Uncross My Heart by Austin, Andrews & Austin

should wear. When that last thought crossed my mind I laughed out loud. I hadn’t worried about what to wear in years.
    Gladys Irons took advantage of my internal conversation, sneaking up on my left side and beaming at me as if I were a bundled newborn, then whispered a personal favor. Dr. Bird was feeling ill and needed someone to take his place in the breakout session. Gladys took charge of me, towing my arm ahead of my body as she yanked me down a small hallway to a room of about thirty people and plunked me down in a chair at the head of the room next to the gypsy professor, who was already engaged in dialogue with a member of the audience, making me feel like I’d crashed a private event.
    “Virgin Birth,” Gladys stage-whispered. “That’s what this is about.” A previous question had apparently prompted the gypsy woman to launch into the dissection of Mary’s virginity.
    “Helvidius’s argument for a woman’s vagina being a good thing centered on his belief that Joseph had to have touched Mary in order to impregnate her. Incensed, church father Jerome promptly wrote The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary in 383 a.d. and claimed Mary’s hymen was unruptured by the delivery of Jesus. Verification requiring the ultimate religious pilgrimage, I would posit.” She clearly loved the ripple of laughter.
    Gladys could not have looked more shocked and busied herself with eyebrow raises and hand signals to me. When I proved too dense she stood. “I would like to ask the Reverend, Dr. Westbrooke to comment on the Virgin Birth, so central to Christian belief.”
    Heads swiveled to stare as I mulled the fact that my co-panelist was historically correct. However, the church didn’t always share my personal beliefs, so there might be fallout from any ad hoc comments.
    And then there was Gladys, staring at me, begging me to rebut the profane gypsy.
    “Masters and Johnson completed a study”—Gladys’s eyes widened at the mention of the two famous sex researchers—“that pointed to religion as a source of marital-sex problems. In fact, we know that sometimes couples don’t get married because of conflicting religious beliefs. I would submit that it’s not whether Mary was a virgin, but whether Mary as a complete human being, a dynamic woman, adds meaning to our lives. Would she have less meaning if she was not a virgin or, conversely, more meaning if she were? Virginity, like so many other data points on the religious road map, is just one more divisive factor keeping us from being fully integrated.”
    I looked up to see Vivienne Wilde standing in the back of the room.
    She looked stellar, and for a moment I lost my train of thought.
    “Are you saying, as an Episcopal priest, that you”—a middle-aged man spoke as he rose from his seat—“don’t believe in the Virgin Birth?” Gladys’s eyes bored a hole through me.
    “I’m saying that it’s not relevant to our inexorable belief in Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary, whose sexuality rests with her…and is none of my personal business.”
    Laughter and a tiny smattering of applause. No more questions came my way, and the small event broke up without much comment except from Gladys, who thanked me for stepping in. “Although I don’t think those would have been the views of Dr. Bird, they were interesting.” She said the word carefully, as if making up her mind right then whether to keep me on as her born-again ally. “A nice twist, I think.” She walked off satisfied, I assumed, that my answers reflected her beliefs.
    Looking back to the far wall, I saw no sign of Vivienne Wilde and was hugely disappointed. I then questioned my own sanity. I should be delighted she’s gone. Suddenly tired, I wanted to pack and get away from the madness of the conference. A hand on my arm turned me gently.
    “Dinner and a drink sound good. Join me?” The gypsy theologian’s colorful silk shirt hung from her arms like the wide wings of a jungle bird. “Lyra