Snow Angels Read online

  “No? You’re not going to get up? That may be the first smart thing you’ve done in your life. Good move. You stay down there. And stay away from my daughter. Like you say, I’m a minister. I’m not supposed to go around pounding the stuffing out of the local youth, even if they are vermin. So you stay put, because if you get up, if you ever bother my daughter again, or spread around one more filthy lie about her, minister or no, I won’t be responsible for what happens to you next. You got that? Dawg?”

  Josh didn’t say anything, just nodded his head.

  Breathing hard, Andy slowly lowered his fist and then spit onto the snow, aiming and hitting a spot just a few inches from where Josh lay. “Glad we understand each other.”

  A clutch of shoppers had gathered nearby, including a few teenagers from the high school, to watch the spectacle.

  “Excuse me,” Andy said as he turned and headed down the sidewalk toward the parking lot, leaving the boy cowering in the snowbank and drawing the openmouthed stares of the kids.

  As he approached the dry cleaners, the door opened. Riley Roth stepped out, almost bumping into him.

  “Andy! Nice to see you,” Riley said cheerfully before seeing the scowl on the minister’s face and then looking down the sidewalk where Josh was struggling to get up from the snow.

  “Do you need a hand there, son?”

  Riley made a move toward Josh. Andy put up an arm to stop him, then spun around, and pointed at Josh. “Do not get up from that spot,” he said in a low and menacing voice. “Do you hear me? Do—Not—Move!”

  “Yes, sir.” Josh let his feet slide out from under him and flopped backward into the snow again. One of the girls standing nearby giggled and the rest of the teenagers joined in before stepping over Josh’s legs and going into Ming’s. Josh closed his eyes, but didn’t move.

  Riley looked confused. “What’s going on, Andy? You okay?”

  “Fine,” Andy said coldly. “Never better. Why do you ask?”

  “Well…I…” he glanced uneasily at Josh. “Never mind.

  “Listen, I’m glad I bumped into you. I’d like to call another meeting. We really should continue our discussions about the new building program. And there are a few other things I’d like to talk about as well. Some new business.”

  “No.”

  Riley raised his eyebrows, surprised by the definitive nature of this refusal. “I know it’s close to Christmas, but I was thinking that we could get together this afternoon. Before the pageant…”

  “No,” Andy repeated firmly. “I am not going to call another meeting about the building program. I’ve sat through all the meetings I intend to on that subject. There are a lot of things the church can and should spend its time and money on—spreading the gospel, feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely, battling injustice, and,” he said, tilting his head toward the inert Josh, “reaching out to the morally bankrupt youth of our town. But we do not need a heated baptistery, a latte bar in the lobby, or a sound system to rival Carnegie Hall’s, or a new building. No more meetings, Riley. Not about that.”

  The tips of Riley’s ears turned red and he sputtered “Now, wait a minute, Andy…”

  “No,” Andy said evenly. “You wait a minute, Riley. For three months, I’ve stood back and let you steer the agenda of the board, wasting everyone’s time talking about trivialities that have nothing to do with the mission of this church. I shouldn’t have. I’ve also turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, ignoring your underhanded attempts to oust me from the pulpit and bring in somebody who’d go along with your plan to tear down the historic church that has ably served the needs of this community for more than 140 years. That was a mistake too, a lack of leadership on my part. But I’ve learned my lesson. So no, Riley. I’m not going to call a meeting about the building program because there isn’t going to be any building program. Not on my watch, not until we need one.

  “Now if that makes you question my leadership or my vision,” Andy said with a single nod of his head, “that’s your right and I respect it. What I do not respect is that you’ve been going around behind my back, spreading gossip and dissent among the church body. That is not how we do things, Riley. Not in Maple Grove.”

  Riley shifted from one foot to another, stung by the rebuke, but not disputing it.

  Andy went on. “If you want to bring forth a motion to have me replaced, I’ll put it on the agenda for the next scheduled meeting, not before. But unless and until the congregation should ask me to step aside, I am the leader of the Maple Grove Community Church. And I’m done letting you or anyone else to distract me from my job to serve the people of this community.”

  He was quiet for a moment, giving Riley space to voice any disagreement. When none came, Andy looked at his watch. “I’m glad I bumped into you too, Riley. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go over to the church. I told Kendra I’d help set up extra chairs for the pageant. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Riley said uncomfortably.

  “Good,” Andy said evenly. “I’d hate for you to miss it. See you at church, Riley.”

  Chapter 18

  Kendra frowned as she stared at her clipboard, checking items off the list. “And you changed those green gels on lamps fourteen and sixteen?”

  Connie adjusted her headset to a more comfortable position. “I replaced them with medium amber. The wise men will now look tan, not seasick.”

  “Good. And is the…”

  “Yes,” the stage manager replied patiently. “The sound check is done. No more feedback on the stage left microphone. We ran the light cues before you got here, twice. I reminded Joey to take the spot off Santa during Mary’s solo. The props are all in place. I checked them myself…”

  “Good, good.” Kendra nodded nervously and then waddled over to a large, brightly painted cube on stage right. “And what about the Jack-in-the-Box door? Cameron’s entrance was late. He said the door was stuck. If he doesn’t pop out of there on his cue we lose the laugh. He’s got to explode out of this thing.”

  “Cameron is a big liar. He missed his entrance because he was in there eating cheese puffs instead of listening for his cue. He had a whole stash of snacks in there. But don’t worry, I hid them all in the prop closet. And,” she said, lifting and lowering the lid of the box a few times, “I oiled the box hinges personally. See?”

  “All right. Great.” Kendra stood in the middle of the stage, staring out at the rows of empty seats, and bit her lip thoughtfully.

  “It’s almost seven,” Connie reminded her.

  Kendra took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Yes. I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Open the doors.”

  Connie grinned and turned to address two stagehands. “Laura, tell the ushers they can open the house. Kyle, go to the dressing rooms and call the act—curtain in thirty minutes. Don’t worry, Kendra. I’ll take it from here. You just sit back and enjoy the show.”

  For most people in Maple Grove, December twenty-third and the annual church Christmas pageant, marked the beginning of the Christmas holiday. People who wanted to make sure they had the best seats had started lining up in the lobby around five. By the time Kendra finally gave the okay to let the ushers open the doors, the lobby was packed. People streamed down the aisles of the church like water pouring through the floodgates of a dam. But anxious as they were to find good seats, there was no pushing or shoving among the crowd, just an atmosphere of cheery anticipation and the hum of excited conversations, occasionally pierced by shouted greetings or the laughter of people who spotted friends, family, and neighbors in the crowd. Kendra heard her own name being called.

  “Kendra? Honey! Look who’s here!” Andy waved to her from the back of the church. Kendra squinted to see past the bright stage lights, her face splitting into a grin when she saw Darla Benton on Andy’s arm. Kendra waved back and made her way down the aisle.

  “Darla!” Kendra leaned down to give her a hug but, with her bulging stomach in the way, it ended u
p being more of an enthusiastic pat. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better than you, I suspect.” The old woman clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “Shouldn’t you be sitting down?”

  Kendra waved her hand dismissively. “I’m fine. A little tired, that’s all. Everything has gone just great, though it will be a relief to have this over and done with. What about you? Do you feel as good as you look? Because you look fabulous!”

  “Actually, I feel better than I have in a long while. I’ve lost six pounds since the heart attack.”

  Kendra laughed and rested her hand on her stomach. “Really? Well, I think I found them for you. Want them back?”

  “No, thanks just the same.” Darla looked around the fast-filling church. “I guess I’d better find a place to sit or there won’t be any left.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Andy said. “Director’s privilege. Kendra and I have five seats saved near the front, two for us, two for the Sugarmans, and one for you. We hoped you’d be well enough to make it.”

  “Well, heaven help anyone who’d have tried to stop me!”

  Kendra started to lead the way toward their seats but halfway down the aisle she was met by Connie. The normally cool and collected stage manager looked a little ruffled.

  “Excuse me. Kendra? We’ve got a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Thea. She won’t get in her costume. She’s crying and she says she’s not going on.”

  “What!”

  Connie started to explain, but Kendra held up a hand to interrupt.

  “Never mind. You go backstage and get ready. I’ll talk to Thea. Andy? Would you show Darla to our seats? I’ll be back soon. Hopefully before the show starts.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Darla said and released her hold on Andy’s arm “I can seat myself. You two go talk to Thea.”

  Hustled isn’t a word that can generally be applied to a woman entering the ninth month of pregnancy, but as best as she could, Kendra hustled up the aisle of the church, steering through the people who were coming from the opposite direction. Andy followed her, smiling and nodding to the people who were entering, but trying to avoid any lengthy conversations. Once they’d made their way out of the sanctuary and into the corridor that led to the cloakrooms that doubled as dressing rooms during the pageant, Andy fell into step beside his wife.

  “I don’t understand,” Andy said. “You said she seemed all right when you drove over here. Between Sharon’s leaving and this Josh business, I know this hasn’t been the best day of Thea’s life, but we talked it all through this morning and she seemed all right. Why would she suddenly fall apart twenty minutes before the show is supposed to start?”

  Winded, Kendra stopped for a moment. “Can we slow down a little, sweetie? I need to catch my breath.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked nervously. “Is it the baby?”

  Kendra took in a couple of deep breaths and laughed. “Don’t I wish! I saw the doctor yesterday. Looks like I’m going to go the full three weeks until my due date. I’m okay, just enormous and out of shape. Just give me a minute.

  “Your problem,” Kendra continued, “is you’ve never been a teenage girl. They can go from elation to despair and back again in the blink of an eye. And it isn’t like Thea doesn’t have some real reasons to be upset. Sharon, Josh, a new baby coming, preshow jitters.” Kendra ticked the list off her fingers. “Plus the fact that her father, a formerly pacifistic man of the cloth, hunted down her former boyfriend and beat him up with half the student body of Maple Grove High there to witness the scene.”

  “I did not beat him up,” Andy said defensively. “I just pushed him into the snow and threatened to beat him up. Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit, but there’s a big difference. I’m only human. What father worth his salt wouldn’t have done the same? And I did not push him down in front of half the high school. It was only a handful of kids, four or five. Six at the most.”

  “Well, I’m sure half the student body has heard of it by now and by tomorrow morning, so will the rest. Maybe that’s what she’s worried about,” Kendra said. “That once the word gets round about what a tough customer her father is, no boy will ever ask her out again.”

  “Good. Fine with me.”

  “Andy!” She laughed.

  “I mean it. The problem with you is you’ve never been a teenage boy. You don’t know what filthy, disgusting creatures they are. Ruled entirely by their…”

  “Yeah, I get the picture.” She laughed. “But they can’t all be like that. You weren’t like that.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Andy said and raised his eyebrows comically. “The smartest thing we could do is send Thea off to a convent in the mountains until she’s thirty.”

  “But we’re not Catholic.”

  “We’ll convert. And after my little run in with Riley,” Andy said in a more serious tone, “we may have to.”

  “Oh, Andy,” Kendra murmured sympathetically. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were right to confront Riley. He’s been distracting the board from its real purpose for months. You’ve been more than patient with him.”

  Andy sighed. “Maybe too patient. Riley’s not a bad guy at heart. I don’t want to embarrass him and I don’t want to lose him. He’s pushy, but he does have some good ideas. This is as much my fault as his. If I had dealt with this sooner then maybe there wouldn’t have had to be a confrontation in the first place.”

  “You know,” Kendra said gently, “you ought to take some of your own advice—remember that you’re only human. Maybe you didn’t handle this as well as you might have, but you will next time. And if Riley is the man you think he is, then the two of you will be able to put this behind you and work together. Don’t you think?”

  Andy nodded. “You’re right.”

  “Well,” Kendra said with a smile as she and Andy started walking again, “I’m glad we worked that out. Now we just have to figure out how to get our daughter to come out of her dressing room. After that, we’ll tackle peace in the Middle East.”

  “Okay. But first, what are we going to say to Thea that we didn’t already say this morning?”

  “Nothing. We’re just going to say it all again—with feeling.” Kendra again ticked the list off on her fingers. “We love her and we always will. Sharon does too, in her way. The new baby won’t change how we feel about her. She might have made some mistakes, but who hasn’t? Josh is a huge jerk and everyone in school knows that. This too shall pass. The sun will come out tomorrow. The show must go on. And the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. That sort of thing.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “Then we retreat to our fail-safe position; we threaten to dock her allowance. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  They rounded the corner that led to the dressing rooms and saw Thea walking toward the stage entrance, dressed in her Mary costume, and carrying a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses as she walked hand-in-hand with Santa Claus as played by Jimmy Lee. Her eyes looked a little red but, other than that, Thea showed no signs of distress. In fact, she was beaming.

  “Hi, Daddy! Hi, Kendra! Did you come back to wish me luck?”

  Kendra looked at Andy who said, “Uh. Yeah. Sure. Break a leg, sweetheart.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. “Daddy? A bunch of the kids are going out for ice cream after the show and Jimmy wants to take me. Can I go?”

  Andy frowned and Jimmy rushed to quell his concerns.

  “I’ll have her home by eleven. My mom is going to drive us.”

  Andy looked at Kendra, who smiled her assent. “All right. Eleven o’clock. Not one second later.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jimmy grinned. “Eleven o’ clock. I promise.”

  The door that led to the stage opened. Connie peered out. “There you are! Come on, guys! Onstage. We’re five minutes to curtain.”

  Thea handed her roses to
Kendra. “Could you take these home and put them in water for me?” Without waiting for an answer she lifted the skirt of her costume and scurried through the stage door with Jimmy right behind.

  Andy looked at Kendra. “I don’t understand. What just happened here?”

  “I told you. Elation to despair and back again in less time than it takes two concerned parents to come to the rescue.”

  Kendra took her husband’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go watch the show.”

  Chapter 19

  The sound of applause still ringing in her ears, Kendra let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

  Andy turned his gaze from the road and looked at her, worried. “Are you all right? Is it the baby?”

  “No,” Kendra said with exasperation. “Are you going to be like this for the next three weeks? Calm down. I was just sighing with contentment—and relief. The pageant went really well, don’t you think? I mean, other than Cameron popping out of the box late. Did you see him? There was a big orange ring around his mouth. Cheese puffs. He must have found a key to the prop closet. But, other than that, it went off without a hitch. Thea was great. I was so proud of her.”

  “Well, I’m proud of you,” Andy said. “I think it was the best pageant we’ve ever had.”

  “Aw, shucks. You’re just saying that.” Kendra tipped her head and batted her eyelashes. “Say it again.”

  “It was the best pageant we ever had. I mean it, sweetheart. You did an amazing job. Everybody thought so. People were lined up six-deep to congratulate you. It was like fighting off the paparazzi just trying to get you from the lobby to the car. For a minute I thought I was going to have to pick you up and carry you.”

  Kendra smiled and rubbed the top of her stomach. “It’s a good thing you didn’t. You’d have had to go to the hospital before me.”

  Keeping one hand on the wheel, Andy reached across the seat and rested his hand on hers. “I’m glad we’ve got a little more time to wait yet. Now that the show is over we can relax, kick back, and enjoy a nice quiet Christmas.”