The second-grade boys’ Sunday school class at Bayside Christian Church was proving to require stamina of Olympic proportions. Two weeks into the job—no, Essie corrected herself, into the ministry—and she was up to her earlobes in doubt. She was a fine teacher, but try as she might, she could not get the upper hand with this squirrelly class. Essie was still shaking her head as she closed the fridge door and returned to the porch to sink into an Adirondack chair.
She loved these angled wood chairs. They barely fit on the deck, and their New England rustic charm clashed with the jazzy Euro-style that was San Francisco. Ah, but Essie wouldn’t give these chairs up for the world. They were home. Barbecues in the backyard followed by walks to the beach. They were morning coffee cups steaming into the salt-laden air, they were lemonades on the lawn when it was hot and sticky. Essie let her head fall back against the wood and tried to conjure up a New Jersey Sunday from the scents that lingered in the grain. Of a life where she knew what to do and where she fit in. It worked a bit—just the hints, the barest fragments of a Jersey shore summer came uncurling out of her memory. Had they really been in San Francisco for a month? Had she really jumped straight from the shores of one ocean to the shores of another? The tang of soy sauce from the sushi bar on the corner floated in on the breeze as if to confirm her thoughts.
Josh’s post-baby-wipe coos came through the doorway. “Wow!” commented Doug, wrinkling his nose as he tucked Josh back onto his shoulder. “Can all that come out of one baby at one time?”
“Please…not one more shred of conversation about body functions. Even from you. Even about Josh.”
Doug chuckled as he eased himself and Josh into the other chair. “Deal. Hey, look, Essie, you’ve done your tour-of-combat duty for this week. Josh will practically sleep through couples’ Bible study tonight, it’ll all be grown-ups, and you’ve got six days before you even have to think about apostolic burps again. Just let it go for now.”
Esther drank her lemonade, wishing it was as easy as that. “I wish you were right, but I said I’d come to their Christian education committee meeting on Tuesday morning. They even promised to get one of the committee member’s daughters to sit for Josh if he got antsy so that I could attend. I’m gonna get grilled, I know it.”
“That’s your game-face talking, Essie. They are not going to hold up score cards to rate your first two weeks with that class.” He turned to look at her. “Did you ever stop to think that Mark invited you so you’d get a chance to meet some of the other mothers in the church? To help you make a few friends out here? Did you consider that?”
“No.”
“Well, you ought to. Your brother’s no fool. He’s smart enough to know that if we had to count on the finely tuned social graces of my coworkers at Nytex, we’d never meet a soul. Software engineers don’t have a geeky reputation for nothing. I’m living in the land of the pocket protector here.”
There was just a bit of an edge to his last remark, and Essie realized she hadn’t thought about that. She’d just assumed that Doug had grafted himself into a ready-made circle of friends. She imagined him lunching with buddies and rehashing baseball games at the watercooler. They’d made this cross-country move for her more than for him—it was purely God’s grace that he was able to land a job so easily after they decided to join her brother out here to help with her aging parents. Sure, he’d never once griped about moving to San Fran, but that didn’t mean he was enjoying it. Doug wasn’t the kind of man who complained. Essie wanted to whack herself on the forehead for being so self-centered.
“Office a little geeky this week?” She’d never even thought to ask before now. Nice wifely behavior. Way to be that strong support system, Essie.
Doug’s sigh told far more than his words. “A bit. I’m fitting in.” After a long pause he added, “Slowly.”
“We did the right thing, didn’t we? Made a good choice?”
Doug turned immediately and caught her hand on the armrest next to his. “Yes. Essie, I don’t doubt it for a second. You know I agreed to this fully, of my own geeky free will. My parents in Nevada aren’t so far away now—we’re nearer to both our parents.”
“Why isn’t it easier?” Essie was amazed at how much the words caught in her throat. Josh stared at her, his wide gray eyes beaming love out from their perch on Doug’s shoulder. He made a gurgling sound and waved a tiny fist in the air. She caught it, and reveled anew in how his minute grasp fit perfectly around her finger. She’d wanted to be a mother since forever. No book or magazine, though, did justice to how just plain hard it was. She’d never felt further out of her element than she did this past month.
“Let’s see,” said Doug, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “New job, new city, new baby, new home, new weather—well, okay, that’s more of a fringe benefit. There’s a hunk of adjustments in that list. I think we’re doing pretty good. Most of my programs don’t even adapt this well—and I design relocation software, remember?”
“Can you design a—what do you call it? An integration program—for one small family? Make a button for me, Doug. One I can push and make all the uncertainty go away.”
Doug chuckled. “I did, sort of.”
“No kidding? Where is it?”
Doug held up the cordless phone he’d evidently brought onto the deck with him. “Pepperoni pizza, really thin, New York-style. Coming up.”
“I’m liking this.”
“A guy at work—one of the less geekier ones—recommended a place. His uncle moved here from Manhattan, and called it his ‘relocation coping mechanism.’ I’ve been saving its implementation for just such a moment.”
“Doug Walker, I love you.”
He winked. “Nah, that’s just the pepperoni talking. Is this a ‘medium,’ or a ‘large’ kind of day?”
Essie smiled, too. For the first time since she came home. “Do they make an extra large?”
Chapter 2
Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man…
She wasn’t supposed to be this nice.
When Essie first spied Celia Covington—and even more so when someone called her “Cece”—she was supposed to fall easily into the well-to-do-nitwit category. The twinset was a dead giveaway. Essie was always suspicious of women who wore twinsets. Those bearing sweaters in pastel colors, and most especially when adorned with a string of tasteful pearls, were to be avoided at all costs.
Essie had her own personal classification system for the branches of womanhood. There were “the ponytails,” which had a subset containing the unpretentious and practical, and another subset of the entirely-too-perky. This could usually be distinguished by height. Not of the woman, but of the ponytail. High ponytails signaled high-level perkiness. Low ones generally denoted practicality.
On another branch of the tree of womanhood sat “the headbands.” There was a certain kind of woman, Essie surmised, who wore headbands. Personality was then telegraphed by the type of headband selected—fabric, tortoiseshell plastic, wide, thin, etc. But it was the well-off, well-bred, well-dressed woman who generally opted for the headband as hair accessory. Or, on rare occasions, the headband became the tool of choice when the practical woman wanted to dress up.
