I crossed my arms, unwilling to let it go.
He gripped the back of his neck, tugged. “All of us are prone to selfishness. It’s our sin nature.”
I waved a hand at him dismissively. “Don’t ‘sin nature’ me, Pastor Miles. Just tell it to me straight.”
He exhaled for longer than a human lung should be able to hold air. “On occasion, you have a tendency to be a bit . . . self-focused.”
Self-focused. I tried on the hyphenated word like a fitted jacket, instantly annoyed by the confinement of the material. Self-made—now that was an adjective I’d wear proudly. But self-focused? That certainly wasn’t how I wanted to be described by the people who knew me outside of Makeup Matters with Molly.
“It’s an understandable struggle,” Miles continued. “Given your profession. You have a million followers vying for your attention and your approval at all hours of the day. You’ve worked hard to build a career brand, and you’ve been generous with your—”
“Six hundred thousand.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a million followers.” But I needed to by the end of summer, according to Ethan.
He chuckled. “Still, six hundred thousand in just a few years is an astounding number.”
“It’s not enough,” I said absently at first, and then more strongly as something warm lined my lower stomach. “It’s not enough, Miles. I want to be more than a pretty face with an addictive personality. I want to be seen as the real deal. Someone who uses their influence to pay it forward. For good.”
“Wait a minute, I never said you were a pretty face with a—”
I shook off his confusion. “I know you didn’t. And that doesn’t even matter. What matters is finding a cause I can partner with inside our community.” After all, I’d built a nearly seven-figure business from the ground up. What was stopping me? I didn’t have to pledge my life to the call of full-time church planting like my parents to do something right in the world. Nor did I have to go to seminary. I could be fully me and still be seen as a good person—couldn’t I?
“A cause,” he echoed, narrowing his eyes once again.
“Yes, a cause.” Why was that such a hard concept for him to understand? “You work at a church, Miles. You must have contact with tons of needy people. I’m simply asking for you to give me everything you have in the underprivileged youth category.”
“Everything I have in the underprivileged youth category,” he repeated slowly, unhelpfully. “You’d like me to just hand over a list to you.”
“That would be great, yes.” I held out my hand as if he had some sort of Santa-size scroll of needs tucked inside his jersey shorts ready for the taking.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because there are protocols for this kind of thing. It’s not like I have some sort of Santa-size scroll ready to hand over to you.” He laughed at the face I pulled. “Wait, that’s literally what you thought, isn’t it? Oh wow. Okay.”
“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes.
“Usually when there’s a need in our community, an organization or an individual will call the church and then Susan will take down their information. I follow up with a phone call first, and then schedule a visit to get more information—”
“I’ve aged twenty years in the time it’s taken you to talk about your protocol.”
He snapped his attention back to me. “Silas Whittaker.”
“Who?”
“I met with him a couple years ago during an outreach downtown. He’s a good guy, sharp and ethical. He manages a house for young adults who’ve aged out of the foster system and are now transitioning to independent living. They’re looking for some volunteers for their summer program to help the residents learn life skills like budgeting, cooking, cleaning, job interviewing skills. That kind of stuff. I guess he’s short on female mentors. But he runs a super tight ship—”
“A summer mentor?” I smiled, already imagining picnics and trips to the lake while talking about goals and dreams. “I can so do that. Consider it done.” I could see it now as a clickbait article: Makeup Matters with Molly becomes a mentor to young women transitioning from the foster system, saves them from a life of crime and sadness.
It couldn’t be more ideal if I’d planned it myself.
Again, Miles studied me, this time seeming to reconsider his offer. “On second thought, I’ll call you when I’m back in my office, see what else I can find. Maybe something a little less . . . involved.”
Hands on my hips, I glared back at him. “Less involved? Why? This sounds perfect for me. Val has most of my video posts edited and scheduled out through the middle of July, so I have a bit more time and flexibility right now. Plus, life skills are totally my thing.”
Miles seemed less than sure about this, but that was just Miles.
“Silas Whittaker.” I cemented the contact name in my brain. “Text me his contact info, and I’ll call him this afternoon, okay?”
“Molly, listen, the residents there . . . a lot of them have had hard lives—some harder than others. If you go out there for the summer, it needs to be because you feel called there specifically. Not for any other reason.”
“Of course, I know that.” I stared him down, daring him to come at me again with an accusation of trying to please our parents, parents I hadn’t even seen face-to-face in nearly two years. They were in Panama. Or maybe it was the Philippines. Since they took their church-planting ministry abroad, it had become increasingly difficult to keep track of their whereabouts.
Without hesitation, he hooked an arm around my back and pulled me in for a hug, squishing my cheek against his sweat-damp T-shirt. “I’m proud of you for taking this step, sis.”
I wiggled out of his hold, working to leave behind the twinge of guilt his words caused as I retreated several steps. “Thanks.” I smiled. “And don’t forget to text me that info, okay?”
“As if you’d ever let me forget.”
No truer words. With that, I pushed out the gymnasium doors and breathed in the fresh May air. I would do this. I would partner with a worthy cause like Ethan suggested, and I would become the best volunteer Miles and his church had ever commissioned into the real world . . . and perhaps, I might also inspire a following of 600,000-plus to go and do the same.
3
Molly
I glided into a parking space and searched for my notebook to double-check the address once more. Silas Whittaker’s receptionist had rattled it off so quickly I wasn’t entirely sure I’d written it down correctly. Then again, I wasn’t entirely sure about several things regarding The Bridge Youth Home.
After completing their fourteen-page Become A Mentor! application online, I no longer wondered why volunteers weren’t flocking to this establishment in droves. The process was ninety-five percent interrogation, five percent request for unpaid help. I hoped to address this catastrophic marketing mistake with Mr. Whittaker once I passed the initial volunteer interview set for eleven this morning.
I’d already warned Miles that if any staff members came at me with syringes or a urine sample collection cup, I’d be looking for a new community service venue STAT.