So my big secret isn’t that I date the occasional sugar daddy or two or I go commando—all the time—the secret is I started to go to church. I go not because I’ve found religion, but because I have some girl crushes. Dressed in black leather boots and a black leather jacket, looking like a gangster, I slip into the building as the bell chimes and sit in the back so I can make a clean escape when they pass the collection basket or in case things get too Gody.
Pastor Diamond, my first crush, is a tree of a woman. Standing almost six feet tall, her dark curly hair cascades down her back like a waterfall. Each Sunday, she raises her arms to the sky, and greets the congregation with a grin and shouts: “Good morning, Church!” The practitioners respond just as enthusiastically. When she does this she reminds me of Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam. The pastor is from Las Vegas. With a name like Pastor Diamond, I wonder what her big secret is.
I’ve been going to church for a few months now, and it’s the same drill. The church greeter, my second girl crush, Gwen, never fails to spot me as I sneak in. Before the service begins, she works the room, chatting with fellow parishioners, touching a shoulder here, an elbow there. Short skirt, black tights, and boots, she oozes sass as she makes her way toward me.
I suspect Gwen is in her eighties and has early onset dementia. Each week she asks if I’m new and if I want to sign the guest register. I refrain from telling her that it’s not my first time. Actually, my first time was when I was seventeen after too many shots of peach schnapps. I think of my grandmother who was the same age with dementia and how each time I visited her, she repeatedly asked me where I bought a black wool coat I was wearing and how was my husband, who was no longer my husband, so I nod yes when Gwen asks if I’m new, but every so often, I see a glimmer of recognition in her eyes, but we pretend she doesn’t remember me.
As a Catholic school survivor, I try not to lie, not the ones that will send me straight to hell. Telling white lies, I learned at a young age, will keep my friends and family happy.
“Would you like to sign the register?” she asks, as I sit.
The writer in me wants to make things interesting—sexy, so at church I pretend that I am a gangster who has been relocated to Flagstaff, Arizona away from my mobster life in New York City.
“I can’t,” I pause, then glance over my shoulder. We’re the only ones in the back of the church, but it adds to the dramatic effect. “I’m in the witness protection program.” Okay, that’s a white lie.
She winks knowingly, tucks the guest register under her arm, and walks away, maybe she’s the one in the witness protection program.
In church, I also pretend that my recent breakup hasn’t broken my heart in ways I can’t explain. In church, I pretend that I don’t have this mysterious health condition. At this point, the doctors at a very prominent clinic have given up on me. When I message them daily to share I’ve collapsed again, that the pain in my chest is really a nine out of ten, and that I’ve spent most of the day on the floor because I couldn’t get up, they stopped responding. My job has told me to stay home and work remotely. Since January, I’ve lost hours, days, weeks, and now months. I’ve become skilled at telling white lies to my friends and family. I say I’m fine, I feel better. But the truth is I’m afraid I’m getting worse. At home, alone, I’m scared. Scared when I fall to the floor, that I can’t move, that the pain in my chest takes my breath away, and if I close my eyes, they’ll stayed closed. Forever. To the prominent doctors at the well-renowned clinic, I want to shout: You’re not a condiment, you’re the Mayo Clinic.
Every few days or so, I have this window of time when I feel that it’s safe to drive. It lasts for about an hour. I am quick to leave my apartment and be around people. If it’s a Sunday, I go to church, not for God, but to watch Gwen sashay around the room like she’s the one in charge, not the pastor. I go to church to listen to Pastor Diamond talk about justice and kindness, about the importance of giving back, and how we are part of a community, which is something bigger than me, bigger than this break up, bigger than my body’s need to collapse.
My favorite part of the service is when Pastor Diamond asks the congregation to share their joys and concerns. If on cue, their hands go up like they’re students again. The Pastor speaks into a microphone, she is the one who now works the room—moves around the congregation—repeating the joys they share: the birth of a grandchild, a friend who just got out of the hospital, and the tulips are starting to bloom because it’s March. Where did January and February go?
And there are concerns: concerns about the state of our country, nieces, nephews, Palestine, Ukraine, and our neighbors who are being taken away in the middle of the night. Sometimes the parishioners repeat themselves, and it makes me smile, not because they can’t hear one another, but because it’s just life. We grow old. Our bodies change. They age, they ache. Our hearing goes, and we need readers and bifocals just to read the ingredients on the back of a jar of spaghetti sauce. We look into the mirror and wonder who that person looking back at us is. I’ve been doing this a lot lately, looking into the mirror, repeating mantras about how healthy I am. Looking into the mirror, I don’t recognize myself, this tired woman. But in this place, with all these joys and concerns, for an hour a week, I get to pretend that I’m not alone, that I’m not scared.
Last week, I slipped in as the church bells chimed. Pastor Diamond stood by the door, greeting parishioners. Busted, I thought, and then I introduced myself.
“I have a concern.” I looked away because I was about to cry, and I didn’t want to, not in front of anyone. I cried a lot alone. She took my hand, which made me cry.
“I have this thing.” I patted my chest. “They don’t know what it is.” Then she hugged me, which took my breath away.
That morning after the sermon, Pastor Diamond stepped down from the altar, and before she solicited the congregation’s joys and concerns, she asked for prayers for Kerri, prayers that she finds the answers she’s looking for.
I stayed till the end of the service that day. Gwen approached me with the collection basket, I put 10 dollars in. She winked, touched my shoulder, and then sashayed her way to the front of the church.
~
Kerri Quinn has published work in The New York Times, The Santa Monica Review, Glimmer Train, New World Writing, descant, The Apple Valley Review, and Cutthroat Literary Journal. She holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing (Fiction) from The University of Southern Mississippi and is working on a collection of essays.