“Are you out of your mind? I have a fifteen-year-old daughter!”
“I’m not saying that’s what you were doing. But can you see why she might have perceived it that way?”
“She came to see me. If anyone was doing the coming-on, it was—do you know what I think happened? It was Laura. As soon as she saw Sally getting closer to me, putting her trust in me, Laura turned her against me. The person with the dirty mind here is Laura. Sally was perfectly comfortable with me until Laura got ahold of her.”
Ambrose seemed unexcited by Russ’s theory. “I know you don’t like Laura,” he said.
“Laura does not like me.”
“But take a step back and look at yourself. What were you thinking, talking about your sexual boredom to a vulnerable seventeen-year-old? Even if she was coming on to you, which I don’t believe, you had a clear responsibility to shut that down. Hard. Right away. Unambiguously.”
It didn’t matter if Ambrose’s glowering was just a trick. Under the pressure of it, Russ stepped back and was mortified by what he saw: not the sexual creepiness he stood accused of （the girls of the fellowship were taboo to him in umpteen ways） but the fatuousness of thinking he could ever be as hip as Ambrose. More than once, he’d heard Ambrose confess to the group that he’d been an arrogant, heartless prick as a teenager, and Russ had seen how thrilled the group was, not only by Ambrose’s honesty but by the image of him breaking female hearts. Made giddy by attention from a popular girl, Russ had imagined that he’d mastered the skill of honesty himself and could somehow erase his own timidity as a teenager, retroactively become a boy at ease with the likes of Sally Perkins. In his giddiness, he’d confessed, at least by implication, that Marion no longer turned him on. He’d felt the need to shed Marion, break free of her, in order to be more like Ambrose; and now his vanity stood shamefully revealed. His only thought was to get away, find fresher air, and seek comfort in God’s mercy.
“I guess I need to apologize,” he said.
“It’s too late for that,” Ambrose said. “Those kids aren’t coming back.”
“Maybe you should tell them why you weren’t in Kitsillie. If they heard it from you—”
“Kitsillie’s not the issue. Didn’t you hear what they were saying? The issue is your style of ministry. It’s simply not compatible with the kids I’m trying to reach.”
“The groovy kids.”
“The troubled kids. The ones who need an adult they can relate to. There are plenty of other kids who appreciate a more traditional style, and you’ll be fine with them. The numbers should be small enough for you to handle by yourself.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I can’t keep working here.”
Ambrose’s eyes were on him, but Russ felt too loathsomely sweaty to raise his own. The trip he’d been on since October had been the fantasy of a dork freeloading on another man’s charisma. Picturing the sorry little rump group that would remain after tonight, he could see only shame. Even the kids who stayed would never respect him after what they’d witnessed.
“You can’t leave,” he said. “You’re still under contract.”
“I will finish out the school year.”
“No,” Russ said. “It’s your group now. I’m not going to fight you for it.”
“I’m not saying you should quit. I’m saying I will find another church.”
“And I’m saying take it. I don’t want it.” Fearing he would cry, Russ stood up and went to the door. “You didn’t say one goddamned word in my defense up there.”
“You’re right,” Ambrose said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“The hell you are.”
“It’s unfortunate that the whole group got pulled into this. I know that was brutal for you.”
“I don’t want your compassion. In fact, you can shove it up your ass.”
Those were the last words he ever spoke to Ambrose. He left the church that night with a shame so crippling that he didn’t see how he could set foot in it again. His impulse was to resign from First Reformed and never again have anything to do with teenagers. But he couldn’t put his family through another move—Becky especially was having a splendid time at school—and so, the next morning, he went to Dwight Haefle and asked that Ambrose be given full charge of the youth group. Haefle, alarmed, asked why. Embracing his shame, not going into detail, Russ said he couldn’t relate to high-school kids. He said he would still run Sunday school and confirmation classes, would happily do more pastoral visitation, and might like to start an outreach program in the inner city.