All Saints Church, which of course is only a short walk away from Valley Hardware.
In Which Lorne’s Beloved Questions Her Vocation
If you had asked Monica Chambers ten years ago what she’d be doing when she was on the cusp of forty, it’s unlikely she would have said that she’d be staring at the attic ceiling of All Saints Church, poking her finger into soft plaster and pinching her nose against the overpowering smell of mothballs. A younger Monica pictured herself in a warm, wood-panelled den, patiently counselling some weary soul or standing tall in her heavy pulpit gown ready to inspire and encourage. This Monica – sweaty, dust-covered, searching for lost strawberry festival decorations Monica – was a far cry from the picture she’d imagined when she graduated seminary more than a decade ago.
“I think I found them!” she called out to Hilda McGuire, who’d nominated Monica to check the attic.
“Excellent! Now we can get to work,” Hilda said. She was one of the more spry seniors on the Strawberry Festival Committee. She ordered the berries and shortcake every year and made sure the folding tables were arranged in the parking lot in perfect formation, like soldiers or girl guides – long-suffering folk Hilda was partial to.
“There’s just one thing…” Monica said, as she lowered the box onto the floor and set aside the ladder.
Hilda’s carefully pencilled in eyebrows arched. “Oh dear. I don’t like that look.”
Hilda has been a member of All Saints since she was a baby. Her great grandfather’s contributions to the parish are commemorated in the stained-glass window to the left of the baptismal fount, right under the portrait of Saint Paul.
“I think the roof is leaking,” Monica said.
“Heaven help us,” Hilda said. “We’ll have to convene the Building Committee.”
Heaven help us, indeed.
Hilda hadn’t been this excited since she got booked in for hip replacement.
“Another fundraiser!” Lorne took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. There was a ridge around his head, an indentation where the band dug in.
“And once again Yours Truly was invited to think of something original!”
Lorne squinted at his wife. She was picking at her broccoli, running the same stalk through the cheese sauce over and over.
“How about a contest?”
She stared at him. “What kind of contest?”
Lorne held up one finger in the air. “Wait right there.”
He padded down the stairs into the store below and returned with three packs of seeds, which he tossed on the table triumphantly.
Monica didn’t understand. “Lorne? Help me see how seeds are going to help patch the roof.” Initial repair quotes ran around six grand.
“These aren’t just any old seeds. They’re giant pumpkin seeds!” He smiled. He looked like a little kid, like the kid on the cover of MAD magazine.
“Oh. Wow.”
It had been five years since she moved north from the city, and she thought she couldn’t be surprised anymore by the idiosyncrasies of small-town life. She was out of her depth.
“I’ll help you,” Lorne promised, perhaps sensing her apprehension as she calculated the effort-to-cash ratio of another fundraiser.
“Oh. Wow.”
The building committee loved Lorne’s idea. The motion passed without much debate. Eileen Wilkinson fretted that the church was encouraging Hallowe’en celebrations – glorifying the Devil’s Night– but Monica assured her that the emphasis would be on the harvest, not ghosts and ghouls.
“What will the prize be?” Hilda asked.
Monica hadn’t considered this.
“We must have a prize!”
She looked up at the ceiling and imagined the sanctuary full of water – choir chairs and candlesticks bobbing along the aisles. Who could she approach to donate a prize for such a contest? She’d once believed a working knowledge of ancient Greek was a useful life skill – mē genoito – by no means!
Monday morning a small crowd gathered outside Valley Hardware.
“Do you think…?” Monica asked.
“What did I tell you?” Lorne wolfed down his scrambled eggs and opened up the shop. He’d sold three quarters of his seeds by nine o’clock.
“That’s $400.00 in entry fees, Rev. Not too shabby.”
He’d have to order more, for when the bus drivers stopped in for coffee after their morning routes.
Later that afternoon, Monica came by for a tea and they sat outside on the sidewalk, on the bistro set that was technically for sale but which they occupied most days around three. As customers strolled past, they shared their secret plans for growing the biggest pumpkin.
“Coffee grinds and eggshells,” Hilda McGuire whispered. “Wait and see!”
Corrie Vander Veen had other plans. “I’m going to start it indoors in a huge pot – keep the bugs away – and then I’ll move it.”
Lorne advised her to be sure to move it before it got too big, to which she just laughed and made him swear not to share her strategy.
Chuck had purchased three seeds. “One for Ella, one for Sharanne and one for me.” His plan was to test out three different fertilizers. In the lawn care business, the grass was always greener…
Caitlin Edwards, the local potter and bee-keeper, scowled when she overheard Chuck’s plans. “Just what our rivers and streams need! Give me a few seeds Lorne. I’ll prove that we don’t need all those chemicals to grow food.”
A deep furrow settled across Monica’s brow.
“What is it, sweetie?” Lorne asked.
“I don’t know… I’m a bit worried this might create dissent.”
Lorne chuckled. She used such old-fashioned words. “Nothing wrong with a bit of competition.”
It seemed like a lot of competition for the honour of a homemade trophy (courtesy of the grade nine shop class). But that wasn’t the end of it. The registrations for the contest only put a tiny dent in the repair bill for the roof. She wouldn’t tell Lorne that; he was having so much fun. Her back began to tighten up.
“I have to go.” She kissed Lorne and took the dogs for a walk along the river.
Weeks passed. Strawberry season faded into tomato season and the heat made everyone move slowly. Monica went for a swim down by the lake, and as she emerged from the water, someone called out to her.
“Reverend!”
She turned and squinted into the sunshine. Below a giant straw hat was Caitlin Edwards.
“Let me help you,” Caitlin said, getting up and coming towards Monica.
Help me?
Before she could stop her, Caitlin put her hands on either side of Monica’s hips and instructed her to bend forward. Her long fingers dug into Monica’s thighs while her thumb pressed her hips back.
“Bend your knees,” she said.
“What exactly are we doing here, Caitlin?”
“You’ve been walking around like an old lady for weeks,” she said. “You need yoga.”
For the next twenty-five minutes, Caitlin had Monica pigeoning, warrior-posing and ham-string stretching.
“Now. Let me see you walk.”
Monica obeyed, as one obeys strong women with beeswax dreadlocks and muscular forearms.
She’d been healed!
“You should teach a class,” she said.
“I don’t really have any qualifications,” Caitlin said. “Besides, where would I do it?”
Monica smiled. “I know just the place.”
The Building Committee frowned. Eileen Wilkinson fretted that the church was encouraging New Age practices. For the millionth time, Monica bit her tongue. They agreed to allow a trial, but could they call it something other than yoga? Monica had posters printed the next day and “Healthy Stretching” classes began the following evening.
At first, there were only four people who came to Caitlin’s class. They needed at least twelve if she was going to make any money. Monica’s back tensed again. What would her life have been like if she’d pursued tenure as a professor at the Divinity College or accepted a stint as prison chaplain? Surely the roof of the penitentiary did not leak. But, just as she was about to really go down the rabbit hole of pastoral despair, the next week, twenty people showed up, and not just seniors. Hallelujah! Only $4,400 to go.
Monica struck a warrior pose and took a deep breath.
Lorne was barbecuing sausages in the laneway that evening when Monica came home from yoga.
“You’re smiling,” he said.
“We’re opening a second night of ‘Healthy Stretching’,” she said. “We’re inching towards the black.” Her back had never felt better.
“I’m proud of you. Let’s have some dinner.”
It was a sultry summer night. They ate on the sidewalk, at the bistro table. Monica lit a candle and clinked her wineglass against Lorne’s. Oh ye of little faith; all would be well.
October 30th the parking lot of the church was abuzz with excitement.
The weigh-scale had arrived and volunteers were levelling it for the big day. The church ladies had spent weeks baking pies and the Rotary Club members were busy cleaning the grills. They expected to fry up two hundred hot dogs. Lorne was beaming. The pumpkins were enormous. The crowd was boisterous – just the kind of arm-punching and jostling and carnival shenanigans that made men like Lorne comfortable on church property. Compared to Monica, Lorne was a zealot.
Caitlin and Monica handed out hot apple cider and watched as men and women rolled huge orange pumpkins out of pick-up trucks onto the lawn. They looked like children making snowmen.
“They should be bending at the knees,” Caitlin muttered.
“They might show up in class tomorrow,” Monica said.
“Is this a plot to keep me in business?”
“All Saints does appreciate the rent…” Monica smiled at her new friend.
“Uh oh. They’re weighing mine,” Caitlin said. “Gotta go.”
Caitlin’s pumpkin was beautifully shaped, not unlike its owner. It wasn’t, however, going to take home any prizes.
Chuck’s pumpkins were enormous, but fragile and oddly coloured, as though they’d been bleached.
In the end, it was Stan and Marie Kozilik’s six-hundred and seventeen-pound pumpkin that took home the grade nine shop class, bevelled-edge, spindled and waxed pine trophy. It looked like the lamp stand every family in the Valley owned in their basement. They loved it.
Lorne got a few sawzalls with special blades and they got to work carving. There were prizes for the best jack-o-lantern, too. The bank offered to buy the finished pumpkins and display them at the stoplights until Remembrance Day. (A hundred dollars more!) Despite the cool temperatures, no one was in a hurry to go home. Harvest was over and people were hungry for company.
It began to rain a little, so the crowd moved into the hall. Eileen Wilkinson congratulated Monica on the success of the evening.
“How wonderful to bring people together,” she exclaimed. “We’ll have to make this an annual event!”
Hilda McGuire put her hand on Monica’s shoulder. “Well done, Reverend. I just counted the money from the pie sales. Only four thousand left to go!”
She could laugh or she could cry. Maybe she could revive indulgences? Fix the roof, be absolved of your sins. Behind her the light shone through the stained-glass windows from the 1800’s. Maybe someone wanted a plaque with their name on it. Mr. Brown – patron of the roof repair of 2019. She shook her head and looked into Hilda’s earnest face, leaned in and give her a big hug.
“Isn’t that something!” she said. “Only four thousand to go.”
Lord, have mercy.
She rose early the next morning and hurried to her small office in the Rectory. Since she’d moved in with Lorne, the church used the Victorian house for refugee families, but the church office, an addition built in the sixties, remained at her disposal. She flicked on the lamp and sat down at her familiar desk, for the first time in months inspired to write her weekly sermon. Flipping open the lectionary she plunked herself down in her leather chair. The waters closed over my head, I thought I was about to perish…
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She looked up. An ominous brown ring tinged the white plaster ceiling.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She downed the last sip of coffee and placed the empty mug in the middle of the desk…
Drip – ting!– Drip –ting!– Drip...
... picked up her pen.
And began to write.
The End