Connie admitted to herself that the ham, which she hadn’t bothered to uncover before, was glorious. Dotted lines made of cloves snaked between pineapple-ring-and-maraschino-cherry bull’s-eyes, creating a crazy pattern like the sixties wallpaper her mother had hung in the bathroom when Connie was a child. Behind this pattern, the meat glowed a honeyed pink like sweaty, sunburned skin. The scent, which reached her a second later, was heavenly. Connie had overspent. It would be buttered noodles for her and Gene until Friday’s paycheck, but the applause the group now gave her justified the expense. Connie laughed and covered her face with one hand as she slipped into her chair.
Sue Deal, at the far end of the table, managed to say to her husband, “Look at her!” before she was choked by a noose of happiness, and tears sprang to her eyes. She had never seen Connie laugh with her mouth open and her short, regular teeth showing like that. She was pretty. “Thank you, Lord,” Sue whispered. Connie had been at the top of her prayer list since that day they had had coffee.
The group fell to eating, and Connie, feeling a bit overcome by the attention, sat back and listened to Bill answer the questions of those seated across the table. These questions were the same she had heard asked many times: what religion were the Africans, were they responsive to Bill’s mission, and that silly one, were there any dangerous animals there? Connie paid less attention to Bill’s answers than to the interplay between him and his listeners. Dale Russell, the man of the house, was so insistent in his affirmations as Bill spoke, “Yep, uh-huh, right, right . . . ,” that at one point Bill paused, apparently assuming Dale had something to say. But Dale paused, too, so Bill went on, having learned that that’s just how Eulans listened, nudging the speaker along like a border collie herding sheep. Bill wasn’t like that. When he listened it was with a steady, wordless gaze that sometimes caused the speaker to seek affirmation: “Do ya see what I mean?” Then Bill would answer in a way that assured the speaker that he had not only been listening, but considering what had been said more closely and intelligently than anyone else present.
Connie remembered that the French exchange student in high school—what was her name?—had listened this way, and it made people think she was stuck-up. It didn’t help—the fact that she often wrinkled her nose and said of Eula, “Eet is so small!” This, from someone who thought nothing of wearing the same blouse three days in a row. But the manner of Bill’s listening made Connie remember something else, something farther back, and she gave a little start when she named it: the picture of Jesus that had hung on the wall in her bedroom.
For a time, when Connie was nine or ten, she had talked to her Jesus portrait at length when no one else was around. It was one of those paintings that had been reproduced a thousand times; in fact, one hung in the Sunday school room the Dorcas Circle used for its meetings. The reproduction that hung on Connie’s bedroom wall had been shellacked to a board, which made Jesus’s eyes deeper and browner. Connie wasn’t praying when she talked to the picture—she prayed on her knees with her eyes shut—rather, she was giving long, rambling, diary-entry monologues: “So then the teacher sent him to the office and everyone was afraid that he was going to get swats, but Mr. Miller just chewed him out and called his mother.” Jesus’s compassionate eyes gave her courage, and she told him of her frustrations with her parents, fights with friends, and crushes on boys.
Maybe this was what had allowed Connie to tell her rambling stories to Bill on their long drives—he listened like Jesus.
At a point near the end of the meal, Dale Russell rose to help Binnie in the kitchen, another of Bill’s listeners went to the bathroom, and the remaining two went to say hello to people down the table. “Well,” Bill said, turning to Connie, “it looks like I scared everyone off.”
Connie just shook her head and blinked. Then they sat for a while in the comfortable silence that was the reward of their many hours together.
The group caravanned to the Hortons’ house for the fellowship portion of the evening. Kaye played piano, they sang a few Christmas carols, and Reverend McNally led them in prayer. Then they all piled back into their cars and drove to the Deals’ for dessert. Sue had made a massive Christmas cake: two layers of white cake—one that had been soaked in red Jell-O mix, the other in green—covered in white frosting and stacked. The vivid red and green, framed by white, showed only when Sue sliced and plated the cake, to the oohs and aahs of the group. The cake, when they cut into it with plastic forks, was moist bordering on soggy, and the cherry and lime flavors sweet bordering on cloying; still, everybody begged to know how she had done it.
The evening had gone longer than planned. The late hour and the smothering heat that radiated from the wood stove sent some of the younger children to curl up on couches and fall asleep, while adults moved in small groups to the farther reaches of the house, where it was cooler. Connie, after finishing her cake, strolled out into the yard to look at the stars, which shone brilliantly here, away from the lights of Eula. The chill felt good against her skin, and she hoped, without admitting it to herself, that Bill would follow her. If he did, it would prove something—something she didn’t dare name so as not to feel even lonelier when the minutes passed and he didn’t come.
She walked down the slope of the lawn and rested her hands on the top board of the fence. The night was moonless and very dark, and the lights that glowed here and there across the expanse of fields, each marking a farmhouse or barn, were distinguishable from the stars only because they were lower, less plentiful, and emitted a poorer, steadier light.
The sound of footsteps on the grass caused Connie’s heart to race. But when she turned, it was Reverend McNally, not Bill, who walked down the lawn toward her. His arms were folded across his chest, and from one hand swung Connie’s coat.
“I saw you leave, and then when you didn’t come back, I figured you’d need this,” he said.
“You were right,” Connie said.
Ed held open the coat, and Connie put her arms through the sleeves, then turned toward him and folded her arms just like his.
Without admitting it, Connie had been avoiding Ed tonight. She was worried that he would think their last conversation, when she met with him at his office, had been about Bill—that she wanted to know if she was free to marry him if he asked, which hadn’t been her intent at all. It had been about her freedom in general. Or at least that was Connie’s position in the argument she was constantly having with herself.
“You seem happy tonight, Connie,” said Ed.
“Oh . . . the holidays, you know,” she said.
“You and Reverend Howard—you seem to be getting along well.”
“Reverend Howard is a good man,” Connie answered. “I’m very interested in his mission.”
“Yes, Pamela was telling me that you’ve been driving him to meetings. I hadn’t known that.”
“It’s my offering, Ed.”
“That’s wonderful,” he said, but his expression was one of unspeakable sadness.
He’s jealous. The thought horrified her and gave her a profane thrill. To mention Ed’s wife seemed an escape. “Jenny looks lovely tonight,” Connie said. “She has the cutest earrings.”
“Snowmen,” Ed said miserably.
An awful silence fell over them. “Well, I’m just about frozen to death,” said Connie. She walked up the lawn toward the house, and Ed followed at a distance.
UNLIKE JUNIOR HIGH kids, students at Eula High School had to pay for their lunch, and therefore were allowed, the school board had decided a few years before, to eat off-campus if they so chose. Some students paid the three dollars and got the same slop the junior high kids ate an hour earlier for free. The lucky kids with money and cars left school and went to McDonald’s on the boulevard, often arriving late to fifth period slurping pop from sweaty, waxed-paper cups. Others, whose parents had demonstrated financial need, got “red-ticket lunches,” which meant they paid five dollars every Monday and got five red tickets, which they then
traded, one a day, for their lunches. Red tickets were badges of shame, the high school equivalent of food stamps.
On Mondays and Thursdays, there was another option: to go to church for lunch. The Eula Assembly of God, an evangelical church just down the road, offered a free lunch that was usually better than that served in the school cafeteria—free, that is, unless one considered conversation with one of the youth ministers who wandered the room a price.
For Jay, there was yet another option. On days when he didn’t have any money (he refused red tickets, though Lina qualified, and never asked for more than the $20 she left on his bureau every Saturday morning) he would skip lunch entirely, go to the gym, and shoot hoops for an hour. By the end of the day he would be dizzy with hunger, but this extra hour of practice improved his game, and, this year more than ever, all he cared about was his game.
It was time to shake off the sadness of having been rejected, though, so one frosty day, when Winston proposed that they go to church for lunch—and do it stoned—Jay accepted. They jogged out to Winston’s car, shared half a joint from the ashtray drawer, then made the short walk along the fence of the field that separated the school from the church. Everything was suddenly vivid and crisp—the prostrate weeds and the frozen mud puddles crunching under their feet. The cows had huddled for warmth in the center of the field. When the boys passed, they lifted their heavy heads to watch, steam shooting from their gaping black nostrils rimmed by white scales.
The boys descended the staircase into the church basement, stood in line with all the goody-goodies (all the while stifling laughter and nudging each other), and were served big plates of farm fry—a casserole made from layers of potatoes, bacon, and American cheese. This proved to be fantastically delicious. They huddled at the end of one of the long rows of folding tables and gorged themselves, making approving sounds, until Jay caught Winston’s eye and they both burst out laughing, coughing, nearly choking.
“Hey, guys, enjoying the food?” said a young man with puffy orange hair as he slid into the seat next to Jay.
“Yeah,” said the boys, suddenly sullen.
“My name’s Chris. I’m visiting with Campus Crusaders. My friend Sarah and I go to Boise State.” Chris nodded toward a girl who hung over a group at another table. Chris wore a black cardigan sweater over a paisley-print shirt, which was buttoned up all the way to the top, New Wave style. No one in Eula dressed New Wave. “What are your names, guys?”
They mumbled their answers.
“Well, I was wondering if I could sit here with you for a minute and share something that happened to me a few years ago, probably when I was around your age.”
Jay sat up and cocked his head. “Eeh, sorry, main, but we no speaka inglés.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Winston said, nodding and slumping his shoulders as if he could drift off to sleep. “Jus’ Spanish.”
Winston had been watching Cheech and Chong videos on the Padgetts’ new VCR and working up an impression. Cheech and Chong were, for Jay and Winston, a cool alternative to the lame humor served up on network TV—the lighthearted life lessons of The Cosby Show, the sisterly high jinks of The Golden Girls, the cheeky social commentary of Family Ties: shit, all of it. The boys had been doing Cheech and Chong at school, too, as a way of weeding out the squares: if you didn’t know whom they were impersonating, you were a square. And for Jay, putting on a Mexican accent somehow made him less Mexican.
“That’s pretty funny, guys,” said Chris. “Is that, like, Speedy Gonzalez?”
“Speedy Gonzalez?” Winston said, squinting his eyes. “Who’s that?”
“Come on, main,” said Jay. “He’s that cholo with the auto body shop out in Homedale.”
“Aw, right, Speedy. That dude does a lot of speed, man. Freaks me out.”
“Pretty funny, guys. Well, do you mind if I tell you my story?”
“Shore, main,” Jay said. “But you might wanna keep an eye on your puta. She’s sitting with some other guy.”
“Yeah,” Winston added. “If I were you I’d go over there. She’s a fine piece of ass.”
“Well,” Chris said, rising, “it looks like you guys just came here for a meal and a laugh. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Bueno,” Jay said. “Hasta mañana.”
“Have fun and stuff,” Winston added.
CLOSE TO NOON that day, Wanda awoke. The first things she saw were the undersides of the tiny, painted shoes of the clowns hanging from the mobile above her bed. She smiled and, without so much as lifting her head from the pillow, reached for the thermometer.
Even though Wanda hadn’t yet signed a contract with Melissa and Randy (it was being prepared for her next visit), Helen had told her to go ahead and start an ovulation-predictor chart. It was imperative, she had said, that Wanda remember to take her temperature before rising every morning; even getting up out of bed could elevate it enough to invalidate that day’s entry on the chart. But Wanda could never remember. She’d roll out of bed and be halfway through a good long pee before she’d stiffen and curse. So, on a Saturday afternoon trip to Empire Mall in Boise with Coop and Maria, she spent $20 on this mobile to hang over her bed. It was handmade and imported from Germany: a red-striped circus canopy with tasseled trim from which cords of different lengths led to wooden clowns with block bodies and stick limbs jointed with tiny metal rings at the hip, shoulder, knee, and elbow. If you pulled down a wooden ball that hung at the canopy’s center, the mobile began to rotate and the clowns danced, arms and legs swinging, hands and feet jiggling, joints working backward and forward. Each clown had been painted with a different costume. Now when Wanda woke and saw those tiny shoe-soles, she remembered to take her temperature.
The mobile would be her gift to the baby. It was nice enough to hang in the Weston-Sloanes’ house.
Now she sat up in bed, picked up the clipboard that held the chart, and wrote in the box: 98.9. The phone rang, and she went to the kitchen to answer it.
“Wanda? Helen.”
“Hi, Helen.”
“Tell me, Wanda, what is your last name?”
Wanda’s heart plunged. She became very still, as if that would allow the moment to pass without sticking, without becoming real.
“Answer me, Wanda.”
“Cooper.”
“Yes, Cooper, not Coper.”
“Did I write Coper?”
“Wanda, it doesn’t matter what you wrote. All I had to say was your first name, and the woman at the Chandler Police Department gave me an earful.”
Wanda swallowed, then said, “I have to go.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t be thorough, Wanda? Sure, it took a while, it took a few calls, but did you honestly think you could trick me? It’s my job to protect my clients from people like you, and I’m good at my job.”
Wanda hung up. She had to get to Melissa before Helen did. She scrambled through a pile of papers for the number, then dialed it quickly.
“Melissa,” she said, once the secretary had patched her through, “listen to me. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Wanda? Hold on, I’m getting another call.”
“Don’t answer it!” Wanda shrieked.
There was a stunned pause on Melissa’s end.
“Please, give me a minute to explain before you talk to Helen. There’s some things I didn’t tell you.”
Melissa’s voice dropped in pitch. “What things?”
“I’ve gotten in trouble, but it’s all over. You’ve got to believe me. It’s all ancient history.”
“What kind of trouble, Wanda?”
Wanda took a deep breath. “Drugs. I was arrested for drug possession. Twice.”
“What drugs?”
“Pot once, then speed.”
“Wanda, I don’t—”
“Wait, there’s more. I drove a car when Hank and his friend stole some things out of this guy’s garage. But I didn’t know they were going to do it; I thought they knew the guy. And it was Ha
nk that got me into speed. God, I wish I never met him! But that’s it! That’s the truth! There’s nothing more! I swear, all of that’s over. It’s like I’m a different person now.”
Melissa said nothing.
“No,” said Wanda, bowing her head, then pushing back her hair. “That isn’t everything. I did know what Hank was up to. I did.”
The words of Melissa’s response were clipped and businesslike: “I don’t believe anything you say, Wanda.” She hung up.
WHEN FRED CAMPBELL, the principal, got the call from the Eula Assembly of God, he didn’t recognize by description the boys who had caused a disturbance—a tall Mexican boy and a shorter white boy, both athletic-looking, both “big boys,” juniors or seniors—so he went to the school secretary, Francine, who, having worked in the office for nearly twenty years, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the student body.
“Sounds like Winston Padgett and Jay Cortez,” Francine said.
“Who are they?” Fred asked, folding his arms and perching at the edge of Francine’s desk.
“Winston’s a wrestler, Liz Padgett’s twin brother; dad owns a trucking business. And Jay’s a basketball player. He used to live with Carl and Janet Van Beke, but this year he’s gone to live with his mom on the north side.”
Fred nodded. “Call them in, one at a time,” he said, returning to his office. “And pull their files. Thank you, Francine.”
So, in sixth-period English, just when Jay’s high was beginning to settle into a comfortable sleepiness, a loud crackle came from the loudspeaker on the wall, followed by Francine’s slowly and clearly annunciated words: “ ’Scuse me, Mr. Barton, Jay Cortez to the office, please.”
The class gave a knowing, approving laugh, and Jay, allowing an increased swing in his movements to express something between exhaustion and insolence, got up and gathered his things. “Godspeed, sire,” Mr. Barton said, bowing low as Jay passed, which caused the class’s laughter, not to be hijacked by a teacher’s joke, to die.
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