The Lights of Tenth Street (10 page)

“Everything still okay?”

“All limbs still attached,” Sherry said as she returned to cataloging the latest holiday contributions.

The questioner turned back to her sorting job and her conversation with another volunteer. “So anyway, I just think they’re embarrassed. I doubt either of them will come back.”

“What a shame.” The second woman’s voice was clear, although she was out of sight behind several food racks. “You’d think
one
of them would want to come. It’s a shame for both to lose their church and all their friends.”

“Especially during a custody battle. How dreadful.”

Sherry worked silently, torn between a desire to eavesdrop and her annoyance at the women’s gossiping.

The second woman continued. “Pastor tried to talk them out of it but they were bound and determined. So they’d probably just feel guilty if they did come back.”

“Awful, just awful. It’s reaching epidemic proportions. You know, I just found out that the Silvertons were divorced, too.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope. It’s the second marriage for both of them. You know, I really wonder whether it’s appropriate to have him on the worship team.”

There was a pause, then Sherry heard the second woman continue her sorting of food cans. “You know, I never thought of that, but it’s a good point. Are we condoning divorce if we place a divorced man in a leadership position?”

“It’s not like he’s a pastor, of course, but still.”

“Well … then again, there could’ve been good reasons for their earlier divorce, biblical reasons. Maybe his former spouse cheated on him. If that’s the case, you certainly wouldn’t want to limit the poor man.”

“I imagine the worship director must’ve taken that into consideration.”

“If he even knows.”

Sherry saw the first woman straighten, a jar of peanut butter in her hand. “I wonder if he does know. Not many people do. I would hope the Silvertons would have told him privately, but maybe not.”

“Well, you know the worship director best. Why don’t you quietly pull him aside one Sunday and ask? That way you don’t stir up a fuss, but you check to see whether we need to address the issue.”

Sherry finished her cataloging and wove her way across the small food pantry, clipboard in hand.

“Melanie, those boxes are done. Anything else?”

The second woman stood up from her chair and stretched, smiling. “Thanks so much, dear. It looks like we’re almost finished. You’re very sweet to volunteer today.”

“Well, I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance before. It’s certainly an important cause.” Sherry looked across the shelves and boxes. They weren’t exactly sagging under their load. “Will this be enough food?”

“I’d imagine so. We generally don’t have a flood of direct requests after all; we usually just hook up with an inner-city ministry that needs the holiday contributions, and they take care of actually getting the food to the people that need it. Much more efficient.”

The door opened, and all three women turned as a young man shuffled in. Sherry wrinkled her nose at the rank smell.

Melanie set down the clipboard and moved forward. “Can I help you?”

The man turned his glassy eyes toward her, and Sherry noticed that Melanie flinched back from his breath.

His voice was sluggish. “I need food and stuff. I saw your church from the street.” He looked slowly around the room packed with cans and supplies. “Your office folks said you was back here.”

Melanie pulled a sheet off the clipboard. “Before we can give you anything from the pantry, we need to get your name and contact information.”

The man took an unsteady step back, his voice belligerent. “Why?”

“Because we like to know who we’re helping.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then began spelling his name in a too-loud voice. “And I don’t have no home address right now.”

“Okay,” Melanie jotted the information down. “We can give you a bag of canned goods, if that will help.”

He just stared at her with his glassy eyes. Clearly disconcerted, she put her hands on her hips.

“Will that help you?” Another pause. “Sir, you are drunk. Maybe it’s best if you take a couple of hours to—”

“I need a place to stay, too.”

“We, ah, we don’t have a ministry like that. We can refer you to a church that does, a few miles away.”

“I don’t have no car.”

Melanie looked at the other two women, flustered. “Well, we don’t offer a shuttle service, sir. You can probably walk there in less than an hour.” She moved to a small cabinet and pulled out a brochure. “There’s a map right here. You just walk straight down Tenth Street out front, and turn right at the second light. It’s another mile and a half down. You can’t miss it.”

The man took the brochure and squinted at it, standing still in the middle of the room. When he hadn’t moved a full minute later, Melanie began bustling around the room arranging a sack of groceries for him.

Sherry sidled up next to her as she set a stack of canned vegetables into a grocery bag. Sherry kept her voice low.

“If he doesn’t have a car, how is he going to carry that big bag three miles?”

Melanie swiveled around. “Sir, how much food would you like?”

He looked up, his face vague. “Maybe just some peanut butter and bread. I like peanut butter and bread. They may let me keep it at this shelter.”

“Oh, sir …” Melanie hesitated, and then quickly loaded the rest of the bag, adding an extra jar of peanut butter and setting a fresh loaf of bread on the top. She hefted the bag and placed it into the drunken man’s arms. Melanie wrinkled her nose in distaste, but duty called.

“Sir, I’m going to drive you over there. It’ll only take me five minutes.”

She stepped back, screwing up her courage to brave the man’s smell, and then ushered him out the door, glancing backward with a roll of her eyes before the door closed.

The first volunteer looked at Sherry in astonishment. “Good heavens. That’s something you don’t see every day!”

Sherry stared in the direction Melanie had gone. “Good for her. It was the right thing to do.”

“I guess. I don’t know. I’m of a mind that people have to be willing to stop drinking and taking drugs and get themselves on a good track first, or we risk aiding
and abetting their habits. Otherwise, if we give them food, they’ll take the money they would’ve spent on food and use it for drugs instead. That’s not a good idea.”

“I suppose—”

The pantry door slammed open, and the teenage girl stood in the doorway, surrounded by kids.

“Where was Mom going? Who was that man?”

“That man was someone who came to the church for help, and your mom was helping him,” Sherry said.

“But what was she
doing?
They drove away together!”

“She’ll be right back. She was taking him to a nearby shelter for the night.”

“What on
earth
was she thinking? That has to be dangerous, and he has
got
to smell up our car!”

The other volunteer spoke up. “I’m sure she’s fine. Now why don’t you let the kids keep playing. We’re almost done here. Five more minutes, tops.”

The kids ran back to the darkening playground, followed closely by the frowning teenager.

The other volunteer turned back to Sherry. “You were saying …?”

“I guess I was just saying that although you’ve got a good point, how are we ever going to help anyone if they have to be cleaned up first?”

“I’m not saying they have to have their life totally in order first—”

“No, no, I know. But if we require them to be off drugs and straight first, don’t you think we’ll miss a lot of the people that Jesus would’ve helped when He was walking the earth?”

The other volunteer smiled. “You’ve got a good heart, but we need to be able to counsel and monitor the people who’re seeking help, and we’re just not equipped to do that kind of ministry here. It’s too complicated, and we could do more harm than good trying to find our way through the maze. We should leave it to the people who know what they’re doing.”

Sherry’s mind flickered again to the drive back from the airport; to the decrepit car and the strip club billboard. A well-known adage suddenly overtook her thoughts.
There but for the grace of God go I
 …

After refereeing a lively, two-hour financial negotiation, Gil closed his briefing book.

“Well, we could go on for a couple hours, but I think we have a handle on the parameters. Doug, thanks for coming. I know this could be beneficial to both
parties, and we’ve got hundreds of man-hours invested, so I hope we can make it work.”

“It would be nice.” Doug could feel Jordan’s frosty glance at his side, so he held up the briefing book. “I appreciate the tremendous effort you all have put into this. Now from our end, I’ll just have to take a couple of days and crunch the numbers a bit.”

Gil stood, and the others followed suit. He leaned to shake Doug’s hand. “Give us a call if you need to clarify something before our meeting on Friday. We’ve listed the phone numbers and e-mail addresses for each of the executives, so you can get back to them at any time.”

Doug nodded, forcing himself not to look down the table again. “Fine. I’ll also be busy on another deal in town, but I might be able to call a few people to nail down additional details. You all have my contact info as well.”

Gil glanced at his team, then back at their guest. “Well, Doug, what are your plans for dinner? We’d talked to Jordan about taking you both out to one of the local places. You’ve got to be starved by now.”

“Yeah … Okay, well—”

“Great, great.” Gil turned to his leadership team. “Who’s going?”

Before Doug knew it, he and Jordan were ushered out the door, heading to a local eatery.

As Gil led the way toward an empty table for eight at an upscale Tex-Mex restaurant, Doug felt his cell phone buzzing in his pocket.

He checked the display and gave a start. “I forgot to call my wife!” He grimaced at his forgetfulness and heard Gil and Jordan chuckling beside him, joking about pesky wives.

“I’m going to take this outside.” He turned to go, pressing the Receive button. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hey, honey, you didn’t call me! I was worried about you.”

Doug stepped outside the front door of the restaurant. “I’m sorry. I’ve been in one long meeting right up until a few minutes ago.”

“You could’ve called me as you were driving to the meeting.”

“Yeah.” Doug’s shoulders drooped with fatigue. “I’m sorry. I just forgot.”

“Don’t you care that I’m worried about you?”

“Sherry …” Doug closed his eyes, struggling for patience with the woman he loved, “of course I care. I’m just exhausted right now, honey. I’m not thinking all that clearly these days.”

“But—”

“Honey, I don’t mean to put you off, really I don’t, but I’m at a business dinner here. I just don’t have time to hash this out right now.”

He paused. No response.

“Honey?”

“I’m still here.”

“I want to talk to you but I just can’t right now. And I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

“I don’t mean to bug you, honest.” Another pause. “I love you, Doug. Go back to your meeting.”

“Thanks for understanding. I’ll call you later.”

“It
is
later, Doug. It’s already ten o’clock here.”

“Of course. Sorry. I’ll call you in the morning, then.”

“That would be great. Since you’ll be out there all week, is there any way we could connect at least once a day?”

“I promise I will. I’m sorry. I love you, you know.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

Doug walked back toward the table, his steps heavy. Maybe he wasn’t so great a husband and father after all. Maybe he just wasn’t being to Sherry what she needed him to be. Did he even have it in him? She was acting so insecure these days, but she wasn’t naturally an anxious person. Maybe if he was a better man, she wouldn’t be—

“Doug?”

He turned his head to see Jill coming toward him, her gaze friendly. She raised her eyebrows. “Anything wrong?”

“No. Just tired.” Doug lifted his cell phone. “Missing my wife.”

“Of course.”

Jill wove her way toward their table, now full except for two adjacent seats. She pulled up one chair, and Doug slowly took the other.

Gil caught the eye of a nearby waiter, then looked toward Doug and Jill. “We just put in our drink order. What do you two want?”

Jill pursed her lips as she scanned the drink card. Doug had to look away, the mental refrain starting all over again. He could feel the warmth of her arm next to his. As they gave their drink orders to the waiter—beer for her, soda for him—Doug scooted his chair sideways.

She was probably brushing up against me on purpose. I bet she’s attracted to me. Better let her down easy
.

Jill leaned on the table and looked toward him. “So what’s your wife’s name?”

“Sherry. We have two kids.”

“Must be hard to be away.”

“It is.”

“Do you have a picture?”

“Sure.” Doug opened his wallet and showed her a snapshot of the family in front of a blazing fireplace. “This was just a few weeks ago.”

Jill’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s so sweet.”

She gave him a respectful smile, and he felt a warm glow.
She’s impressed with what a good family man I am
.

Doug started to slot the photo away, but the man on his other side looked interested. Before he knew it, the happy family picture was passed around the table. He spent the next hour comparing notes with the others about families and activities.

One of the thirty-something executives talked about a recent marathon he’d run.

Jill turned to him. “I didn’t know you were a runner. I ran that marathon, too.”

That accounts for those legs
 …

Doug wrenched his thoughts off that dangerous track and looked over at the other man. “Um, so how hard was it to get a spot in that marathon? I did my first one in Atlanta last year and was thinking of doing another.”

“Not too hard. So you’re a runner, too?”

When Doug nodded, Jill turned sideways. “I thought you looked like it. What was your time?”