A Rhinestone Button by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

girl who might accept him.
    Then a call from Debbie. “I feel God is leading me to have coffee with Job from Godsfinger.”
    “Can you tell us why?”
    “Well, as I said, God is leading me.”
    “No particular reason, eh?”
    “I think God telling me to is reason enough.”
    “You got a point there, Debbie. All right, Job, if you’re listening, you’re going to get a call from Debbie from Millwoods. Let’s move on to the next caller.”
    Ten minutes later, the phone rang. Job picked it up. “Hello. Job Sunstrum speaking.” He was caught by the formality of his voice. Like a bank manager.
    “This is Debbie Biggs. I heard you on ‘Loveline.’ ” Her voice nasal, a cluster of little balls, like frog’s eggs, the colour of a John Deere tractor. “I wouldn’t normally phone into a show like that,” she said. “But God led me to.”
    “Well.” He cleared his throat, glanced back at Ruth, Wade, Penny, Will and Jerry standing at the living-room entranceway, watching. The duck waddled across the floor towards him.
    “Besides, I liked the sound of your voice. The way you described yourself, with such
vulnerability
. You did say you were Christian, didn’t you?”
    “I was looking for a Christian, yes.”
    “So what do you look like? No, don’t tell me. I want to walk into the restaurant where we meet and pick you out
intuitively
.”
    “
Intuitively
?” The duck pulled at the laces of his boots. He brushed it away with his foot.
    “I feel that we should
know
our soulmates immediately, when we first meet them. We just
feel
something click inside. Something inside us says, ‘That’s the one for me.’ You know what I’m saying? I always know when someone’s my soulmate. Oh, listen to me, babbling on. I’ll let you talk now. Go ahead.”
    “I, um—”
    “I’ve put you on the spot. We can talk when we get together.”
    “Yes, we could meet.”
    “How about next week? I’m busy this weekend. Say, Friday? That’s my day off. You can get away from the farm on a weekday, right?”
    “Sure, Friday.”
    “How about noon at Maxwell Taylor’s. You know, the restaurant on Calgary Trail?”
    “I was wondering if you could come here, to Godsfinger. I’m not much for the city, and I wanted you to see me in my element.” So she’d know what she was getting into right away. So he wouldn’t be hurt later.
    “All right, I guess. Okay. Sure.”
    “At the Godsfinger co-op. The Out-to-Lunch Café. You can’t miss it. It’s the only restaurant in town.”
    “The
only
restaurant?”
    “Well, they serve coffee at the gas station. And there’s a bar, but—”
    “The co-op will be fine.”
    Will tapped him on the shoulder, mouthed, “Photo, get a photo.”
    “I was wondering if you’d send me a photo. It’s Job, Job Sunstrum at general delivery, Godsfinger.”
    “Sure. I could do that. Sunstrum. General delivery. Godsfinger. All right. See you next Friday. Ciao!”
    Job put the receiver in its rest, stared at it. This was the girl God had in mind for him?
    “So you got a date!” said Will.
    “I guess.”
    “What do you mean, ‘I guess’?” said Ed.
    “I was thinking, what if she isn’t who God has in mind for me?” What if he went out with this woman just because she was the only one who phoned, and they got married even though she wasn’t the one destined for him by God, and then she ran off with the local MLA who came knocking from farm to farm during election time as Mrs. Ireland had, or took up living in sin with the rendering man as Jean Milner had, after he came around to pick up a cow who’d died from bloat. That would prove to everyone that Job hadn’t been listening to God whispering in his ear when he made his choice of wife but that he had been listening instead to the devil.
    Ed threw up his hands. “I don’t
believe
you people.”
    “So you put out a fleece,” said Will. “Ask for a sign.”
    “What do you expect?” asked Ed. “A bloody burning bush?”

Five
    After