“It’s Peggy!”
Sure enough, there’s Peggy Ensign, projected on the big screen—rather, we’re watching her on a small screen that projects the big screen for us. She’s in the crowd of worshippers, hemmed in on every side by half-seen, moving people. Her own claps, her awkward jerking motion from side to side, is always a little bit out of step, a little behind the people around her.
“Oh dear,” Holly says. “They really shouldn’t stick people up on-screen like that. But, hey, people like it. They get to see themselves larger than life.”
As she speaks, Peggy realizes she is on-screen. A big, fulfilled smile breaks out on her face, then the camera cuts to one of the praise team beauties, her eyes tightly shut in passionate praise.
“How was the sermon this morning?” I ask.
“New series, Beth. Secrets of a Happy Marriage.”
“Good. I’d better take notes.”
This time I stay for the service, sitting with Holly in our usual spot on the far right-hand side of the auditorium with a flanking view of the stage. The hissing speaker overhead doesn’t bother me, and I pay very little attention to the huge projection screen in front of us. I retreat into myself, thinking of the grass hut on the beach, the Quaker meetinghouse I could never find again, and whether all this time I could have re-created the feeling just by looking at the sky, which was always there. At one time, I had imagined my life as a straight line extending before me, sometimes a pathway, sometimes an arrow. Now I look back and find a twisted coil, as if the once-taut rope of my life was severed at some point and dropped to the floor in a long series of random loops.
As if I’ve been living in circles. Which is a bad thing, if there’s somewhere you need to get. Not so much if you’re already there.
Jed finds me in the lobby afterward, threading his way through the exiting crowd. He’s alone. I brace myself to deliver some encouraging words, but he cuts me off by announcing that Marlene is waiting outside. “I thought we could all go to lunch.”
“How did she enjoy the service?”
He seesaws his hand. The gesture reminds me how much he resembles Gregory, who’s fond of doing the same thing. “She said it would have been better if Dad was speaking.”
“See, you should be proud of him.”
“Mom, I am.”
Something has happened between them. Something big. “You and your dad have made peace, huh? I can tell there’s something different.”
“I don’t know. We just talked, I guess. Everything I hate about this”—he sweeps his hand to encompass the whole of The Community—“I think he hates it too, in his own way. I couldn’t tell him apart from the church. Now I can.”
“You hate it, but you invited Marlene.”
“She wanted to come,” he says. “It’s not like I twisted her arm.”
For lunch Jed takes us to Bertucci, the brick-oven pizza place, where he has a good time acting the part of the grown-up. For church, Marlene took out half her piercings, tamed her hair into a jutting ponytail, and dressed in a girlishly demure button-front dress shapeless enough to have originated in her mother’s closet, or possibly her grandmother’s. Her sweater makes up for this by looking like it came straight from the Mad Max wardrobe room. The two of them seem very cozy in each other’s company, sharing the same pizza, scooting close enough that their elbows touch.
“So, how was it being back?” I ask.
Marlene shrugs. “Just like I remember.”
As critical as I am, the thought of her mental censure makes me feel defensive. I want to stick up for The Community a bit. I suppress the impulse.
“So, you’re going to the Rent-a-Mob this afternoon?”
She nods. Most of the conversation goes like this, me beginning the sentence with So . . . only to watch it fall to the ground.
“This will be your first time,” I say to Jed, stating the obvious.
“If you don’t count D.C.”
“That was quite a fight.”
Marlene chomps her pizza, still nodding. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what Barber was saying, and it pretty much sums up where I am. With the whole Rent-a-Mob thing, I mean. It’s a lot of time to invest, and really, it’s not like any of it makes, like, an impact, you know?”
“It’s more about the experience, Chas would say.”
“Yeah, but that’s Chas. I always wanted it to be for something.”
“So what’s left? Flash mobs?”
Jed lights up. “I think they’re cool.