She picked up the Bible slowly and leafed through it, then stopped as she came to Romans, and then on to 8:28: “All things work together for good to those who know and love the Lord.”
Written by Paul the apostle at a point in his life when death seemed close, a death implicit with ridicule in front of a bloodthirsty crowd of people excited by the sight of someone dying, his sentence given at the maniacal command of a gloating emperor who had sought that moment for a long time, it seemed almost incomprehensibly joyful, a grand delusion under the circumstances, and yet she was drawn to a second verse much like the first, Philippians 4:11: “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
Another knock.
“One minute, Carla,” Albert called in to her.
Her hands were trembling. In a flash she had lost her courage, and would now have to give in to her pain.
“No, I can’t,” she replied sadly. “I can’t do this. It is too soon after all. Tell them I am not ready. You must do that for me.”
Silence, for only a few seconds, but it seemed longer.
Albert asked, “May I come in, Carla?”
“Yes…”
She was not keen on spending any time with him at that moment because she could easily guess what he would say, knew what he would try to accomplish, knew that she did not want to hear any of it. And since she was the star, she could order him or anyone else to respect her every wish—at least the old Carla Gearhart would have done that.
Albert was young and rather good-looking but Carla knew that he had survived some hard times—survived only by finding his faith.
Albert saw that her hand was on the Bible.
“Still wondering?” he asked since he knew the details of what had happened, and could understand her feelings. “Still searching?”
“Wondering? Searching?” Carla repeated. “Yes, I am, Albert. I begin to wonder if I will ever stop wondering.”
She stared at him with a look that was akin to desperation.
“What has happened is still new, fresh,” Albert added. “If you cut your arm, it won’t heal in a day or even a week perhaps. Depending upon how deep the cut is, that healing might take the better part of a month. And, remember, Carla, that is a simple cut. Your pain is much more severe because the wound itself is.”
“I am afraid it will never stop hurting,” she said, her voice quavering. “How could I endure that? How could I ever endure that? Getting up each morning only to face—”
Carla stopped, embarrassed.
“I see you now, the way you are, as part of the good that came out of knowing Kyle. The two of you might not have met otherwise.”
“That’s true, Carla,” Albert acknowledged. “I might have been headed straight for an eternity in hell.”
“I don’t know about that.”
She was still uncomfortable with discussion along those lines, though the idea of hell had seemed a natural part of Kyle’s faith.
“Oh, I would have,” Albert reiterated. “My life was all wrong. I felt so weary more often than I could count. The drugs aged me a lot, you know. And they messed up my mind. I was dangerously close to cursing God. I know what that would have done to my spiritual destiny.”
“We are not so different,” she told Albert. “We lived, we sinned and we had to have ourselves cleansed.”
“There’s no past tense involved,” he reminded her. “It will be a constant battle that goes on until the day we die.”
Carla nodded, hating the truth as he presented it but knowing that truth for what it was, an unassailable series of facts from moment to moment.
“Will you get ready now?” Albert asked. “You’ve got more than fifty thousand people waiting for you out there.”
Carla had been slumping slightly in her chair but that brought her up straight.
“What?” she blurted out. “That’s capacity, isn’t it?”
“And then some, Carla. Extra seats had to be brought in. If the fire department doesn’t find out, it’ll be a miracle.”
“My biggest live audience…” she muttered.
“A record. Nobody’s got that kind of draw, and you’ve got to be aware of that. Remember, too, that there are no supporting acts, which is unusual in itself. You’re the whole show.”
“Half of me feels dead right now, and yet I’m the whole show,” she said with some irony.
“Now wait a minute!” he exclaimed sternly as he pointed toward the mirror. “Don’t you see how you look?”
“Younger…”
“That’s right, Carla. Knowing Kyle has done that to you.”
Yet she scoffed at her appearance.
“I feel ancient.”
“With that kind of attitude, you could start your slide all over again, Carla, and find yourself in a place that’s emptier and even more hopeless than you ever did before.”
His words struck a nerve and she remembered the old days, sliding from the giddy ones after the Oscar ceremony to where she could not get out of bed without drugs, nor go to sleep at night without downing a quantity of pills that could only be called dangerous.
“Kyle saw you, and look at what happened!” Albert exclaimed. “Was all that he did for nothing?”
Carla waved one hand impatiently through the air.
“All right, all right,” she replied. “Give me a few minutes.”
He smiled slightly.
“What do I tell them, Carla?” he asked. “What am I asking fifty thousand human beings to believe?”
“That this is my first gig since…since—”
She was starting to choke up, and Albert interrupted before she put more stress on herself.
“I’ll think of something,” Albert said as he stooo. “Maybe I could do some kind of comedy act.”
He kissed her on the forehead.
“Pray for strength,” he whispered with some warmth. “The Lord will give it to you, Carla.”
Then he closed the dressing room quietly, leaving her alone again.
Carla’s hands were trembling as she wiped the streaked makeup off her face, and started to apply as little as possible to replace it, just enough to give her lips some color under the glaring spotlights and soften the puffiness tears had caused around her eyes.
After she was finished, she got to her feet and turned toward the door. Then she stopped as she told herself that Albert was only one of many who were expecting too much of her. Her audiences always made such heavy demands that she was bound to crack sooner or later as she tried so hard to please every man, woman and child who paid for the privilege of watching her perform.
“Forgive me, Kyle, for I just don’t have your strength, I’m afraid,” she said out loud as she opened the door and turned toward the exit, not the auditorium.
Empty.
That was odd. It was usually too busy, with people forever bumping into one another, especially as showtime approached.
No sounds, nothing except—
She stopped abruptly, listening.