READ PART ONE.

"Hah," she said. "That's a pile of baloney, and you know it." I am not quoting precisely.

Tiffany looked both embarrassed and miffed. With a self-conscious glance in my direction, she asked her friend "What do you mean?"

I tried to be inconspicuous. This is done by sitting very still, showing no expression, and avoiding eye contact. It doesn't work.

"As though you didn't know," her friend answered.

"I don't know."

"That's an even bigger pile of lunchmeat than the first one. You tried to feed me that sausage casing once before."

Thinking I had better make my exit, I cleared my throat and started to stand up.

"You stay out of this," said Tiffany's friend.

"Please don't leave," said Tiffany.

I sat down and shut up.

"I have not fed you any, quote, sausage casing, unquote," said Tiffany.

"Like warm weather you haven't," said her friend. (This is testing my powers of paraphrase, but I am doing my best.) "All last semester you oozed all over me with all that 'God is so close,' 'God lifts you up' sewage. 'Oh, what wonderful experiences I've had in prayer,' blah, blah. 'If only you have faith,' blah, blah. It was all just to suck me into your little Christian cult. You don't believe a word of it."

"I believe every word of it." Tiffany's cheeks were turning pink.

"Well, you know, I tried it. I really did. I notice you didn't have any happy ooze for me when my brother got sick. How close was this God of yours then?"

Tiffany's eyebrows lifted. The pink flush faded from her face. Could it be that she was relieved? As though she had expected her friend to say something else?

"You never told me about that."

"What the rotten egg do you mean? I told you all about it."

"I remember that you said he was sick. You didn't say how sick. I thought you meant he had a cold or something."

"Couldn't you have asked?"

"I could have. And I'm sorry I didn't. But you didn't tell me you were praying about him."

"So praying doesn't count unless I tell you about it? Like if I'd told you, you would have passed on my message to Jesus? What are you, his secretary?"

"You know that's not what I mean. But I could have prayed with you."

"Girl, I don't know what you mean." Tiffany's friend turned to me. "Tiffany prays about everything," she sneered. "Does she tell you what she prays about? Go on, Prof, ask her to tell you."

Tiffany's flush returned. "Please don't get involved in this, Professor."

For the second time I cleared my throat and began to rise. "I think I'd better —"

"You'd better not," Tiffany's friend said warningly. I didn't know what she meant, but it occurred to me that I didn't know what might happen if I left the two of them alone. I sat down again.

It turned out that she wasn't finished. "If anyone's going to leave, I am." She stood up and stalked to the door. With her hand on the knob, she turned back. "Tomorrow I might be sorry that I was mean," she said to Tiffany. "But I'm not sorry now."

The door was the kind you can't slam. As it gradually closed, lingering on its motion-damping hinges, I took a long breath and slowly let it out. Tiffany's face was no longer pink. It was chalk.

There was a long silence. I stirred. Her eyes turned in my direction, but looked unfocused.

"Would you —"

"Yes?"

"Um —"

I waited.

"Would you mind talking with me for a few minutes?"

Charity asked, Does she need you to? Dismay said, I so don't want to. Conscience said, But maybe I ought to. Caution said, Idiot, not here. Prudence spoke out loud: "All right, but let's get out in the open."

As she seemed to come out of her trance, she even sort of laughed. "No, I guess the third basement of the Subsidized Activities Building isn't exactly the place."

We rode the elevator, crossed the floor of the atrium, and went out through the glass double doors. Once outside, seated uncomfortably on a bench, she began again.

"I didn't mean to put you through that scene, Professor Theophilus. Ruby is what they call a high-maintenance friend."

"I hadn't heard her name before. Is she always like that?"

"No, but certain things set her off. She has all this bitterness, and sometimes it gets out of the cage."

"I see."

"You're probably wondering what I wanted to talk about."

"The question had crossed my mind. Presumably Ruby, or else prayer."

"Both, really. See, Ruby is sort of one of my projects. Last semester I talked with her a lot about prayer, and I thought I was starting to get through."

"Little did you know you'd got through to a nerve."

She sighed. "I was just trying to witness to her. And I thought it was working. That's why I thought prayer would be such a good topic for me to talk about at the retreat — I was already so good at talking about it! I guess it was stupid to bring her along to the planning meeting."

She paused. I didn't think the remark required a reply. Neither did she, I guess, because a moment later she began to speak again. "Professor T, what did I do wrong? I mean other than bringing her along. Did I say something that wasn't right?"

"I wasn't there during your conversations, Tiffany."

"No. But from hearing what I said today, you must have an idea. And from what set Ruby off."

"Since you ask me, I'd say the problem is more likely to lie in what you didn't say than in anything you said."

"What I didn't say? But I told Ruby everything."

"Uh huh. About 'all the wonderful experiences' you've had in prayer."

"Professor! Are you making fun of me?"

"No. But be honest. Are all of your prayer experiences uplifting?"

She flushed again, deeper than before. "Yes!"

"Your words say 'Yes,' but your face tells another story."

She covered her burning face with her hands. "It's lying."

I smiled. "What lie is it trying to tell me?"

Without removing her hands, she said, "All right. Sometimes prayer is boring. Sometimes my mind wanders."

"This is about more than a wandering mind, isn't it? Does God always seem so close?"

"All right all right. Sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes He seems way far away. And —"

She stopped. "Yes?" I asked.

"And sometimes He doesn't seem to answer."

She fished a handkerchief out of her purse and busied herself with it for a little while. Then she asked "But what good would it do to tell Ruby that? Besides, it only happens when I don't pray hard enough."

"When you don't pray hard enough. It's all about you, is that it?"

She looked up from her handkerchief in shock. "Are you blaming God?"

I smiled. "No. But hasn't God ever told you 'No' even when you did pray in faith?"

"He's supposed to love us."

"He does, Tiffany, better than we love ourselves. That doesn't mean that He always does what we want. It ought to be easier for us Christians to be honest about suffering than for anyone else."

"Why?"

"Before the Resurrection there had to be the Cross."

"I was taught that Christ suffered so that we wouldn't have to."

"No. He suffered so that we wouldn't perish, but the path to life and joy is paved with sorrow."

"Well — I guess I've heard that too."

"Perhaps the reason your prayer witness struck a false note with Ruby is that it didn't have room for sorrow — yours, hers, or anyone's."

"You're right," she said. For at least a minute she was silent, collecting herself. Then she said, "But there's another reason too."

"Is there?"

"Aren't you going to ask what Ruby meant when she mocked me for what I pray about?"

"It's none of my business, Tiffany."

"But it might be my business to tell you."

"There I can't advise you."

"You don't have to; I know. You see, I asked God for some things that I — that I shouldn't have asked Him for. Should I say what they were?"

"No," I answered. At that moment I grasped what she meant. "But you told her, didn't you? You confided your sinful prayers to Ruby."

"Yes. I see now how wrong that was. What kind of witness was that? What I don't understand is why I did it."

"That's not difficult to understand," I answered. "We always need to confess when we've done wrong. The problem comes when the need to confess seeks the wrong outlet."

I glanced at my watch. As we rose from the table, she said "Thanks for the extra feedback about, um, my retreat presentation."

"You're welcome."

"Of course now I'll have to do the whole thing differently."

"I suppose you will."

"Aren't you going to ask me how? But I don't exactly know yet."

I laughed. "Then there's no point in asking!"

"Oh, I know partly." She gave a lopsided smile. "This time I'll start by being honest."