay, noted,” she said, hopping off his desk. “But not tonight. I’m sure your wife is wondering where you are.”

“She’s not. I left a message with Perry.”

What he wanted must have been plain to her. She looked him in the eye and scrunched up her face, as if she smelled something off and wondered if he did, too. “This has been enough, don’t you think?”

“If you say so.”

“I—you don’t think so?”

“I am in no hurry at all for this evening to end.”

He could hardly have been plainer, and he saw her blanch. Then she laughed and touched him on the nose. “I like you, Reverend Hildebrandt. But I think it’s time for me to go.”

That Clem had found that very moment to knock on his door, before the cataclysm of being beeped on the nose had fully registered, was simply an embarrassment, not a setback, but it had been followed, in the church parking lot, after he and Clem had dug out her Buick, by yet another advance. Frances beckoned him over and said, “It’s probably good he came when he did. Things were getting a little tensy-tense.”

“I’m sorry I tried to keep you. I should be grateful you donated as much time as you did.”

“Mission accomplished. Deliverables delivered.”

“I truly am grateful,” he said with feeling.

“Oh, pooh. I’m grateful, too. But if you really want to show your gratitude…”

“Yes.”

“You could go and talk to Rick. It looked like he was still in his office.”

“Talk to him now?”

“No time like the present.”

It seemed to Russ that any other time would be better than the present.

“I’m serious about going to Arizona,” she said, “and it won’t be half as rewarding if you aren’t there. I know that sounds selfish, but I’m not just being selfish. I hate to see you holding on to a grudge.”

“I’ll—see what I can do.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting. I want you to call me and tell me how it goes.”

“Call you on the telephone.”

“Is there some other kind of calling? I suppose I could ask you to drop by, but who knows what kind of reefer madness you’d be walking into.”

“Seriously, Frances. You should not be doing that experiment by yourself.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure to have a pastor present. I was going to say a pastor and a physician, but maybe we can do without the physician. I suspect he wouldn’t approve of—you.”

Russ didn’t know what to say. Was the heart surgeon still a threat?

“Anyway,” she said, “I hope you’ll make peace with Rick. Until you do, you’re not allowed to call me.” She shifted her car into forward gear. “Ha, listen to her. Giving ultimatums to a pastor. Who does she think she is?”

And away she went.

Russ had once devoted a Sunday sermon to Jesus’s disturbing prophesy to Peter at the Last Supper—his prediction that his most faithful disciple would thrice, before the cock crowed, deny that he knew him. The conclusion Russ had drawn from Peter’s fulfillment of the prophesy, and from the tears he then shed for his betrayal of his Lord, was that the prophesy had in fact been a profound parting gift. Jesus had told Peter, in effect, that he knew that Peter was only human; was fearful of worldly censure and punishment. The prophesy was his assurance that he would still be there in Peter at the moment when Peter most bitterly failed him—would always be there, would always understand him, always love him, in spite of his human weakness. In Russ’s interpretation, Peter had wept not simply with remorse but with gratitude for the assurance.

Though the comparison was profane, Russ had been reminded of Peter’s denials when he denied to Clem, at least three times, that he lusted after Mrs. Cottrell. Frances was his joy of the season—she’d beeped him on the nose!—and he ought to have been shouting the good news from every rooftop, but Clem’s accusations had caught him off guard. The accusations, and even more the crazy talk of Vietnam, had reeked of adolescent moral absolutism. Clem was too young to understand that, although commandments were important, the callings of the heart amounted to a higher law. This had been Christ’s revision of the Covenant, his message of love, and Russ regretted having lacked the courage to level with his son and make an example of his own heart’s calling for Frances. Clem needed to be cured of his absolutism. By denying his feelings, Russ had done a disservice not only to them but arguably to his son as well.