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“Hello,” he said, waving.

I tentatively waved back, but something seemed off. Eventually I realized he was looking just to the left of me, where stood a mostly nude, older, blonde woman in ministerial collar and simple black shoes. She scowled at the smiling Winterly and lifted a paper cup to her lips, so she could avoid greeting him.

“The first thing I wanted to say,” Pastor Winterly told her, “is, I’m sorry.”

She stared at him intently, measuring his honesty. Slowly, gradually, the scales tipped his way, the blonde woman softened, she lowered her eyes briefly, and when she brought them up again, they were shining with unexpected brightness.

“It’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I’m a bit sorry myself.”

“I did as you suggested, and I fear I came up short on anything in my Bible,” my erstwhile traveling companion said.

“Of course you did,” she told him.

“I must admit,” Winterly admitted. “I was amazed.”

“I knew you would be.”

“So—you truly think God is a nudist?”

My eyes went wide. Sometime later I was going to have to get the full, unabridged story on this from the pastor. And as you can likely tell from my earlier description of the scene, I did. Isn’t time a wonderfully unique and fluid thing in a novel? Perhaps that’s why it’s called—a ‘novel’. Because it is. Novel. One of the reasons anyway, and...yes, I know. I digress. Yet again.

“I like to think He’s a nudist,” the woman in the collar said. “But—really—honestly—we both know the story of Adam and Eve is simply a parable. A metaphor of sorts.”

“For what?” the pastor asked. The male. The one in clothes. Apparently not ‘knowing’ anything of the kind.

“For teenagers leaving the home,” the pastor without clothes said.

“What?”

“It’s a story to illustrate the inevitability of growing, maturing, and finding your own way. Didn’t you know?”

Of course, he didn’t. Wasn’t that clear by now? It certainly was to me.

“It’s a fable,” the collared woman continued, “constructed to show how, at some point in our lives, we must challenge the wisdom of the all-knowing parent and eventually leave, by choice or by force, the perceived utopia of our home where all our needs are met and all our cares are simple. Girls become fertile women, men become hunter-gatherers, and they must make their way in a harsh, unforgiving, and often seemingly barren world.”

She studied his flabbergasted face and chuckled a bit, surprised. “You really didn’t know that?” she asked again.

“No, but…” He paused, and briefly thought about it. He seemed, for a moment, about to say something else, then instead he said: “What a…useful story.”

“Indeed,” she agreed. “If you read it the right way, the Bible’s full of great stuff like that.”

The two continued talking, smiling and laughing, lost in one another in a way that seemed more than just two professionals sharing common wisdom. I would have been fascinated to stay and learn more about this turn of events in my pastor’s life, particularly if it meant they might have sex in public, but there was an urgent mission at hand.

“Morgan,” I said, finally remembering he was there. You forgot too, didn’t you? “We have to find Wendy.”

“Sure,” he said, seemingly incapable of tearing his eyes away from the female minister’s ample bosom. “Why?”

“Morgan!” someone called, interrupting his focus and mine, and we each scanned around looking for the source of the voice.

It was Sophie, our bouncy hotel receptionist, and she was obviously delighted to see both Morgan and myself. Perhaps we should go on a crime spree together. After skipping from The Headless Horseman with the intent of not paying, we were sort of on our way to that promising new career anyway.

Sophie bounced up to us and took Morgan’s hand. He was as surprised as I was.

“I didn’t miss it, did I?” she asked. “I got here as soon as I could.”

“I don’t think it’s even started yet,” I said.

“Oh, grand!” she squealed. People use the word ‘grand’? “Then let’s get something to eat. I’m starved!”

Morgan hesitated, and she pulled him along with some force. Apparently ‘let’s’, which is the contraction