“No,” she said. “I like you a lot too, but it will be better if we just stay mixed-doubles partners.”
“Better in what sense?”
“Gotta go. Bye,” she said, then lowered her head and took off away from me down Mason Avenue in large, fast strides. I stopped and watched her go. When she passed the black poodle it made a rush for her, but its chain was too short and all twisted up, and all it could do was stand up on its hind legs and bark.
The more I thought about our conversation, the less sense it made. Finally, in desperation, I called my sister and told her all about it. “Aha,” Beth said when I was done.
“Aha what?”
“Now it’s clear.”
“What’s clear?”
“She’s from southern California. Two girls on my floor here at college are from southern California, and no one can figure them out either. It’s not part of America—it’s a whole different country, a whole different logic.”
“So what do you do? How do you deal with them?”
“We just make allowances for their craziness and go on with our own lives.”
“That’s the best advice you can give me?”
“No, the best advice I can give you is never take college calculus. I have a test tomorrow and I gotta go study. Bye.”
“Bye,” I told her. “And thanks for all the valuable insights.” I hung up the phone and sat there with my head in my hands, trying to figure out what religious freedom had to do with the state tennis tournament being in May, or not being in May.
After that I made a strong conscious effort to cool it with Jennifer and to spend my time and energy thinking about rational subjects. I wasn’t entirely successful, but the less time I spent thinking about her and trying to figure her out, the more relaxed I felt. Jennifer sensed my coolness and seemed to resent it, but she never said anything. As our conversations got shorter and our friendship got thinner, our tennis play improved noticeably.
School wound down to exam periods, and the tennis season ended in the county tournament. Jennifer and I were seeded second, behind a team from Wood-Ridge. We waltzed through our first three matches, won a close one in the semifinals, and found ourselves in the finals against the number one seed.
It was the kind of sunny April day that photographers try to capture on postcards. Bluebirds sang on tree branches and beds of budding tulips and daffodils surrounded the courts where the county finals were held. Jennifer wasn’t at all nervous warming up for the big match. I’ll say that for her—for all her kookiness she was never nervous or off her game. She was wearing a new outfit, a short pink skirt and a pink and white top, and if it hadn’t been the county tournament I would have had a lot of trouble concentrating.
We split the first two sets, so it came down to the final one. Both teams held serve to three games each, and then Jennifer and I broke them to take the lead. The Wood-Ridge duo tried to break back on Jennifer’s serve and fought their way to deuce, but she smoked an ace to make it our advantage, and then won the game with a furious two-handed backhand put-away right on the line. The Wood-Ridge team held serve to close to four to five, but I served strongly for set and match, and Jennifer slammed home the winning point with a furious overhead smash.
The hundred or so spectators gave us a nice ovation. Without thinking, I ran to Jennifer and lifted her off the ground in a hug, and she hugged me back. After all those weeks of trying to ignore each other, the hug felt very good. I put her down and we looked at each other, and I guess we were both grinning. “Way to go, Mystery Woman,” I said.
“It was fun,” she agreed. “I love winning.”
A sports reporter from The Record snapped our picture, and the assistant head of the County Tennis Association gave us little gold trophy cups.
Our third singles player made it to the county final, so our whole team stayed around to watch him finish. I was still pumped up from winning, and I wanted to savor the feeling, so I watched the final match sitting high up on a bleacher, all by myself. I was kind of surprised, midway through the match, to see Jennifer walking up the bleachers in my direction.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I sit down?”
“Plenty of space.”
She sat. There was a real strange energy between us—a jumble of resentment and fondness and triumph and confusion. “I never won anything as big as a county tournament before,” she said.
“Me neither.”
“I just want you to know that I’m glad I won it with you. I do like you.”
“I like you too, but you confused me.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s hard to believe. Anyway, we’re a good tennis team. Let’s leave it at that.”
“I guess we won’t be seeing each other anymore.”
“We still have to practice every day for the state tournament,” I reminded her.
“There won’t be any state tournament.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Well, goodbye.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be mad at me.” I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I spotted a little teardrop welling up in one of her pretty blue eyes. “I told you, it’s a matter of religious freedom. And if I tried to explain it to you, you’d only laugh.”
I looked right at her, and I amazed myself with the seriousness of my voice when I said: “Look, I’ll try once and only once. My father was raised Catholic but he’s an atheist, and my mother was born Jewish but I don’t think she thinks much about religion. I wasn’t confirmed or bar mitzvahed or anything else. I’m kind of interested in religion and I’ve read a little about Buddhism and Islam and Shintoism, but I don’t really know what I believe yet. I’m still thinking about it. I guess deep down I believe in some kind of God, or at least I want to believe, but…”
“But what?” she said.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that I was born and raised in America and I think everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, and from watching my own parents I think two people from different religious backgrounds can become friends and live together and even get married. So I won’t laugh at you, and I won’t try to take away your religious freedom. Like I said, I’ve read about lots of different religions, and I find some beautiful things in all of them.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Jennifer said slowly, and then broke off. We looked at each other for a long time. “Okay,” she finally said. “Okay. Have you heard of Bernard Shaftsbury?”
“No. Who is he?”
“He was a brilliant physics professor at Berkeley. When he was forty he began to have visions.”
“What kind of visions?”
She hesitated. “Telepathic messages.”
“Messages from where?”
Her face didn’t change expression and the tone of her voice remained sincere and constant when she said, “From a UFO orbiting the earth. They were preparing him for his ride.”
“He went on a ride in a UFO?”
“Yes,” she said. “They came down and got him, and took him all over the galaxy. They went into black holes and came out white holes, they went back in time through intercosmic wormholes and he saw the creation and they went forward in time and he saw the end. And then they let him come back to earth to prepare the faithful.”
“And that’s you?”
“And my parents, and a few thousand other people.”
“A few thousand?”
“We lived in a commune in Shaftsbury Valley, between Los Angeles and San Diego. We were totally self-sufficient. It was beautiful.”
“How many years did you live there?”
“I was born there. We had our own school, and organic farms, and a church, and a sacred grove for yoga and meditation, and a tennis court.”
I nodded, trying to take this all in. At least Shaftsbury had had the good sense to put in a tennis court. In its own weird way, this was beginning to make a little sense. “If it was so beautiful there, why did you leave?”
“Shaftsbury
sent us all out, to each of the forty-nine states, to prepare for the submergence.”
“There are fifty states,” I told her.
“We only needed to go to the continental ones,” she said. “Hawaii wasn’t necessary.”
“What’s the submergence?”
Her shoulders shrugged under the pink and white tennis dress. When she spoke, her voice came out much lower. “The end of the world,” she said. “In less than a week. The seas and oceans will rise up and swallow us down, and the surface of the earth will be covered with water, just the way it was at the beginning.”
“Why will this happen?”
“Because we’ve polluted our air and pumped sewage into our water and destroyed our atmosphere. We’ve killed creatures for their meat and for their hides and for their horns and…we just went too far. So what was given to us as a gift is going to be taken away and given to another species.”
There were a lot of tears on her face now, and she wiped them off with the back of her hand. “Who?” I asked. “I mean, what species is gonna get the earth next?”
“The dolphins,” she whispered. A little April breeze stirred her blond hair around her shoulders. She sniffled a few times and managed to stop the tears. “Shaftsbury says we shouldn’t be afraid, so I’m trying my best. Only—” She broke off and looked out across the tennis court and beyond, where the flower gardens were budding and the grassy lawns were like lakes of brilliant emerald. She surprised me by putting her hand in mine. I closed my fingers around it. “Only, it’s very beautiful and I hate to see it all go,” she said, and her voice quivered and broke.
I kept holding on to her hand with my right hand, and I put my left arm gently around her shoulders. “Listen, Jennifer,” I said. “You’re not in southern California anymore. You’re in New Jersey now. And the world doesn’t come to an end in New Jersey.”
Her head jerked up and she pulled away a little bit. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No,” I said. “I just think that Shaftsbury needs to think this thing over a bit more.”
She stood up. “He’s the one true prophet.”
“Maybe he is,” I told her, “but you’re so sensible and intelligent, how can you believe this garbonzo?”
She tossed back her head, and her blue eyes shone bright. “I don’t think intelligence has anything to do with what you believe or don’t believe,” she said. “I thought you were sincere when you said you wanted to know about my religion. I never thought you’d laugh at me. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. I forgive you.” She stomped off down the bleachers, sat by herself on the bus ride home, and took off by herself as soon as the bus let us off at our school.
During the next few days, I thought a lot about what Jennifer had said. At first I thought the whole thing was humorous—her ideas were so wacky it was hard to even know how to take her seriously. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have turned her beliefs into a joke. From what little I know about history, there have always been fringe religions, and most people who dare to be different are persecuted. The ancient Egyptians enslaved the Jews and the Romans fed the early Christians to the lions, and if Jennifer had had the courage to share her beliefs with me, maybe I should have been more tolerant. Even if the whole thing was nonsense.
Finally, I called her up. To my surprise, she answered the phone and seemed willing to talk to me. “I’d like to apologize for my behavior the other day,” I told her. “I honestly feel bad I teased you about your religion. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now. But I’m glad you called, so that we could say goodbye. My parents are almost finished getting everything ready, and we’re going to leave.”
“What are they getting ready?”
“The world is ending tonight,” Jennifer said.
“What time?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“And where are you going with your parents?”
“To the highest point in New Jersey. All of the faithful in all of the forty-nine states have to go to the highest points in their states tonight at the appointed time, and perform the Ceremony of the End.”
I surprised myself by asking, “Can I come?”
“Tonight? You want to come with us tonight?”
“Yeah,” I said. “If it’s okay. I promise I won’t disturb anything.”
“Don’t you want to be with your family for the end?”
“I’ll say goodbye to them before we go,” I told her. “Can I come?”
“One sec, I’ll have to check with my mom.” She was gone for a few seconds, and then she came back on. “My mom says you’re very welcome. We’re leaving at eight. Do you know where I live?”
“Sure,” I said. I hesitated—I didn’t want her to think I was making fun of her beliefs again. “Should I dress casual?”
“Whatever.”
“Can I bring anything?”
“No,” she said. “Just be on time. See you at eight.”
That night at dinner I told my mother that I was going to be out real late, because I was going on an astronomical viewing trip with Jennifer’s family. I told her that they had just bought a telescope, and that we were going to try to see the different rings of Saturn.
“Why don’t they go earlier?” she wanted to know. “Ten is pretty late to start on a trip.”
“They’re nice people, but they’re a little bit strange,” I told her. “They’re from southern California.”
“Strange how? Like they put ketchup on their hot dogs?”
“Something like that, Mom. I should go. Bye.” I gave her a little hug and a kiss on my way out.
“What was that for?”
“For being such a great mom. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?”
“Bye,” I said. In the living room I passed my father, who was watching a sitcom on TV. “Bye, Dad.”
He didn’t look up. “I don’t know why I’m watching this. It isn’t funny at all.”
As I went by I punched him lightly on the shoulder, and the punch made him look up at me. “Bye,” I said.
“Goodbye, goodbye,” he said. “Have a good evening.”
I enjoyed the four-block walk to Jennifer’s house. It was a warm, clear April night. The streets were quiet and the air smelled sweet from all the budding flowers and new grass. I passed a whole row of azaleas, each branch decked out with tiny yellow buds. I slowed down and inhaled, and felt the April breeze on my face. It didn’t feel like the end of the world—it felt like the beginning of something fresh and sweet and new.
When I reached Briarwood Lane I crossed over to Jennifer’s house. A short and pretty blond woman was loading what looked like clothing into the back of a big station wagon. She finished loading it just as I walked up, and turned to greet me. I guess I expected her to look strange in some way or other, and I was a bit startled by her warm smile, direct manner, and firm handshake. “You must be Andrew. I’m Connie, Jennifer’s mom. Congratulations on the tennis title.”
“Thanks,” I told her. “Can I help you load stuff?”
“All finished,” she said, and swung the station wagon’s door shut. “I think I met your mother. She works at the library, doesn’t she?”
“That’s her.”
“Does your father also work here in town?”
“No, he works in New York. For the city transit system.” After all these frustrating months of not getting straight answers from Jennifer, I couldn’t contain my curiosity. “May I ask what you and Mr. Krenzwinkle do?”
“I’m an oceanographer,” she said. “My specialty is the effects of industrial pollution on freshwater mollusks. My husband is a nuclear engineer. Here he comes now.”
Jennifer’s father came down the steps carrying three flashlights. He was in his early forties, with boyish features and long brown hair which he kept in a ponytail. I have to admit that the fact that he wa
s a nuclear engineer completely blew me away. Even as I shook his hand, I looked from him to her and wondered how two scientists could bring up their child to believe this junk, let alone believe it themselves.
Jennifer came out of the house wearing jeans and a blue windbreaker, and we all climbed into the station wagon and began the journey. Mostly we drove in silence. Take it from me, there isn’t much to talk about when you’re riding with three people who believe the world is about to come to an end. You can’t say, “So, think the Yankees may take it this year?” because in their opinion there won’t be a baseball season. You can’t say, “Nice night, think it will rain tomorrow?” because there won’t be a tomorrow. So for the most part I just sat in the backseat next to Jennifer in silence, as the big white station wagon roared through the night.
Once, I asked Mr. Krenzwinkle where he first encountered Bernard Shaftsbury. “I took his class at Berkeley, when I was a grad student there. It was the best class I ever took. Every time Bernard opened his mouth, you knew you were in the presence of real genius.”
I have to admit that as it got closer to ten o’clock and we began to climb through the foothills of the Kittatinny Mountains toward High Point State Park, I began to feel just a bit nervous. Not scared, but very uncomfortable. I guess part of it was because the Krenzwinkles seemed so bright and sane and decent. I found myself wishing that they had been real weirdos, or stupid, or uneducated. The fact that they were scientists with advanced degrees was a bit creepy.
Not that I was beginning to believe any of this mumbo jumbo. But creepy is creepy.
We reached High Point State Park and drove up the winding road to the mountaintop that is the highest point in the state. Several other cars were already there when we arrived. There were about six other couples and fifteen or twenty small children. As I followed Jennifer away from the station wagon toward a flat grassy area, I checked my watch. It was nine-forty. The world was supposed to come to an end in twenty minutes.
It turned out that Jennifer’s father was the ranking priest. Mrs. Krenzwinkle opened the back of the station wagon and began distributing purple robes to all the adults. She offered me one, and I slipped it on. The April night was getting a bit chilly, so it felt good to slip on the thick cotton. Mr. Krenzwinkle put on a special robe of bright scarlet and a pointed hat with a tassel on top. He would have looked comical, except that all the preparations were being carried out simply and seriously. There was no wand-waving or incantation-chanting or anything like that.
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