“I arranged it with the florist myself,” she said. “Back in August. The sanctuary needed refreshing. We’ve had fourteen new visitors since Labor Day, and I felt the altar made a difference. It’s a small investment in making a first impression.”
“Small,” Phyllis said. “The contract the florist sent runs through the end of the year. It’s written as fifty-two weeks. That’s seven thousand eight hundred dollars a year.”
I had not planned to look up from my pad, but I did.
Seven thousand eight hundred. In a church that had put six thousand in the furnace fund and still needed forty-two hundred for the new boiler before the cold set in. A church where we had trimmed the youth group’s pizza money from the budget last spring, and the secretary, which is me, had taken the minutes of that conversation.
“Seven thousand,” said Everett, quietly.
“The altar flowers were not a line item before,” Phyllis said. “I looked back through every budget since 1996. Last year, flowers cost us forty dollars. That was for the greens at Christmas.”
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There was a silence you could have set a cup on.
“It was always done for free,” Phyllis said. “By Gail.”
Seven faces turned to me, and I looked at my pad.
Everett put his hands flat on the table.
“Kristin,” he said. His voice was low and careful, a voice I knew from twenty-two years of Sunday mornings and from a hundred spring meetings when the roof leaked and the church had to decide. “Did you bring this to the committee before you signed a contract?”
“I didn’t think it needed to go to the committee,” Kristin said. “It was a matter of worship. It’s part of the pastor’s responsibility.”
“It’s the pastor’s responsibility,” Everett agreed. “It’s the committee’s money.”
“I didn’t know that she, I mean, I did not think that Gail’s flowers were, they were just, they weren’t, I wanted the sanctuary to look professional. For the families.” Her voice caught. “I didn’t want us to look like we couldn’t afford better.”
Everett looked at her for a long moment.
“We can’t afford it,” he said. “That’s the point.”
Pastor Dave had not said a word. I want to give him credit for what he did next, because I have heard it said around town since that he’s a soft man, and I do not think so.
He had been very pale, but he sat up straight, and he took out his checkbook. He is thirty-nine years old, with his sleeves a little short and his hair thinning, and he had been in Hadley fourteen weeks.
“How much have we paid?” he asked.
“Twelve hundred,” said Phyllis.
“I’ll cover it,” Dave said. “From my own account. Tonight.” He wrote the check at the table, and he tore it off, and he slid it across to Phyllis. His hand was not completely steady.
“And Kristin will call the florist in the morning and cancel the contract. All of it. I’m sorry. I should have asked what she was arranging. I didn’t ask.”
“Dave,” Kristin said.
“I should have asked,” he said, and he did not look at her.
I did not say anything. It was not my place to. Nobody had asked me to speak.
Everett called the vote. Cancel the florist contract, all seven thousand eight hundred. Reimburse the worship fund from the pastor’s check. And a new rule, which Phyllis dictated and I wrote down: no spending over one hundred dollars without a committee vote.