Free The Glass Is Always Greener by Tamar Myers Page B

suppose it would be texting and tweeting that would get you into hot water.
    At any rate, the service started right on the dot. From somewhere far to our rear a great organ pealed. After a few stirring notes, a youthful worship minister, dressed in an expensive suit and Ferragamo loafers, ran out to the center of the stage.
    “Put your hands together for Jesus!” he cried.
    The response was both invigorating and deafening. For the next half hour we clapped, swayed, and sang ourselves into a spiritual frenzy. Only then did Pastor Sam make an appearance and, in keeping with the mood that had been created, it was no ordinary entrance.
    First, two very young boys (perhaps no older than six) ran across the stage carrying red pendants. Abruptly the music stopped. Three very buff young men (possibly in their twenties) materialized suddenly from either side. They wore only white loincloths and carried long-stemmed trumpets, upon which they played a single triumphant note.
    All eyes gazed upward, for descending from the rafters on a platform jazzed up to look like a cloud was none other than Rob’s first cousin, Pastor Sam. Undoubtedly the majority of the folks there had seen this mockery in the sky a thousand times, but from the hoopla it created, one would have thought it was indeed the Second Coming. C.J., on the other hand, was livid.
    “Abby,” she shouted into my ear, “there ought to be a law against this.”
    “This is America; we have the freedom to get as carried away as we want. Doesn’t your granny’s church use snakes in their worship service?”
    But she was too mesmerized to answer. I’ll say this, Pastor Sam had a first-rate makeup artist at his disposal; the man appeared positively radiant. Even his robes were dazzling white. If I’d tried to imagine a celestial being, this might have been the image I would have come up with.
    Just as the cloud was about to touch the stage floor, Pastor Sam stepped lightly off and faced his congregation with a smile as dazzling as his robes. I even found myself smiling back. Pastor Sam’s smile grew even wider and he locked his eyes on mine. No, it couldn’t have been me he was gazing at so tenderly.
    But then, sure enough, he was walking my way, his eyes still on mine, his right hand extended.
    “Uh-oh, Spaghetti Os,” I said. “What do I do now?”
    “Run, Abby, run,” C.J. said. “I’ll try and hold him off.”
    Her advice only added to my panic. “I haven’t done anything—except to impersonate someone of deeper devotion. That isn’t a crime, is it?”
    “Actually, I think it might be a crime in Idaho—or is that Montana? You know, where that senator’s from; the one with such a wide stance. Personally, Abby, I never did see anything wrong with having a wide stance. Cousin Leopold Singleton Ledbetter back in Shelby had a wide stance; of course he had three legs—”
    But I wasn’t really listening, because my thoughts were on Sam. And that’s exactly where he wanted them to be, because the next thing I knew, that young, blond-haired devil had taken my right hand in his and was leading me up to the stage. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no longer a young chickadee, one that can be easily overwhelmed by a stud muffin’s charisma, but I felt like a virgin bride being led to her bed. That man could generate enough electricity to light up Idaho, or Montana, or wherever it was that folks tend to have wide stances—bless their hearts.
    We climbed a short flight of stairs and kept walking until we reached our mark in the center of the stage. Then Sam slid his arm around my shoulders. I was reminded of the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden and the treacherous serpent. But unlike the first woman ever created, I was no dithering innocent; I knew that the slithering arm spelled trouble, yet I could not bring myself to run. It is no accident, I think, that the first syllable of the word hormones is what it is.
    “Brothers and sisters,” Sam said into