Find all the parts of this story here.
Firsts
Elaine slipped into the pew at the last second, successfully avoiding conversation with the elderly gentleman handing out bulletins and the overly-friendly-looking young mom grinning as she wrangled a sticky young boy back into the sanctuary. So far, so good. She breathed a sigh of relief, opening the hymnal as the pastor announced the opening hymn and the organist pulled out all the stops. Letting her hair fall in a curtain around her face, she inhaled slowly, held her breath for 5 seconds, then let it out slowly. Maybe this would be all right.
“Good morning,” a rumbling, warm voice filled her left ear, jolting her into rigid attention. “Mind if I join you?”
Not even daring to glance at the man, Elaine shook her head and tried to scoot even farther into the corner of the pew. She set her purse to her left as a sort of buffer and stared even more intently at the hymnal. Now if the organist would finish the long—albeit absolutely beautiful—introduction, she’d have a perfectly valid reason to ignore the stranger even more.
“I’m Sebastian,” he started again, and out of the corner of her eye she could just make out his extended hand.
Great, she muttered in her own mind. Now I either have to suffer through the pain and humiliation of my pathetic handshakes or the judgment of ignoring him. Thanks for nothing, sir.
She hesitated too long—or just long enough, perhaps—and he withdrew his hand, seeming unbothered as he picked up his hymnal in both hands and began to sing with a voice even deeper and richer than his spoken one. Elaine forgot to even attempt her usual whisper-squeaks in the face of such a resonant voice. “Open, Lovely Doors” had never sounded more lovely to her ears than it did that brisk fall morning.
The glow faded with the organ music, and before she was ready, the pastor was bidding them to rise for confession and absolution. She shuffled to her feet after carefully setting the hymnal back in the rack. It was no small mercy that the liturgy was printed in the bulletin; at least she didn’t have to try to hold the hymnal while standing.
She tried very hard to focus on the words the pastor spoke, and to join in the responses with the rest of these strangers, but it was impossible to ignore the palpable presence of… what had he said his name was? Samuel? Something like that. She kept catching glimpses of him through her hair, despite her desire to pretend he didn’t exist, and everything she saw made the normal knot in her stomach turn into to an absolute boulder. Besides his beautiful voice, he stood with impeccable posture, was trim and fit, and when he picked up the hymnal, the muscles in his forearms rippled like some sort of fitness commercial actor. The fact that he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows when it was barely 40 degrees outside said a lot.
I would prefer the ground open up and swallow me. Do you think you could arrange that, God? Oh wait. You only did that to really bad people. Maybe I could die of a heart attack? No, too much attention. How about the lights just go out? Darkness would work.
With a burst of heat in her cheeks, she realized she had failed to even look at the correct page of the bulletin when everyone sang the verse of the day, and the man next to her was giving her a quizzical look. She adjusted her hair once more to ensure more of it fell over the left side of her face and furiously sought the current line of the reading. Having caught up just in time to rise for the Gospel reading, she nonetheless held her breath when everyone sang the Gospel acclamation. It was all she could do to remain upright and conscious when she felt so embarrassed. When the sermon rolled around, she spent the entire time having a conversation in her mind.
God, I’m sorry, but I am not going to get much of anything out of this service. What if people are staring at me? I don’t dare look. Why did there have to be so many friendly people, and why is one of them sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME? What am I supposed to do? I have no skills for this. I just wanted to come and listen and go home again in peace. I think I’m going to sneak out during the last hymn. Oh, no, there’s communion! I can’t do that! No, I dare not. I could watch what they do and maybe go next time. Or the time after. What if they have every Sunday communion? What if I make a fool of myself every time? What if they find out I’m Lutheran and ask why I’m not taking communion with them? I don’t know what I’m doing. Why did I come here? Why did I come to this town at all? Aunt Paula, this was the worst idea in the world.
As the congregation rose after the sermon to recite the Apostles Creed together, Elaine rose along with them, but her bulletin wasn’t open. She tucked it into her purse and slipped as quickly and quietly as her frame could move out of the pew and through the back doors. She didn’t stop until she had driven home and parked in Aunt Paula’s driveway, where she sat with a death grip on the steering wheel for a full ten minutes.
“Elaine? Are you all right?” Aunt Paula’s voice startled her out of her reverie. She looked through the window, taking in Aunt Paula’s furrowed brow and breath fogging up the glass. She simply nodded, then waited for Aunt Paula to step back before getting out.
“Do you need anything?”
A shake of her head this time, then she turned to go inside. She heard Aunt Paula sigh, but she couldn’t stop to reassure her. She moved achingly slowly to her bed for the time being, falling onto it as if suspended in molasses, before pulling the pillow over her head. As her breath came faster and faster, she let the tears fall until they dripped into her ears.
This had been the worst idea ever, and she really wanted her parents to come home.