Signs and Wonders Read online

  Signs and Wonders

  A Harmony Novel

  Philip Gulley

  To Joan and the boys and

  the people of Fairfield Friends Meeting

  Contents

  1. The Tenderloin Queen

  2. Spring in Harmony

  3. What Goes Around

  4. Deena

  5. The Furnace Committee

  6. A Mighty Man of God

  7. The Odd Fellows

  8. True Riches

  9. The Amazing Whipples

  10. Vacation

  11. Signs and Wonders

  12. Bea

  13. Persistence

  14. Deadline

  15. Halloween

  16. Thanksgiving

  17. A Christmas Revelation

  18. Dale’s Crusade

  19. All Things Work for Good

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Philip Gulley

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  The Tenderloin Queen

  The summer Barbara Gardner turned sixteen, she was crowned the Tenderloin Queen by the Lawrence County Pork Producers. She received a fifty-dollar scholarship, twenty pounds of sausage, and a one-year subscription to the Hoosier Farmer magazine. Plus, she had her picture taken as the pork producers president placed the Tenderloin Queen crown on her head. The picture ran in the September 1977 edition of the Hoosier Farmer magazine, which she’s saved in her hope chest.

  Her reign as Miss Tenderloin led to a fascination with contests, and since then she’d entered every one she could. She’d won two free windows, a year’s supply of Grape-Nuts cereal, and carpet cleaning for three rooms. But she hadn’t won anything lately and believed she was overdue for a victory. So when she was shopping at the Kroger back in March and saw the disc jockey from WEAK selling raffle tickets for a Caribbean trip, she bought ten chances at a dollar each.

  Ordinarily, Barbara never paid money to enter a contest, but it was for a good cause. They were raising money to help Wayne and Sally Fleming pay the hospital bills for Sally’s leukemia. It was just one of the many fund-raisers held for Sally. A lot of people worked a goodly number of hours to raise money, only to have Sally healed by the Reverend Johnny LaCosta over the television airwaves. A few people complained that maybe the Reverend could have been more considerate and healed her before they’d gone to all the trouble of having the fund-raisers.

  When Barbara filled out the raffle tickets, she had a premonition she’d win. She was so confident she went to Kivett’s Five and Dime and bought a new bathing suit she’d seen on the mannequin in the front window the day before. Ned Kivett had ordered the mannequin all the way from New Jersey. His old mannequin had worn out after thirty years. Kids drew mustaches on her, and she’d been kidnapped twice at Halloween. Ned wasn’t all that keen about letting her go, but her arm had fallen off, and her hair was so sparse it looked like rows of corn.

  The new mannequin came in early March. She arrived in a long box delivered by the UPS man on a Monday afternoon. She didn’t look anything like the old mannequin. She looked real. When Ned opened the box, he saw her lying there naked on a bed of Styrofoam peanuts and turned away, embarrassed. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said quickly. He averted his gaze as he helped her from the box, then draped her with a bedsheet until his wife could dress her in a bathing suit. The sheet only made things worse, emphasizing the very features he wished to conceal. He kept her in the back room for a week before working up the nerve to bring her out in public. It was awkward carrying her—he wasn’t sure where to put his hands. So he put her in a cart instead and wheeled her through the store to the front window, where he set her in a lawn chair.

  That’s where Barbara saw her as she was walking past on her way home from the Kroger. She stopped and looked. It reminded her of herself, back when she was the Tenderloin Queen. She bought the bathing suit, took it home, tried it on, and looked at herself in the mirror. If she stood sideways, she could barely make out the faint web of varicose veins. At least her thighs didn’t touch, which wasn’t bad for a woman with two kids. Not bad, she thought. Not bad at all.

  Barbara’s been exercising. Every afternoon she walks with Mabel Morrison a mile out into the country, then back home. It was Mabel’s idea. She had turned seventy-five back in February, and Doctor Neely had told her she needed to exercise, so she’d asked Barbara to walk with her. It’s been good for Barbara, too. Being the pastor’s wife, she can’t talk with just anyone for fear what she said would get around, and Mabel isn’t prone to gossip.

  Mabel used to be Catholic, but got mad that they didn’t allow women priests, so she quit going. But she’s good at keeping secrets, so Barbara tells her a lot of things, mostly about her marriage with Sam.

  “He never talks. He comes home and flops down in his chair, then eats supper, and then is back out the door to go to some church meeting. I’m getting kinda tired of it.”

  “That’s how my Harold was. He was either at the store or sleeping. We never even went on a vacation. Twenty-one years straight we went to St. Louis for the International Shoe Company’s customer appreciation dinner. That was it. Some years, we wouldn’t even stay the night. He’d make us drive back that night so we could be at the store the next day.”

  They talk about other things, too. They discuss theology. Mabel’s been reading books written by a liberal Episcopalian, and she thinks he might be onto something. He believes the Apostle Paul probably never said for women to keep silent in church, that some male chauvinist probably snuck that in later. Mabel’s been writing to the Unitarians and is thinking of starting a Unitarian church in Harmony. “Somewhere where you can think things about God without someone telling you you’re wrong,” she told Barbara.

  They discuss politics. On the last Election Day, Mabel went to the meetinghouse to vote, and when she asked for a write-in ballot, Dale Hinshaw wouldn’t give her one. “Don’t rock the boat,” he told her. “Just vote for the Republican. That’s what Harold would have wanted you to do.”

  There was a time when Mabel would have given in, but not anymore. She’s seventy-five years old and wants to do a little boat rocking. She leaned down, close to Dale’s face, and said in a low voice, “You give me a write-in ballot or I’ll have you arrested.”

  Barbara believes in equality, but she worries Mabel might have gone off the deep end. Still, she’s interesting to be around. She’s never known anyone quite like Mabel, someone who speaks her mind so freely. She’s used to smiling when people annoy her. It’s the minister’s wife in her. Don’t say what you think, don’t do what you want, just smile and be pleasant, no matter what.

  She has a college degree in education and taught for four years while Sam was in seminary, so they put her on the Christian Education Committee, but pay her no mind. Barbara suggested at the March meeting that they no longer use the Sword of the Lord curriculum, because it upset the children. Fern Hampton pointed out that they’d been using the Sword of the Lord curriculum for over twenty years and said that the problem with today’s youth was that they heard too much about God’s love and not enough about the sword of the Lord. Then she said Barbara might want to reflect on whether she truly loved the Lord.

  Barbara didn’t say anything; she just smiled. But ever since then she’s been wanting to go away for a while with Sam. Just the two of them going someplace where there aren’t any church people. So in early April when WEAK Radio called to say her name had been drawn for the Caribbean Trip Giveaway, she was so excited she hung up the phone and had to call back to get the details. A trip for two to the Caribbean for seven days. All expenses paid, plus five hundred dollars spending money.

  The Caribbean! Wh
en Barbara was in eighth grade, she’d gone on a school trip to Washington, D.C. She’d ridden all night on a bus, eleven hours straight. That was the longest trip she’d ever taken. She’d never even been on an airplane. Now she was going to the Caribbean.

  She’d seen a travelogue on the Caribbean at the library back in February. It had been a cold, dreary week, so Miss Rudy, the librarian, ran a notice in the Harmony Herald that she would be showing a Caribbean travelogue that Friday. Sam and Barbara took their boys and went. They sat in folding chairs while Miss Rudy ran the projector, aiming the picture at the wall over the drinking fountain.

  The travelogue was mostly slides from when Harvey and Eunice Muldock went to Puerto Rico in 1971 to attend a Plymouth dealership convention. Harvey had taken the pictures, lots of palm trees and sunsets and beaches with an occasional picture of Eunice in her bathing suit. To everyone’s great relief, Miss Rudy didn’t let those pictures linger too long on the drinking-fountain wall.

  The travelogue had whet Barbara’s appetite for the exotic. Now to win the trip, to actually be headed to the Caribbean, was almost more than she could bear. She called her parents to tell them, then walked down to the meetinghouse to tell Sam. She’d thought about calling him, then decided she wanted to see the look on his face.

  His head was buried in a book. She knocked on the door frame. He looked up. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “What brings you down here?”

  “Oh, nothing much. Guess who just called me?”

  “I give up. Who?”

  “A man from the radio station.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d he have to say?”

  “Nothing much. He just wanted to tell me that I’d won a trip for two to the Caribbean. Just you and me, Sam. My folks are gonna come up and watch the kids. We leave next week.” She began to laugh.

  Sam looked at the calendar on his desk, then frowned. “Gee, honey. I’m busy next week. Remember, it’s the annual planning meeting for the Christian Education Committee. I told Fern I’d be there.”

  Barbara groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. I made a promise, and so did you. You’re on the committee, too.”

  “Oh, Sam, they’ll understand. Just call and tell them we won’t be there. They’ll understand.”

  Sam leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. “Nope, I don’t think so. I’ve given my word. That’s all a man really has, his word.”

  Barbara didn’t talk to him for two days, except to ask if he could pass the salt. “But you don’t have to do it if it interferes with your job. I wouldn’t want you to pass the salt if it distracts you from your work. After all, it’s more important than anything else.”

  He knew better than to say anything back.

  Then one morning, later in the week, while she and Mabel were walking, she invited Mabel to go with her, and Mabel jumped at the chance. Mabel had never been anywhere except to the International Shoe Company’s annual customer appreciation dinner in St. Louis. She was ready to hit the road. “Of course, if your husband changes his mind, you take him and I’ll understand.”

  Barbara kept hoping Sam would change his mind, but he didn’t. She’d even tried on her new bathing suit in front of him the night before she left. “Nice,” he’d said. Then he said, “Say, do you have any ideas about Sunday school you want me to pass on to the committee?”

  She left the next morning. She didn’t bother to wake Sam, just showered and dressed and stood outside on the porch with her suitcase waiting for Mabel to come past in her Buick. They drove to the airport, two women who’d always come in second to their husbands’ jobs. They parked in the long-term lot and took a bus to the terminal. It was a quick flight—an hour and twenty minutes to Miami, then a smaller plane to St. Thomas. Neither one had ever been on an airplane. They prayed the entire way, their seat belts cinched tightly across their laps.

  They picked up their suitcases from the luggage carousel, then walked outside to get a taxi to the hotel. It wasn’t much like the hotel in the brochure. There was one double bed in their room. The bedspread had a cigarette burn. The bathroom faucet dripped, and the sink had a rust stain. It wasn’t exactly on the beach either, like the radio station had promised. But if you stood on the balcony you could smell the ocean.

  All of those things didn’t bother Barbara nearly as much as Sam not coming with her.

  It took two days for it to dawn on Sam that he should have gone with her to the Caribbean. It was Tuesday night. He was lying in bed, thinking of her, wondering what she was doing that very moment. The brochures from the radio station were lying on the nightstand. Sam thumbed through them. They showed pictures of tanned young men playing volleyball. Sam grew slightly alarmed. The 1977 Tenderloin Queen, with her husband a thousand miles away, would be fair game.

  The annual planning meeting for the Christian Education Committee was the next evening, but it no longer seemed all that crucial. He woke up early, called the radio station to find out where Barbara was staying, dropped his sons off at his parents’ house, and drove to the airport. He called Fern Hampton from a pay phone inside the terminal to tell her he wouldn’t be at the meeting. “You’ll have to carry on without me.”

  “I forgot you were even going to be there,” Fern said. It didn’t exactly buoy his spirits to learn that the very committee costing him his marriage wasn’t even aware of his sacrifice.

  It took most of the day and most of his credit-card limit to reach St. Thomas. He had to fly through Pittsburgh and Atlanta, then to Miami, where he caught the last plane to St. Thomas. It was midnight before he reached the hotel where Barbara and Mabel were staying. He knocked on the door, but they weren’t in their room. He was too late. He thought of the tanned young men in the brochure. Twelve years of marriage down the drain. He could hardly blame her. His indifference had driven her into the arms of another.

  Across the street at the casino, Barbara and Mabel were playing the slot machines. It had been Barbara’s idea, something she’d always wanted to do. Being the wife of a Quaker pastor didn’t permit certain indulgences, one of which was playing the slot machines. But in St. Thomas they didn’t know she was a minister’s wife.

  In St. Thomas she didn’t have to be a role model. She could be a regular person. She could go into a casino and, if by chance she grew thirsty, sip a certain cold beverage not usually associated with ministers’ wives. And if a tanned young man sat at the slot machine next to her and smiled, what would be the harm in smiling back? And if he had been the one to buy her that cold beverage, well, it would have been rude not to accept, wouldn’t it? Still, she was a minister’s wife and to gamble and smile at a tanned young man made her feel a little guilty.

  Barbara and Mabel spent the last of their quarters, waved good-bye to the tanned young man, and crossed the street to their hotel. Sam was sitting on the steps outside their door, his head in his hands.

  He looked up as Barbara and Mabel came up the stairs.

  “Sam, is that you? What are you doing here? Is everything all right? Are the boys okay?”

  “Everything’s fine, honey. I just missed you, that’s all.”

  He took a step toward her. “I’m sorry I didn’t come with you. It was thoughtless of me.”

  “It certainly was,” Mabel said.

  “Mabel, why don’t you go on up to the room,” Barbara said. “I think I’ll be okay alone with him.”

  Mabel walked past Barbara and frowned at Sam.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said again. “Please forgive me. I know I was wrong. That’s why I came here. I’ve been waiting outside your door all this time. I was worried something had happened to you. Are you okay? Where were you?” He was almost afraid to hear the answer.

  Barbara hung her head. “I’d rather not say.”

  Sam didn’t press her for an answer. If she and Mabel had enjoyed the company of tanned young men, he had only
himself to blame. He felt nauseous at the thought of his wife gazing dreamily at a tanned young man. But if she could forgive his thoughtlessness, he could surely forgive her. That’s what marriage was about, after all—forgiveness and consideration and not badgering your spouse for an answer you might not like.

  “Please forgive me,” he said.

  She took a step toward him. “It hurt that you didn’t come with me. It made me a little crazy. I’ve done things tonight I’m not exactly proud of.”

  Sam held up his hand. “Don’t say another word. I take full responsibility. I should never have let you come here without me.”

  She hugged him. “I love you.”

  “I love you, honey.” He hugged her back.

  They suddenly felt the urge to be alone.

  They went into the hotel room. Mabel was lying in the double bed. “I’ve called room service for a cot,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine for you, Sam.”

  “Mabel, Barbara and I thought you might enjoy having your own room. We’d be happy to pay for it.”

  “Oh, no. You kids save your money. I don’t mind sharing a room with you.”

  They stayed four more days. Sam took pictures of palm trees and sunsets and beaches with an occasional picture of Barbara in her new bathing suit. They had slides made, which they gave to Miss Rudy, who showed them the following Friday night on the wall over the drinking fountain.

  Sam and Barbara took the boys and went. There was a good crowd. The high-school basketball season had ended and there wasn’t much on television. They had to set up extra chairs. A lot of the church members were there. They were a little shocked to see the minister’s wife in a bathing suit. There were a few raised eyebrows. Miss Rudy blushed. Barbara thought, Not bad for a woman with two kids.