39

Vanessa burst through the side door, five minutes late for her shift, while Jake was still sitting with Pastor Simeon. Gareth would arrive soon, and he needed to talk to Vanessa first, so he excused himself from Pastor.

Vanessa was already cleaning a display case as if her job depended on it.

“I’ve been thinking.”

She ignored him.

“We don’t need to fill Ronny’s job right now. Once business picks back up, we can fill it.”

She pushed a handful of crumbs into her palm then dumped the bits into the trash. Instead of straightening up to talk, she leaned further into the case.

“You feel like I passed you over, and I’m sorry. You said hiring Ashley would hurt Harold, and I can’t let my business be about a vendetta. She didn’t interview well. We need staff who can deal with conflicts in ways that don’t involve taking a video of someone losing their cool and then offering to share the footage.”

“She did that?”

“When I called to decline her for the job, she asked if I wanted to see a video of Harold. Can you imagine if she got a clip of an angry customer and put it on social media?”

“Harold is an exception.”

“Once in a while, we get exceptional customers. Remember your froth guy?”

Vanessa smiled, despite a fight to keep it from showing.

“Pursuing revenge would cost more than you think. More than is immediately apparent.” Since his first talk with Pastor Simeon, his quiet times with God had gotten a lot less lonely. He wouldn’t go back. “Promise to keep Harold out of it, and you can hire the next one.”

“Fine. I’ll ignore him. There’s no way he can roast coffee like I can, anyway.”

“Not even with Ashley on his side?”

Her cheeks flushed. “I may have given her a couple of roasting tips yesterday. But no. Not even with her.”

“Don’t worry about it. He won’t let her touch the roaster. Besides, he hasn’t bought a commercial one yet.”

“Yeah, she’s planning to do what I did. Make some and earn the job that way.”

“Still not worried.”

Harold wouldn’t let her near the roaster if he intended it to be Hillside’s downfall.

~*~

Jake split Gareth’s first shift to accommodate the soccer game the new manager had to coach. During the break, Jake retreated to his apartment to read the Sermon on the Mount, because it had come to mind when he’d talked with Pastor Simeon. Jesus’s command, spelled out in red letters, said to pray for his enemies. He gave it a shot, but if God interested Himself in the heart and not in lip service, He saw right through Jake’s prayer about blessing Harold.

Change my heart, Lord. Show me how to love Harold and how to represent You to him.

Better. He went downstairs.

“Jake,” his mom called. She sat at a table tucked back along the wall.

Sylvia sat with her. Neither woman had a coffee, but Sylvia looked as though she could use one, if only as an outlet for her nervous hands.

He tried to read their faces, but Mom looked to Sylvia, who stared at him.

“You met Sylvia once?” Mom asked.

“Yeah. Hey, Sylvia. Welcome.” He’d shake her hand, but she was checking over her shoulder toward Harold’s Books.

“She says she was introduced as Sylvia Monroe last time, but she used to be Sylvia Keen. She came to me because she heard about the trouble you’ve been having, and she has some insight.”

“I’ll take anything that’ll help me figure out how to handle him.”

Sylvia straightened her shoulders. “Harold is a jealous man, but he doesn’t harass everyone the way he does you. My insight isn’t about how to handle him, but I can tell you why he persecutes you.”

“I don’t want to get into gossip, but if there’s something you know that’ll help me end this peacefully...”

Sylvia sank back against her chair.

“A peaceful resolution is why we came.” Mom touched Sylvia’s hand.

She nodded at the reminder. “Harold ran for mayor a few years before his brother and failed. Sometime after that, he and I married, and he got into business, but he had ideas that Andy, our son, would succeed in politics. Redeem our little branch of the family.

“I accepted Jesus when Andy was in high school. Another choice of mine for Harold to ridicule, but I wasn’t part of his big aspirations, so my faith didn’t result in all-out war.”

The coffee grinder grated into use. Jake leaned closer to hear.

“Andy’s decision to follow Christ, however, did. He and Harold ended up cutting all ties while Andy was off at college. That’s when Harold divorced me.” Sylvia untangled her hands, gaining confidence. “You run a successful business right across the street from him, but I think what got him started on you is your faith. Add to that the fact that you mentor high school boys, and he thinks of you as the kind of person who drew Andy away from him. But when I tried to convince him to leave you and that poor young woman alone, I learned his real problem. You were becoming a father, and he’d lost his son. It’s scary how angry his jealousy makes him.”

“How scary?”

“He used to hit me. The only reason he stopped is that I wasn’t around for him to do it anymore. But you’re tied down by a building.”

The counter crew started another loud drink, but no one tried to talk over it. When it quieted, Jake explained the roaster. “So if it puts you at ease, his plan seems to be to mimic my business and steal our sales. Next, he’ll go for training in Seattle and maybe try to steal our new wholesale accounts.”

“Seems like that plan lacks a certain pizzazz, doesn’t it?”

“You think he’s planning something else?”

“I don’t know, and neither of us wants to fall into gossiping.” Her focus drifted toward Main Street, and she moved away from the table. “Maybe I already have. I just thought knowing why he hates you might help.”

He rose, and she hurried out. He turned back to his mom. “Doesn’t help much. It’s not like I’ll deny my faith to make him happy.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“She seems to think he could be. He abused her for years. But I can’t stay because I drove her.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Trust God.”

~*~

Gareth returned to learn closing shift duties with Jake. Once they’d locked the doors for the night, he sent Gareth to shut off the restroom lights while he stopped in the basement to check the roaster. As he reached the bottom of the steps, the sound of breaking glass sprinkled the air from somewhere above him. He raced to the top of the stairs.

Gareth’s shadow moved toward the glowing windows along Main.

Jake flipped on lights as glass crunched under Gareth’s feet. Three of the front windows had been smashed, and the jagged edges caught the light, framing a clear view of Main Street.

People loitered across the street, outside Harold’s Books.

Gareth pointed at a tan, tumbled brick on one of the tables. Two others lay on the floor. “Whoever it was has quite an arm.”

“They’re off the building next to Harold’s.” The abandoned carpet store had bricks like these loose in the alley.

A man peered through one of the gaping windows. “We called the police.”

Witnesses. Perfect. “Did you see who it was?”

“Kids. They were just walking down the street, until all of a sudden, they started chucking stuff at the windows. Pretty dumb, considering how many people are around.”

“Can you describe them?”

“Three kids. They were wearing hoodies with the hoods up. None of them were real big or anything.”

“Middle schoolers?”

“No, they weren’t short. They just weren’t big, either. Like, not linebackers.”

Jake glanced at Gareth.

The new hire lifted his hands. “I didn’t see them.”

Sirens grew in the quiet. By the time the onlooker gave his statement to the first officer, another policeman had arrived. They took a tour down the street, but other than the bricks, the kids had left no trace.

“Is there a reason someone would do this?” an officer asked.

Across the street, dim lights accented the structure of Harold’s Books. Ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. A crime had been committed, and he could witness to that. But Gareth stood nearby, listening, and grudges against Harold could be passed on like wildfire. Anyway, this may not have been him. Vandalism lacked a certain pizzazz, and if Harold was involved, he hadn’t done the dirty work himself. Unless they caught the culprits, there’d be no way to prove he had anything to do with this. Even then, Harold could make his problems with the justice system disappear.

The officer started to supply ideas. “Did you have to kick out any kids for loitering recently? Maybe fire someone?”

Ronny had said something weird when Vanessa called about his missed shifts. Something about the shop being a dangerous place to work. The kid’s fear lined up with what Sylvia and Ashley said. Maybe Ronny had contact with the man, too. He could’ve helped delete the Easter basket e-mails, and he might have thrown the bricks. If so, a kid like Ronny would say something revealing to the police in a minute flat.

Jake could point that direction without making accusations. “We let someone go last week.” He retrieved Ronny’s information.

The officers left him with a report and a promise to keep an eye out for the kids. From the paper to the promise, the odds of resolution seemed flimsy.

Gareth took a broom to the glass. “It’ll be covered by insurance, right?”

He’d have to look at the policy to see if it’d be worth reporting. The deductible and the possibility that Hillside’s premiums would go up could prove too costly, but then gigantic windows like these would be expensive, too. And there was still no way to know what else Harold planned to do. “Can you stay long enough to help me hang some plywood?”

~*~

At two o’clock, Jake pounded in the last nail and sent Gareth home with assurances that his second day at work wouldn’t be as eventful. Jake shut off the lights and crossed toward the stairs, but he stopped halfway through the dining room.

No two of Harold’s attacks had been the same. Promising Gareth a more normal day had been foolish. Tomorrow and every day after could grow more eventful until Harold pressed the right button and put Hillside out of business.

He has no power You haven’t given him, God.

Why had he fought for the books? Why escalate the feud with the book exchange? He’d confirmed Harold’s war-like impression of Christians. If he’d just given up the books to begin with, the man would’ve backed off. If not, at least Jake’s conscience would be clear. He sank into one of the chairs at a table facing the windows. He’d brought all of this on himself by not seeking peace. During his break that afternoon, he’d tried to memorize a chunk of the Sermon on the Mount, but only one phrase remained.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.

Leaving Hillside had been Caleb’s recommendation. Jake hadn’t deleted the text with the Bethel address. Brooklyn would be there. Right next door. His eyes closed at the thought of her.

God, I miss her. I miss enjoying work. I miss making a difference with the youth group. Most of all, I miss knowing I was doing the right thing. How did I get so far off track?

He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them as he confessed a whole chain of missteps he’d taken with Brooklyn, Harold, Pastor, and Mom. Pride and not trusting God. Taking matters into his own hands. Seeking vengeance.

Glass shattered like a taunt that his confession wasn’t good enough.

He lifted his head.

Instead of another window, the sound had come from a bottle on the street. Anger pounded his chest, protesting he shouldn’t have to give in to threats like Harold’s. But no. Defensiveness had landed him here, where the last thing he had to lose was the shop, and that sat in danger, too.

He carried the police report to the apartment and set it on the computer desk. As he stepped away to go to bed, his vision caught on another folded set of papers. The report from Brooklyn’s rape. He hooked it with his fingers, let his back slide down the wall, and sat on the floor to read the details he hadn’t been able to stand in his dream. Three sentences in, his tears distorted his view of the paper, and he couldn’t finish.

She’d said she was called to forgive her rapist and insisted he ought to forgive Harold. He’d claimed to want justice, not revenge. Justice would be better off lost forever than demanded at the price he was paying. And all over so much less than what Brooklyn had gone through.

“God, I need you to change me. Tell me what to do.”

Without rising from the floor, he folded the report and slid it onto the desk. He waited, listening, but he only heard the echo of the verse Pastor Simeon had shared.

Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.

Maybe the memory of the verse stemmed from his own exhaustion, but it could also be God’s way of telling him he’d come far enough for one night. He wiped his eyes, got up, and opened the chest in the living room. The blanket Brooklyn had made lay on top of the stack of spare pillows. He wrapped it around his shoulders and went to bed.