Читать книгу Falling Into Grace - Michelle Stimpson - Страница 15

CHAPTER 9

Now that Camille believed her days at Aquapoint Systems were numbered, she had a much better attitude about going to work. Bringing her lunch actually morphed into a pleasurable part of her plan to eat healthier and lose weight.

Even Fluffy seemed to benefit from her new attitude. “The doctor says she’s never seen such a remarkable recovery,” Camille remarked to Sheryl. Actually, she needed to do something to stop this woman after she’d inquired about the feline for two days in a row. The way Sheryl carried on, Camille wondered if her boss had lost sleep behind Fluffy.

“Oh, wow! You’ve got to give me your vet’s name!”

“Okay, I’ll have to remember to pick up a card the next time we’re there.” Camille nodded with a straight face.

Sheryl whipped out her cell phone. “Wait. Before you go back to your desk, let me show you the pictures I took of Lillie last weekend.”

Camille oohed and aahed over a shot of Sheryl’s purebred cocker spaniel, then quickly darted back to her office before Sheryl could ask to see a photo of the invisible Fluffy.

Good humor translated into a genuinely cheerful tone, which meant mega leads for Camille. Already, she was at twenty-nine appointments, and it was only Wednesday morning. All this, of course, meant she’d bought herself some time to handle church investigation while on the company’s clock. The more she accomplished at Aquapoint, the less stuff on her plate after hours. Good thing, too, because after her last two workouts on Medgar’s treadmills, Camille was too pooped to do much else.

She figured it would take a few days for the church secretary—or whoever input new members’ information—to put her name on the church roll. Since she’d already received a postcard from The King’s Table, she hoped Grace Temple wouldn’t be too far behind with processing.

Now for the real business. Camille skipped on over to her church’s homepage and found the link to church staff. She recognized the praise team leader’s photo. His name was Ronald Shepherd. According to his biography, he’d earned a bachelor of music degree from the University of North Texas and some kind of theological degree from a Dallas seminary. There were no graduation years posted, but Camille guessed he was probably a few years older than her.

His e-mail address and phone extension popped up when she hovered over his handsome face. She took note, glanced at her watch, and decided she’d better wait until a more casual hour, say ten o’clock, so she wouldn’t appear as though her entire existence depended on this call. Besides, she needed some time to get her verbiage together.

She struggled to find an appropriate angle on this one. How could she introduce herself and ask to be on the praise team in the same breath? She needed some history, a real reason for Ronald to thrust her into the limelight. She needed what saints at the old church would have called a “blazing-hot testimony,” one where God had picked her up, turned her around, and placed her feet on solid ground. Or did he take her feet out of the “miry clay” first? Was “miry” even a word?

Hmmm. What could she say that was maybe at least partially true. She didn’t mind lying about an animal, but she didn’t want to jinx herself. Think! Think!

Okay, there was one time, during her grade school days, when she got lost in J.C. Penney and a little old lady with almost transparent skin led her to the gift-wrapping department, where a lady paged Jerdine to claim Camille. When she and Jerdine searched for the good Samaritan in order to thank her, she was gone. Momma had remarked, “Must have been an angel in disguise.”

That story actually brought goose bumps to Camille’s arms every time she recalled the incident, but it had nothing to do with her singing. Other than maybe a song about lost souls, she couldn’t find an inroad.

What else?

Her mind blank, she opened up a Word file and brainstormed all the potentially life-threatening events in her life that God might have delivered her from:

1. Cut leg on Slip ’n’ Slide

2. Got whole bunch of water in mouth @ Wet ’n’ Wild water park

3. Swallowed penny

4. Walking pneumonia

Hold up. Pneumonia was serious. People died from it. She could have died from it or maybe lost a lung if her parents hadn’t taken her to see a doctor, which they did—but whatever. Point was, it could have happened, and that’s what mattered.

She thought through her testimony: As a child, she’d suffered from a bronchial problem. Clearly, the devil had been trying to steal her voice. But her mother, a prayer warrior, prayed her through so that God could use this instrument of praise for His glory. And once the Lord healed her from all those breathing-related issues that threatened to swipe her off the earth, she opened her mouth and the most beautiful sound on earth came through loud and clear. She’d been singing ever since!

By midmorning, Camille had rehearsed the narrative so many times she almost believed it. Confident of her ability to garner support, she dialed the church’s main number and waited for the prompt to enter Ronald’s extension.

2286.

“Hello. You have reached the office of Ronald Shepherd, director of music at Grace Chapel Community Church . . .” Blah, blah, blah.

What on earth could he be doing at ten o’clock? She imagined Ronald behind his desk surfing the Internet, browsing Facebook profiles, basically doing what she did at work. So why couldn’t he take her call?

“Hi, Mr. Shepherd, my name is Camille Robertson. I joined church Sunday and I’m anxious to get busy ministering through song. Could you please return my call at your earliest convenience?” She left her number and tacked on, “Have a blessed day,” for good measure.

Dang! Now she’d have to write down her story so she could remember it whenever Mr. I’m-too-busy-Web-surfing got back with her.

Camille activated the “vibrate” option on her phone and placed it right next to her keyboard so she wouldn’t miss his call. At lunch, she checked again to make sure she hadn’t accidentally enabled some feature that might have blocked her phone’s reception. She asked Janice to dial her number.

The signal came through, no problems.

By quitting time, Camille was furious. How dare he not return her phone call by the end of the business day? Even if he wasn’t in the office, didn’t he check voice mail remotely? Even if he wanted to call her today, he couldn’t now because of midweek service.

Anger at Ronald’s brush-off fueled her workout. She probably burned an extra hundred calories because of him.

Drenched and sore, Camille returned home from the recreation center to find a yellow note taped to her door. Am I being evicted? Couldn’t be. She’d paid her rent and the late charges. Plus it wasn’t pink.

She snatched the note from the door, inadvertently ripping off a smidgen of the underlying paint. Not my fault.

The paper read, YOU HAVE A UPS PACKAGE AT LEASING OFFICE. CLAIM BY 7 OR COME BACK AT 9 TOMORROW.

She checked her phone. Six fifty-four. She could make it. With gym bag still in hand, Camille cut across the center courtyard where a cluster of unsupervised elementary-age kids were flinging empty swings so high the seats wrapped around the top bar, elevating the swings to a height that none of them would be able to reach if they kept it up.

She shook her head. Kids today are so destructive.

Up ahead, the main office parking lot was mighty desolate. Camille glanced at her phone again. Six fifty-seven. Twenty feet later, it was pretty clear that these people had vacated the premises. Are you kidding me?

Nope. Lights out, doors locked, curtains closed.

“I can’t believe this.” She grunted. She walked around the building to a side entrance. A sign listing the maintenance man’s number was her only hope. Camille called, tried to explain the urgency of her situation, but the complex’s answering service informed her that an unclaimed package from UPS did not fall under the category of “emergency.”

“But I need that delivery.” Camille added a tearful twang.

The responder wavered. “Is there medication in the box?”

“Yes.” Why didn’t I think of that?

“Hold on a second.”