by Katie Henry
“First time for everything,” she said, pushing it closer. “Come on, I’ll show you how to do it.”
Is that all I’m for? I thought. To make the world look prettier? Is that all I get? Is that all she wants for herself?
I folded my arms and turned away. “No, thanks.”
I heard the lipstick clatter on the sink counter. “Fine.”
And now here we are, crawling through traffic on the Bay Bridge. I check my watch.
Thirteen minutes until the wedding starts. You’re going to be late.
I didn’t even want to go. I know some girls daydream about their future wedding, making mock-ups of their modest-but-still-hot bridal gowns, debating over color palettes and whether tiaras are tacky. But every time the topic comes up, my brain shuts itself off like a panic-sensor light switch.
Twelve minutes until the wedding starts. You’re going to be late and everyone will see and stare at you.
I don’t daydream about my wedding. I actually dream. I dream that I’m in a white dress that’s slowly constricting. The light is so bright I can’t see around me. I can’t see my family, or the other wedding guests, or even where I’m going. All I can see is my new husband, who has a suit, a crew cut, and a blurred-out face. I asked Martha about it once, if it meant anything.
“We don’t use dreams as diagnostic criteria,” she said. “They don’t say anything either way about your mental health. But . . .” She paused. “Sometimes they do reveal things we don’t like thinking about in the daytime.”
Eleven and a half minutes until the wedding starts, eleven and a quarter minutes until—
I try to breathe deeper. It’s just a wedding. A wedding like in the movies, with the bride walking down the aisle, to have and to hold, till death do you part. My mom has already told me my temple wedding won’t be like that. Not even the till death part, because we marry for time and all eternity. My wedding won’t just be a wedding, it’ll be an eternal bond to the man I’ll live with forever. Having a baby won’t just be giving birth, either, it’ll be giving a waiting spirit the chance to have a body. Everything is something more, and I know that’s a good thing, I know I should be happy my life has such a clear, straight path forward.
My chest is caving, I’m breathing in air but it’s not reaching my lungs. I put my head between my knees.
“If we’re going to talk about mistakes,” I hear Mom say from the front seat, “if you’re so comfortable talking about other people’s mistakes, maybe we should all talk about your grades.”
Why now? Why would she bring this up now, when we’re already late and I’m already upset and it’s all her fault? I breathe in heavier, but only drown faster.
“Pull over,” I croak.
“What?” I hear Dad say.
“Pull over, you have to pull over!” I repeat, even though I haven’t done this for years, beg for him to stop the car like this. But the walls are caving in on me, I can smell Mom’s perfume, feel her elbow on the back of her seat as she twists around to look at me. I’m trapped, I’m so trapped, and I need to get out.
“Dad . . .” I hear Em say, soft and hesitant.
“She’s fine,” Mom interrupts. “Emmy, don’t worry, she’s fine.”
I’d protest this, but feel I should concentrate my energy on not passing out.
“She doesn’t look fine,” Em says.
“She’s only doing it because she doesn’t want to talk about failing her chemistry test.”
I find some air in the atmosphere, push myself up, and look my mother in the eye.
“A C-plus,” I tell her, “is not technically a failing grade.”
After what feels like eons, we’re off the bridge and in San Francisco. And in a stroke of luck or divine intervention on my behalf, we find a parking spot right outside Grace Cathedral. I practically throw myself out the car door when I heard Pachelbel’s Canon from inside the church. Em is right behind me, smiling tightly, smoothing down a nonexistent stray hair.
“This is all her fault,” I whisper to Em. “We’re going to be walking in with the bride herself all because Mom couldn’t be bothered to—”
“Oh my gosh, shut up,” Em snaps. And I do, if only out of surprise. Em doesn’t tell anyone to shut up. Not even when she should. She keeps her smiles sweet and her words sweeter, even when she’d rather storm or cry.
“Don’t blame me,” I say. “This isn’t my fault, she—”
Em stops dead in her tracks, and I only put one stumbling foot forward before stopping too.
“You made it worse, Ellis,” she says, and every word is a precision dart. “Why do you always have to make it worse?”
She turns and stomps up the church steps, leaving me to quietly bleed out on the sidewalk.
When we get home late that afternoon, everyone seems to split apart. Em goes upstairs to change. Dad decides to return a work call in his room. Mom announces she’s going to Safeway for groceries. And suddenly, I’m in the living room, all alone.
They don’t want to be around you.
I turn on the TV, but I can’t hear it, no matter how much I turn up the volume.
Your own family doesn’t want to be around you. You make their lives worse. You make everything worse.
My eye catches on the family computer. There are some things I know that they don’t. There are some things I won’t make worse. I walk up the stairs to my room, open the top drawer of my desk, and pull out the thin plastic card I’ve taped to the top.
It turns out that if you keep a bag of change under your bed for half a decade, you end up with quite a bit of money. Turns out, those coin-counting machines at the supermarket actually work, though they will steal one quarter out of every fifty or so. Turns out, you don’t have to get your payout in cash. You can get it in the form of an Amazon card.
I shouldn’t be doing this on the family computer, I think as I turn it on and open a browser. I should do it at school, or the library, but no one is here, I have a window, and time is of the essence.
You make everything worse.
But I can make things better. When the end of the world comes, Em will see, I’ll make everything better.
I scan the order list, second-guessing and reconsidering, as always.
A solar charger.
A survival weather radio.
Several extra-large packs of dehydrated food essentials, including ramen, vegetables, fruit. Also jerky, which I find disgusting but could be bartered for matches or protection in the New Ice Age.
Various winter clothing items, the warmer the better. Snowshoes, collapsible ones.
Dozens of single-use hand-warmers. Not just to keep your palms toasty, but to melt snow, keep liquids from freezing, and heat up an IV line, if it came to that.
Enough wool socks to free every house elf in the Harry Potter extended universe.
Good enough. For now.
I click order.
Nine
HANNAH’S ALREADY STANDING outside the ward building when we pull up on Sunday morning. As I get out of the car, I realize I forgot to mention certain things to her. Namely, the dress code. After introducing her to Mom, Dad, and Em, I pull Hannah off to the side. “I just want you to be prepared,” I say. “The other girls probably won’t be wearing pants.”
She startles. “Girls can’t wear pants?”
“No, we can.” There’s no rule against it. Just like there’s no rule against men wearing non-white dress shirts or forgoing a tie. I never thought about how many expectations are unspoken. “We can, just most girls don’t.” She frowns. “It’s not a big deal at all, I swear.”
Hannah shrugs. “These are the nicest pants I own. I don’t even own them. They’re my mom’s.”
They do look a bit big on her. But really, she doesn’t own a pair of dress pants? I mean, I guess I don’t, either. I’ve only got skirts.
Mom, Dad, and Em are already ahead of us, so I lead Hannah into the building. Before we reach our pew, Lia appears in front of u
s, a vision in seafoam green. Her sundress has cap sleeves and a sweetheart neckline, the kind where you could almost see the top of her cleavage. If you were looking.
Are you looking? Why would you even be looking?
“Ellis!” Lia says, reaching her hand out to me. I twitch my arm back, without meaning to.
You’re being so weird. This isn’t weird, friends can touch each other and it’s not weird. You’re just friends. It’s not weird. STOP BEING WEIRD.
Lia must not notice, because she follows through and grabs me by the elbow. My muscles turn to Silly String. She smells like citrus and clean laundry.
It’s not weird for her to touch you, but it is definitely weird for you to be SMELLING HER, ELLIS.
I breathe in deeper.
“Hi, I’m Lia.” She extends her left hand to shake Hannah’s, but keeps her right hand on my elbow, and warmth spreads from her hand through my arm, through my veins, into my chest.
“I’m Hannah.”
Lia nudges me. “You didn’t say you were bringing a friend!”
I try to think of something funny to say. I try to think of something to say, period. But I feel like my mouth is stuffed with cotton balls. “Surprise?”
“You’re always full of surprises,” Lia says. When she shifts her weight, her long hair brushes against the bare skin on my arm. I almost shiver.
Hannah’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah, Ellis has a few of those.”
And I stand there like I’m waiting for something just out of reach.
Lia smiles at me, then turns back to Hannah. “Lucky for you, I basically planned our whole class today, so it’ll be fun. See you later!”
She waves and glides into the chapel. Sunlight streaming in from the open door catches her hair, and for a moment, it gleams. When I turn back to Hannah, she’s looking at me strangely. But she’s always looking at something strangely, isn’t she?
“What was her name?” Hannah asks. She couldn’t possibly have forgotten already.
“Lia.” I’m glad I’m not as pale as McKenna or even Hannah. Otherwise, I might be blushing.
“Right. Lia.”
“Are you ready?”
Hannah looks like she’s got more to say, but she nods. I lead her through the doors and to our regular pew.
“Today’s not like regular church,” I whisper to her during the opening hymn. That’s another thing I forgot to mention. “It’s fast and testimony.”
“What’s that?”
“People are going to stand.” I point to the podium up front. “And they’re going to talk about why they’re LDS and what it means to them.” That’s the idea, anyway. Sometimes it’s a free-for-all.
“And the fast part?”
“It means the audience might get hangry.”
Here are the first three people who get up to the mic:
McKenna Cooper’s dad, bearing his bragimony—I mean, testimony—about his three perfect children and the joys of six a.m. family scripture study until the entire ward feels inadequate.
Sister Keller, who weeps through the entire thing. The only part I catch is about the Spirit helping her find lost car keys.
Sister Olsen, who takes this opportunity to reflect on what a blessing the Gospel is to our souls, and similarly, what a blessing essential oils are to our bodies, and did she mention she has some free samples in her car, if we’re interested?
Here are my thoughts on these testimonies, respectively:
Why
Lord
WHY
Hannah must think this is completely ridiculous. If I didn’t know us, if I wasn’t part of us, I’d think that. Why aren’t the people with beautiful testimonies standing up? Why isn’t Brother Chang talking about how converting helped him recover from alcoholism? Why isn’t Sister Christiansen telling the story about how knowing she’d see her dead daughter in the Celestial Kingdom helped her survive the grief? There are so many stories about our church family seeing each other through tragedy and loss. There are so many stories that explain why we’re here, week after week. Hannah isn’t hearing any of them. I wish she could.
Instead, she’s watching six-year-old Hunter Cannon clench the mic with sticky hands and repeat the testimony his mom wrote for him.
“I know . . .” Sister Cannon whispers in his ear, as a prompt. Lots of testimonies start with these words: I know.
“I know the church is true,” Hunter lisps. “I know Joseph Smith was a pocket.”
“Prophet.”
“Prophet.”
“I love my family. . . .”
“I love my family,” Hunter continues. “I love my mama and my dad and my sister. I love Heavenly Father and Jesus and my dog, Buster.” Sister Cannon smiles and starts to pull the mic away, but Hunter latches on with both sticky hands. “And please forgive my dad because yesterday he said dammit and he’s not supposed to. InthenameofJesusChristAmen.”
Sister Cannon goes red and hustles Hunter away from the altar. Hannah snorts. Well, at least I gave her some free entertainment. To my right, my mom puts three delicate fingers on my back. At first, I think it’s a signal to stop Hannah from laughing, which would be weird, since everyone’s laughing. But then, I realize Mom’s pressing on my spine. If we weren’t in the middle of church, she’d probably demand a full-on posture check. This involves touching your hands to your head, first, then laying them on your own shoulders. You put them to your waist, then all the way down. Heads, shoulders, perfect posture.
Tal would probably try to make this about religion, but none of the other moms in my ward do things like this. He’d say my mom acts this way because the church conditioned her to think her purpose was to be a perfect mother to perfect children. But I know she doesn’t believe that. I know she’d be this way no matter what religion she followed, or if she followed nothing at all. This is who she is. I should be annoyed at her. I am annoyed at her, but I also feel . . . sorry for her.
I clench my teeth, but straighten my back.
Hannah is a real trooper. She sits through the entire testimony meeting, then through my Laurels class, without complaint. Hannah is such a trooper that she even lets Sister Olsen drag her to the parking lot and give her essential oils sales pitch. And maybe Sister Olsen has some latent hypnotism powers, because Hannah appears to have a religious experience with one of the bottles. She takes a deep inhale and then visibly freezes. Her eyes go glassy, and she stares straight through me, unfocused.
“Hannah?” I say cautiously. She snaps out of it and covers the awkward moment with a smile and a question.
“What’s in this one?” she asks Sister Olsen.
“Eucalyptus. Very good for relaxation and clear breathing.”
Hannah doesn’t look relaxed. She looks wired. And her breathing might be clear, but it’s way faster than normal.
“I don’t have any money on me,” she says to Sister Olsen with an apologetic shrug. “Or I would.”
“I’d never ask anyone to spend money on the Sabbath, dear.” Sister Olsen presses something into Hannah’s palm. “You just take my card.”
Mom invites Hannah to stay for dinner, and Hannah accepts. It’s the right choice. The dinners Mom makes after we’ve fasted all day are comfort-food heavy, and they’re always delicious. When we get home, I take Hannah up to my room.
“Wow,” she says, turning in a circle to get the whole view. “This is . . . not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“For it to look like you, I guess.”
She’s not wrong. The pastoral blue print on the curtains matches my bed skirt. The bookcase is a pink floral, the rug is a pink floral, too, and there are enough pink pillows to make up a whole other bed.
“I didn’t decorate it,” I explain. Hannah looks at the bulletin board over my desk, with pictures and ticket stubs and a single blue ribbon from my fourth-grade spelling bee. She touches a photo of my Young Women’s group at girls’ camp, all of us with knee-length
shorts over one-piece bathing suits.
“Lia’s pretty,” Hannah says, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “Really pretty.”
“She’s Mormon.”
“Does that mean she can’t be pretty?”
“She’s not gay.”
“Does that mean she can’t be pretty?”
“It means don’t ask her out, or anything.”
Hannah squints like she’s trying to read something very far away. “I wasn’t going to. I just thought maybe—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, right?” I interrupt, out of breath for no reason. “Those kinds of things.”
“Pretty girls?”
“There’s no dating in the apocalypse,” I say, and mentally file it in my Top Ten Most Ridiculous Statements. “When the snow comes it doesn’t matter who you want to snuggle up with. Except for body heat purposes. Which reminds me, we should talk about heat sources, because—”
“I’d want to know,” Hannah blurts out. I stop talking, but then she hesitates. “I’d want to know who I was. If I didn’t already, I’d want to figure it out. Before the world changed.”
“But you do know,” I reason.
“Yeah.”
“So, you’re fine.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “I’m fine.”
“Good, that’s good,” I say briskly. Like if I rush through the words, I can rush away from this entire topic. I sit down on the bed, and she settles in next to me. “Hey, what happened in the parking lot? With Sister Olsen?”
“It was the right smell.”
“The right—for what?”
“For the last day in the world.”
It takes me a second to grasp it. “It smelled like your mom’s old perfume.”
She nods.
“Eucalyptus,” I say. “You smell eucalyptus.”
She nods again.
That’s all at once so specific and not nearly specific enough. Eucalyptus grows all around Berkeley. It’s not a plant that was even meant to grow in our dry, fire-prone hills. It’s native to Australia and was brought over in the 1900s by people who needed lumber, but were unaware eucalyptus makes for crappy houses. The lumber companies folded. The trees were abandoned. Then they spread, multiplying and surviving against the odds. Now they’re in every grove, foothill, and nature preserve, filling up the air with the deep, strong smell of mint and honey.