AllFreeNovel
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“If you want to talk numbers…I can tell you about your new clothing allowance.”
“My allowance,” I laugh, choking on my own spit. “You make it sound like I’m a child.”
His silence hangs in the air for a bit too long.
“It’s a business expense, the clothes,” he tells me, finally. “There’s money for other stuff too. The church wants you to take a more active role. Obviously, you really proved yourself at the center.”
“How much?” I have to ask.
“Plenty.”
“What do they want me to do?”
“That much I don’t know.” He shakes his head, and then gazes off into the distance. “Not for certain.”
“Well, what do you know?”
“I know they’re setting up social media accounts for you.”
“I don’t do social media.”
“You do now.”
“So basically what they want is a replacement for Josie?”
He furrows his brow. “Josie?”
For someone so smart, sometimes he can be really dumb. “Yeah, that was her job. Remember how she was always posting on Instalook?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I do. I watched her. She couldn’t put that damned phone down. Checking, always checking.”
“I never paid att
ention.”
“Have you ever thought about leaving the church?”
“No,” he tells me, meeting my eyes. “Why do you ask?”
I sip my drink and say, “I’m just not sure I understand the appeal.” This, of course, is a lie. Free clothes. A nice lifestyle. A community of like-minded people. It’s all about image. Everything is. I get it. I do. People want to see themselves a certain way, every bit as much as they want others to see them that way. Offer them the chance, shine a mirror on what they think it is they see, and they’ll be putty in your hands. Ripe for the picking, or however the saying goes.
“The church owns me, Melanie.”
I didn’t expect him to say that. I feel like we’ve gotten to the point of oversharing.
“Own you? How?”
“Never mind,” he says kicking back. “You said you had a question about the agreement?”
“You know what?” I down the last of my drink. “I’ve forgotten.”
He doesn’t believe me. “Must be the alcohol. It feels like forever since I’ve had a drink...”
“Twelve weeks tomorrow,” he says.
I raise my brow. I’m impressed. “Yeah, something like that.”
