Testaments

The anchor on the television is smiling. She smiles oddly, like she's tried too many times, and now the pink paint on her lips cracks as her mouth stretches too wide.

The picture changes from her to the weather woman. The weather woman smiles too, but it's gentler, and she says the anchor's name like a lover would. A hint of an accent curves her words into curiosities. No one knows what it is, and I have to leave before I can place it.

The twenty-minute drive to the church is nearly silent, an odd juxtaposition to the roiling clench of anxiety in my gut. My leg jogs, I can't stop it, but Mum doesn't notice. I'm humming the melody to whatever tinny song is playing on the radio. She absently sings the harmony a third up. Spits of trees flash by through the window, flaxen fields of wheat, thickets of wildflowers, melichrous corn that glints in the failing sun.

The church looks benevolently down on us as we turn into the parking lot, built of glass and metal and concrete. The staff door does not creak as we walk in; the hinges are still shining and new, smooth, and the panes of glass are devoid of fingerprints.

"Have fun," I say as we walk into the atrium and Mum turns right.

"You too," she says, and her voice echoes up to the fluorescent lighting fit snugly in the ceiling. My steps echo as well as I walk through the atrium, past the cafe, through to the hallway where the children go while their parents attend services. It is empty, it is always empty on Thursday nights, but I can still feel the critical eyes that would be levelled on me were it Sunday morning. My throat clicks and my spine straightens in the iron silence. I keep my gaze ahead, pretending I can't see my reflection in the black tinted glass as doors flash by.

When I turn into the west auditorium, that silence shatters like thinly blown glass. Warm, golden light spills through the doors, and I can hear children's laughter. I smile mechanically when I walk in, and turn to the lighting and media booth. Jamie is already finishing up the soundtrack. He's always here before I am.

"Any particular cues I need to worry about?" I ask, settling on the stool and watching six kids shriek with laughter at something no one else heard. Four of them are holding scripts. Two more scripts are lying abandoned on bright blue chairs that make up the audience to the stage.

"I don't think so," he answers. "Six should do it. Colours are blue and yellow tonight for the adjacent poles, the cue transitions should be gentle, and they need to last three seconds, not thirty."

"Have I ever screwed that up?" I ask, watching little cues change colour on the computer screen in front of me. There's three more computers sitting in front of Jamie, and a soundboard that I am supposed to be working on, but can't get the hang of no matter what I try.

"Screwed up the colours once," he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"That was not my fault, you asked for orange, you got orange. You know as well as I do our lights are terrible."

"They were bright yellow," he reminds me. "Instead of Abraham looking at a sunrise, it looked like God was taking a leak on the sky."

I snort. "The kids didn't notice."

"Lucky for you."

"Lucky for you," I correct. "You're supposed to be teaching me." I turn to check the clock hanging on the wall behind us. 7:30, it reads, and the seconds tick placidly on. I'm late.

I turn to Jamie, already rummaging through my brain for an excuse. "I--er--I'll be right back," I stammer, but he merely nods and continues adjusting the mic for a quiet kid.

"Can you clip the mic a little to your left?" he calls, and it's the last thing I hear before I whisk out the doors. I hurry up the corridor, to the left where hallowed silence still lies in the nursery hallway, and light shines in pale panels through the room meant for toddlers. My anxiety drains away; there's never anyone down here but us.

I only truly relax when I see her standing there, studying the exquisitely painted mural on the wall. I can't help the soft smile that crosses my face, and though I've been quiet, Jo must sense my present, because she turns to look at me. Her black hair gleams bright in the light, curving at the wing of her jaw. Her copper skin, freckled with sunspots, is damp with sweat, her dark eyes brightening as she looks back at me.

"Dana," she says, and I am reminded why I like the curve and arch of my name in her mouth.

"I wasn't sure if you'd be here," I say, relief, leaking through my voice. "I heard the band is terrible tonight. I thought you'd be tied up for ages."

She shrugs. "I probably will be." Her fingers are warm as they skim along my cheek, and when she kisses me, I feel steady for the first time in a week. "Your mother is already irritated. She's hitting every key on that piano like they've personally offended her."

I laugh, and Jo slides her arms around my waist, sighing when mine go around my neck. I prop my chin up on her shoulder. Her hair tangles with mine.

"You feel warm," she murmurs. "Are you sick?"

"No," I say. "I was babysitting the neighbours before I came here, they ran me ragged."

"I'd rather babysit than deal with this band," she mutters. "We've barely started choruses."

"That's too bad." I stroke her hair back, and the strands thread through my fingers, liquid silk. "When do you think you'll be finished?"

I feel her chest press against mine when she heaves a sigh. "Maybe ten."

"With any luck the vocalists will leave early. You're only in two songs, right?"

"You know how slow they are."

"I do," I say. She turns her head and presses an absent kiss into my temple, and I lean into it. "Did anyone say anything when you left?"

"Do you mean is anyone aware of our luridly indecent affair?" she asks, and I can hear the grin in her voice. "No, no one asked. Stop worrying. Your mother would never guess, she hasn't yet."

"She'd better not," I mutter. "One hint and I'm never invited to another family event again."

Jo draws back, her hand sliding down until her fingers tangle with mine. Her eyes are filled with pity, and I don't like it. "I wish you could leave."

"Another six months working in the warehouse and I can. Then I'll be out, and we won't have to worry about it anymore. I can put rainbow stickers on my laptop if I want to. Hell, I could tattoo it on my forehead if I wanted to."

"Will you still come here after you've left?" Jo asks, and I know she must feel it when I freeze in her arms. The lighthearted atmosphere has evaporated, replaced with something infinitely heavier, slippery. It spreads like a new bruise between us.

"I don't know," I whisper. "There are other churches that don't mind. Smaller ones that go to pride and don't teach repression."

"The church we go to now doesn't teach repression."

I lean back, my mouth twisting involuntarily. "This one doesn't teach anything," I say, and the bitterness leaks through my voice despite my effort. "Tiptoeing around the subject is almost worse. They ignore everything--everything that matters. I'm sick of going to services about generosity and financial prudence and how to deal with a marriage gone sour. I want to go somewhere that actually teaches me something."

"Well, we can start looking if that's what you want," Jo says, and I see the concern creased in her features as she studies me. "I hear there's a church downtown that's friendly. We could try there."

"If you're talking about that guy that goes around to all the meth clinics, I--"

"I'm not," she says, grinning ruefully. "But that sounds like fun."

A reluctant chuckle escapes my mouth. "Maybe it would be."

Jo squeezes my hand and I squeeze back, so hard I can feel the bones shifting under her skin. "I should get back."

I groan. "Not yet."

"I have to," she says, and kisses me briefly before stepping back. "The last thing we want is for someone to come looking."

"All right," I say unwillingly. "You'll call me tonight?"

"When will you be out of the house?"

"I can take a walk around eleven," I say. Jo smiles.

"All right." She makes to move past me, but I stop her, and she turns back.

"I love you," I whisper, and the words feel painful as they are wrenched from my mouth, as though the church itself knows what I say, and longs to give me some sort of grace in the confession.

"I love you too," Jo says, and when she kisses me this time, the push and pull of it is arrant and longing, like seawater tides sucking me under, filling my mouth with the taste of salt. I can scarcely bring myself to let her go when she pulls away. Jo smiles at me one last time before her hand slips from mine and walks away, and then I am left gasping in the cold sea spray, the uncomfortable prickle of water in my lungs.

I stare at the bible sitting placidly in the bookshelf when I get home. It has paper like a wax doll left too close to the fire; harsh light is beginning to glow through the testaments written in shaky hands. Those same testaments are printed neatly between covers now, two thousand years of humanity smoothing the injustice written like footsteps burnishing tile.

There is nothing in particular I want to read; I know it all. I still feel bound to pick it up and turn it over in my hands. I remember Jesus braiding the whip, the hours it must have taken. I remember the disciples, who were perhaps nineteen or twenty when they were immortalized, the paralyzing fear Moses's mother must have felt when the crunch of a soldier's footsteps passed her door. It floods my memory, and it's a moment before I can swallow it back long enough to go downstairs.

The news is still on when I walk into the living room, my parents half watching it, half on their phones. "It's Irish," I say, sitting down, and they look at me, surprised.

"What is?" Dad asks.

"The weather woman's accent. She's Irish."

"Oh," Mum says. "I think you're right."

I stare, unseeing, at the television. The faint scent of Jo's perfume still lingers on my clothes, the smell of her strawberry shampoo clinging to the hand that had stroked her hair. It drifts around me in a faint haze. My fingers twist convulsively in my lap.

"Back to you, Julie," the weather woman says.