Present

3.3

Audrey

The voices in the church began to hush as the pastor stepped up to the front of the room, on what almost looked like a stage. As soon as the room was enveloped in silence, the pastor welcomed everyone with a booming voice, sifting efficiently through announcements ranging from the latest youth group fundraiser to the next potluck dinner they planned to have in their fellowship hall. The idea of a potluck made my stomach rumble, and I made a mental note to convince Gwen that we had to hit a drive through on the way home.

Suddenly, a hymn began to fill the room and pulled me away from my thoughts of food. The choir behind the pastor began and the voices in the pews began to fill in accordingly. Different voices from different walks of life all blended together to create a song that held a higher purpose than just a couple of dozen people in a room together.

As the hymn came to a close, I had a quiet thought: It was scary enough to come out to my parents, let alone an entire church.

The intruding thought sent shivers down my spine, and I glanced at Gwen. Her face seemed content. There were no furrow in her brow and her lips were slightly upturned, as if she were tempted to smile. A sadness creeped into my eyes and weighed on my chest. I hadn't realized that her parents weren't the only uphill battle that Gwen would face. Gwen had mountains she would have to climb to erase the image that her community has of her and rebuild it with one that they might not even accept or like. How could I ever ask her to shun herself from one of her biggest supporting pillars just to make me happy?

As the Pastor began to preach, my eyes wandered around the room. A sea of faces were listening intently, with the occasional "Hallelujah" often paired with a raised arm as a gesture of agreement or acknowledgement of a higher power. His sermon continued it was interlaced with hymns that bore some relevance to the grace or love or praise of God that was a running theme in today's lesson. It seemed so foreign to me, the act of worship of something. But then again, we see the same gestures on a dance floor in the small hours of a Friday or Saturday night. Arms are lifted above our heads as we sway side to side with a song that makes us feel something more than ourselves. Maybe we were all strange, after all.

Though religion was never something I grew up with or was accustomed to, the hardest part of sitting in a church was not spontaneously combusting due to the weight of all of my sins. It was the stiff, uncomfortable feeling of not being able to reach out and caress the back of Gwen's hand or exchange a quiet, inside joke. The restriction felt so incredibly unnatural.

As the service came to a close, I tried (and failed) to hide my sigh of relief though no one seemed to notice. Gwen waited until her parents stood to rise from her seat and I followed suit. I had assumed that the four of us would shuffle our way to the back of the room and out the doors but I was dead wrong. Instead, the socializing began.

A woman with a long face and black hair that was speckled with gray strands stopped by our pew of her way out. "It's so nice to see that Gwen joined you today, and brought a friend. So lovely!" Her voice sounded as if it were caught in her nose.

"Yes, well, we only had to beg a little bit," Keith chuckled at his own joke.

The woman laughed and moved along, finished with another stop in her rounds. The next was Gwen's grandmother, who stopped to talk to Barbara about her latest doctors appointment. She had fallen recently and her doctors were continuously on her to take it easy but Gwen's grandmother was "much too independent for that." I nearly laughed out loud as they spoke.

Slowly but surely, we started moving out of the pew and toward the door. As we walked, my eyes were glued to the stain glass windows in the back of the room, perfectly placed so that the sun illuminated them just as the Sunday service let out. Jesus was staring at each of us with his glassy eyes, his robe scarlet red due to the sun's added intensity.

"You're coming over for dinner, right?" Barbara runed toward us as soon as we were out in the fresh air.

I glanced at Gwen. Her eyes widened slightly, unprepared for such a question. I opened my mouth to speak, "We already –," My growling stomach interrupted and shattered my excuse.

"I'll take that as a yes," Barbara smiled triumphantly. My heart raced. How much more pretending could I handle in a day? Could I really go into Gwen's parents house and continue this charade of sitting in the presence of these people who feel like such strangers to me and pretending to be a stranger myself? My fear took a leap over to Gwen. What happens if I slip up? What happens when I accidentally call her babe or touch her for too long? What if her parents find us out and Gwen gets hurt?

"Well, we can't say no to food," Gwen's blue eyes hardened and her limbs stiffened. She, too, was feeling the same anxieties. It's one thing to spend a morning wearing a mask in front of the people you love most and an entirely different thing to wear that mask for an entire day. And I only complicated the situation for her. I stood somewhere between a support system, enduring the same hardship, and an anchor, dragging her down by causing her hardship with her family and community.

"Yeah, I'm starving," I chirped, "I could eat anything right now."

"Well, were glad to hear that," Keith's warm smile dashed across his face. "Barbara makes a mean steak."

The idea of steak immediately made my mouth water and my stomach rumble. I knew I would regret not eating this morning but I had never manged to build a habit of eating in the mornings.

"I haven't had Mom's steak in so long," Gwen's icy eyes melted and warmed up, turning into a summer sky. She began to tug at the ends of her red hair, unable to keep her hands still.

"Maybe you should come home for dinner more often then," Barbara said. Gwenn ignored her slightly condescending tone. "You know I'd always make your favorites."

" I know, Mom," Gwen dragged out her words like either of us would have as teenagers. "You know I'm trying to focus on school, and I can't study if I'm always home eating."

I laughed at the image of Gwen ignoring her studies for food (or anything for that matter). "Girl, you never stop studying."

"If you think I study too much, maybe you should study more," Gwen snickered. "Instead of falling asleep in class."

"Falling asleep in class? Audrey that not acceptable!" Barbara shook her head as if she weren't the hippie child who probably didn't even show up to class because she was asleep and eventually dropped out to make a family.

"It was one time," I shook my head, my dark hair whipping around my face, thanks to the slight breeze.

"Just don't make it a habit," Barbara said.

Keith butted in, "So are we gonna chit chat all day or go eat some food?"