Lay It on My Heart

by Angela Pneuman

  And Tracy, sitting behind me in the back seat of the Buick, answers them all like a movie star in the spotlight. She tells Phoebe about her mother and her granny and her older sister with a baby.

  “Where do your sister and her husband live, Tracy?”

  “She doesn’t have a husband,” Tracy says.

  “It’s not an inquisition,” I say.

  “I’m just trying to get to know your friend, Charmaine. Tracy, Charmaine may have told you that I am a substitute teacher. And as such, I have become fascinated by the way children choose playmates.”

  “Children?” I say. “Playmates?”

  “It’s hard to say anything right around Charmaine,” says Phoebe. “I am forever using the wrong words.”

  “My mother says, one single working woman to another, her hat’s off to you,” says Tracy.

  Phoebe frowns sideways at me. “Single?”

  “I mean while your husband’s away,” Tracy says. “I showed her where you-all lived, and she said if you-all need anything from the store, like snacks, or anything from the garden, you should ask her. We got more fall squash coming in than we know what to do with. My mother gets real sick of canning.”

  “My mother used to can,” says Phoebe. “I’d almost forgotten. Maybe your mother can give me a refresher. One single working woman to another, as the case may be.”

  As soon as Phoebe drops us off at church, Tracy lays a heavy hand on my back and keeps it there. “Are you and Cecil going together now, or what?” she says.

  And just like that, his name heats up a secret core of shame and longing I never even knew existed before yesterday. I shut my eyes against the warmth. “No,” I say. “Nothing happened.”

  “You turning a whole lotta red over nothing.”

  “Nothing much, I mean.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I hear you. Nothing much.” And when I open my eyes again, she winks at me.

  We join about a hundred other kids on the back steps, all standing around waiting for Pastor Chick to come out. Some kids are Operation Outreach recruits from school or maybe from other churches. Mary-Kate and Karen are, predictably, huddled together near the church door. They eye Tracy and whisper to each other. Seth is tossing a NERF football around in the paved drive with a few other boys. I point him out as the one who’s living in my house, and Tracy says, “Skinny.”

  A low, loud black car turns into the lot and pulls slowly through the kids, who part on either side of it in wonder. Painted on its hood is an enormous silver bird. “That’s a Trans Am,” Tracy says.

  When the passenger door opens, none other than Kelly-Lynn steps out. She closes the car door without a word to the driver and stands there in her ironed jeans, searching the group until she finds me and makes a beeline.

  “I like your car,” says Tracy when Kelly-Lynn reaches us.

  “So does my mom. Just ask her, she’ll tell you all about it.” Which is exactly the kind of talk Tracy enjoys. We all watch Kelly-Lynn’s mom ease the car around the circular drive. When she turns back onto Main Street, she gives it the gas and makes the tires squeal. “Outta sight, outta mind,” Kelly-Lynn says, rolling her eyes. “The school informed her that I was smoking, and so last night she went through my book bag and found the flyer for this and decided a church thing would do me some good.” She looks at me pointedly. “Wonder how that happened?”

  “Sorry,” I say, marveling again at the tenacity of Operation Outreach. Kelly-Lynn just shrugs.

  The church door opens, and Pastor Chick joins the swarm of kids. The boys throw themselves at him, slapping his back, punching his arms. “You’re a tough bunch,” he says, jabbing into the air, slapping a few backs of his own. Then he steps up on the curb and raises his voice. “Welcome, people,” he calls out, and everyone quiets down. “And a very warm welcome to our special guests. We’re glad you’re here. People, none of you were around in 1973, though maybe one or two of you were a twinkle in your parents’ eyes. But lo those many years ago, the spirit of the Lord worked a revival miracle in this town. Some folks showed up to celebrate Jesus Christ, and some showed up, maybe like a few of yourselves, to see what all the fuss was about. Well, people, tonight we’ve got a little bit of everything. Some fuss and some fun. This scavenger hunt we’ve cooked up will have you roaming East Winder like a pack of foraging coyotes, then racing back to the water tower, where it all went down in the first place, for some righteous fellowship. And prizes, people. Did I say prizes? And people, I’m not even going to mention the food. Or the games. Or the crazy things that happen after you’ve been locked into the seminary gym for hours in the middle of the night with hours left to go.”

  When he pauses for breath, everyone whoops.

  “Listen to them,” Tracy says.

  Kelly-Lynn checks her watch.

  “And now,” says Pastor Chick, pointing to Conley, who drumrolls on the church door behind him, “I have here in my hand”—Pastor Chick brandishes a sheaf of papers—“the lists for our scavenger hunt.” More whooping and a few “coyotes” howl. “But first, folks, I’d like for you to separate into small groups. And you know what? Since it’s getting dark a little earlier these days, let’s make sure there’s at least one godly young man in each group. We don’t want to send our godly young ladies out onto the mean streets of East Winder alone.” Boys who have probably been ready to whoop again groan instead. They are totally outnumbered by godly young ladies and will most likely be separated. “In fact,” Pastor Chick says, “why don’t you godly young ladies get yourselves into groups of three or four, and I’ll assign you a godly young man to keep and protect.”

  Tracy clamps one arm around me and the other one around Kelly-Lynn. “Hope he doesn’t give us that farty guy who lives in your house,” she says, and right then I get a bad feeling.

  “Your boyfriend?” says Kelly-Lynn, looking at me meaningfully.

  “Not exactly,” I say. “Not at all, actually.”

  “She’s got a new boyfriend now,” says Tracy to Kelly-Lynn.

  “I don’t have any boyfriends,” I say.

  Pastor Chick, passing nearby, points to us. “Before the evening is over, I want to meet your friends, Charmaine Peake.”

  “Did we do something wrong?” Tracy says, and Pastor Chick chuckles and moves on. But soon he’s back, papers in one hand, box of garbage bags in the other, Seth scowling behind him.

  “Just look at this extraordinary group,” Pastor Chick says. “With my man Seth, we have a grand protector. And with my good lady Charmaine, we have someone, I’ll wager, who knows the mean streets of East Winder like the back of her hand. Charmaine, how’s your grandmother?”

  “A little better,” I say hopefully, but a quick, sharp ache rises in my throat.

  Pastor Chick extends a respectful hand first to Tracy and then to Kelly-Lynn.

  “You two have fine instincts,” Pastor Chick says. “I can tell by the company you keep. Who’s going to refuse a group of young people this special when they come knocking in the name of the Lord?” He hands Kelly-Lynn a sheet of paper with the list of items. He hands Tracy a garbage bag. He reminds us to stick to households with the porch light on and to take only one item from each. And not to do anything that might be unfair, like go to our own homes. He looks from Seth to me then back. “You know what I mean,” he says.

  “You mean Charmaine’s home,” Tracy says, and Seth looks at the ground.

  We’re supposed to make a note of who we get things from and if it’s anything they might want back. “We don’t want an angry East Winder mob scene,” says Pastor Chick. And we’re all supposed to meet under the water tower, he tells us, before the seminary carillon chimes nine.

  Seth is pretending to gaze out over the parking lot while really glancing sidelong at Kelly-Lynn. When he gets back around to her again, she’s looking right at him.

  “Take a picture,” I say. “It’ll last longer.”

  “I hear you enjoy photographs,” Kelly-Lynn says sweetly.<
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  Tracy narrows her eyes, and when Kelly-Lynn whispers in her ear, Seth flushes pink from his collar to his hair.

  “People,” yells Pastor Chick from the top step of the church. “Have you formulated a strategy? Because in ten seconds I’m setting you scavengers loose on this unsuspecting town. Are. You. Ready?”

  The crowd of kids, each group studying its list, gives off an anemic “Yes.”

  “Convince me,” says Pastor Chick.

  “Yes,” everyone yells.

  “Ten, nine, eight . . .” Pastor Chick counts.

  “‘Light of the world’ lightbulb?” reads Kelly-Lynn, running down the list with her finger. “What is that, just a regular lightbulb?”

  “. . . seven, six, five . . .” says Pastor Chick.

  “‘Give to Caesar’ bicentennial quarter,” says Kelly-Lynn, rolling her eyes again. “‘The street of the city was gold’ button. Now we’re going to take somebody’s button.”

  “We can get one from Doctor Osborne,” says Seth. “He keeps a box for costumes.”

  “. . . two, one!” Pastor Chick calls out, and we trail after the rest of the kids thronging out of the parking lot in their groups of four.

  The crowd teems down the middle of Main Street in one direction, all getting in each other’s way. Like lemmings, Phoebe would say. I lead our group the other way, up Main toward the single blinking light. Beyond the light are the tree streets, and beyond them the water tower. There aren’t as many houses on this side of town, only twenty or so, including Dr. Osborne’s, but if we can complete the list in this general area, we’ll finish ahead of everyone.

  The first place we try belongs to Mrs. Renfrew, a friend of Daze’s. She comes to the door in a housedress and with her hair in curlers. “How’s your grandmother, dear?” she asks me. “Don’t shatter this lightbulb and cut your sweet little hands.” From her purse, she gives us each a piece of stale gum, and we all work our jaws with it until she closes the door. Then I spit mine into the storm drain, and so does everyone else.

  “This is lame,” Kelly-Lynn says, crossing “light of the world” lightbulb from the list.

  “We forgot to ask if she wants it back,” says Tracy.

  “You should always return people’s property anyway,” says Seth. To me.

  A bald man I’ve seen around town answers the next door. “Who is it?” his wife calls from somewhere behind him, and he says, “I don’t know. No, wait. It’s the Peake girl. Do I have that right? How’s your father?”

  Everyone looks at me.

  “Fine,” I say, training my eyes on the man’s waxy-looking head.

  “You must be looking forward to him coming home.”

  I want to tell him it’s none of his business, but then he probably wouldn’t want to give us an “ark of gopher wood” wooden spoon. “Yes,” I say. “Do you have a wooden spoon?”

  “You kids coming from the church tonight?” says his wife, popping her head over the man’s shoulder. “Oh, hi there. Charmaine Peake, right? How’s your father? How’s your grandmother? And Seth Catterson? I don’t know you other two girls. We read about this in the bulletin. What fun!”

  “We’re after a wooden spoon,” says Tracy, moving things along.

  The woman draws her mouth in regretfully. “I have one, but it never leaves my kitchen. It was my great-grandmother’s, if you can believe it.”

  “Then how about anything else on this list,” Kelly-Lynn says and thrusts out the paper.

  The man looks it over. “‘Give to Caesar,’ ha. A bicentennial quarter?” He jingles some change in his pocket and pulls out a handful, slowly turning over each quarter while we wait. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Tell you what,” says the man. “I’ll go through my change drawer and look for one of those quarters, and you kids stop by again.”

  We head back down their walk. A gentle, chilly wind rustles the few leaves underfoot. It’s still light out, but not for long. Lamps start to come on in the windows as we pass. More porch lights too. It’s supposed to be a full moon, but you can’t see it for the low clouds.

  “How come you said you’re looking forward to your dad coming home, when he’s not?” Seth says.

  “Why don’t you worry about your own dad coming home?” I say. It comes from the meanness that I’m figuring out might always be inside me, ready to go.

  “That’s different,” says Seth. “He’s fundraising. He’s just on the road. He’s not moving in somewhere else.”

  “On the road,” says Kelly-Lynn as we proceed down the street. “That’s code for getting a divorce.”

  Seth stops in the middle of the sidewalk. “My parents are missionaries. They are not getting divorced.”

  “Charmaine’s parents aren’t, either,” Tracy says.

  “I never said they were,” says Seth. “What I said was her father’s not coming home. He has to stay locked up.”

  “He’s not locked up,” I say, feeling the depressing way meanness only makes more of itself. Beget is the word, like in the Bible. Meanness begets meanness.

  “He’s not exactly free to go,” Seth says. “He’s crazy.”

  “Some might say it’s crazy to keep pictures of dead people,” Kelly-Lynn says. If I said it, it would sound like another mean thing, but she makes it sound natural, almost friendly.

  “It’s not crazy,” Seth says. “It’s just a way not to think about stuff.”

  “I saw Faces of Death at my dad’s girlfriend’s house,” Tracy says.

  “Did it help you not think about stuff?” Kelly-Lynn says.

  “I never even tried not to think about anything,” says Tracy. “Why would I?”

  “Seth’s talking about lust,” I say. “He lusts after girls, which is a sin. So then he looks at sickening pictures to make him stop thinking about the things he wants to do to girls.”

  “I don’t want to do anything,” Seth says, his voice hitting a shrill note. Even in the fading light I can see his neck turning red again.

  “What if it backfires and you start wanting to do stuff more?” Kelly-Lynn asks. “Like to that woman on the table.”

  “What table?” says Tracy. “What woman?”

  We are now standing on the sidewalk in front of Dr. Osborne’s house. He lives in the only Sears-catalog bungalow in town, Phoebe has told me, which his father built from a kit. We don’t even see him sitting there on the swing, behind the post, until he emerges from the shadow to stand at the top of the porch steps.

  “Doctor Osborne, tell them,” Seth says. “About looking at pictures to control your thoughts.”

  Dr. Osborne fingers the cross of nails hanging against his chest. “Ah,” he says. “Scavenger hunt, unless I miss my guess. Charmaine Peake, how’s your mother?”

  “All people do in this town is ask after your family,” says Tracy.

  “She took the pictures,” Seth says, indicating me with a flick of his head that makes his glasses glint in the porch light.

  Dr. Osborne turns an ear to us like he didn’t quite hear. Interested. Polite. “Pictures?” he repeats. “Who took pictures?”

  “Stole them,” Seth says.

  “Tell me about these pictures,” says Dr. Osborne. He looks from Seth to me, then back to Seth.

  “What do you mean, tell you about them?” Seth says. “The pictures.” His voice is tight and high, shrill again. There’s no question for me now where he got the photographs, no matter how much Dr. Osborne pretends.

  “Don’t have a conniption,” says Tracy.

  “They sound important,” says Dr. Osborne. “Have all of you seen these pictures?”

  “I have,” says Kelly-Lynn.

  “Maybe I’d better have a look myself,” says Dr. Osborne. “Charmaine, you have them, if I’ve followed the ins and outs here, yes?”

  Seth’s bottom lip pulls away from his top lip, but no sound comes out. He looks at Dr. Osborne in outrage and something like despair, and I try, from meanness, to take pleasure in it.

  “I might,�
�� I say, “and I might not.”

  Dr. Osborne squints at me, but only with one eye. “I don’t understand.”

  “What kind of pictures would you use to stop thinking about something?” I ask him. “Say you wanted to keep on being the man who has never known a woman. Say you wanted to stop thinking about my mother.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Charmaine.”

  “Would you look at a picture of a dead woman?” says Kelly-Lynn.

  “Yes,” Seth says. “And other dead people. You know,” he says. “Tell them.” It’s as if he still thinks Dr. Osborne might not understand, as if he can’t imagine any other reason for what the man’s saying. Or not saying.

  Dr. Osborne looks away from Seth and smiles at Tracy and Kelly-Lynn in a frozen way. “I don’t believe I caught either of your names,” he says. “All right, kids, whatever you’re up to tonight, I don’t believe I have anything you need. Seth, this is a bit of a disappointment. Charmaine, don’t you think your mother has enough on her plate these days without having to worry about you? How about you all head along now, so I won’t feel like I have to call your parents.”

  “And say what?” I ask.

  “You don’t even know my parents,” says Kelly-Lynn. “You don’t even know my name.”

  “We don’t even have a phone,” says Tracy.

  Beside me, Seth twists his mouth angrily, then opens it and takes a loud, shuddering breath. I want to keep hating him—for living in my house and for all the things he’s said about my father—but he looks suddenly so much like a little kid. There’s an undertow to his despair, like gravity at the core of him, and I’m close enough that it tugs at me no matter how mean either one of us can get.

  I unzip the butt purse and take out the picture of the woman on the table. Under Dr. Osborne’s porch light I study it again, even though it’s already permanently grafted onto my brain. Tracy moves up behind me and peers over my shoulder. She lets out a low whistle. On my hand, underneath the charred edge of the picture, you can still see all the hatch marks I made, like a complicated network of pale veins. I think of how hard I tried to pray and how clean and relieved I felt to quit. I think, with a kind of heaviness, of the way Seth and even Dr. Osborne have been knocking themselves out not to think anything that might make them feel what I feel every time I think about Cecil. Lust. I think of how hard it is to keep trying to do what’s impossible, how exhausting. How even their efforts have become something to hide.