Bad to the Last Drop Read online

  Julia was Deb's youngest daughter, and Deb was proud to have "survived" the teenage years of Julia—and her two sisters before her—relatively unscathed. The last few years with Julia had been hard on both of them. Now, the distance had provided a new perspective that helped them appreciate each other. If Julia were here, she likely would be impatient with her mother's efforts to help these women. "Oh, Mom," Deb could hear her saying, "you're always taking everyone else's side"

  She was brought back from her reverie by the sound of a woman's voice on the other end of the line.

  "Hello. My name is Deb Linberg; I'm calling from Ashland.

  May I speak with Jacob Abramov?"

  "He's not here right now," the woman responded, "but I expect him back in a few days. May I take a message? I am his wife, Alice."

  "I'm calling from the Black Cat Coffeehouse here in Ashland," Deb explained. "Please accept my sympathy on the loss of your brother-in-law. I'm actually sitting here with two of your sisters-in-law, Anastasia and Helga, who've just arrived in town. They came looking for Joe, not knowing of his death. They will need to find out about the funeral plans."

  "Jacob's sisters are here in this country? In Ashland? I can't believe it!" Alice responded incredulously.

  They say they are his sisters from Russia," Deb replied calmly. "We don't know them, but here they are, and we don't actually know what to do."

  "Tell them to stay put, and I'll be there in half an hour!" Alice responded excitedly.

  Deb grinned, her smile clearly showing her relief. "That would be just great. My friend, Pat, and I will wait here with them until you arrive."

  Pat touched Deb's arm to get her attention and said softly, "Tell her they've brought three others with them."

  "Do you happen to have a van?" Deb said into the phone. "Because I think you're going to need it."

  After hanging up the phone, Deb walked up to the counter and handed three dollars to Sam, the barista, to cover the refills on the mugs. Seeing that fresh goodies had just arrived from the Ashland Baking Company across the street, she ordered a tray with an assortment of cranberry-cinnamon muffins, lemon poppy-seed scones, and onion bagels (her personal favorite) with a side of cream cheese. While I'm waiting.

  Deb looked back at the table as she waited for her order. The two sisters, Anastasia and Helga, appeared to be about her own age. Fiftyish, she thought. She wondered if Anastasia was the older of the two, as Helga seemed to look to her sister for guidance. Slight of stature like their brother, Joe, they had dark hair and dark eyes. Both women had wonderfully strong facial features: high cheekbones, strong noses, and wide lips. Deb thought such features went together better on Helga. I wouldn't exactly call her pretty, but she's beautiful—yes, a classic Russian woman. The other three—she'd forgotten their names already—were definitely younger. Although not obviously in their twenties, they weren't forty either. Hard to tell much about them, she thought, as they sat quietly talking to each other in Russian.

  "Deb, here's your order," Sam called to her, breaking into her reverie.

  "Oh, thanks." She scrambled through her pockets for her billfold. Now where did I put that darn thing? Finding it back on the table, she smiled at Sam and paid for the food. Am I going to have to get a beeper on that billfold, just to keep from losing it? Deb carried the pastry-laden tray back to the table.

  Just as they were finishing the goodies, a harried-looking woman walked swiftly into the Black Cat and looked around until she spotted the Russian women.

  "I just can't believe it!" she exclaimed as she hurried over and hugged the sisters.

  "You're really here. When I had that call from." She looked around, questioningly. "Deb, is it? I thought, what kind of crank call is this? But here you are—and how on earth?" She hugged each sister again, and tears sprang up in all their eyes. "But never mind that," she said, "I'm just glad you're here. And these women came with you?" she added, smiling at Babe, Katrina, and Sonja.

  "These are good friends from back home, Babe, Katrina, and Sonja," Anastasia said politely, pointing in turn at the women around the table.

  "Let's get your stuff," Alice said. She turned to Deb. "Thank you for watching out for my sisters-in-law. Can I pay you for the treats?"

  "Not at all," Deb replied, heartened by the warmth of family ties. "Just let us know when Joe's funeral service is, and if there is anything we can do to help." She wrote down her phone number and gave it to Alice. Then the women noisily gathered up their belongings and left together, a gaggle of shared grief and relief.

  The two women sat in the quiet of a regular coffeehouse morning for a moment. Deb turned to Pat. "So what's on your agenda for today?"

  Pat just smiled, amused by her friend's insistence that she maintain focus even during a sabbatical.

  Chapter Four

  While Deb and Pat waited a moment to let themselves enjoy the quiet of the moment, Pat's thoughts went back to how she found herself in this coffeehouse in the first place.

  Several weeks prior to that morning in the Black Cat, the bishop's secretary walked out of her boss's office, quietly closing the door behind her. Pat looked at the bishop from across his desk. This office was comfortable yet functional, the kind of room Pat would have loved for her own office, complete with antique rugs and books stacked on shelves and piled on the floor.

  Bishop Peter Anderson was a good-looking middle-aged man, with a full head of white hair and a trim body, courtesy of his going to the gym three times a week.

  "Pat, I don't know how you do it," he started pleasantly, picking up and playing with his rimless glasses, "but once again you've turned around a church council, hired a new secretary, and managed to get them to like you while doing it. I congratulate you. I think Pastor Steve will now have a good chance of keeping that congregation healthy."

  "Ah," Pat said, and then as the bishop glanced up from his glasses with a knowing look, she smiled ruefully, surprised at how restless she felt upon hearing his praise. "Thanks."

  He returned the smile and put down his glasses. "So that brings us, once again, to reassigning you to a new parish. But Pat, I must say, although your work has been excellent, you're not your usual enthusiastic, let-me-at-them self. You're not the same Pat I saw a year ago." Leaning forward, he asked, "Anything you want to talk about?"

  She paused for a moment, wondering if this kind man could possibly understand what she was feeling—this man who, in all his life, seemed to know what he wanted to do ... and had done it. Pat didn't even understand her feelings herself. She liked what she did, and she was good at it. What was she thinking?

  "I'm sensing that not only are you glad to be done with this call, but you have been avoiding this meeting about starting another," the bishop added gently.

  Pat looked up from her hands; her expression was guarded. "How could you possibly know that?" she asked.

  "Well, you did cancel out on me two times already. It doesn't take a prophet to figure out something is going on with you. Where's the Pat I know, the one who can't stop talking about what she's been doing, what she's dreaming of next?"

  Abashed, Pat looked down at her hands. "I do go on some, don't I?" She paused for a moment, letting the silence drift around them, and then added, "I know it sounds silly when there are pastors, especially women, who wait and pray for a parish. But I can't help feeling I've been there, done that." So there, Pat thought, mentally nodding her head. I said it. The words were out. And to her great relief at her honesty with the bishop, they filled the small room like a cool breeze.

  The bishop smiled thinly. ..."And your husband, Mitchell, is.?"

  "Oh, he's just fine. Working, golfing, not ... it's not that or the kids. It's just ..." How unlike me, she thought, startled. The bishop was listening and fully present. He really was a good man.

  "You have other things that do fire you up?" the bishop asked.

  She listed the things to which she gave her spare time— "Quilting, reading, watercolor painting, refinis
hing antique furniture, and my two grandbabies—"—a normal kind of leisure-time list.

  Tilting his head to the side, as if listening to more than her words, he continued, "Yes, but are you enjoying your work and play?"

  She blinked, surprised by his question. "Well, I suppose," Pat said, and suddenly let out a small chuckle. "Actually, I suppose I'm bored to tears with it."

  He sat back and chuckled with her. There was something contagious and real about his laugh. "Then maybe it's time you looked for something less boring. We wouldn't want you tearing up every time you are at a meeting, would we?"

  Her brow furrowed slowly. "I do enjoy my work, you know. It just seems like the problems are all the same, and I am there to fix whatever they are. Sweep up the mess. And all I really need is a good smile, a prayer, stick-to-itiveness, and ... well ... common sense to get the job done. She sighed. It seems so ..."

  "What I have seen you do with troubled churches is fine work, Pat—not just anyone can do it. You have a real gift for working with problems in parishes, so I don't want you to misunderstand this next question. Is there something else you feel called to do? A doctorate? A book you want to write? A mission you've always wanted to go on?"

  Pat shrugged. "Gee whiz, I don't know. Never had time to think about it."

  The bishop nodded understandingly. He clasped his hands together as he leaned closer to her, his tone growing serious. "We all feel that way at a certain age, you know. The need becomes really strong to do all that we are called to do and to live up to our full potential. Otherwise, like those antique furniture pieces you like to restore, everything starts loosening up, dry rot sets in, and we start to wonder who we really are."

  "Yes," she said simply, "but that wouldn't have been you, Bishop, and what am I to do? The kids have their own lives now. Mitchell is happy. I'm good at my work. It's just that——"

  "It's just that you're too good at what you do. There is no chaos left in it. Too easy, perhaps?" He looked at her intently, his blue eyes filled with sympathy and just a little twinkle. "But isn't there something, somewhere, you want to do or to be? Something you never had the time or freedom for until now?"

  Pat stared blankly at him. "Frankly, I'm tired. I can't even think with enthusiasm about doing anything. When I was in seminary, my best friend, Deb, was going to law school, and we were going to change the world—she as a judge, fighting injustice, and I ..." Pat leaned back in her chair, smiling. "I was going to be a bishop and change the Church."

  Peter threw back his head and laughed, and Pat wondered, not for the first time, why, whenever she was being her most truthful, people found her so amusing. "I guess that I never really fit the profile of 'pastor,'" Pat explained. "Mitchell always called me his silly little crusader—his way of justifying my quirkiness of thinking I could save the world; something he loved me for but just didn't understand , Pat thought." Peter nodded, encouraging her to continue. "And the kids? Martin just accepted me for what I was—his crazy mom, who maybe could pull a rabbit out of her hat. But my daughter, Jane, was a different story. One day, Jane and I were walking. 'Mom,' she said to me. 'I can't believe you really do—you actually think you can change things just by giving your coat to that woman?' I never even tried to explain the look I saw in that woman's eye as she huddled in that door way. She was no cute child that someone would take care of. But she had been someone's child, once. Embarrassed, I had stopped as Jane was busy telling me of her latest corporate conquest and put my old jacket over the woman's shoulders and walked away. The woman looked frightened, then confused, and then astonished. It was an old coat anyway. But I knew I wouldn't hear the end of it from my daughter. Just another example of crazy Mom. 'Why did you do that? Honestly, Mom. Give money to the coat drive. That would be the sensible thing to do. But your own coat? Now you'll freeze before we get to the restaurant!' She thought of me as an easy mark."

  Pat shook her head somewhat wearily, as she continued her explanation. "I guess I'm not very realistic or sensible or even logical. Maybe," she said, as if she had sudden clarity, "I'm not happy trying to be what I'm not."

  The bishop put on his glasses and ran his fingers through his hair, signaling the end of their talk. "No, you really aren't very realistic or logical sometimes, but then, neither was Jesus, was he? But he didn't try to be someone he wasn't. Maybe you need to take some time off—go paint or write a great mystery or just sit for a while. You know we will always find something for you. Whatever else you are, you are a good pastor."

  Pat nodded in agreement.

  They chatted a few minutes longer—about their families and the new hymnal but without the closeness from a moment before. As Pat rose and walked to the door, she looked back to see

  Peter, smiling and shaking his head as he murmured, "A bishop."

  Except I wasn't making a joke. She realized she was a little miffed as she walked out to the parking lot. I really was going to try to change the Church! The dear Lord knows it needs a good airing out. I'll ask for leave-of-call paperwork tomorrow.

  And she did.

  Chapter Five

  Still thinking about her talk with the Bishop, Pat entered her townhouse and looked around. The sunlight streaming through the windows seemed to highlight the dust on the antique end table. She threw off her coat, walked into the kitchen, and picked up a dust rag. Her personal calendar was on the counter, opened to this day, and as she glanced at it in passing, she had a strange sense of awareness of the mundane details of her life.

  Today was Wednesday—that usually meant a "church night" filled with a variety of activities. There would be confirmation classes, Wednesday night school and supper for the little kids, meetings of one or more of the church committees, and then choir practice. But then every day was filled to the brim with activities: a Bible study on Thursday morning, followed by the women's group executive board. On Friday, a men's coffee and work group, and then the president of the council would be in to talk about building problems. It would be a rush, of course, to make sure her sermon was ready for Sunday. And she'd fit in one or more unhappy wives or husbands and a visit or two to a hospital. Another week of church work.

  On Saturday, she would have lunch with her old friend, Christine, but Christine would talk about all the trips she and Ron had been taking, along with the adventures and joys of traveling first class.

  Peter had said, Isn't there something you've always wanted to do but never had the time?

  Pat tossed the dust rag on the chair, then reluctantly picked it up and dusted the table, knowing if she didn't do it now she would have to do it sometime. It was important to keep the house up. As she returned the rag to the kitchen, she stooped to pick up yesterday's paper that Mitchell had left by his chair the night before. Might as well put this in the recycling, Pat thought.

  She was about to toss the paper in the recycling bin when an article caught her eye on the front of the human interest section—a 58 year old woman about her age—two years younger, in fact—had quit her job, sold her house and all of her belongings, and joined the Peace Corps. For the last year she had been helping children in Uganda learn to read and had lived in a village in a small hut and written a novel in her evenings, which was now to be published.

  "I could have never done this when I was young," the woman had told the reporter. "Everyone thinks the Peace Corps is for kids right out of college, and there are a lot of them doing it, but I believe this village needed me, an older woman, who could use the things I had learned in the past to help them. My book is not really about this experience; it's a mystery book. At my age, I've decided to do the things I want. And that's the kind of book I read, so that's what I wrote." The reporter went on to say that the book was refreshingly silly and an unexpectedly delightful read. "A good gift book for that reader in your life," the reporter had noted.

  Pat tossed the paper into the bin. "They needed me." What an idea, she thought, walking to the closet to hang up her coat. She caught a glimpse of herself in t
he hall mirror and stared at the woman who looked back at her. She saw a woman of average height with more around the waist and hips than was healthy. And frown lines. Where did they come from? Leaning closer, she looked into her eyes. Sad? No, that wasn't it, but she definitely had seen more sorrow than most women her age. And her eyes were dull. Where's the sparkle that used to be in my eyes? Could I sell everything and move to a faraway village, just for the adventure?

  At the back of Pat's mind flashed a time when she was driving, and she'd just stopped the car along the road and cried— cried for no reason. She'd almost been afraid to drive the car for fear of whether she would care if she—no, she cautioned herself, best not to think of that. She stared more intently into the mirror. "Isn't there something you've always wanted to do?" she asked her reflection.

  Pat thought of Deb, her friend for thirty-five years. They knew more about each other than their husbands and kids knew about them. As best friends, they'd raised their kids together. They'd been there for each other through babies' fevers and chicken pox and husbands' coming (and going). They'd been friends before cell phones were even thought of, and they had to stretch the cord on the phone as far as it would reach, so they could talk and still make dinner for their respective families; friends through picnics and camping, through weight gains and losses.

  I was there when she married Marc, thought Pat fondly, as she recalled their history. It was a new beginning for her and the girls. She was there when I was ordained. I laughed out loud when she finally got her law degree, refusing her daughter's advice to sit out the ceremony because she was nine months pregnant. And she cried with me when my pop died.

  Suddenly missing her friend, Pat picked up the phone and dialed Deb's number.

  After Pat told Deb about her restless thoughts, Deb replied, "Come live up here for a while. You and Mitch could fix up one of these old houses. You could paint the lake, and he could paint the outside of the house. And if you really feel guilty about not helping people every minute of the day," she gently chided, "I'm sure there are kids here who need a reading buddy or lots of other things."