My parent’s house was exactly one mile outside of Twilight, which was exactly an eternity away from where I wanted to be. My name is Gem-Zadie. I hated Twilight, Mississippi and everyone in it. They seemed to all be conspiring to stay there and to make sure I did, too. I never could make out exactly what they were saying but I imagined it went something like, ” No man will ever marry that girl and she’ll just have to live here among us and take care of her poor mama and daddy for the rest of her life.”

I walked to Twilight every day to work at Mr. Leslie’s Jasmine and Lady Bugs Flower Shop. I didn’t mind unloading boxes of carnations or gluing plastic ladybugs to Easter baskets but before long, Mr. Leslie was making me go to church, too. He was paying me to go but still I almost couldn’t do it even for the money. You see, Mr. Leslie had started opening his flower shop on Sundays. The Twilight Ladies said that it was a sin but when he started selling dresses and things he sent off for from New Orleans, some of those very same ladies came in to buy them, Sunday or not.

Mr. Leslie had cleared a part of his flower shop out and set up a daybed for those women to sit down on and drink iced tea while I modeled his new dresses for them.And that’s when Mr. Leslie got his “big idea”.

First let me just tell y’all, Mama and Daddy wasn’t no church going people. I had never even been inside of one unless going inside the big white tent that was set up on the church grounds for Christmas Charity Day counts. But that really was just for the rich townspeople to give farm children an orange and a candy bar on Christmas Eve. Still, Mr. Leslie thought it would be smart business if I was to start attending the Twilight First Baptist Church inside with him and his lady friend on Sunday mornings. His idea was for me to go to church and sit on the front pew wearing one of his new dresses so all the women could get a up close look and encourage their husbands to buy them one just like it back at his store later that day. Mr. Leslie paid me a dollar to do it plus he gave me a silver dime to put in the collection plate for everyone to see. Mr. Leslie’s idea was all going as planned until one day Reverend Sweet’s wife told Mr. Leslie that it was his Christian Duty to get me saved. And that is the very day my new life began.

“Friends, Gem-Zadie has come to our church to join the congregation of the Almighty and to seek the Lord,” the Reverend announced “Praise God”. I was almost sure he had said it because I could see his lips moving wide like a trumpet as his arms tossed his meanings far back onto the last pew where all the sinners sat.

Reverend Sweet was looking right at me and gesturing for me to come up and join him at the podium. I was looking around at the conspirators who were urging me with their faces to go up there and to get a dose of what it was that was going to save my soul from eternal damnation when I come to realize I couldn’t move. It wasn’t that I knew to be afraid and that’s why I wasn’t moving; what it was is that I was stuck in a pool of sweat on the pew and I couldn’t tear loose.

Mr. Leslie had sent me home Friday afternoon with a pearl white satin shirtdress and a pair of blue sateen high heel shoes. I guess he thought I wore a brassiere and girdle but in fact I didn’t own any underthings so I didn’t have none to wear even if I had known how satin would act up alone in the July heat. I just plum wasn’t thinking about it when I put that dress on. But by altar call, I found myself studying on it real hard.

Reverend Billy had the whole of the congregation on their feet flailing their arms at the ceiling and jumping around as they pressed their palms toward heaven trying to wave God down for me that morning. “Gem-Zadie,” he called “Child, come to me.” Reverend Billy was hopping up and down and jerking so that it made his robe seem like it was electric wired. Sweat was pouring off his face so heavy that I thought Reverend Billy might short out but he just kept on jumping and flicking his head as if he didn’t have a notion of worry about it.

My hair was wet through and sticking to my neck from all the breaths the old men had left on my ears encouraging me to come to Jesus. That pearl white satin dress had molded right into every crook of my skin. I must of looked like I was folded and gift wrapped for Him.

I had smelled so much Vick’s salve and Prince Albert that morning that those smells together with the God-awful heat made me a might light-headed. So I decided I’d just sit where I was until all the rigmarole was over. But Reverend Billy’s wife had other ideas.

All at once Mrs. Sweet was on me, scooping me up in her arms like a baby and carrying me to her husband who was waiting with a No. 3 tub full of saving water. Before I knew it, I was standing right close in front of Reverend Sweet. His face had changed mightily and he had a real surprise look on it. Reverend Billy just stood there still like he was afraid to move one way or the other. I turned to study out over my new church family and saw they was having a hard time of it, too. Everyone to the last was standing like a statue with not one of them praising much, at all.

Even I could tell that a silence had fallen hard over the whole of the congregation. They was just bug-eyed, staring right on me. And those ones who was trying the hardest not to had put their hands over the eyes of their neighbors.

Things kinda went in slow motion about then. I thought how maybe Jesus might have struck everyone in church dumb so I wouldn’t feel all alone the way I always had up until that Sunday morning. I smiled out at my new friends and waited for one of them to smile back but they just held up with their mouths wagged open. I looked up over toward the choir loft and I must of made a plea to the nice looking young man mouthing “Glory to God” at me because he headed right on over. It was Conrad Beam, the new Worship Minister just come by way of Memphis. I thought he was the cleanest thing I ever had laid my eyes on. He must of thought some of me too because without no thought of it, Minister Beam took off his choir robe and come and put it right around my sticky shoulders.

Conrad Beam took me by my hand, walked me right past all my church friends and straight out the front door to where his car was parked under a shade tree. I got in cause I thought Minister Beam was going to take me home and I hadn’t never been inside of a car before either. I thought I might like getting into a car more than I had liked getting inside the TFBC and as it turned out I liked it fine. We drove all the rest of the day until we made it up north to Memphis. And that’s where we live now. Conrad and me got married in a private ceremony. I wore that very same pearl white satin shirtdress, stains and all.

Conrad never did take me home but I learned easy not to care about it. We live with his mama, Miss Reverend Mercy. She sells used cars and tells fortunes to people who bring their palms in for her to read. Far as I can tell, we get along real good.

My Lord, what a fuss. I never did really understand what all the fuss was about that day at the TFBC. Still, it was a pretty good show for a dime and Conrad Beam did save me from an eternity lost in Twilight.