Oh boy, thanks God, that could have been much worse. Hopefully she's overreacting and nothing will come of this and she will not have to kiss or punch any young men ever.

...the 'get married in the next three months' plan might be sort of hard to pull off.

She'll just go and do some chores in a completely different area of the house for now.

The next morning, Serena Joy says, "My husband says you believe God is calling you to delay the Ceremony for a few months."

"I... believe it would be a sin to consent to it. I'm sorry."

"Well, we certainly can't ask you to consent to something that you think is a sin." Her voice was tight. 

"Thank you, ma'am. I understand if you want to change our study plans to cover this topic instead."

"Perhaps I shall. But in the future. Tonight there is an ice cream social that you should attend so that you can meet eligible potential husbands." 

- she supposes this is another way to solve both of their problems, though it may well introduce some new ones on her side.

She nods. "OK. Thank you."

For the rest of the day, Serena Joy is seething with anger!

She continues to be consummately polite, but there's an edge to it. 

Keturah sort of figures this is fair. She is vaguely apologetic and as cooperative as she can manage.

And now it is time for the ice cream social!

Yayyyy.

Ice cream socials are sort of a fundamentally questionable idea, in her opinion, because the ice cream doesn't facilitate socialization and the socializing doesn't really improve the ice cream. Also all her estimates of her odds of finding a nice husband are pretty depressing.

But hey. Ice cream. She wears a dress that she thinks is something approaching cute and tries not to give off obvious criminal vibes.

There are lots of people at this ice cream social! There are a couple of people talking about their faith walk, and some people having an incomprehensible conversation about international relations, and some women talking about their infants' milestones. 

Hmm.

Well, she's bad at talking to people in group settings, so any attempt at actually making friends with male people she doesn't already know is likely to end in unspeakable humiliation. On the other hand, if she sits in a corner all night, Serena Joy will be mad at her.

She grabs some ice cream and heads for the women talking about their babies. She knows how to make impressed sounds about babies.

On the way to the conversation about babies she is intercepted by a wild Nick!

"I was hoping I would see you here."

Aw, man. Nick is way worse than babies. She's gonna die here in the middle of this ice cream social.

"I didn't really think you had a hard time seeing me."

"We don't get that much time to really talk."

"I see. I was hoping to talk to some of the people from church who I don't see as often. Maybe we could talk at dinner later?"

"I want to talk to you without Fred and Serena Joy being able to overhear. I know you want that too."

Oh no.

She tries circling around Nick so that she can more easily leave for the babies conversation. "I don't think this is really the time?"

"Oh, I think this is definitely the time."