Chapter 89: Just Wait and See

If there ever was a day in a person’s life that seemed singularly better than any other day then for the fifteen year old Jessie Harper that day would have been that first Sunday after that Wednesday night meeting in her church’s board room. She had been there to discuss her choirmaster’s violation of a church-wide nudity ban put in place by the church’s Head Office in Springfield. Jessie had gone into that meeting with a terrible sense of doom over the fate of Sonika Jharm, the church’s choirmaster, and that of her step-father, the Reverend Bryce Unsworth.

Jessie was just so certain that these two people, two people that she loved dearly, would be facing the shame of losing their positions over something that was just not their fault. At first it looked like things were heading in that direction until another choir member, in the form of Polly Legett, showed up at that meeting with her mother. What Polly had to say blew the case against her choirmaster and her step-father right out of the water. The nudity ban was rescinded the next day and the man driving the whole unpleasant business disappeared from the church scene never to be seen there again.

It was during that meeting and in the heat of the moment that Jessie Harper had vowed to go naked to church in support of her friend, Carrie Pearson, who, for medical reasons, had to now stay completely naked at all times. After Polly Legett’s very timely confession Jessie felt it no longer necessary to go naked to church just to prove a point. However, another idea begun brewing in her mind that night that would result in a huge standing ovation on Sunday morning from the congregation of the Redsands First Congregational Church. That standing ovation and all the positive feedback that Jessie and the choir members, including Carrie and Troy Pearson, would receive would put this young teenage girl on a definite high. The euphoria of that ‘high’ was going to take Jessie through most of Sunday and most of Monday, at home and at school, only to burst with a rather unfortunate pop on Monday evening when Jessie went to register as a contestant in the resurrected Teen Beauty Pageant.

But the disappointment of what was coming on Monday night was a long way off from Sunday morning when Jessie Harper was getting up and getting ready to go to church with her mom and her new ‘dad’.

“So, Jessie, are you going to go to church in the nude like you said you would the other night?’

Jessie Harper did not reply immediately to her mother’s question. Her mother was sitting opposite her at the breakfast table and Jessie’s step-father was sitting there as well - right next to his wife. All three of them still had on just their pyjamas and night gowns. Jessie slowly smiled at the other two at the table as they all ate their toast and drank their morning coffee.