“We don’t wear lipstick in our church!” exclaimed the extremely fat woman,
whose shiny gown had more material than a bedspread.

“It’s not lipstick, it’s chapstick,” clarified Trudy Barclay.

“Sister Bernard! Sister Bernard! Sister Bernard…” the fat woman called in a voice
than didn’t change, not pitch, not inflection.

  Annoyance was Trudy’s primary emotion, soon to be replaced by fear when a very
tall woman who looked as if she just left Hell, appeared. The mouth of the woman
unnaturally jutted as it seemed her jaw was too large for her face. Her tiny eyes,
behind the grey plastic frames, seemed as dead as those on dolls.
She loomed like an apparition, a witch, and when she spoke, it was just that side of loud.

“What is it, Sister Hooper?” she said to the fat woman while she stared down on Trudy.

“I told this...visitor…that we don’t wear lipstick in this church!” Sister Hooper announced as if over a tombstone.

“This is the church, The Church of the Blood of the Lamb. It is a very true, very real Church. It is church which does not permit worldliness! It is a Church, a true church, where we humble ourselves….”

  Sister Bernard gave a sermon. Others, who had gathered, were shouting, “Amen!” and “Say it, Sister!”

Trudy had never been so embarrassed in her life. Standing before this horribly ugly woman, this woman who seemed to have the power to consign her soul to hell for eternity, she wished she had never allowed Darlene to drag her here this morning. And where was Darlene?

  Sister Bernard, aware Trudy reasonably cowed, began to call for Sister Macintosh.

“Here, Sister Bernard!” chirped a thin elderly woman, dressed in a severe long sleeved
dark dress despite the high temperatures.

“Sister Macintosh, escort this visitor to the washroom to remove the harlotry.”

“Yes, Sister Bernard,” Macintosh agreed, gripping Trudy’s upper arm in a vice, pulling her to the bathroom.

“I can walk,” Trudy said, when they were a few yards from the imperious Sister Bernard,
yet Sister Macintosh did not release her grip.

Trudy felt as if she were being arrested. Eyes scorched her. Finally she extracted her arm
and entered the bathroom.

“You don’t have to watch me,” Trudy said, biting back tears. Sister Macintosh stood, her eyes glassy, and began to speak. She repeated the same things Sister Bernard had said, using the same words, as if it were a computer program. Trudy washed her mouth, washed her face; (I won’t cry) she ordered herself, when there was a loud fanfare from the organ.