Fifty Shades of Crimson

There’s an older woman in the church office—Barbara—who volunteers to sit at the front desk for a midweek morning slot. I think she’s amazing. I’ve tended to take a lot of my substitute desk-sitting shifts immediately after her; when I come in to relieve her from a long three and a half hours of keeping track of the ministers’ comings and goings, she’s always gracious enough to engage in a few minutes of chat with me.

Barbara is basically what I want to be when I grow up: smart, acerbic, strong-willed, and on top of current affairs. Several decades ago, when she was in her forties and her children were old enough to take care of herself, she announced that she was going back to college for the education she never got to have; she persevered through an undergraduate and grad degree, despite being twice the age of her classmates—and then went on to have a successful midlife career in education for herself. Which is all kinds of awesome.

Not too long ago I walked into the church office with a book and my iPad, armed with entertainment for the afternoon. The church’s youth minister, Mark, a younger guy himself, was loitering by the staff mailboxes. Barbara asked what I was reading. “It’s a biography of the lyricist Lorenz Hart,” I said, holding it up so she could see the shiny library spine.

“Lawrence who?” asked Mark, managing to imply that if he’d never heard of the guy, I must be reading up on smutmongers and criminal overlords.

“Don’t be silly, Mark. Lorenz Hart,” said Barbara. “Half of Rodgers and Hart. He wrote the lyrics to ‘Blue Moon’ and ‘The Lady Is a Tramp.’” She rattled off half a dozen of Hart’s other most famous hits, compared his output favorably to the later pairing of Rodgers and Hammerstein, wrapped it up with a theater review, and somehow managed to deliver this delightful learned bouquet in less than four succinct sentences.

Mark looked at my thick biography with a curled lip. “Sounds boring to me.”

I ignored him. “What are you reading, Barbara?” I asked.

“Well, it’s interesting you should ask,” she said. “It might interest you, too, Mark.” She then went into a disquisition of a non-fiction historical book she’d tackled—and probably absorbed in a single evening’s read—about the archaeological discovery of early Christian-era scriptures and the cult that had preserved them, then provided a summary of their importance to Biblical scholars. She summed up the thesis more handily than could the New York Review of Books, and simultaneously managed to make me regret that my previous literary diet had consisted of an Enid Blyton children’s book and a cheesy Anne McCaffrey.

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “That sounds like something.”

“Gawd.” Minister Mark rolled his eyes. “It sounds like something boring.”

“Oh, Mark,” laughed Barbara, not at all fazed.

“Mark’s reading Fifty Shades of Grey,” I told her.

“Only because—!” sputtered Mark, who really was reading his way through the trilogy. “Only because—! Only because it’s very popular now, and as minister of youth, I have to keep my finger on the pulse of what kids are reading these days. . . !”

“Goodness,” said Barbara, mildly.

“. . . and because once I started reading it I couldn’t stop untilIfinishedthewholething,” he finished in a rushed mumble.

“The writing is dreadful,” I said.

“Yes, it’s really bad, but. . . .”

“Exactly how many of your high school kids are reading Fifty Shades of Grey, Mark?” I asked.

“Listen,” said Mark to me, his expression saying that’s enough of youse, mister. His face was flushing with at least fifty shades of crimson. To Barbara he turned with an apologetic face. Very delicately, as if struggling to figure out how to phrase his sentences with respect to Barbara’s age, gender, and gentility, he said, “Fifty Shades of Grey is about . . . well, it’s a fantasy of the, ah, erotic persuasion that um, is about . . . well, a couple whose preferred, um, style of interaction is of a sort that, um. . . .”

Barbara let out a long-suffering sigh. “Oh, stop pussy-footing around Mark,” she said in a no-nonsense New England manner. “Just come out and say what you mean. My goodness. Such a lot of fuss about explicit consensual sadomasochistic sex.” She brushed herself off, collected her purse and her newspaper, and left the office so she could go about her afternoon business.

Mark stared after her, slack-jawed. “Um yeah,” he said. “That’s what it is, all right.”

And that’s why I want to be Barbara when I grow up.