While I got out the twenty-cup coffeepot, Norvel rallied.
“I’m a member of this church, and you ain’t,” he said, his voice low and mean. “They’ll take my word.”
“I’ll tell you what, Norvel. You go on and tell them what you like. Either they’ll believe you and fire me-in which case, the next woman they hire will be more than glad to tell them about your drinking habits-or they’ll fire you, at the very least keep a closer eye on you. As I see it, Norvel, either way, you lose.” My policy has always been to avoid or ignore Norvel, but today I was set on confronting him. Maybe my restraint with Carlton had worn out my quota of “nice” for the day; maybe this was just one face-to-face encounter too many. I often go for a week without talking to as many people as I’d talked to today.
Norvel struggled with his thought processes while I got the coffee apparatus assembled and perking and found a tray for the white-boxed assortment of bakery cookies that had been left on the counter.
“I’ll get even with you for this, bitch,” Norvel said, his sunken cheeks looking even more concave under the merciless fluorescent lighting.
“No, you won’t,” I said with absolute certainty.
Inspired by the liquor or the devil or both, Norvel made his move. He grabbed his broom with both hands and tried to jab me with it. I grabbed the stretch of handle between his hands, ducked under his arm, twisted the broom, and bent. Norvel’s arm was strained over the handle. It was excruciatingly painful, as I’d learned when Marshall taught me this particular maneuver, and Norvel made a high squeak like a bat’s.
Of course, the Reverend Joel McCorkindale came in the kitchen right then. Before I saw him, I could tell who it was by the scent of his aftershave, for he was fond of smelling sweet. I slid my right foot behind Norvel’s leg, raised it slightly, and kicked him in the back of the knee. He folded into a gasping mess on the clean kitchen floor.
I folded my arms across my chest and turned to face the minister.
Joel McCorkindale never looks like himself on the rare occasions when I see him with his mouth shut. Now his lips were compressed with distaste as he looked down at Norvel and back up at me. I figured that when he was an adolescent, McCorkingdale had looked in the mirror and seen a totally forgettable male and then had vowed to become expert in using strength of personality and a remarkable voice to overcome his lack of physical distinction. He is of average height, weight, and unremarkable coloring. His build is average, neither very muscular nor very flabby. But he is an overwhelming man, able to fill a room with his pleasure, or calm, or conviction.
Now he filled it with irritation.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, in the same marvelous voice God could have used from the burning bush- though I hoped God was above sounding peevish.
Norvel whimpered and clutched his arm. I knew he wouldn’t try anything on me with his meal ticket standing there. I turned to the sink to wash my hands so I could return to arranging the cookies.
“Miss Bard!” boomed the voice.
I sighed and turned. Always, always, there was a payback time after I enjoyed myself.
People said so much they didn’t need to say.
“What has happened here?” the Reverend McCorkindale asked sternly.
“Norvel got red-blooded, so I cooled him down.”
This would require the least explanation, I figured.
And the minister instantly believed me, which I had figured, too. I’d seen him give me a thorough look once or twice. I’d had a strong hint he wouldn’t find a man making a pass at me unbelievable.
“Norvel, is this true?”
Norvel saw the writing on the wall (so to speak) and nodded. I’d wondered if his shrewdness would overcome his anger.
“Brother Norvel, we’ll have a talk later in my study, after the meeting.”
Again, Norvel nodded.
“Now, let me help you up and out of here so Sister Lily can complete her work,” said McCorkindale in that rich voice with its hypnotic cadence.
In a minute, I had the large kitchen to myself.
As I searched for napkins, I decided that Norvel’s drinking couldn’t have escaped the overly observant Pardon Albee, since he saw Norvel at the apartments, too, as well as at church here. I wondered if Pardon had threatened Norvel with exposure, as I had done. Norvel would be a natural as Pardon’s murderer. As a janitor, he might even be more likely to notice my cart as it sat by the curb on Tuesdays, and thus more likely to remember it when he needed to transport something bulky.
I grew fonder and fonder of that idea, without really believing it. Norvel is disgusting, and it would please me if he was gone from the apartments next door to my house. But I didn’t really think Norvel had the planning ability to dispose of Pardon’s body the way it had been done. Maybe desperation had sharpened his wits.
I put a bowl of artificial sweetener and a bowl of real sugar on the coffee tray. I got out two thermal coffee carafes and poured the perked coffee into them. By the time the board members had all assembled in the small meeting room right next to the fellowship hall, the cups, saucers, small plates, napkins, coffee carafes, and cookie trays had all been arranged on the serving table in the boardroom. I had only to wait until the meeting was over, usually in an hour and a half, to clean up the food things. Then I could go to my martial arts class.
For maybe a quarter of an hour, I straightened the kitchen. It was a good advertisement to do a little extra work and it kept me from being bored. Then I went out into the fellowship hall. The fellowship hall is about forty by twenty, and has tables set up all the way around the sides, with folding chairs pushed under them. The preschool uses the tables all week, and they get dirty, the chairs not evenly aligned, though the teachers carefully train the children to pick up after themselves. I neatened things to my satisfaction, and if I ended up close to the door where the meeting was taking place, well, I was bored. I told myself that like the things I happen to see in people’s homes when I clean, the things I might happen to hear would never be told to another person.
The door to the meeting room had been left ajar to help the air circulation. This time of year, in a windowless room, the air tends to be close. Since I hadn’t brought a book, this would help to amuse me till it was time to clean up.
One of the preschool teachers had mentioned evolution in her class during the course of Dinosaur Week, I gathered after a moment. I tried hard to imagine that as being important, but I just couldn’t. However, the members of the board certainly thought it was just dreadful. I began wondering what enterprising child had turned in the teacher, what message it would send that child if the adult was fired. Brother McCorkindale, as they all addressed him, was for having the teacher in for a dialogue (his term) and proceeding from there; he felt strongly that the woman, whom he described as “God-fearing and dedicated to the children,” should be given a chance to explain and repent.
Board member Lacey Dean Knopp, Deedra Dean’s widowed and remarried mother, felt likewise, though she said sadly that just mentioning evolution had been a bad mistake on the teacher’s part. The six other board members present were all for firing the woman summarily.
“If this is typical of the people we’re hiring, we need to screen our employees more carefully,” said a nasal female voice.
I recognized that voice: It belonged to Jenny O’Hagen, half of a husband-and-wife Yuppie team who managed the local outlet of a nationally franchised restaurant called Bippy’s. Jenny and Tom O’Hagen manage to pack their lives so full of work, appointments, church functions, and phone calling connected to the various civic organizations they join (and they join any that will have them) that they’ve found a perfect way to avoid free time and conversation with each other.
Jenny and Tom live in the ground-floor front apartment at the Shakespeare Garden Apartments, the one right by Pardon Albee’s. Naturally, they don’t have a minute to clean their own apartment, so they are clients of mine. I’m always glad when neither one is home when I’m working. But most often, whichever one has been on the night shift is just getting up when I arrive.
I hadn’t known the O’Hagens belonged to SCC, much less held a position the board, but I might have figured. It was typical of the O’Hagen philosophy that childless Jenny had managed to finagle her way onto the preschool board, since the preschool is the most important one in Shakespeare and the waiting list for it is long. Jenny had probably made an appointment with Tom to conceive a child on October fifteenth, and was putting in her time on the board to ensure that infant a place in the preschool.
Since my clients were involved, I began listening with heightened attention to the heated words flying around the boardroom. Everyone got so excited, I wondered if I should have made decaf instead of regular coffee.
