Free Almost Friends by Philip Gulley

Miriam departed, Frank poked his head in Sam’s office door. “Say, uh, Sam, I was thinking of taking tomorrow off. Is that all right with you?”
    Sam consulted his pocket calendar, thinking aloud, “Hmm, sermon preparation in the morning…lunch with the ministers’ association…visitation in the afternoon…When would you do the bulletin?”
    “Already got it done,” Frank said. “Stayed over yesterday and wrapped it up. The newsletter’s done and mailed out. I have the quarterly reports filled out and put in this morning’s mail.”
    “My, aren’t you the picture of efficiency. Sure, you can take the day off. Got big plans?”
    Frank hesitated. “I’d rather not say.”
    “I tell you my secrets.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “Yes, I do. Every one of them. I tell you when Barbara’s mad at me. You know how much I earn. You know everything about me. I’m an open book. I don’t keep anything from you. I can’t believe you don’t trust me.”
    “It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I just don’t want you laughing at me,” Frank said, with uncharacteristic timidity.
    “Frank, I would never laugh at you. You’re probably my best friend.”
    “Well, okay then, I guess it’s all right for you to know. Miss Rudy and I are going to Cartersburg to look at a new refrigerator for her.”
    Sam slapped his desk and began to chuckle. “I knew it. Sounds like it’s getting serious. Boy, wait till I tell Barbara.”
    “Sam Gardner, if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I’ll staple your lips shut.”
    “Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I won’t tell anyone you and Miss Rudy are shopping for appliances.” Sam leaned back in his chair. “Be careful, Frank. This is how desperate women trap a man. They take him shopping for appliances. Innocent on the face of it, but the next thing you know you’re picking out china patterns.”
    “You’re not the least bit funny, Sam.”
    “Hey, Frank. Do me a favor, will you?”
    “It depends.”
    “Find out Miss Rudy’s first name, would you? I’ve known her all my life, and I still don’t know her first name.”
    “I know it,” Frank said. “She told me.”
    “What is it?”
    “I promised not to tell and, unlike some people I could mention, I know how to keep a secret.”
    “If you marry her and I do the wedding, I’ll have to know her first name to fill out the wedding license,” Sam pointed out.
    “Maybe we’ll just live together and scandalize everyone,” Frank said. “Just think how much trouble that would cause you. Fern Hampton would be all over you, wanting you to fire me. It would make this mess with Dale Hinshaw look like a picnic.”
    Sam paled. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you, Frank?”
    “In a minute. Yep, they’d fire me and hire Dale Hinshaw to be your new secretary, seeing how he has his own computer. You’d make a good team, you and Dale.”
    Sam felt the faint stirring of nausea.
    For a church secretary, Frank had a cruel streak that showed itself at the worst times.
    “Take the day off, then,” Sam grumbled. “It’ll be nice to have the place to myself for a day.”
    “With or without pay?”
    “Without!”
    “You give it to me with pay and if I marry Miss Rudy, I’ll tell you her first name.”
    “Deal,” Sam said.
    “Where we gonna eat lunch?”
    “Barbara packed something for me. There’s no way I’m going out in public. Not after Dale woke up the whole town last night.”
    Sam worked until late afternoon, then walked home down the alleyways, keeping to the shadows so no one would see him. He was almost home when Shirley Finchum, burning trash in her backyard barrel, spied him. “Sam Gardner, you’re just the man I wanted to see.” She wagged her cane at him. “Two nights now I’ve been woken up. What are you going to do about that?”
    “My apologies, Mrs. Finchum. It won’t happen again. I’d love to stay and visit, but I’ve got to get home.” He hurried across his backyard,