Palmetto Moon by Kim Boykin

his skinny black necktie, setting their tongues wagging again.
    The reverend makes his entrance from the back, shaking hands down the aisle and blessing people as he goes. Until he gets to Frank. Smudge stops and stares at him with his beady little Baptist eyes, and Frank stares right back. He will not apologize to God or anybody for following this woman into hell. Vada shakes his hand and he lingers, looking at Frank, not her.
    “How nice to have a visitor in our midst.” She gives a curt thank-you and pulls away, not fully understanding the meanness that is emanating from him. “I hope you find today’s sermon . . . illuminating, my dear.” The bulletin clearly says the sermon title is “The Servitude of Mary and Martha.” But the minute that man tells folks to turn their Bibles to Second Samuel and the story of the
seduction
, Frank knows he is in for it.
    Vada nods and opens her Bible, listening intently, letting the innuendo go straight over her pretty head. According to the reverend, Bathsheba was damned because she could have resisted the temptations of David but
he
didn’t. Several times during the sermon, the reverend got his personal pronouns mixed up. By the time he was done screaming and hyperventilating, it was clear, by his own theology, Bathsheba and especially David were
both
going to burn in hell
forever,
for what they did. And for the first time in twelve years, questions about the rumors were put to rest, and every soul in church knew Mrs. Smudge really had seduced Frank at fifteen. Everyone except Vada.
    If that wasn’t bad enough, the closing hymn was “Oh Ye Abomination,” and Smudge had the congregation sing all six verses. Twice. Frank got some apologetic looks from people who’d openly snubbed him earlier. But everybody there was afraid to shake his hand in front of God and the reverend, so he headed toward the side door of the church and was grateful Vada slipped out behind him.
    “That was an interesting take on the scriptures.” Vada walked beside him, brushing up against his hand but not reaching for it.
    “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know. I’m not much on church. But I did make you dinner before I picked you up,”
and then showered, so I wouldn’t smell like fried chicken
. “I’d hoped we could picnic down by the creek, but it’s still hot. I don’t know how you feel about being alone in the diner with me—”
    “You sound like I should be afraid of you, Frank Darling.” She laughs and reaches for his hand.
    “No, Vada.”
    “After our last kiss, you won’t hold my hand, Frank?”
    “If you can’t feel those churchgoers burning a hole in your back, look over your shoulder and see for yourself. I’ll hold your hand all right, but not now.”
    “Don’t be silly.” She wants Frank to look at her, because she knows he can’t deny those blue eyes anything.
    “You’re a schoolteacher, and we just went to church. People will talk.”
    “I don’t see how this is any different than being alone with you on a date; besides, I smell chicken, and it smells marvelous.” She opens the screen door of the diner, and Frank stops short. He can still feel people standing in the church parking lot a hundred yards away, watching them. He can’t let her do this.
    “I need to tell you something.” She follows him over to the huge mimosa tree with three crates turned on end. Cigar and hand-rolled cigarette butts litter the ground from where the bachelors from Miss Mamie’s congregate to solve the world’s problems. He motions for Vada to sit, and she does, without a thought for her pretty pink dress splayed out on the ground. “It’s about church today.”
    She looks up at him so that he is lost again in those blue eyes. He wants to remember her pretty smile that he will never see again. “The truth is, Vada, I haven’t been to church in years.”
    “Oh, Frank, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. To be completely honest, until today, I’d never wished for the boring