Making Faces(31)

Elliott was quiet for several long minutes, Joshua Taylor too, and Fern wondered if that was all that was going to be said. Then Joshua Taylor asked softly, “Is that all that's bothering you, Elliott? Is there something else you want to talk about?”

“I keep thinking that if I just looked different, if I looked more like him, none of this would be happening. I know I'm not the best looking guy in the world. I know I'm a little on the homely side. But I exercise and I keep myself trim and I dress nice and wear cologne . . .” Elliott Young sounded embarrassed, and his voice drifted off.

“Looked more like who?” Joshua Taylor asked gently.

“Ambrose's father. The man Lily can't seem to get out of her system. He wasn't nice to her, Pastor. He was selfish and mean. He pushed her away when he found out she was pregnant. He told her he wanted nothing to do with her. But he was handsome. I've seen pictures. Looks just like Brosey.” Elliott's voice broke when he said his son's name.

“I've often thought that beauty can be a deterrent to love,” Fern's father mused.

“Why?”

“Because sometimes we fall in love with a face and not what's behind it. My mother used to pour the grease off the meat when she cooked, and she stored it in a tin in the cupboard. For a while, she used a tin that had once held those long, praline-covered cookies with hazelnut crème inside. The expensive ones? More than once I got that tin down thinking I'd found my mom's secret stash, only to take off the lid and see smelly mounds of grease.”

Elliott laughed, getting the point. “The container didn't matter much at that point, huh?”

“That's right. It made me want cookies, but that container was major false advertising. I think sometimes a beautiful face is false advertising too, and too many of us don't take the time to look beneath the lid. Funny, this reminds me of a sermon I gave a few weeks back. Did you hear it?”

“I'm sorry, Pastor. I work nights at the bakery, you know. Sometimes Sunday morning I'm just too tired,” Elliott said, his guilt over missing church evident, even through the pantry wall.

“It's okay, Elliott.” Joshua laughed. “I'm not taking roll. I just wanted to know if you'd heard it so I wouldn't bore you silly.” Fern heard her father turning pages. She smiled a little. He always brought everything back to the scriptures.

“In Isaiah 53:2 it says, “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”

“I remember that verse,” Elliott said softly. “It always struck me that Jesus wasn't handsome. Why wouldn't God make his outside match his inside?”

“For the same reason He was born in a lowly manger, born to an oppressed people. If He had been beautiful or powerful, people would have followed him for that alone–they would have been drawn to him for all the wrong reasons.”

“That makes sense,” Elliott said.

Fern found herself nodding in agreement, sitting there on a sack of flour in the corner of the pantry. It made sense to her too. She wondered how she had missed this particular sermon. It must have come when she sneaked her romance novel in between the pages of the hymnal a few weeks ago. She felt a twinge of remorse. Her father was so wise. Maybe she should pay more attention.

“There's nothing wrong with your face, Elliott,” Joshua said gently. “There's nothing wrong with you. You are a good man with a beautiful heart. And God looks on the heart, doesn't he?”

“Yeah.” Elliott Young sounded close to tears once more. “He does. Thanks, Pastor.”

After Elliott Young left, Fern sat in deep contemplation in the pantry, her hands clasped around her knees. Then she went upstairs and began writing a love story about a blind girl searching for a soul mate and an ugly prince with a heart of gold.





Iraq





“I would really like to see a woman that wasn't wearing a tent over her head. Just once! And I would appreciate it if she was blonde or even better, redheaded!” Beans moaned one afternoon after guarding a lonely checkpoint for several hours with only a handful of women clad in burkas and children coming through to make them feel useful. Maybe it was ironic that Beans longed for a blonde when he was Hispanic. But he was American, and America had the most diverse population in the world. A little diversity right now would be welcome.

“I'd be happy to never see another burka again.” Grant wiped the sweat and dust from his nose and flinched up at the sun, wishing it would take a break.

“I heard that some guys, especially in places like Afghanistan, don't see their wives at all until after they are married. Can you imagine? Surprise, sweetie!” Jesse batted his eyelashes as he made a hideous face. “What's wrong? Don't you think I'm pretty?” he said in a high falsetto and contorted his face even more.

“So how do they even know who it is they're marrying?” Paulie asked, flummoxed.

“Handwriting,” Beans said seriously. But his nostrils flared slightly, and Ambrose rolled his eyes, knowing that Beans was telling a tale.

“Really?” Paulie gasped, falling like a brick. It wasn't his fault he was so gullible. It came with the sweet temperament.