“What I mean is, she asked me why I hadn’t called them to let them know where you are.”
Anne-Marie smiled. “I guess that was a gotcha then, wasn’t it?”
“I guess it was.” Then she changed the subject. “Your headband is striking. Did you make it yourself?”
“Yeah, I made it in arts and crafts. You like it?”
“I said so, didn’t I? You’ve always been good in art.”
“True,” Anne-Marie admitted, “it’s just too bad they have other subjects in school like economics and English and biology.”
“But all your academic problems were the result of goofing off, Anne-Marie. You’ve always had plenty of intelligence.”
“Please don’t go there. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that from teachers and counselors. I’ve heard it like forever.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I was trying to give you a compliment on your IQ. It didn’t come out right, did it?”
But Anne-Marie was quick to reply, “It doesn’t help your self-esteem to know that you’re lazy, any more than you’re stupid. It also doesn’t help to know you have attention deficit disorder.”
“I apologize again. You don’t need to have low self-esteem, though. There are plenty of things you’re good at.” Eleanor slowed to twenty miles per hour to navigate another one of the road’s sharp turns. Across the shore, the lake seemed even larger than Anne-Marie had realized. Even larger than from the perspective of Rachel’s mountaintop.
“I have an older sister who’s perfect,” said Anne-Marie bluntly. “That tends to keep your self-esteem down.”
“I’m going to tell you just how perfect I am,” Eleanor answered, “as soon as we get to town. But if you have low self-esteem, Little Sister, it can’t be my fault.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Eleanor. I’m sorry if I did. But what is it you’re going to tell me?”
“Just … just be patient.”
“But what? You’ve gotta tell me.”
“I said I would, but you’ll just have to wait.”
When they got to the edge of town, Anne-Marie was surprised to discover that it was large enough to have a couple of motels and even a mini-mall with a Wal-Mart. There was a summer festival downtown, with a few carnival rides, some food booths, and an oompah band. There were face-painting booths, art exhibits, and a petting zoo.
It seemed so raucous compared to the tranquillity and serenity of Camp Shaddai. Anne-Marie wondered if that was why Eleanor had brought her here, to provide her with a renewed exposure to the “real” world.
Eleanor parked in the lot next to the L & L Motel.
“Why are you parking here?” Anne-Marie asked her.
“Because I’m staying here. I’m already checked in.”
“But I was hoping you’d stay with me. There are extra beds in our dorm.”
“Nope,” was Eleanor’s firm reply. “I’ll be staying here overnight. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be driving back to St. Louis. My flight to Boston leaves at four in the afternoon.”
Anne-Marie looked at the motel. It was a one-story mom-and-pop operation with doors that opened onto the parking lot. At least it looked clean. First she was disappointed that Eleanor had to come at all, now she was disappointed the two of them weren’t staying together overnight. What am I supposed to think? “Will I get to see you tomorrow?” she asked.
“Of course. I’ll drive out in the morning. That’s your chance to show me around.”
“Good.”
It was a walk of about three blocks to the festival activities, but the streets were roped off, so there wasn’t any traffic. They had hot dogs and old-fashioned funnel cakes, which reminded Anne-Marie of a time in their past. “Do you remember the time you took me with you to the state fair?”
“I remember.”
“You were about eighteen. You’d just graduated high school. I was about twelve.”
“I don’t need help with the math, Anne-Marie.”
“Very funny. I felt so grown-up and free that day, just the two of us. That was fun.”
“I was in charge,” Eleanor remembered. “I was the boss.”
“Yeah,” Anne-Marie laughed, “and you were bossy, too.”
“I don’t remember it that way.”
“No, you probably wouldn’t.”
They came to a stage where southern Illinois doggers dressed in western outfits were dancing in a line. The aluminum stage thundered like a storm beneath their cowboy boots. It was hick stuff but it seemed fun all the same.
The two sisters found a table beneath the corner of a large food tent, where they ordered Cokes. “I haven’t had any junk food for weeks,” said Anne-Marie. “At Shaddai, they stress health food.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I guess we might as well junk it up today, then. You know those cloggers back there?”
“Yeah, what about them?”
“I don’t know why, but watching them dance reminded me of that time when you and the other cheerleaders won that contest out at Centre Court at North Ridge Mall.”
“That was when we were sophomores,” Anne-Marie replied carelessly. “I forgot you were even there.”
“I was there. I was home on spring break. I remember how impressed I was.”
“You were impressed with that? All that was was stealing some dance steps from popular groups on MTV and lip-synching some of their songs.”
“But it was so good. Don’t you remember how the crowd loved it? I was so impressed by the way you had all your moves and timing in perfect synch.”
“It was just a bunch of cheerleader moves and lip-synching,” Anne-Marie repeated. “I don’t know why something like that would impress you.”
“I’m trying to tell you that there are things about you that I’ve envied.”
“You envied me?”
“Sometimes. I envied your social skills and your looks and your athleticism. I never could have been a cheerleader. I wasn’t athletic enough, and even if I had been, the costume would’ve made me self-conscious.”
“Oh please, Eleanor. You won the Oneppo Medal and the National Merit Scholarship and every other academic award in the whole world. Like you should be envious of cheerleaders?”
“You won the contest. You wowed the crowd. You took home a big trophy. Those are the facts, Anne-Marie.”
Anne-Marie was so perplexed by this exchange she forgot to mention that she now preferred to go by Ruth Anne. “The trophy was a huge piece of cheap plastic,” she informed her big sister. “The truth is, the figure at the top and the numbers on it broke off as soon as we tossed it in the backseat of the car. It was as phony as the whole contest.”
“It may have been a cheap statue,” said Eleanor.
“You won the Oneppo Medal, and you’re saying I should be proud of a cheap plastic trophy we won at a cheerleaders’ dance contest.”
“Okay then,” said Eleanor. “Let me put it to you this way.” She stopped speaking long enough to rummage in her handbag until she found the box that contained the medal. She set it on the table between them. “You’re so impressed with this trinket, I’m going to give it to you.”
Trinket? She had to be kidding. But wasn’t that the word Brother Jackson had used when he gave her the silver cross? Anne-Marie looked at the box but didn’t move to open it.
“The medal’s inside,” Eleanor assured her. “Go ahead and check if you want.”
“I believe you, why should I check? Why do you want to give it to me?”
“Because I don’t want it. If you want it, I want you to have it.”
“What’s this about, Eleanor?”
“I’ll tell you what it’s about. You interrupted me a minute ago. I was about to say that as cheap as the dance trophy might have been, you won it fair and square.”
“Meaning what?”
“It’s what I want to tell you about the Oneppo Medal,” said Eleanor. “It’s what I need to tell you.”
This se
emed weird for sure. “Okay. What?”
“I cheated,” replied Eleanor quietly. She even lowered her eyes when she spoke the words. “I won the Oneppo by cheating.”
Suddenly, all the noise from cloggers and carnival rides seemed to fade deep into the background, as unobtrusive as elevator Muzak. “Cheating? What do you mean?”
“It’s pretty simple. I won the Oneppo, the top of my class, even the fellowship to Harvard Law, by cheating.”
“How did you cheat?” Anne-Marie found herself on the edge of her chair.
Eleanor took the time to get a cigarette from her handbag and light it up. She even offered one to Anne-Marie, who refused by saying, “No, I gave those up. It’s a part of my contract with the Lord.”
“I hope it’s a part of your contract with your baby. If you’re also eating healthy foods, I guess I need to be fair and give your Camp Shaddai some credit for that, at least.”
“Thank you. What about the cheating?”
Eleanor exhaled before she said, “I was living with a man named David. We were living together in my apartment and sharing costs.”
“Did you love him?”
“I wouldn’t say so. We were using each other.”
“Did Mom and Dad know?”
“They knew, but they weren’t happy about it. That’s another story. The point is, David was a computer hacker. A good one.”
Anne-Marie had heard the term, but wasn’t sure what a computer hacker actually did.
“The thesis I wrote which won the Oneppo Medal,” Eleanor continued, “was a paradigm of a business strategy for a hypothetical company. It had to do with a personnel plan for saving significant money on health care insurance and other benefits, as well as making effective investments in current stocks.”
If Eleanor was going to talk about the stock market, and use words like paradigm, Anne-Marie could only hope her eyes wouldn’t glaze over.
“David was so good at hacking his way into databases that were supposed to be secure, that he got me inside information. For instance, he got into a database of a Wall Street corporation.”
“Inside information?”
“It amounts to secret knowledge that insiders sometimes get that allows them to make lucrative investments in the market. He hacked his way in so I could use that kind of information in my thesis.”
“And that’s something you’re not supposed to do?”
“It’s something you’re very much not supposed to do. It’s not only unethical, it’s illegal. It’s even criminal, Anne-Marie.”
Criminal? Anne-Marie thought. My sister Eleanor is a criminal?
“And there was even more. David managed, somehow, to hack his way into a government database. He got inside information on some insurance changes and loopholes that a congressional subcommittee was drafting.”
“And would that be just as illegal as the other things?”
“Just as illegal, and just as criminal.” Eleanor was finished with the cigarette. She dropped it into the remaining Coke and ice at the bottom of her cup.
Anne-Marie didn’t know what to think. Nearly anything to do with computers was usually over her head, so she didn’t understand much of what Eleanor was telling her. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed in her sister or impressed that the cheating was so high-tech. It would take a genius plan to bring it off, which made it seem on a higher plane than just cheating. The only cheating she could remember doing that was remotely similar was calling in sick to the attendance office by imitating her mother’s voice.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
“I had to win because I always win. I’m always first. I always win, and I always come in first. I knew how serious the competition was, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being second. Or third, or fourth. When you’re used to being first all the time, you have to keep on winning. Second is losing. Anything but first is losing.”
Anne-Marie was so amazed she was practically speechless. Finally, she asked, “Have you told Mom and Dad about it?”
“No. I haven’t told anyone. Not a soul. You’re the first person I’ve told about it.”
Anne-Marie couldn’t help feeling honored. “Is there any chance you’ll get caught?”
“Probably not. Not at this point. Too much time has passed, and too many databases have been erased. The competition at these elite graduate schools is so cutthroat it’s disgusting. You wouldn’t believe the hacking, the stealing, the viruses injected into the computer systems to disable other people.”
“I’m sure the Lord will forgive you for it.”
“Not now, Anne-Marie; not now. The point is, I cheated for no good reason. Look at all the money our family has, and all my other academic awards. There was nothing to keep me out of Harvard Law even if I’d never even entered the Oneppo competition.”
Anne-Marie was still stunned. She remembered Sister Abigail’s words, though. “You can’t be too hard on yourself, Eleanor. You were under a lot of pressure. God will forgive any sin if you make a sincere confession.”
“I wasn’t under any pressure except that of my own making. I’m trying to tell you that things are rarely as simple as they appear to be.”
“I know that, Eleanor. The Lord teaches us to beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is Satan’s own strategy.”
“And what about you and me, Anne-Marie? What is our own strategy?”
Anne-Marie was too confused to answer. She looked at the box on the table between them, the one with the Oneppo Medal inside.
It was as if Eleanor could read her thoughts. “So now that you know the story, do you want the medal at all?”
“Of course I want it, if you want to give it to me. I would love a gift from you.”
“It’s like dirty money, Baby. Now you know why I wasn’t much impressed when we had that overblown reception on the lawn back home.”
“But it’s gorgeous, and it’s from you. I don’t know yet. I’m going to be praying about it, though.”
Before Eleanor drove her back to Camp Shaddai, Anne-Marie stopped at the Wal-Mart to buy a small, spiral-bound notebook. She decided it was time to start keeping a journal of her thoughts and prayers. She stuck the notebook down in her handbag, right next to the Oneppo.
June 26
Anne-Marie spent a restless night. Lots of tossing and turning, trips to the toilet (for peeing, not for barfing). Eleanor, Brother Jackson, and a computer hacker named David whom she’d never met disturbed her dreams.
Her sleep was further interrupted by the restless tossing and turning of Rachel in the next bunk. She groaned and sighed. At times it sounded like pleasure, but at other times like torment.
By the time they were both awake, lying on their sides face-to-face, they had one of their whispered predawn conversations. “Can I ask you a personal question?” asked Anne-Marie.
“Why not? Do I keep secrets?”
“Why do you have troll dolls?”
“They were all gifts from my brother. Christmas or birthday gifts. I keep them to remember him by. But that’s not what you want to ask me. You want to ask me about my dreams.”
Rachel’s perceptions were astonishing. “You dreamed the incubus, didn’t you?” Anne-Marie whispered.
Rachel’s eyes were wide. “I dreamed him. He took the form of a beautiful man. He tried to seduce me in my sleep.”
“What kind of beautiful man?”
“A rugged, strong man with a beautiful smile and sparkling eyes. But I resisted him.”
“Why? How?” Now Anne-Marie was scared.
“I had to. He wasn’t who he seemed.”
“How could he come to you in that form?”
“The incubus is a minion of Satan,” Rachel reminded her. “He can assume any form he wants.”
“Of course. If he wants to seduce young women in their sleep, why would it make sense for him to come looking really gross?”
“Exactly.”
“Do you think it was a vision?”
“Maybe. It was awfully strong. I’m going to have to pray about it.”
As always, Rachel’s dreams and visions fascinated Anne-Marie at the same time they frightened her. “My sister is coming this morning,” she said. “Can you tell me more about it later?”
“If you want, Ruth Anne. If I know any more to tell.”
Eleanor arrived shortly after breakfast. Anne-Marie got permission from Sister Abigail to skip Bible study so she could show her around the grounds. After she showed Eleanor the basic everyday facilities, she took her sister to the mountaintop.
When they reached the high, high plateau where Anne-Marie and Rachel had ventured that time before, they had a spectacularly clear view far into the distance. It was a bright blue June sky with cool breezes and a few wispy cirrus clouds to highlight it.
“This is El Shaddai itself,” said Anne-Marie reverently. “Exactly like the God of Abraham and all the prophets, the source of eternal strength. But don’t go too near the edge,” she warned Eleanor, just as Rachel had cautioned her.
They were no more than twenty feet from the edge of the drop-off to the lake. “Don’t worry,” said Eleanor. “I’m close enough to that edge right here where we’re standing. That drop-off must be a hundred and fifty feet, at least.”
“I’ve only been here once before,” said Anne-Marie. “But it’s where I felt the closest ever to Almighty God. It was as if the Lord was seated right here beside me. Rachel, too. We came here together.”
Eleanor took a kerchief from her pocket to wipe some of the sweat which had gathered on her forehead. “Let me bring you face-to-face with some facts I’m not sure you ever thought about,” she said to Anne-Marie.
“What facts?”
The big sister pointed. “Look across as far as you can to the other side of the reservoir. That could be six or eight miles from here.”
“I know. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Incredibly beautiful. Abraham had a god on his mountain, but other distant mountains and valleys had their own gods. Some of them had goddesses, as a matter of fact.”
“Yes, but they were false gods.”
“Beyond that far place, we know from experience, is the town of Crystal Cove. If we were standing here thousands of years ago, they’d have had a god of their own, too, most likely.”
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