Part 20 (1/2)

However softly spoken his words were, Michele felt as if he'd slapped her.

”Oh, Phil! I'm...sorry.” She could barely bring herself to look him in the eye. ”It's just something I have to do to...uh, get him out of my system. Don't you see? I'll be home no later than ten o'clock with the whole thing behind us.”

Who was she fooling? After a dozen years Dave was still very much in her system.

She spent the next day behaving like a nervous schoolgirl preparing for her first date. A fresh manicure, a facial, a zippy new outfit that didn't make her look thirty. She scrutinized every wrinkle and suspicious gray hair. After seeing him on television, would he look as good close up? Would she?

She hoped to get out the door before Phil got home from work, but he stumbled into their bedroom an hour earlier than usual, tears rolling down his cheeks. ”Don't do this, Michele. Please stay home.”

His sentimental s...o...b..ring made it easier to go, not harder. She'd never noticed what a truly weak man he was. Anger, like her father's, she could handle. But Phil's tears were just plain embarra.s.sing. She left early, kissing him on the cheek and reminding him she'd be home by ten.

The spring air welcomed her with a fragrant embrace. On her solo drive downtown, windows rolled down, she listened to an old tape of Dave's, gearing herself up for the service. And for Dave. She hadn't told him she was married. He'd never have let her come if he'd known. Good old righteous Dave. Nothing would come of the evening, right? Just friends. Just music. Just a stroll down memory lane.

Before she was truly ready, she was turning into the Myriad's parking lot, picking up her ticket at the box office, finding her seat in the first balcony, high up but front and center. The perfect vantage point with a huge screen in front to magnify everything that happened on stage.

A twenty-foot-tall Dave. Works for me! Michele s.h.i.+vered in antic.i.p.ation, especially when the houselights blinked off and a hush fell over the audience.

Colored lights began swirling, and the crowd started clapping as the spotlight illuminated one corner of the arena where an enormous wooden cross was lifted up with a deafening cheer. A dozen trumpeters in white and gold stood behind it, heralding the start of the wors.h.i.+p service, followed by elaborately dressed girls with tambourines, then more young men with bra.s.s cymbals. The procession moved toward center stage and began to fan out, no doubt making room for the headliner.

For Dave. Her Dave! How could she have convinced herself all these years that she didn't love him, when it was clear they were meant for each other?

Michele found herself standing, straining to see, before she remembered to look at the screen above her, where every detail was magnified. There! She was certain it must be Dave since the crowd was screaming.

He suddenly came into view, chin lifted, arms raised, wearing an ear-to-ear smile and...a...loincloth?

Michele gasped. Where did he think he was...Jerusalem?

His skin was bronzed, which made his teeth flash their whitest, his eyes sparkle even in the dark arena. She felt almost sick to her stomach as she watched him parade toward the stage in little more than a bathing suit, his movements nothing short of erotic.

Well, not erotic exactly. But he was dancing. Nothing else one could call it. The man was prancing like a...like a heathen! Behind him some two dozen young women were dancing as well, leaping and singing. ”Joy to the Lord!” it sounded like.

She dropped into her seat, her hopes sinking just as quickly. Dave, how could you?

On the screen above her, Dave swirled, he swayed, he rocked, he rolled, following the cross up onto the stage. After a final flourish from the trumpets, Dave stepped to the microphone and shouted, ”Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” The audience roared its approval.

That was enough for Michele.

While the enthusiastic crowd settled in for a long night of music, she elbowed her way toward the exit sign, fighting tears and nausea. She hadn't known. Hadn't known! He'd been more reserved years ago, but this...It was unseemly and uncivilized and everything her father hated. She hated it too. Thank G.o.d she hadn't married him after all.

Phil! The man she had married, her beloved husband, was waiting for her at home. She had to apologize, beg him to forgive her, do something. She'd lost her mind, that's all. Dave was nothing more than an old flame that had been snuffed out in an instant.

Phil, please! Please forgive me! She said it over and over the whole drive home, preparing to kiss his feet if necessary-whatever it would take for him to welcome her back and forget the whole foolish incident.

The house was dark when she walked in. An eerie silence filled the air. When she flicked on the kitchen light, a large note on the fridge caught her attention immediately.

Michele- You will never know how much you've hurt me tonight. I want to forgive you, but I'm not sure I can. If Dave has thought about you all these years the same way you've thought of him, then I hope you two will be very happy.

Phil Michele crumpled to the floor, even as the letter crumpled in her freshly manicured hands...

From Bold Heroine to Bitter Has-Been: Michal

Everybody loved David.

Only one person (on record) loved Michal, bless her heart.

The women of Israel in particular thought David was hot stuff, literally singing his praises: ”Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”1 Everybody loved David except King Saul, who feared the young lad's popularity. ”And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.”2 Honey, Saul did more than eyeball the guy. He threw a spear at David while the young man was playing the harp-hey, don't shoot the piano player!-but the agile David eluded him twice.

Then Saul offered David the hand of his older daughter Merab in marriage with the understanding that David would continue to fight on his behalf (and thinking that David would fall to his death at the hand of a Philistine).

No go.

David's humility wouldn't allow him to marry the daughter of a king. (On the other hand, maybe Merab was as ugly as a mud fence.) Meanwhile, Merab's younger sister, Michal, was standing in the wings, watching the handsome young warrior-poet as he played his harp for the royal court. In no time David stole her maiden's heart.

Now Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David... 1 Samuel 18:20 Her name, like the male counterpart Michael, means ”Who is like G.o.d?” It's p.r.o.nounced ”MEE-kal,” with a soft k sound. (You're right; it does sound like you're clearing your throat.) What was it about David that made him so irresistible to men and women alike, and especially to Michal?

To begin with, like Joseph of chapters past, David was a looker. ”He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.”3 Other translations are more specific: ”David had a healthy reddish complexion and beautiful eyes, and was fine-looking” (AMP); ”a healthy, good-looking boy with a sparkle in his eyes” (CEV); ”a fine boy, tanned and handsome”(ICB).

In other words, ooh-ooh, child.

Not that his good looks had anything to do with David's being chosen as G.o.d's anointed one. Not hardly. ”Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”4 David had a heart for G.o.d, and that alone made him attractive, not only to his Creator but to earthly types as well.

He also had talent; as a musician and a songwriter, David was without parallel. More than seventy of the psalms came from his musical pen. What woman wouldn't love a man who could sing her to sleep with an original lullaby written only for her?

But there's more. He was a shepherd, tanned and muscular from working outdoors. He was young and innocent, not yet hardened by life. He was crowned a hero for killing the giant Goliath. And he was humble, always an admirable trait in a man. (I'd even say rare, but that's tacky.) Imagine combining the fighting ability of a Navy Seal, the G.o.dly talent of a Michael W. Smith, and the rugged good looks of a young Mel Gibson.

Are you getting the picture, girls?

Can we blame Michal for hiding behind a pillar at court and sighing as this shepherd boy plucked the strings of her heart? How the girl's hopes must have soared when David humbly refused the hand of Princess Merab, her older sister. Michal didn't even have to dip her sister's tresses in ink or tie the girl's pantyhose in a knot. Without any effort on her part, Michal watched as the bridal baton was pa.s.sed down to her.

Thanks to some court gossip, the word soon traveled to her father's chambers that Michal had a thing for David.

...and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased. 1 Samuel 18:20 My, what a loving, supportive father!

Not.

Saul saw this as the perfect opportunity to let someone else kill David without a spot of blood hitting his royal sandals.

”I will give her to him,” he thought, ”so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” 1 Samuel 18:21 The word ”snare”-in Hebrew, moqesh-suggests something that would bait or lure David into a net and lead to his destruction. ”Snare,” as defined in English, means ”something deceptively attractive.” If King Saul wanted to keep tabs on David's whereabouts, what better way than to marry him to his lovely young daughter?

So Saul said to David, ”Now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law.” 1 Samuel 18:21 It's all I can do not to jump up and down here, waving my arms, frantically trying to get young David's attention. ”No, Dave, no! Bad move, handsome!” But the humble musician had his own reasons for n.o.bly refusing to marry her: As a lowly shepherd from an impoverished family, he didn't have the money-the necessary bride price-to seek Michal's hand in marriage.

But David said, ”Do you think it is a small matter to become the king's son-in-law? I'm only a poor man and little known.” 1 Samuel 18:23 Saul no doubt antic.i.p.ated such a reaction, since David had made the same argument when offered Merab's hand. The king suggested a different price tag, one that suited his own taste for blood-both that of this young upstart and of the hated Philistines. However, that's not how he phrased it for his attendants.