Devoted

by Jennifer Mathieu

  “Oh, you’re too sweet, but I miss the days when my skin was in its prime. Treasure your pores, honey.” Then she tilts her head at me and says, “Hey, have you ever thought about wearing your hair up? I mean, your hair is lovely. All those dark chocolate curls and everything. But your face is so gorgeous, and it’s like I can hardly see it.”

  I flush at the word gorgeous. I’ve been called dutiful, patient, hardworking, and virtuous, but never gorgeous. Not even pretty. I squirm a bit in my seat.

  “I’ve never thought about it, I guess,” I respond, glancing down at the stack of flyers.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Diane starts.

  “You haven’t,” I say in a soft voice.

  “I have,” she says.

  I manage eye contact with Diane, whose face is clouded with concern.

  “Am I really … gorgeous?” I ask, the words sounding silly as soon as I say them.

  But Diane grins, her worry vanishing, and her eyes crinkle up at the sides. “Yes, dear. You are. You’re lovely.”

  I flush again, and because I’m not sure what else to do, I start stuffing envelopes. “Thank you,” I answer, almost under my breath.

  “You know,” Diane says, getting her purse and phone and heading toward the door, “I’ve always loved that part in Song of Solomon. The part when the man tells his love that her lips are like a scarlet thread and her cheeks are like pieces of a pomegranate behind her veil. I just think it shows us how much God wants us to appreciate beauty. Human beauty, too.”

  I stop midstuff, and I know I’m staring. I’m not sure if the Treats go to church, but Diane just quoted Scripture with the ease of a preacher.

  Diane notices my surprise and winks. “In addition to being Miss Teen Lake O’ the Pines 1988,” she says, “I also won Covenant Baptist’s Bible Bee six years in a row. All right, I’m heading out now, Rachel. Help yourself to lunch.”

  After Diane leaves, I walk over to the mirror and pull back my curls, twisting them up and away from my face, exposing my neck. We didn’t study the Song of Solomon much—Pastor Garrett always said it was a metaphor about Christ and his church, not about people—but I remember what comes after the Scripture Diane quoted.

  “‘Your neck is like the tower of David, built for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men,’” I recite to my reflection. I smile at myself before I let my hair tumble down around my shoulders. I can’t tell if it looked pretty or not. It definitely looked different.

  I stuff every flyer and upload five new houses to the database. My ears are on alert, wondering if I’ll hear the jangle of keys in the front door and Mark’s shout of hello. If he shows up, I could tell him how much I loved The Wind in the Door.

  But Mark doesn’t show up, and soon I go make myself a sandwich and eat it at the kitchen counter. I picture Mark in this kitchen every morning, joking around with his parents and making up excuses for why he can’t go to his SAT prep class. I imagine a lot of laughter and words and silly sayings that only make sense to them. My own house wasn’t usually filled with much joking, but still, we had our own little routines and our Walker way of doing things. Now that exists without me. And I don’t have a family to be part of. I wait for tears but there aren’t any. Just that same weight of sadness I’m always carrying that grows heavier when I least expect it. I allow myself a sigh and then start tidying the kitchen so I can get back to work.

  After lunch I upload a few more houses, alphabetize several files, and do some general tidying up. Finally, I write a small reminder note that reads Call the Print Shop to Complain About Flyers. I know Diane will be back soon, and she’ll be pleased with what I’ve done. I sit in silence for a moment and survey the neat and orderly desk and smile. It’s good to feel capable.

  As I consider what else I can finish, I run my fingers along the computer keyboard, still in wonder that I’m able to look up absolutely anything I want whenever I’m here. Of course, I’ve been so serious about working hard for Diane that the only time I let myself search for something that wasn’t related to work was when I wanted to show Mark who invented paper.

  Diane wouldn’t mind if I looked up something. Something I’ve been thinking about. I do a quick search and click on the link.

  Welcome to Clayton High! Home of the Cavaliers!

  Right in the middle of the home page are a group of girls in red and black uniforms of small skirts and sleeveless tops. They surround a young man dressed in a funny suit, red cape, and a big black hat with a red feather sprouting out of the top. He’s brandishing a sword, and I figure he must be a cavalier. I can’t help but grin, but my smile is no competition for the bright smiles of the girls on the home page. My eyes scan the menu to the left.

  Summer Reading

  Summer School Meal Plan

  Fall Registration Info

  Fall Athletics

  Booster Club

  Campus Directory

  Campus Map

  Student Information

  I remember catching brief glimpses through the window of our family van of students while they waited at bus stops. Sometimes I’d see them hanging out by the Stop N’ Go when I went in to pay for gas. My dad always referred to public schools as government-run schools, places where little children were stripped of values instilled at home. As a little girl, I felt superior to them as I drove by—my father cared enough about my soul to protect me from God haters and sinners. As I got older, I saw them clustered together, laughing, talking, sometimes even holding hands. They spoke their own private language.

  They looked like they were having fun.

  At the bottom of the page, I find a link to the Clayton Independent School District. I click on it and am bombarded with words and tabs and links to other links about policies and procedures and curriculum. I minimize the page and stare for a few moments at the picture of Boots the cat that Diane uses as a screensaver, then take a deep breath and go back to the district website. I slowly read every word until finally, under a heading titled Admissions and Withdrawls, I discover the following sentence: The adult student (over age eighteen years and under age twenty-one years) or the student, who has had the disabilities of minority removed through marriage or as otherwise permitted by law, may enroll without parental involvement.

  Over eighteen but under twenty-one.

  In a few weeks that will be me.

  I print out the page, fold it in half, and tuck it inside my purse. I decide to try and make sense of one of Diane’s file cabinets bulging with unfiled things, but a few minutes later, I take the paper out and unfold it, smoothing the crease with my finger. I read the sentence over and over again until I’m sure I could recite it with my eyes closed.

  * * *

  A week later the information about school enrollment is still in my purse like some sort of talisman. I haven’t done anything with the information, but just knowing the paper exists at the bottom of my bag makes me feel like good things could happen to me.

  But unfortunately, its charms aren’t working at this moment. It’s Friday night and I’m curled up on the couch, trying to focus on a different piece of paper—a blank one. Gripping a pen in my hand, I write the word Ruth in my careful script.

  The name stares back at me expectantly from the lined paper. I chew the end of my blue ballpoint pen in response, frustrated.

  I’ve tried to write Ruth every few days since I came to Lauren’s, but I can’t find the words to explain everything that’s happening in a way that I know won’t scare her. All I have is a handful of letters that don’t say anything about what I really long to share with her. In my last letter I spent a full paragraph explaining what I made for supper one evening, but I haven’t told her about my job or the Treats or watching television because I know how much it would frighten and confuse her to know I’m doing all of those things. After all, those things still frighten and confuse me a little, and I’m actually here, living them and trying to make sense of
them.

  In the note I left under her pillow, I promised Ruth I would get in touch, but I can’t figure out a way to get the letters to her. Even if I leave my return address blank, my parents are sure to open any mail addressed just to Ruth. And even letters about mundane things like making supper are forbidden if they’re written by someone like me.

  Since I can’t call her, a letter is the only way. Maybe the day my letter arrives might be the day Ruth gets the mail. But I think she’d probably show it to my parents.

  I bite down harder on the pen and frown. Finally, I think about the one thing I wish I could tell Ruth right now. And it’s not mundane and it wouldn’t scare her. It’s just the truth.

  Ruth, here in the place where I am staying, I sleep on a friend’s couch. And sometimes at night I hug my pillow and pretend it’s you, and I whisper all the things I want to tell you.

  My throat tightens up. Now that I’ve found something I want to say, I can’t even get the letter to her.

  “How do I look?”

  Lauren interrupts me by walking out of her bedroom. She’s wearing tight black jeans and a skin-hugging red T-shirt. Her red lipstick is the color of fresh apples. Her eyes are framed with dark liner, and her hair—still blue—is artfully arranged in soft curls around her face.

  “You look pretty,” I say, grateful for the distraction. I swallow a few times until the lump in my throat is gone and examine Lauren’s outfit again. I still can’t imagine myself in anything like what she’s wearing, but Lauren does look pretty. Light-up-a-room, notice-me pretty. Confident pretty. Pretty pretty.

  “Thanks. Jeremy’s picking me up in a few secs, so…”

  “Jeremy? Your old boyfriend?” The one she caught kissing someone else?

  “Yes, and I don’t want to talk about it. Just tell me to have fun, okay? Please?” She smiles brightly and slips off to the kitchen. When she comes back she’s sipping from a glass. She finishes it pretty quickly as she messes around on her phone.

  “Okay, he’s downstairs,” says Lauren, setting her glass down on the table. “Don’t wait up.”

  “All right,” I say, wondering why Bryce came to the front door to meet Lauren and Jeremy just sends her a message from his car outside. “Have a nice time.”

  After Lauren leaves, I watch Law & Order, figuring out the plot twist long before the assistant district attorney does. I usually choose nature shows when I’m in the apartment alone, but when Lauren and I watch Law & Order together she has me guess the ending at the halfway point because she knows I’m almost always right. I have to admit I enjoy solving the puzzles. I’ve even gotten used to the short skirts. When the show’s over, I turn off the television so I can go read some more of the Madeleine L’Engle books Mark brought. I haven’t seen him at Diane’s this week, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever see him again. And I want to. I want to see his kind smile and hear his silly jokes. I’m not sure what to do about the fact that he makes my heart beat double time, but I do know the last time I went to Diane’s I thought about pinning my hair up to show off my face even though I didn’t do it.

  I change into my nightgown and lie down to read on the couch until a little past eleven. Reading whatever I want for as long as I want to read it makes me sigh out loud with happiness even if there’s no one around to hear me sighing. I’ll never get sick of it.

  Suddenly the door to the apartment swings open with a wild force. I jump at the sound, my eyes wide.

  “That guy,” Lauren spits. “I seriously hate that guy.” She slams the door so hard the framed Don’t Mess with Texas Women poster she has hanging by the door skitters off the wall and lands with a crash on the hardwood floor.

  “I hate that fucker like I hate my dad,” she yells, her voice cracking. Two black half moons of melting eye makeup stain her face, and her carefully applied lipstick is now smeared, careening off her mouth and down her chin like a child’s scribble.

  “What happened?” I whisper, but Lauren takes the glass she left on the table and hurls it at the door. Then she crumples into a ball right there on the floor, and in that moment she looks impossibly tiny. Younger than me.

  “Lauren!” I shout, and I scramble to her, careful not to step on the glass. She’s sobbing now, hard. The choking, can’t breathe sobs I know from my first days away from home. Mucus runs freely down her nose, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care.

  I help her up and walk with her to her bedroom, grabbing a bunch of toilet paper from the bathroom on the way so she can clean her face. In the dim light shining in on us from the hall, I can see she’s finally stopped crying. Her breathing is shaky, coming in fits and starts. She falls into her bed, not even changing her clothes.

  “I’m sorry about the glass,” she finally says, her voice soft. Not at all like the bombastic Lauren I’m used to. “I’ll clean it up tomorrow.”

  “No, I’ll do it later,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to, Rachel.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Thanks,” she says, scooting closer to the wall, making room for me. I sit next to her and bring my knees up to my chin.

  “Can I ask what happened?”

  Lauren shrugs and doesn’t make eye contact when she answers. “Stupid stuff. Drinking stuff. We messed around.” She glances up at me. “I mean, we kissed and everything.”

  And everything. I wonder what the everything part means.

  “Anyway, we spent all night hanging out, and I thought it was going really great, like all the crap that had gone on between us was in the past, but then when I brought up maybe, like, starting to hang out again, he said he thought I had too many issues and he wasn’t the right guy for me because he wouldn’t be able to help me in the way I needed help. God, it sounds so awful and gross just saying it out loud.” She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. “I mean, that is so him. He makes it sound like he’s doing me a favor while he breaks my heart.”

  Tears start sliding down her face, but she wipes them away with the back of her hand.

  “The truth is, he’s right. I do have too many issues. I’m seriously fucked up. I’m just this fucked-up girl, and I’ll never not be fucked up. And no one will want to be with me.”

  “Lauren, that’s not true,” I say. My hand sits uncertainly for a moment and then I reach out, pushing her hair away from her face. I pet her gently for a while, and I sense Lauren’s shoulders start to sink just a bit and hear her breathing even out.

  “How is that not true?” she whispers, still avoiding my eyes.

  “You left your house when you were my age, but you didn’t have anyone to go to. And you did it. You made it. I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have left without you to go to.”

  “Yes, you could have.”

  “But you did it, Lauren,” I insist. “You did it all by yourself. And you got your GED and a job and an apartment. You’re a hard worker, and you care about people. You spend all day helping animals. And you’re helping me now. You’re a good person, Lauren.”

  Lauren sniffs a little and manages a tiny, wry smile. “Remember how Pastor Garrett always used to say it didn’t matter if we were good? How good people went to hell every day? How the only thing that mattered was whether or not we were born again in Christ Jesus?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” I say. And suddenly I know—suddenly I accept, in every space in my heart—that Pastor Garrett is wrong.

  “What’s going to happen to us, Rachel?” Lauren asks. “What’s going to happen to our lives?”

  To our wild lives. Our precious lives.

  “I’m not sure,” I answer. “I wish I knew.”

  “Me, too,” Lauren whispers, and she stifles a yawn.

  “You need to go to sleep.”

  “Sit with me till I do?”

  “Sure.”

  I wait until she’s drifted off. I take a deep breath.

  God, help me. Guide me. Give me the compassion to be there for Lauren as I kno
w you would want me to be. Help me to show her love, God.

  I pray and breathe and watch Lauren sleep, and when I’m sure she’s resting deeply, I tiptoe out of her bedroom and set to picking up the shards of broken glass.

  19

  Diane asks me to come in next Friday even though it’s usually my day off, and when I knock on the door, I expect to be met by trails of Diane’s sweet perfume and the tap of her high heels. But when the Treatses’ front door opens, I’m face-to-face with Mark.

  “Oh, hey,” he says, grinning. “Long time no see.”

  “Hey,” I answer. “I mean, hi.” My face feels warm.

  “Hey, hi, hola, it’s all the same thing,” Mark says, heading into Diane’s office. He takes a big bite of an apple he’s holding and bellows out, “Mom! Rachel’s here!” in between bites. Then he stretches out onto the love seat and keeps eating. I put my purse down on the desk just as Diane walks in, dressed in a mint-green suit and matching pumps.

  “It’s so lovely for you to let me know in a calm and measured tone that my responsible employee is once again on time for her job,” Diane says to Mark, rolling her eyes. “And take your shoes off the love seat.” She’s carrying a large paper bag full of clothing which she places alongside some others by the front door.

  “Mom, come on,” Mark replies. He finishes the apple and tosses the core into the garbage can where it lands with a thud. But he drops his feet down to the floor.

  Diane sighs. “Mark told me you’ve got six brothers,” she says to me. “How do you handle all that male energy?” She drags out the last two words, like saying the phrase “male energy” alone is exhausting.

  “Well, I have sisters, too, so I guess it all balances out,” I say.

  Diane smiles, then glances at the bags by the door.

  “Mark, we have to get all of these things out to the car. The church is having that big yard sale to raise money for the women’s shelter, and I said I’d donate what we could.”

  Mark groans again and doesn’t move.

  “Rachel, that gets me thinking,” Diane says, ignoring Mark. “I know you used to go to church with your family, and I was wondering if maybe this Sunday you’d like to come to church with us?”