Charlie said, holding up his hand. “I’ll run to our house and get some more. Leave the potatoes until I get back. Take the rolls out of the oven when the timer goes off.” He slipped his arms inside the sleeves of his coat.
“Hey, Charlie? As long as you’re going out, check the temperature in there, will you?” Margot jerked her head toward the living room. “I don’t know where my sister could be. Dad hates it when people are late.”
“Don’t worry,” Charlie replied. “Evelyn’s on top of it. She’s used to dealing with grouchy old men. Anyway, your sister’s not late. Not yet. The way things are going it could be hours before we’re ready to serve.” He gave the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the living room a push and disappeared.
“Very funny!” Margot called before turning to me. “I know he sounds awful, but that’s just Charlie’s way. He’s really just a big teddy bear.”
As if to confirm this observation, the kitchen door swung in the opposite direction and Charlie stuck his head through it. “By the way, Margot, what you lack in culinary skills, you more than make up for in presentation. The table looks beautiful,” he said and, without waiting for her response, popped out just as quickly as he’d popped in.
“See? Charlie’s a bit rough around the edges, but he has a good heart.”
I nodded. “He’s fine. I’ve always enjoyed a good curmudgeon.”
Margot giggled. “You came to the right town for that. Wait until you meet Abigail. She makes Charlie look like a poseur but, if she likes you, you won’t find a better ally in this town than Abigail Spaulding.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing she wasn’t at services. Don’t think I made many allies today.”
Margot carried the wastebasket over to my side of the kitchen. “Don’t talk like that,” she said as she scooped up the detritus of my handiwork, a pile of papery onion skins, and dumped them into the trash. “It was fine. I thought you made some very good points. It was fine,” she repeated, as if saying it twice would make it true and as if fine was the same as good.
“Waldo Smitherton was very taken with you, and Charlie spoke well of your knife skills. Coming from him, that’s a real compliment. I’m not kidding.”
She stood next to me, staring at the cutting board as I took the last onion, made six quick, deep cuts into the flesh, another six crossways, then chopped through the onion with a speed which was, I’ll admit, a little show-offy. But I think I can be forgiven for that. I’ve spent hours watching celebrity chefs perform this dazzling bit of showmanship and even more hours mastering it. Until now, I’d had no opportunity to display my skills to anyone besides Clementine. She hadn’t seemed that impressed.
“Wow!” Margot said. “Where’d you learn that?”
I shrugged, unwilling to admit how many late nights I spend watching Emeril and Rachael and Jamie. After Tim died, cooking shows became my sleeping aid of choice.
“I’ve always liked to cook. Tim used to say it was my beef bourguignon and chocolate lava cake that convinced him to marry me.”
Margot made a sympathetic little noise. I’d told her about Tim when we met at the parsonage, right after she’d told me about her breakup with her old boyfriend. Every psych textbook I’ve ever read says that the best way to draw someone out is just to listen, but I don’t think that’s always true. Sometimes, when a woman shares a secret, especially one you can tell she didn’t plan on sharing, it makes her feel better if you tell her one of your secrets in exchange, as a sort of pledge of good faith. There’s probably an official phrase for this in textbooks about interpersonal communications, but I’ve always called it “trading hostages.” That’s what I did with Margot.
I wasn’t surprised that she’d shared personal information with me and so quickly. People have always told me their stuff, even before I was ordained. Maybe I’m easy to talk to. I hope so. Sometimes people just need a safe place to unload their troubles.
Don’t get me wrong, telling Margot about my broken heart, how Tim’s death left me in mourning not just for my best friend and lover but the death of all the plans we’d made for children, a home, life as we had thought it would and should be, wasn’t just for her benefit. Sometimes I need to share my stuff too. A minister has to choose her confidantes with care. However, Margot seemed trustworthy and entirely honest, guileless even. More importantly, I liked her.
It was sweet of her to invite me to Christmas dinner, especially at the last minute. But as I stood in Margot’s kitchen chopping vegetables, I felt emotional, almost teary, and not because of the onion.
Christmas is a day for celebration and hope and gratitude. I know because I just preached a whole sermon on the subject. I have every reason to feel hopeful and grateful. God gave me a church for Christmas—a lovely church in a charming Norman Rockwell village filled with kind-hearted people who take in stray pastors and invite them to Christmas dinner at the last minute. I should be happy. Instead, I am suddenly swamped by loneliness and longing. I miss my family and I miss Tim. I miss all those connections and complications that make life such a struggle and give it such meaning.
This is a nice town, but I don’t know this place, these people. I am a stranger here and it feels strange. Things will look brighter after the holidays, I suppose, when my work will begin in earnest. On the other hand, maybe they won’t. The reaction to my sermon was, unfortunately, about what I’d expected it to be. That doesn’t bode well for my future in New Bern. But one way or another, I’ll soon be too busy for introspection. What a relief. It is more blessed to give than to receive and, for me, usually much easier.
Contrary to Charlie’s prediction, Margot’s sister was late for dinner. Very late. Repeated calls to her cell phone went unanswered. Margot’s dad grew increasingly irritated as the minutes ticked past. He paced in front of the fireplace, clanking his ice in his glass, occasionally fishing out a piece and chewing on it, and grumbling.
“Margot, did you tell her that dinner would be served at two?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Well, why isn’t she here? It’s quarter to three. And here we all sit, waiting, while the turkey dries out.”
“Not at all,” Charlie assured him, though we both knew it wasn’t true. “The turkey is on schedule. Can I refill your glass, Werner? There’s plenty of eggnog.”
“I’ll do it,” Margot said, taking her father’s glass and scurrying into the kitchen.
“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Evelyn said. “She probably ran into traffic.”
“The roads were so icy coming down here,” Margot’s mother said, turning to Evelyn. “There were spots where we couldn’t go more than fifteen miles an hour.”
“We got here,” Werner harrumphed. “Right when we said we would.”
Margot returned from the kitchen with her father’s glass. Werner stood directly in front of the fire with one arm crossed over his chest, tossed back half his eggnog in one gulp, and started chewing on another ice cube. I’ve never known anyone who drank eggnog on the rocks, but I suspected, for Werner, the ice was more about giving him something to do than keeping his beverage cold.
“I tried Mari’s cell again,” Margot said. “No answer. Maybe
