Ties That Bind (5 page)

“Clementine!” I scolded. “Stop that!”

“It's okay. It was supposed to be dinner for our new minister.” The woman shrugged. “Somebody might as well enjoy it.”

“Oh! Then you must be Margaret,” I said with a smile, extending my hand.

She frowned and pressed her lips together. “Margot,” she corrected me and shook my hand. “Margot Matthews.”

I smacked myself on the forehead. “That's right! Margot. We've been expecting you.”

Margot's eyes went wide. She blinked twice, looked at me, then Clementine, then back to me. “You were? I mean … Yes. You were.”

“Are you all right?” I asked, wondering if she'd hit her head when she fell.

“Oh, yes. I'm fine.” She pressed her lips together again, looking down as she patted Clementine on the head. “I just didn't realize that Reverend Clarkson had a dog.” She paused, then looked at me with a deliberate smile. “Or a wife.”

I grinned, finally understanding her reaction. “I don't,” I said with a laugh. “I mean,
I'm
Reverend Clarkson. Reverend Philippa Clarkson. And this is Clementine,” I said, looking down at Clemmie, who had finished her snack and was sitting on her haunches, licking the last traces of tomato sauce from her muzzle. “She's big enough to be a horse, but she's actually an English mastiff. Both of us are unmarried. Well … I'm a widow.”

Margot's eyes grew even wider. “Philippa Clarkson? Not Philip? You're our new interim minister?”

“That's what the contract said. I hope that's still okay with everyone.”

Margot frowned again, but only for a moment. “Of course,” she said firmly. “Why shouldn't it be?”

She put out her hand for me to shake again. “It's nice to meet you, Reverend. Welcome to New Bern. I'm sure you'll be meeting everyone soon, but with Christmas so close, I'm all that was available in the way of a welcoming committee. But I'm afraid I'm not doing a very good job,” she said, looking down at the broken dish.

“That's all right. I had a cheeseburger on the road. But I wouldn't mind a cup of tea about now, and a briefing about the church and town. Do you have time?”

“Of course, Reverend. Happy to.”

“Please, call me Philippa. I know I have to get used to the title eventually, but every time someone says ‘Reverend Clarkson,' I start looking for my dad.”

“All right, Philippa,” she said with a smile. “I can do that.”

C
lementine padded into the kitchen, flopped down next to the stove, and went immediately to sleep, snoring and twitching her feet as she dreamed. Philippa opened cupboards, scavenging for a teapot, tea, and sugar while telling me how excited she was to be in New Bern and how nervous she was about preaching the Christmas services. I thought she was just being modest.

“I'm not,” she assured me, opening a corner cabinet that held canned vegetables and peering into it. “Trust me. My sermons are nothing to write home about.”

“But,” I protested, “your father is—”

With her back still to me, she held up her hand. “Reverend Philip Clarkson, the preacher's preacher. I know. But there's no such thing as a preaching gene, and if there was, I wouldn't have inherited it. My parents adopted me at birth. Spending your whole childhood listening to brilliant sermons is no guarantee either. In seminary, I got a C in preaching—the only C of my entire academic career.

“Here we are!” she exclaimed and pulled two white ceramic mugs out of a lower cabinet. “Who keeps their mugs on the bottom? Do you think it would be all right for me to switch the flour and baking stuff to the lower cupboard?” Without waiting for an answer, she began removing all the mugs from the cabinet.

She was petite, not more than five foot three, with a slim waist and thin wrists. She had a lithe build and moved gracefully even while wearing black, fur-lined ankle boots. Her skin was dark, the color of coffee with a touch of cream. Her hair was blackish brown, a halo of tight corkscrews that stopped halfway between her jaw and shoulders. She wore bright pink nail polish that matched her pink cable knit sweater and charcoal denim leggings that stretched tight over muscular calves.

Before tea, I had helped unpack the car. While carrying in a pair of skis, she told me that she loved sports and the outdoors. She'd met her husband, Tim, through a bike club. Until his illness, they had enjoyed hiking, biking, kayaking, and cross-country skiing. At that moment, wearing those clothes, she looked like anyone you might meet in New Bern, a customer who might come into the shop looking for a few yards of fabric, or maybe a teacher at the elementary school. What would she look like standing in the pulpit with a white neckband visible above a black robe and an embroidered gold clerical stole hanging from her shoulders?

Obviously, Philippa Clarkson wasn't what I'd expected. But had I known beforehand that he was really a she, I still don't think I'd have pictured someone who looked, acted, or sounded like this. She was feminine but athletic, humble but decisive, intelligent without being intimidating. Something in her straightforward manner, how she was aware of her strengths even while she acknowledged her weaknesses, told me that this was a woman at peace with herself and with God. Inner light positively streamed from Philippa Clarkson.

I liked her a lot. I hoped everyone else would feel the same. And I hoped that she really was better at preaching than she thought.

“C isn't so bad. It's average, right?”

“Yes,” she said, pouring steaming water into mugs and setting one in front of me before sitting down on a kitchen stool, “but when Philip Clarkson is your dad, people expect you to be quite a bit better than average. Did you know that two of my dad's sermons were on the syllabus of my second-year preaching course at seminary?” She raised her eyebrows to emphasize her point.

“I can see where that could be a little daunting. But I don't think anyone in New Bern is expecting you to be like your—” I stopped myself, thinking about our meeting and how thrilled the board had been at the prospect of having an offspring of Philip Clarkson in our pulpit. “You'll be fine. Of course you're nervous. Your first sermon in your new church is bound to induce a few butterflies.”

“A few,” Philippa said with a wry smile. “And the timing only adds to the pressure. At Christmas, people expect to hear a sermon that will elicit tears of joy, peals of laughter, banish all doubts, and jolt them into a deep and spiritual renewal that will last … oh, at least until Easter.” She laughed.

“I'm not saying that there's absolutely
no
possibility that my sermon will elicit that sort of response but, if it does … it won't be because of me. Know what I mean?”

She scooped two spoonfuls of sugar into her teacup and stirred. “A Christmas miracle. That's what I need.”

I
love working on Christmas Eve. I love waiting on harried husbands who seem to have only recently gotten the memo that the countdown to Christmas can now be measured in hours. I like seeing the relief in their eyes when I assure them that yes, she is going to absolutely love it, and I like knowing that it's true. I like picturing the delight on the faces of the quilters who will open those packages the next day. But what I really like about working on Christmas Eve is Cobbled Court Quilts' annual open house.

Evelyn puts out platters of cookies and carafes of hot cider for anyone who comes into the shop. People come to eat, to chat, or to pick up a few last-minute treats for friends or themselves. Some bring along quilting projects they need to finish up before Christmas and sit down to chat while they stitch up a binding or sew on a few embellishments. Everyone makes comments about not needing to add even one more cookie to their waistlines, but by the end of the day, the platters are always empty. After we ring up the last sale and lock the doors, Evelyn brings out some appetizers and one last plate of cookies and we have our staff party.

Everyone gets a gift from Evelyn, some fabric or a pattern book she's chosen especially for that person, and we all exchange the Secret Santa gifts. This year, I drew Virginia's name. At first I was stumped. What can you give an eighty-year-old woman that she doesn't already have? But while I was poking around an antique store, I came across a beautiful thimble in Virginia's size, sterling silver with a band of wild roses around the base, dating from the 1890s. The asking price was quite a bit more than we're supposed to spend on our Secret Santa gifts, but I couldn't resist.

I smiled as I walked to work, thinking about the party and how pleased Virginia would be with her gift, and how great it was that my family would be together for Christmas.

I wouldn't have said it to him but, like Dad, I'd been afraid that my sister might back out at the last minute. However, I talked to her yesterday and everything is still on track. I can't wait to see Olivia! When I saw her last, her two front teeth had been loose. Had they fallen out since then? Grown back?

Evelyn, Virginia, and Charlie are coming to dinner too, which is good. I might need a little help in the kitchen and Charlie will be only too happy to help. It's going to be a lovely Christmas.

As I rounded the corner, passing a red-cheeked Santa who was ringing a bell and soliciting donations for charity, I ran into Ted Carney and Miranda Wyatt. Miranda was hanging on Ted's arm, laughing at something he'd said. They were so intent on each other that they nearly knocked me over. Abigail was right. There was definitely an attraction there.

“Sorry, Margot!” Miranda laughed and turned to Ted with sparkling eyes. “Guess we should look where we're going.” Ted smiled and laid his hand over hers.

“That's all right,” I said. “Say, Ted. I thought you were heading out to your daughter's this morning?”

“Oh. Uhhh. I decided to put it off until this afternoon. Miranda and I had some church business to talk over. We need to come up with a plan … for replacing the boiler.”

Though her expression didn't change and she continued to cling to his arm, Miranda gave Ted a sideways look that made me wonder if she was annoyed at his very transparent attempt to conceal their relationship. I wondered too. But, as I learned a long time ago, you can lose a lot of sleep trying to figure out why men do the things they do.

“So,” Ted said brightly, changing his tone and the subject, “how's our new minister? Settled in? I'm sorry I'll miss his Christmas sermon. If he's half the preacher his father is, it should be something special.”

“Flashy preaching isn't everything, you know. And anyway, he's a she. The Reverend Philipp
a
Clarkson,” I said, putting special emphasis on that last syllable. “And she seems very nice. I think we made a good choice.”

Ted's head hinged back in surprise. “Philip—pa? But … the paperwork said …I thought we were hiring a man ….”

“Must have been a typo.”

Miranda drew her hand out of the circle of Ted's arm. “What difference does it make? We hired Reverend Clarkson based on experience, not her gender. Didn't we?”

“Certainly,” Ted replied, reaching up with his now-unoccupied arm and pulling his hat down more securely on his head. “I'm just surprised, that's all.”

“So was I,” I agreed, smiling at Miranda, who was now frowning at her escort.

I was trying my best to help Ted out, but he wasn't doing a very good job of helping himself. Ted had been widowed for quite a while. Possibly he was a little rusty at interpreting feminine signals.

“I'm just not sure how the men in the congregation will respond to this,” Ted mused, looking down at the ground. “If I had a problem, I don't think I'd feel comfortable unburdening myself to a woman.”

“Why not?” Miranda bristled. “The women of this church, myself included, have been going to Bob Tucker for counsel for years.”

Ted's head jerked up and he looked at Miranda, realizing his error. “Oh, yes. Of course. I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with the Reverend Clarkson's being a woman. It's just a surprise. Like Margot said.”

He turned toward me with a slightly panicked expression, silently begging me to come to his rescue. I made another stab at it.

“When I met her, I dropped my casserole dish,” I said, carefully wording my response. Dropping that casserole had everything to do with the icy sidewalk and nothing to do with my surprise at our new minister's gender, but if Miranda thought it did, what was the harm? Ted really seemed to like her. It'd be a shame if they fell out over something so minor.

“Right!” Ted said gratefully. “It just comes as a bit of a shock. We've never had a female minister in New Bern before.”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later. Our denomination has been ordaining women for more than half a century,” Miranda said curtly. She looked at her watch. “I have to run.”

“Let me walk you to your car.” Ted smiled and held out his arm gallantly. “The sidewalk is icy.”

“I'll be fine. Thank you for lunch, Ted. Merry Christmas, Margot.” She marched away.

Ted stood on the sidewalk, watching her go. “Merry Christmas,” he called after her. “I'll call you when I get back. We can finish talking over options for the boiler.”

Miranda didn't say anything, just raised her hand over her head without turning around; a wave, but not a friendly one.

Ted looked at me. His shoulders drooped in disappointment.

“Did you buy her a Christmas gift?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I thought it was too soon. This is the first time we've gone out.”

I turned around and looked down the street toward the florist shop. “Kinsey's is open. Go ask Marcia if there's still time to deliver a Christmas arrangement to Miranda's house today. Not a poinsettia. Too impersonal. Cut flowers, red carnations would be perfect.”

“Do you really think that will help?” he asked hopefully.

“Well, it sure won't hurt. Merry Christmas, Ted.”