Free A Light in the Window by Jan Karon Page A

underneath all that show of sop and decency was a man utterly fixed on himself, on his own concerns. And underneath some shallow layer of seeming warmth and caring was a cold stratum of granite.
    The very last place he wanted to be day after tomorrow was in the pulpit. It was all a joke, and the joke was on him.

CHAPTER THREE
    Found
    You ought to let fancy give you a haircut,” said Mule Skinner over breakfast at the Grill. ”Get you somethin’ new goin’.”
    “I’ve got enough going, thank you,” said the rector, who was scheduled for two meetings, a noon invocation at the Rotary Club, a livermush delivery to Russell Jacks, and a visit to the construction site with Ron Malcolm.
    “You could take a little more off the sides, if you ask me,” said Mule.
    “They ain’t anybody askin’ you,” said Percy, handing a plate of toast to J.C.
    J.C. grabbed the toast and sopped his egg yolk. “If you promoted your real-estate business like you’re promotin’ your wife’s beauty shop, you’d be a millionaire.”
    “Besides,” said the rector, “I’ve been with Joe for thirteen going on fourteen years.”
    “Well, that’s the trouble,” said Mule. “A man needs a change.” Percy poured another round of coffee. “I hope you can look Joe Ivey in th’ eye, th’ way you’re tryin’ to rob ’im of his business.”
    “Anyway,” said J.C., “why would a man want to get a haircut from a woman?”
    “I guess you never heard of unisex,” said Mule. “Fancy runs a unisex shop. That means she cuts anybody’s hair, one sex as well as the other. You ought to let ’er have a go at you, in the meantime.”
    “Where is she set up?” the rector inquired.
    “In th’ basement where we had that big blow-out for our twenty-fifth. You ought to see it now—completely redecorated wall to wall, new pink carpet, you name it. Put in two sinks, in case she adds on a stylist.”
    “Your neighbor still got that dog tied up next door?” Percy called from the grill.
    “That dog’ll never let anybody near your basement,” said J.C.
    “When it starts lungin’ at somebody gettin’ out of their car, that’ll be enough right there to curl their hair.”
    “That dog died,” said Mule, scowling.
    “They’ll probably get another one just like it,” said J.C. “That’s what usually happens.”
    The rector checked his wristwatch. “Tell Fancy I wish her well. If Joe goes down with the flu this winter, I might consider it. I’ve got to get out of here. Catch you tomorrow.”
    “I declare,” said Mule as the local priest went out the door, “a little excitement starin’ him right in the face, and he won’t even spring for it.”

    “You won’t believe this,” said Ron Malcolm, “but they’ve hit rock on the hill. Twelve feet of rock.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means Buck Leeper is calling in a dynamite man. This’ll set us back. They’ll have to drill into the rock and set the dynamite at intervals. It’ll be a series of explosions—blam, blam, blam—probably going on for more than a week.”
    “Not good.”
    “Once the rock is busted up, they’ll have to excavate it out of there with a back hoe and a grab bucket. That’s more time.”
    “And more money.”
    “By the way,” said Ron, as if reading his mind, “Buck is in Wesley today. I guess you won’t be brokenhearted.”
    He had decided not to tell Ron that the superintendent had shoved him around the other day; it was hardly worth repeating.
    The architect met them in the trailer. “I’ve been rethinking a couple of things, Father. I feel the chapel ceiling is too bland, to ... uninspired. With your blessing, I’d like to enrich the vault. Here’s what could happen.”
    He unrolled a drawing and spread it out on a metal table.
    “What if we come in here with a herringbone pattern using V-joint tongue-and-groove fir? Fir is native to these mountains, and the pattern would add to the overall beauty without being a visual