Chapter 6
Chapter Six
We took our time on the walk…not as though there was any choice in the matter.
Between maintaining our cover and Gertie’s shot knees, it was necessary.
We were the last to arrive with only a couple minutes to spare.
Three other women stood in a row looking at Zion, who stood at the edge of a wide bayou.
He smiled when he caught sight of us and the other ladies turned around.
To say they were surprised to see three approaching nuns was an understatement.
Midtwenties. Five foot five to five foot seven.
A hundred twenty pounds give or take, ten of it hair extensions and boobs.
All bottle blondes. All wearing matching skimpy yoga outfits in different colors.
All looking at Zion with adoring looks. Zero threat unless they figured out Zion was into me.
Women like this were worse than the CIA in disabling their competition.
We made our way over and Zion made introductions, but I promptly forgot their names as they were now embedded in my mind as the three Barbies.
They were obviously confused by our presence but since we were no competition, they quickly lost interest and turned their attention back to Zion, who I could tell basked in the admiration but was careful not to give any indication of interest. Maybe none of them had cabins he wanted to get a hold of.
I struggled not to shake my head. What had the world come to when a man was more interested in getting his hands on a woman’s cabins than her big fake boobs? But then I guessed business really was business.
“Now that we’re all family,” Zion began, “let’s get into the reason we’re all here. Centering your mind with your body is the best gift you can give yourself.”
“The Lord is the best gift you can give yourself,” Gertie said. “Or maybe an Aleve.”
One of the Barbies giggled, then covered her mouth with her hand when she saw the disapproving look on Zion’s face.
“This is a physical centering,” Zion said. “Our spiritual center is a very individual journey and not one I’m qualified to take you on.”
“Individual my foot,” Gertie said. “There’s God and then there’s phonies.”
Ida Belle jabbed her in the ribs. “This is not helping Sister Britney in her time of need. I suggest you start centering your body by closing your mouth.”
“Let’s start by relaxing the body so that we can relax the mind,” Zion said, and sank gracefully onto the ground in a cross-legged sit.
Ida Belle and I followed suit, Ida Belle not as gracefully, but without mishap.
Gertie, on the other hand, squatted a bit, then dropped onto the ground and fell over onto her side.
A grape rolled out of her habit, and she picked it up and popped it into her mouth.
The three Barbies were all struggling not to laugh, and I’ll admit to scratching my face to hide my grin. Zion had no idea what he was in for.
“Okay,” he said. “Now everyone, relax as much as possible while remaining in a seated position but maintain an erect torso.”
“Erect is not relaxing,” Gertie grumbled, but she pulled herself up straight.
“Now,” he continued, “we will learn to breathe.”
“Oh for Heaven’s sake,” Gertie said. “If we didn’t know how to breathe, none of us would even be here.”
“You need to know how to breathe properly.”
Zion’s expression remained serene, but I could tell he was struggling to maintain it.
I had to give him points for patience. And if the average attendee was anything like the character Gertie was playing, I had a little bit of sympathy for his thieving ways.
The man was probably looking for enough money to get away from people forever.
We spent several minutes learning how to breathe properly, which was a bunch of hooey.
If people really wanted some useful breathing lessons, I could have trained them on holding their breath for several minutes, which saved lives if you were in an underwater scuffle or a chemical or smoke grenade had been launched at you.
But since I was supposed to be a naive, innocent nun, I had to pretend to find all of this incredibly interesting and worth trying.
It was so much easier when I could just shoot people and go home for dinner.
Once we were all breathing properly, Zion explained the meditation exercise to us.
We were to focus on the sound of the water, lapping at the bank, and attempt to screen out all other noise, including the noise of our own thoughts.
The only other sound allowed was if we could hear the beating of our hearts.
I closed my eyes, mostly so he wouldn’t see my eye roll, forced a serene look on my face, and mentally started running down my firearms inventory so that I wouldn’t doze off.
If I had been home, this would have been prime naptime weather.
The sun was shining bright but there was a gentle breeze coming off the water.
It was hot but not blistering, and the humidity was probably only 80 percent, which was a sight lower than the normal two thousand.
I had just finished inventory and decided I was deficient in a couple areas when Zion said it was time to return our now-melded bodies and minds to the present.
I have no idea where he thought we’d all gone because even wearing yoga pants and a habit, I could still feel sand digging into my rear.
There was no escaping the present when it was offering up a sand wedgie.
I heard giggling as I opened my eyes and then snoring to my right. I looked over and saw Gertie, slumped over on the ground, out for the count. Ida Belle was staring up, her hands pressed together, and I wondered briefly if she was praying for deliverance or rain.
I leaned over and gave Gertie a shake and she jolted up, her glasses dangling from one ear.
“What?” she asked, looking around. “Did Christ return? Because that’s the only reason to wake a sleeping nun.”
“If Christ had returned, you wouldn’t be here,” Ida Belle said.
“Who says I am? Maybe we all ascended.”
“Your snoring says otherwise. You’re supposed to get a new body in the afterlife, not limp in there with old goods.”
“What kind of nuns are you?” one of the Barbies asked.
Gertie stared at her as if she was stupid. “Catholic.”
“Let’s all stand and stretch our bodies before we head to bar,” Zion said.
“Whoo-hoo!” Gertie cheered. “I love a bar almost as much as forgiveness.”
Zion gave her a tight smile. “We’ll be serving cucumber smoothies with additives to help cleanse your body of toxins. It’s all part of your journey to mind-body connection.”
“The only connection my body is going to make with cucumbers is gas,” Gertie grumbled.
The three Barbies giggled again, their heads down, trying to hide their amusement from the obviously disapproving Zion, who rose from his seated position exactly as he’d sat. One fluid movement as if he didn’t have bones.
Everyone else did a normal knee-to-butt thing except me, who chose to show off my skills and rise as fluidly as Zion had. He gave me an appreciative nod.
“You have very good muscle control and balance, Sister Britney,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll seek to further your education in this form of enlightenment after the retreat.”
“Maybe I will,” I said, pasting on a fake cheery smile. “I really enjoyed the meditation. We pray a lot, of course, but I’ve never really sat in reflection for that long on anything but Scripture. I can see where it would really help to clarify thought.”
Zion practically beamed, and the three Barbies looked confused. I wondered if they were trying to figure out if being jealous of a nun would send them to hell.
“I’m going to need some help here,” Gertie said. “Darn knees have locked up completely being down on the ground this long. Next time, you need to get me a chair or something.”
She was leaned to one side, trying to push herself up, but it wasn’t happening.
“Let me assist you,” Zion said as I leaned over to help her up.
We each took an arm and Zion said, “On three…one, two, three.”
We both pulled upward and Gertie gave it everything her knees had, which turned out to be much more than either of us had reckoned on.
And Zion must have been stronger than he looked.
Gertie had still been leaning slightly toward Zion, so when we pulled, she flew up, her head cracking Zion directly under his chin.
But her knees weren’t yet warmed up and buckled as soon as she tried to stand. She fell to the right, grabbing on to Zion to try to maintain her balance, but all she managed was to pull his yoga pants down to his knees, exposing the very tiny bright red bikini underwear he had on.
And very skinny legs. Why did yoga guys always skip leg day?
With his pants wrapped around his knees and Gertie wrapped around his thighs, and both of them right on the slope of the bayou, there was no preventing the fall. They crashed onto the ground, then rolled toward the water, picking up momentum as the slope got steeper.
It was a bundle of black with flashes of red moving like a tumbleweed for the bayou.
And someone was screaming. Given the high pitch, I would have said it was Gertie, but knowing Gertie and given the situation, it was more likely Zion.
I probably should have tried to stop them but to be honest, I was afraid I’d end up grabbing something I didn’t want to touch.
Instead, Ida Belle, the Barbies, and I all stood and watched as they hit the bottom of the slope and splashed into the edge of the bayou. Now that they’d stopped rolling, we all rushed down to help, and then a strange woman ran up from the side.
“What the heck is going on, Zion?” the woman asked, hands on her hips, staring down at the fray below her.
Midtwenties. Five foot four. A hundred five pounds. Low muscle tone. Zero threat to me, but the wedding band on her left hand probably represented a big threat to her husband, especially in his current state.