“Hey, the thought of driving somewhere doesn’t exactly thrill me,” she answered. “I’ve had my own car for years.”
“Oh that’s right,” I said. “You’re The Jaded Lady who’s seen and done everything. What would exactly thrill you?”
“The thought of catching Reverend Cloward’s eleven-o’clock service,” she said, “I told your father I’d go there with good wishes from ACE. We’re supposed to build up goodwill between ACE and local churches, remember?”
“That is thrilling,” I said. “Be sure and catch a glimpse of Dickie while you’re there.”
“I’d want more than a glimpse of Dickie,” she said.
Dickie was my age, and he was in my class at Seaville High. All the girls were blown away by Dickie’s good looks, but there was something eerie about Dickie, too. He was like a science-fiction clone of his old man. He didn’t look like he’d had another parent—just the Reverend. He stood like him, walked like him, sounded like him—he had all his gestures. Even the part in his hair was the same.
“Sometimes I think you’re a P.K. groupie,” I said.
“Sometimes I think you’re jealous.”
“Sometimes I am.”
“You can always come with me, Jesse.”
“The thought of going to church twice in one Sunday doesn’t exactly thrill me,” I said. “I’ve been going to church for seventeen years.”
I drove her to her house, waited for her to change clothes, and dropped her off on Main Street, at the First Methodist Church.
Seal had said what I ought to do was call on the Ringers, take Opal for a ride, something. We owe them something, she said, I feel guilty around Arnelle. Just pretend you’re a male hummingbird. She laughed. The day before, we’d watched this movie called Sex and Courtship, sent to ACE by Faith Films. They were trying to sell it to ACE for our teenage “Play and Pray” program. There were shots of this male hummingbird showing off his dazzling plumage, stunt flying through the air to attract a female calmly perched on a branch waiting.
Even if I could talk myself into pretending I was the male hummingbird, the idea of Opal Ringer calmly perched anywhere didn’t fit. Opal was more like some little cat, forced out into the wild to make her own way too soon. She was the kind of creature you’d have thought one loud noise would send her clinging to something, mewing with fear, like the cat hanging to the side of a tree, its fur on end, while dogs barked up from the ground.
But Seal told me exactly where the Ringers lived on Hog Creek Road, and I turned the car around and headed that way.
When Mrs. Ringer told me Opal wasn’t there, I wound up giving Opal’s brother a ride to Drive-in Burger.
He said he needed a new car, he thought—“a new secondhand one.”
He said, “Riding around in this thing, I feel like I’m getting above my raisings.” He was cracking his knuckles, stretching his long legs out after moving the seat back.
“This car really belongs to ACE,” I said.
“Don’t everything? I hear Diane-Young Cheek does, too, now. Hear she’s going out with ACE to witness.”
“She’ll make The Helping Hand Tabernacle famous,” I said.
“That’d be another miracle, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t you think she’ll do you some good?”
“I think she’ll do you all some good,” he said. “I think her folks want her out of Seaville is what I think. … Was that your first healing?”
“I’ve been to a lot of healings, Bobby John. My own grandfather could heal, or at least he could use the power of suggestion to good advantage.”
“Do you think that’s what happened with Diane-Young? The power of suggestion?”
“I think that had something to do with it.”
“Don’t that bother you any?”
“Why should it?”
“You got to ask yourself who did the suggesting.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? She’s off the crutch.”
He asked me a lot of questions about ACE Winning Rallies, how long the tour took, who went on it, what happened, and I finally told him we weren’t even sure we could raise the money for the summer one. I told him we had all we could do to stay on TV.
“We got all we can do to keep our doors open,” he said. I pulled into Drive-in Burger and offered to buy him a burger, “for helping us find Diane-Young. Come on,” I said. “My treat.”
“I didn’t come here to eat,” he said. “I’m on the afternoon shift.”
Then he said, “Opal’ll be real pleased you came by to see her, and much obliged for the lift.”
He gave me a little two-fingered salute and slammed the car door shut.
I was in charge of ACE’s “Personal Touch,” which my father described as “a one-man outreach operation.” I was supposed to drive around to the jails and hospitals, shake hands with people, pass out our leaflets and charms, and remind everyone that It’s Up to You was on TV every Sunday at noon.
Seal was helping my mother run the ACE cassette course, and the ACORN program (A Counselor of Reborn Neighbors).
It was Donald Divine’s idea that my mother should make white her trademark. She bought an all-white wardrobe. She used our sunroom for her office, and Donald got a decorator in who filled the place with white wicker furniture, white cushions, white rugs over white ceramic tile floors, and white flowering plants.
We were a far cry from the days down South when we piled into motel rooms at day’s end, and only unpacked what we needed for the next day.
Donald had even gone out and bought a white angora cat for my mother, which he named Blanche. Blanche slept over on the windowsill of the
