Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines by Mark Schweizer

opened the door and exited into the church office. Marilyn was at her desk, obviously privy to the commandment she knew would be coming down from on high. She would have also known my reply. “Have a nice day, Hayden,” she said, then smiled an ornery grin and turned back to her computer without another word.
     
    * * *
     
    “Hayden!” Pete called out as I came into the Slab. “What’s the news?”
    “No news since last night,” I said.

The café wasn’t full. It was Monday morning. The six a.m. crowd had come and gone. The next wave arrived at eight. By nine, we had the place almost to ourselves. Meg was at our table, and Cynthia was sitting next to her. Two empty tables over sat Billy and Elaine Hixon. Billy had a lawn service company, but at the end of a cold January, didn’t have much work for a month or so. He and his crew did a bit of clean up around the various properties he contracted with, but these were his down months. Come summer, though, he’d be putting in twelve hour days just to keep up. Elaine kept the books for Billy and also sang in the choir at St. B.
    “I heard you found eight dead bodies,” said Billy. “Cult murders, all found with parakeets in their mouths.”
    “It was only six,” corrected Elaine. “And I heard it was some sort of sex-club.”
    Noylene, who was taking the coffee pot around to the two tables, shook her head in disbelief. “Sex-club?” she said. “Parakeets? What some people will come up with! It was poor Darla in that closet.”
    “Darla?” said Elaine. “ Your Darla?”
    “Yep,” said Noylene. “My poor Darla.”
    I sat down at the table with Meg and Cynthia, and Noylene appeared beside me and filled my coffee cup.
    Billy said, “I thought you and Darla had a big ol’ fight.”
    “That wasn’t me,” said Noylene. “Me and Darla got along just fine. That was that crazy Goldi Fawn Birtwhistle. Darla never did like Goldi Fawn. Said that Goldi Fawn stole her favorite scissors, you know the one with the comb built right in, and Goldi Fawn comes back that Darla poached one of her best customers and even if she did “borrow” the scissors, it was a fair trade. Then Darla says that Goldi Fawn is a lunatic for believing in all that Christian Astrology stuff and she shouldn’t be giving Satanic readings in a God-fearing House of Beauty, and Goldi Fawn says that she’d be happy to give Darla a reading and tell her the exact date when she’d be going straight to hell.”
    “Wow,” said Pete. “Sorry I missed that.”
    “Yep,” said Noylene with a sad shake of her head. “Then Darla went at her with a styling wand. All this during a busy Thursday afternoon when we’re having our special on blue-rinse. The place was packed, I can tell you.”
    Blue-rinse Thursday, as anyone in St. Germaine could tell you, was Noylene’s busiest day of the month. It only happened on the third Thursday, but on that day, every chair in the Beautifery was booked from eight till eight. Noylene had specials now and again, as everyone knew. You could get into the Dip-n-Tan for half off if you timed it right and got the coupon out of the Tattler . College students could get a five dollar haircut on Wednesday morning. If you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to be singled out by the Carolina Neighborly Commission on Beauty — known locally as CarNCOB — and given a citation, you received a fifty-percent discount at any one of the sixteen beauty and stylist shops to which the members of CarNCOB belonged including Noylene’s. The members of CarNCOB spent most Saturdays outside the Walmart Supercenters handing out citations to those offenders who chose to wear spandex leggings with high heels and tank tops.
    Noylene Fabergé-Dupont-McTavish had started the Beautifery and had managed to build the enterprise into a thriving small town business. She was now a wealthy woman by mountain standards, and her last marriage to Brother Hog (yes, THE Brother Hog, nationally known evangelist)