The Wedding Caper (20 page)

True,
true.

“I guess
I just have a theory about all of that.”

“Okay,” I
paused to see if she would continue, but finally gave up. “Well, would you mind
sharing it with me?”

A pensive
look crossed her face. “I look at it this way, Annie. If you’re going to walk
on thin ice, you might as well dance.”

“Huh?”

“I mean,”
she leaned against the wall to explain, “that we all go through things that
stress us out. But you know what the Bible says. What the enemy means for evil
in our lives, God will use for good. He will. So you might as well start
dancing now, even before you have all the answers. Why save the celebration for
later?”

What was
it with all of the dancing images God kept putting in front of me these
days.
First Judy Blevins, then my rose-in-the-teeth
cha-cha-cha
dance
with Warren—now Sheila. Lord,
are you trying to drive home a point?
A little
self-improvement choreography, perhaps?

At this
point, an older woman named Mrs. Powell entered the
rest-room
,
her face flushed.  “I didn’t think I’d make it till the end of the
service,” she explained with a cockeyed grin.

She went
about her business and I turned my attentions to touching up my lipstick. 
When she left, Sheila got right back to business, addressing my concerns.

“We all
get stressed, Annie,” She continued. “It’s inevitable. And when you’re
menopausal—” She paused. She must have seen the look of pain in my eyes,
“When you’re pre-menopausal, the stresses just seem to pile up. They’re
exaggerated.”

“I know.”
I let out a lingering sigh.

“And
change brings about undue stress in a woman’s life, but never so much as when
she’s going through changes in her own body.”

I started
at my reflection in the mirror and groaned. “Did you have to go there?”

“I did.”
She stood next to me and we both stared at our reflections in the mirror. “We
have no choice but to go there.”

“I’m
getting old, Sheila.” I stared at the crow’s feet around my eyes and my gray
roots.

“That’s
not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Gee
thanks. That was the part where you were supposed to disagree with me.”

She
laughed and then gave me a mock stunned look. “Why would I want to do that?
Growing older is nothing to be ashamed of.
And nothing to
worry about.
I dare say
,
we’re at the best age
of all.”

She said
“we” as if “we” were both the same age. I had to stifle a giggle, knowing her
to be far older than she claimed.

“That
scripture I sent,” Sheila spoke to my face in the mirror, “do you remember what
it said?”

At the
moment, I couldn’t even remember my own name. “Something about calling out to
God when you’re stressed?”

“Well,
that and more,” she said, “The scripture I felt led to send you that
day—and one of these days maybe I’ll tell you the story of how God spoke
to me—is from Psalm 18 and it goes like this: ‘In my distress I called to
the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry
came before him, into his ears.’ That means you have to call out to Him when
you’re stressed. Don’t pretend it’s not happening. Don’t try to act like you have
it all together. You were never meant to carry everyone on your own.”

“I
know—”

“And I’m
not just talking about this little investigation of yours,” she went on. “I
mean you have to cry out to him about everything that’s stressing you out.
Your changing body.
Your daughters growing
up.
The weddings.
The distrust that’s crept up between
you and Warren.
Everything.”

Here,
emotion kicked in. “How do I do that? Warren and I have had our arguments
through the years, but nothing like this. We don’t trust each other anymore.
And I truly can’t see a solution. If the marriage falls apart—” A world
of possibilities ran through my mind, none of them good.

At this
point, a little girl with pigtails entered the bathroom.  We let her
finish up before continuing on.

“Annie,
you’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Sheila consoled. “Calm
down, take a deep breath. Your marriage isn’t falling apart. You and Warren are
just at an impasse right now. Eventually one of you will make a move. But in
the meantime, you have to call out to God and know that He’s heard you. Then
you have to trust Him to put all of the pieces back together. If you go trying
to do it on your own, well—”

“Say no
more.”

I glanced
down at my watch. Ten fifteen. Oh no! Had I really spent more than an hour in
the ladies room and missed most of the service?

Yes, sure
enough, the music began on the other side of the wall, signaling the altar
call. Soon, a flood of women would race through the restroom door for a respite
before the Sunday school hour.

But, with
a minute or two of
lead time
, I opted to turn the
ladies room into my own personal prayer closet. An altar was simply a place
where you met with God, right? Shouldn’t matter where, should it?

“Will you
pray with me, Sheila?” I implored. “I really, really need it.”

She
nodded and took me by the hand. “I thought you’d never ask.” Right then and
there we began to do business with the Lord over my struggles of the past
couple of days. Sheila prayed that I would have wisdom and godly discernment.
She offered up a plea for truth to reveal itself. I “
amen’d
”
along with her as she closed out with a lilt in her voice.

Truly, by
the time we finished, I felt as if I’d really been in the presence of the Lord.
In fact, I wasn’t sure when I’d heard a better sermon or experienced his
presence in a stronger way.

Funny.
God really does meet you right where you are.
Even if it’s in
the ladies room of the
Clarksborough
Community
Church.

Chapter Twenty

My aversion to
Tuesdays ended, ironically, on a Tuesday.

After
nearly three days of avoiding me, Warren finally sat me down for “the talk.”
Though I’d tried to prepare for it since our Saturday afternoon encounter, I’m
not sure I’d readied myself for his opening line.

“Annie,
you trust me, don’t you?”

“Um,
I—” I stared across the table at him and shrugged.

“Have I
ever given you any reason not to?” He gave me a lingering gaze. “Before all of
this mess, anyway?”

“No.
Never.” Nothing I can prove, anyway.

“Okay. So
I’m a trustworthy guy. That much we’ve established.” Here he paused, which set
my nerves on edge. His gaze shifted to the table. He took his fork and played
with his mashed potatoes, avoiding my eyes. “I knew I’d have to tell you where
I got the money for the weddings,” he said, finally. “I’ve known it all along.”

“Just
like I knew I’d have to eventually tell you about using the credit card to sign
up for those classes.”

“Something
like
that.” He looked up, and sighed. “I should have
just told you that day at the bank. I knew you were fishing around for answers,
and I owed you one.” He fell silent a moment, then continued on. “You know how
money-conscious I am. I can’t help it. I’ve always been really—”

Tight?
Frugal?

“Careful.
I had to be, in the early days.”

“After I
made such a mess of our finances, you mean?”

“No.” He
shook his head. “I never blamed you for that. But I’ve always felt the need for
financial security. So, as you know, these past few years I’ve been socking
away money for our retirement. I didn’t want to have to worry about anything
during our older years.”

Here
comes the part where he tells me he cashed in an IRA. I knew I should have
checked into that.

“See, I
hated to touch the money I’d set aside,” he explained. “Didn’t want to deal
with penalties and taxes for early withdrawal. Too much to handle
psychologically.”

“Okay,
so—?”

“Well,”
here his face lit up, “with Richard’s help, I came up with a better plan. At
least I think it’s better. Certainly better than borrowing from ourselves.”

Richard?
A better plan?
“Honey, what in the world did you do? I’m
swallowing my fingernails over here.” Truly, I had gnawed them down to nubs, at
least a couple of them.

“I took
out a home equity loan,” he exclaimed proudly.

“You did
what?” A host of things raced through my mind, not the least of which was the
fact that we’d only—finally—paid off our mortgage six months ago.

“Richard
and I talked at length about my options,” he explained. “I knew we’d probably
need about $25,000 to cover both weddings, or at least somewhere in that
neighborhood. And with Richard having expertise as a loan officer—”

Oh, good
grief.
Of course.
Richard was the one who handled the
loans for Clark County Savings and Loan customers. I’d filed that information
in the back of my mind ages ago.

“So
you’re saying we have a new mortgage payment?” I asked. “Why haven’t I seen a
bill?”

“I asked
them to send it to the bank,” he explained. “To buy myself time to work up the
courage to tell you.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “I guess
I’m just a coward at heart, and a little prideful. I’d bragged so much about
paying off the house. It was such a huge relief. I didn’t know how you’d feel
about starting over again.”

“Wow. And
it must have killed you to do this, didn’t it?” My eyes stung as they watered
over. “But you’re not a coward. I haven’t exactly been accessible lately. And I
can see where you’d be nervous about telling me.”

 “To
be honest, the day I handed you the envelope, you didn’t ask me right away
where I got the money. I had prepared myself psychologically to tell you then,
if you asked. And like I said, I should have told you that day at the bank.
Don’t know why I couldn’t seem to get the words out.”

“Oh my
goodness.”

I could
see the tension in his face ease. “If it helps, Richard got us a really great
rate. And we’ll pay it off in five years, plenty of time before I actually
retire. Besides, this new mortgage payment is just a drop in the bucket
compared to our last one, so I can still set aside some money every month for the
future.” Warren leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, a look of
satisfaction on his face. “See, it’s a win-win situation.”

“Wow.”
Still, one question remained. “Why didn’t you just deposit the money into our
checking account?” I asked. “Why the envelope stuffed with cash?”

“I knew
you could check our balance through online banking,” he admitted, “and didn’t
want you to see what I’d done until I was ready, psychologically, to hand the
money off to you. You should’ve seen the look on Richard’s face when I asked
for it in cash.”

“I’ll
bet.”

“And
besides,” Warren’s face lit up, “I figured if I made the deposit into the
checking account, the money would get all mixed up with our bill-paying money.
That would’ve been a mess. This way, everything could be separated out.”

“Right.”
Here, I paused as I gazed at him with admiring eyes. “Honey,” I said finally,
“I totally trust you.” Is this really
me
speaking
those words? “You know far more about our finances than I do. You know what we
can afford and what we can’t. I think you’re brilliant to come up with a plan
like this.”

“Really?”

“Yes,
really.” And I meant it. “You’re a banker, for heaven’s sake. Who would know
more about paying for something of this magnitude than a banker?”

“I hated
the idea of going into retirement still owing anyone money.”

“Right.”
Made perfect sense to me. In fact, a lot of things made sense to me, now, at
least they appeared to. “So, let me ask you a question,” I ventured. “Is this
why Richard started avoiding me a few weeks ago?”

Warren
sighed and glanced at the floor. “Probably.” He looked back up into my eyes
with a bit of a sheepish grin. I’m sure it put him in an awkward position that
I asked him to keep it a secret. But, I apologized to him, just today, in fact.
Felt like I needed to do that. With all he’s going through, he doesn’t need
anything more to deal with.”

Good
grief. Had I ever taken that ball and run with it.

“Your
cryptic phone call a few weeks ago,” I started, “the one I overheard—”

“Richard,”
he mumbled. “Should’ve told you on Saturday. Sorry.”

Good
grief again.

“And the
note in your pocket?”

He let
out an exaggerated sigh. “Richard wrote it. I guess he was proud of the fact
that we managed to pull one over on you.”

I thought
back to Sheila and her uncanny timing on that e-mail. The Lord had known all
along my husband had nothing to do with this. I had stressed needlessly.
Over nothing.
If only I’d been able to apply the wisdom from
that verse a little earlier, I could have saved myself several hours of
anxiety.

“Are you
mad at me?” Warren’s brow wrinkled as he asked the question and I felt
compelled to
rise
from my chair and meet him at his,
where I promptly pushed the curl back from his forehead and planted a kiss in
its place.

“Are you
kidding?” I whispered into his ear. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I
suspected you of a crime, Warren. A crime.” A shudder ran down my spine.
“That’s just…crazy.”

He drew
me onto his lap and planted kisses along my upper arm. “Yeah, well, that’s why
I knew I had to work up the courage to tell you. It was one thing to withhold
information from you, another to have you thinking I’d robbed the bank.”

At this
point, my sleuthing know-how kicked in. I gave him my most knowledgeable face.
“It’s not considered robbery unless there’s bodily injury or death involved.
We’re talking burglary here.”

“Ah.
Burglary.”

“And,” I
went on to explain, “In the state of Pennsylvania, burglary is considered a
second-degree felony. Learned that from my research. So, up till now, I’ve thought
of you as a burglar, not a bank robber. I suspected you of being a burglar, I
mean.”

He leaned
his head against my arm. “Wow. Well, that’s good to know. What else have you
learned?”

“Hmm.” I
rested against him. “I guess I’ve just discovered that my suspect list has
pretty much been cut in half now. This revelation only leaves Nikki Rogers and
the Mullins family in the line-up.” I shook my head, unable to think clearly.
“Though, for the life of me, I don’t know where to begin. I’ll have to pray about
it.”

“Well,”
he offered up a smile, “at least now we can work together to figure things out.
You won’t be on your own anymore. I can join you. You track the Mullins family,
I’ll keep an eye out for strange behavior from Nikki.”

“Sounds
good,” I agreed. “But I guess I should also tell you that I haven’t exactly
been working on my own. Sheila has known for the past couple of weeks.”

He
chuckled. “Should’ve known. I guess that explains the hour and a half you two
spent in the ladies room on Sunday morning.”

“Um,
yeah.” I went on to tell him how I’d used the stall as a would-be confessional,
and his lips curled up in the cutest grin I’d ever seen.

“You’re a
gem among gems, Annie Peterson.”

“Why
thank you, kind sir. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I mean
it.” His countenance grew more serious. “And our daughters are the spitting
image of their mother, for which I’m truly thankful.”

“I hope
they don’t turn out as nutty as I have.” I looked up with a grin.

“But
Annie, seriously, I’d do anything for those girls. If they’d asked for the
moon, I would’ve tried to get it for them. I love them so much and I want their
weddings to be… memorable.”

Wow. I
would’ve responded, but couldn’t push down the lump in my throat long enough to
accomplish it.

Warren
gazed into my eyes with some of the deepest emotion I’d ever seen from him.
“And I wanted this for you, too. I know our wedding wasn’t all you’d hoped it
would be. We didn’t have anything fancy.”

“I didn’t
need fancy,” I whispered. “I had everything I needed. I had you.”

“Still,”
he said, “I know you, Annie. You want to give the girls some of the things we
didn’t have when we were young, some of the things our parents couldn’t
afford.”

I
swallowed back my tears and nodded. “Brandi has such lofty ideas,” I admitted.
“But I know her heart. She’s not going to spend money for the sake of spending
money. She wants this to be lovely for everyone who’s coming. And Candy–”
I couldn’t help but smile, “—she’s more frugal.
Like
you.
But her ideas are just as lovely. She knows how and where to spend
the money to make it count. I can absolutely assure you, their weddings will be
as different as night and day.”

“Just
like they are.”

“Yes, but
both ceremonies will be equally as precious and just as godly.”

“Just
like they are.” His hoarse whisper brought a little more moisture to my already
damp lashes. He changed gears with his next words. “Do you remember what I told
you the morning Sheila sang?”

“Remind
me.”

“On the
way home,” he said. “I told you how blessed I felt. What great kids I have.”

“Yes, I
remember.”

“Here’s
what I think—that a father who loves his children has to be prepared to
kill the fatted calf every now and again, to celebrate their victories with
them.”

I laughed
as the image of a fatted calf registered, particularly in light of the
homecoming feast I’d recently prepared for my son and his friends. “You crack
me up,” I said. “But I totally get it. And I’m so proud of you, Warren. You are
the best dad in the world.”

“For a
bank robber, you mean?”

“Burglar,”
I corrected. “Burglar.”

We stared
at each other in silence for a moment,
then
I started
to giggle. Must’ve been contagious, because Warren joined me in short order.
Devin walked in on the tail end of our laughing spell, a relieved look on his face
as he saw the two of us wrapped in each other’s arms.

“So, you
two are talking again?”

“Yep!” I
spurted, after releasing my husband from a much-needed lip-lock. “We’re
talking. Everything is fine.”

“Awesome.”
He reached to grab a chicken leg from the platter on the table. “I’m starved.”

“Get
changed before you eat.” I pointed to his
work-out
clothes. My heart was warmed by the fact that son was getting some benefit from
our family’s expensive gym membership.

“Why?”