The Opposite of Hallelujah

by Anna Jarzab

  “An enemy is more like it,” Erica told her. “A blunt cut like this does your face no favors, sweetie. But don’t worry, we’ll fix it up—add some layers, maybe a little color. When I’m through with you, you’re going to look gorgeous.”

  “Thank you,” Hannah said softly, blushing. Even a foul haircut wasn’t able to cover up Hannah’s beauty; once Erica was done pruning her a little, she was going to be a knockout. I wondered what Hannah’s general feelings were about dating; as soon as she stopped skulking around the house all day, she was going to get all kinds of male attention. But knowing Hannah, it would probably just freak her out.

  I was sitting in the chair right next to Hannah’s. When Erica hurried into the back room to mix the hair dye, Hannah turned to look at me. I must’ve had a miserable expression on my face, because she put her hand on my leg and asked, “What’s going on, Caro?”

  I sighed. “I just had a bad day at school, that’s all.”

  “Pawel?” Hannah asked.

  “And Erin,” I said. “Erin is one of my best friends.”

  “Okay.” She gave me a tell me more look, so I just opened my mouth and let it spill out. She nodded throughout my story, making the appropriate sympathetic noises as I related the awkwardness and humiliation of physics.

  “He must think I’m a stalker as well as a liar,” I said.

  “I doubt it. How could you know how things would go?” Hannah said. “It was coincidence.”

  “Then why do I feel like I manipulated him into being my science fair partner even though I tried to prevent it?”

  “Because you’re glad it worked out that way and you’re afraid he isn’t,” Hannah told me.

  “I’m not ‘glad it worked out that way,’ God, Hannah.” I scoffed. “Oh, sorry.”

  “You can say ‘God’ to me,” she said, smiling. “Even in vain. It’s okay. I’m not the Jesus police.”

  “Having Pawel as my partner is actually worse for me,” I pointed out. “Now we’re going to have to spend all of this time together, and he’s going to think I’m angling to get him back. Plus, I want to get a good grade, and Pawel’s smart, but he’s not what you would call a hard worker.”

  “So you’ll have to teach him,” Hannah said.

  “Ha. That’s a good one.” I leaned back in my chair and spun it about forty-five degrees. “This stupid high school stuff must be so boring to you.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “It’s a nice distraction.”

  “From what?” I asked. Maybe we were finally going to talk about it—her reason for leaving the convent, her reason for going in the first place, her disordered eating. The idea made me a little nervous; a hair salon didn’t seem like the right place for that kind of serious talk.

  Hannah frowned. “I have to start working on my college applications. Mom and Dad are really on my case about it—they’re afraid I’ll never go back if I don’t start right away. But it feels like it’s too soon. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  “Yeah, but aren’t you sick of sitting around the house all day? Wouldn’t it make you feel better to have something to do?” That was certainly the advice Father Bob would’ve given her.

  Hannah sighed. “It sounds like such a silly obstacle, but I don’t know what I’d study.”

  “Well, what did you study before?”

  “Theology. I doubt that would be prudent now.”

  “Because you don’t believe in God anymore.”

  Hannah looked away from me. “It’s not that simple.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Hannah and I sat in silence for what felt like eons. I was starting to see, from the look on her face, just how complicated her life had really become. The past eight years had changed her. It must have been like being born again, except not in the life-affirming way—in the terrifying way, in which you emerge from blackness into a bright, cold, unfamiliar place, aching with fear.

  “It’s not losing my faith that upsets me,” Hannah said finally. “It’s the fact that I’m starting to wonder if I ever had any in the first place.”

  “You don’t think you ever believed in God?”

  “I wanted to believe. I really thought I had a vocation, but maybe I imagined it.”

  “That doesn’t seem possible,” I said. “You were so sure.”

  “Was I? Or did I just convince myself that I didn’t belong out here, that God would only come to me through contemplation and determined prayer? I tried harder at that than I ever had at anything else in my life! For years I tried to open my heart and hear God speak to me. I kept hoping that one day I would experience some sort of epiphany, but it never came, and the more discouraged I felt, the less able I was to pray, until … I had to go.”

  “Did you talk to anybody about it?” The convent she’d lived in had been full of other nuns just like her, but older; surely at least one of them had had a similar experience.

  “I did,” Hannah said. “Mother Regina said that I was too young when I went in, that I wasn’t ready to give it all up.”

  “Give what up?” I asked. Hannah didn’t seem to care very much about stuff. She owned almost nothing, even now that she was back. Her life was completely unsullied by the material world, insofar as that was even possible, so what was it that Mother Regina thought she was struggling to let go of?

  “None of us goes into the convent clean,” she said, not looking at me.

  “And you left,” I prompted. I could see why.

  “I didn’t,” Hannah said. “I stayed. I sat in the chapel and forced myself to pray, but I was doing something wrong. I felt nothing. When I couldn’t pray anymore, I would sit in my cell and beg for a sign, just something that could tell me he was out there, somewhere, watching over me, but there was only silence.”

  “What made you decide not to listen anymore?” I wondered.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Hannah told me. “I was coming to the point where I was supposed to take my permanent vows, and Mother Regina didn’t believe the religious life was right for me anymore.”

  “She kicked you out?” I cried. No wonder Hannah felt ashamed.

  “She didn’t kick me out. She just told me that she could tell I was having difficulty coping with the strain of the contemplative life and suggested I might consider withdrawing from the Sisters of Grace,” Hannah said. “She told me that if I really wanted to come back after I had sorted things out, I should investigate some of the more active orders. She thought the solitude was crushing me.”

  “Was it?” Hannah certainly looked crushed. It was hard to believe that my quiet, unassuming sister was incapable of living a contemplative life, though. If anyone was made for it, she was.

  Hannah nodded. “I still don’t know why. So many women came and went while I was at the convent, but I stayed. I tried harder than any other novitiate I knew—I worked until my bones ached and I prayed until I had no more words, and … nothing. No reward. No grace. Just emptiness.”

  “Do Mom and Dad know all this?”

  “Bits and pieces. I don’t think they really understand. I’m not even sure they want to.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  She gave me a smile, but it was weak and sad and it sent a tremor through me. She looked like a little bird, small and slender and utterly breakable. If there was a God, how could he abandon someone who was so sincere about following him? I could see why she would lose faith. If it had been me, I would’ve lost it a long time ago.

  “I wouldn’t worry about me too much,” Hannah said, patting my hand. “It sounds like you have plenty of your own problems.”

  I wanted to talk more about it, but Hannah had a way of saying things with such finality. Erica came back with a small bowl full of purple goo and started applying it to Hannah’s roots. It took almost two hours, but Erica worked her magic and Hannah left looking refreshed, gorgeous, and even a little confident, which I considered to be the greatest triump
h of the day.

  Our parents went gaga over Hannah’s new look. That is, after they took the time to grill me about where we’d been, why I hadn’t answered my phone, and didn’t I know I was still grounded, young lady? They didn’t even notice Hannah at first; I suppose it was years of practice yelling at only one child, and the stealth with which she managed to blend right into the background.

  “We went to Hair Quarters,” I told them huffily, presenting my sister with a dramatic flourish.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” my mother said. “You look beautiful.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Hannah said, blushing. She was happy that they were happy, but even now I watched as she wilted under the beams of our parents’ adoration. She hated attention; a haircut was unlikely to change that.

  “Really lovely, Hannie,” Dad said, giving her a pat on the head.

  “Hey, hey!” I cried, waving him away. “Don’t mess it up! It took two hours to get that right.”

  “I didn’t know you wanted to get a haircut,” Mom said, fingering the ends of Hannah’s newly blond, newly layered hair almost in disbelief. “You should’ve told me, I would’ve taken you.”

  “It was Caro’s idea,” Hannah said, nodding at me. I nodded back. I hadn’t felt this good about myself in a long time, and they were right: she did look beautiful.

  Mom turned her eyes on me now, gooey with sentiment.

  “Don’t,” I warned.

  “I’m going to go upstairs,” Hannah said, picking her purse up off the couch cushion. She stopped at the stairs and smiled at me. “Thanks, Caro. I had a really good afternoon.”

  “Me too,” I told her. She meant it, and so did I, but it would take more than a haircut to get us where we were supposed to be, if we ever got there at all.

  As soon as Hannah had disappeared, Mom wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in for a nice long hug.

  “You’re smothering me, Mom!” I cried, struggling halfheartedly against her.

  “You did a very nice thing for Hannah today,” she said softly. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Yeah, well …” I wriggled out of her embrace and set about straightening my rumpled hoodie.

  Mom put a hand to my cheek. “You have a very good heart, Caro. I just wish it didn’t embarrass you so much.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Mom didn’t answer. She just gave me an enigmatic smile (Hannah had learned from the best) and then walked back into the kitchen to check on dinner.

  17

  “So,” Erin said two days later, setting her lunch tray down on the table. I looked up at her. “I’ve decided to forgive you.”

  “And what brought on this sudden burst of generosity?” I asked, taking a bite out of my turkey sandwich.

  Erin shrugged. “I’m not mad anymore. Can’t explain it.”

  That was how Erin was. When she was mad, she was furious, but she could never sustain it for long, and when she was done fuming, she was more than happy to let things return to normal immediately. Sometimes, when I thought she was completely out of line, I’d fight her on it, confront her and force her to admit that she was wrong, but this time I couldn’t have been gladder that she’d absolved me.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I did it.”

  “It’s okay, Caro,” she said. “It’s not like I haven’t lied to you before.”

  “You have? When?”

  Erin waved me off. “It’s not important. We’re friends again, that’s all that matters.”

  I gave her a dubious look but decided to let it go. The quicker we dropped it, the better I would feel. “It’s too bad you couldn’t have forgiven me two days ago.”

  “What do I look like, Jesus?” Erin scoffed.

  “Now I’m partnered with Pawel for the science fair!” I whined.

  “Yeah, well, so it goes,” Erin muttered, popping a french fry into her mouth.

  Pawel had taken to sitting on the opposite side of the room from me in French and precalculus. I guess he had to counterbalance the hour a day he spent with his back five inches from mine in physics, because there was no way Mr. Tripp was letting him change lab groups. It wasn’t complete radio silence. The day Erin forgave me, he knocked twice on my desk as he passed it in French, and when I looked up, he nodded at me. The day after that, he bumped into me in the hallway and said, “Excuse me, Caro.” Each time, my heart fluttered like a ribbon in the wind, twisting and gyrating and making me slightly nauseous, but there was no more flirting, no more joking, and definitely no more kissing. It was as if I’d completely imagined our brief relationship, if that was even what it had been.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Reb said. She was driving me home, and we’d stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through for crullers. “High school relationships generally have the life span of a fruit fly, and they end for stupider reasons than lying about your family. Did you screw it up? Yes. Are you alone in having screwed up a probably-going-nowhere junior-year crush-plus? Absolutely not.”

  “Crush-plus?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a term I invented. It means one of those flings that’s basically a prolonged make-out session and nothing more,” Reb said, taking a bite out of her cruller and edging her way into traffic.

  “Pawel and I were not a crush-plus,” I insisted. “We really liked each other.”

  “I know,” Reb said. “I’m just trying to get you to see that you’re not the only one who’s ruined a fledgling relationship. We’ve all done it. Remember me and Sam Hansen?” I did remember it. Sam had been infatuated with Reb, but even though she’d liked him back, she had played it way too cool and ended up making him feel like an idiot by laughing when he asked her out. They hadn’t spoken since, and Reb seemed to be over it, but every once in a while she’d mention it and I could tell how much she still regretted it. Even now, as she wiped sugar from her mouth, I could see it on her face.

  “Good point.” I was picking my doughnut to pieces. I didn’t really want it, anyway. “I just don’t want him thinking I’m some sort of crazy person. That’s not who I am.”

  “I know that,” Reb said. “And Pawel will figure it out eventually, if he’s not a total moron.”

  “What if he just doesn’t care anymore?” I asked.

  “Trust me, he still cares. When you talk in class, he listens. He looks up when you walk through the door. I’ve noticed. He’s just being stubborn.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Reb shrugged. “I can’t. But my intuition tells me it’s true.”

  “I’m supposed to trust the future of my romantic life to your intuition? Oh, God, I’m doomed,” I moaned, only half serious.

  “Caro!” Reb laughed. “Rein it in, drama queen. In all likelihood, Pawel is not the future of your romantic life. He’s just a boy you like. You’ll like other boys, I promise.” She put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a hard look. “It’s a long life.”

  “Not if you don’t keep your eyes on the road!” I cried as we nearly sideswiped a Hummer. Reb drifted back into her lane and stepped on the gas.

  “Don’t drop your crumbs everywhere,” she warned me. “Those crevices are a bitch to vacuum out.”

  I glanced into the backseat, which was littered with to-go cups and Taco Bell wrappers. “Yeah, I’d hate for people to think you were a slob.”

  “Everybody’s a critic,” she muttered.

  On Friday, Mr. Tripp gave us the class period to discuss our science fair projects. Pawel didn’t look thrilled to be sitting next to me, but he didn’t look upset about it, either. It was the indifference that was killing me.

  I sat on my stool, stiff and silent, with a thousand possible opening lines whipping through my mind. It was impossible to settle on something casual but worth saying. He was slouched over the table, drawing meaningless shapes in the margins of his notebook. I tried hard not to be too obvious about watching him. I started going through my textbook, turning the pages as if I was searching
for something.

  Finally, I spoke. “Single-bubble sonoluminescence,” I said without taking my eyes off the page I’d been staring at for several minutes. Real sexy.

  “Huh?” I felt Pawel sit up and glance at me.

  “For our project,” I explained, turning my head slowly and letting my eyes meet his. He blinked and looked away, but before he could cover it I saw the softness of his expression. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or depressed. For the first time, I could tell that his interest hadn’t been completely eradicated by my stupid lie, but it was obvious from the way he was acting that he wouldn’t be letting me off that easily.

  “What’s single-bubble sonoluminescence?” he asked, returning to his drawings. I took a good look at them; he wasn’t an artist, not like Carson Gallagher, who could sketch an entire true-to-life portrait in a fifty-minute class period. They were just rough symbols to keep his hands occupied. It was endearing.

  “Basically, it’s an experiment where you turn sound into light,” I explained. Make something, Father Bob had said. I wasn’t crafty; I wasn’t going to take up knitting, even though I was almost 99 percent positive he was joking about that. But I did love science. I’d been thinking long and hard about our project, how I could use it for creation, not destruction. I’d spent several hours scouring the Internet for the perfect experiment, and when I read about single-bubble sonoluminescence, I knew I’d found it. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Nothing like taking a cue from the pros. Or rather, The Pro. Father Bob would be proud. Or horrified. It was hard to tell with him.

  “How?” Pawel asked.

  “By directing a sound wave into an air bubble trapped in liquid.”

  “Oh, that sounds easy,” he said, smirking.

  Mr. Tripp loomed large behind him. “What does, Mr. Sobczak? Hopefully not your science fair project?”

  “Actually, that’s what we were talking about.” I scrambled to gather some notes I’d made earlier in the period. “I think I—we—want to do single-bubble sonoluminescence.”