This is a true story. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Running. Hiding. Running again, her breath coming in great gulps and gasping exhalations, Sheila paused for a moment at the edge of the clearing. Bathed in stark white light, like that of a moon never seen from Earth, two men sweated as they hefted shovelfuls of rust-colored dirt from a grave…

Sheila woke to a parched mouth and scratchy eyes. The pit of her stomach felt hollow, as if the dream-workers had plied their shovels there. Reaching for the water glass on her bedside table, she shook her head. The digital clock near the window showed 5:45 in demonic red numerals.

As she lay back against her too-warm pillow after one sip of tepid water, Sheila pictured the day ahead. Get up. Straighten the house. Check her email. Oh God. The email. Sheila considered not looking at it.

But she had to at least scan it. As the newly elected head of the deacons at Summerset Church of the Nativity, she needed to organize a food drive and coordinate the upcoming car wash. People would be emailing with questions, needing direction.

Opening her Yahoo account meant she would also have to deal with the other emails, though; the 6 or 7 daily multi-page missives from Jackson Paris, the bane of her tenure at Nativity. Jackson was clerk of the deacons. Somehow, he seemed to think that gave him control of all meetings, the agendas for the meetings, and the right to require multipage reports on the activities of other members of the board of deacons.

Surely Marvin, the Rightfully Reverend Rector, would help with that when he returned from his honeymoon in the Bahamas. As head of the laity, Sheila had been carrying the load of the entire church for two weeks and she was ready to rest as well as ready to pinch Jackson’s head off.

Sleep being elusive, Sheila stared into the dark void of her bedroom and tried to scrape up at least an ounce or so of compassion for Jackson Paris. The man had just retired from a job that included scads of people who did whatever he said without question. Surely, it was challenging for him to imagine a world where he was not in charge.

Trying to muster up some compassion for the retired pilot, Sheila pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, hard. But all she got for her effort was the discovery of a worrisome bump right behind her left front tooth. Her heart was hard as she considered Jackson. The way he proposed agenda items, then sent emails arguing against those very items. Last week, when he’d received the agenda so he could print it out for the meeting, he’d taken the opportunity to add things to other people’s reports.

“Praise the Lord, Marvin will be back soon!” Sheila said aloud as she rose from the bed.

After breakfast, with much trepidation, Sheila opened her laptop and tapped the email icon. Sure enough, there sat 6 emails from Jackson. She opened the first one. It was a screed about the order of the deacon meetings. He reckoned they should have the clerk’s report first as it contained vital information about a mandolin concert he’d attended. Included was a link to a book about the instrument on Amazon, a biography of the author, and a picture of Jackson’s dog. Sheila sighed and opened the next one. In it, Jackson said he thought people on the board would enjoy his report even more if they could listen to an interview with the mandolin player. Jackson happened to have such an interview on his computer and would play it for everyone at the meeting. In the meanwhile, it was attached for Sheila’s review and approval. Sheila rolled her eyes and scrolled on to the next message without replying to the first two.

She stopped, exhausted, after the 4th message. It was time for lunch and she hadn’t even gotten around to figuring out what to do about the organ. One of the pipes had fallen off during choir practice and nearly hit Ketanji, the organist, on the head. Oh well, she thought, Marvin will be back tomorrow. I’ll mention it at our handoff meeting and it’ll be his baby.

Ten o’clock the next morning. Shiela, savoring the church’s signature scent of incense and rancid grease, bounced along worn carpet the color of rust-red soil, toward Marvin’s office with its gold-painted cherubs and sky-blue, cloud-studded ceiling. Voices, muffled by the highly carved oak door, drifted to her ears. She paused. The low tones of Jackson’s bellow, followed by a stertorous laugh made her skin prickle.

Taking a deep breath, Sheila stepped forward and banged on the oversized door leading to Marvin’s inner sanctum. The door swung open to reveal Jackson’s broad, wrinkled face. With a questioning look, he widened the opening and said, “Sheila? Did you need something? I was just having a sit-down with Marv.”

“I, uh, had an appointment. With Marvin.” Sheila curled her lips into a brave smile. “We were supposed to do a sort of hand-off. Now that he’s back.”

Marvin, red-faced and slender, rose from his throne-like chair. “Sheila! Of course, of course. I can always make time to speak to the head of the deacons.”

Marvin plopped back down into the gold-plated chair behind his ornate desk. Jackson shut the heavy door and took the seat opposite Marvin. Sheila looked around. The only other chair, a folding affair obviously lugged in from the parish hall at some point, held an enormous beach ball.

“Sit down, sit down, my dear,” Marvin’s rich tones fairly oozed oil.

Sheila put the beach ball on the fake-marble floor and pulled the chair closer to the two men before sitting. The red and white plaything rolled, making an almost inaudible thud as it met a blue wall.

Marvin smiled at Sheila. “Jackson here was just telling me his plan for the meeting. We’ll open with his report, of course.”

Sheila nodded instead of rolling her eyes. “He’ll read the minutes.”

Jackson glared at her. “Uh, not just read the minutes. We’re calling it the clerk’s report now.”

“Okay.” Sheila’s throat felt tight. She swallowed.

“Then, Jackson has a great idea.” Marvin beamed down at Sheila. His desk was on a raised platform. “He’s going to let you read the table of contents from this great book he’s reading.”

“The table of contents?” Had some kind of hallucinogenic gas been released into the room? She glanced at the heating vent near the beach ball. Nothing. Maybe the gas was colorless and odorless?

“Sheila? What do you think of that idea?” Jackson was leaning toward her with a concerned look on his face.

Pasting a neutral expression onto her face, Sheila said, “The table of contents? Of a book?”

Jackson nodded.

Marvin beamed down from his throne.

“The Tides of April. It’s a novel I’ve just read. Quite good, too.”

“Um. But people who have the book won’t need the table of contents.” Sheila sniffed. “And people who don’t have the book won’t need the table of contents.”

The men stared at her.

She added, “Because they don’t have the book, you see?’

“Well.” Marvin cast a beatific smile on Jackson. “I’ll present the table of contents, then, Jackson. Such a fabulous idea.” With a frown, he turned back to Sheila. “Did you have something you wanted to add to the agenda, dear? So Jackson and I can get back to our discussion?”

“Yes. The organ pipes are broken. One nearly fell on Ketanji’s head the other day. We need to figure out what to do about that.”

A loud bray came from Marvin’s lips, accompanied by a series of guffaws from Jackson, whose face turned nearly purple with the mirth of it all.

Sheila waited quietly.

When the men’s laughter subsided, Marvin’s expression turned serious. “I take care of that kind of thing, Missy. Do you think I can’t do my job?”

Sheila rose from her chair, got the beachball and shoved it at Marvin. “I quit,” she said.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.