Soaring(30)

I needed a desk.

I went out and bought a pad of paper.

I came home and made a to-do list.

Several of them.

I also spent hours taping paint chips up on the walls, changing them out, rearranging them, standing back and assessing, moving them to another area with different light.

I was off and running.

* * * * *

I was crazy.

Even knowing this, I did a U-turn on the quiet street (my fourth) and drove past the church again.

Definitely crazy.

I kept driving.

Then, like they were someone else’s hands and feet, mine executed another U-turn and this time I didn’t drive past the church.

I parked in front of it.

I looked up at the white building with its stained glass windows and high bell tower.

I’d never had a job. Not once. I didn’t even work in a local ice cream shop as a teen just for fun.

I’d gone to college at Stanford where my father went, got a liberal arts degree, studying English Literature because even I could read.

I’d done well. I’d graduated cum laude. My father had been summa, but as I was a girl, he didn’t expect much and he’d been pleased with my standing.

I didn’t go to work after. Girls like me didn’t work. I had a job I would fulfill, a job my mother had chosen for me: being the wife of a wealthy man, keeping his home, raising his children, continuing my ultimate role of being a Hathaway, and sitting on as many volunteer boards of appropriate charities that would have me.

Before I met Conrad, I’d lived off my trust funds and I had a good time. I absolutely did. I went out in little black dresses with my girlfriends. I drank cosmopolitans. I flirted. I dated.

I did all this appropriately. It wouldn’t do for me to get a reputation. It wouldn’t do for me to have the kind of fun an early twenty-something might wish to have.

So I didn’t.

When I met Conrad, I’d been at a charity ball, wearing a fabulous evening gown. We’d been standing by a stone balustrade on a back balcony of a fabulous estate. I’d gone out to get away from the oppressive heat of a crush of bodies and he’d gone out to get away from the oppressive company.

For me, him so beautiful in his well-cut tuxedo, his hair slightly overlong, a quiet rebellion I found titillating, it was love at first sight.

He’d told me he’d felt the same thing.

Now I was thinking it was my cleavage and, although they weren’t long, they had been shapely, my legs through the slit in my dress.

We’d dated. We’d become involved. We’d gotten engaged. We’d married. And I’d done what I was supposed to do.

I became the wife of a wealthy man, took care of his home, raised his children, and sat on every board of an appropriate charity that would have me.

In other words, I was good for nothing. I couldn’t find a job outside of entry level even if I tried.

I knew it.

But I couldn’t shop for furniture to fill my eternity. I couldn’t bake because there was no one to eat it but me, and I loved doing it, but didn’t have a taste for eating it. I couldn’t read entire days, weeks, months, years away.

I needed to do something.

On that thought, resolutely, I pushed out of the car and walked to the church.

Once inside, I found being in a church in the middle of the day for no reason was not like it was in the movies. A well-meaning pastor didn’t show up nearly instantly to sit with you in a pew, listen to your worries and share his wisdom.

Although the church was open, no one was around.

I gave it time then went wandering. Down a side hall and back, I found a small sign that said “Office” with an arrow.

I followed the arrow.

At the end of the hall, a door was opened. I turned to it and stopped in its frame.

It was definitely an office, a relatively nice one, not huge, not tiny, an official-looking desk with a small but beautiful stained glass window behind it, a woman at the side of the desk leaning over it, scribbling on a piece of paper.

“Um…excuse me,” I called.

She jerked straight and turned startled eyes to me.

“Sorry to startle you,” I murmured.

She shook her head as if to pull herself together and shifted to face me. “Not at all. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m looking for the pastor,” I told her.

She nodded, her lips curving up slightly. “Reverend Fletcher, my husband, isn’t here.” She suddenly appeared concerned. “Was he expecting you?”

“No, no,” I assured her, shaking my head. “I just popped in. Actually, I’m new to Magdalene and he doesn’t even know me.”

She rested her thigh against the desk, lost the concerned look, her features moving back to friendly and she asked, “Maybe I can help. Or I can leave a message for him or set an appointment, if you need to speak with him.”