A Rhinestone Button (22 page)

“It felt like there was something going on between you two.”

“She was my friend’s girlfriend.”

“Did this friend die or something?”

“No.” He didn’t try to explain. It was all so embarrassing.

“How about that other woman who was here. In the long skirt.”

“Liv? She’s married.”

“So, you’re not seeing anyone?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe we could get together for a coffee or something sometime. Or maybe supper.” When Job didn’t answer right away, as he weighed his options, Jocelyn threw up her hands and said, “There I go again. My ex always told me I was too pushy.”

“No. Not at all.” From Will’s field, the loud quacks of female ducks and the whispering calls of the drakes, as birds foraging in the swathed grain called to the flock circling overhead.

“Well then, I’m thinking of going to Pastor Divine’s next workshop,” said Jocelyn. “On evangelizing with the Holy Spirit. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

Jacob crunched over the newly gravelled road to the construction site as Pastor Divine drove away down Correction Line Road. “Jack took a real shine to those old wagon wheels,” he said.

Job glanced over to where they had lain. They were gone. “He took them?”

“I offered them to him. He’s going to use them in his garden.”

“But they were mine. I bought them at the Olson auction.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I was going to put them on the front gate to the farm. I just hadn’t got around to it.” It made him angry, not just because Jacob had given away the wagon wheels without asking him, but because he had given them to Pastor Divine to garner social favour, as if he had to buy the pastor’s respect. It was something Job himself might have done.
Had
done. He’d emptied his pickle jars to give to Will, just because Will had made an off-handed comment that he liked them. Two years before, after Solverson complained that he was late in getting his harvesting done and had no sons to help, Job volunteered to give him a hand. He drove his own equipment over to Solverson’s, baled and brought in the straw just before the first snow of the season, neglecting his own crop as a consequence. Solverson was right there alongside Steinke at the Out-to-Lunch Café, giving Job the gears for neglecting to get his straw bales in before the snow. Too late, Job had realized Solverson was only complaining as he always did; he would have brought his crop in with or without Job’s help. He didn’t care one way or the other that Job helped him. More than that, he’d thought Job a fool for letting his own field work suffer, though he’d accepted the help readily enough. But Job said nothing more to Jacob about the wagon wheels, just as he’d said nothing to Solverson. What was there to say? The wheels were gone now. There was no getting them back.

“Where’s Rod and Penny?” said Jacob. “We better get this show on the road. The cement truck will be here at two.”

Job slapped dirt off his jeans. “They went into the house. I’ll get them.” Job didn’t bother going inside; he didn’t want to take his boots off. Instead he pulled open the screen door and called, “Penny. Rod. We’re ready to get started.”

Lilith stepped into the hall, wiping her hands on a dishrag. “They went back outside.”

Job turned, scanned the farm, the construction site. “I don’t see them.”

“Penny said something about showing Rod that old cabinet of your grandmother’s that’s stored in the barn.”

The barn door was partly open. Job slid inside and stood a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, and then to let his mind adjust as well. Rod pressed Penny against the back wall of a box stall. Her shirt was pulled up, and his hand was on her exposed breast. Penny’s eyes fluttered open. She saw Job, made a startled squeak like that of a mouse underfoot and pulled herself from the kiss. Rod turned, wiping his mouth, and Penny said, “Job,” and held out her hand. Then she laughed, nervously, as Job turned and fled, with the barn door swinging out after him.

Jacob, Lilith, Job and Ben drove up to Edmonton in the station wagon on a sunny October Saturday. All of them wore shorts and T-shirts, to take advantage of the last days of warm, mosquito-free weather. Earlier that week, over breakfast, Job had explained to Jacob that if he were serious about getting the halfway house to lockup before the weather turned, they should have used these fair days for a work bee, to put up the walls and roof. But here they were driving up to Pastor Divine’s workshop on how to evangelize with the Holy Spirit. “You can’t expect people to turn up for a work bee without any warning,” Jacob had said. “Besides, Pastor Divine’s had this workshop planned for months. And he won’t have another one now until after Christmas.”

The difference between those living in the city and those on the farm, Job supposed. In the city, people planned for things, committed to social engagements a week or two or even months in advance. But on the farm, where almost everything depended on the weather, people were less inclined to make plans or commit to a dinner out. A rainy day was a town day. A sunny day this time of year meant a farmer would take to the field because, any day, winter might arrive. Job knew that’s where he should have been this day, on the combine, harvesting his barley. If he didn’t get to it quickly,
he might end up one of those poor sods he sometimes saw out combining in snow, guiltily. Farmers in the area would eye his field as they drove by and later, over coffee in their kitchens or in the Out-to-Lunch Café, speculate that perhaps Job had had some equipment breakdown. Or they’d say the things that Job himself had said of others, that he should get the lead out of his pants, that he was sloppy in his field work or just plain lazy “If we’re not going to work on the building this weekend, then I should be out in the field,” he’d said to Jacob that morning.

“Pastor Jack will notice if you don’t turn up,” Jacob replied. “This is a workshop we’re going to. There’s only likely to be twenty or thirty people there.”

“But I’ve got to get that barley harvested.” And he knew Penny would likely be at the workshop. His first impulse was to find whatever excuse he could to avoid going himself, so he wouldn’t have to face her. Yet he wanted to see her, to know if she was serious about Rod, or if what he had seen was merely a fling, a cure for heartbreak. Rod was a former prostitute after all, and perhaps he had seduced her. Did she regret it now? Had she taken it to the Lord for forgiveness? Job wondered if he was still in the running, if he had ever been.

“You’ve got to at least appear to make an effort,” said Jacob. “Pastor Jack heard you didn’t help out with the last work bee. That you took off after he left.” After Job had seen Penny in Rod’s embrace, he’d headed straight for his truck, praying that it would start. When it did, he drove to the Out-to-Lunch Café, flying to safety like a chicken to its roost. A familiar place. He had hoped to see Liv, to hear her silvery laugh, but she wasn’t there. He was served by Arnie Carlson’s daughter, Betty, a shy, ash-blonde girl of sixteen.
Crystal was busy in the kitchen prepping for lunch. So he ate his pie by himself, then drove the back roads all afternoon, hunting, unsuccessfully, for the blue lottery balls driving over gravel had once produced. He couldn’t face Penny that day, couldn’t stand the embarrassment of listening to her explanation, if she’d had one. Later, over supper, Jacob had demanded an explanation from Job as to why he’d run off. Job had sat as numbly and silently as he had as a boy, when his father demanded to know why he kept setting fires. He didn’t know. He had just acted.

“Don’t think Pastor Divine didn’t notice that you disappeared after he got you healing at the revival in August,” Jacob had said to Job that morning at breakfast. “He told me he wondered just how committed to the Lord’s work you were. If you had what it took to deal with new converts when we get things started up. I assured him that you did. For heaven’s sake, Job, don’t you understand what’s at stake here? I need this halfway-house project to work. I need the salary. Otherwise we’re looking at selling this farm.”

So here he was, riding in the back of the station wagon on his way to Pastor Divine’s workshop. On the radio, a tinny country song he didn’t know. The air conditioning in the car didn’t work and all the windows were open partway. Job’s thighs stuck to the vinyl of the car seat, and he squinted into the wind like a dog, the dream that woke him still sliding around in his mind. He’d been at the church camp where he and Jacob had spent two weeks of their childhood summers. The camp bunkhouse smelled of dust and Pine-Sol. The bunks that lined the walls were two high, and on each bed lay a body. They were all dead, every one of them. Job walked down the length of the bunkhouse, touching each corpse on
the forehead. He knew what to do. He had the power to wake the dead. All it took was an act of silliness, something to make them laugh, something to trick their consciousness into resurrection. He winked knowingly at them first, as if conspiring with them, but when this got no response he jumped around, flapped his arms and danced like a chicken. A few laughed and rose. He tickled the remaining dead under the chin, and on the soles of their feet, until they, too, rose. Suddenly he was dead, lying in a bunk. There was no one there to make him laugh. He struggled to waken but could not, and felt the panic of sleep heavy on him. Then he woke, dry mouthed, heart beating in his chest, a trapped sparrow thrumming its wings against a window.

Passing through Millwoods, Ben said, “Can we stop at a gas station? I’ve got to use the washroom.”

“Why didn’t you go before we left?” asked Jacob.

“I didn’t have to go then.”

“You can wait.”

“No, I can’t.”

“I could use a pit stop myself,” said Job.

“I’m driving,” said Jacob. “I’ll decide when we stop and when we don’t.”

Job thought of himself at sixteen, asking his father if he could borrow the truck to go to a basketball game in Leduc. His father said, “No, you can’t.”

Job asked him, “Why not?”

Abe had said, “So you know I can still say
no
.”

But Job didn’t press Jacob further. He tapped his foot on the station-wagon floor in the effort of holding it in.

Jacob caught his eye in the mirror. “I meant to tell you we’re all having dinner with Jack and his wife tonight.”

Job felt trapped; he knew he’d be in for some kind of lecture from Pastor Divine. Jacob had avoided telling him about the dinner earlier, so he wouldn’t back out of coming with them. “I’ve got chores,” said Job.

“I don’t know how you’re getting home then,” said Jacob. “We won’t be heading back until after supper.”

“Penny will be at the workshop,” said Lilith. “You could get a ride home with her.”

Jacob glanced at her and then at Job through the rearview mirror. “Your choice,” he said.

They came to the sign that read
Miracles This Way
, and pulled into the parking lot in front of the old Safeway building. Once parked, Ben jumped from the station wagon and ran into the church to find the men’s washroom. Job followed, and found an empty urinal. Released a stream that made everything in the world right for a moment.

Job and Ben followed an elderly couple into one of the junior-church rooms off to the side of the sanctuary. Ben joined Jacob and Lilith, who had chosen seats in a middle row. Close to twenty other people sat on folding metal chairs around them. At the front, Pastor Divine organized his notes on a music stand. In the first row, Penny sat by herself. No sign of Rod. Job’s heart leapt when she turned and saw him, and gave him a tentative smile. She was dressed in a sleeveless pink dress and matching flip-flops. She waved him over, and when he sat, she took his hand, as if nothing had come between them. She asked him how he’d been doing, but offered no explanation about why she had been with Rod in the barn, and he didn’t ask for any, as Pastor Divine was already clearing his throat to speak.

Then Rod came into the room and handed Pastor Divine his Bible, before taking the empty chair on the other side of Penny. He was dressed up, in a salmon-coloured shirt and striped tie under a deep-blue suit jacket so big that it was obvious it didn’t belong to him. His hair was parted conservatively to the side, and he had the clean, darkly handsome appearance of the young Mormons who occasionally came down from Edmonton to proselytize door to door through Godsfinger, despite the cross tattoo on the back of his right hand. Penny leaned into his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He grinned at her. Job pulled his hand from Penny’s grip.

Pastor Divine held his arms out and smiled. “You are part of God’s family!” he said. “Everyone, stand and give each other hugs!”

Job looked around, aware of his arms dangling at his sides, as Penny hugged Rod. Then Penny turned to him and gave him a quick squeeze. The smell of her: Ivory soap and baby powder. When he held on, she gave him a pat on the back and pulled herself away. Job shook hands with Rod, but couldn’t bring himself to hug him, or look him in the eye.

Pastor Jack stepped back up to the music stand. “All right folks. Quiet down. Today I’m going to teach you to evangelize with the Holy Spirit. We’ll spend part of the morning here, learning the basics, then, later this morning and all this afternoon, you’ll put what you’ve learned into practice. You’ll pair up, and each pair will go to a different part of town to witness.”