A ruling passion : a novel (63 page)

Sybille looked at Bassington.

"Why?" Bassington asked Monte. "Everything's going fine; why

change it? Sybille is a modest person; she likes to stay behind the scenes. I admire that in her; I wouldn't ask her to be any other way. And I certainly wouldn't vote to force her to."

"Well, I'm not sure about modest," Arch Warman said. "But that's not the real problem. The real problem is money. Sybille takes a bigger piece out of every dollar than we do, and I'm feeling uncomfortable about that."

Bassington shot a glance in Sybille's direction, then wagged his head at Warman. 'Tou're making more money now with Marrach Construction than you ever made before. You ought to be grateful. Fm gratefiil, God knows: I never thought I'd be a millionaire. Men of God usually aren't. Why do you have to start being greedy?"

"Arch isn't the one I'd call greedy," Monte said flatly.

"Oh, for shame," Bassington cried. "Shame on you both. Sybille brings Lily to us, she nurtures and teaches her, she gains her trust so that she performs on schedule and brings in seventy-five million dollars this year. And you sneer at Sybille. This is not Christian of you. Or smart. Lily appreciates Sybille; did you forget that?"

There was a silence while they remembered that Sybille held all the power as long as she held Lily. "We'll talk about it another time," Warman muttered. "I didn't say it had to be decided today."

"At the next meeting," said Monte. He was flushed with anger. "Or the one after that."

There was another silence. Sybille took a breath, so ftirious she could not yet speak. She'd taken two half-assed piddling businessmen and a failed preacher, and made them millionaires, and they thought they could dictate to her. She could get rid of them at any time; she didn't need them.

But she knew she did need them, at least for now. She needed Marrach, which Warman had set up specifically to build Graceville so they could get a piece of every dollar spent in building it; she needed Monte for his steady supply of money, and the extra interest they skimmed off" that; and she needed Bassington. It galled her to admit it, especially when she thought of his body pumping on top of hers, his hands kneading her breasts and buttocks as if he were making bread, but he was useftil as an amiable liaison with the public, and to help keep Arch and Monte in line.

He stays for a while, she thought; they all stay for a while. But then they'll go. Graceville is mine. If they think they can take any part of it away from me, they'll find out how wrong they are.

She turned to Bassington. "Do you have anything else?"

"Well." He riffled through the papers in his hands. "I did have a thought about Jim and Tammy Bakker, and all those accusations Jerry Falwell and some of the others are making. What a dark day, all these men of God pointing fingers, besmirching our calling; it keeps me awake at night with sadness and despair..."

"Get to the point," Monte growled.

"I am. The point is, I'm afraid that if the whole thing doesn't die away pretty soon people are going to get worried about all tv ministers—not Lily specifically, just in general, just the idea of shenanigans going on—and they might hold on to their money, at least for a while. It occurred to me—"

"Fucking greedy little bastards," Monte burst out, his anger turned on the Bakkers. "Couldn't be satisfied with preaching; had to go after every last fucking dollar... They're putting us at risk!"

"Greedy," said Warman, and laughed.

"It occurred to me," Bassington went on, "that Lily might put some pressure on when she asks for money: talk about maybe not being able to open Gracc\ille on schedule because of extra costs, inflation, whatever, unless people send a few extra bucks a week."

"Not a bad idea," Warman said grudgingly. "Keep the faithful feeling guilty if they let Lily down."

Monte nodded. "Okay with me, but I want her to do it on Wednesday nights too. I've asked that before."

"Lily refuses," Bassington said. "She doesn't like to ask for money at all, but she does it because Sybille convinced her how important it was. On Wednesday, when she's answering her mail and sort of acting like a counselor, she won't do it."

"Talk at her," Monte said to Sybille. "It could bring in another twenty percent."

"I know that," Sybille said coolly. "Lily knows I want her to do it. And she will; at some point she'll agree. There are some things," she added pointedly, "you cannot force."

"Well," Bassington said into the silence, "is there anything else?"

Sybille handed each of them a sheet of paper. "This is a plan I intend to present to the full board on Thursday."

"Memberships," said Warman, skimming the page. "Lifetime memberships in Graceville? Interesting..."

"Oh, very interesting," Bassington chimed in as he read. "A membership for five thousand dollars, entiding members to an annual five-day stay in the Hotel Grace for as long as they live. What a lovely idea; such a gesture of love and caring; such a boon

for people who can't afford fine vacations!"

Monte smiled thinly. "A boon," he repeated. "That's what we're here for: to pass out boons. I like the numbers," he said to Sybille, "Although you're probably too optimistic in figuring fifty thousand memberships."

"I don't think it's optimistic and neither do you," she replied coldly.

"Well, we'll have to think about it. Fifty thousand at five thousand apiece... two hundred and fifty million ... a nice round number. Have you figured out how it would work with families?"

"No. That's for the board and your finance committee."

He nodded. "I'll try to have something for the meeting on Thursday"

"You make sure you have something for Thursday."

His face changed; he gave her a sharp, malevolent look. "Yes, Mama; I make sure I do."

"Well, now," said Bassington brightly, "why don't we help ourselves to more coffee and doughnuts and then talk about Lars Olssen. I would certainly like to propose him as a new board member next Thursday."

Arch and Monte exchanged a swift glance, agreeing to keep quiet for today. They knew they would have to meet privately. Sybille's greed was getting out of hand—even Bassington had shown signs of worrying about it—but they'd have to live with it until they could figure out a way to get Lily away from her. They didn't think that was likely in the near future, but they'd do what they could until then.

Lily's sermon had ended when they walked back to the church across the wet field of trampled grass; they heard the chorus singing the final hymn, and the worshipers joining in as they filed to the large double doors where Lily waited to shake the hand of every one and have a brief private word with as many as she could. It was a ceremony that took an hour every Sunday, and Lily never wavered in doing it properly: she held her smile and her warm handshake until the last congregant had gone, and she never forgot to face the camera, even after she knew it had been turned off and the technicians were packing up their equipment. It was good practice, Sybille frequendy reminded her, to remember the camera at all times, even to pretend it was there when it was not. That way, playing to it would become automatic even when her mind was on other things.

At first Lily had demurred. "I don't want to 'play* to it, Sybille. I'm interested in people, not cameras."

"Of course you're interested in people; that's why our ratings are so high. But you must always be aware of the camera. You need it, Lily:

how else can you reach millions of people who need you but can't get to the cathedral to hear you?"

"Oh." Lily nodded. Often, when she was alone, she could not remember why Sybille's advice had seemed so sensible and inarguable, but at the time she could never think of an answer.

Sybille stopped at the corner of the church and watched Lily greeting the last of the worshipers. The drizzle had stopped and no one was in a hurry. Arch and Monte had gone to their cars; Bassington hovered nearby, waiting for Sybille to come with him to lunch. She knew that what he really wanted was to go home with her to Morgen Farms— the former Sterling Farms, renamed and redecorated—and an afternoon in bed, but she would put him off; she had enough to do without faking orgasms for Floyd Bassington. He was becoming an intolerable nuisance, she thought, and then reminded herself that she had just decided she still needed him. Well, then, a few more months of carefiil handling; it wasn't difficult, just time-consuming and irritating.

She walked toward Lily, to tell her she would meet her at the car for the drive into Culpeper, where she lived in a small house Sybille had bought her a few months earlier. The last of the worshipers were talking to Lily, two women, their backs to Sybille. One was tall with cropped black hair; the other had heavy tawny hair that reached below her shoulders. Lily's face was bright and eager as she talked to them; her fatigue from the past hour seemed to have dropped away. As if she knows them, Sybille thought, and then one of the women turned slighdy and she saw it was Valerie.

She froze where she stood. She didn't believe it. She'd erased Valerie. She'd taken everything from her, then pushed her to the back of her mind and hadn't even thought of her since firing her in July, four months before. Well, she did think about her now and then, she couldn't very well not, since she was living in the house that had been hers and Carlton's, keeping her horses in the stables that had been theirs, repainting and refurnishing rooms that had been theirs, looking out on gardens that had been Valerie's. Everything that had been Valerie's was now hers; Valerie had sunk to nothing. So of course Sybille thought of her now and then, especially since she was still waiting for the satisfaction and contentment that she had expected would come when she vanquished Valerie. It had not come; she was still driven by dissatisfaction and gnawing angers, almost as if she had not won, but each day she told herself she had what she wanted and soon she would feel completely satisfied.

But now, here she was: Valerie Sterling, standing quite relaxed in front of Sybille's cathedral, dressed in a turdeneck sweater and a country tweed pants suit that made her look perfectly at home in this part of Virginia, talking to Lily as if they were old friends. Sybille strode up to them.

"Sybille," Lily cried. "Valerie came to hear me preach! Isn't that wonderful?"

"Yes." Sybille looked at the other woman.

"Sophie Lazar," the woman said and held out her hand. "I work with Valerie, and when she told me she knew Reverend Lily I said I had to meet her."

"Why?" Sybille asked.

"I've been watching her on television. She says things I like. I'm just now beginning to study preachers, so I don't know too much about them, but I'd bet everything that Reverend Grace is different from all of them."

"She's different from everyone," Sybille said coolly. 'Why are you studying preachers?"

"To see what they're like, and whether I ought to listen to them. I'm always looking for all the help I can get."

"We could talk sometime, if you'd like," Lily said. "I'm in Fairfax on Wednesdays, to tape my evening program. We could meet then, just the two of us."

"I'd like that," Sophie said.

"Where do you work?" Sybille asked.

"E&N. It's a cable net—"

"I know what it is." Her face a mask, Sybille turned to Valerie. "You work there, too."

"Yes. Lily said she'd give us a tour of Graceville, Sybille. Would you join us? I'd like to talk to you about something."

"Oh, yes, Sybille, please come," said Lily. "You know much more about the town than I do."

"Are you in charge of it?" Sophie asked.

'TSIo. I have absolutely nothing to do with it. It's run by a board of directors that hires me to produce Lily's shows. I don't know as much about it as Lily thinks, but I can tell you what I know." She turned her back on the church where Bassington waited. "I have a few minutes."

"Oh, I'm so glad; it's much nicer with you here," Lily said happily as the four of them walked down the wide front path. "All of this will be gardens," she said, pointing to left and right. "Gardens, trees, a

small lake; you should see the drawings, they're so beautiful." The path branched, leading in one direction to the parking lot, in the other toward the town. "And straight ahead is Main Street."

They paused for a moment. Before them, skeletal buildings rose from foundations streaked dark gray from the morning's drizzle. Wet mounds of earth stood beside gaping excavations and piles of brick, lumber, steel beams, window frames, and belts of nails, like machine gun bullets, ready for automatic hammers. Concrete curbing oudined Main Street and the side streets crossing it. Tractors and construction equipment had been left wherever they had been shut down, helter-skelter, making the building site look like an abandoned children's sandbox.

They walked down the center of the dirt road that would be Main Street. On both sides were the steel and wood frames of long, low buildings. Ahead was a tall structure that, when finished, would be the tallest building in town, taller even than the church. "That's the hotel," Lily said, enjoying the role of guide. "Main Street goes straight to it, except it divides halfway there to go around the village square. On both sides of Main Street, and all around the square, will be shops and restaurants, two movie theaters, some places of recreation, plazas with benches and fountains and, of course, gardens—"

"What kind of places of recreation?" Sophie asked.

"Oh... bowling and bingo and video-game parlors, only two..."

"Video games?" Sophie asked. "Isn't this supposed to be a religious town? Sort of a retreat?"

Lily flushed. "Reverend Bassington said it was important that we respond to people's secular desires as well as their spiritual ones, because we have to compete with the attractions of the outside world. And I just don't know. I mean, I'm not happy about it; it does seem wrong to me, when people have serious problems and troubling questions, and we ought to be concentrating on those instead of encouraging them to spend their hard-earned money on those silly games, but... I just don't know. Reverend Bassington knows much more about the world than I do, and he's a very good man, and he's always so logical..."