Chapter Nineteen #2
Cordelia followed, with Arline bringing up the rear, refusing to enter before Daisy and Belinda Sue as promised.
The inside of the church was large and open, so different from the maze of halls and doors in the labyrinth beneath the area of worship.
Thick maroon carpet blanketed the floor, while the pristine white walls made the space look much bigger than it was in actuality.
A large wooden cross stood behind a podium with a microphone, and a stained-glass window depicting Jesus with a lamb allowed a kaleidoscope of colored light to stream through.
The effect was intimidating, but maybe that was what they’d been going for. Her momma used to say half of religion was based on how well a preacher could scare people into trying to buy their way to heaven. Cordelia shuffled into a pew at the back with the rest of the chicks.
“I heard they’re bringing in guest pastors until they can hire someone to fill the role,” Daisy whispered. “So the person speaking today might not be here for good.”
Cordelia didn’t much care who was speaking.
Her attention was more focused on the odd looks they kept getting as more patrons shuffled in and headed toward the front.
A few people waved, but this wasn’t like the grocery store.
It was clear this was the one place in town where the chicks didn’t belong.
Daisy shifted in her seat. “Should we be sitting all the way back here? I feel like people keep looking at us like we’re the bad kids in class.”
“We are the bad kids,” Belinda Sue said. “Not much we can do about that.”
Stella entered the church with her friend Gladys and stopped short when she spotted Cordelia and the chicks.
Offering a tentative smile, she rushed forward and took a seat near the front, not daring to look back.
As if she didn’t want the parishioners to think she approved of the chicks being in church.
Never mind that the entire congregation knew where her dearly departed husband spent his Friday nights.
“I’m not sure how this is going to help us if no one even wants to meet our eyes,” Daisy said. “They don’t know we eat supper before saying grace.”
“Just observe,” Cordelia said. “You can tell a lot about people by watching them.”
Cordelia meant to follow her own advice, but she couldn’t keep her gaze from wandering to Stella and wondering if Archer was going to show up and join her in the front row.
Would he be mad that she’d shown up at his daddy’s church?
Or would he file it away under his building belief that Daisy had done something wrong and Cordelia was helping cover it up?
It wasn’t long before the guest pastor took the altar to begin the service, and still no sign of Archer.
Maybe he was busy with work, or maybe he’d never gotten in the habit of attending church after his years as a child forced him into it.
Either way, he wasn’t here, and for that Cordelia could breathe a little easier.
After the service, during which Cordelia had to elbow Arline in the ribs several times when she began to snore, they headed outside.
Daisy filled a coffee cup with sugar donut holes while she promenaded around the lot like a Pomeranian at a dog show.
Stewart Combs, the man they’d been hoping to question, wasn’t anywhere to be seen either.
After standing around long enough to fulfill her duty, Arline clomped back to the car.
Cordelia sidled up next to Belinda Sue. “Are you about ready?”
“In a few,” Belinda Sue whispered out of the side of her mouth. “That’s Edwin Combs Daisy is talking to. I’ll bet she’s finding out where Stewart’s gone off to.”
While she waited for Daisy to finish her conversation, Cordelia took in the small clusters and groupings that made up the town’s social networks.
The handful of ladies whose husbands weren’t allowed near the Chickadee stood together in a tightly knit pack, staring down their noses at everyone else around them.
Their husbands stood in their own circle talking about the latest high school football game and rehashing their own glory days.
Edna and Corbin were among them, which didn’t surprise Cordelia in the least.
On the other side of the parking lot stood a larger group of women.
The ones who did allow their husbands to frequent the Chickadee.
They flitted around the smaller circles they made, laughing louder than was acceptable by the standards of the buttoned-up crowd.
Their groups of men and women mingled. In general, they seemed more relaxed.
More comfortable in their own skins. Probably because they were all getting what they needed out of life.
And separated from the two groups were Stella and Gladys.
Cordelia would’ve thought that being the previous pastor’s wife gave Stella some standing.
But it didn’t seem like either group tried to bring her into their fold, and she didn’t appear to make an effort to gain their favor either.
Occasionally, people from the other side would cross the lot and talk to people who had pull in the community, like the bank manager’s wife or a councilman, but none of them approached Stella.
It was like she was on an island. Cordelia wasn’t sure what to make of that.
She’d just taken a step forward to speak to Stella when Daisy grabbed her elbow. “I got the goods on Stewart. Let’s get back to the Chickadee before the folks who don’t want us here decide to toss us in the river to see if we float.”