“Fine,” her mother huffed and plopped down next to Erin. “You win. Oh look, there’s Mark and Genevieve!”
“Quiet!” Erin gritted out. She pretended not to watch them make their way down to the front.
“She looks a little chubby,” her mother observed.
“Mother, can you not?”
“I’m just saying.”
The service began with music, followed by prayer. Erin wondered if God would forgive her for speaking in anger.
And for accidentally conjuring a demon.
And for letting said demon do her hair.
Perhaps, she decided, she should save up all her sins and ask forgiveness for all of them at once, when this was all over.
She paid less attention than she should during the sermon, which was on the subject of “Fresh Starts,” because she was too busy trying to watch Mark and Genevieve without it looking like she was watching them. The video projection screen helped a lot, since the camera frequently panned over the front rows.
When the sermon concluded, the ushers stood to prepare to hand out the offering plates after the next hymn.
She glanced at the ushers on her side of the sanctuary—and froze.
One of them wasn’t an usher. It was Andy.
He waved at her.
Her mouth fell open. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed a demon in a red suit and bow tie.
No one else acted as if anything were amiss.
Andy walked to the front of the church. He pointed at Mark, and then gave Erin a double thumbs-up signal.
She shook her head vigorously, not knowing what he was up to but that it was almost certainly a very bad idea.
The audience stood to sing the hymn. The camera panned over the front rows, but Andy was invisible to the camera. Erin looked from the big screen to the scene unfolding in real life as Andy briefly ducked out of her view.
And then Mark’s pants fell off.
The congregation gasped.
Erin could see Mark’s novelty “Check Your Fly” fishing boxers clearly on the big screen before a red-faced Mark pulled up his trousers. The camera quickly pivoted away.
A smattering of giggles broke out across the room, quickly muffled but unmistakable.
Erin’s mother pressed one hand to her chest and used her other hand to fan herself with a folded church program.
Andy walked nonchalantly up the aisle and leaned over the side of Erin’s pew to whisper in her ear. “Caught with his pants down, am I right?” He had the nerve to grin at her before sauntering out of the church.
Erin didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or sprint after the retreating demon and strangle him with her bare hands.
Could you strangle a demon?
There was nothing else to do but silently fume her way through the remainder of the service, until it finally wrapped up with a rousing—and unfortunately ironic—version of the old hymn “It Is Well.”
The moment the congregation rose from the pews, Erin tore down the aisle in pursuit of Andy, with her mother’s cries at her abrupt departure echoing behind her. She crossed the parking lot at a near run and found Andy sitting inside her car with the music turned up so loud she could hear it outside the vehicle.
She tugged at the driver’s side door handle, realized the door was locked, and yanked her purse off her shoulder to rummage in the bottom for the keys. Only then did she realize that the car was already running.
