Chapter 3

I hadn't mentioned it to Cinda, since it wasn't relevant to her situation, but I was on the schedule to preach that morning. We've got several elders now, and Tyrone Jackman has all but retired from his position as pastor, but from time to time the eldership asks someone else to preach – either someone from within the church, or a visiting preacher who has a special area of ministry that they think the church could benefit from. They don't ask me to preach very often, and it's always on a schedule-permitting basis since neither they nor I know what might come up suddenly. I initially resisted the invitations, though I've been preaching occasionally since 1991, because I hate to make commitments that I can't keep. But Tyrone, and later the elders once they were in place, promised that they'd always have a backup preacher just in case, and so I'd consented.

With Cinda all right for the moment, I went to our usual seat – the third from the front in the center section, on the right hand end of the pew. I've been sitting there as long as I've been in the church, which is a long time, longer than I've known Cecelia. I still remember the day when I was sitting there, going through the bulletin, and I felt someone sit down beside me. It was Cecelia, and she invited me to meet her after lunch because she had something she wanted to talk to me about. It turned out that the subject was marriage – that was the day she proposed.

As pleasant as that memory is, I put it aside and glanced over my manuscript. I preach from a manuscript these days, for it keeps me from chasing every rabbit in the country while forgetting where I'm going. Some preachers can keep their focus with few or no notes, but I can't; I've worked my way up from small outlines to large unwieldy outlines to a full manuscript, and since that works for me I keep to it.

Cecelia knows better than to interrupt me on days that I'm preaching. It's not that I don't love her on those days, but that I have to concentrate so fiercely on what I'm doing that I tend to get snappish with her if she breaks my train of thought. I could vaguely hear her talking to Darlia while I reviewed the manuscript, and I noticed with some corner of my mind that Tyrone and the other elders were taking their seats. But I never noticed the singing begin, and we were on the third or fourth hymn when I took my nose out of the manuscript and came back to the real world.

I shook my head – I'd done it again – and grabbed a hymnal from the rack. Cecelia pointed to the number for me, and I turned pages. It was "And Can It Be," number 731 in our hymnal. We'd swapped a few years back, going to a hymnal that more accurately reflects out doctrinal positions, and the "new" hymnal has a lot of songs that I'm not familiar with while omitting some that I am. But then that's true of any hymnal, I guess.

We sang, and we prayed, and George Stavros, the newest elder, introduced me. I still sometimes get the cold sweats when I preach, and I could feel it breaking out as I took the two steps up to the platform and laid my manuscript on the pulpit. The only way I can remember what I say when I preach is the printed page, and frequently I have no idea what I say while people are turning pages and taking out pens and doing whatever else they do in preparation for the sermon. I suppose if I preached more regularly I'd learn to control the apprehension, but as it is I have bouts of stage fright.

I know I preached that morning, for I remember turning the last page of the manuscript and praying that God would drive the message home to all of us. But aside from the printed manuscript, I don't know what I said, and I don't remember how it went over – though a preacher who modifies his sermon just to please the people isn't much of a preacher. I certainly don't want to be offensive, but unlike a politician, my job isn't to get votes or move the approval numbers upwards – and I wouldn't know how to do that even if I wanted to.

Apparently I was useful, at least to some people, for I received comments to that effect as my family and I made our way to the door. We were rushing a bit more than usual, since I did need to go to work after we ate. Usually we like to stay and circulate a bit, especially Cecelia, who for all her formality and potential for arrogance is in her heart a gentle and friendly person, a Christian who acts far more like she ought to than I do.

For lunch we decided on something fast. I drove us to the Taco Bell at Menaul and San Mateo, and we sat at a table by the window and looked out at the passing traffic. We were on the south side of the building, but I could look out the east side windows and see the building where another PI has her office. I'd met her a time or two, and might call on her for help in the bodyguard gig if I ran out of other options. I wouldn't call her first or even second or third, though, because I knew she had a full load of cases ... and from what I'd heard she might be a bit too quick to shoot for this job. I shook my head. I was supposed to be eating lunch with my family, not meditating on rumors about other PIs.