ARRIVING AT SCHOOL ON FRIDAY MORNING, RUTH FOUND AN OFFICIAL- looking envelope tucked into her mail slot, buried beneath the usual blizzard of memos and announcements. The message it contained—a couple of lines scrawled on a piece of stationery “From the Desk of Principal Venuti”—was ominously terse.
Ruth, it said. Please report to my office at the beginning of first period—J.V.
She showed the note to Randall when she brought him his latte. He made a sympathetic noise as he mulled it over, then lapsed into a childish singsong.
“Someone’s in trouble, someone’s in trouble.”
“Thanks for the support.”
“Sorry. Just trying to inject a little levity into the proceedings.”
She looked at him a little more closely. His mood seemed to have improved considerably since the previous evening, when he’d accused her of being a bad friend. Randall had cried himself to sleep on her couch for two nights in a row at that point, and hadn’t taken it well when she informed him that a third night was out of the question. She hated taking a hard line when he was in such a fragile emotional state, but she felt like she needed some time alone with Maggie and Eliza, a chance for the three of them to be a family without a weepy guest underfoot. Watching the girls head off to church on Sunday with the Parks had been a wake-up call, a reminder of how easy it was for the people you love to slip away from you. It had happened with her sister, and with Frank, and with more friends than she cared to remember. She wasn’t going to let it happen with her daughters, not if she could help it.
“You seem awfully cheerful this morning,” she observed. “Did you get a good night’s rest?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Actually I was up pretty late. Greg and I had a long talk.”
“And?”
Randall smiled coyly. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”
“Why?”
“There’s something we want to tell you.”
“We? Does that mean what I think it means?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Come on,” she coaxed. “Are you back together?”
Randall’s expression grew stern.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss this right now. Greg made me promise we’d break the news together.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
“Seven o’clock at the Indian place,” he told her, handing back the summons. “Don’t be late.”
THIS TIME around Ruth wasn’t surprised to find the Superintendent and JoAnn Marlow waiting for her in the Principal’s office—they were sitting on either side of the big desk, looking professionally somber—along with sour-faced Joe Venuti, who was anxiously caressing his abdomen, as if he’d already begun to regret his breakfast.
“Hey,” she said, “it’s the old gang!”
Only the Superintendent felt the need to respond. He rose and offered his hand.
“Good to see you, Ruth.” He jerked her arm up and down, as if congratulating her on a job well-done. “Thanks for stopping by.”
JoAnn and the Principal remained seated, watching coolly as she made her way to the bronze folding chair that had been placed in front of the desk. It had the words BAND ROOM stenciled on the backrest in faded black letters.
“What’s up?” Ruth asked. “Did I get Teacher of the Year?”
“Very funny,” muttered Venuti.
“Now, now,” cautioned Dr. Farmer, somewhat ambiguously. “No need for that.”
The conversation stalled for a moment. JoAnn looked expectantly at the Principal, who did the same to the Superintendent, who pretended to be engrossed in a thorough examination of a completely ordinary ballpoint pen he’d removed from a mug on Venuti’s desk.
“They want to tell you something,” JoAnn explained.
Venuti nodded in confirmation. He cleared his throat and drummed a few nervous beats on the edge of his desk.
“After some, ah, administrative soul-searching, we’ve, ahhh, come to a decision. Dr. Farmer, would you like to have the honors?”
The Superintendent didn’t look too happy to find the ball in his court.
“Right,” he said, smiling sadly at Ruth. “You know we hate to do this sort of thing, but we couldn’t see any alternative.”
“We’ve received numerous complaints,” Venuti added. “I can show you the file if you want.”
Dr. Farmer nodded. “It seems fair to say that you’re not really in synch with the new curriculum. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.”
“We need team players,” JoAnn chimed in. “Otherwise, we’re at cross-purposes. And this pilot program is just too important for me to allow that to happen.”
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I’m not really sure what you guys are talking about.”
“You’re being reassigned,” Dr. Farmer informed her. “You can finish up this semester, but starting in January you’re not going to be teaching Health anymore.”
“We were hoping that refresher course might straighten things out,” Venuti went on, “but according to the report we received, it seems like you were uncooperative at best and possibly even a bit disruptive.”
“We thought about sending you to a two-week training program in Philadelphia over the summer,” Dr. Farmer said, “but JoAnn sincerely feels like that would be a waste of everyone’s time and the school district’s resources. And in this era of across-the-board belt-tightening … well, I’m sure you understand.”
“You can’t teach something if you don’t believe in it,” JoAnn declared. “And clearly, you don’t believe in the mission you’ve been entrusted with.”
Ruth was stunned. She’d come here expecting a scolding, but not a three-way ambush.
“I’m being fired?” she asked meekly.
JoAnn nodded, but the Principal and Superintendent immediately took issue with this formulation.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Venuti. “No one’s talking about firing anyone.”
“You have tenure,” Dr. Farmer pointed out. “We couldn’t fire you if we wanted to.”
“Not unless you killed someone,” Venuti said, glaring at Ruth as if he wasn’t ruling out this possibility.
“Even then it’s dicey.” Dr. Farmer allowed himself a soft bureaucratic chuckle. “You’re just being reassigned, Ruth. It’s nothing personal.”
The fog in Ruth’s head began to dissipate.
“This is outrageous,” she said. “I’m going to the union.”
“That’s your right,” Dr. Farmer assured her. “But our lawyer tells us we’re on solid ground here. You’re not being disciplined. You’re just being redeployed in accordance with our staffing needs. We have wide latitude over that sort of thing.”
“Okay,” Ruth said. “Maybe you do. But who’s gonna teach my classes?”
“The school board meeting’s next Tuesday,” Venuti said. “They’re going to vote on a waiver that would allow a qualified expert to teach within her subject area without going through the onerous process of state certification.”
“A qualified expert?” Ruth repeated, turning to JoAnn.
The Virginity Consultant smiled sweetly, and gave a little shrug, as if to say, You win some, you lose some.
“JoAnn’s ABD in Public Health,” Venuti pointed out. “You just have a Master’s in Education.”
“They’ve never approved one of those waivers before,” Ruth said. “Didn’t they turn down that retired newspaper editor who wanted to teach journalism?”
“That was four years ago,” Venuti reminded her. “The board’s changed a lot in the meantime. I seriously doubt that JoAnn’s going to run into any problems.”
“I’m sure she won’t,” Ruth agreed.
“Thank you for being such a good sport,” Dr. Farmer said with obvious relief. “Do you have any questions about all this?”
Ruth shook her head and stood up, eager to get the hell out of there. She was almost through the door when she realized she’d forgotten something.
“Oh, wait,” she said. “You didn’t tell me about my reassignment.”
“We’re not a hundred percent sure right now,” Venuti replied. “But it’s starting to look like we might have an opening in the Math Department.”
“Math?” She couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t know anything about math.”
“This is remedial,” Dr. Farmer assured her. “We’re just talking about the basics here.”
“Believe me,” Venuti said. “These kids aren’t rocket scientists. If you know how to put two and two together, you’ll be way ahead of the curve.”
THE FAITH Keepers’ contingent from the Tabernacle was nine guys in all, too many to fit in John Roper’s van. Tim had volunteered as the second driver and had been assigned Marty Materia and Jonathan Kim as passengers. The new guy, Jay, was originally supposed to make it four, but Pastor Dennis decided at the last minute that Jay should join him in the van.
True to form—he was an electrician who worked crazy hours to support his wife and five kids, and was renowned for his ability to nap whenever and wherever an opportunity presented itself, including at Sunday meeting—Marty started snoring in the backseat the moment Tim pulled onto the highway. Jonathan rode shotgun, staring dead ahead and plucking nervously at the sharp creases on his khakis. For the first half hour of the trip, he made the occasional random stab at conversation, asking Tim how many siblings he had and whether he intended to buy a wide-screen TV in the near future, but then he gave up, falling into a meditative silence punctuated every couple of minutes by a soft grunt of approval, as if he were agreeing with his own thoughts.
From a purely social standpoint, there was no denying that John’s Odyssey was the more desirable vehicle. Trailing it from a respectful distance, Tim could see the silhouettes of the men inside; there seemed to be a lot of activity in there—heads turning, snacks getting passed around, even the odd high five. There must have been praise music on the sound system—Pastor Dennis would have insisted—and a fair amount of laughter as well, given that Steve Zelchuk appeared to be holding forth from the back row. A gifted mimic with a huge repertoire of reasonably amusing, non-dirty jokes, Steve was widely considered to be the funniest guy at the Tabernacle, not that there was a whole lot of competition for the title.
Normally, Tim would have been disappointed to find himself relegated to the dull car, but tonight he didn’t mind. It was a relief to get a little time to himself, a chance to listen to his new Mavis Staples CD and let his mind wander. Things would have been a lot more problematic if he’d been stuck inside the van with Pastor Dennis and John Roper, neither of whom could contain his excitement about tomorrow’s soccer game.
From what Tim could figure, the whole thing was shaping up to be a circus. The Pastor had devoted a fair amount of time over the past few days to alerting the media—not just the local and regional papers, but TV and radio stations as well—to what he said was going to be “a historic battle in the ongoing war for the hearts and minds of our children.” He’d also enlisted a dozen or so volunteers from the Tabernacle to stand on the sidelines holding signs with Bible verses printed on them, which he figured would be a terrific visual if any TV reporters really did show up. These volunteers could also join the prayer circle at the end of the game, which sounded like an awesome idea to John.
It didn’t sound quite so awesome to Tim, but his attempt to explain his reservations at the end of Wednesday Night Bible Study hadn’t gone over too well. Pastor Dennis couldn’t have cared less that Bill Derzarian and the Soccer Association would be pissed off, or that a lot of girls and their parents would be made uncomfortable, or that Tim and John would probably never be allowed to coach again.
“If it upsets people to hear the truth,” he said, “so be it. Jesus told us to go into the world and preach the good news to all creation, not just the people who feel comfortable about it.”
To their credit, both men were more sympathetic to Tim’s fears that, by participating in another postgame prayer, he’d be violating his custody agreement and jeopardizing his relationship with his daughter.
“This is for real,” he told them. “I’ve been put on notice.”
“That’s tough,” John agreed. “I really don’t know what I’d do in your shoes.”
Pastor Dennis placed his hands on Tim’s shoulders and stared directly into his eyes for several seconds, as if he were trying to give him a transfusion of courage.
“Be strong,” he said. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.”
John nodded in solemn agreement.
“You started this,” he reminded Tim. “Let’s finish it together.”
THEY PARKED in a ten-dollar lot several blocks from the Civic Center and joined the parade of Christian men heading toward the arena. This was Tim’s second Faith Keepers’ conference, so he wasn’t caught off guard the way he’d been last year, but he was still deeply impressed by the spectacle. It was disorienting, but also strangely moving, to find yourself in a demographic fun house, to look around and see nothing but kindred spirits converging from all directions, streaming out of tour buses and school buses and church vans and taxicabs, shaking hands and hugging and calling out to one another in happy voices.
Most of the Faith Keepers were white and most were on the youngish side of middle age, but there were lots of exceptions—clean-cut Asian guys, hip college dudes with soul patches and long sideburns, imposing black men with shaved heads, father-and-son duos, packs of bikers, and even a few old codgers getting around with canes and walkers. You couldn’t assemble a crowd this size without attracting a handful of out-and-out weirdos—Tim saw a dreadlocked hippie in a floor-length dashiki, and a burly guy in a flannel shirt who stood by the main entrance, blowing repeatedly into a ram’s horn; he was also accosted by a hollow-eyed street preacher who pressed a vile, badly photocopied pamphlet into his hand, the cover of which read, Ten Reasons Why God Hates Fags (And We Should Too)—but what struck him was just how few of them there were. The overwhelming majority of the conference goers were just regular guys in khakis or jeans, sweaters or leather jackets, white sneakers or brown loafers, solid citizens with steady jobs and wedding rings and maybe a little less hair and a little more belly than they’d started out with, guys who looked like they’d fit right in at the Tabernacle with Marty and Jonathan and Eddie and Jay and John and Tim and Bill and Steve and Dennis.
They picked up their official bracelets at the registration table—purple Livestrong-style rubber loops with the conference motto (UNDAUNTED) stamped onto the side—then browsed the merchandise displays, wandering past trade-show booths selling CDs, books, T-shirts (JESUS IS AWESOME), and souvenir mugs (“got God?”), and then checking out the folding tables stacked with promotional literature for Christian colleges, charities, political causes, and businesses. Examining a brochure for a company called Calvary Homebuilders, Tim winced at the memory of the bridges he’d burned at the poker game the other night, and wondered if it would be possible to set things right with George Dykstra. On the bright side, no one seemed to have connected him with the vandalism to Billy’s Hummer; in any case, no one had accused him of anything. He understood all too clearly that a better man would have picked up the phone and owned up to the stupid thing he’d done, but Tim had enough problems on his plate and no stomach for kowtowing to a jerk like Billy.
The concession stands were open in the main corridor, and Tim got in line along with several other members of the Tabernacle group who hadn’t had time to eat dinner. The new guy, Jay, turned to him while they waited.
“You ever been to one of these?”
“Last year,” Tim told him. “I enjoyed it.”
Jay looked skeptical.
“Too many guys,” he said. “Feels like a gay bar.”
Tim laughed in spite of himself. He’d never spoken to Jay one-on-one before, but he’d been curious about him since the day he appeared at Sunday meeting after punching Pastor Dennis in the face. He’d heard through the grapevine that the Pastor was beginning to question the strength of Jay’s commitment to the Lord and expending a lot of energy trying to keep him in the fold.
“It’s a little weird at first,” Tim agreed. “But you’ll get used to it.”
As they approached the counter, Jay cast an irritated glance at the cardboard sign taped to the wall above the beer taps: NO ALCOHOL SALES AT THIS EVENT.
“That sucks,” he said. “I could really use a cold one.”
RUTH DID her best to put on a cheerful face as she entered Bombay Palace. She hadn’t told Randall—or anyone else, for that matter—what had happened that morning in the Principal’s office, and she figured the news would keep for a few more days. Right now, she just wanted to have a pleasant dinner with her friends and a drink or three to help them celebrate whatever good news it was they wanted to share with her.
Besides, now that the shock had worn off, she wasn’t quite as upset about getting the axe as she’d expected to be. As angry as she was about the shabby way she’d been treated, she was also deeply relieved not to be the abstinence teacher anymore, not to have to function as the mouthpiece for an agenda that, as JoAnn rightly pointed out, she had never believed in. Remedial math would be a drag, she wasn’t kidding herself about that, but at least it wouldn’t make her feel unclean, like she was depriving her students of information that might help them lead happier, healthier lives. And who knew? Maybe the Wise Choices program would flop, and in another year or two, Ruth would return, vindicated, to once again preach the honest truth about human sexuality to the benighted students of Stonewood Heights. In her mind it played like a Hollywood movie, Michelle Pfeiffer standing before an audience of earnest, good-looking teenagers, rolling a condom onto a cucumber as triumphant music swelled in the background.
She headed across the dining room to join Randall and Gregory, who were sitting side by side in a booth along the back wall, holding hands—something she’d never seen them do in public—and whispering to each other with the kind of rapturous expressions you only saw on the faces of new lovers, or old couples who’d just made up after a near-death experience. As soon as she sat down, Randall poured her a glass of beer and proposed a toast.
“To our good friend, Ruth, who saved our relationship.”
“Hear, hear,” said Gregory.
“Me?” Ruth laughed. “What’d I do?”
“You remember when we were talking the other night?” Randall asked. “I was complaining that Greg wouldn’t propose to me, and you asked why I didn’t just propose to him?”
“You told me it was a stupid idea.”
“He reconsidered,” Gregory informed her.
Ruth turned to Randall, a smile spreading across her face.
“You didn’t.”
Randall blushed. “I had a lot of time to think things over.”
“So how’d it happen? Did you get down on your knees and all that?”
“I did it over the phone,” Randall admitted. “It wasn’t very romantic.”
“That’s not true,” Gregory said. “It was very romantic. I could hear how hard it was for him to pop the question, how much courage it took. But it was the perfect solution. We’d fought so much about me not proposing to him that it had gotten to the point where I couldn’t do it if I wanted to. Partly out of pride, I guess, but also because it would just seem like I was doing it because he wanted me to and not because I wanted to myself. You know what I’m saying?”
“Kind of,” Ruth said. “I’m just really thrilled for both of you. Congratulations.”
They touched glasses again. The happy couple exchanged another glance.
“But that’s not why we asked you here,” Randall said.
“Yeah, right.”
“We’re serious,” Gregory insisted. “We asked you here tonight to see if you’re free on August nineteenth.”
“I guess.” Ruth shrugged. “Probably.”
“You better be,” Randall told her. “Because we want you to be Best Woman at our wedding.”
“Your wedding? You mean like a commitment ceremony?”
“No,” Gregory said. “Our wedding. We’ve booked this cute little inn in the Berkshires. It’ll be a legal ceremony, endorsed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“But you’re not citizens. And they don’t let—”
“We won’t be out-of-state,” Randall informed her. “We’re moving to Cambridge. Or somewhere around there. Dan and Jerry said they’ll help us find a nice place to live.”
“You’re serious?”
Her friends nodded.
“When’s this gonna happen?”
“As soon as possible,” Gregory said. “There’s really no point in waiting.”
“I-I don’t understand.” Ruth was still smiling, but her voice didn’t match her face. “This is so … sudden. I didn’t even know you were thinking about moving.”
“It’s sudden for us, too,” Randall agreed. “But we know it’s the right thing.”
“Once we got engaged,” Gregory explained, “it just seemed so obvious. You get engaged so you can get married. And right now, there’s only one place where we can do that.”
“And besides,” Randall added. “We’re getting a little tired of Stonewood Heights. We need more excitement in our lives.”
Ruth wrapped her fingers around her beer glass, but couldn’t seem to lift it up.
“What about me?” she asked in a soft, wounded voice. “What am I supposed to do?”
It wasn’t like she expected them to say, Come on along, come live with us in Cambridge, but she would have appreciated something more than the blank, puzzled looks they were directing at her. They were her best friends; they should have understood how she felt. But the truth was, even Ruth didn’t understand how she felt until she buried her face in her hands and heard herself sobbing like a lost child.
TIM HAD never seen the Grateful Dead perform at the Civic Center Auditorium—they tended to prefer the larger outdoor venues in the area—but he had seen a number of concerts here in his younger days, including shows by .38 Special, The English Beat, and a couple of different incarnations of the Allman Brothers. In some ways—at least if you factored out the thick cloud of pot smoke that used to hover over the festivities—it felt utterly familiar to be sitting up here in the cheap seats with his buddies, looking down on the tiny musicians rocking out on stage, completely continuous with the rest of his life. He wondered how many other Faith Keepers could say the same thing, how many of them had batted beach balls into the air while waiting for Supertramp to take the stage, or passed drunk girls overhead while Little Feat played a third encore.
After four songs, the Faith Keepers band yielded the stage to the emcee, Brother Biggs—Tim remembered him from last year—a rotund, light-skinned black man with impish charm and a booming voice. He got the crowd going with some stadium-style call-and-response, pitting the floor against the mezzanine, the left side of the arena against the right.
“Who loves Jesus?”
“WE DO!”
“Who hates sin?”
“WE DO!”
“JESUS!”
“What do we hate?”
“SIN!”
“All right.” Brother Biggs grinned, his face enormous on the jumbo screens mounted on either side of the stage. “Now I know y’all got a bracelet when you came in tonight, am I right? That’s a pretty good deal, don’t you think? Don’t ever say we’re not taking care of you. I’m not sure if you noticed, but there’s a word printed on that bracelet, and it’s our motto for tonight. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
“Undaunted,” the crowd replied, but the response seemed hesitant and disorganized, even though the word was flashing on the big screens.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Brother Biggs with a sad chuckle. “I don’t want to insult nobody, but that was kind of sissy-sounding. I thought y’all were a bunch of red-blooded Christian men, but you sounded more like a Brownie troop or something. So let me ask you again. What’s our motto for tonight?”
“UNDAUNTED!”
Brother Biggs mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and released a big sigh of relief.
“That’s much better. Y’all had me worried there for a minute. Thought I’d wandered into the wrong event. Not that I got anything against Brownies, but you guys just not cute enough to wear those sweet little dresses.”
Brother Biggs wandered up to the edge of the stage. On the screens, his face grew serious.
“Now I know y’all came here for a good time tonight, a celebration of our shared love for Jesus Christ. Get you some of that good, old-fashioned praise and fellowship with a couple thousand like-minded Christian guys. Trust me, fellas, we gonna give you that experience. But first we got a little work to do on confronting our fears. Oh, I know, that doesn’t sound like much fun, but it makes sense when you think about it. Because you can’t feel true joy when you’re afraid, can you? You gotta conquer your fear. And that’s what undaunted means. It means you may be scared, but you don’t run. You stand tall and keep walking, right straight into that fear. Because the Lord’s right there, He’s walking with you. Say Amen.”
The crowd said it.
“So like I told you, we got a great event planned for you. But before we get to that, I want to give you your mission for the night. Three simple tasks. Not two, not four. Three. I put ’em in a little rhyme so they’re easy to remember. The first thing we gonna do, we gonna face our fear. Then—and this is the hard part—we gonna embrace our fear. And after that, with the help of Jesus, we gonna erase our fear. You got that? Face, Embrace, Erase. Why don’t you say it with me? What are we gonna do first?”
“FACE!”
“That’s right! What comes next?”
“EMBRACE!”
“And then?”
“ERASE!”
“Excellent,” said Brother Biggs. “You guys are starting to get the hang of this. Sounds like we got a bunch of strong, undaunted Christian men in the house! Now let’s get this party staaaarteeeed!”
MIDWAY THROUGH the keynote address—“Optimizing Jesus: Seven Ways to Put Your Faith to Work in the Workplace”—Tim got up to use the restroom. It wasn’t an emergency, but a half hour into the lecture, “former corporate CEO and sought-after Christian motivational speaker, Bob Mallott” had only made it through three of the seven ways, and Tim was starting to get a little restless.
He killed a few minutes in the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face and chafing his hands together beneath the automatic dryer long after there was any need for it. When he finally emerged, he wasn’t completely startled to find Jay waiting for him in the hallway, a cardboard boat of nachos in his hand. All evening long, Tim had felt the new guy sneaking glances at him, making faces and generally trying to get his attention, despite the fact that Pastor Dennis and Youth Pastor Eddie were sitting between them.
“There you are,” Jay said, in a weirdly accusing tone. “I thought maybe you ditched me.”
Tim was puzzled by his word choice. How could you ditch someone who had no claim on you whatsoever?
“I was just using the men’s room,” he said.
Jay nodded, but he didn’t seem fully convinced. He leaned in close to Tim, keeping his voice soft.
“You enjoying this?”
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not the most exciting night I’ve ever had.”
Jay made a soft, incredulous noise.
“I’d rather drive a spike into my head than listen to this shit.”
“It was better last year,” Tim assured him. “They had a comedian.”
Jay held out his nachos. Tim waved him off.
“Come on, don’t be shy. Take a cheesy one.”
“All right. Thanks.”
Tim selected a particularly goopy chip with a jalapeño slice on it. Jay watched him chew with an interest that verged on rudeness.
“What?” Tim said.
“Nothing.” Jay gave a cryptic shrug. He had a plump babyish face, but there was a shrewdness in his eyes Tim hadn’t noticed before. “I’m just glad we’re finally getting a chance to talk.”
“Me, too,” Tim said, though he was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable.
Jay glanced left and right. There were a fair number of guys wandering around the corridor, but none of them were from the Tabernacle.
“From what I hear,” he said, “we’ve got some things in common. You know, issues in our past. Struggles and whatnot.”
“That’s possible,” Tim allowed. “I’ve had my share of issues.”
Jay hung his head.
“It’s not easy,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“I wanna be good, don’t get me wrong.” Jay looked up. “But it’s so fucking boring.”
“That can be a problem,” Tim agreed.
Jay rubbed his chin with the tip of his thumb. “All I know is it’s a good thing I’m not driving tonight. ’Cause there’s a pretty great strip club a couple miles from here, and if I had a car—”
Jay caught Tim’s warning glance and clammed up. John Roper had just emerged from the exit ramp and was heading straight for them.
“Hey, guys,” he said, in a voice full of false cheer. “Whassup?”
Tim pursed his lips. Jay muttered something indecipherable.
“You were gone for a long time,” John told them. “The Pastor was getting worried.”
“We’re fine,” Tim assured him.
“Just having a little chat,” Jay added. “Getting to know each other a bit.”
“That’s cool,” John replied. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“No problem,” Tim said. “We were just about to head back in anyway.”
RUTH DIDN’T cry for long, but the guys still felt terrible.
“I’m really sorry,” Gregory said. “We should’ve been more considerate.”
Randall agreed. “We were so caught up in our good news that we didn’t stop and think about how it might affect you.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ruth told them. “I really don’t know why it upset me so much. I guess you just caught me off guard or something.”
Randall reached across the table and patted her hand.
“I know it’s been a tough year. Things are bound to get better.”
“I don’t see how,” she said. “My job sucks, my kids are ashamed of me, I’m not in a relationship, and my best friends are leaving town.”
“You can visit us whenever you want,” Gregory told her. “It’s not that far.”
“Thanks.” Ruth forced a smile. “I’m really happy for you. I know you’ll have a beautiful wedding, and I’m honored to be included.”
The guys assured her they wouldn’t have it any other way. Ruth blew her nose in a cloth napkin.
“Hey, wait a minute,” said Gregory. “What happened on your big date the other night? Nobody told me.”
Ruth shook her head. “It was a bust. Paul’s a nice guy, but we don’t have anything in common.”
“Too bad,” said Gregory. “He sounded promising.”
“You’ll meet someone,” Randall said. “It’s time to get cracking on those internet dating services.”
“I’ve done that,” Ruth reminded him. “It’s a wasteland. There were seventy-year-old men who wouldn’t date a woman over forty.”
“This time we’ll do it right,” Gregory said. “We’re gonna get you all dressed up and take some sexy pictures. You know, good lighting, flattering angles. Then we’re gonna put our heads together and write you a new profile. And you know what? If you want to say you’re thirty-four, I won’t tell on you.”
Ruth tried to smile, but it just made her tired.
“Whatever,” she said. “I don’t even care anymore.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” Randall reminded her.
“What’s the point? There just aren’t a lot of decent guys out there.”
Gregory brushed his fingers across Randall’s cheek and looked at Ruth.
“Honey,” he said. “All it takes is one.”
“Besides, it’s not like your phone’s not ringing.” Randall turned to Gregory. “Some married guy drunk-dialed her at eleven o’clock the other night. He wanted to stop by for a little chat.”
“The Christian guy?” Gregory said. “The one who makes the girls pray?”
“Yup, that one.”
Gregory’s eyes widened with interest.
“Is he cute?”
“What difference does it make?” Ruth asked. “He’s a drunk married Christian.”
Randall pondered this for a moment.
“Nobody’s perfect,” he told her.
AFTER THE lecture, there was a brief, enigmatic theater piece about two troubled superheroes dressed in full leotard-and-cape regalia who meet in a psychiatrist’s waiting room. Jetman used to be able to fly, but has recently been plagued by a crippling fear of heights (“I looked down one day and it just didn’t seem safe, way up there in the sky like that.”); Mr. Asbestos, famous for his ability to walk through flames, has developed a sudden aversion to fire (“That stuff is hot!” he tells Jetman, flapping his wrist at the memory). After sharing their sad stories, they flip through magazines and glance impatiently at their watches.
“What time do you have?” Jetman asks.
“One thirty,” says Mr. Asbestos.
“It’s strange,” Jetman replies. “My appointment was for one o’clock.”
“Couldn’t be,” says Mr. Asbestos. “My appointment was for one o’clock.”
Puzzled by this coincidence, they search for the receptionist but can’t find one. Finally, they decide to take drastic action, and pound on the psychiatrist’s door, which has a huge DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on it. When they get no reply, they crash through the door and into the office, only to emerge seconds later, more puzzled than before.
“The room’s completely empty,” Mr. Asbestos says, scratching his head.
“You know what that means?” Jetman says in an ominous voice.
“I do,” says a frightened Mr. Asbestos. “It means we’re on our own.”
The spotlight lingered for a moment on the forlorn superheroes, then went dark. Moments later, the stage lights came on to reveal that the band had returned. They were playing a simple chord progression, their heads tilted heavenward, the music soft and comforting. Just when Tim expected the singer to burst into song, Brother Biggs walked onto the stage. His swagger was gone; he seemed uncharacteristically solemn.
“I gotta tell you guys. Jetman and Mr. Asbestos might be alone with their fears, but we’re not. We got someone watching our backs way more powerful than any superhero. And that’s why every single one of us can walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and we will fear no evil. Because He’s with us! I can feel Him here tonight!
“A little while ago, I told you about our mission. Before we can truly be undaunted men of God, we got to deal with our fears. And that’s what we gonna do now. If you’ll open your program to page eight, you’ll see a white card. I want you to rip it out at the perforation.”
Tim detached his card. It was blank, except for a single phrase printed across the top—MY GREATEST FEAR IS:
“Now guys,” Brother Biggs continued, “what I need is for you to be completely honest. Don’t be writing down stupid stuff like, I’m afraid the world will run out of ice cream. We really need you to look into your hearts and face your fears. Some of you got work problems, and some of you got problems with your wives, or maybe your kids. And a lot of you—oh, I know it, because I know you guys, you’re my brothers—some of you got appetites and addictions that are keeping you from being the kind of man God wants you to be. And by the way, don’t be telling me you can’t fill out the card because you didn’t bring anything to write with. We got volunteers spread throughout the auditorium even as I speak, and they got a pencil for anyone who needs one.”
It was true. Guys in neon green traffic safety vests were moving up and down the stairways, handing out fistfuls of stubby, eraserless pencils from plastic buckets. Bill Spooner took a bunch and passed them down the aisle.
AFTER THE Faith Keepers had filled out their cards, Brother Biggs invited them to come down to the area in front of the stage for what he called the Presentation of Fears.
“Come on now, let’s do this together. You done the facing and the embracing just by looking into yourself and writing down what you saw there. Now we gotta take this one last step. We got to erase these fears by giving them to God.”
The procession started slowly, individual guys rising from their seats and moving toward the stage.
“Okay,” said Brother Biggs. “That’s a start. I know it’s not easy to be a pioneer. But we’re with Jesus. Ain’t nothing can scare us.”
There was a big open pit in front of the stage. Once the first group of volunteers made it that far, they raised their hands, waving their cards overhead as they approached a row of plastic trash cans with the words FEAR RECEPTACLE painted on them.
“Go ahead, guys. Put those cards in the barrels. Give those fears to God! He can handle anything you got!”
The band had been repeating the same dreamy chords for several minutes, but the music suddenly grew louder. The singer launched into an eighties-style power ballad, with a quiet verse that swelled to a stirring chorus:
Fear not!
The day is breaking
Fear not!
Stop your shaking
Fear not!
The Lord is with us, and we’ve got nothing to fear
“Come join us!” Brother Biggs called out during an instrumental break. “Let’s show the world what it means to be undaunted!”
Pastor Dennis stood first, and the rest of the Tabernacle guys followed, filing down the aisle and into the stairway, which was starting to get pretty congested.
“Take courage,” Brother Biggs told them. “Remember what Jesus said. ‘Be not afraid, for I am with you!’”
All over the auditorium more men were leaving their seats and joining the procession. Tim was caught at a bottleneck near the entrance to the floor when a torrent of confetti suddenly dropped from the ceiling over the pit.
“Do you know what that is?” Brother Biggs said. “Those are the cards we collected last week in Baltimore! We took those fears and turned them into something joyful! And next week your cards will rain down on the good men of Albany!”
By the time he reached the edge of the pit, Tim had his hands up; he was waving his card and singing along with the band.
“Fear not! Day is breaking. …”
He hung back for a moment, letting his comrades go ahead of him. It was chaos down there, confetti and swirling lights, a surging mass of bodies coming and going, packed as tight as a rush hour subway car. All around him, guys were weeping and falling to their knees. Tim watched Bill Spooner and Steve Zelchuk let go of their fears—Bill wiped a tear away afterward, and Steve pumped his fist into the air—before stepping up to a barrel himself.
“You know what?” Brother Biggs shouted. “I want you to turn to the man next to you and say, I’m not afraid anymore!”
Tim hadn’t found it easy to put a name to his fear, partly because he had so many of them. He thought about Abby first, and how he might never get to know her the way he wanted to, and then of Carrie, because he knew how much he’d hurt her. He thought about tomorrow’s soccer game, and how badly he wanted a drink. But when he actually put his pencil to the paper, it was Pastor Dennis he was thinking about, and John Roper, and all the guys he’d come here with tonight, guys he’d worshipped and prayed with these past three years. The guys who’d accepted him despite all his flaws and helped him back on his feet. They were gathered behind him now in a confetti blizzard, hugging one another and saying they weren’t afraid anymore. And Tim was standing in a daze by the trash can, a white card trembling in his hand.
“MY GREATEST FEAR IS:,” it said, “that I’m not part of this anymore.”
BRUSHING BITS of paper off his shoulders, Tim stepped through the exit door and into the fresh night air. As far as he could tell, no one seemed to be following him. He’d sensed Pastor Dennis’s eyes on him as he lingered by the barrel, unable to let go of his card, but he’d taken advantage of the whiteout caused by a fresh confetti drop to slip out of the pit and make his getaway.
He wasn’t alone out there. There must have been a dozen Faith Keepers loitering around the cement plaza outside the Civic Center. A couple were smokers who’d stepped outside for a cigarette break, but most of the others appeared to be in some sort of spiritual turmoil, muttering to themselves or staring uncertainly at their cell phones, doing their best to avoid eye contact with anyone else.
Keeping his head down, Tim veered across the plaza, stopping by the taxi stand to strip off his purple bracelet. He cast a quick fearful glance over his shoulder—he wasn’t sure why; he wasn’t doing anything wrong—before dropping it into a trash can.
He crossed Fountain Boulevard and darted down a side street, power-walking as though late for an appointment. As he approached the parking lot it suddenly occurred to him how badly he was inconveniencing the guys he’d left behind. There were eight of them and John’s van fit only seven, which meant that somebody was going to have to sit on somebody’s lap. It would be a long, uncomfortable ride home.
For a second or two, Tim felt so bad about this that he considered turning around and going back, but he couldn’t make himself do it. The Civic Center seemed impossibly far away, and his car was right around the corner. Even so, the thought of all those guys—all his friends—squeezed into the Odyssey, their big night ruined by Tim’s selfishness, was so vivid in his mind, and so disturbing, that he actually felt relieved, upon entering the parking lot, to find Jay leaning against the trunk of his Saturn, arms crossed impatiently on his chest.
“Damn,” he said. “You sure took your time.”
“A LITTLE more?” Randall asked.
“Why not?” Ruth replied. “I’m not the one who has to drive home.”
To make up for her less-than-festive behavior at the restaurant, Ruth had picked up a bottle of Champagne at the Liquor Mart and invited the guys back to her house for a do-over celebration. They were more than happy to accept, and even bought a second bottle, on the grounds that “you never knew when it might come in handy.” It was this bottle that Randall used to refill Ruth’s glass and top off Gregory’s.
“Better be careful,” Gregory warned his fiancé. “We’re the ones who do.”
“Not necessarily,” Randall said, gazing at Ruth with a smile full of drunken goodwill. “I’m always happy to sleep on Ruth’s couch.”
“Feel free,” she assured him. “You’re always welcome.”
“I know,” he said, then turned to Gregory. “But I’d really like to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“If you want to do more than sleep,” Gregory said, “we better not drink much more.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Randall said. “Drunken sex tonight or hangover sex in the morning. It’s all good.”
“Oh yeah.” Gregory laughed. “Nothing beats hangover sex. Except maybe flu sex. That’s superhot.”
“Believe it or not,” Randall said, “I do tend to get horny when I’m sick.”
Gregory nodded. “He had strep last year and kept begging me for a blowjob every time I took his temperature.”
“See?” said Ruth. “This is why I’m gonna be lost without you guys. You think I’m gonna hear stories like this from Donna DiNardo?”
“Good old Donna,” Randall said. “I’m gonna miss her.”
“Oh well,” Ruth said. “Once you find a new job, you’ll meet a whole new cast of characters.”
“Randall’s not getting a new job,” Gregory said. “At least not for a while.”
“Really?” Ruth said.
“I’m going to start an eBay business from home,” Randall told her. “It’s already like a part-time job.”
“Plus,” Gregory pointed out, “someone’s got to stay at home with the kid.”
Ruth laughed, but stopped when she realized that Gregory hadn’t been joking.
“Or kids,” Randall added. “We think two’s a nice round number.”
“You serious?” she asked. In all the time she’d known the guys, they’d never expressed even the slightest inclination to raise a child.
“Kind of,” Gregory said. “Right now we’re just thinking out loud. But once you get married, it just kind of makes sense to have kids, don’t you think?”
“It’s definitely worth considering,” Ruth said. “I think you two would make great parents.”
They agreed that they wanted an older girl and a younger boy, not that you always got to choose. Randall liked the names Fiona and Jake, while Gregory preferred Isabelle and Liam. They were throwing around some other possibilities—Maria and Luke, Nina and Josh, Madeline and Ernesto—when the doorbell rang. They looked at one another in puzzlement.
“Expecting anyone?” Randall asked.
“No,” Ruth said, rising hesitantly from her chair.
“Maybe it’s the drunk dialer,” Gregory suggested. “Maybe his phone broke.”
“It can’t be,” Ruth said, inching toward the hall. “You can’t just show up on somebody’s doorstep at this time of night.”
“Invite him in,” Randall said. “We’d like to meet him.”
“It’s not him,” Ruth insisted.
But it was. She knew it before she put her hand on the knob, before she opened the door and saw him standing right in front of her, his big hands jammed into the pockets of his jean jacket and a pleading look in his eyes. The only things she couldn’t have predicted were the confetti in his hair and her own inability to speak.