Page 12 of Bows & Eros
He had been thrilled to have someone to share his historical enthusiasm with and had taken me into areas of the little church that still required some repairs to be entirely safe for public traffic. There was a chipping fresco on the rear wall of the balcony that could do with restoration, and several areas where a skilled mason would benefit the community as a whole. We loved it as it was, because there was certainly no money for restoration in the parish bank account or in the town's meager upkeep funds.
It was one of the things I had been turning over in my head this morning when planning for this weekend's town council meeting. God, but that seemed like a thousand years ago now.
I glanced over at Ethan Weaver as he held his hand out for mine to climb an uncleared snow bank over the curb that led to the church driveway. Today had been surprising in more ways than any sane person could count, but I was still unsure about Ethan himself. He wasn't a contradiction of my formerly held beliefs exactly. Hewasan absent-minded parent with a tragic sense of fashion, but he was a lot of other things too that I hadn't foreseen.
I thought again about the way he'd charged in to break up the hormone-fueled fiesta of bad decisions under the school bleachers. He hadn't seemed aloof or spaced out in that moment at all. He had been sharp eyed and determined and had performed the task with impressive efficiency.
I frowned.
He had brought me a hat and mittens back at the house, even after I had barged in and shouted at him. He had observed how cold I was before I'd even felt it myself. How could a man like that also be the guy who forgets about Family Fun Day?
"What on earth," he muttered, pushing back the brim of the red and white beanie and squinting through the beam of sunlight. "Noor. Look at all these people."
It startled me.
I hadn't even been aware he knew my first name, much less that he felt inclined to use it. I had been so deep in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed at all the restless mob of people crowding into the church's antechamber until we were almost upon them. There must have been a hundred people here, if not more, and they were clearly buzzing with a worrisome aura of impatience.
We approached the red doors, which were wedged open with cinder blocks, but were halted before we could try to step inside the church.
"Oh, don't even bother!" snapped Pam, the cashier from the local hardware store, as she looked me up and down and glanced over my shoulder at Ethan. She put her hands on her hips and heaved an irritated sigh. "The rest of us have been waiting for hours and still might not get through tonight."
"Waiting for what?" Ethan asked, clearly just as baffled as I was.
"I won't do anymore!" shouted Pastor Dan from deep inside the room. He was shoving his way through the throng of people with his elbows and shoulders, like a linebacker instead of a seventy-something-year-old semi-retiree. He must have had more heft in his body than I'd wagered, because he was making good headway, poking people in the bony bits of their ribs to make them move. "I can't! I won't! This is crazy!"
We stepped back to allow him to continue in his path, though once he'd burst through into the outside and crumpled forward, hands on his knees, gasping up the cold air, we tentatively followed. Sadly, so did the mob.
"Just ... just leave me!" he panted, swatting his arm in our direction like we were buzzing flies. "I'm an old man and I can't."
"Ethan," I said helplessly, placing a hand on the pastor's bent back.
He gave my shoulder a squeeze and turned to the crowd, herding them back with a bark of authority that would have made me jump if I weren't so involved in trying to comfort Pastor Dan.
"Oh, Miss Avri," the pastor said miserably. "Not you too."
"Take some deep breaths," I murmured. "It's okay."
He did as I asked for a moment, inhaling and exhaling in a rhythm with me. It seemed to work, because he was suddenly well enough to rear back and shout, "You can't marry someone you barely know!"
"I don't want to!" I replied immediately, glancing over my shoulder at Ethan, whose arms were thrown open like a bouncer at a rowdy rock concert, holding back the masses. "That's not why we're here!"
"It's not?"
"No!" I gave a nervous laugh, the crowd here suddenly making a lot of sense. "How ... uh ... how many people have you married today?"
He blinked up at me like a kicked puppy and whispered, "Too many."
Ethan was taking steps backward so he could talk to us without taking his eyes off the crowd. "What do we do?" he muttered through the side of his mouth.
"We have to snap them out of it, like we did with the kids under the bleachers," I said, still patting Pastor Dan's back. "Obviously the cold and snow isn't doing the job."
"Because they're dressed for it, I bet," Ethan replied, turning to speak to me in profile. It was a lovely profile. "Even snapped out of it, the kids were still trying to sneak off together, though."
"Yes, but like normal teenagers, not cartoon skunks!" I squeezed my eyes shut, racking my brains for an idea as the discontented murmuring of the crowd began to get louder.
"When Magda Mayflower and Bert Hubble showed up, just around noon, wanting to elope, I thought it was a sweet and surprising day," said the pastor. "I married them, and then another couple came, and then another, and another ..."
"It's gonna be okay," I assured him, unsure if I was lying through my chattering teeth.
