It was Martin who spoke first. “So,” he said, moving his napkin and silverware around on the table to avoid meeting my eyes, “the whole time, it was you?”
I nodded, feeling suddenly guilty. “Yeah, pretty much.”
He looked up at me sharply. “‘Pretty much?’” he repeated. “What does that mean?”
“No, sorry, it means yes. It was just me.”
He looked back down. “Listen,” he said, taking the napkin and beginning to tear it into shreds, “I don’t know what, exactly, you were thinking here, but you have to know that this is illegal. I could get in a lot of trouble, but you could, too. I have all the evidence online. You led me to believe you were a woman—a woman my age—and …” He looked up at me again. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” I said.
He continued to look at me.
“Fifteen,” I mumbled.
“Christ,” he said. “Where are your parents?”
“My mom doesn’t know I’m here. She doesn’t know anything about this.” I thought of Martin seeing my mother. All the pictures of Kim he’d seen online were of her. If only I could inhabit my mother’s body the way I had wanted to inhabit the hostess’, then Martin would have smiled when he saw me. Then he would have worked his hardest to impress me and make me laugh, tried to get me back to his place for drinks.
“Listen,” Martin was saying, now looking desperate, a man pleading his innocence, “we can still get out of this. We just get up, go back to our homes, delete our accounts, and no one will ever know the difference. No one gets in trouble.”
Although I didn’t like what he was saying, I was glad to hear him treating me like a real person, like someone he was trying to convince. “Martin,” I said, trying to make my voice warm and soothing, “we’re just having dinner. That’s all. There’s nothing illegal about that.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our waitress returning with our drinks. “I just want to spend some time with you, Dad,” I said loudly, leaning forward across the table. “We never spend time together anymore.”
Mindy smiled awkwardly as she placed our drinks on the table, probably wondering what sort of kid talked to her dad that way. “You guys ready to order?”
I looked at Martin pointedly. He sighed, picked up the menu, and pointed to the first thing he saw. I ordered the Caesar salad.
When we were alone again, I smiled and leaned forward. “Martin, relax. It’s only dinner.”
For a second, he looked at me with something that, although definitely not affection, was at least a sort of respectful wonder. I thought maybe I had him. I took a sip of my coffee. It was bitter and hot.
APRIL
It had been a long while since April last visited the Moyers’ house, which by itself was a little telling, given that until recently, her daughter had spent basically every weekend and many a weeknight here. The times April came to pick Laura up, she had taken to parking out front and sending her daughter a text rather than going inside. She had never really considered why she started doing this. At the time, it had just seemed convenient. But now, as she followed Pastor Eric into the house and felt a little quake of nervousness, she wondered.
Of course, these weren’t normal circumstances. Standing in his own living room, Eric looked around as if he didn’t quite know where he was. April lingered near the doorway, waiting for instructions that he didn’t give. Finally, she asked, “Is Linda here?”
“She’s, uh …” Eric continued to look around the room distractedly. “She might be …” He trailed off when his wife appeared in the doorway from the kitchen.
Just passing this woman on the street, you wouldn’t notice anything unusual. It was only here, in close proximity, that April could make out the sharp lines in the woman’s face, the slightly bloodshot eyes, the clothes that looked slept in.
Linda smiled. “April! Nice to see you. How are you?”
April looked at Eric in confusion, but he was studying the sofa in the middle of the room, playing with a button that had come undone from the top lining.
“I’m well, Linda,” April said. “How are you?”
Linda smiled and nodded and didn’t answer.
Eric looked up from the sofa to his wife. “April’s here to see if she can talk to Bethany. I’ve explained the situation already.”
Linda nodded again. “Well, she’s in her room,” she said. And turning, she walked out of the room.
A moment later, April heard a door slam somewhere in the house.
She looked at Eric. “Linda doesn’t want me here.”
Eric continued to avoid her eyes. “We talked about it. She doesn’t think it’ll help, but I think it’s worth trying. Like I said, Bethany respects you.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I’m comfortable—”
“April.” Eric cut her short, looking her in the eyes. “Please.”
As they went up the stairs, April felt herself growing more and more nervous, in a way she had no context for. This was her daughter’s fifteen-year-old friend, who April was now scared to talk to. It was bizarre. But at the same time, a weird feeling of déjà vu kept flickering in the corners of her mind. She had been in this situation before, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember when.
At the top of the stairs, Eric pointed to the closed door of Bethany’s room. Apparently, he didn’t want even to announce April’s presence to his daughter, as if the mere sound of his voice might ruin things.
April took a deep breath and tapped lightly on the door. No answer. Suicide, Eric had said, and for a second, April had the vision of Bethany lying naked in the bathtub, submerged in a pool of red. She could hear the muffled voices of doctors and nurses, hear the soft ding of elevator doors, smell the disinfectant odor of a hospital ward. Her stomach turned, and she had to take a deep breath. She turned to look at Eric, who was now standing halfway down the stairs, waiting. He gestured for her to knock again. She did, and this time, Bethany’s muffled voice came from inside.
“What?”
April cleared her throat. “Bethany? Hey, it’s April. April Swanson.”
A long pause. “Ms. Swanson?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Okay.”
She opened the door gently. Bethany was sitting up on her unmade bed, wiping her face. Her long dark hair was free and uncombed, and she was wearing gym shorts and an oversize Looney Tunes T-shirt that reached almost to her knees, Bugs Bunny munching on a carrot.
“Hey,” April said, coming into the room. “Nice shirt.”
Bethany looked down at it and sniffed. “Sorry, I’m not really dressed. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come over.” She looked up. “What are you doing here?” The question didn’t come off as hostile or rude, just puzzled.
“Your dad asked me if I’d come over and talk to you.”
“Why did he ask you?” Again only puzzlement.
April gave a half shrug. “Um, I guess he thought I might be able to help.”
Bethany looked at her for a few seconds, as if realizing something for the first time. April soon guessed what she must be thinking. No, Bethany, I’m not a closet lesbian, she wanted to say. I like boys—half my age and brooding, if possible. She said, “Just ’cause, you know, I’ve known you for a long time and you and Laura are so close.”
“Oh.” Bethany nodded, looking slightly disappointed if not entirely convinced. “Well, Laura hates me now.”
April came and sat down beside her on the bed. “Bethany, I’m sure Laura doesn’t hate you. You know her—sometimes she holds on to things for a while.” She paused. “Does she know …?”
Bethany shook her head. “I only just told her, in a letter.” She ran her face through her hands and groaned. “Do you ever feel like you’re going crazy?”
April smiled. “Only every day!” she said loudly, regr
etting it at once when Bethany gave her a confused look. “Sorry,” she said. This whole situation seemed incredibly weird to her, but the feeling melted when she saw how Bethany looked: frightened and confused, unsure of anything. April looked around the room. The walls, painted a pale yellow, were completely bare. “You need some pictures or something to hang up in here,” she said.
“My mom came and tore down all my band posters,” Bethany said. “She thinks they’ve been corrupting me. Like looking at rock bands all day turned me on to girls.”
April nodded wisely. “That makes sense.”
They both began to giggle. “I was planning on repainting my room soon anyway,” said Bethany.
April hesitated a moment, then said, “Do you want to talk about it—like, how you’re feeling?”
“What did my parents tell you?” Bethany asked, still looking at the wall.
“Your dad just said you were going through some—”
“My parents think I’m sinning,” Bethany interrupted, “that my feelings for Nola are wrong and sinful. And I thought that, too, at first. I tried to stop them—my feelings, I mean. For weeks, I asked God to take them away, I prayed and prayed to him, but the feeling just got stronger. So what kind of sense does that make? If it’s so wrong, why wouldn’t God take it away if you asked him to? And I wanted him to do it, I really did.” She wiped her eyes. “So finally, I just got sick of it. I told myself, if this is what being wrong feels like, what sinning feels like, then I don’t care. If I go to hell, I go to hell. I’m in love with Nola, end of story.” She looked at April. “Do you think that’s crazy?”
After a second, April realized that Bethany hadn’t meant the question to be rhetorical. She really wanted April to tell her whether she was crazy. The girl was only fifteen and already declaring that she was in love. Of course that was crazy, but maybe fifteen was the only time you could say you were in love, and really mean it, without any irony or strings attached.
“I think,” April said, “that you’re very young and allowed not to have everything figured out yet.”
Bethany nodded but didn’t look very satisfied with this answer.
“But whatever you do, you should take things slow,” April continued. “You’re only fifteen, and if you really like someone, you have plenty of time to share things with them. You don’t want to rush anything.” She paused, and for a moment she was tempted to leave it there, not to say what she knew she must say next. She took a breath. “And, Bethany, I need you to promise me that you’ll never, ever try to hurt yourself, no matter how scary or confusing or sad it can be. If you feel that way and you feel you can’t talk to your parents, you come to me, okay? I might not have all the answers, but we’ll work it out or find someone who can help. But don’t keep it inside. Don’t keep it a secret. Promise me that. Promise that if you feel bad, you’ll find me, or someone you trust, to talk to.”
Bethany nodded. “Okay,” she whispered. There was a space of silence. They both looked at the pale-yellow wall, and then Bethany turned to her and asked, “But do you think it’s wrong how I feel about Nola? Do you think God will judge me for it?”
With everything that had happened over the course of the VBS—namely Paul—April had dropped the ball on a few things. One of those things had been remembering to take down all the pieces of paper that kids had nailed to the Cross of Repentance throughout the month and bring them with her in a garbage bag to Camp Lone Eagle. On these notes, the kids had been encouraged, whenever they felt the urge, to write down anything they felt guilty or ashamed about. Then, on Saturday night at the camp, the tradition was to dump the bag full of these notes into the bonfire and watch them burn to ash. But April had forgotten to bring the bag with her to the camp, so the notes remained unburned. The bag had sat in a corner of the garage for weeks until, one evening while putting away the gardening tools she hadn’t used, she spied it and brought it into her room.
She emptied the bag on her bed and picked up some notes at random.
I watched a scary movie the other night with my friends. I have bad dreams now. I don’t want to tell my parents because they’ll be mad at me.
Sometimes I get so angry with my sister I want to hit her.
I’m trying not to watch porn online anymore, but I can’t stop.
Some of them were surprising, some even amusing, but each one struck April as sad in some way.
She unfolded one last note. I think I might be gay.
That was all. No apology. No plea for forgiveness. Remembering it now, April wondered whether it had been Bethany. The Cross of Repentance wasn’t meant for team leaders, and she remembered the handwriting looking younger, juvenile. That was part of what made it so sad.
The only gay person April knew well was Terry Moore from church, and, of course, he had renounced his homosexuality. April had always liked Terry—he was kind and soft-spoken and always willing to help out with anything going on at church. But maybe that spoke less to his generosity than to his loneliness. Terry’s boyfriend had died years ago, and he would never be able to open that part of his life up again, because he believed, right along with the rest of the church, that it was an abomination. April looked at Bethany and thought of her growing up that way, alone, never allowing herself the chance to fall in love or be with someone, because she believed that doing so would send her to hell. No wonder she wanted something more from April. No wonder she was desperate for a concrete answer. The thing was, April no longer felt she had anything useful to give. Recently, she felt as if she’d been floating in the middle of a vast ocean, with no land in sight. God, sin, love—all these words suddenly sounded like foreign concepts. She had no clue what any of them meant. Don’t ask me, she wanted to say as she cleared her throat. I’m just a math teacher.
Twenty minutes later, when April came back downstairs, Eric stood up from where he’d been waiting on the living room sofa. “How’s she doing?” he asked, as if April were a doctor and Bethany her desperately ill patient, as if he couldn’t go up the stairs and see for himself.
April stood in the middle of the room and wrapped her arms around herself. “I think she’s confused,” she said.
Eric nodded vigorously. “Yes, very confused.”
“I told her she’s allowed to be confused.”
He looked at her blankly.
“I told her she’s allowed to take her time figuring things out, that the important thing is, she keeps trying. She doesn’t have to know anything for certain yet. I told her I’m forty, and I still don’t have things remotely figured out. I mean, I thought I did. However I felt about my life, I thought it was how it was supposed to be, and it only just recently occurred to me that I could change it. I’m not good with metaphors, but it’s as if my life were a stained-glass window or something—pretty to look at, but never changing—and then something came along to shatter my window, and now I’m trying to pick up the pieces. And I’m seeing that I don’t have to put them back the way they were before. I could move stuff around, rearrange things, throw out and add stuff, even. Actually, that metaphor works pretty well, doesn’t it? Go figure. Anyway, it’s not like I’m suddenly happy now. Actually, I’m sad, really sad, but I don’t mind being sad right now. It’s better than what I felt before, I think, which was nothing.”
April stopped talking. She hadn’t meant to say any of that, hadn’t even known she’d been thinking it; it had just tumbled out in a rush.
Eric stared at her. “You told Bethany that?”
“Well, no,” said April, “just the first part. The rest of it I’m telling you, I guess. Because I had to tell someone, and you’re still my pastor, right?” She gave Eric a smile that he did not return. “I know that’s not what you wanted me to tell your daughter,” she said, “but really, I’m not sure it makes a difference, either way, what you or I or anyone else tells her. Kids that age do what they feel they need to do, and to hell
with whatever we tell them. That’s just teenage nature,” she added, remembering something someone had told her what felt like a long, long time ago.
Since Eric didn’t seem as if he was going to respond anytime soon, April walked past him toward the door, then turned back around to say, “Oh, yeah, this is probably as good a time as any to tell you I won’t be heading up the VBS next summer. I’ve decided to retire.”
Outside, she was surprised to see that it was dark. It always took her by surprise how quickly the sun began to set at the end of summer. She stood out in the Moyers’ driveway for a moment, looked around, and realized she didn’t have a car. She would have to walk home or else go back inside and ask Eric for a ride. Her house was on the other side of town, and she wasn’t wearing sneakers, but she hesitated only a moment before setting off across the driveway and down the street.
BEN
Something warm and rough and wet was scraping across my face. I opened my eyes with a start and lifted my head. Then I froze. I was looking straight into the eyes of a big black dog. It had stopped licking me and was now growling low, baring its long white teeth only inches away from my face.
I knew better than to make any sudden movements. The trouble was, I was allergic to dogs, and I felt a sneeze coming on.
Someone gave a whistle behind me. The dog’s ears perked up, and a second later it had sprinted away, leaving me with my nose tickling and my heart pounding.
I winced as I sat up in the sand. My back hurt, and my neck was stiff. I couldn’t believe I had fallen asleep here in the park. I never fell asleep in public places, especially outside. From how dark it had gotten, I guessed I must have been out for a while. My head felt fuzzy and disoriented. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time: ten after eight. I’d slept for over an hour. There was also a text from my mom, asking me where I was. My curfew was at eight. I had to get home fast to avoid a punishment. Groaning, I stood up and climbed back up the bank.
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