And the day only got worse from there. While we worked on the fence, safely out of earshot of the adults, Bethany told me the rest of the story. While I was wading through the swamp, she, Nola, Ian, and Joey had merely waited in the woods until they were sure the coast was clear, then doubled back to Ian’s car, which was parked up the road from church. How simple! While I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and obsessing about leeches, they had gone back to Nola’s house and had a sleepover in her basement.
“Where did you sleep?” I asked Bethany while hammering a plastic fence stake into the soft earth and trying to keep my tone casual.
“On a couch.”
“Where did Ian sleep?”
“On a couch.”
“The same couch?”
Bethany had picked up the next stake but stopped long enough to fix me with an irritated glare. “Laura, I already told you, I don’t like Ian.”
Oh, puh-lease! I thought, giving the next stake a good swat with the mallet. Then why else were we hanging out with those potheads? Also, she hadn’t answered my question. Mostly, though, I was miffed at myself. Last night had been my chance, my trial, and I had botched it gloriously. Running off into a swamp and acting like an idiot while they watched horror movies and made microwave popcorn—okay, I added the popcorn part, but still. There was only one good thing about that night: what happened to me after I got through the swamp. I hadn’t told Bethany about my encounter with Paul Frazier. Besides my mother, I hadn’t told anyone. I thought of it as my ace in the hole, the secret weapon to make myself relevant again. Even Ian and Nola would be dying to talk to me when they found out I’d gotten a ride from the great Paul Frazier. But something kept me from saying anything just yet. I felt that the longer I kept the secret, the more powerful—almost sacred—it became.
But only twenty minutes later, walking back from the field to the church for a water break, there he was. For a second, I thought maybe the heat had gotten to me and I was hallucinating. But it was him, in the flesh and only a few feet away from us, walking by with Jon Newman. Jon smiled and said hi, but we only gawked and kept moving.
“Was that who I think it was?” Bethany murmured.
I nodded. “It’s him, I’m sure.”
“What the hell is going on?” Bethany asked. But I could hardly speak. I was thinking of the kiss I gave him last night—that awful, wonderful kiss—and the way he had smiled faintly at me just now. A smile of recognition … and something else. Amusement? Disdain? Fondness? I couldn’t tell. But I was painfully aware of the sweat soaking through my shirt and dripping from my forehead. How rumpled and burned out I looked! Twice in a row now, I had managed to look my worst for Paul Frazier.
Around four o’clock on Saturday, after Bethany and I finished setting up that stupid fence, my mom took us to get dinner—pizza, despite my very vocal and very valid objections. (It’s unhealthy. It’s greasy. It’s gross.) We still didn’t know how she found out what we’d done, but she had cooled off since that morning. We sat down at a booth, and when my mom asked us what kind of pizza we wanted, I muttered that I’d just get a salad.
She gave me her exasperated cocking-of-the-head, raising-of-the-eyebrows look. “What about you, Bethany?” she asked. “Are you hungry from working out in the hot sun all day, or are you with my daughter?”
Bethany smiled. “I could really go for a slice of buffalo chicken.”
“Buffalo chicken it is,” said my mom.
While my mom and my best friend shared a small pizza, I picked half-heartedly at my salad (iceberg lettuce with other watery, tasteless vegetables thrown on top) and tried not to envy either the hot, greasy meal they were enjoying or the fact that both of them could enjoy it without worrying about the food’s effect on their bodies. God had granted them the priceless gift of being able to eat whatever they wanted without gaining weight. No such gift for Laura.
Bethany and my mom chatted about school and Bethany’s plan to travel overseas after she turned eighteen and before she started college, but I refused to be drawn into their talk. I was still angry at my mother for enslaving us for half the summer. The sentence was much too harsh. A one-night mistake did not call for endless weeks of misery. Bethany, however, considered it a bargain. “Trust me,” she’d said to me earlier, “this is much better than what my parents would do to me.” She had texted her parents that she was “volunteering” to help out at the VBS, and they were ecstatic. So, as usual, Bethany remained untainted, perfect, the daughter any pastor would want. I hated it, though. Only last summer, we had been attending vacation Bible school, and now that we were finally too old for the stupid thing, I’d been looking forward to a summer of freedom. Being forced to help felt like a giant step backward.
Bethany laughed loudly at something my mom said, and I shot her an annoyed look. Bethany got along well with my mother, who, she always said, was the coolest mom at church. I never had the energy to dispute this. I think Bethany was also under the false impression that if she really sucked up to my mom during the next few days, we might get time off for good behavior. But I knew this to be a lost cause. Once my mom had settled on something, that was that.
“So, Ms. Swanson,” Bethany said after finishing her first piece of pizza and moving on to the next, “how’s the VBS staff looking this year? Any promising new recruits?”
My mom smirked and took a piece of chicken off her slice and popped it into her mouth. She always did this, picked a thing apart and ate the component bits separately instead of as a whole, the way it was intended to be eaten. “If you’re fishing for a compliment,” she said, “I’ll say that yes, you girls did a good job today. Not having to worry about putting up that fence is a big load off my mind.”
Bethany shook her head, “I wasn’t talking about us, actually. I noticed that Paul Frazier was there today. What’s the deal with that?”
My mom shrugged. “He’s taking over running sound from Mr. Cornish, because the Cornishes are moving. It’s my understanding that he’ll also be helping out at the VBS a lot.”
“Crazy,” Bethany said, and gave me a look that I didn’t return. I kept my eyes on my almost untouched salad. Bethany seemed to think it was okay to share our secrets in front of my mom, but I knew better.
“What?” my mom asked, looking from Bethany to me. “You girls know something about him that I don’t?”
Bethany took a drink of her soda before replying. “We just think he’s cute, that’s all. Don’t you think he’s cute, Ms. Swanson?”
“Just because a boy is cute doesn’t mean he’s good news; you girls should know that. And he’s a little old for you, don’t you think?”
Bethany nodded and sighed. “Alas, he is. The price of being young.”
My mom gave a short, hollow laugh. “You enjoy being young while it lasts, Bethany Moyer. Things only get harder from here on.”
That was bullshit, I thought. There was nothing harder than being a fifteen-year-old girl in early summer, without a boyfriend. Nothing in the whole world.
Sunday morning I stood in the church service, fighting to stay awake.
New Life’s sanctuary had a basketball hoop at either end. The old school had been small enough that one room served as both gymnasium and auditorium. About five hundred folding chairs had been set up on the finished hardwood floor. When the church first bought the building, the hoops stuck out like a punk band at the opera. Now no one but newcomers gave them a second look.
Up onstage, the worship band had just ended one of the current favorites—an upbeat tune whose chorus had a hook that would replay in your head for hours afterward—and were shifting to a slower number. The worship leader, Jon Newman, strummed on his guitar while breathing heavily into the microphone. These transitions were always a chance for us in the congregation to sway back and forth with our eyes half-closed, maybe shouting out a few “Amens!” or “Yes, Lords!” here a
nd there.
Standing in our row in the congregation, my mom on one side of me, my brother on the other, I stifled a yawn. I was often tired on Sundays, because I would stay up till long after midnight the night before, talking online with Martin. Sitting on my bed in the dark with my laptop, headphones in my ears, I would e-chat with him for hours. We talked about all sorts of random topics, though I was always careful to keep it on familiar terrain, steering our conversations back to subjects I understood whenever they began to veer into the unfamiliar.
I remember one particularly late night—it must have been close to three in the morning—when I told Martin I’d better log off since I had church the next day.
“You go to church?” he asked.
For a few seconds, I had stared at the blinking cursor, contemplating my answer. For some reason, in that moment, I wanted to be honest: Yes, I typed back. I run my church’s vacation Bible school.
Martin had been surprised. He told me he would never have taken me for a churchgoer. And although I wasn’t sure how I felt about church anymore, I felt insulted. I asked him what he meant by that. Martin could sense my anger and quickly apologized—said he was projecting, relying on stereotypes. I typed back that it was okay; my ex-husband was the reason I started going in the first place, and now I’d just been going for so long, it was more habit than anything else. Martin said he completely understood; we do a lot of things not because we want to but because we feel we should.
Another yawn. My mom shot me an irritated look, and I covered my mouth—I couldn’t risk her investigating what was making me so tired on Sunday mornings.
Pastor Eric had taken the stage as the last worship song ended in a flurry of cymbal rolls and synthesizer runs. “Good,” he said, looking around the room at us all with a proud smile, as if he were a coach in the locker room and we were his team. “It always blesses my spirit to see so many of you gathered here, ready to worship the Lord. Take a few minutes to greet a few folks this morning.” Everyone began milling around the room to shake hands, give hugs, and exchange pleasantries, and the sounds of laughter and small talk filled the gym. I made my way across the room, to the front hallway, where Bethany and I always met.
Someone grabbed my arm from behind, and I turned and saw Bethany, her eyes wide. “We have a problem,” she said.
I winced under the pressure of her grip. “What?” I asked, pulling my arm free.
“So I was texting Nola earlier, telling her about … you know who, and she said she wants to see for herself. She’s coming here, Laura. Any minute now.”
You know who. She was talking about Paul Frazier. I hadn’t completely believed my mom when she told us the other day that Paul was now a church employee, but this morning Bethany and I had spotted him manning the sound booth, looking a little put out but otherwise perfectly normal. I didn’t understand. Had he lost some kind of bet?
Bethany was anxiously awaiting my response. As if there were anything I could do about Nola coming here, though it did feel good to have my best friend so desperate for my help. But I played dumb.
I shrugged. “So?”
Bethany gaped at me. “Laura, are you crazy? I don’t want her to see …” She gestured around us at all the parents talking inside the gym, at the banners displaying Bible verses on the wall. “All this.”
Tom Walker had just taken the stage, inviting everyone back to their seats so he could share church announcements. Bethany and I sat in a back row, close to the entrance. “She already knows you’re a pastor’s daughter,” I said.
Mr. Walker was talking about a men’s retreat next month. (What were they retreating from?) Bethany shook her head quickly. “It’s too much, too soon,” she said, and even though I knew she was self-conscious about this place in front of her new friends, I was a little taken aback by her concerned, almost frantic look. I started to feel bad.
“At least it’s not Ian who’s coming,” I said, but before Bethany could respond, I felt a hand on my shoulder. There was Nola, in her usual attire: black jeans, black sneakers, black hooded sweatshirt—in midsummer.
“’Sup?” she said, smiling.
“Nola!” Bethany whispered. “You didn’t have to come all the way here. I could have sent a pic or something.”
Nola shrugged. “The sign said ‘everyone welcome.’”
“Oh, yeah, it’s just that”—Bethany gestured around her—“this is a little embarrassing.”
Nola shrugged again. “Whatever gets you off, I guess.” Then she took the free seat next to mine.
Up front, Mr. Walker had finished the announcements, and Pastor Eric was taking the stage to the congregation’s applause. (At New Life, just about anything was cause for applause). “Good,” Pastor Eric said, holding the microphone and looking at all of us, “It’s a great day to be alive, Amen? Let’s give it up for Jesus!”
As the room exploded in applause once again, Nola leaned over to me: “That’s Bethany’s dad, right?”
I nodded grimly. And on the other side of me, Bethany’s face had turned a deep shade of pink.
BEN
They called it a “vacation” Bible school. But what kind of vacation is it if you spend the whole day baking in the hot sun and getting bossed around by a bunch of stupid, stuck-up teenagers? What kind of vacation is it if you’re forced into seriously lame activities? Ben, come join the relay race! Ben, it’s time for the pottery lesson! Ben, we’re doing papier-mâché! What kind of vacation is it if you’re always in a bad mood, hot, sweaty, and bored, counting down the hours until it’s time to go home, just so you can do it all again the next day?
Monday morning, the first day of VBS. My mom dropped me off in the church parking lot like I was some hitchhiker she’d picked up on the highway. And as I watched her pull back onto the road and speed away from the church a lot faster than she usually drove, I wondered if maybe the “vacation” part never was about us kids.
Another summer stuck in hell. Four years in a row, and because of the Weight, I knew this one would be the worst. “The Weight” is what I called the kid standing beside me in the parking lot, because that’s exactly what he felt like: a weight hanging from my neck. DeShawn Vinson, my foster brother and my responsibility at VBS. DeShawn was eleven, two years younger than me and from New York City, and even though I’d lived with him for half a year now, that was all I knew about him. You felt DeShawn more than anything. I felt his presence beside me in the parking lot even though he wasn’t saying anything. I felt his presence at home even when he wasn’t in the room. When I heard him through the wall, moving around in his bedroom, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my Xbox. When he came down for dinner every night, I’d feel something heavy fall over the dinner table. Nobody else seemed to notice, or if they did, they pretended it wasn’t there.
A year ago, when my parents first told me we were taking in a foster kid from the city, I’d been excited. I pictured a miniature Chris Rock, swearing up a storm at the breakfast table and cracking dirty jokes. I imagined him downloading all the best gangsta rap onto my phone (“I’ma hook you up.”), maybe even giving me some tips on basketball. But as soon as DeShawn moved in, I knew it wouldn’t be like that. The Weight didn’t talk about hip-hop or basketball. He didn’t talk much at all, just glared at you with his angry eyes. Even my parents, who were clued in on his life story, didn’t seem totally sure about what he liked or didn’t, what he was thinking. “So far, he’s something of an enigma,” my dad said about a month ago. “But that’s okay, eventually he’ll open up. Just don’t push him.” So I didn’t—actually, I did my best to ignore the Weight, even as I felt him always dragging me down.
The parking lot was a traffic jam of parents dropping off their spawn. The giant green in front of church was already swarming with kids. I started over across the green to the big open tent where you signed in, making sure the Weight followed. All around us were brightly
colored tents, cones, and flags marking off different games and contests, Christian hip-hop blaring from giant speakers set up on either side of the field. If you didn’t know any better, this might even look fun.
Lydia Newman was sitting at a folding table under the sign-in tent. In front of her was a clipboard, and under the table was a plastic tub filled with colorful pieces of cloth. She smiled when she saw us.
“Hi, Benjamin! Excited for another amazing summer?”
I nodded and tried to smile back. With people like Lydia, so simple and happy, it felt almost wrong to be real with them.
She asked me what tribe I belonged to, and I couldn’t help feeling a little proud when I told her Levi. We were respectable. Maybe not as cool as Judah, but not totally lame like Zebulun.
Lydia checked my name off on her clipboard and then dug an orange cloth out of the tub and handed it to me. I looked at it sadly for a second before tying it around my head.
“And you’re DeShawn, right?” Lydia said, giving my foster brother a sunny smile. “We’re so happy to have you this year! You’ll be in the same tribe as Ben.”
I stopped messing with my turban. “What? You didn’t even check your list.”
Lydia didn’t look at me when she answered. “Yep. He’s in Levi, too.”
Shit. It was my mom, had to be. She’d called Ms. Swanson and asked her to put DeShawn in my tribe, even though there was a rule against parents doing that anymore. This place was getting so corrupt.
Another Life Page 5