The Opposite of Hallelujah

by Anna Jarzab

  Pawel looked up at him, startled. “Partner? For what?”

  “The science fair.” Mr. Tripp handed him the assignment. “Caro can fill you in on the details.”

  Everyone else had rearranged themselves so that they were sitting with their partners, so there was an extra seat at my table. I pointed to it and Pawel sat down, still looking stunned.

  “What’s this?” he asked, holding the paper up and frowning.

  “Mr. Tripp is forcing us all to do the science fair in pairs,” I said. “Before you came in, I was the only one without a partner. I thought you were going to be absent.”

  “No, just late,” he said quietly. “Are we being graded on this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” He read the assignment to himself. “He’s not making this easy on us, is he?”

  “Certainly not,” I grumbled.

  “Well, what are you going to do?” He shrugged. “I guess we’re partners.”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I insisted.

  “I know,” he said, but he wasn’t stoked about us working together, I could tell. We spent the rest of the period in awkward silence, flipping through our textbooks independently to come up with ideas for experiments. When we came across any, we jotted them down in our notebooks, and with five minutes left in the period, we switched papers. Mr. Tripp came around and glanced at our lists of potential projects.

  “Not enough,” he announced. “Think bigger.”

  “Bigger?” Pawel muttered. “What does he want us to do, build a particle accelerator?”

  “I’ve got an at-home atom-splitting kit we could use,” I said. Pawel smiled but didn’t laugh.

  It was going to be a long three months.

  As soon as physics ended, I swept my books into my bag and rushed to the bathroom at the end of the hall, going as quick as I could without running. I must’ve looked like I was about to burst, but it wasn’t my bladder—it was my heart. I didn’t even check to see that all the stalls were empty; I just went into the last one, sat down on the toilet, and sobbed. The tears spilled out between my fingers, dripping down the backs of my hands and creating small dark spots on my jeans. I hitched in breath after breath, desperate to shut myself up, but I couldn’t. I felt as if I was standing across a large empty room, staring at the stupid girl who couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t feel sorry for that girl. I hated her. I hated her weakness and her insecurities and her selfishness. The stall was like a cell, the walls pressing in and choking me. I rubbed my face with a wad of toilet paper, flushed it, and raced out of the bathroom.

  I wasn’t sure where I was going. The bell had rung for the next period, but I knew I couldn’t show up to class looking like such a mess, so I walked out of the building and started for home. I’d never skipped a class before, never faked an illness to get out of a test, but I knew I couldn’t stand being in school for one more second. I felt as though I was going to explode, just burst apart into a million jagged pieces. It was two and a half miles to my house, not a short walk, but I needed the fresh air and the sunshine and I had the time. I put on my headphones and turned on the playlist of sad songs I’d created on my iPod especially for occasions such as this.

  I barely noticed St. Robert’s until I had almost passed it, which was sort of ridiculous, because it was a church with a school attached, not a stealth jet, but I guess I wasn’t paying very much attention to my surroundings. Once I saw where I was, I couldn’t go any farther. I thought about Father Bob, and how he’d told me that if I needed something, I knew where to find him. “Where to find him” was right there, in the two-story brick rectory that housed the church offices.

  I stood on the rectory steps for what felt like hours but was, in fact, only one and a half Hall and Oates songs. (There was nothing quite like listening to “Sara Smile” or “She’s Gone” when you were feeling lower than low; Dad had taught me that.) Finally, I took the plunge, pushing open the rectory doors and entering the office.

  A middle-aged woman with wiry gray hair and glasses with thick plastic frames looked up from her computer as the bells above the door jingled.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m here to see Father Bob,” I told her. “I don’t have an appointment.”

  She nodded. “Let me go back and see if he’s free,” she said, pushing her chair back and rising. “One second. What’s your name?”

  “Carolina Mitchell,” I told her. She nodded again and disappeared into the back of the office.

  I’d done eight years of school at St. Robert’s, but I’d never been in the church office. We barely ever even saw the priests back when I was in school; every once in a while, they’d take a tour of the classrooms, the teachers stopping what they were doing to let Father Louis (in those days) sit down and chat to us. I’d certainly never visited a priest of my own free will before, and I didn’t entirely know whether I was doing it of my own free will now. I reminded myself that I didn’t believe in fate, or God. Nothing had drawn me to St. Robert’s. I was just there.

  The receptionist came out of the back and beckoned to me with one crooked finger. “Father Bob can see you,” she said. “This way.”

  She deposited me in front of Father Bob’s office, gave me a small pinch-faced smile, and scurried back out to the main reception area to answer the phone, which had just started to ring.

  “Caro?” Father Bob was sitting behind his desk. He tilted his head so that he could see me through the open door. “Why don’t you come in?”

  I hesitated, then figured I might as well. I’d come that far.

  “Sit,” he offered, closing a book he was reading. I glanced at its spine as I sank into the chair opposite him, dropping my bag to the floor with a muffled thud. It said Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

  “The Principia?” I said. “You’re reading Isaac Newton?”

  “Have you read it?” he asked, setting the giant cloth-bound tome aside.

  A short bark of laughter escaped me. “No,” I said. “I’m not exactly fluent in Latin.”

  He smiled. “There are English translations.”

  “I’m in high school,” I reminded him.

  “Forgive me. How can I help you, Caro?” To his credit, he didn’t ask if it had anything to do with Hannah, although that would be the logical conclusion for my seeking out a priest.

  I didn’t know what to say, but I knew I had to give him a reason, any reason at all. “I wanted to confess something,” I said finally.

  “Pardon me?” Father Bob looked slightly confused.

  “You know, confession,” I said. “I tell you something I did wrong, you give me a punishment.”

  Father Bob rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I know what confession is. And I think you know that this is not generally how it’s done?”

  “I couldn’t wait until Saturday,” I said. “It’s urgent.”

  “I see,” he said. “Well, what would you like to confess?”

  “Seriously?” I asked. He nodded. “Well, okay. I guess I need to explain a little bit. You know Hannah’s home.”

  “I do,” he said. Father Bob wasn’t thrown at all by my unannounced presence in his office. It was like he had been waiting for me.

  “Do you remember the first time I came to see you?” I asked.

  “As I recall, your parents were concerned because you told your classmates that your sister was dead,” he said.

  “Right,” I said. “Well, I did it again. Sort of.”

  “You told people Hannah was dead?” I could see why this might perplex him, since Hannah was demonstrably alive, insofar as you could call what she was doing—sleeping twelve hours at a stretch, hardly eating anything, and moping around without telling anyone what was wrong—living.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I told my—I told this boy, a friend of mine, that she had been in the Peace Corps this whole time, when obviously she hasn’t been. And he mentioned it in front of my parents, an
d Hannah, and now everybody’s pissed at me, even my best girlfriends, because I lied to them, too. It’s a huge mess.”

  “I see,” he said thoughtfully.

  “My parents are livid,” I told him. “Pawel—”

  “The boy,” he said. “Your friend?”

  I nodded. “He thinks I’m some kind of pathological liar. And Hannah … she says she understands, but I can tell she’s really hurt. I want to fix it, but I don’t know how. I thought that maybe, if you gave me a penance, I could make it right. Somehow.”

  “Caro, I don’t think you came here for confession,” he said after a short pause. “I think you came here because you wanted to talk to someone.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Confession is about making things right with God,” Father Bob explained. “Penance is a way of realigning yourself with the universe by meditating on your sin. But as far as I can tell, you have no interest in God. You want to make things right with the people you upset.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” I demanded.

  “Absolutely nothing,” he said.

  “So what do I do?”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything to do,” Father Bob said. “You’ve told your lie, been caught at it, and now you’re experiencing the emotional recoil of your choices. Nothing in this world can be undone.”

  “Well, that’s helpful,” I grumbled.

  “Have you apologized to Hannah?” Father Bob asked.

  “Yes! And I tried to explain things to Pawel, but he still doesn’t want anything to do with me.…” I trailed off. I could feel my face flush at the mere memory of the smackdown Pawel had put on me earlier in the day. He didn’t want to be with me anymore; that much was clear: message received. And Hannah had accepted my apology, but she didn’t seem to forgive me.

  “It’s not always that simple. Trust takes a lifetime to build and an instant to break. Creation is always more complicated than destruction.”

  “Destruction seems to be the only thing I’m good at these days,” I told him. “All I do is screw things up. What if I’m just not a good person, Father Bob?”

  He looked at me squarely, meaning business. “Don’t believe for one second that you can’t be a certain sort of person only because you were not such a person in the past. Being good is a daily choice; just because you were honorable before doesn’t mean you can’t betray the people you love, but also, just because you betrayed the people you love today doesn’t mean you can’t redeem yourself tomorrow. The past doesn’t disappear, but it doesn’t have to define your future. That’s up to you.”

  “So how do I do that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “If I knew, the world would be a different place. There’s no formula. You just have to figure it out for yourself, one step at a time.”

  Perfect. I’d come to Father Bob for advice, but he was just Yoda in a Roman collar. “How is this supposed to help me?”

  “You know, there are some people—religious people—who believe that the infinite consciousness that created the universe—”

  “You’re talking about God,” I interjected.

  He nodded. “Let me put it this way: some people believe that the reason the world appears to us imperfect is that it’s not finished being created, that in fact it’s in a constant state of growth and evolution aided in large part by the beings who exist within it.”

  “Meaning us.”

  “Us, and every other living thing, but of course we’re the beings with the most potential for creation that we know of, because of our intelligence and high level of consciousness.”

  “I’m not sure I understand where you’re going with this,” I told him.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that with every choice we make, with every act, we help to shape our world and manifest the infinite potential of the universe as reality,” Father Bob said.

  I wasn’t getting it at all, which was more than a little embarrassing. But I wanted to understand. “So I should …,” I prompted him.

  “I think you should try to do something productive with all that potential. Have you ever made something, Caro? Like with your two bare hands?”

  “I made a ceramic ashtray shaped like a heart for my parents at some kid’s birthday party once,” I told him. “Of course, they don’t smoke.…”

  “You should take up a craft,” he proposed, reaching for the Principia and replacing his reading glasses on the end of his nose. That was my signal that this conversation was O-V-E-R.

  “A craft? That’s it? You don’t have any other advice?” I couldn’t believe it. The one person who was contractually obligated to help me sort out my life was giving me nothing.

  “Try knitting,” he said. “I hear it soothes the nerves.”

  “You want me to help shape the universe by knitting?” I asked. He smiled. Of course he was joking. Knitting. I mean, really.

  “When you’re just starting out, it’s best to think locally,” he said. “Do what you can. Any project you care about will do.”

  “Fabulous. Thank you,” I said sarcastically, getting up and heaving my bag back onto my shoulder. “I’ll let you know how that goes.”

  “Please do,” he said. “And shut the door behind you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Caro?” Hannah called out as soon as I let the door slam behind me. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to sound normal and failing. I went into my room and closed the door, hoping that Hannah would stay far away. I didn’t want to talk about anything; I just wanted to crawl into my unmade bed and sleep. Knitting. Honestly. And all that vague stuff about choosing your choices. How about some advice I could actually use?

  Hannah was at my door in moments. She knocked. “Can I come in?”

  “Not right now,” I said, my voice wobbling. “I want to be alone.”

  There was a silent pause. Then Hannah said, “I understand.” But I didn’t hear her leave. I waited a few minutes, then opened the door. She was gone.

  I flopped down onto my bed and covered my face with a pillow. I sucked in a breath and let the fabric of the pillowcase suffocate me for a second before I released it and pushed the pillow away.

  “Hannah!” I shouted. “Can you come in here?”

  She did as I asked, standing at the foot of my bed. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said. Tears welled up in my eyes at the sight of her hovering over me, grim and concerned.

  She sat down next to me, her back stiff and straight, hands folded in her lap. God, how she could’ve been a saint, if only she’d been looking up toward the heavens instead of down at me.

  “Why are you crying?” she asked.

  “Your hair,” I wailed.

  She touched the ends of it. “You’re crying because of my hair? I thought this had something to do with Pawel.”

  “It used to be that pretty color and now it’s dark and weird,” I said.

  “You’re upset because my hair is different?” It sounded like a question, but she didn’t look confused. She looked for a second as if she might cry, too. “You know, I had no idea it had changed color until I saw my reflection in the window on the train. We didn’t have any mirrors. One of the other sisters would cut it for me, and I never saw any of the pieces. I always used to shut my eyes while it was happening. That first night I was home, I went into the bathroom, caught sight of myself, and threw up.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Why?”

  She shook her head and let out a short, angry laugh. “I have no idea. Vanity, I guess.”

  “No. You’re not vain. I mean, look at that haircut.” I reached out and tugged at the very end of a piece that had fallen into her eyes.

  “Convent chic,” she said. “Very now.”

  I giggled. “I didn’t know nuns could make jokes.”

  “We can’t,” she said, mock-seriously. “I’ve been saving that one for eight years.”

  “Another joke. Incredible.” Then I had a
n idea, although I wasn’t positive Hannah would go along with it. “Why don’t we fix it?”

  “Fix what?”

  “Your hair,” I said. “I bet we could get a walk-in appointment at the salon. You could get a cut, and maybe some highlights.”

  Hannah looked uncertain. “I don’t know, Caro.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun. And it might make you feel a little better. I’ve got Mom and Dad’s credit card,” I told her in a singsong. I was liking this idea better and better every second. Nothing made me feel good like a haircut. There was something freeing about trimming off all the old split ends, and if there was anything Hannah needed, it was to cut loose from the dourness of the convent and step into the light of modern womanhood. Or something.

  Hannah glanced at the clock on my nightstand. “How are we going to get to the salon? Mom and Dad didn’t leave us a car.”

  “I have an idea,” I said, picking up my cell and dialing Reb’s number.

  Twenty minutes later, Reb dropped us off in front of Hair Quarters, the salon Mom and I went to. I’d called ahead and Erica, our normal hairdresser, had agreed to squeeze us in.

  “Thanks, Reb,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. “I owe you one.”

  “No problemo,” Reb said, flashing me an encouraging smile. “Just call me when you need me to fetch you, okay?”

  I nodded. Hannah thanked Reb, as well, and we both climbed out of the car and walked into the salon. Erica was waiting for us in the reception area; she greeted us warmly, shook Hannah’s hand when I introduced my sister, and guided us to an empty chair, where she commanded Hannah to take her hair out of the ponytail it’d been tied up in and let it fall down to just above her shoulders.

  “Yikes,” Erica said, lifting it in places and fingering the edges. “Who cut this last, Edward Scissorhands?”

  “Sister Augustine,” Hannah said. Erica gave me a puzzled look.

  “A friend,” I said, by way of explanation.

  Hannah glanced at the hairdresser with concern. Erica had been cutting my hair for years, and every time I saw her she looked different; at the moment she was sporting a short, angled cut and her entire head was dyed pitch black. But I wasn’t worried. Erica would know just what Hannah needed. It was her gift.