Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
And so, despite how this night went sideways, I put it to bed with a smile.
The smell of coffee wakes me in the morning and the first thing I see is Lowyn McBride, standing in the kitchen wearing her Revival costume.
I recognize the style—straight, low-waisted dress, short, ruffled sleeves, and lace. Good lace. Handmade lace. Lowyn is wearing a springtime version with a muted floral pattern overlaid on an antique white base layer of rayon. There’s a cloche hat on the countertop and a small, beaded change purse on a chain sitting next to it. Even through half-lidded eyes and all the way across the room, I can tell that she’s wearing makeup because her lips are pink and smooth, like her powdered cheeks. She’s got her hair up in her trademark faux bob, and good God, the sight of her both takes me back fifteen years and pulls me right into the present.
She is a twenty-first-century woman standing in a retro Eighties kitchen, wearing a dress that was reproduced by the best seamstresses in Disciple to resemble high fashion back in tent revival days.
There was a period of time, back when the Revival was still figuring out what it was, when the opinion of the day was that people should look demure, and poor, and downtrodden. Tent revivals were at their height during the Great Depression, after all. I guess these founders were thinking they should be authentic, the way Bishop is with their Colonial downtown. They take great pains over in Bishop to make the wagons just right, and the cooking just right, and the clothes just right.
It’s all very ‘just right.’
But like Revenant, Disciple is its own thing. And so eventually the town came to a decision to not even try to be authentic.
I mean, what’s the point? The tent is a theatre, and the preacher, and the children’s choir, and the fainting women in the audience—they are all actors. So when the founders were deciding on costumes, they went for eye-pleasing.
No one wants to see a tired-looking housewife in a dirty apron.
No one wants to see a broken man with coal so far under his fingernails, it has stained the skin beneath.
No one wants to see crying babies and hungry children.
People don’t come to Disciple to learn about things or be reminded of the past. They come here to be entertained by the contradiction. Same reason they go to Revenant. Same reason they go to Bishop.
They want an escape. They want the women to be pretty, the children to be sweet, and the men to be strong. They don’t care about the message inside the tent—no one does. As long as it’s filled with flappin’ hand fans and dramatic shouts of ‘amen.’ As long as it’s filled with bowed heads and closed eyes rejoicing halleluiah. As long as it’s entertaining—well, that’s all it needs to be.
The Revival was never meant to be relevant. It highlights the hypocrisy. It’s meant to remind everyone that this whole thing, this whole world, all around us, is nothing but a well-planned, well-financed production.
Disciple’s Revival is just a contrast set against the backdrop of Revenant.
And Revenant, with its motorcycle gangs, and pool halls, and rowdy bars, is just another contrast set against the backdrop of Bishop.
The Trinity Towns are a funhouse, or a circus, or a Broadway show.
And everyone in town has a leading role in the deception.
“Cross came by and dropped you off a package.”
My lazy, drooping eyes are staring right at Lowyn as these words come out of her mouth. “What kind of package?”
She points to a parcel wrapped up in brown paper and tied with jute twine. “Open it up and find out.”
I grumble as I swing myself up to a sitting position and sigh, bending over to cover my face with my hands and rub the stubble on my cheeks. Then I get to my feet and catch Lowyn looking at my chest because I didn’t wear a shirt to bed. Just gray sweatpants.
Her eyes flit up and meet mine. Immediately, she is turning pink.
I just grin, walk over to the counter, and start pulling the twine on the package. I already know what it is, so I’m not surprised when I find my own costume on the other side of that paper. I hold up the shirt—black button-down, handmade in thick cotton—and look at Lowyn. “They’re gonna make me into a gangster?”
She’s trying not to grin. “You are security.”
“Yeah, well. I figured I would just wear some tactical pants”—Lowyn is already laughing—“and a t-shirt. Maybe, if I wanted to dress it up a little, I’d put on some body armor.”
“You’re dreaming, Collin. You gotta play your part. There’s no getting around it. Now give me that. I’ll steam the wrinkles out.” She comes around the counter and I catch the scent of her rosewater perfume. Every costume has accessories and when you’re acting in the equivalent of dinner theatre, this kind of sensory detail matters.