Dress rehearsal meant, to my surprise, robes. After Pastor Nate’s condemnation of men wearing “dresses” I figured robes, even in the choir, would be taboo. But no, according to the choir director, the robes had been Nate’s idea because he wanted this whole thing to be “just like South Pine.”
Nate wasn’t there for the dress rehearsal, but the modest choir was, all of us decked out in our orange and black robes. Gabe was dressed for his role in the play: The Halloween Angel. He wore white jeans and a white turtleneck and a pair of glittery wings and a halo made out of tinsel and wire.
The Halloween Cantata told a story, but unlike the Christmas or Easter story, there wasn’t a Bible story corresponding to Halloween. Someone had invented a story, though, in which a small girl goes Trick-or-Treating against her parents’ wishes and has various misadventures (getting candy from strangers, being chased by dogs and attacked by goons dressed as devils) until she meets the Halloween Angel, who explains to her the real meaning of Halloween. Honestly, I was fuzzy on the meaning of Halloween according to the Cantata. It had something to do with honoring believers from the past by being good, following Jesus and going to church. It ended with the little girl repenting of Halloween, going home and brushing her teeth to get all the evil candy out of her mouth and then attending church with her parents, where she sat happy and enraptured through a sermon (which would be provided by Pastor Nate). At the end she turned to the audience and said, “I love church! Isn’t this the greatest?” Then we sang the last song. The End.
Pastor Nate decided he would enter for his sermon being carried in a coffin. Once on stage he would leap out and greet the people. He liked the symbolism of being “resurrected” up front. There were six songs (plus our duet) and they were, in order: The Bad Little Girl Who Disobeyed, Having Fun Means the Devil is Nearby, Ow Ow Ow Razor Blades in My Candy Bar, Hello Halloween Angel, Brushing My Teeth for a Meeting with Jesus and lastly, Church is Sweeter Than All The Candy from All the Strangers in All the World.
Rehearsal went okay. I hit several of my notes. We finally nailed the lyrics to Ow Ow Ow Razor Blades in My Candy Bar, which had a section with nonsense words meant to sound like a kid who had just cut her tongue. I could never quite remember to sing, “Oim vleeding coz oi dizoveyed my pharentz.” But on rehearsal night, we nailed it. Even our duet, “Monsters in our Midst” went well. It fell during the pastor’s sermon, and we were meant to rise up from the ground and start singing in the background behind Pastor Nate, rising in volume toward the end of his sermon. It was hard to practice without Nate there speaking, but I thought we did fine.
After rehearsal finished, people started filing out of the auditorium. I hurried to the front of the crowd, wanting to make it to my car without talking to anyone. But Gabe, somehow, had snuck out before the end of practice and was leaning against my car, his wings glittering in the streetlights, his makeshift halo hovering over his tousled hair. I pulled my keys out and kept my face down, walked past him and opened my door.
“Lara,” he said.
“Hi Gabe,” I said as I got into the car. I turned on the engine, but on second thought I rolled down my window. “What do you want?”
“I think we should talk about what happened the other night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He frowned. “When you tried to bite me in the choir room.”
I swallowed hard. “It was a mistake, Gabe. I was joking around after all that singing about killing vampires.”
He leaned against the window ledge, his head coming down to my level, close to me. His tinsel halo bounced against the roof of the car. “Do you honsetly think that we should kill vampires and werewolves?”
“That’s what the song says, isn’t it? And we have to keep doing what Pastor Nate says. It’s a good thing I’m not a vampire, because he would have threatened to have the congregation murder me by now.”
Gabe put his hand on my arm. “Lara. If there’s something you want to say, I’ll listen.”
I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. I wanted to tell him everything, but I wasn’t ready to leave the church, not yet, and I knew he would tell everyone. I didn’t really believe that the congregation knew Pastor Nate was a mummy, and a plan to out him was already forming in the back of my head. We were, after all, going to be on stage together on Halloween. But the whole point was for me to blend in, to be one of them. “No, Gabe. I’m just an ordinary Christian woman who is here to have an ordinary Christian experience. There’s nothing weird going on. I’m not struggling with anything, I’m not having questions about anything, I’m not different than anyone.” I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “I’m as normal as Pastor Nate.”
Gabe nodded, his tinsel halo bobbing ridiculously over his head. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, Lara. I get it. I’ll see you at the performance.”
I pushed my car into gear. “You and everyone else.” I pulled into the street. On the way home, my plan came into focus. I would need super glue and cooking oil and access to the backstage props. I started laughing. Just a chuckle at first but by the time I pulled in to my driveway it was a full-throated belly laugh. The Halloween Cantata would be memorable. I would make certain of that.