The pastor’s ex wanted to dance. To feel the crush of bodies pressing close, skin slipping sweaty across hers. Strobe lights, arms raised, bass beat in her chest. The ecstasy she once knew in church, now smote by life in the spotlight. How long had it been since she lost herself, merging with humanity en masse?
These were the thoughts Abigail articulated to her divorce lawyer as they exited the courthouse.
“I thought you wanted to find yourself,” said Sara. She held the door open for Abigail with her sensible pump. “You might need to use some Vaseline on that.”
With considerable effort, Abigail wrenched the ring from her finger and gave a Beyoncé flick of her hand. “Thank God almighty!” she shouted to the mostly empty parking lot. A security guard nodded and stubbed out his cigarette.
“I will never understand why you insisted on wearing it this whole time,” said Sara.
“Because I was still married,” said Abigail, “and now I’m free.”
“What’re you going to do with—” When Abigail dropped the ring unceremoniously into a green-painted trash bin, Sara’s eyebrows shot up. “I would’ve figured you for a ritual involving sage, or maybe melting down the gold.”
Abigail ran her thumb along the underside of her ring finger, the groove worn into her flesh these past seven years. She’d married the pastor straight out of college at IU, their wedding held the day after graduation, both of them kids unburdened by titles. Abigail fisted her bare left hand and forced herself not to dumpster-dive among the fast-food wrappers, the newspapers wet with coffee, to retrieve the wedding ring which had turned her into someone she did not know. Absent the weight of the ring, her hand felt insubstantial, unmoored. She recalled driving backroads with the windows rolled down, holding his hand while the other made waves on the breeze.
When was the last time Abigail made waves?
The pastor had stared at her ring hand, resting on the yellow legal pad as she awaited his dictation. He’d made recounting her sins, as he saw them, a condition of signing the divorce papers, saying, “It’s important to take responsibility for your actions.” His list focused on her various failures of putting him first—skipping prayer meeting to see a movie, ignoring him to write in her journal, falling asleep while he practiced his sermon. As the litany of sins mounted, so did Abigail’s incredulity. High on self-righteousness, the pastor failed to realize when she started messing with him. “But I made good dinners, right?” she asked. “Your favorite, the shepherd’s pie?” And, “Surely I was all right at cleaning toilets.” Signed documents in hand, Abigail escaped the ambuscade with maybe thirty percent of her dignity.
“So, are you going to take me dancing?” Abigail asked Sara in the courthouse parking lot. She pressed the key fob, and her dusty Toyota chirped awake.
Sara tossed her files, her briefcase, onto her own passenger seat. “I’m not sure that counts as billable hours,” she said.
“You’re my only friend outside of the church,” said Abigail. “That made his hit list, you know, how I refused to meet the church ladies for coffee.”
“Why would you?” asked Sara.
Abigail shrugged. “The role he wanted me to play, I guess.”
Sara peeled off her tweed suit jacket and reached into her backseat for a hanger. She ran a hand through her thick bob, gone half-gray. Then she eyed Abigail’s one business-appropriate outfit, worn on repeat. Since Abigail had given up her teaching position three months into the marriage, she had no professional wardrobe. The apex of her social scene was Wednesday night potluck, so sexy was a nonstarter.
Not unkindly, Sara asked, “Do you have something to wear?”
Abigail clapped her hands. “We’re going out tonight!”
They descended into the dim underground bar after nine o’clock. Abigail placed a hand on the exposed brick wall to steady herself. Her heart skittered as if police lights flashed in her rearview, church ladies backseat for a ride-along. But this was not a Prohibition Era speakeasy. She was no flapper. Although she could see flapping from here, what with Sara’s daughter’s leather miniskirt dangling fringe on her thigh. She gave the fringe a shake and absorbed the crowded bar, the packed dance floor, the DJ spinning throwbacks. Abigail had to agree that it was raining men. Hallelujah! After seven years of obligatory sex, or no sex, cold side of the mattress distant by miles, she emitted a guttural growl and said, “Hell hath no horny like a woman scorned.”
Then she shouted over the music, “I want to kiss a stranger in a bar!”
Sara took her by the hand. “Let’s get you a drink first.”
How did it even happen? Tongue of the unknown. Abigail strained to imagine lips getting close enough, the asymptotic approach, closer and closer still until—she shivered. She eyed the candidates peopling barstools. There was a G-man with a square chin, his tie undone. Abigail imagined licking his five o’clock shadow. A group of thirty-something bros in open plaid shirts surrounded a high-top table. Someone told a joke and the tall one, Legends of the Fall-Brad Pitt, threw back his head in open-throated laughter. Abigail stroked her own neck. The most intriguing prospect brooded alone in a booth wearing a terrible suit vest, his poet shirt hanging loose. Abigail imagined tracing his cheek with a feather quill.
Sara pulled out a barstool. “What’re you drinking? My treat.”
Abigail made a face. “I mean, sometimes we had wine at home? He drank a beer on Saturdays.”
Sara sighed. “Vodka sodas.” She held up two fingers to the bartender, an exceedingly tan young woman with a bottle opener tucked into her satin bustier. “Actually—” Sara glanced at Abigail “—better make one a cosmo. And a couple of waters, please.”
The plaid shirts decamped to a pool table in the back.
“You know what I really want to do?” Abigail watched as Brad Pitt lifted a cue from the rack. Chalking the tip, he blew away dust.
“I can’t wait.”
“Sex on the beach,” said Abigail. “Everyone should have sex on the beach at least once in their life, don’t you think?”
Sara choked on her water. “Let me save you the trouble. Way too messy. Where do you think all the sand goes?” Their cocktails arrived, and they clinked glasses. “To freedom!” said Sara.
Abigail carefully sipped. The drink tasted sour and medicinal, like the cranberry juice she’d drunk one time to treat a UTI. Which was fitting, since Sara was her legal doula, titrating bad news like fees (discounted: the pity rate) and settlement (nearly nothing) to manage the pain of Abigail’s rebirth. On the next stool over, the G-man settled up his tab. Abigail breathed in his sophisticated-smelling cologne and scrambled for something to say. All she came up with was, Hi, I’m Abigail—her standard greeting during the passing of the peace. Saying nothing, she slumped on her stool as he headed for the stairs.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt free,” said Abigail.
“What about today, in the parking lot?” said Sara. “That’s a start.”
A couple on the dance floor got low, their bodies hermetically sealed. Then Abigail lost sight of them in the churn of skin, the sheen of ecstatic faces. One woman, barely standing, clung to her partner like the last stick of driftwood. Abigail had never wanted to be that girl, instead striving for classy. In games of fuck, marry, kill, she knew where she stood.
There had been this one time, back in high school: the night on the boat.
Abigail sucked her lime.
She recalled the ragged shoreline, the scent of pines, the purple darkness netted by stars. Her boyfriend had dropped anchor in the middle of the lake. Its splash reverberated in the silence. Jeans hugging his hips, he switched on the radio and pulled her close. He sang about making love, did she look in the mirror. Then he lowered her body to the deck, boat rocking.
Abigail drained her glass and stood. “I’m going to find a dance partner.”
Abigail went on two dates with Brad Pitt—his name was Timothy—before she brought up the boat fantasy. Realizing her desire to recreate the memory might creep him out, she stuttered a little, but he was into it. Their first outing had been a double date, with Sara and her husband Gerald, to trivia night at Applebee’s. Their second: an evening of mini golf, putting and flirting like teenagers, culminating in a chaste kiss goodnight.
Abigail wanted more.
Timothy, who acted in local television commercials, sometimes regional theatre, and occasionally referred to himself as a TV star, got to thinking about memories of his own. On the drive over to his buddy’s lake house, thirty minutes outside of town, he said, “There was this one time, on a hayride in the fall?”
“Actually”—Abigail made a face—“I’m not sure I have the stomach for this game.”
“Double standards, eh?”
“Thanks for listening to mine,” she said.
Timothy gave her a look like, are you kidding me? “Anything in the service of girls gone wild.” He flashed his toothpaste-ad grin. (Timothy had, in fact, booked a gig hawking toothpaste.)
Abigail looked out the window, corn husks silhouetted in the dark. Is that what she wanted? Wildness? The word didn’t seem quite right. Surely there was some middle ground between feral and housebroken, continually made to heel. On her parents’ last visit from Minneapolis, the pastor had affixed a Post-it note to the television screen: We don’t watch TV on Sundays. Abigail would never forget how her father’s face had blanched colorless, while she stood silent, quaking in shame. Her father pulled her aside, later on: “I know you love him, Abigail, but we raised you to love yourself.” Her mother quietly nodded, impassive as usual. If her mother had thoughts to contribute, she did not say.
Was that the moment Abigail decided? Despite having no employment, no savings, no financial support; and faced with the loss of her entire community; something had to give. Other than her integrity.
“Place is just up ahead,” said Timothy.
Abigail squeezed together her thighs. She recalled Timothy’s lips on hers, soft and unhurried. His inquisitive hands tracing her face. She wiped her palms on her jeans. “Do you, uh, come here often?” she asked.
Timothy slowed then turned onto a dirt driveway covered over in fallen leaves. “Used to, back in school. Everyone’s so busy these days. Sometimes we all come out on a holiday. Guys bring their kids.” Timothy shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.
They crept up the drive. Abigail shivered, glad she’d worn a sweater. Only now did she realize a crucial flaw in her romantic reenactment: the night on the boat had occurred during summer. She mentally hit rewind and queued up a version set in the fall. She peered out the windshield, squinting into the darkness. Something furry, a raccoon, scrabbled across the drive. Timothy hit the brakes. They both nervously laughed. Abigail dug her fingernails into her palms. Another flaw, hopefully not fatal, was having urged a nighttime tryst in a remote location with a man she barely knew.
Timothy parked beside a darkened clapboard house. The only light came from a webby porch lamp ringed in moths. On the drive over, Abigail had trembled in anticipation; now, her skin felt clammy. What did she really know about Timothy? Other than, when she looked at him, she forgot about everything else. Weren’t serial killers known for their distractingly good looks? Abigail released the seatbelt and sprang from the car. When she breathed in the smoke from someone’s chimney, her muscles relaxed. At least the lake wasn’t completely deserted off-season. Would someone hear if she screamed?
Timothy shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it across her shoulders.
“Thanks,” said Abigail, feeling reassured—as if murderers never warmed up their victims. Pulling the jacket close around her neck, she silenced her sense of foreboding. She followed Timothy down to a boat dock with a covered slip.
Timothy reached up and felt among the rafters, exposing well-crafted abs. Abigail swallowed hard.
“Aha!” Timothy retrieved a set of keys with a floating buoy. “It’s not really a hiding place if everyone on the lake knows where you keep them.”
Abigail murmured something unintelligible and felt in her pocket for her phone. Worst case, she could call Sara. Or her father, though he wouldn’t be much help from Minnesota.
“Can you give me a hand?” asked Timothy. He untied the straps and peeled back the canvas boat cover. “She’s in good shape,” he said with admiration. “Mr. Needham always was particular about boat maintenance.”
Abigail glanced at the name scrolled across the hull: Need to Breathe.
Gathering herself, she pitched in, rolling back the heavy canvas. She noted the boat deck was made of wooden slats and recalled that her boat had been carpeted, providing a soft landing, gentle on her back.
Now Timothy was really getting into it. Throwing off the rope lines, he hopped in and offered his hand. “Care to board the love boat, m’lady? We’re making another run.”
Despite herself, Abigail laughed. She took his hand and stepped gingerly over the side. She dusted off the passenger seat, only a little musty, and sat with her hands clasped around her knees. Maybe the boat wouldn’t start. Did she want the boat to start? Her heart beat faster.
Timothy turned the key, and the engine roared. “Memory lane, here we come!” He checked over his shoulder and started backing from the slip. “I filmed this commercial once, for Hoosier Boat & RV Storage? Those skills are coming in handy tonight.”
If Timothy had been type-cast in the commercial (not to mention this fantasy) as the All-American Male, it was working: Abigail wanted to buy what he was selling. To really experience this love-life reboot, she had to go all in. Gritting her teeth, she threw off the leather jacket and drew close to Timothy at the wheel. She curved an arm around his waist.
They were halfway out of the slip when the boat sputtered and stalled. Softly cursing, Timothy again turned the key: nothing. He moved the lever in and out of gear: still nothing. Then he wiggled the key in the ignition, and they heard a click-click. Timothy cupped the back of Abigail’s head, stroking her hair. “Did you ever fantasize about dry docking?”
Abigail squinted up at him. “Is that a sex joke?”
Abigail shifted her shoulder blades on the hard wooden slats, trying to get comfortable. Timothy, who also knew the location of the spare housekey, had offered to find some blankets. Wanting to preserve the authenticity of the moment, Abigail had declined. She soon discovered her high school boyfriend had not been a proficient kisser. Neither, for that matter, had been the pastor. She couldn’t help wondering if Timothy had benefitted from the instruction of an on-set intimacy coordinator. He was definitely good at this.
Still, her mind was faraway. At the moment: reviewing her FAFSA application for grad school loans. If the loans kicked in, she could make ends meet, maybe. Her parents had sent a small nest egg (more like egg white, with a bit of shell) to “set up house,” covering her first and last months’ rent. Taking out school loans was risky, but a graduate degree would provide options to the classroom. Having options proved frighteningly expensive.
As Timothy expertly rained kisses along her collarbone, Abigail stared at the roof of the boat slip. She missed seeing the stars. She also missed the smell of familiar skin, the feel of familiar shoulders, though she hated herself for it. Her body might be contractually free, but, in her heart, she was cheating. Like pointing a dog’s face toward its leavings, she forced herself to recall the pastor’s late-night counseling appointments, preying on women in distress.
With determination, Abigail reached down and peeled off Timothy’s shirt. “Is that too cold?” she whispered into his neck.
Timothy lifted her sweater to just beneath her bra, so their bare midsections were touching. “We’ll keep each other warm,” he said.
This must be what was known as seduction. Had Abigail ever been seduced? She flashed to the moonlit lake, the sharp scent of pines. Her brain melted and glitched, fuzzing that night with this. Soon she forgot the cold, the stalled motor, the wooden slats, as their bodies moved in sync, kindling heat.
Abigail pulled back, gasping. “Can you turn on the radio?”
“What?” Timothy panted, unbuttoning his jeans.
“The radio.” Abigail pointed toward the console. “There has to be music.”
Shirtless and sweaty, Timothy sat back on his heels, a modern Adonis. “You’re still back there?” His face creased, registering pain.
Abigail pulled down her sweater to cover her torso. She pushed up on her elbows. “That’s kind of the point,” she said.
Still breathing ragged, Timothy muttered, “I’ve had enough of playing parts.”
Abigail was surprised that he sounded truly injured. “Timothy, I didn’t mean—”
“I thought, as an entry point—that is not a sex joke!—then fine, whatever. It could be fun.” Timothy stood now, hands on his hips. “You know I’m a real person, right? I’m not that guy.”
“It’s not about that,” said Abigail. “I barely remember him.”
“Like I’m some plug and play.”
Abigail pressed her lips together and resisted making another joke. They were both quiet for a minute. A fish jumped; its splash echoed across the lake. Abigail fell back against the wooden slats and covered her face with both hands. It had taken Timothy the TV Star maybe twenty minutes to stand up for himself, insisting on being treated as a full human being. How had it taken Abigail seven long years? Was she a real person, even now? Do not cry, she told herself. The vibe does not need another nail in its coffin.
Timothy stared up at the house. He scratched his neck. Then he knelt and reached for her. “Look, never mind,” he said. “It’s all good. Forget I said anything.”
“No, you’re right.” Abigail scooted backward. Feeling around in the dark, she handed him his shirt. “Do you mind taking me home?” she asked.
Timothy exhaled. “Yeah, no problem,” he said and pulled on the shirt. “I’ll put the boat away. Why don’t you wait in the car?”
Abigail wandered instead to the end of the dock and sat, legs dangling. The night had appeared moonless; now, she noticed the barest crescent slung low over the water. A greenish light shone from a neighboring dock.
Married for the entirety of her adult life—do your 20s even count as adult?—Abigail was a grown woman with zero life experience outside of the church. She needed a do-over of her 20s, in her 30s—this time on her terms. What did she want, exercising her inherent freedom to decide? Any adult exploration of religious faith must begin with faith in herself.
But she didn’t even know her taste in men! Her type had a clerical collar. Not anymore, thought Abigail. She slumped forward and rubbed her temples. How did men and women interact in the real world, sans chaperone? Abigail’s dating experience had mostly been pink and blue sides on the church bus: “No purpling!” the youth leader had said. Inside the cloister of trust-and-obey, she understood exactly what was expected of her—and everyone else.
Steps approached from behind. “All set,” said Timothy. He reached out a hand and pulled her to standing.
Abigail looked into his blue eyes. “I’m really sorry,” she said.
Timothy waved a hand. “No need.” They did not touch as they walked back toward his car. Then he said, “You know I realize I’m a failed actor.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—” Abigail’s cheeks warmed, embarrassed on his behalf.
“No, I want to,” said Timothy. Abigail glanced sideways, but he stared straight ahead, cheekbones riding high. “You have to accept your path,” said Timothy, “your choices, and where they’ve led you. Back when I lived in L.A.—” he shook his head and whistled low “—well, I never saw myself moving back home.”
Abigail considered her own narrow path. Her last real choice had been a Faustian bargain, trading the pastor’s certainty for her free will.
“I’m afraid,” said Abigail, “like actually afraid, I don’t know where to begin. I always focused on his needs, submitting my own. That’s the deal, you know? The man is head of the household. As spiritual leader, he calls the shots. Left to my own devices, I’m terrified my desires are sinful and wrong, like I’m somehow … wanton.”
“Like the Chinese food?”
“No, wanton,” said Abigail, “like I’m this dangerous, immoral woman.” How could she explain? By signing the divorce papers, Abigail had gone from pastor’s-wife Madonna to pastor’s-ex whore. Both roles defined by him and his status. Both narratives that he controlled. “I mean, look at me!” said Abigail. “First time out of the chute, I hurt you with my want.”
“I think I’ll be fine.”
“No, I’m serious,” said Abigail. “The whole church thinks I wear this scarlet letter. ‘How could she leave that wonderful man?’ That’s what they say.”
“Thank God you left that man,” said Timothy.
Abigail looked up at him. “Really?”
“Really,” said Timothy. “I’m not certain of … well, almost anything. But, about that, I feel sure.”
“Lack of certainty,” said Abigail. “How refreshing.”
“Well, anyway.” Timothy nudged her shoulder. “You sure as hell show creative promise.” He twined his pinky in hers.
Abigail looked down at their joined hands: his skin tanned, hers pale and freckled. She thought for a moment. Was it too lame to admit out loud? Whatever the opposite of judgment was, that’s what she felt from Timothy. “There is this painting class,” she said.
“Perfect,” said Timothy, “the here and now.”
As they passed the boat slip, Abigail skimmed her fingers along the canvas cover. “Maybe I’ll paint this night,” she said. “I’ll paint the Need to Breathe.”
