Riverbend Reunion(33)

“You can scream and yell, but my lawyer says nothing is standing in the way of turning the old church into a grill and bar, plus what can the city council do?” Jessica had been taught to respect her elders, but standing up to Stella after the way she’d treated Risa felt right—and good. “My church isn’t even in the city limits, and it is zoned commercial. Maybe Uncle Elijah did that so that he could turn it into something else, like a bar, later. But I do know that all the screaming and yelling you do will not change a blessed thing, Stella, so save your breath.”

“We will stand in the middle of the parking lot and sing hymns in a peaceful protest on Tuesday night,” Stella threatened. “I’m going to tell everyone to come, and we’ll have a petition for them to sign. We’ll just see who has power in Riverbend.”

“If you get hungry, send someone into the bar for a burger. Maybe we will run a special on a hamburger, chips, and a cold drink that night.” Oscar chuckled. “Risa is a mighty fine cook, and I’m sure all that singing might make people hungry.”

Stella finally dropped her finger and glared at Oscar and Jessica. “I wouldn’t put a foot in that place.”

“It’s nothing but a white frame building.” Jessica was surprised that her voice sounded so calm.

“It’s a church, a place to worship God,” Stella shot back at her.

Jessica tried one more time to reason with her. “It has not been a church in ten years.”

“And God don’t want it to be a church anymore. He sent straight-line winds to knock the steeple off the roof.” Oscar chuckled.

“God didn’t do that,” Stella argued.

“I believe He did. He makes the wind blow, according to the scripture, and He sends all kinds of signs. Evidently, He doesn’t want that old place to be a church, and never did, or else it would have taken off when Elijah built it,” Oscar argued. “You can believe what you want, but me and Jessica have some shopping to do.” He tipped his hat toward her. “You have a nice day now.” He turned to walk away, and Jessica followed him.

“God will rain fire and brimstone down upon that church if you continue with this horrid idea,” Stella shouted at them.

“Let her have the last word,” Jessica whispered.

“That’s a hard thing to do when she’s bad-mouthing you girls,” Oscar growled.

“I know, but you can’t fix stupid,” Jessica told him.

He chuckled. “Guess that’s one way to look at it, but some duct tape over her mouth would surely stop it for a little while, and I would so enjoy slapping a strip across her lips.”

“Nope.” Jessica found boxes of screws and nails and turned to Oscar. “It would just make her explode, and then someone would have to clean up the mess on aisle one.”

“I’d offer to do the job for free”—Oscar was back to growling—“but you’re right. Let’s get what we need and go home.”

There was that word, home, again. It didn’t matter how many hymns Stella and her cohorts sang in the church parking lot, there was no way they could take that away from Jessica.





Chapter Seven


Jessica turned her back to the shower spray and let the pulsating water massage the aching muscles in her back. In the past two days, the team had torn down half the pews, stacked the backs and seats over to one side of the bar, and taken the ends to the storage room. Wade had drawn up plans for the bar, but they hadn’t voted on whether to put it against the wall shared with the kitchen or on the end that had been the pulpit.

Another thing that they had to think about was the baptism tub behind the pulpit. Curtains covered the oversize bathtub, but something would have to be done about that. An idea to fill it with whiskey or vodka popped into her head, but that might really cause lightning to come down through the rafters and strike her graveyard dead.

She turned off the faucet, stepped out of the shower, and wrapped a towel around her wet hair and another one around her body. Then she padded into her bedroom and continued to think about the baptismal. The thing was simply a nice deep bathtub with stairs leading down into it. When it was filled, it would come up to a grown person’s waist, and maybe to a teenager’s chest. Once she’d finished drying her body, she dressed in a pair of sleep shorts and an oversize T-shirt. She picked up a mystery book she’d been reading about a small town where young, newly married women were being killed. She propped two pillows against the headboard and settled in to finish the story.

“Another reason not to get married if you live in a small town,” she whispered as she turned to the page where her bookmark had been placed. She read through five pages and then laid the book aside when she realized she was looking at the words but not remembering a single detail.

The leftover lemon pound cake in the kitchen seemed to be calling her name, so she slung her legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and headed down the dark hallway to the sanctuary/bar. Someday the doorway would be closed, and one made from right outside her bedroom into the kitchen. That would be a lot handier for Risa since they had decided to use one of the Sunday school rooms for a pantry. She’d already asked Wade and Oscar to build lots of shelves in the room to hold big quantities of staple food.

“Hey,” Wade said from the pulpit, where he was sitting in the dark.