This Side of Salvation

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Francis turned around again, whispering, “What’s Mara’s favorite snack?”

  “Why?”

  “Study group’s at my house tomorrow.” He rubbed his nose hard, then gave in to a sneeze. “I want to have what she likes.”

  I tried to think of a nice way to say, Trust me, you don’t have what she likes, but my attention was drawn to the basement stairs beyond him. The door at the top had just opened, letting in a new voice. A girl’s voice.

  A golden shaft of sunlight streamed down the stairwell, illuminating a pair of bright blue high-tops. Then tan legs that kept coming and coming and coming, ending in tight shorts that matched the shoes. Then a bare arm cradling a notebook against a lacy pink tank top. A thick, dark-blond braid swung over one shoulder.

  The place went silent as the new girl descended the stairs, sun-yellow shoelaces flopping with each step.

  “Jinx!” Mara shrieked.

  Jinx was Mr. Ralph’s cat, who loved to stretch out on the third stair from the bottom, a cat who was the same beige as the carpet and therefore camouflaged.

  Geographically, I wasn’t the closest guy to the new girl, but I was the first out of my seat as she slipped on the cat, yelped, then face-planted at the bottom of the stairs.

  I dropped to my knees beside her. “Are you okay?”

  She winced and cradled her right wrist as she rolled over on her back. “What happened?”

  “Jinx happened.”

  “Huh?”

  “The cat.”

  “Oh no, is she okay? Or he?”

  I tore my gaze away to see a ruffled Jinx on the bottom step, vigorously grooming her right side. “She’s fine, see? If she was hurt, she probably couldn’t lick herself.”

  “Bailey, are you all right?” Mr. Ralph hurried down the stairs, his face pale with panic.

  “Mostly.” With her left hand, she pushed herself to a sitting position and frowned at her scattered books. One notebook was splayed open, showing a doodle of a squirrel wearing a jet pack. “But I think I hurt my arm.”

  “I’ll call your mom,” he said, “and tell her to meet us at the emergency room.”

  By this point, the other students had crowded around, the guys jostling closer to Bailey. Francis started to reach down for her trig textbook. I snatched it away and gathered the rest of her books and notebooks into my arms.

  “That’s okay,” I told Mr. Ralph. “We’ll take her.”

  • • •

  As I’d guessed, Mara was happy to skip class to take Bailey to the hospital. At sixteen and a half, my sister had just earned her junior license and therefore jumped at every chance to drive.

  “That poor cat.” Bailey clutched the ice pack Mr. Ralph had given her against her right wrist. “I hope I didn’t crush any of her internal organs.”

  “She’s probably fine.” I was more worried about my own innards, knotted up in her presence as I sat with her in the backseat.

  My eyes were drawn again and again to her bare legs. Was that a bird tattoo peeking out of the top of her Chucks? Why was she wearing shorts in February? Then again, it was almost seventy degrees, one of those weird Pennsylvania warm spells usually followed by a foot of snow.

  “Bailey, where did you move from?” Mara asked.

  “I grew up over in Swarthmore,” she said. “My mom’s a psych professor there. But she had a temporary teaching gig at McGill, so we’ve lived in Montreal for the last two years.”

  Il fait plus froid là, non? I wanted to say, asking about the weather there, but by the time I’d reviewed each word for accuracy, the moment had passed.

  One of Mara’s favorite songs came on the radio, by some Christian pop band. She turned up the music and started singing along softly.

  “How’s your wrist?” I asked Bailey.

  “Hurts like hell, but let me check something.” She lifted her uninjured left hand, slid her tongue along the side of it twice, eyes closed. Then she brushed the same hand behind her ear, like a self-grooming cat. Finally she looked at me, sliding her ring finger beneath her mouth to wipe her chin. “Can’t be that bad, since I can still lick myself.”

  I just stared at her.

  “Isn’t that your criteria?” she asked me. “You said Jinx was okay because she could—”

  “I know.” My pulse slammed my throat so hard it hurt, like when I’d run on a cold winter morning. “It’s just that, I kinda missed it, so if you could do that again, only slower . . .”

  I met her eyes, which widened briefly, then narrowed as she smirked and turned her face to the window. “You wish,” she said with a guffaw.

  Mara turned down the radio. “What’s so funny?”

  “Never mind,” I told my sister. “You had to be there.”

  Bailey cringed as she adjusted the ice pack against her wrist. Then her shoulders twitched in a sudden shiver.

  I slipped off my Windbreaker, leaned over, and draped it across the back of her bare shoulders. “Sorry, I should’ve offered sooner.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” She tugged the material over the seat-belt strap to cover her right arm. The gesture drew my attention to her chest and what the cold air was doing to it.

  Look away, I commanded myself. If she catches you staring at her nipples, that’s a game changer.

  “Bailey, was that your Volt parked in front of Mr. Ralph’s house?” Mara asked, thankfully breaking my reverie.

  “It’s my dad’s. Why?”

  “I’ve never driven an electric car. Do you like it?”

  “It’s awesome. I’ll let you guys try it out if you want.” She smiled at me. “As a thank-you.”

  “David can’t drive yet,” Mara said. “He’s only fifteen.”

  I glared at my sister. Not that I would’ve lied to Bailey about being younger, but I would’ve waited to tell her after she liked me—if she ever liked me. Now she could disregard me right off the bat.

  The car lurched as it went over a pothole. Bailey cried out and clutched her wrist.

  Mara covered her mouth. “Sorry!”

  “It’s okay.” Bailey gasped, but her face was turning so pale, her freckles seemed like its only color. Traffic was getting thicker, so it’d be almost ten minutes to the ER.

  I had to distract her from the pain. “It’s a tradition in my family, when we drive people to the hospital, that we play Twenty Questions.”

  Bailey gave me a look that said, You’re making this up, but I’ll play along. “As in, I’m supposed to guess what you’re thinking of?”

  “No, twenty random questions about each other. Three rules: We take turns, answer only yes or no, and always tell the truth. Wait—four rules. No pauses: just ask the next question that pops into your head. Ready? Go!”

  She hesitated, then asked, “Is math your favorite subject?”

  “No. Have you ever bungee jumped?”

  “No,” she said with a frown. “Do you hate Valentine’s Day, like most guys?”

  “Yes.” Uh-oh. “Do you wish I’d lied about that?”

  She laughed, then winced. “No. Um, let’s see, holidays: Did you dress up for Halloween last year?”

  “No.” I scratched the edge of my jaw, remembering the zit that was forming there. “Do you miss Montreal?”

  Bailey looked at me sideways through her pale-brown lashes. “Mmm, no.” Her answer seemed to surprise her. “Do you celebrate Halloween at all?”

  “No.” I put a self-conscious hand to the cross around my neck, checking that it was tucked inside the collar of my long-sleeved T-shirt. “Do you ever wear your hair down?”

  “Yes.” She stroked the end of her long, thick braid. “Do you want to see it down?”

  “Yes!” I rubbed my lips, embarrassed at how loud and quick that came out. “Um, not right now,” I added, breaking the rules. “Have you ever . . .” My mind flailed for a question, but all it could think of was what her hair would look like splayed over her naked chest. “Have you ever been to a Phillies game?” Baseball was my natural
fallback.

  “Yes. Have you ever read a book in one sitting?”

  “No. Have you eaten bacon today?”

  “Gross, no. Do you like your middle name?”

  My dad’s name is John David Cooper. John was John David Cooper Jr., while I got the names reversed: David John Cooper. I guess a third son would’ve been named Cooper Cooper. Probably better not to be born.

  “Yes. Is that a real tattoo on your leg?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Have you ever gone to regular school?”

  “Yes. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, would you last longer than a week?”

  “Definitely not. Do you have any other siblings?”

  The song on the radio segued into a soft part, accentuating the sudden silence. Even if I could’ve figured out how to answer in simple yes-or-no form, my lungs felt like a cold hand was squeezing them. Usually when that happened, I mentally recited the twenty-eighth Psalm (it’s like the famous twenty-third, but more emo and with a happy ending) until my breath returned.

  But right then, I couldn’t think of the verse, and Bailey was staring at me, waiting for the answer to what should have been a simple question.

  “We had a brother,” Mara said finally. “He died in Afghanistan three years ago.”

  “Oh,” Bailey whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  I kept my eyes on the floor, where a crumpled receipt poked out from under my sneaker. “That question didn’t count, since I didn’t answer. Ask another one.”

  Bailey’s voice came soft and close. “Do you miss him?”

  I was stunned she hadn’t changed the subject like most people did. “Yeah. Do you know what that’s like?” I’d never made friends with other kids in grief groups. Who’d want to look into that mirror of mourning every day? For Bailey, I would’ve been willing to try.

  “No.” Her brows scrunched together, then parted as her face softened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, be grateful.” I cleared my throat. “Does your wrist still hurt?”

  “Yes. Hey, you went out of turn. I get two questions in a row now.”

  She switched to pop culture, asking who I thought would win the latest talent reality show, mentioning the contenders one by one until she got to my favorite, on my nineteenth question.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “She has no chance.”

  “You don’t like her?”

  “I love her, but she’s too oddball to win. She barely follows the rules. When they told them to cover a Beatles song, she did Ringo Starr instead.”

  “Who’s Ringo Starr?”

  Mara snickered. Bailey rolled her eyes at me. “Are you hopelessly lost in the twenty-first century?” she asked.

  “Is that an official question?”

  “Is that an official question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.” I met her gaze. “But I do like some old stuff. I have Arcade Fire’s first album.”

  She let out a full belly laugh, and the sound was like the first hit of a drug I knew I’d soon be addicted to. “So your idea of old music is from 2004?”

  “Hey, that was a long time ago. Back then, everyone had tiny flip phones that didn’t even play music.” I gave her a brief smirk to let her know I knew I sounded ridiculous, then dropped the irony. “I’m also into Johnny Cash.”

  Bailey examined me as we turned in to the emergency room driveway. She looked skeptical, which I could understand; my fashion stylings sprawled between geek chic and jock slob. Nothing like the Man in Black. “That’s kind of random,” she said.

  I picked up my jacket from the seat, where it had just fallen from her shoulders. “Only because you don’t know me.”

  • • •

  Bailey had broken her wrist falling over Jinx, so for the next month I tried to be her substitute right hand. Since she couldn’t write left-handed fast enough to keep up with Mr. Ralph’s lectures, I recopied my class notes in careful print, then scanned and e-mailed them to her. I’d purposely include illegible bits, so she’d have to call me to clarify. And then we’d talk, sometimes for minutes.

  I couldn’t ask her out, since I wasn’t allowed to date until I was a senior. Even group dates were forbidden until I turned sixteen. Mom and Dad had found these rules in a popular Christian parenting handbook and had never made an exception for Mara. I hoped my sister’s one-hundred-percent-compliance rate would buy me some leniency.

  But just as I worked up the courage to ask permission, my father got laid off from his finance job, and our family fell into another mourning period. When Dad still hadn’t found a job after two months, my mom went back to work part-time, but the housing market sucked, so she made hardly any money. Mara got a job as an “intake specialist” (receptionist) at a local mechanic’s, and I started mowing neighbors’ lawns, in addition to my already busy regimen of school, volunteer work, and baseball.

  So I barely had time to think about Bailey—though I absolutely made time—much less try to get her alone. As summer approached, however, I had to take action or risk losing her forever.

  Hoping for a little guy solidarity, I ambushed my father one night while he was out in the front yard weeding. I brought a small bribe, of course: a glass of iced tea with the perfect amounts of lemon and sugar.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  He startled, then smiled when he saw the iced tea. Before taking it, he pulled the thick leather work gloves off his hands and the earbuds from his ears.

  I handed him the glass and a paper towel with a loaves-and-fishes design on it. “What are you listening to?”

  “Every word of God is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.”

  “Oh.” That seemed like a long title for a podcast. Ever since he had lost his job, Dad had started sprinkling more and more Scripture into his conversation. It was disturbing at times, but Stony Hill had turned me into a bit of an aspiring Bible geek, so I liked the challenge of interpreting his meaning. “That sounds good.”

  He nodded, sipped, wiped his mouth. “Don’t you add to His words, lest He reprove you.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” No idea what that meant. “The roses look great.”

  He nodded again, sipped again.

  “So, um, I was wondering. There’s this girl Bailey from Math Cave. You met her when you picked me up from class last week?”

  He nodded but didn’t sip.

  “I know I’m not sixteen yet, but now that it’s May and Math Cave is almost over for the summer, I was hoping I could still hang out with her. Not, like, one-on-one or anything.” He raised his eyebrows skeptically, and I added, “Well, that is what I want, but I know I can’t do that until I’m a senior, so I was thinking that maybe we could go out in a group.”

  This time Dad sipped but didn’t nod.

  Instead he looked past me, past the Sharmas’ house on the other side of the street, into the dark woods beyond. But in his mind, he was probably picturing Bailey’s lush, flowing hair and revealing outfits. I couldn’t blame him: It’s what I saw every night when I turned out the lights to be “alone with my thoughts,” as they say.

  Finally he got to his feet with a grunt, then shuffled over to a fig-tree sapling, which he knelt beside. “Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.” My father ran his bare fingers through the dark, moist mulch at the base of the sapling. “He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither.”

  “Um. Sorry?”

  Dad stood and dusted his hand against his faded blue work shirt. “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.”

  His meaning started to dawn on me. “Are you saying Bailey is ungodly?” Was it that obvious she didn’t go to church?

  Dad handed me his empty glass and patted my shoulder. “Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” Then h
e picked up his work gloves, shook off the dirt, and headed for the garage.

  “Wait!” I started to follow him but stopped when he didn’t answer or even turn. “I guess that’s a no.”

  • • •

  From that day on, Dad spoke in nothing but Bible verses. It was like living inside a sermon.

  Mara and I were afraid to ask what had triggered his abandonment of plain English. Maybe it was a bad job interview, or a fight with Mom when we weren’t around. All we could do was try to hide him from our friends, making excuses why no one could come to our house:

  1. We just had it fumigated for bedbugs.

  2. Our air-conditioning was broken.

  3. Our mom had Ebola.

  But soon it was finals time and long past our turn to host Math Cave study group. Everyone else had hosted at least twice, except for the proudly antisocial Eve and Ezra Decker. Dad promised (not with words but with a nod and a shrug) to stay upstairs so he wouldn’t embarrass Mara and me in front of our friends.

  Including Bailey. After finals I might not see her again until the fall. What if some other guy stole her attention over the summer? The thought burned a hole in my chest.

  On study group day, she stood with me at the whiteboard we’d set up in a corner of the living room, helping me with inverse trigonometric functions.

  “So up here where we have complementary angles, why do we—” I raised my arm to the top equation. My shoulder spasmed as I stretched. “Ow.”

  “You okay?” Bailey asked.

  “Just a little sore from lifting. But it’s a good pain, from the muscles breaking down and getting stronger.” Did that sound too macho? She wasn’t the type to be impressed by jock talk.

  “I read an article that said vegan bodybuilders don’t get sore after lifting.”

  “Give up meat and cheese? No way. I need protein.”

  “You can get protein from plants. Brendan Brazier’s vegan and he’s a major triathlete.” She adjusted the thin strap of her “Easy as π” tank top. “If plants have no protein, then my hair and nails would be all dry and brittle.” Bailey cast a sidelong glance at me, as if daring me to deny she was beautiful.

  She had me. I couldn’t dismiss veganism without dissing her looks. But maybe her challenge was the opportunity I needed. I glanced across the room at the other students, sitting on the floor and sofa near the big round coffee table.