Periphery by Lynne Jamneck Page A

ishtartu had the legal right to wear whatever they pleased in service of their Goddess. She’d joined a month after he had, even though she was just barely old enough.
    Edie’s faith had been unshakeable. Any Goddess who celebrated queerness was a Goddess for Edie. Then Valentine up and died on her. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough anymore.
    Edie had offered and offered and offered herself those months Valentine was sick. Edie’d taken so many tricks, prayed so hard her knees still hurt. Despite all the sacrifices she’d made, all the shit she’d put herself though, the Goddess let him die.
    No, the Goddess killed him.
    The memorial had been like losing Valentine a second time. The high priestess tried to keep order, but Valentine’s family kept disturbing the vigil with their hateful shouts about hell and how his religion had defiled him and given him the disease. The hard part was that Edie knew it was partly true. Valentine had told her he’d taken a risk with a client because he believed that the Goddess would protect him.
    Valentine’s faith betrayed him.
    Even knowing that, Edie had held on to her belief that the Goddess would come through—give him some kind of miraculous remission. Edie prayed the only way she knew how, and the Goddess refused answer. She woke up the day after his memorial service with a cold, twisted sense that the Goddess was just a sham. All those protesters were right; she was just fucking people for money.
    “Yeah,” Edie told the salesclerk, feeling shame well up deep inside her. “I guess that is what I am.”
    *
    Edie walked home with the receipt for the mini and two conservative skirts in her coat pocket. Five hundred credits to look like crap, she sighed.
    People parted before her like the Red Sea as she moved through the busy Minneapolis skyway. Edie noticed there were generally two sorts of people, those who kept their eyes firmly averted, and those who stared. Of those that stared, the majority made some kind of ward against evil like the sign of the cross. Some looked ready to spit or shout. A few just took her in—the buzz cut, long coat, suit and tie—without any expression other than curiosity, like you might gaze at some foreign beast in a zoo.
    Normally, Edie moved easily through the crowd, her head held high and ready to stare down anyone. Today, she hurried along, trying to avoid eye contact. She used to love the feeling of flaunting her sexuality; now she felt…exposed.
    Edie spotted a uniform headed her way. The cop would stop her in front of everyone and demand to see her green card, proof that she was ishtartu. She fished into her coat pocket. Her card had turned a sickly chartreuse. Flipping it over, she saw she had about fifteen minutes to call in before it went completely yellow and her license was considered suspended. Edie’d heard of cops who would come up with all sorts of delay tactics just to toss a working girl or boy behind bars.
    Given Edie’s crisis of faith, she could end up in legal limbo. In this day and age, when America was a theocracy, not having a legally recognized religious affiliation was a crime. She’d planned to go down to the courthouse sometime this week to apply for seeker status (a grace period for people converting to a new religion), but she’d been so busy desperately trying to find another religion that would not only accommodate her sexuality, but also her personal fashion style, she forgot.
    The card in her hand began flashing. The cop was nearly within shouting distance. Edie ducked into a public terminal and swiped her card in the reader. The terminal booth smelled faintly of stale sweat, and the floor was soggy with slush and ice. Whoever had used this place last had actually come from outside, where the snow was falling. Edie shook her head in disgust, even while she was thinking, “there but for the grace of the Goddess, go I.”
    A rap on the door startled her. The cop peered in at her through the grime-streaked windows