"I am so very pleased to have you visit us, my dear Ms. Godz," the Reverend Everything said as he steered Peez around the wide, carpeted deck encircling the top of the dolphin tank. "I'm sure you're aware that your dear brother Dov was just here as well, though he had to depart rather precipitously. That was a shame. You see, while we were in the middle of our services, I was blessed to receive a revelation which told me that it was time to change the spiritual focus of my flock. Naturally I put my loyal followers to work upon making that vision a reality. Their labors are not yet complete, but we've managed to get things arranged well enough for us to celebrate our inaugural services within the hour. I do hope you won't have to rush off the way your brother did?"
"I, uh, really couldn't say," Peez replied, nervously eyeing the tank. She knew it was silly, but she couldn't quite shake the feeling that one misspoken word, rather than one misstep, could send her plunging into the depths.
The Reverend Everything smiled benevolently. In truth, he didn't seem capable of smiling any other way. While Dov had amassed a whole wardrobe of smiles, keeping one on tap for every possible eventuality, the Reverend Everything had discovered that wondrous thing, the Little Black Dress smile, suitable for every occasion. It said, variously:
1. Everything is all right.
2. Everything will be all right.
3. You are Beautiful.
4. You are Smart.
5. You are Loved.
6. You are Special.
7. You may prove to be useful to me.
8. You are Nuts, but I think I can still find some profitable use for you.
9. I hear you.
10. I'm listening.
11. I am really listening.
12. I am listening to you the way no one else in this nasty old world has ever listened to you because I am the only one who recognizes your intrinsic worth, so you'd better get with my program because if you don't, I'll drop you like a bad habit and you'll have to go back to being an ordinary zhlub again.
13. I'm actually thinking about my tee-off time at the country club golf course, but you're going to look like a rude idiot if you try to challenge me for not listening to what you're saying because I am extremely good at faking an intelligent and insightful reply, so don't try it.
14. I'm actually staring at your cleavage, but this is another case where you'd better not try to challenge me on it because all I have to do is act shocked and hurt and then you will look like a conceited idiot with severe personal problems that make you go around accusing a Man of God of all sorts of naughtiness that is obviously all in your twisted imagination. Don't try this either.
"My dear, I quite understand your reluctance to commit yourself," he said smoothly. "I respect your businesspersonhood. I sense that it's telling you to take as much or as little time as you feel we deserve. Your insightful wisdom is something we should all aspire to. You didn't get to be the head of the E. Godz New York City office on the basis of your family ties alone."
I didn't? Peez thought. Like hell, I didn't! Oh, this guy is good at telling people what he thinks they want to hear! No spiritual movement ever went broke following that path. No wonder he's one of our top contributors.
"Thank you," was all that she said.
It seemed to be enough for the Reverend. He turned that magical smile of his up a notch and escorted her to a seashell-shaped chair at the rear of the deck, a place Peez found herself thinking of as "center stage." Murmuring his excuses, he sidled over to a three-panel screen to one side of her seat, leaving her to take in the dubious beauties of the Retreat/Immersionarium without benefit of his commentary.
Peez seated herself beneath the garlands of green, blue and silver tinsel seaweed festooning her pearly throne. She gazed out at an unblocked vista of the sanctuary and saw that work was already well begun on decorating the walls and pews with similar marine-themed glitz. Enmeshed in the ersatz seaweed were scatterings of greenish-white plastic starfish. Peez glanced up at the electrical fixtures and spied the unmistakable presence of black lights among the ordinary bulbs and fluorescents.
I'll bet dollars to dolphin treats that those starfish glow in the dark, she thought.
"Ms. Godz?" Reverend Everything's mellifluous voice brought her sharply out of her speculations. "I'm not asking for any sort of a promise from you, but may I hope that you'll share our services? It would be an honor for me. This will be the first time since my transformational vision that our faithful will be sharing in the new path to being one with the universe."
"I suppose I could—" she began. The sight of him stopped her words cold on her lips.
"Is something wrong?"
No, she thought. Nothing wrong at all. Not if you're used to seeing someone do a quick-change routine from Wall Street Formal to Atlantis Casual every blessed day!
Broadway Merman, and no, she didn't mean Etheclass="underline" There was no other way to describe the Reverend Everything's new look. Somehow, in the short time Peez had been viewing the sanctuary's saltwater decor, he had stripped off his natty, cream-colored suit in favor of a multicolored, spangled fishtail that a bathhouse era Bette Midler would have rejected as too garish. His chest was bare, though he'd acquired a frosty green beard long enough to obscure most of it.
"Ohhh," he said, nodding in sympathy for Peez's abrupt silence. His foot-high diadem of shells and dried seahorses swayed gently. "I see what's bothering you. You've never attended one of my services before. I do this sort of thing all the time."
He used his crystal trident to retrieve the cast-off suit and held it out for her inspection. "It's a one-piece outfit with hidden Velcro closures. A lot like the sort of rental clothing they use for the dear departed in funeral homes, in cases where the family does not provide a, heh, going-away outfit; much easier to remove for reuse in that critical post-viewing, pre-burial time slot. Now, was that the only thing upsetting you?"
"Y-y-yes. That and—and—" She didn't know quite how to say it and still consider herself to be a lady, so she made vague motions at the Reverend's chest.
He looked down at himself in puzzlement, then chuckled. "Ah! It's the pasties, right?" He pointed at the pair of iridescent plastic squids covering his nipples, two islands in a Sargasso Sea of pepper-and-salt chest hair. Chuckling, he added, "I know they must seem a trifle over-the-top for some tastes, but I felt that as the spiritual leader of a large and loyal congregation, I owed it to the dignity of my calling to veil my vestigial mammaries from sight. It must be the quest for enlightenment, not the humble guide, that claims their attention. I would never want to distract my Seekers."
"Distract them? Distract them?!" Peez shrilled, rising to her feet. "You look like the illegitimate gay offspring of Poseidon and Cher and you're worried about distracting the congregation because you've got naked nipples?!"
Reverend Everything gaped at her. He wasn't the only one left stunned by her outburst. Peez herself gasped, clamped both hands over her mouth, and collapsed back into her chair, horrified at what she'd just done.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean that. I didn't say that. Oh, I am so, so sorry."
Reverend Everything took a deep breath, tilted his head back so far that his shell crown fell off, and laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. When at last he recovered himself enough to speak, he said, "Ms. Godz, your innocence is like a breath of salt air from our own Mother Ocean's revivifying lips. Seen like this, outside of the context of our worship services, my garb must indeed look a trifle theatrical, but pageantry is often a part of religious rites. I assure you, when you see our rites as a whole, my chosen appearance will look perfectly natural."