This Side of Salvation

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Besides,” her grandmother added, “all the other young ladies will look like models. You want them to say homeschool girls are homely?”

  The three women kept arguing while I took a long gulp of water that wasn’t nearly cold enough to wipe out the image of Bailey in a red dress with a slit up the thigh.

  I went back to eating but spaced out on the conversation until Bailey’s mom spoke my name. “Which high school is holding this prom?” she asked.

  “Middle Merion.”

  She turned to her husband. “That’s the one I told you about, where some kids are planning an apocalypse theme.”

  I paused, my fork tines buried in a pile of couscous. “Apocalypse?”

  “I read an article in the Suburban and Wayne Times. Apparently a faction of the senior class is planning some kind of alternative prom in addition to the official one. A Rapture party at somebody’s house, to make fun of those kooks who say the world is ending that night.”

  “The Rush,” I corrected before I could stop myself. “That’s what it’s called this time, not the Rapture. And the world won’t end on May eleventh. It ends seven years later, after the Tribulation.” They all stared at me. “I mean, I heard . . . somewhere . . . that’s what those people believe.”

  “Whatever.” Ms. Brynn waved her hand, topaz rings flashing in the chandelier light. “These cult members say the dead will rise from their graves, so of course the zombie jokes are running rampant. This high school Rapture party has a postapocalyptic ‘Prombie’ theme.”

  “The dead won’t be walking around,” I corrected again. “They’ll go straight to heaven when Jesus comes.”

  This time when they stared at me, fixating on the cross around my neck, I didn’t bother saying, “According to those people.”

  • • •

  “At least they said I could go to prom.” Bailey took a seat on one of the swings in her backyard set and started unwrapping her cherry Popsicle.

  “Your parents pity me.” I sat on the next swing over, though it was a bit small. Bailey’s little cousins came to visit a few times a year, so the Brynns kept her swing set after she’d outgrown it. “They think, ‘Maybe our daughter can save this poor boy from his ignorance.’ ”

  “I do my best.” She grinned at me as she sucked carefully on her dessert. Her bottom teeth were sensitive to cold, so she couldn’t bite her way through. “When did your parents become Rushers?”

  I couldn’t lie to her. “Around the time we started going out.”

  She gave me an exasperated why didn’t you tell me? look, so I omitted the fact that I’d accidentally introduced them to the whole idea. That revelation could wait until never.

  “I saw a picture online of that preacher lady.” Bailey scuffed her toes through the pillow-soft mulch below the swings. “She’s kinda hot, isn’t she?”

  I chewed through the first third of my lime-flavored Popsicle before answering. “She’s all right.”

  “Let me guess: She wants you to recruit all the guys with cute butts on your baseball team.”

  I angled my swing’s trajectory to tap her knee with my foot. “And who would that be?”

  “All of them. It’s the uniforms.” Bailey grabbed my sneaker with her free hand and held on.

  “And here I thought you were coming to our games to see me pitch.”

  “Baseball’s a slow sport. Lots of time to check out butts.”

  I pointed to her hand. “You’re dripping.”

  She let go of me and licked the red juice off the bulge of her thumb. “So what does the Rush mean for you?”

  “It’s why I’m not taking community-college classes, not just because we can’t afford it. My parents think I won’t be around to finish the semester.”

  Bailey pulled the Popsicle out of her mouth, making a soft suction sound. “It sounds cool to live like there’s no tomorrow, but what happens when tomorrow comes?”

  “Mom and Dad’ll be devastated. The Rush seems to make them, I don’t know, not just happy. Ecstatic.” I bit into my Popsicle. A piece broke off and fell to the ground. “I know they’re crazy, but in a way, they’re easier to be with now that they’ve lost touch. A year ago there’s no way they would’ve let me go to prom. Now it’s like they don’t care what I do.”

  “Maybe they want you to seize the day and enjoy this beautiful earth before you go to heaven.”

  This is heaven, because you’re here, and you love me, and God, how will I ever get used to that?

  I brushed my hair off my forehead to reset my rampaging thoughts. “I don’t dare ask them why they’re being so lenient, in case they change their minds.”

  “Must be hard, never knowing what they’ll say or do.” Bailey slumped forward dramatically. “My parents are sooooo predictable. I can barely resist finishing their sentences for them.”

  “I like your parents. Can I come live here?”

  “Yes! Hide out until the Rush obsession is over and it’s safe to go home.”

  “There’ll be some other insanity afterward.”

  “Maybe it’ll be a cool insanity. Maybe they’ll sell the house, buy an RV, and take you guys cross-country like nomads.”

  “That would suck unless we brought you.”

  “I’d stow away under your bed. They wouldn’t find me until Cleveland.” She started to rotate in the swing, twisting the chains above her head. “Then I’d make you guys the best tofu stir-fry you’ve ever had and you’d have to keep me.”

  I started spinning too, feeling the swing rise with every turn as the chains tightened. “Your parents wouldn’t mind?”

  “I’ll tell them it’s homework. I’m studying the real America. We can stop at museums and the Grand Canyon. And when we’re way out West, where there’s no light pollution, we can study the stars as part of an astronomy unit. Mobile homeschooling. We’ll be students of the world!”

  My swing chains were so tight with tension, I needed to hold on with both hands. So I gulped the rest of the Popsicle and dropped the stick on the ground. The resulting brain freeze stole my speech, giving me time to ponder this cross-country fantasy adventure. It was a beautiful dream that made me want freedom so bad. Why couldn’t I be eighteen right now?

  “We could see the world’s biggest ball of twine,” Bailey said. “It’s somewhere in the Midwest.”

  “How big is it?” I tried to ask, but with a frozen tongue, it came out “Hih bih ih ih?”

  “The size of a house, I think. But you know what’d be even better?” she said, still twisting, rising. “Seeing the world’s second biggest ball of twine. It’s one thing to build the first biggest, because there’d be reward in that. Get your name in Guinness World Records, have all those tourist dollars coming in. But whoever has the second biggest ball of twine—you know they’ve done it for love. For the love of twine.”

  I braced my feet against the ground. “For the love of twine.”

  “I’m done here.” Bailey looked down, where her toes were clutching the mulch. “You can go higher, since your legs are longer.”

  “Maybe I’m happy being second highest. Because my love of swing twisting is pure.” I shimmied over, straining my chain. “Or I’ll hold you so we can both go higher.”

  She smiled, then whipped around another rotation. The steel wanted to crank her back the other way, but I steadied her, then took her hand. Our arms stretched out in the space between our swings.

  When we let go, we flew.

  CHAPTER 23

  NOW

  The next morning, Mr. Ralph welcomes me back to Math Cave like the prodigal student I am. After class, as the other students leave, I approach him in his office, penitent.

  “I’m sorry I left. It was stupid of me to give up like that. I hope you can forgive me.”

  Mr. Ralph turns to me, shutting his file cabinet drawer. “Mara said you were trying to make your parents happy. They really turned your life upside down.”

  You have no idea. I just nod in reply. />
  “It’s a lot to put on someone so young. I don’t blame you for giving up.” He rubbed his dark red goatee, which he’d grown in my absence. It was a good look for him. “Of course, you have to face the consequences of your decisions. I’ll give you extra time to catch up, but you’ll have to do all the work you missed.”

  “I know. Thanks.”

  “Anyway, I hope the four of you can get some help and find real happiness.”

  I flinch at his words, though I’m not sure whether it’s at “happiness” or “four.” I want to run to the car to escape his concern, but I need something from him, so I mumble another thanks.

  Mr. Ralph examines my face, then takes on the patented understanding-teacher pose: sitting on the edge of his desk, one foot propped on a chair, hand resting on a knee. Casual, nonthreatening, stable. They must teach that pose in college.

  “David, I’m not a counselor, but I’ve been to counseling. My first wife and I, we married very young and fought a lot. We said and did a lot of dumb, hurtful things. By the time we finally went for help, we could barely be in the same room together. Anyway, our minister told us something that we couldn’t understand and use at the time, because we were so mad. But maybe you can use it.”

  I doubt it, since anger is crowding out 95 percent of my other thoughts. “What’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘It’s not our ability to get forgiveness that saves us. It’s our ability to grant forgiveness.’ ”

  I nod again. “That’s a really good point.” One I’ll have to ponder later. Right now I’m a man on a mission. “Hey, I wanted to ask if I could make it up to you for my absence. I know it’s a hassle to get me caught up, so I thought maybe I could help with grading papers or something.”

  Mr. Ralph looks at the giant stack of paper on the corner of his desk. “Well, I am always behind. But I can’t pay you.”

  “I don’t want to be paid. That’s the whole point.”

  “My other section’s syllabus is less advanced than yours, so you won’t gain any knowledge of your future tests by handling theirs.” Mr. Ralph opens a file cabinet drawer and pulls out a huge green hanging folder. “I graded these quizzes but haven’t had time to record the scores. If you did that for me, I could hand them back to the students in the next class.” He checks his watch. “You should have just enough time.”

  “No problem.” I take the folder and the ledger notebook to the small table in the corner, and he returns to his desk.

  The ledger lists all names, homework grades, and test results for this semester. Each student has his or her own line, with a box for each assignment or quiz. My boxes are blank starting with March 31.

  I run my finger down the grid. Not far from the top is a girl whose boxes go blank the same day as mine. A fifteen-year-old girl, with an eighteen-year-old brother who kept coming to class.

  Eve and Ezra Decker.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Mara appear outside the door, out of Mr. Ralph’s sight line. I tap my pencil against my chin, our signal.

  She comes to the threshold. “Mr. Ralph, I have a question about the extra-credit problem you put on the board. Can you come clarify?”

  “Sure.”

  The moment his back is turned, I flip to the front of the ledger, where I’ve seen him look up phone numbers to call students’ parents.

  I roll up my sleeve and write the Deckers’ address and phone number on my arm.

  We are ready to stalk.

  CHAPTER 24

  FORTY-FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE RUSH

  Dress up instead of down tonight!” Mom said gaily as she went down the hall, knocking on Mara’s door, then the bathroom, where I’d just gotten out of the shower. “We’re going out!”

  I resisted the urge to hurl the shampoo bottle across the room or crawl out the window wearing only a towel. After a long day of school—followed by a long workout—I’d been dying to crash on the couch for Super Duper Cooper Night. These Friday pizza-and-movie gatherings were the only times I still enjoyed hanging out with my parents.

  As Mara and I met Mom and Dad in the kitchen, they announced we were off to have dinner with a “friend.” It wasn’t until we were on the highway that we found out who.

  Sophia Visser.

  • • •

  In the backseat on the drive to South Jersey, Mara and I agreed, via silent texts, to present a united front of sulk, with only the thinnest veneer of politeness, just enough to keep from getting in trouble.

  Sophia lived in an average house in an average suburb. No compound, no megachurch, no giant marquee promising salvation to all who enter. I was half expecting plastic coverings on the sofas, like my great-grandmother used to have.

  A large, bald, muscular guy named Carter let us into the house. He didn’t speak or do much but lurk, so I assumed he was a bodyguard.

  Instead of the rapturous choir-girl outfits she wore on her home page, Sophia was sporting a sexy-librarian look that night. Her glasses accentuated her heavily made-up sky-blue eyes. The skirt of her red-and-black-striped suit dress came way above her knee, and her black f-me pumps dangled from one toe while she spoke, her legs crossed, the top one swaying slightly. Her reddish-brown hair was caught in one of those loose buns—the kind that looks like it could tumble around her shoulders with the pull of one pin. Grenade hair.

  Over dinner, Sophia and my parents discussed the “glories” of the Rush and its aftermath. They were going on about martyrs and saints and the seven seals, but my mind kept wandering from the conversation, back to the previous night, when I was lying with Bailey on her bed.

  “David, what do you think?” Sophia asked me.

  “Huh?” I blinked at her, jerked out of my reverie, where I’d been reliving how Bailey’d put her hand just below my belt, whispering, “Can I touch you?” And then reliving what had happened after I’d said, “Please.”

  Sophia tilted her head. “Are you all right, David? You look a little flushed.”

  “I’m fine.” I didn’t have her repeat the question, since she was probably only asking to get my attention, like a teacher calling on a drowsy student.

  It worked. As Sophia served us the most amazing chocolate chip and pecan cookies, I started listening, and soon found myself laughing at her jokes and nodding sympathetically when she told us of the tragic early death of her husband, Gideon, from cancer. A preacher himself, his passing inspired her to take up his cause to prepare souls for Jesus’s return. Every person she reached made Gideon’s life a little more meaningful, she said, and his death a little more bearable.

  But once she started in on the Rush, I put down the cookies, literally and metaphorically.

  “As of tonight,” she said during dessert in her living room, “we have but forty-three days to prepare for the coming of our Lord. Which means it’s time for a few tough truths.”

  “You’re telling them now?” Mom blurted. “I thought we were supposed to wait until Tuesday.”

  “They’re not children, Jennifer.” Sophia said my mother’s name gently. “They’re old enough to take responsibility for their own souls.”

  Mara set her mug on the coffee table with a thud, sloshing cocoa over the rim. “What’s going on? What’s happening Tuesday?”

  My mother wouldn’t look at her. My father wouldn’t look away.

  “Daddy?” she asked. “What’s she trying to tell us that you haven’t already?”

  “Your parents asked me to explain the situation.” Sophia folded her hands around her knee. “See, there are some things no one else can do for you. No one else can get you ready or bail you out, because no one else can give you faith. As Revelation tells us, we must each ultimately stand alone before the great white throne of God.”

  She bowed her head briefly, and our parents followed suit, long enough for Mara and me to exchange a worried glance.

  Sophia continued. “Of course, you’re wondering, ‘How do I get ready?’ and the answer is simple: by giving over your life and your will
to the Lord. He sacrificed His only son for us, so now, to show Him the depth of our love, we must also sacrifice.”

  We’d better not have to slaughter goats. My vegan girlfriend would not approve.

  I snickered, at the worst possible time. Everyone stared at me in horror, even Mara.

  Sophia’s grimace morphed into a tight smile. “David, may we talk alone, just you and me?”

  I looked at my father—for aid or permission, I wasn’t sure which. He said, “Do therefore according to your wisdom.”

  My wisdom told me to run from the house, get in the car, and drive until sunrise. I’d had my junior driver’s license for only four days, but I could do it.

  Instead I followed Sophia out of the living room and into a small room off the foyer, with a desk, several ferns, and a wooden cross on the far wall that was almost as tall as the wall itself. I was relieved there was no door to close behind us.

  Sophia gestured to the leather love seat, where a white cat was curled up on a folded woolen blanket. “Just ignore Jacob and he’ll ignore you.”

  “What happens to Jacob if you’re Rushed?” I sat beside the cat, who lifted his head and yawned.

  “When I am Rushed, God willing, he will go to a new home I’ve arranged for.” Sophia sat in a chair next to the desk. The chair’s seat was almost a foot taller than that of my sofa, so she towered over me. “As I was about to—”

  “How do you know the person you’re leaving him with won’t be Rushed, too? It’s up to God, right? Theoretically, He could take anyone.”

  “I have contingencies in place. Every family must ensure that their pets’ needs are seen to. You have two cats of your own, right?”

  “Yeah. Why are you doing this to us?”

  Sophia gave me an indulgent smile. “I understand your resentment and doubt. I see a lot of myself in you. Smart, rebellious, questioning. You seek God’s truth and you don’t settle for easy answers, am I correct?”

  I frowned at her flattery. She was right, but that could be true of anyone. No one wants to believe they’re a mindless sheep.