Baptism in Blood(91)

“You want to stay here,” Zhondra Meyer said, just as carefully.

“Yes,” Rose said. “I do. I want to stay here.”

“Do you know what we’re all about, what this place is set up to be?”

“Of course I do. Everybody knows. Henry Holborn preaches about you every Sunday.”

“It might not be what Henry Holborn thinks it is.”

“It’s what I think it is. I know it.”

“It wouldn’t do you much good with that store of yours.”

“Maybe I’ll change the store.”

“You couldn’t stay in your church, either. Not if you go to Henry Holborn’s.”

“I don’t go to Henry Holborn’s church,” Rose said. “But I wouldn’t want to stay in my church, either. I don’t even know if I want to stay in town. I get so—so crazy sometimes. Do you know what I mean?”

“I know that I don’t trust you,” Zhondra Meyer said. “You want to give up much too much of your life for sex.”

It was an awful moment, one of the worst Rose could remember in her life. She was sure that Zhondra Meyer was going to make her go away. She could already see what it would be like, stumbling her way back down that hill, open and exposed to any old lady who might happen to be watching, turned down. Why had she always been so sure that rejection was something that showed in her face?

Then Zhondra Meyer seemed to soften. Rose’s stom­ach twisted and leapt.

“Come inside for a minute,” Zhondra said. “Come and talk to me. I think there are a few things you ought to know.”

As far as Rose MacNeill was concerned, she had been waiting for a chance like this for years, and now it was here, where she could almost hold it. She wondered if it would be the way she had imagined it to be, or even better.





2


HENRY HOLBORN HAD SEEN the Bellerton Times with the picture of Carol Littleton on it, and bought a copy. He had seen several out-of-town papers, too, including the Raleigh News and Observer, but he hadn’t bought any of those, not even the ones with his own picture on them. In the early days of his career, he had always bought a copy of any periodical that mentioned him, even if the mention was meretricious and awful. Lately he didn’t bother to read his publicity. They all said the same things, these people, espe­cially the ones from the very big cities in New York and California. They all seemed to think that giving your life to God turned you into the equivalent of Bigfoot—a hairy mythical monster who was likely to bite.

Henry Holborn was standing in the middle of the big room in the basement of Town Hall that served as the office of the Bellerton Police Department, next to the desk Clay­ton Hall was using to do his paperwork. It was exactly one minute before noon, and Jackson had already gone down to lunch. He was probably down at Betsey’s, talking it all over with anybody who would listen, including any stray report­ers who might happen to be around. Henry wished he had Janet with him for this, but she was gone, too, to the mall, to do some shopping.

“We can’t let the world stop just because you got arrested,” she told him, when he asked her to come with him this morning. “Even if you did get arrested in a just cause. I’ve got three Girl Scout meetings this week and I’m not ready for any one of them.”

Henry Holborn wasn’t ready for Clayton Hall, not really, but he waited as patiently as he could. This was what was known as carrying your cross with Christ, al­though Henry thought that might be more of a Catholic thing than a Protestant one. He thought he would preach on it one Sunday, when the congregation had had enough of thinking positive thoughts.

Clayton was hammering away at a computer keyboard with one hand and trying to wrestle legal-sized papers into submission with the other. Henry drew a chair up from one of the other desks and sat down.

“For the Lord’s sake, Clayton, what all are you doing? We’ve been at this for half an hour.”

“You’re the one who had to go marching on up to Bonaventura carrying a cross and singing ‘That Old Time Religion.’ By the way, Henry, if that’s what your choir sounds like on Sundays, I think I’ll just skip it.”

“You’ll skip it no matter what the choir sounds like. And of course they don’t sound like that. The congregation sounds like that. That’s why we have a choir.”

“Maybe you ought to get yourself some heavenly in­tervention. I’ve heard of tone deaf, Henry, but that was pitiful.”

“Why don’t we just process this stuff and let me get out of here? I’m not doing myself any good down here and I’m not doing you any good down here, either.”