“Of course,” I whispered in reply, touching her wrist and smiling. “Don’t worry about it.”
The adults milled about in the pews, smiling and slapping each other on the back while Anna and I sat quietly with our hands in our laps. After a few minutes, an ancient man with skin like wrinkled marble and owl eyes strode up to the pulpit, an old leather Bible tucked under his arm, and everyone grew quiet. Despite his age he moved with military grace as he silently dropped the Good Book on the lectern and flipped to the appropriate page.
“Therefore, seeing we have this ministry,” the pastor said, in a huge, youthful voice that filled the church without the aid of speakers, “as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” He removed his reading glasses and looked up to survey the congregation.
“That’s 2 Corinthians 4:1 and 4:2, if y’all’s interested.” He cleared his throat and closed his Bible, the thump resounding in the silence of the sanctuary. “Lotta good lines in Corinthians, I’ve always found. ‘Through a glass darkly’ and ‘childish things’ and so on, but that line I just read’s got as much meat as any of the others.”
My eyes drifted up to the window behind him, and the rippling grass on the hillside. Lots of the girls in the support group back home had called transitioning “living our truth,” and maybe that was true. My eyes turned up just a little more and there, hanging above the window and the green grass, was a small wooden cross.
“’Fore I go any further, though, I’d like to tell a joke. Stop me if y’all’ve heard this’n: What’s the difference ’tween a Southern Baptist and a Methodist?” A smile twitched onto his lips and he looked around expectantly, but nobody made a sound. “The Methodist says ‘Hello’ in a liquor store!” A few people chuckled awkwardly, but most just shifted in their seats.
“You see, we got a bit of a image problem in our church,” the pastor said, growing suddenly serious. “Not that we got a bad image, mind; no, in fact it’s the opposite: we’re too concerned with image. We’re too concerned with the external, with our appearances, with what others think of us, when we should be concerned with the internal, with our hearts, and with what God thinks of us. Radical honesty and radical faith are the heart of Christianity, ladies and gentlemen.
“I’ve lived that life. I’ve been in homes where that life is lived—perfect homes like you see on TV, full of smiling family photos and clean carpets and a cross on every wall, and it don’t mean nothin’. Think of the Apostles, and what folks must’ve thought of ’em—a buncha dirty, ramblin’, touchy-feely vagrants! But the Apostles knew they were walkin’ in righteousness, and they knew so long as they were honest and true and walked with the Lord, then the Lord walked with them.”
My fingers dug into my thighs and I stared at the back of the pew in front of me, feeling my heart beating. Sometimes it didn’t feel like God walked with me anymore. I remembered waking up in the hospital after my suicide attempt and feeling a hollow place in my heart where my faith had been. Transitioning had reawakened it a little, but it was hard to place too much hope in a God so many people said hated me.
“Radical honesty means you keep no secrets, damn the consequences. You talk about the booze, the drugs, the fornication, and the disappointments. Radical faith means you trust that the Lord visited these weaknesses and sorrows on you as part of His plan, and that as you walk with the Lord and speak honesty and demonstrate the redemption of Him others will see this, and you’ll find your life enriched. A dishonest life is a life half-lived, brothers and sisters, and it’s a life with one foot already in the Pit.”
As the pastor went on, his words kept repeating in my brain—a dishonest life is a life half-lived. Was it really true? Would my friendships and relationships always be dishonest if I was forever hiding my past? My eyes scanned the crowd around me, falling on Anna’s parents, so rigid-backed and attentive, and her brothers, fidgeting in their seats, before landing on Anna herself. Everyone around me, I realized, was living some kind of lie. Anna going out at night and telling her parents it was Bible study, her parents turning a blind eye to their sons’ bad behavior. Chloe and her relationship with Bee. Maybe secrets and lies were a part of life; maybe everyone had something they were lying to themselves about, or something they were hiding.
I looked up at the cross again and wondered if I was supposed to hear this particular sermon at this particular moment for a reason. I decided that the people who had said God didn’t love me, who said that I didn’t have a place on Earth—they were wrong. God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that.
10
I sat alone at the top of the bleachers watching the football team practice. The heat was sweltering and I had to strip down to my tank top and put my blouse over the seat to keep from burning my thighs, but a pleasant breeze made it bearable. The players were hard to tell apart from this distance, but eventually I spotted Grant milling near the edge of the field, a smile on his face. He hadn’t noticed me yet, but I preferred it that way. I liked seeing what he was like when I wasn’t around—and I liked even more that he was so clearly at ease, so strong and graceful and confident in every small motion, so comfortable in his life in a way I’d never experienced before. Maybe, I thought, if I spent enough time around him, that feeling would rub off on me.
A squat, muscular man blew hard on a whistle and Grant hustled with the rest of the team to line up in front of a checkerboard of tires. The coach whistled again and, two by two, the guys high-stepped across the tires. When it was Grant’s turn, he stepped up to the tires and crouched, ready to run as soon as the whistle sounded. The coach put the whistle to his mouth and blew. Grant took off at full speed, reaching the halfway mark noticeably faster than most of his teammates. I stood, cupped my hand around my mouth, and waved the T-shirt he’d given me the night at the lake like a flag, screaming “Woo!” at the top of my lungs. Grant’s face snapped up to me and he beamed. I smiled back. And then he missed a step and ate dirt just before the end of the course.
* * *
“You almost got me in trouble,” Grant said, squinting against the sun as he climbed up the bleachers. He had changed into jeans and a T-shirt with a faded Captain America logo on the chest. His hair was still sopping wet from the showers, reminding me of when he emerged from the lake.
“Almost,” I said, standing up and walking down a few steps to meet him. “You have to admit it was funny.”
“I’m gonna be flossing out grass for a week,” he said, his face splitting into a wide, boyish grin. “But yeah, it was funny.”
He leaned toward me and I leaned toward him. I felt that same electric rush up and down my skin as I waited for his lips to touch mine. But then a loud whooping sound erupted from below us. My eyes snapped open and I stood up straight when I saw a half dozen of Grant’s teammates standing at the edge of the field, making fist-pumping motions and gyrating their hips. I felt my cheeks warm. Grant ran his fingers through his hair and tried to laugh it off.
“Sorry,” he said. “My friends are jackasses.”
“Just don’t tell them about this,” I said, surreptitiously handing him his T-shirt from the night of the party. “If an almost-kiss makes them act like howler monkeys, I imagine this would make them go nuclear.”
“You’re probably right,” he said, stuffing the shirt in his backpack and looking over his shoulder again. He looked back at me and then gave me a quick hug, to another chorus of shouts and grunts.
“So anyway,” I said, clasping my hands behind my back and looking up at a cloud of starlings as they erupted from the bleachers on the far side of the field. I looked back down at Grant. “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come over to
night. Dad’s stuck working late.” His smile widened and my cheeks burned even hotter. “We could, you know, do homework and stuff.”
“I’d love to do homework,” he said. “And ‘stuff’ sounds pretty nice too.”
I laughed. “Well that’s good, because I kind of missed my bus so I could stay and watch you practice.”
“Oh,” Grant said, suddenly looking away and rubbing the back of his neck. “I just remembered, actually…” He looked down at his feet. “My car’s in the shop—a buddy’s giving me a ride home. So I guess I can’t come over. I’m really sorry.”
“I could come to your house,” I offered, brushing my hair back and raising my eyebrows hopefully. “I bet my dad could get me later.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Grant said, frowning suddenly. I tried to catch his eye but he looked away. “Listen, I should go. My ride’s waiting.”
“Sure,” I said, trying not to show my disappointment. “Text me later?”
“Definitely,” he said, smiling again. He leaned up and kissed me on the cheek before muttering goodbye and jogging down the stairs.
I flopped back on the bench and stared down at the now-empty field, sighing long and loud as the cicadas’ song returned. I sent out texts to Anna, Layla, and Chloe, hoping at least one of them was available for a ride. A few minutes passed without a response. The sun was just starting to dip, and as the blue of the sky faded slowly to purple I pulled my phone out again and texted Virginia.
“How are things?” I typed. She responded quickly, before I could even put my phone away.
“Pretty good!” she wrote back. “Except for the fact that I’m in line at Walmart lol. How’s the new bf?”
“Weird,” I typed. I set the phone down on the bench and put my blouse back on against the cooling breeze. I picked up my phone again to type but realized I wanted to hear her voice. I dialed and she picked up on the first ring. “Hey,” I said, realizing how much I had missed hearing her voice. She apologized as the sounds of a child throwing a fit in the checkout line assaulted my ears, but I didn’t mind. It was nice to just feel her on the other end of the line.
“Anyway,” she said as the noise finally quieted down. “Tell me about you. What’s up with your man?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, feeling a little silly now. Maybe I was overreacting. I lay back lengthwise on the bench with one arm behind my head and stared up at the sky. “He acted sort of weird today. He seemed like he wanted to hang out, but then something changed and he practically ran away from me.”
“So he’s got some stuff going on you don’t know about,” Virginia said evenly. I imagined what she was doing right now: leaving Walmart and walking across the baking blacktop toward her beat-up old Bronco. I could see her getting her keys out of her expensive purse, her always-perfect, glossy fingernails as she unlocked the car door. It felt like a really long time since I had seen her. “You’re keeping something pretty big from him too, aren’t you?”
“I guess,” I said. I almost smiled, even though I felt the total opposite—Virginia was always right. “Still. It feels different.”
I sighed as a thin film of cloud scudded by overhead. Maybe I was a hypocrite, but the idea of Grant hiding something from me made my stomach turn. What if his liking me was all some elaborate trick? I knew it was a paranoid thought, but the impulse to find a dark underside to every action had been trained into me over so many years, it was hard to shake.
“You’re spinning,” Virginia said, always able to read my thoughts perfectly, even from the other end of the phone. “Don’t jump to any conclusions. Just take your time, get to know him, figure out what his deal is. I bet it’s nothing. And if it is something, you’ll either bail, or you’ll deal. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed finally, sitting up from the bleachers and gathering my things. I would call Dad and ask for a ride and pretend nothing bad had happened. I would keep going on with my life and keep seeing Grant, and I would take things day by day. What was my big rush anyway? I knew I should want to take things slow—I should be afraid of getting close to Grant, because growing closer meant knowing things about each other, and there was so much about me that I didn’t want him to know, that he could never know. But somehow, just thinking about his broad, easy grin and the way his black eyes seemed to flash in the sunlight made me feel like the only thing that mattered was being around him.
“Listen, babe, I gotta jet,” Virginia said. I could hear her car starting in the background, the familiar sound of V-103 blaring on her stereo. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks for listening,” I said as I began the walk down the bleachers toward the parking lot. I was starting to feel better already. “I think I’m going to be just fine.”
11
The sky was slate-gray and pregnant with the threat of another in a week of thunderstorms. A cool, moist wind rushed past Grant and me as we sat in the bed of his friend Rodney’s pickup truck. I put my whipping, stinging hair in a ponytail and felt my cheeks warm when I noticed him staring at me. The truck passed over a fallen branch, bouncing both of us a few inches into the air. I clutched the raised wheel well for dear life. Grant laughed softly and smiled, then held his hands up as I kicked playfully at him.
“It’s not funny!” I said, starting to smile despite myself. “Riding in the back of a truck is really dangerous!”
“It’ll be worth it,” he said. “Muddin’s a blast, and I want you to meet the guys.”
“If they’re anything like Parker, I hope you won’t mind me staying in the truck.”
“They can be a little rough around the edges,” he said, looking up the road and rubbing his neck, “but Parker’s kind of a special case. You don’t need to worry about him though.” He turned back to me and smiled. “Really, it’s less about you meeting them and more about me getting to show you off.”
“Anyway!” I took my turn to look away. “Why didn’t you pick me up? Isn’t ‘muddin’’ more fun if you have your own car?”
“So you admit it sounds like fun?” he said.
“It sounds kind of dumb,” I said, shrugging apologetically.
“Well, sure it does,” Grant said. “But that’s what makes it fun. It’s an excuse to hang out with your buddies and act like an idiot in the woods and get messy.” I gave him a doubtful look. He patted his backpack. “Don’t worry, though. I got picnic stuff in here. We’ll make our own fun if you get bored.”
“Thanks,” I said as the truck turned off the highway onto a mud-and-gravel track into the woods. The canopy blotted out the already-weak sunlight and drizzled water on us for a few more minutes until the faint purr of engines could be heard; then we burst into a clearing. The grass was torn and rutted with dozens of wildly curving tire tracks as mud-caked trucks careened back and forth with no real purpose besides the motion itself. A small crowd of equally mud-caked figures congregated around a campfire and a convoy of small red coolers. I recognized some of the faces from school, including Parker’s. Grant hopped down once the truck came to a stop a ways off from the crowd.
“Here you go,” Rodney said as he stepped down from the cab and tossed Grant his keys. “I’m gonna grab a beer first.”
“Thanks,” Grant said, and climbed into the driver’s seat. He looked down at me with a confused expression. “Whatcha waiting for?”
“We’re going already? I was hoping for some time to digest my breakfast first.”
Grant laughed. “Just one go-round, at least?” he said, lolling out the window like a defeated rag doll. “Come on, you gotta! And anyway I brought lotsa sandwiches, so if you yak we can fill you right back up.”
“Charming.” I laughed and made my way to the passenger seat over a chorus of conspicuously loud, whooping cries from behind us. I buckled my seat belt, enjoying Grant’s nearness for a moment, until the engine roared and the truck fishtailed.
Grant leaned forward, grinning, his foot stamping the floor. The rear tires shot great
arcs of mud into the air behind us for a moment, and then we were off. I screamed and clutched his arm as the edge of the clearing rushed toward us. Grant laughed and spun the wheel at the last second, sending the truck into a long, hissing drift that splashed mud across the trunks of a dozen trees. He righted the drift and took off across the clearing again and now I was laughing too. The truck spun again, this time through a surprisingly deep depression that splattered gouts of mud on the windows and windshield. I remembered insisting that Grant explain muddin’ to me and realized that he never could have, really—not in a way that would have made me understand. How much of life was like that, just waiting for me to come and give it a chance? The truck finally came to a stop at the opposite end of the clearing from our classmates. I just sat and panted for a moment, running my adrenaline-shaken hands through my hair.
“That was…” I began breathily, searching for the most accurate word and failing. “That was awesome!”
“I hoped you’d like it,” Grant said softly. I turned to him, grinning like a kid, and felt a flutter in my chest when I saw a much more reserved smile on his face and his dark eyes locked firmly on mine. He seemed like he was waiting for something. The flutter turned into a tightening as I realized what was about to happen.
“So,” I said, looking away and stroking my hair nervously. I couldn’t stop thinking about how he had darted away after school the other day. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but I needed to know. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” Grant said, leaning against the steering wheel and cocking his head.
“Are we dating?”
“Well, we’re on a date.”
“I know.” I felt like every cell in my body was vibrating, a steady thrum from my hair to my toes. “But are we going to go on more?”
Grant frowned and looked out the windshield, and for a moment I was certain his answer was no. I was too boring. I was too stuck-up. I’d been a horrible dancer at the party and I’d assumed muddin’ was stupid.
If I Was Your Girl Page 7
