The timing is unfortunate. Too many things are converging at once, and Pastor Dave Wright is boiling with adrenaline. He feels like a flight controller watching green dots blink toward each other without any way to warn them. 

Pastor Wright, whom everyone calls “Big Dave,” is praying as he walks the perimeter of a ballroom in the Natagwa Hotel. It’s a gilded Art Deco affair with crystal pyramids inverted from the ceiling by way of chandeliers, turquoise drapes leaning indecently toward the windows like women do against pianos, and several columns half-sunk in the walls and afflicted with gold scales. For good measure, there is also a disco ball.

The hotel is a little overdone for a Colorado town, but Natagwa is a city with multiple personalities, and none of them are subtle: an Art Deco hotel, an Old West saloon, a Bauhaus library, a scalloped adobe City Hall, and a classic 80’s roller rink. Some neighborhoods could be in Santa Fe (the rich ones), and some could be in Omaha. A few could be in East Berlin.

More than anything else, Natagwa is a citadel of Christian faith, epitomized by the Bible-believing, Spirit-filled members of Grace Tabernacle Church. This morning is Grace Tabernacle’s annual men’s prayer breakfast and in forty-three minutes the air controller’s green dots will either crash or they won’t. Big Dave still can’t believe it’s all happening at the same time. The mayor is coming. The women are coming. Bertie Bellows is coming. And on top of all that, a storm is coming. 

Big Dave is walking the perimeter of the ballroom to claim it with the power of the blood. Some churches wouldn’t set foot in the hotel, knowing the old witchcraft stories about the Lumines who built it. But Big Dave doesn’t believe that the Devil should decide where Christians will and won’t go. Whatever the Adversary is up to this morning, it’s no match for the people of God. 

Big Dave is nervous anyway. The Devil can’t ruin his morning, but people certainly can. He glances at the swinging ballroom doors which make up the two halves of a brass sunburst. That’s where the mayor will enter. Big Dave worries that his wife will forget the Boston Cremes, even though he reminded her God knows how many times. Mayor Harvie doesn’t like any other kind. 

“Get the good plastic forks, too,” Big Dave told his wife, “not those hollow ones with sharp ridges.”

Grace Tabernacle’s Spirit-ordained minister has never allowed anyone to call him “reverend,” or even “pastor.” He’s been called Big Dave ever since Little Dave was born, and his closet is as defiantly humble as his name. Ties are for pencil-pushers and prancy Europeans. Big Dave’s 2X polos are good enough for home, the shooting range, and the pulpit. 

This morning’s event is a special version of the weekly prayer breakfast that Big Dave leads in the back of Frankie’s Italian restaurant on 3rd Street. Thirty men are present off and on, including the nine church elders, a few meat packers and an ex-convict named Turner Craw. 

The breakfasts are only for men because Big Dave insists on  “brutal honesty,” and his guys won’t talk about dirty thoughts, grudges, or money if their wives are in the room. Of course, the women of Grace Tabernacle have their own weekly thing, and they tell each other whatever women tell each other. 

But today, for the first time in the history of the church, women are invited to the annual prayer gathering. Big Dave was cornered into it. 

“I’m not saying all the breakfasts,” Wanda Bush clarified, “just the big one.” It was right before the holidays and all five elders were dining at Frankie’s with their wives. Don Bush, the president of Bedrock Bank, and his wife, Wanda, were seated directly across from the pastor.

“It’s an important moment in the life of our church,” she continued, “shouldn’t it be open to everyone?” Wanda hit the last word hard and Big Dave thought—not for the first time—that Don Bush’s wife was a problem. 

He couldn’t point to a sin in particular. There was just an underlying attitude that didn’t sit right. She had a way of asking questions that sounded innocent, but definitely weren’t. And as everyone knows, attitudes are contagious, especially among women. 

Big Dave had talked to Don more than once about the contrariness of his wife. But like all character flaws, change only happens if a person wants to change. 

“The prayer breakfast,” Big Dave told Wanda with a conspiratorial smile, “is where us guys get spiritually naked and hold each another accountable. That can’t happen in mixed company.”

“You get naked every week,” Wanda responded. “Maybe this one day your spiritual clothes could stay on and the rest of us could come.” She snatched the empty breadstick basket and looked over her shoulder for a waiter. Her husband tried to disappear behind a tilted glass of ice water.

“It’s at the hotel,” Wanda pressed. “Our women’s group doesn’t go to the hotel.”

She had Big Dave there. From a certain point of view, that would seem unfair. It wasn’t like the church had extra room in the budget for a women’s event, but maybe they could take up a special offering. In any case, the prayer breakfast wasn’t open for discussion. Or women.

At least, it wasn’t open until his wife yanked the stopper out of the drain. Marty had been Big Dave’s better half for thirteen years and was mother to his seven children. His first wife, Tabitha, was hit by a drunk driver and some years later, when Big Dave met the eighteen-year-old daughter of a fellow pastor in Virginia, the Holy Spirit revealed that she was the wife God had prepared.

The church wouldn’t work without Marty. She organizes potlucks, buys poinsettias, hosts baby showers, and consoles widows. She never, ever, contradicts her husband when other folks are in the room, so Big Dave wasn’t prepared for the question that followed.

“What about Mary Magdalene?” Marty asked.

Big Dave froze with an alfredo-swaddled fork between his lips. 

“She went everywhere Jesus went,” Marty poked at a crunchy outcropping on her lasagna. “She was practically a disciple.”

The triumph on Wanda’s face spiked Big Dave’s internal temperature. All the elders stared and waited. His wife just went on eating, like she hadn’t ended a nineteen-year tradition with ten words.

Now, the women are coming. And the mayor is coming. Big Dave hopes Marty remembers the Boston Cremes.

Mayor George Harvie has ruled city hall for three terms with a permanent pocket square and a short leg. He anchors the second pew of Grace Tabernacle on Easter and Christmas, with the same enthusiasm he shows for oil changes. Until recently, Harvie was just a convenience Christian who covered his political bases with a hymnal. 

But one afternoon in January, while Big Dave was hacking through a front-yard glacier in search of his driveway, his cell rang. Mayor Harvie’s son had rolled a car full of friends off an embankment. As a result, four families were either planning funerals or asking God to steady the hands of a surgeon. When the police finally heaved his son’s car upright, a half dozen empty bottles lay scattered in the snow.

The mayor was shattered and called Big Dave. Over four coffees and two prayer breakfasts, a kernel of faith germinated in the ashes of grief. At last Wednesday’s breakfast, the mayor even cried. 

Afterward, as the men disappeared through Frankie’s front door into a thick fog, the pastor overheard Don inviting Mayor Harvie to their hotel breakfast. 

Big Dave began waving his arms like an island castaway who spotted a plane, but Don vanished into the white morning. Big Dave knew it was foolhardy to throw the mayor in such an unpredictable situation, but there was no way to uninvite him. And he couldn’t uninvite the women. And he couldn’t uninvite Bertie Bellows.

Bertie is a seventy-one-year-old terror in flamboyant polyester. She’s only eight years older than Big Dave, but she’s always been as crazy as a feather pie. One of her falsies flaps loosely when she blinks, and a popcorn ball of plastic gems and hot glue dangles from each ear. She pokes into conversations to ask unrelated questions like, “Aren’t you divorced? Isn’t Isaiah a black name? Mandy doesn’t look much like her daddy, does she?”

Last Sunday service, when heads were bowed so the congregation could listen to the Holy Spirit, Bertie opened a green satchel with a brass buckle and began to unload it. Eyelids parted all over the sanctuary and heads swiveled. Bertie dug through deafening candy wrappers and came up with a lipstick tube. No, that wasn’t it. The lipstick was ejected and rolled down the aisle. Then she ejected keys. Then ketchup packets. A nose hair trimmer. A light bulb. Cheese crackers. An ashtray. A remote control.

“Dear Heavenly Father…” Big Dave ended the silent time early. 

Bertie then ejected a claw hammer.

A Roman numeral clock on the left wall of the ballroom says 7:58. Half an hour until kickoff. Marty better get the Boston Cremes. Earlier, rain was drumming a waltz on the windows and now it’s more like the long roll of a buckle-toed drummer in the American Revolution. The radio forecast this morning predicted that rain would be followed by sleet and maybe black ice. 

For the first time he can remember, Big Dave hopes the weather will keep folks home. Not that he has any illusions where Bertie is concerned. Storms don’t get in her way, she’d hotwire a snowmobile if she had to. She probably has one in her purse.

The sunburst doors swing inward and Marty struggles through, hugging a fifty-cup coffee urn.

“Did you get the Boston Cremes?” Big Dave asks shortly. 

“You told me six times, hon.” Marty deposits the urn, a purse, and three bloated grocery bags on the back table.

“Well?” Big Dave asks.

Marty upends the good plastic forks into a coffee mug. “They only had two left.”

“Two?” Big Dave is alarmed. “How could they have only two? What if they’re gone by the time the mayor gets in line?”

“He can eat glazed,” She says. “Who doesn’t like glazed?”

“You should have gone earlier.” Big Dave rubs his face. At least Marty does the errand part of the breakfast, so he’s free to focus on the eternal part. She has always handled the logistics—even when it was just the men—and Big Dave always praises her from the speaker’s chair. 

Big Dave slides a bible stabbed with Post-its into position on a table-top podium, and pries it open to a marked passage. What if he hid the two Boston Cremes and casually dropped them into place just before Mayor Harvie reached the table? But where would he keep them? A pocket? A plastic bag? Boston Cremes wouldn’t survive a plastic bag.

Big Dave’s eyes dart right when he hears the doors open again. It’s not the mayor, it’s just Marty—or, it’s a donut-box skyscraper with Marty’s legs. Right behind her are the Bushes with a spinach-egg casserole, and right behind them are the Padillas. Laughter begins to ricochet off the polished turquoise floor and gilded walls. Dave grimaces, spinach-egg casserole. Leave it to the wives. A tradition as sacred as donuts should be respected.

Marty starts to lay pink boxes open in a neat row, and Big Dave is relieved that there aren’t little vandals clawing at donuts before the coffee light has even winked on. He was clear with Wanda that “everyone” did not mean kids. 

Sunburst doors swing in and out as the minutes tick toward 8:30. Big Dave’s anxiety boils higher. He squares the napkins with the paper plates. He inverts a wayward fork. Big Dave watches for the mayor. He watches for Bertie. “The last table needs another chair,” he tells Marty. 

Maybe neither will come this morning. That would be perfect. He exhales just as the coffee urn exhales. A black eye on the hot cylinder turns orange. What does Mayor Harvie make in a year? With his ten percent tithe, the church could buy a commercial coffee maker instead of borrowing one from the car dealership. Big Dave wonders how long he can put off telling the elders about the church’s credit crunch. 

That conversation would be very uncomfortable. It’ll be clear to his elders right away that the church’s debt doesn’t make sense. A conservative tally of their own tithes would be higher than Grace Tabernacle’s whole budget. His guys will especially have questions about the chipper financials they saw in December. Big Dave just needs a little time for his investments to recover.

He rejects a vision of Marty packing her kitchen into boxes. It won’t come to that. Big Dave opens his bible to a Post-it in the book of Psalms. To think that Bertie Bellows could be holding his mortgage in her crazy hands.

No. It won’t come to that, because Big Dave has a plan. On that January afternoon when Mayor Harvie called, Big Dave knew it was God’s perfect timing. The mayor’s friendship could be a way through this whole mess. If the mayor became a real part of Grace Tabernacle—if he felt a part of the family—he’d be more likely to recommend a property tax deferment for the church. 

Not that Big Dave would ever profit from the mayor’s tragedy—the two things aren’t connected. He submitted his deferment request a full month before Harvie junior drank himself into a ditch. But now, it seems like God is working all things together for good. This morning’s breakfast just needs to be smooth. Mayor Harvie needs to feel comfortable and welcome. 

Big Dave’s plan is to intercept the mayor just inside the door, cut him into line before the Boston Cremes are gone, and steer him toward Don Bush, who shares the mayor’s autistic recall of football stats. Big Dave involuntarily checks the door. 

Giddy chatter is hitting record levels from two growing clusters of women by the coffee table. As always, Big Dave can hear Sissy Frew above the rest of them. Sissy looks like a dough sculpture made by a kid who didn’t know how to refine ankles or wrists, and she doesn’t have a volume knob. She shouts over every conversation and it irritates Big Dave to no end. Any minute she’s going to laugh and that will be the end of the disco ball. 

Sissy is standing next to Lilian Nabb, whose four kids are all under age ten. Big Dave started counseling the Nabbs after Lilian found a condom in her husband’s laundry. Their marriage is hanging by a thread. Big Dave will admit that her husband is responsible for what he did. But it doesn’t help that Lilian let herself go. 

Big Dave had to show a little tough love on that one. When he pronounced them husband and wife a dozen years back, Lilian was a delicate blonde with a sweet smile. Now, her hair is short and she lives in the kind of yoga pants that show off her dimples. With a little effort, she could help keep temptation away from their door.

Big Dave surveys the other women. Faith Horacek is listening quietly in the second group. Last year he did the funeral for her husband after a fight with testicular cancer, and she’s been raising three daughters alone since then. 

Faith brought her fifteen-year-old, Cassie, to the prayer breakfast this morning. Big Dave’s gaze bounces back to the door. Cassie is well-endowed and wears small T-shirts on purpose. He has to avoid looking her way during sermons. Truth is, he has to avoid the idea of her altogether. Young women think showing a little bit of this or that is a tiny rebellion. They don’t get how self-centered those choices are—sabotaging the thought life of men around them. It only takes one match to set off a dry field.

Big Dave feels for Faith, trying to instill character in three teenage girls—girls who need affection from a man that’s no longer around to give it. The fault isn’t entirely young Cassie’s, if she’s craving male attention. Although, her older sister’s in the same boat and still chooses to be modest. It’s ironic that the sister isn’t much to look at. 

God’s people are always a colorful bunch. Big Dave draws up to the podium. Still no sign of the mayor or Bertie and the clock says 8:30 on the nose. He bends forward to the microphone with splayed elbows, “Anyone ready to pray?” 

He blesses the meal they’re about to share and a buffet line starts to form. Then as if God is testing his faith, the sunburst doors swing wide to announce the arrival of both the mayor and the menace, arriving at the same time. Mayor Harvie politely holds a door for Bertie, who is wearing a ruby polyester dress with plastic pearls the size of boiled eggs. The important gesture is lost on Bertie, who blows in like she’s looking for an officer to report a crime to. 

“That’s the mayor!” Sissy Frew’s whisper is louder than Big Dave’s preaching voice. Curious heads pivot from every corner of the room.

Big Dave reaches his guest in a shot, but his plan starts to come apart immediately. “Morning, George.” He squeezes the mayor’s hand. 

“Morning, Dave.”

“You look like you could use a coffee.”

The mayor nods, “That I could.”

“Let’s get over there before the good ones are gone.” Big Dave claps a hand on the mayor’s shoulder. 

But the mayor isn’t in a hurry to reach the buffet. After this many years in the public eye, his default is to handshake his way across a room. A small crowd sticks to the duo like strands of cotton candy swirling a paper handle. 

“We voted for you!” 

“Welcome to the prayer breakfast, mayor.”

“How ‘bout this storm?”

“How ‘bout that interception!”

“We got ourselves a celebrity this morning, I see.”

“Is the new mall going to happen?”

“Looks like an eyesore to me.” 

Mayor Harvie smiles through all of it, “Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here. Only caught the last few minutes. I’ll look into it.” His right shoulder drops every time he lands on the short leg.

Big Dave keeps the gaggle moving, “Mayor Harvie needs coffee and so do I.” He punches a gap in the buffet line and motions for his guest to jump in. 

“The first shall be last.” The mayor winks. “I heard that somewhere.” He leads their entourage toward the end of the line.

Big Dave shoots a glance at the Boston Creme situation. One left. Only one. He joins the mayor in line behind ex-convict, Turner Craw. And Bertie. The two people Big Dave wanted to avoid most. 

“I didn’t vote for you,” Craw grips the mayor’s hand. 

Big Dave’s expression turns to cement, but Mayor Harvie's smile has been tested by three campaigns. It isn’t going anywhere.

“Just kiddin’.” Craw sprouts a grin, “I didn’t vote for no one.” He leans in like the next information is confidential, “I can’t vote. I woulda, though.”

“I appreciate that,” says the mayor. 

Bertie watches the whole exchange over Craw’s shoulder, and Big Dave watches Bertie. It’s coming. He knows it’s coming. 

“My mamma voted for ya, though,” Craw offers.

“There you go.” Mayor Harvie says. The line moves forward and the politician hobbles with it.

“Don’t take too long,” Big Dave chides the line. “Donuts are gettin’ cold.” Five people remain in front of them. Maybe the situation will hold for the time it takes five people to fill styrofoam cups.

“You know,” Craw says to Mayor Harvie, “Ocheltree is moving all their jobs to contract. So’s they don’t have to pay benefits. Maybe there’s somethin’ you could do.”

“I’ll look into it,” responds the mayor. As if he has any say over the policies of a multinational company.

“I heard about your boy.” Craw offers. “That’s tough.”

“Craw,” Big Dave’s tone is unmistakable, “the line is leaving you behind.”

“Much appreciated,” the mayor nods.

Craw shuffles forward in silence. 

“Drinkin’ and drivin’,” Bertie says loudly to herself. “And he was probably on the telephone.” She hugs the troublesome green purse. “That’s what happens when you’re drinkin’ and drivin’.”

Big Dave glares at Bertie. How can he rebuke a woman who’s talking to herself? Damnit. He glances at Mayor Harvie, who’s pretending he didn’t hear. Big Dave’s nerves feel like they might snap. There are only two people in front of the loon. Maybe by some miracle, she’s done thinking out loud.

Bertie turns her polyester back to them, and just as quickly turns again. She looks the mayor plain in the face, “You’ll be coming to church more regular, I imagine. Now that life ain’t so easy anymore.”

The mayor doesn’t have a ready answer for that one.

Big Dave’s vision flashes red for a second. He can’t stuff her words back in the flapping pie hole they came from. “Bertie’s not known for her tact,” he tells his guest. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright,” the mayor assures him. 

But clearly it isn’t. Big Dave’s mind races through ways to fix it. He’ll get the mayor through breakfast, read a Psalm, guide the prayer and get Don Bush chatting about quarterback stats. But that’s only if the mayor’s breakfast isn’t already gone. Big Dave checks on the Cremes. One. One. One.

The line dwindles to Sissy, Craw, and Bertie. And then, to just Bertie. And just one Creme. 

The vice clamp on Big Dave’s heart begins to loosen. He knows the favorite donut of every sheep in the fold. Bertie has never eaten anything but cake donuts since he’s known her. There are a good dozen cake types left: chocolate glazed, sprinkles, whatever flavor pink glazed are, blueberry, and old fashioned. 

Bertie points a finger at each option as she considers. She scratches her scalp. After a lengthy internal dialogue, she hooks the hole of a sprinkled cake with her index finger. 

The mayor lifts a paper plate and Big Dave almost smiles. “We’re running a little behind,” he says, tugging a good fork loose, “but I’ll wrap it up early.” No planes are crashing today. 

Then it happens. Bertie opens her purse and Big Dave watches the horror in slow motion. Bertie brings forth a semi-clear garbage bag from the eternal depths of her satchel and shakes it open. She begins to drop donut after donut in the sack’s yawning mouth. 

The vessels in Big Dave’s forehead pop out and his mouth refuses to work. He watches impotently while the only remaining Boston Creme—and maybe his mortgage—free fall for ages and finally explode over the pastry mountain in Bertie’s bag. Creamy yellow guts coat the sides and run down.

“What are you doing?” Big Dave is almost shouting. His whole world shrinks to just the woman in front of him.

Bertie looks up. “I’m taking donuts home.” 

“Those are for everyone!” Big Dave hits the last word hard. The muscles in his face are twitching.

“Yes, they are.” Bertie appraises the pink boxes. “That’s what I thought. And most people are through the line already.”

Big Dave can’t stand the self-centeredness. The disrespect. The disruption. “I’m not through the line,” his words are low and condensed like particles sucked into a bomb between detonation and destruction.

“Well, Big Dave,” Bertie responds. “You don’t need donuts.” She points at his paunch.  “What you need is that spinach casserole.”

The particles reverse direction. Spinach casserole shouldn’t even be here. It’s here because he was manipulated. He could have avoided all of it. He caved. He caved and now there’s a crack in the spiritual dam. The world with all of its feminism and humanism and veganism is flooding in. He has to draw a line now. Get control now.

Big Dave scoops up a jelly-filled pastry and hurls it at Bertie’s rain boots. “Have another one!”

Mayor Harvie takes a step back.

“Here’s one you missed!” Big Dave soft pitches a bear claw into the air. Then a maple twist. “Take the whole box!” He swings a pink container and donut fragments tumble across the turquoise floor.

Bertie smiles defiantly. She reaches into her bag and launches a donut of her own into the air. 

Big Dave’s fury can’t be reined in. “You shouldn’t even be here!” Each word is weighted with rage. His nostrils swell. Big Dave steps toward the woman in red and whispers at her unyielding face. “You shouldn’t even be here.”