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outfits,” I called back. “Something that’ll do for this in-between weather.”
    â€œOh, good. I can go shopping.” She gave a light laugh, but didn’t reappear in the bedroom.
    I waited while she put on a blouse and skirt, hoping that she’d exercise some speed so that I’d have time to bring up the matter that was weighing so heavily on me.
    â€œHazel Marie, as soon as you’re ready, I need to talk to you.” Maybe that would light a fire under her.
    â€œMa’am? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
    â€œI said . . .” But by that time she was back in the bathroom, running the hair dryer, so I gave up. Raising my voice over the racket, I called, “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
    Â 
    We slid into the pew, taking our places between Sam and Little Lloyd just as Pastor Ledbetter entered the sanctuary behind the choir on their procession down the center aisle. Sam held the hymn book out for me, and I began mumbling the words. As we sat down, he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head toward Hazel Marie. I shook mine and whispered, “I couldn’t tell her. She was too busy getting ready.”
    He leaned close and whispered back, “Just as well, because I’m having second thoughts about telling her at all.”
    I frowned at him, but it was neither the time nor the place to raise questions. Pastor Ledbetter had started the service, and I had to appear to pay attention.
    The thought of our impending peril was enough to keep my mind far from the pastor’s preaching, but gradually I began to notice something else going on in the congregation. I caught LuAnne Conover’s eye from her place across the aisle, as she smiled at me in a curiously knowing way. Then when we stood for another hymn, Helen Stroud leaned from the pew in front of us and whispered, “We’re all praying for you.”
    Then, bless Pat, if I didn’t notice two other women nodding and smiling directly at me in what I took to be an encouraging way, and Margaret Easley, who was sitting behind us, patted my shoulder as one of the deacons started the collection plate down our row.
    Something was going on, and all I could think of was that Brother Vern had started his tell-all campaign already. Lord, surely not this soon. Why, he’d not given us time to refute his claims, or do any tests, or threaten a lawsuit, or anything.
    I bowed my head, hoping that they’d all assume I was in a state of prayer. I was, but I was also trying to hold myself together. All I wanted to do was get out of there and be safe in my own home, along with Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd, and Sam, of course, far from whispers and knowing glances. We just had to put the brakes on that meddling snake-oil preacher, and if it meant digging up Wesley Lloyd Springer, I was about ready for a shovel.
    Before I married Sam, it had been my custom to bypass the bottleneck in the vestibule when the service was over and slip out the side door. I felt no need to shake the pastor’s hand just to let him know I’d been in attendance or to tell him I’d enjoyedhis sermon, when nine times out of ten, I hadn’t. And on that subject, a sermon that had the fires of hell as its topic wasn’t all that pleasant to contemplate in the first place, although any number of people will go out of their way to tell the pastor they’d gotten enjoyment from it.
    But the days of evading the press at the main door were over, for I’d married a gregarious man who liked nothing better than to greet and socialize with everybody he met. So, we shuffled along with the crowd toward the pastor in his black robe who stood at the door, smiling as he accepted accolades for his performance. And, wouldn’t you know, but just as we drew near, Adelaide Simpson, who’d crippled a dozen people in the line with her walker, held up everything to tell the pastor the latest on her pool-playing son who