Work Text:
At first glance, Lorraine is concerned about the morbid little forest of cereal-box tombstones that is steadily growing in the arts and crafts room, which is actually Ed’s makeshift office in one of the back hallways of their church.
Bible Crafts with Mr. Warren! is what the poster on his door proclaims; created by Judy at about 7:30 last night after dinner, with a pack of fluorescent markers and an all-or-nothing attitude about flourishes. Judy, who insisted on not being in either of her parents' classes today and opted to stay with her friends in the youth group.
Upon further inspection, she’s relieved to see that they’re actually meant to be the stone tablets of Moses. Many are Sharpie-inscribed with various “thou shalt not” commandments, while others are still wet and shiny with gray acrylic paint. She recognizes that gloss from a mile away, and knows that it’s not necessarily in the budget of the church to buy it for children. No wonder Ed’s studio looked like a tornado had gone through it this week.
The empty storage room across from his office had been lined with plastic tables and metal chairs, and served as the cafeteria for the kids whenever the week of vacation bible school came around. Lorraine heard the commotion coming from inside, and poked her head around the doorway. Ed was sitting on the edge of the teachers’ table, the sleeves of his button-up rolled to his elbows. A whirlwind of tiny humans were running around in a frenzy, pushing their chairs around like race cars as the bottom of the metal legs scraped the tile floor.
The other half of the room was cleaning up from another small crafts project, throwing away scraps of wet newspaper and rinsing paint brushes, their excited chatter all blending together.
Either the sunlight coming through the window is contributing to some kind of halo effect around the top of Ed’s head, or there’s glitter in his hair. Lorraine walks closer to him, managing to stay out of the path of a blonde-haired eight year old girl whose brow is furrowed out of sheer concentration as she walks a dangerously full glass of paintbrush water to the sink.
“So, a table full of commandments, huh?” Lorraine asks, “What’s really going on here, Mr. Warren? Bible school arts and crafts or Intro to Law?”
Ed turns his head towards her and snickers. “Who says it can’t be both? Gotta start ‘em young.”
Lorraine lets out a quiet chuckle, “I guess Father Gordon knew what he was getting the church into when he talked you into teaching this for vacation bible school this year.”
The smile that Ed’s giving her sparkles more than whatever is sitting in his hair. Without missing a beat, he turns back towards the room of rowdy fourth graders and calls out, “Three, two, one – line!”
The chaos settles momentarily, the focus of the kids changing direction. Lorraine instinctively moves closer to the relative safety of Ed’s shoulder, snaking her arm around his waist, her other hand grabbing gently onto his forearm. In about ten seconds flat, they’re both looking towards a row of eager-to-please faces. Lorraine leans closer into Ed and whispers up towards his neck so the kids couldn’t hear, “Forget your whistle today, Captain Von Trapp?”
They are both pretty impressed. Ed knows it would normally cost him around five dollars in sugar-based bribes to achieve something like this on any other day.
He walks down the line, assessing them like he’s back in the navy. “Well…” he draws out, tipping his head to the side and scrunching his eyebrows together in total theatrics. His audience is eating it up, sharing glances to each other out of the corners of their eyes. Ed thinks half the kids are probably holding their breath. “You know, I think we might be ready for Sister Nadene. Caroline, do we look ready?”
A short, dark-haired girl steps forward and swivels her head around to run a very serious, critical eye over the rest of her group. Even Lorraine was fighting the urge to stand up a little straighter. “Ready to go, Mr. Warren!”
When Ed straightens himself up back at Lorraine’s side, she catches his wince. He breathes in a short gulp of air at the feeling. The part of his lower back that he’s been pretending is fine is actually still bothering him. She raises an eyebrow at him, and he lowers his head down like a reprimanded puppy.
She heads for the door to beat the line of kids, thinking to save Ed a few extra steps so that he can take them wherever it is they need to go next. Of course he refuses to take the hint, and they both end up walking his mod-podge-covered group down the hall to the bottom of the staircase. A nun met them at the foot of the stairs, lips pressed together in a firm line, hands folded in front of her. Ed gives her a coy wave, but the woman doesn’t move a muscle. The only response he was given was an unimpressed sniff that echoed off the walls.
“I think she can still smell the high school rebellion on me,” Ed whispers to Lorraine as they head back towards his office. “What do rebels smell like anyway?”
“Sweat and sunshine,” Lorraine whispers back. “I rarely remember you being inside for a service. You were always outside painting while we were sitting in Mass.”
“Ah, so you’re saying I need a shower,” he grabs Lorraine’s shoulder that’s farthest from him as they’re walking down the hallway and pulls her closer, placing a kiss on her temple, “I get it.”
As they reach Ed’s makeshift office/classroom, Lorraine wanders over to a small school desk in the corner to study some construction of Noah’s Ark made out of shoeboxes. The animals were constructed from half-eaten animal crackers that were frozen in their two by two march up the ramp. “Oh no, Ed, the elephant is missing a head.” As she giggles and turns to find him in the room, he limps over so she can point out the headless mammal. It’s a careful and well-controlled limp, but it still isn’t fooling her.
She looks up at the clock on the wall that reads half past eleven, which means she has about forty-five more minutes before the kids start to gather in the sanctuary. She can’t say she’s exactly been jumping with excitement to teach the fruit of the spirit through song and dance, but she never declines something that will be met and executed with childlike enthusiasm.
“Hon, I’m going to go ahead and make my way back, I need to go ahead and set up the cassettes for the kids,” she walks over to Ed and places her hand on his chest, standing up on her tippy toes to kiss him before leaving. “And you’re going to take it easy for the rest of the day. Come sit in one of the pews later and get off your feet.”
He tucks a curly tendril behind her ear, nodding as a silent promise. “I’ll finish cleaning up in here and that will be the last of my hard labor for the day,” he pulls back and swipes the tip of his finger down the bridge of Lorraine’s nose, “I promise.”
An hour later, Lorraine is standing within the church sanctuary on a stage that was built just last week, between two other moms, conducting exaggerated, repetitive dance moves and mouthing to the music playing overhead, “Oh! The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness–” She’s heard this song so many times that it’s etched into her memory, playing it on a loop as she and Ed taught it to Judy when she was old enough to sing along.
The beat of the song went perfectly with a hand jive, which was perfect to teach to small kids. It’s not too much for them to remember or too difficult for them to follow along to. Plus, their parents will get a kick out of seeing it at the family performances on Sunday night.
They had just restarted the song to dance it through from the beginning, and just as the first verse started, she noticed Ed walk through the swinging double doors, taking a careful seat in one of the back pews.
She tried not to get distracted by his presence, and instead opted for sneaky glances when the choreography could cover it up. She was sure that he had missed all of her attempts to hide a half-smile that she couldn’t stifle every time she looked at him.
He caught her. Every time.
His arm was propped up on the back of the pew, his jaw resting against the base of his palm. He couldn’t stop smiling at her, and stayed that way until the lesson was over.
The kids scrambled to get their water bottles and leftover snack bags, taking everything into their small arms and shrieking as they ran up the aisle to go to the next station. “Walk, please!” Lorraine projected as she walked after them, many looking back towards her and mumbling a small yes, ma’am. She finally reached the back of the room and leaned up against the row in front of Ed, “You should’ve come up there and joined us.”
“To let you steal the spotlight the whole time? No thanks,” he snickered. “Why don’t you dance for me like that at home?”
“Well,” she started coyly, “I just have to drop off my lesson plans then sign out for the day; maybe we can head there and I can.” She ran the backs of her fingertips down the side of Ed’s face, “How about you go pull the car around to the back awning and I’ll be right there?”
Ed stood up without a word, following Lorraine to the double doors, glancing around to make sure the sanctuary was empty before placing a light tap on her rear.
She whipped her head around, eyes already widened. Before she could get out a word to reprimand him, he justified his actions with a shrug, “I thought I saw a fruit of the spirit.”