Spook #2

Amy of Ambivalent Values

Went to church every Sunday and more

Soloist in the choir

Went to a Baptist college to major in voice.

“I am not stupid.  There was just too much for me to study everything. So  I paid attention to what was important, my music, and, sometimes, I had to cheat a little to get by on the rest.”

While some instructors had suspicions, it was not until her junior year that she was caught–in the act of copying the answer sheet for a mid-term exam.  She might have asked for [peer review?], and even gotten off,  on the grounds of a spotless record, but accepted dismissal.

“It was wrong.  I did wrong and ought to be punished for it.  If I said I hadn’t that would be a lie, and that would be even worse than cheating.

“I’ll miss everyone.  Now, I don’t know what to do.    I only wanted to sing, anyway.”

In the end, Amy got a job selling shoes at the mall.  She changed churches for one where nobody knew what had happened.  The embarassment, more than the whispers, drove her to it.  The congregation was more casual in its worship than her home church, and much more musical.  She met some people there who sang Alt gospel for a living, and was beginning to get paying work as a back-up singer now and then, when one night she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot–dead.