The Lectern

Dylan Smythson wondered if the tea girl’s nipples were pierced, too. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers, his fingers sliding past his wadded handkerchief, and counted his change, two dollars and some cents. He withdrew his hand with the exact amount to pay for his Earl Grey. The attendant raised her metallic eyebrows in mild amusement.

“You’re pretty good at that.” She took a draw on her cigarette and blew the smoke over her shoulder. It surrounded her head like a Byzantine halo, a modern day pierced Madonna.

Dylan smiled. “I’ve been doing that for a while,” he said, adding in a whisper, “You know, I am a minister.”

The tea girl snubbed her cigarette in an elephant-shaped teak ashtray and leaned toward him, resting her bony elbows on the grooved wooden countertop. She motioned him in close. He immediately smelled the type of woman she was: a smoker of clove cigarettes and a wearer of patchouli, which reminded him of marijuana. He tried to recall when the last time it was that he had smoked a bowl. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.

“What?”

“Why do suppose that because you’re a minister you can count exact change with only your fingers?” She had dark raven eyes.

He inched in closer. The steam from his tea misted the air between them. The bergamot was extra pungent. “Because I don’t get paid too well, that’s why. I need to know what’s in my pocket, down to the last cent.”

The tea girl drew close to Dylan, so close that he felt her clove breath on his cheeks. Her smooth face was blessed with fine downy blond hairs that sparkled iridescently whenever she moved in the mod halogen light. He liked that, and he liked the raw possibility of eye contact. “You’re a tight wad,” she mouthed, barely audible.

He wanted to kiss her, right then and there, in front of the patient gathering line, but she moved away and said “Next!” with such urgency that he sloshed his tea over his cup and burnt his hand. He told her thank you and walked to the littered table that held the sweeteners and cream. He added honey, stirred in some cream, adjusted the lid, and walked out into the bright city thinking of Candice, his wife, and the tea girl’s lips.

The spring air was warm in the large lawn in front of the courthouse. Dylan walked through the grass, his overcoat draped over his arm. His plaid shirt was starchy stiff, courtesy of Candice, God bless her. Yesterday, after lunch, he had stuffed his corduroys under the cushion of the daybed in the family room and laid for nearly two hours on top of them, reading Minister’s Weekly, to keep them from Candice’s iron hand. So now his pants were wrinkled but soft, and he was delighted to have outwitted her. Never mind how he’d have to explain his wrinkled mess to her—he had all morning to figure that out. Soft pants, in the grand scheme of things, was worth a tiny lecture. He stopped and looked up at the droopy flag on its stiff aluminum pole. Its flaccid colors hung in the still air like wet laundry. It reminded him of the flag that the elders had insisted on placing in his sanctuary, God’s sanctuary, after much debate, and how, during his homilies, he would catch distracting glimpses of it hanging on its cheap wooden pole. He wanted to put a fan behind it, stretch it out a bit, play with it somehow to make it erect. There is nothing worse than a limp flag.

He stopped in front of an antique store and looked at his reflection in a mirror in the display window. Its wooden frame was ornately decorated, and some of the gold paint was cracked and coming off in little chunks. Dylan smoothed his hair, which was still thick and wavy, sucked in his stomach, and straightened his back. How long had it been since he last exercised, I mean really exercised? Turning and looking over his shoulder, he noticed his butt, formless in his baggy trousers, and the bulging outline of his wallet, overstuffed with receipts and notes. He turned and stepped from his own view. The store was full of furniture, and amid the clutter, about halfway into the store he noticed a lectern. He finished his tea and went inside.

“Reverend Smythson, what a pleasure!”

Dylan turned. A short man rose from behind a desk in the corner of the store and weaved through stacks of chairs to greet him.

“Nice to see you!”

“And you,” Dylan said. The man looked vaguely familiar.

“Thomas.”

“Ahh. Yes. My memory isn’t what it used to be.” Dylan remembered Thomas. He always sat in the balcony, near the stairs, and sang as if he was the voice of God .

“Well your church has grown. I’d have a hard time remembering all the names too, you know.”

“This is your store?”

“It is. Are you looking for something in particular?”

“I was just on my way to look at that lectern.” Dylan pointed.

“And a wonderful lectern it is!” Thomas said. He moved around Dylan and made his way to the lectern. Dylan followed.

“It’s walnut, and as you can see it’s quite old. The varnish has yellowed somewhat, but I think it just adds to its character.”

Dylan rubbed his hand across its top. The varnish was soft and rippled like the sand at low tide. And didn’t we have fun then: teenaged summer holidays at the ocean, walking the beach, dodging ghost crabs and broken shells, wading through warm pools left stranded by the retreating ocean, our bodies supple and willing. Eighteen and smitten with Candice lounging in a tide pool, taken with her looks, her deep brown eyes and strawberry hair, her startling teeth, and those lips—oh those pleasurable lips!—bee-stung lips women kill for. Several months later they were engaged, and several months after that, married. Sex was a blessing from God, and a year later Candice gave birth to their first daughter.

“How much?”

“Don’t you want to shop around a bit?”

“No.”

“Eight hundred dollars,” Thomas said. He removed his reading glasses and hung them from his shirt pocket. He peered at Dylan with little mousey eyes. “But since you’re a minister, I’ll let it go for six-fifty.”

“You’re too kind, my friend.” Dylan shook his hand. “I’ll take it.”

Thomas’s face lit up. “Cash?”

“American Express?”

“That’ll do, I suppose.” He took Dylan’s card to the counter and rang him up.

“There’s just one problem,” Dylan said. “I’ve no way to get it home. It’s got to be heavy.”

Thomas wrinkled his brow and sucked on his pen. “I know,” he said. He rummaged through a drawer for a minute before he pulled out three rubber casters and a drill. “This’ll take care of that.”

Forty minutes later, Dylan was on the sidewalk pushing his lectern home. It wasn’t as easy to move as Thomas said it would be, and he wished for one more caster to balance it a little more. He paused at the coffee shop and peered into the window. The tea girl must have been on break. He wanted to show her his lectern. Maybe she would give up her cigarettes, wear nice perfume, and come to church.

∞ ∞ ∞

Candice’s car was not in the drive when he came pushing his lectern up his grass-eaten sidewalk. Perhaps she was out buying seeds or flowers or other spring time ephemerae that she loved so much. He had stuffed his overcoat onto one of the shelves inside the walnut frame, and his forehead glistened with sweat. Daffodils sprouted from either side of the walk and he accidentally stepped on a cluster as he scrambled to catch his lectern when it tipped defiantly to one side.

“Homely flowers anyway.” He tried to cover his mistake with mulch.

He left the lectern on the front porch and checked his watch. It wasn’t quite noon, but he decided to drink a beer anyway. How long had it been since he’ broken a sweat? Four years at least, probably when he last mowed the lawn. He had spent an afternoon in late summer behind his mower, inhaling dust and blue smoke, and when he finished he sat on the deck sweating and gasping, his lungs screaming for air. It was then that Candice determined that mowing the lawn was an endangerment to his health. “I’m fine,” he wheezed. But the doctor agreed with Candice.

“Your years behind the pulpit haven’t given you many physical benefits,” the doctor told him. The stethoscope gleamed like an angel around her neck. Her examination coat fit snugly around her bust.

“Ah! But the spiritual benefits are plentiful,” he responded.

“But they don’t matter if you’re dead.” The doctor took off her glasses and forced a smile.

Dylan tossed his bottle into the recycle bin and wandered inside to the living room, thinking of where to put his lectern. The corners were stuffed with plants, and he was sure Candice wouldn’t allow him to put it next to his recliner. He heard her voice, somewhere in the back of his head, whispering, “Too much clutter, Dylan. There’s too much clutter.” But how could such a lovely antique be clutter? The dining room was out of the question, as was the kitchen. That left the basement, which was too dank and musty, or the upstairs, which he realized was really the only place he could house it.

Dylan was halfway up the staircase when he heard Candice pull their old Volvo wagon into the drive. Its engine sounded like his grandmother’s sewing machine. He mustered his strength and pulled the lectern up the remaining steps before she came into the house. He heard her drop the keys into the drawer, fill a glass with water, then check the answering machine. He could hear her daughter’s voice, then a man’s voice.

“Dylan?” she hollered.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Just resting.” He leaned his elbows on the rippled surface and listened to her walk into the dining room.

“Where are you?”

“Upstairs.”

She came around the corner, turned on the light switch, and stared up the staircase. “What on earth is that?”

“Do you like it?”

She put her hands on her hips. He was mistaken about her shopping trip. She had just returned from yoga class—or was it Pilates?—and she was still wearing her black lycra tights and an oversized tee shirt. He liked the way she looked, but she never let him touch her in these clothes. “They’re not for that,” she always told him. Nothing she wore was for that.

“It’s a lectern,” he said.

“How much did you pay for it?”

“It’s walnut, and old, too.”

“How much, Dylan.”

“It has a shelf.” He pulled out his overcoat and turned the lectern so she could see the shelf.

She sighed and took one step up.

“Six-fifty.”

“Six fifty!”

“I had to have it. Thomas took one-fifty off.”

“What a deal,” she said flatly. “Who’s Thomas?”

“The loud balcony guy.”

“Oh. He has a store?” She wrinkled her nose.

“It’s full of stuff. Do you like it?” Dylan moved it out of her way as she went into the bedroom.

“Where are you going to put it?” she asked as she dug through a drawer looking for jeans. He walked into the room. The sun was shining on the pine floor.

“In here.”

“In here? There’s no room in here.”

“In front of the window. I can practice my sermons here. You know, look out into the back yard while I preach. Sure beats the office.”

“That means you’ll be home more?’

“Yes.” He followed her to the bathroom door but she shut it before he could enter.

“I suppose that’ll be okay,” she said over the running water.

“Maybe I’ll have more time to cook,” he said, but she didn’t hear him. She had turned on the vent fan. He walked into the sunlight and eased himself onto the floor. The light was warm.

∞ ∞ ∞

After supper, Dylan dug through the plastic grocery sacks that Candice insisted on saving under the kitchen sink. She was loading the dishwasher.

“What are you looking for?”

“The lemon oil for the furniture,” he said. He pulled his head out and watched her fit the silverware tray onto the washing rack. He handed her the detergent.

“That’s in the garage on the shelf next to the paints.” She threw the dishwasher door shut with her hip and turned it on. “You can’t miss it.”

Dylan found the oil along with a cotton rag in the garage. The rag was on his workbench next to the wrenches. It was pink, and the portion of material he held had the Hane’s tag on the collar. He opened the rag up. It was half of an old tee shirt he had purchased for Candice while they vacationed in Florida. “I Love...” The words were faded, and the object of affection was on the rest of the torn shirt, wherever that may be.

The oil shimmered on its surface of the lectern. He started on its top and worked his way down its smooth sides. He removed the casters with a screwdriver and replaced them with felt tabs to protect the floor. While the lectern lay on its side, Dylan noticed some markings underneath. He brushed away the scaly dirt and sticky webs and saw that the markings were little straight lines, clustered in groups of four, with diagonal slash through them. He ran his finger across them and realized that they were etched into the wood. He counted all the etchings by five's, double-checked his math, and came up with four hundred eighty-one before lifting the lectern upright. He looked out the window: the cooling sun was slipping behind the horizon. Dylan shut his eyes and quaffed the lemon-oiled air around him.

After the room darkened, Dylan dug through the stack of books next to his side of the bed, found his Bible, and carried it to the lectern. He felt exposed, his front staring out the black window, so he lit a candle and turned the lectern so it faced the bed. He read from 1 Corinthians, his lips moving to the words in his head: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

Dylan’s reverie crumbled when Candice walked into the room and turned on the light. He covered his eyes.

“Oh! I didn’t know you where in here.” Candice shut the light off and sat down on the bed.

“Just reading,” he said. He took his hands from his eyes and watched the candlelight throw funny shadows onto the wall. Candice’s shadow loomed behind her, and he stared it down.

“Sermon material?” She swung both feet onto the bed and knocked off her shoes. Drawing up her legs and wrapping her arms around them, she wiggled her naked toes and stared at him.

“Trying. Why are you staring at me?”

“You need a practice audience.”

“You want to play secretary?”

Candice tipped her head back and laughed. Her neck was smooth, and her shirt’s plunging neck line revealed her collarbone. “Is that why she’s up there? She’s your sounding board?”

“Well, yes. Why else would I have a secretary?”

“To make bulletins?” Candice stood up.

“Of course, that too. That’s a given.”

“Answer the telephone?”

“Okay.” He shut his Bible quickly and watched her approach.

“Something in there you don’t want me to see?” she asked. She ran her finger across the matte cover of his Bible and grasped his finger, half of which was still stuck in 1 Corinthians, with hers and opened the Bible. “The love chapter.”

“Candice, I was just reading about looking through opaque windows.” He shut the Bible again.

“That’s a good idea.” She reached behind him and released the blinds. They crashed down and bounced off the sill, cascading to the floor.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I like opaque windows, too.” She rubbed her hand across the top of the lectern. “This is a nice piece. I’m sorry I doubted you.” He hadn’t heard those words come from her mouth for, well, who knows how long. Several years, anyway. “I’m glad you got it.”

She grabbed his hand and led him to the bed. “Do you still got it, Preacher Boy?” She took off her shirt.

“Well, maybe I do.”

“Take off my bra.”

“I can’t”

“Do it!”

Dylan fumbled with the hooks, killing what little sexual drive he felt, though Candice seemed unfazed. She took off his wrinkled corduroys and threw them across the room. They landed in a heap on the lectern. “I can iron them later,” she said, getting into bed.

∞ ∞ ∞

Dylan rolled over and looked at the clock on his bed stand. It was a little after midnight. Candice lay quietly next to him, naked, her breasts slowly rising and falling with each deep breath. He thought of all the blandishments and flattery she tossed his way during the extended foreplay. He felt like a dog getting scraps from his master’s table, but it had worked. He wondered if she meant everything she said: his handsome face, his stout (stout!) frame, his strong mind, his willing penis. When he was younger, an erection was an everyday event; but now it was something worth marking in a day planner or jotting in a journal. Dylan’s stomach growled. He snuck out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweats from the floor. Candice barely moved, even after he stubbed his toe on the lectern and swore loudly.

In the kitchen he made a big snack—a ham sandwich on rye, red onions, with extra swiss and a bowl of pretzels—and sat in front of the radio listening to WEZY. The moon was low, and Spica, the bright star in Virgo’s bundle of wheat, caught his eye. Dylan put his dish in the sink and turned off the light to get a clearer view. And there she was now, looking down on him,Virgo the virgin illuminating his libido while he licked mayonnaise from the corners of his mouth and sucked the pork that was wedged between his teeth. He was awed by her beauty, and he put his hand on the black window hoping to feel her heat through the insulating glass. Of course the glass was cold. What does love have to do with astrology? He flipped on the light over the sink, sat down, and played the messages on his answering machine. He heard his breathy, chirppy daughter ramble something about a baby, then listened to Thomas talking on the phone.

“Reverend Smythson,” the message said, “I’m sorry to bother you at home, but there is—how should I put it?—a little matter concerning the lectern that I forgot to tell you about.” He was quiet for a bit. “It’s nothing too serious,” he chuckled, “just something amusing, or rather anecdotal, about that lovely lectern of yours.” Silence, then, “Well, I guess that’s all. See you.” He laughed heartily then said goodbye. Dylan listened to the message several times. During the two periods of silence he had detected a voice, probably muffled by Thomas’s hand over the receiver, that he couldn’t quite understand. He decided he would visit him tomorrow.

Dylan turned out the light in the kitchen then went to the living room and thumbed through an issue of National Geographic before falling asleep on the couch with a blanket draped across his stomach. He awoke around seven-thirty to find Candice sitting at his feet.

“I found this on your face,” she said holding up the magazine. His afghan was piled on the floor.

“Oh.” Dylan sat up and stretched. The sweat pants had worked their way up his crotch. He leaned into Candice to give her a kiss, but she stood quickly.

“I’m going to yoga,” she said, smoothing down her springy hair while looking into the gilded mirror hanging in their living room.

Dylan frowned. “Didn’t you just go yesterday?”

“That was Pilates.”

“Do you have to do that stuff everyday?” Dylan stood up and adjusted his sweats. He was sort of hoping for a little playful time of touch-the-lycra before she left, but he could tell that wasn’t going to happen.

“Just trying to stay in shape.” She turned and looked at him. “You should try it.”

Dylan looked out the window. “I’d rip my muscles doing yoga. All that stretching…” his voice faded.

“Suit yourself,” she said. He followed her to the kitchen and watched her pour coffee into her travel mug over the sink. The steam misted a little section of the window.

“I don’t see how you can drink that stuff. All that acid.”

“I manage.” She pressed the lid into place and took a quick sip. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Don’t buy any more lecterns.” She walked out the door. Dylan followed her. The sidewalk was cold on his bare feet, and he could see Candice’s breath as she walked to the car.

“Candice?”

“What?” She threw her bag into the car.

“Thanks for last night. It was fun.”

“Yeah.” She climbed into the car and backed down the drive, giving him a little wave as she drove away.

∞ ∞ ∞

“Thomas?” Dylan latched the door behind him. “Are you here?”

“Got my message?”

“Yeah.” Dylan scanned the store. “Where are you?”

“Over here. Hold on a second.”

Dylan heard some tools being thrown into a tool box before Thomas popped his head from behind an oak roll top desk. “Here.”

“Nice desk!”

Thomas stood up, stretched his legs. “She’s a work of art, Dylan. You want to buy it?”

“Oh goodness no! Candice would kill me. She nearly did last night.”

Thomas smiled. “Really?”

“Yeah. She about went through the roof when I told her how much I gave you for it.”

“Was it worth it?” Thomas pulled a rag from his pocket and wiped the top of the desk.

“Oh I suppose. It looks nice in the bedroom.”

“Bedroom?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Just an unusual place for a lectern, don’t you think?”

“I couldn’t fit it any where else.”

“What about your office?”

“No. I’m sick of writing sermons in my office. No life there. In our bedroom I can look out the window. Much more inspiring.”

“You’re sermons are always inspiring.”

Dylan smiled. “You’re too kind.”

“Maybe you’re just too hard on yourself.”

“Or not hard enough.”

“Maybe you just need to relax a bit,” Thomas said.

“Maybe. Why did you call yesterday?”

“Oh that!” Thomas smiled. “Funny story. Want some coffee?”

Dylan shook his head and followed Thomas to his desk. He pulled up a chair and Dylan sat next to him and played with the change in his pocket. He wished he’d stopped for tea, said hello to the pretty tea girl and smelled her patchouli.

“A lot of this stuff I consign.” Thomas waved his arm in the air then sipped his coffee.

“Really?” Dylan wanted tea.

“That lectern of yours was a consignment.” Thomas chuckled. “It used to belong to a professor. He was kind of a brainy looking fellow with eyes that bulged behind his glasses. Probably he had a thyroid problem. Had white hairs sprouting from his ears and black ones from his nose.”

Dylan shifted in his seat.

“I don’t mean to keep you waiting. You preachers are a busy lot, I know.”

“No hurry.” Dylan counted the change in his pocket. Two twenty-seven, enough for tea and a scone.

“He wanted me to call you,” Thomas said.

“He did?” Dylan crossed his legs and folded his hands over his knee.

“It’s quite ridiculous, really.” Thomas finished his coffee and tossed the cup into the trash. “He thinks that lectern brings good luck to its owner.”

“How’s that?”

“He claimed it brought him good luck in bed, if you know what I mean. And not just with his wife.”

“Well that’s absurd,” Dylan said. He uncrossed his legs and leaned on the edge of the desk. He thought about the tea girl, then tried to shoo her from his mind with pleasant thoughts about Candice. “Stuff like that doesn’t happen.”

“I doubt him too, but he insisted that I tell you. Made me stop what I was doing and call you. He wouldn’t leave until I did so. I told him you were a preacher, that you could handle it with him on your side.” Thomas pointed up.

Dylan forced a laugh. “Well, it’s like the Psalmist said, ‘The Lord is my strength and my song.’” Such a stupid preacher thing to say.

“I’ll give an amen to that!”

Dylan stood and rubbed his belly. “I should go. Sermon writing awaits.”

“And one other thing before you go. I didn’t notice this myself, but the old guy said that underneath the lectern there are several marks he scratched into the wood, marks he made every time he, well, got lucky.”

“How long did he have this lectern?”

“Ten years, he said. And those scratches only count the times he was intimate while in the presence of the lectern. There were other times, he said, like when he was on vacation, but they were few and inconsequential.”

“Don’t we all wish for the few and the inconsequential,” Dylan said. Crumbs from the rich man’s table.

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. Thanks for the info.”

“My obligation,” Thomas said. “Come back again.”

∞          ∞          ∞

At home, Dylan discarded sermon writing for the joy of tools and screws. He put a brand new bit into his drill and reattached the rubber casters. He found a box of rags in the laundry room, stuffed a few into his pocket, and wiped down his lectern with oil. He sang all the verses to A Mighty Fortress is Our God. He mastered the staircase and the sidewalk and the curbs all the way to the tea house, losing his grip only once as he lugged the lectern over the metal threshold. He then gently guided the lectern into a corner and situated it so that it faced the tables. People watched him for a bit then returned to their coffee.

“Do you play guitar?”

Dylan turned from his lectern. “Guitar?”

“Yes,” the boy said. “My mom said that you were probably setting up to play guitar because that’s what they do in coffee shops. And if you are going to play guitar, could you play Scarborough Fair? It’s my mom’s favorite song.”

Dylan smiled. “I don’t play guitar. I’m going to preach.” He pulled his Bible from the shelf inside the lectern and let it drop onto the rippled top.

“Oh.” The boy ran back to his mom and Dylan watched them leave soon after. He walked to the counter.

“Earl Grey?” she asked.

“And a scone,” Dylan added.

“Living in the lap of luxury, I see. I suppose you’re going to impress me with your coin counting skills,” the tea girl said. She licked her pierced lip.

“And with my preaching.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and she followed his gesture.

“Jesus! Do you have to do that here?” She whipped a dish towel into the sink. Water smacked the mirror and ran onto the counter.

“It’s my calling.”

“Don’t you have a church you can do that it in?”

“I do. But I have this traveling lectern now. See? It has little wheels underneath it.” He pointed to the lectern. The sun was shining on it. “I thought I’d try it out here.”

“How heavenly,” she said. “Do you want me to leave room for cream?”

“I mean, you host all sorts of entertainers…”

“Cream?”

“…some are good, some not…”

“Cream?”

“…but everyone needs the word of…”

“God! Do you want room for cream?”

Dylan turned to her. “Yes, please.”

She pushed a mug across the counter to him. “Just don’t be too loud,” she whispered. “I’ve got a headache.”

“Would you like to touch my lectern?”

“What? No! I’ve got work to do.”

“It will only take a second.”

“No!”

“It’s quite old and smooth, and the top is rippled like the sand at the beach.” He looked hopefully at her.

“What part of no don’t you understand?” She fingered the rings in her ear.

“Okay. But if you change your mind, I’ll be over there.” Dylan counted out his change and gave it to her.

The interior of the coffee shop looked small from behind the lectern, not anything like his musty sanctuary where he needed a sound man and a microphone in order to preach. He had grown to appreciate the microphone because it was something he could hide behind. What did it matter if it was small? It veiled his mouth, and that was enough. He looked out across the wooden chairs and tables. People were oblivious to his presence; they talked among themselves or read newspapers. The tea girl glittered in the lights behind the counter. Her arms were folded across her stomach, and she leaned against the sink while she chatted on her mobile. Dylan caught flashes of the stud in her tongue when she laughed.

He opened his Bible. Genesis? Too cliché. Dueteronomy? Too lawful. He turned a chunk of pages to Job. God—not that. Jeremiah? Lamentations? Why did I ever go to seminary? He flipped back a few books. Song of Solomon. Could I read that here? He looked up and scanned the room for kids. None. He wished he’d had a class in seminary about this book, something more than a general survey of wisdom literature that interpreted the Song of Solomon as a metaphor of Christ’s love for the church. Screw that. This book is a celebration of love, beauty, and sex. Sex! He read the second verse silently: “O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out.” Though he didn’t yet know her name, he thought the passage wonderful. Who cared if it was too risqué a way to start off his first day as an wandering preacher? He could be a troubadour of love. He ignored the doubt and sipped his tea. His hands trembled. His Quaker friends describe the Spirit’s inward movements as a shaking and rattling of your bones, a jarring of your innermost self. And sometimes your chest tightens. And sometimes you can’t breathe. And sometimes you even physically spasm.

Dylan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, neither breath nor sound.

“Dylan!”

He looked up. “Candice…”

“What are you doing?” Candice walked to him and shut his Bible with his finger still in it.

“I’m going to preach.” He tried to smile.

“You have a church to do that in,” she said. “Please don’t embarrass me!”

Dylan looked to the counter. Three women were there, all in lycra, ordering from the tea girl. They were Candice’s friends, her yoga partners. “You brought your friends?”

She ignored him. “I’m taking you home.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not well.”

“I feel fine, great in fact.” Dylan held his Bible at his side. The trembling had left him.

“You’re not yourself. Now get that lectern and come.” She returned to her friends, whispered something, then walked out the door, not waiting for Dylan.

Dylan wheeled his lectern to the door.

“Better luck next time, Preacher,” the tea girl said.

He saw their Volvo in the municipal lot, parked like a dart under a budding apple tree. Candice was stretching her legs.

“What was that about?” she asked. Her sunglasses fell from her shirt and shattered on the asphalt.

Dylan gathered the pieces. “I told you.” He held out his hand.

“Don’t bother.” Candice turned her head and stretched her neck. “You’ll be an embarrassment.”

Dylan slid the shattered lenses into his pocket. The pieces mingled with his change. He opened the tailgate of the wagon and slid the lectern in. Four hundred and eighty-one marks stared him in the face. He shut the door and got into the passenger’s seat. Candice silently started the car then turned on the radio. Dylan looked out the window and thought about the ham sandwich he would make himself when he got home.