Stained

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

  Finally, Gabe and the priest come out together. Father pats Margo on the shoulder. Then he shakes Mike’s hand and says, “You have another fine boy here, Mike.” Gabe is grinning from ear to ear. His mother hugs him. His father smiles. Gabe has a shiny white soul.

  I watch the other girls wear angel dresses, carry white flowers with ribbons, and walk with Gabe. I hear Father talk about how God loves these children and how he will guide them in all that they do. When Father gives Gabe a taste of wine, I picture the windows beside me opening wide. Giant moths soar in to capture me with my grubby stained soul and fly me right out of there.

  FIFTEEN

  At home I change into my painter pants and head for the kitchen. I decide to make the O’Neils my famous brownies. It’s not that I think brownies are the best thing to eat when you’re suffering, it’s just that they’re the only thing I know how to bake. I dump out a package of brownie mix, mix in oil and two eggs. Then I add my secret ingredient, a cup of chocolate chips.

  My mother, the O’Neils, and Father Warren are seated in the living room of the O’Neil house when I walk in. Most of the adults are staring off, seemingly lost in their own thoughts. Gabe’s sister, Mary, is crying. She stands when she sees me.

  “Little Jocelyn. I remember babysitting you when you were this big.” She lowers her hand near the floor.

  Thanks a lot. I put my brownies on the coffee table. Father Warren smiles at me. So does Mom. She’s pleased that I’m doing something.

  “I can’t take another minute of this!” shouts Gabe’s father. He walks out of the room and grabs his baseball cap and a jacket off a hook in the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Margo calls.

  “I gotta go looking. Anywhere. For all we know, Gabe could be lying in the woods somewhere bleeding to death.”

  “Mike,” says Father Warren calmly, but he doesn’t move from his chair.

  Margo jumps up to prevent Father Warren from saying one word about having faith. “I’ll come with you,” she says. But Mike shakes his head no, and Margo stays.

  I wait in the O’Neils’ kitchen for a while. But there is nothing to do. The police haven’t called. There is no news at all. I feel like a Peeping Tomasina or something.

  I walk out the door, take my old English bike out of the shed, and head for the woods.

  An orange strip of plastic hanging on a tree marks the patch of woods I’m looking for. I slow down, hop off my bike, and walk it down the narrow path. The grass and plants that mark the recently cut lane are bright green. I spot new shoots that will blossom into lady’s slippers—flowers that are near extinction and are forbidden to pick.

  Benny is exactly where I knew he would be. He has a small chain saw, and he’s concentrating on taking the limbs off a large fallen tree. His father bought a few acres of land off the highway coming into town. Benny spends his free time collecting firewood for the winter. He’s already piled cords and cords. It helps him work off frustration about his mom, I think.

  I park my bike next to his father’s truck and walk slowly into his line of vision. I don’t want to startle him.

  He sees me and stops the saw. I can tell by his eyes that he’s glad I’ve come.

  “Hiya,” he says.

  “Hi.” I can barely talk above a whisper.

  “You’re a surprise.” We both know he’s lying. We’ve been through this before. I know that he hoped I’d come. In order for Benny and me to be together, I have to take the initiative. It has to be out of his hands. He has to lose control.

  He puts the chain saw down and turns toward me. “Any news?” he asks.

  “None,” I say. There’s silence. I can tell that Benny’s thinking about what to say next.

  “How are you doing?” he asks.

  I smile a sad smile.

  “I’ve always thought that you had a thing for Gabe.” His eyes are slightly mischievous, challenging me.

  “What makes you think that?” I don’t talk about Gabe when I’m with Benny—unless I happen to be telling a story from a hundred years ago.

  “I guess Anna Beal had a thing for him too,” he says.

  It’s strange that he mentions Anna and not Bernadette. I sense a bit of longing in this statement, and I want to say, So what’s it to you? I look up at the sky. I wish I hadn’t come.

  “I gotta go,” I say.

  “You just got here.”

  “From the looks of it,” I say, glancing over at his measly pile of cuttings, “so did you.”

  “Yeah, you think you could cut faster?”

  “Of course,” I say. “You forget that I was conceived in these New Hampshire woods.”

  Benny blushes. I love it when he does that.

  “Ever used a chain saw?”

  “No. But it can’t be that hard.”

  “Come here,” he says. I walk over to where he’s standing. He wraps his arms around me from behind to show me how to use the saw. His hands are guiding my hands. I can’t concentrate. All I can do is smell the sweet soap smell of Benny mixed with pinewoods and feel the warmth of the sun on the back of my neck. My insides are swelling.

  I turn to look up at him. Please kiss me, Benny, I think. And he does. He pulls a straggly strand of hair off my face and kisses me—gently at first and then as long and as hard as we’ve ever kissed before. I bend away to drop the saw and then crawl under his shirt. He crawls under mine. His hands are cold, but only for a moment. We sink to the forest floor and roll in the taste of each other. We are on the log and under the log. Last fall’s pine needles are in my hair and in my sneakers and in every gap of my painter pants. Benny and I push against each other so hard—we try to make our bodies one body. We succeed, I think.

  Then we are still. Neither one of us wants to break the spell. I listen to a chickadee in the woods. For a moment I worry about the bargain Benny made with God. I hope he’s decided that his mother’s disease and being with me are unrelated.

  I roll on top of Benny. I trace my fingers from his forehead down the bridge of his nose, over his soft lips, and down his neck. I outline the bottom of his neck, where wispy hairs grow. And that’s when I realize something.

  Benny sees my eyes and immediately puts his hand to his neck. He feels for his Saint Christopher’s medal, but the chain isn’t there. He bolts up.

  “Did you put it on this morning?” I ask.

  “Oh, Christ,” he says. “I never take it off!”

  We spend close to an hour searching the ground in and around the fallen tree. The medal is gone.

  There is nothing I can say. Benny’s distracted. He halfheartedly promises that he’ll stop by the Grill tomorrow. But I know as I throw my leg over my bicycle and head toward home that we’re dealing with a major sign.

  SIXTEEN

  The end of the school day. The teacher tells the walkers to line up. It is Tuesday, the day that Gabe and I go to Mrs. Cavanaugh’s after school, so I grab my lunch box and my corrected papers and stand up. Bobby asks if I will be his walker buddy. I nod my head and stand next to him. Gabe, who is first in line, is looking for me. “Who is your walker buddy, Gabe?” asks the teacher.

  “Jocelyn,” says Gabe. “Jocelyn is always my walker buddy.”

  The teacher looks at me. I look at Bobby.

  Bobby says, “You can be Gabe’s buddy, Jocelyn.”

  At that moment I know my mother is wrong. You don’t catch more flies with honey Bobby is one of the sweetest boys in my class, but I happily take my place with Vinegar.

  The walker-patrol kid with an orange sash on his chest directs us across a busy intersection on Main Street. Then the buddy line breaks up, and kids go their separate ways. Gabe walks slightly ahead of me. We walk down the hill past Ray’s Market, past the Grill, over the bridge, and up the hill to Mrs. Cavanaugh’s.

  We run the last five hundred yards, trying to beat each other through the door. Gabe’s hand slaps the screen first. He goes directly to the pink snowball cupcakes on the table. I tell Mrs
. Cavanaugh about the New Hampshire report I completed in school. I tell her that the report got a blue star on it. My first one. But when I rifle through the papers I’ve clutched all the way home, the booklet is missing.

  “Go back and trace your steps,” Mrs. Cavanaugh says. “Your mother will want to see your fine work.”

  I turn around and look at Gabe.

  “You too, Gabe. Go back and help Jocelyn find her report.”

  Gabe stands there and stares at Mrs. Cavanaugh. His chocolaty mouth is wide open. You’ve got to be kidding, his eyes challenge.

  “Go on.”

  He grabs his jacket in a huff, and we head back down the hill. “You are such a pansy,” he says. I ignore him.

  We can see that there is nothing on the sidewalk between Mrs. Cavanaugh’s and the bridge. I want my report back desperately, but I’m afraid to make Gabe climb the rest of the way back to school.

  “It must have blown over the bank,” says Gabe. “Where else could it be?” He slides down the steep, muddy bank on his rear end. “Come on, Jocelyn. It’s your stupid report.”

  I follow. I tell myself that he could be right. The report could have blown down here. We have a reason for being in this forbidden place.

  We walk along the edge of the water. The river is more powerful here than downstream, where we live. Here in town, we’re at the foot of the falls. Water pounds; foam from the mill swirls and splatters.

  I search under every bush. I pick up a stick and throw it into the churning river. Gabe does the same. Our sticks battle the surface for a moment and then dive only to come up somewhere closer to our homes.

  I look up. “Where are you going?” I yell to Gabe, who is scrambling over brush.

  “To the bridge. Come on!”

  I’m afraid. We’re supposed to be searching for my report. I want to find it. I don’t want to go where we’re not supposed to go, but I follow. I’ve already been called a pansy once today; I’m not going to give Gabe another reason to tease me.

  Gabe crawls up onto the rusted platform, high above the falls below. He stands and holds out his hand. I hesitate.

  “Come on, Jocelyn.”

  I take his hand and tentatively step from bar to bar, afraid that I’ll fall between the gaps. He leads me to the edge, which is supported by the iron railing, and we lean into the spray. I feel the mist on my face and giggle. Gabe raises himself up onto the bars and leans over. I know I can’t stop him, so I hold on to his belt just in case.

  The sun is beginning to set. When I look at Gabe, he is a black silhouette. Yet, he glows.

  Gabe feels me watching him. He feels me holding on to him. He extends his arms wide and leans farther over the falls.

  “I’m flying. Look, Jocelyn, I’m flying.”

  SEVENTEEN

  I’m eating beef stew at the table with Mom. She pulls a crumpled leaf from my hair.

  “I haven’t seen Benny around for a while,” she says.

  “He’s been busy—with his mom and all. Plus, he’s looking for a summer job.”

  “Did you see him today? Jocelyn?” She’s picking at the potatoes in the bottom of the bowl. I know she’s trying to make her dinner last as long as this conversation needs to.

  I take a heaping spoonful and nod.

  “Where did you see him?”

  “Church.”

  “And?”

  “On his land. He was chopping wood.”

  “I hope you’re being careful, Jocelyn,” she says. “I hope you’re remembering what I told you.”

  I can’t have this conversation now. I’m already so confused. I don’t know if Benny has changed his mind about what’s right and what’s wrong. I don’t know if I’m going with Benny now or not. I have no idea what he feels about today. I have no idea what I feel about today.

  I realize that for a few short months I felt like a normal high school kid. I had a best friend. I had a boyfriend. When Margo crowed about Gabe’s plans for a Friday night, my mother had something to say about me. And now Benny is changing his mind.

  “You don’t want to end up with a reputation like Bernadette’s,” Mom says. “If you keep running after Benny, Jocelyn, that’s the reputation you’re going to get.”

  I feel punched. The same mother who told me to take charge, to get a prescription for the Pill if I felt I was ready, is telling me this? Is this what she thinks? That I’m a slut?

  Mom fumbles in her purse, takes out a cigarette, and lights up. She hasn’t smoked for a long time, and now twice in one day. I know she’s scared, scared about Gabe, scared about me, but I can’t help her.

  I pick up my bowl, leave it on the counter, and head toward the hall.

  “I just don’t want you to end up like me, Jocelyn,” Mom snips as I climb the stairs.

  Don’t worry, I think. It isn’t likely that a baby will ruin my life, the way I’ve ruined yours.

  EIGHTEEN

  Mrs. Morrin, our fourth-grade teacher, tells us that a new girl—a girl all the way from Maryland—will be joining us. Like most of the kids in my class, I’m excited. A new girl means that the day will be livelier, that our teacher will be kinder. She will pretend to take time to consider which child should be the new girl’s helper. After all, she will seem to say, we are a model class and the decision is difficult. But in the end, she will choose Susan, who is nearly perfect.

  She will not choose me because I am untidy—my mother doesn’t always have time to help me with my straggly hair or make sure I don’t wear the same dress two or three days in a row. Mrs. Morrin also thinks I ask too many questions. “Think for once, Jocelyn,” she says. And I know that someone will be quick to tell the new girl that my parents are divorced. I am the only fourth grader whose father doesn’t live with her, and this fact will be presented along with the knowledge that there’s a crazy woman who wails behind Ray’s Market. Both of us should be avoided.

  But I am still hopeful. Maybe this new girl, maybe this Anna Beal will be a friend. So I raise my hand when Mrs. Morrin says, “Who would like to be Anna’s helper?” and I continue to smile at the new girl long after Susan has been chosen.

  I like Anna. She is smarter than I am, and braver, too. She seems to like all of the fourth-grade girls the same, even though Susan tells her which girls are the popular ones. I invite Anna over to my house after school to hunt for salamanders and frog’s eggs in the brook that feeds the river farther down the road. She asks if we can look for snakes in the stone wall. I’m afraid of snakes, but I don’t tell Anna that—Anna who can do push-ups and whose knees are rough and grimy like a boy’s.

  I like Anna, that is, until I discover how much Gabe likes Anna. When Anna comes to my house, Gabe sits in front of us on the bus and makes silly jokes. He hurries inside his house to get his snack, and then he runs over to my backyard to eat it. He tries to interest us in games of kick the can and capture the flag. Anna smiles and points out that we really don’t have enough kids to play those games. Gabe seems pleased that she knows the names of these games and how to play them. As if Anna from Baltimore wouldn’t know the same games as Gabe in Weaver Falls.

  When Anna isn’t with me, Gabe comes over and asks questions about her. Then he tells me all the things they have in common. Both of them like blue best. Both of them hate beets. Both of their mothers make them wash their necks before going to bed. Both of them are Catholic.

  I’m confused. I want to be with Gabe, but hearing about Anna makes it hard to breathe. Gabe gives Anna a birthday present—a picture puzzle of daisies. Anna writes Gabe a thank-you note. Gabe circles the word love in I love my puzzle and in Love, Anna, and he hangs the note on his wall. He brings me up to his room, a place that I haven’t been invited to since I was six, to see the letter hanging there. “Tell Anna,” he says.

  NINETEEN

  The parking lot of the Grill is filled with cars, and the sun is barely up. I count three police cruisers and five cops holding dogs by leashes.

  “’Bout time you got h
ere,” Joe says. He’s pouring coffee. Linda is flipping eggs.

  “What’s going on?” I ask as I tie my apron around my waist. I am not late.

  “The town decided to organize a search for Gabe this morning.”

  “Have they discovered something? Where are they going to look?” Woods and mountains surround the town. I wonder if they plan to cover it all.

  “They’re going to start in the woods behind St. Mary’s,” says Joe. “Here, take these eggs to Father Warren.”

  I look behind me and see him at a corner table. He’s sitting with three kids—a senior who just graduated and two kids from my class.

  He smiles at me when I place his breakfast in front of him.

  My belly does a little flip. For a moment I forget what I need to do next, then I back over to the dirty table Joe’s busing. The guys at the table laugh as soon as I’m gone.

  “Is Father Warren here to say a prayer for the search?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so,” Joe says. “Someone saw Gabe coming out of the back of St. Mary’s around midnight the night he went missing.”

  I clear some coffee mugs and wonder what Gabe would be doing in the back of the church.

  “Was he alone?” I ask, following Joe to the sink.

  “Well, no one has confessed to being with him, and no one else has turned up missing.”

  “They think he was there to steal something,” Linda mumbles over her shoulder.

  I serve two men seated at the counter. One was my eighth-grade English teacher. I try to think of what Gabe could steal.

  “The collection money?” I ask Linda when she hands me some toast.

  “Nope. The only thing missing was a couple of bottles of Communion wine.”

  As if on cue, all of the men and some of the women in the Grill throw down their napkins. They stand up and put on their hooded sweatshirts. Some carry topographical maps. They hook canteens over their shoulders or adjust canteens on their belts. The dogs outside begin to wag their tails and pull on their leashes. They can hear that it’s time to go.