Mari bounced out of her
front door and skipped over to Deborah's car, opening the door with a
flourish and plopping down in the passenger seat.
“Isn't it a great day to
worship the Lord?” exclaimed Mari. Deborah winced out a smile.
She knew partly that Mari's enthusiasm for church was that she was
going to see Eddie, the worship leader and Mari's knew potential
amore. “He's so godly,” Mari had explained to Deborah. “Such
a true seeker.” This was all code for “He'd make the perfect
husband.”
Deborah pulled out of the
parking lot of Mari's apartment complex and headed down the street in
the direction of the mega-church where Mari attended.
At the church, she drove
around the parking lot in search of the perfect spot and pulled in to
park. Mari jumped out, seeing some friends of hers, and bounded over
Bible under her arm, exclaiming, “Hi!” with such enthusiasm even
Deborah felt swept away by the spiritual fervor, whether or not it
was founded in truth was to be known only by Mari.
In the church, Mari and
Deborah moved down the pews, in search of the right position. They
chose a pew towards the front, the right position to be noticed by
Eddie but not to be too conspicuous. As the worship music began to
play, Deborah found her mind wandering. Hands went up around her as
eyes closed and voices began singing in unison and off-key. Some
people around her fell to their knees, their hands above their heads,
and tears streaming down her face. Deborah closed her eyes, in order
to look spiritual and not to stick out too much, also to try to
maintain her thoughts in some fashion. As the music poured itself
around her, she found herself falling, falling into some sort of
sleep. A sort of trance came upon her. Opening her eyes, the rest
of the church came to a stand-still, completely motionless, still and
quiet. White rose petals began to fall from above and descended upon
the church floor, the singers, the band. No one seemed to notice as
they were completely motionless and lost in their own little worlds.
Deborah felt as if she had come into another plane of existence. She
looked around frantically at the other faces, waving her hands in
front of them, trying to wake them, to find her way back. Then
suddenly from the back, walking through the pews towards her came...
Eve.
A shock, a small scream came
out of Deborah's mouth before she could contain herself. She stood,
wanting to run, but found her feet unable to move herself. She
waited because there was nothing more to do.
Eve made her way to Deborah
and stood in front of her, looking deep within her eyes. She noticed
the chain necklace around her neck and two silver rings attached to
it.
“Look into my eyes,” Eve
was saying and her voice rang out in a song similar to the chords
being played on the other plane in the church. “Look into my eyes
and you will understand.”
Deborah looked and she
saw...herself. She saw an understanding between herself and this
girl before her. This girl who had gone on to another world suddenly
became more and more like herself, like Deborah. She saw the
resemblance and a shudder went through her. Is that why James had
turned to her in his hour of need, because she reminded him so much
of his ex-wife, of Eve? Had those words of love he had expressed to
her ever really been true? In Eve's eyes came another thought that
she was directing into Deborah's consciousness. Deborah sought to
understand, to grasp, and then she saw, it was a warning of some
sort. Of what she could not yet comprehend.
Eve took the necklace from
around her neck and held it out to Deborah. She looked within
Deborah's eyes and spoke into her mind.
“Look at this,” she was
saying from her mind. “Examine it completely and remember.”
Deborah spoke internally,
“Why?” But, she looked at the details of the necklace. The two
silver sings hanging side by side, meant love and loss at once. The
chain was a simple silver one, something like you could find at a
drug store yet still somehow beautiful, maybe made all the more so by
Eve herself. But Eve did not respond either mentally or verbally.
Instead she started to fade.
“Come back,” Deborah was
calling, louder and louder, as Eve started to fade and float away.
And, then suddenly hands were upon her, voices from far away.
“Deborah, Deborah,” they were calling.
She descended down into her
body and her eyes opened. She was laying on the church floor, looking
up at the surrounding faces of the other church-goers. Mari was
bending over her.
“Deborah, oh my god, are
you okay?” she was asking, her voice full of concern and fear.
Deborah shook her head to
wake herself and tried to sit up.
“You passed out,” a man
was saying.
“I'm fine,” Deborah said
and tried to right herself. “I'll be fine, just maybe some water.
I'm just really tired.”
The parishioners helped her to
her seat and someone ran off to the back to get her the water. Mari
put her arm around her friend's shoulder and rubbed her neck.
“You scared me,” she
whispered into Deborah's ear.
Deborah patted her friend's
arm and leaned back against the pew, silent in her own thoughts. The
necklace? She felt like she had seen that, in real life, not just in
dreams. But the pastor was starting to talk.
“For God so loved the
world that he gave,” his voice began and started to drone on and on
into more and more biblical scriptures and his own interpretations of
them. But that one line “For God so loved the world that he gave”,
kept running itself over and over in mind and all of a sudden all
this church talk made a bit of sense. It was about love then, what
this world needed, what she needed, it was all about love. And love
was, is, God and God is love. It was that simple. She felt a peace
descend upon her and a smile stretched across her face, for the first
time in days she felt calm and rested, as if she knew everything was
going to work out for good, strangely that was similar to a verse the
pastor was quoting at the time. She closed her eyes in a silent
repose, maybe there was something in this Christianity thing after
all, maybe.
The pastor closed the sermon
with a prayer and closed his bible. The parishioners started filing
themselves out into the foyer and out in the church. Deborah felt
lighter than she had in days and she also felt a new sense of purpose
and drive. She would be led where she needed to go, given what she
needed at the right moment. She just needed to trust in this love to
keep her going, to guide her, no matter what, always that.
She dropped Mari off at her
apartment and turned her car towards the coffee shop. It had been
over a week since she'd entered that building, since the break-up
with Matthew. She needed to see him, James, and the rest and to find
a way to bring peace to the whole situation.
About a block away from the
coffee shop, she parked and sat, trying to catch her breath and
steady her racing heartbeat, her hands gripping the steering wheel.
Slowly, deliberately, she opened the car door and locked it behind
her. Crossing the street, she made her way up the hill towards the
familiar coffee shop that was fast becoming like a second home to
her.
And, there they all were:
Matthew, Shaggy, Thomas, Ray, even James sitting on the patio,
smoking their cigarettes, and sipping their coffee, as if nothing had
changed. She held her breath and took in that sight, caught it up
inside her memory and stored it deep within her heart. Later on, it
would become a sweet memory that would strengthen her throughout her
later life's darkest hours, these five guys were the truest of
companions, a friendship deeper than what was visible to the eye, a
connection eternal, this moment and this time was theirs, a season
outside the rest of their existence. She crossed the street to them,
her coffee boys.
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