The following Tuesday, Nancy told Carla she needed to talk to her at lunchtime. Carla wanted it to be about something light-hearted—plans for the wedding, or maybe a shower—but from Nancy’s troubled expression, she surmised it was something serious. When they were seated in a booth at Szechuan Palace, Carla was all curiosity, but it wasn’t until they were finished eating when Nancy finally said, “Carla, Rita Helgessen hates me.”
“What?” Carla’s tone was incredulous.
“She hates me. I have tried hard to be friends, but she ignores me. Sometimes she’s downright rude. When I pass her in the hall, she doesn’t even look at me; she makes sure she’s busy shuffling papers in her hand or something else that’s preoccupying. I’ve even stopped by her desk on purpose just to say hi, and she won’t even look up.”
“You’re kidding!”
Nancy’s lips pursed in bewilderment and hurt. “I finally decided that she just wants nothing to do with me, so I’m going to accommodate her; but I wish I knew why she doesn’t like me.”
“I’m sorry, Nancy. How could anyone not like you?” Carla found herself suppressing a feeling of anger towards this woman who she knew was a pastor’s wife.
“I didn’t want to say anything to you, but I need some advice: I don’t even enjoy coming to work like I used to.”
“Hmm…” Carla sat in silence for a moment and then asked, “How long has she acted like this?”
“Well, I think it started when I told her during coffee break one time that I was pro-life and went out to the clinic on Saturdays to protest. It wasn’t like I made a big deal of it. But she kept asking questions, and I didn’t want to lie.”
“Of course not.” Carla sighed, feeling Nancy’s rejection as if it were her own.
“What should I do?”
“Nancy, you’re usually the answer person and I’m the one with the question.” Carla sat quietly for another moment. “Well,” she said, finally, “aren’t we supposed to pray for those who persecute us?”
“Yes,” Nancy acknowledged quietly.
“I’ve learned to ask the Lord to work it out beautifully whenever I have a problem out of my control: we could do that, too.”
“OK.”
The waiter came by for their dishes and to leave a plate of fortune cookies. Nancy cracked one open and spoke again. “You know what I think, Carla?” She turned her head momentarily to remove the fortune paper from the cookie, then back to look Carla straight in the eye. “I think she’s had an abortion.”
Carla responded with a look of indignation. “That’s no reason to dislike you. Give me a break!”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Anyway, I doubt she’s had an abortion. She’s a pastor’s wife.”
“Oh, Carla, I’m sure lots of pastors’ wives have had abortions. Or maybe she herself hasn’t had one, but she’s counseled another woman to abort a baby.”
“Well, obviously she doesn’t know I go out to the clinic too.”
“No,” Nancy smiled wryly.
“I’ll do my best to keep it a secret.”
“Good idea,” Nancy answered, a half-smile still on her face. “I don’t want to be bitter or resentful towards anyone, but I’m really struggling.” Nancy’s eyes reflected her last words, and Carla reached across the table to pat her friend’s hand.
“God will work it out. I say avoid Rita for a while. Like you say, accommodate her. Be civil, but don’t go out of your way to be friendly towards her if you happen to cross paths.” She paused for a moment until Nancy looked up at her. “And let’s both be praying for her.”
Nancy nodded sincerely.
On the way back to the office, Carla determined to pursue Rita’s friendship. She figured this woman must be having a hard time to allow dislike to surface so strongly towards a fellow employee—especially one so likeable as Nancy. Carla was intrigued with the thought that Rita was hearing a sermon every Sunday from the pulpit—her own husband delivering the message—and yet harboring such resentment towards Nancy.
……….
With her mind preoccupied, Carla still managed to finish her filing in the time she’d allotted for it. As she moved on to different tasks, she was sufficiently engrossed in her work but still mulled over the situation involving Nancy and Rita. When Mr. Garman rang for her, she put down the mail she was sorting. Straightening her skirt and picking up a pen and notepad, she entered his office with a smile of composure on her face, stashing away all the day’s troubles.
“Hello, sir!” It was a greeting to cover the entire day, as Mr. Garman had not been at work at all that morning and had obviously entered his office during lunch hour.
“Hello,” was the warm response. “How’s your work load today?”
“Not bad. Do you have something for me?”
“Nope,” Mr. Garman answered emphatically, and his smile was engaging now, almost to a point beyond business protocol, Carla concluded. She felt her face turning red. “I have a favor to ask.” He gestured for Carla to sit down.
“You remember Patrice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Patrice and I had a falling out, and we’re no longer together,” he stated. Carla looked down at the notebook to try to escape the scrutiny of Mr. Garman’s eyes. She had the feeling he wanted to see her reaction to the blunt announcement. She looked up again, carefully inexpressive, waiting for him to go on. When he didn’t, she looked down again, toying with her pen to avoid eye contact. Marc’s almost intrusive display of confidence momentarily annoyed her. Wasn’t it more his job to explain rather than to expect her to comment? Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she looked up.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said simply.
“Yes,” he said, almost as if he were giving her his approval of her reaction. Then he smiled, as if in closure of a rather intimate interaction that had left him satisfied. “I am, too.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly relaxed. “But life goes on.”
He sat silently for another long moment, pensively stroking his left cheek with a faraway gaze. Carla waited, now surprisingly comfortable in the silence. “There were extenuating circumstances triggering our…divorce, if you will. We weren’t married, but we had lived together for almost two years.”
Again, Carla found herself looking down to avoid Mr. Garman’s penetrating inquiry of her reaction. He had no right to her thoughts, after all.
“I’m not free to talk about those circumstances,” he went on, “except to say that it has been a difficult time for both of us, and I have reason to suspect that Patrice may have succumbed to some degree of depression. She might get professional help on her own—she’s smart, and she’s a survivor; but if she doesn’t, I want to help her get it somehow. My problem is that I haven’t been able to contact her for over a week.”
“You must know where she works.”
“No—I don’t know what happened, but she is no longer at the medical office. I do know the area where she used to live before we started dating. But if I go looking for Patrice and she sees me, I’m not sure what she’ll do. We had rather sharp words for each other the last time I contacted her, and she threatened that she would over-dose if she ever saw me again.”
“Whoa!” Carla said slowly and softly in an incredulous voice, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Well, I think that was just talk, but I still worry about her because I know her mother—like mine—was an alcoholic.”
“I see.” There was genuine compassion in Carla’s voice, as she considered the odds stacking up against this young woman who was just a short time ago the epitome of suave self-assurance. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Carla almost thought she saw tears glisten in Mr. Garman’s eyes, but he certainly didn’t give in to any emotion, and he spoke with utmost sincerity in his voice.
“Patrice is going through a very tough time, and she needs people to come alongside and help her. I can’t, unless I can do it indirectly so she doesn’t know anything about my involvement.” His eyes were intent now. “That’s where you come in. I‘d like you to do a little detective work, first to find out where she’s living, and also, if possible, where she’s working—if she’s working at all.” He paused. “Then,” he said, stopping and staring thoughtfully, “…no, actually, I think we won’t go any further right now. If you can accomplish this, I would be grateful.” He sighed. “I feel responsible for doing what I can for her because…” He shrugged one shoulder. “I just do.”
Just when Carla had decided to speak up, asking for some clarification, Mr. Garman spoke again. “Of course, you’re under no obligation to do this. I can certainly find someone else. But this is a priority in my life right now, and because of that, I would rather have you spend at least half your working time on tracking Patrice and helping me aid her than on routine office work. I’ll try to keep your workload severely trimmed, so you don’t feel any added pressure.” He looked up and pointedly added, “If you agree, we’ll do it on the condition that you’ll let me know if you feel uneasy.” He stopped and smiled. “I don’t want to lose a very good secretary.”
Carla smiled back, shrugging. “Well, I guess I’m game. I can at least give it a go. If I’m not comfortable with this …‘assignment,’ though, I hope I don’t lose my job over it.”
“No, you will not lose your job. But one more thing: I would like to have your word that you’ll get my permission before disclosing these circumstances to anyone in the office.”
“But won’t they notice I’m gone half the day?”
“I’ve thought of that. I’d like you to tell anyone who’s curious that I only need part-time help in the office for a while, but that you are being compensated because you are on call, which is true, and I don’t want you to take another job, which is also true. Hopefully, this ‘investigation’ will only last a week or two.” He smiled again. “What do you think?”
“I’m fine with that. However…” Carla thought for a moment. “I would like to tell Nancy. She would never talk about it with anyone else in the office, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable not being open and honest with her. She’s a very close friend, and we eat together almost every day.”
“Well, if you know you can trust her, that’s fine with me.”
“Shall I do my… ‘investigative work’ in the morning or afternoon?”
“I’ll leave that up to you. If you can let me know the afternoon the day before, either time is fine. That way I can keep a handle on my projects as well.” He stuck his pen in his shirt pocket and smiled at her. “What’ll it be tomorrow—morning or afternoon?”
“I’ll try morning and report to you at one. But where do I go?”
“Well, here’s the situation,” Marc Garman said. He motioned to Carla to come over to his desk, and for the next few minutes he gave her detailed instructions about Patrice’s possible whereabouts.
At 4:50, Carla gathered her purse and a small notebook containing Mr. Garman’s directions, and headed home. She drove pensively, half wondering if she should have declined signing on as an amateur private investigator.
“Oh well, you’re committed now,” she said to herself, setting aside her curiosity about what the next day’s experience would be.
……….
A little over a week following the spy assignment he’d given his secretary, Marc Garman found himself pleased with the situation. He granted himself that this was a stroke of good luck; he could have felt very differently about it. Carla had predictably invested worthy effort into the venture, and Marc now knew Patrice was living in an apartment on Hillshire Avenue in an edgy, commercial part of town. Apparently no one was the wiser in the office regarding the surreptitious actions of his secretary, except for Nancy Herring, Carla’s friend. He knew he could trust Carla never to disclose her being paid to spy on his former lover, and he didn’t allow himself to worry about Carla’s friend yapping.
It wasn’t that his motives couldn’t survive scrutiny. His tracking Patrice was for the sole purpose of making sure she was all right. Bitter as his feelings were towards her for the death of their child, he had come to understand as the days passed that he also was responsible for their child’s death, as well as for Patrice’s subsequent unstable material and physical situation. In retrospect, he understood that their relationship had satisfied his own needs well enough, and he’d never felt it necessary to risk rocking the boat by discussing any subject they might not agree upon. Not that they wouldn’t have agreed in theory about a woman’s choice to have an abortion. But he most certainly felt that her decision to have their baby aborted right before birth was immoral. And had he pursued intimacy of their minds as much as intimacy of their bodies, he would no doubt have discovered how she felt about her pregnancy in time to have dissuaded her from the fatal course she took.
He acknowledged to himself that even when he had suggested Patrice move in with him, he had felt just the slightest twinge of conscience, leftover from attitudes he’d picked up as a child. Consequently, when he found he really enjoyed Patrice’s company, day and night, his mind had naturally migrated to marriage. Wasn’t that the next step in a relationship that by default was a prelude to parenting children?
Marc remembered that it was that very subject—marriage—that had precipitated their one discussion of moral absolutes vs. moral relativity. Although he had attended church throughout his first eight years, he had grown up without strong religious convictions. Patrice, on the other hand, was a staunch humanist, and Marc had deferred willingly enough to Patrice’s objection to marriage.
Now, looking back, he regretted not pursuing uncomfortable topics. He had unwittingly circumvented an intimacy that would have forced Patrice and him to bare their souls to one another in a way that would very possibly have bound them together more closely, or else brought to light much earlier the incompatibilities that eventually proved irreconcilable.
Marc recognized now that the deception he abhorred in Patrice was a byproduct of his being content with a surface knowledge of who she really was. He had chosen the easy route in order to maintain the physical intimacy he enjoyed so much. He could absorb that responsibility and live with it. What he couldn’t live with was the fact that he had discovered too late Patrice’s true opinion regarding moral issues and that because of this, his son had died.
Covella’s had become a frequent habit throughout the past month for Marc. It wasn’t because the food was so good, although Marc had no complaints. It was actually because he hoped “Joe” the psychiatrist would show up again, with or without his client Chemosh. Somehow he had the feeling that Joe could help resolve his own struggles surrounding the abortion of Trent. He found himself wishing he had trailed the two men out of the restaurant that day and done enough detective work himself to discover where “Joe” lived or worked. This was the fifth day in a row he’d come for lunch, hoping Joe would show up. But this Friday had been the same as Monday through Thursday before. As the waitress handed him his check, a simple idea occurred to him, however, and he wondered why he’d not thought of it before.
How many “Joe” psychiatrists could there be in a town of this size? There was relief in his mind as he climbed into his car and drove home, confident that he would find the Joe psychiatrist he was looking for.
……….
Saturday morning dawned cool and overcast. Carla and Nancy drove by themselves to the abortion clinic, as Mike was out of town at a training seminar in preparation for a promotion at his job. Things had been fairly uneventful that morning, but Marie announced happily that two babies had been saved during the week, and that was encouraging.
On the way home, Nancy made an announcement that took Carla by surprise.
“I think I’m going to get an apartment in the same building Patrice lives in.”
Carla swung her head around and looked at Nancy with a big question mark on her face. “You’re what?”
“You heard right,” Nancy chuckled. “I drove by there the day before yesterday with Mike after we had supper together. There’s a vacancy and we looked at it. It needs some cleaning, but it’s not too bad, and the rent’s low.”
“Why are you moving?”
“Ever since you told me about your ‘secret assignment,’ Patrice has been on my mind. I really feel like I’m supposed to move there. My lease was up last month, and I’m free to move anytime.”
“What if she moves?”
“Hopefully we’ll have become friends by then, and I can still stay in touch.”
“What does Mike think?”
“Oh, I think he’d rather I stay where I am, but he says he doesn’t want to stand in the way if God has put this on my heart—which I believe He has.”
“What if she shuns you—and keeps on shunning you?”
Nancy shrugged. “That’s OK. I guess it’ll be a lesson in love for both of us.” She smiled confidently. “I have lots of patience, especially when I feel a divine unction.”
Carla raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. “Well, you’ve sure got a whole lot more faith than I do. Patrice isn’t the warmest person I’ve ever met.”
The two rode on in silence for a while until Carla spoke up again. “So when will you be moving?”
“I already talked with Mr. Gallegos. He said I could move next week if he has someone to move in. He didn’t think it’d be a problem.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to help in any way, you know.”
“I don’t think you’d better, Carla. Patrice might remember me from the office party, but I didn’t talk with her, and I hope she doesn’t. I know she knows you, though, and I think that would put her off, don’t you?”
“Yeah!” Carla laughed disdainfully. “She’s never seemed to like me much. But I can still help you from this end—packing up.”
“Mike can help me unpack, and your Mom might drive up, too, Mike said. I’d like her to see the apartment building and the apartment, and hopefully, if the timing’s right, meet Patrice. We’re on the same floor.”
“Wow. You have high hopes, don’t you?” They pulled up to the curb outside Nancy’s apartment. “Well, I guess we’ll have to drive separately on Saturdays when Mike’s out of town, if you don’t think we should be seen together. It would be too far out of the way for you to come and pick me up, don’t you think?”
“Right.” Nancy opened the car door and then turned back to look at Carla. “Would you start praying now for Patrice and me to become friends? And I’ll pray for her to end up really liking you, too.”
“You’re going after miracles left and right these days, aren’t you?”
“What’s it all about?” Nancy leaned down to look inside and across the car at Carla. “See ya.” She flashed a big smile that seemed to come from deep inside, reminding Carla of the first time she’d met this friend. So much had happened since then. Outwardly Carla still lived in the same place and had the same job. But inwardly, what a different story! Life had just been natural before, with no thought given to anything supernatural. Carla felt like she’d been through a metamorphosis, and it had all started with Nancy’s wide-open smile. It was the love inherent in that smile that had drawn Carla to her and then to Rock Church. She had let herself be open to that love, and when Moose Lodge happened, she had Help. She wished she’d gotten plugged in when she was little, “But hey, now is good,” she said to herself.
As she drove away, she found herself praying. “Thanks for Nancy, Lord. Thanks for the love You’ve given Mike and her for each other. Keep her safe during this move and while she lives there by Patrice. Keep Mom and Susie safe. Give them a nice day. I just want to thank You, Father, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”