I didn’t say anything.
“Tell anyone I said that and you die.” Fleur groaned. “God. You lured me into your chair just to get me to spill. It’s totally true about hairdressers being like therapists.”
“Fleur, I think you should go short.”
“Sell it to me.”
“I’m thinking something classic, simple, elegant. Think Audrey Hepburn. Think Natalie Portman. Think Winona Ryder post–Johnny Depp, pre–People’s Court.”
“Did you fuck it up?”
“I can fix it,” I assured her. “Trust me.”
And she did. And I did.
On the Seventh Day
62
Sir Thomas More’s Prayer for the Maybes
On the seventh day there was no rest. No sooner were we up and showered and breakfasted than the parental units began to arrive. They stood around in awkward bunches. Fathers slapped other fathers on the back; mothers did that Desperate Housewives point-and-squeal thing that I know my mom never would have done. And every time I saw a counselor I was reminded of circus clowns—like, are they laughing or are they screaming?
I picked out Olive and Bird’s parents as soon as they walked into the rec room. They were both small and dark and intense. I took the introductions upon myself.
“Your son told me there’s over two hundred birds indigenous to the Little Desert,” I said. “I’ve started my list. I’m only up to three. I’ve got a long way to go.”
“Are you a Youth Leader?” their mother asked. She seemed amazed that anyone had connected with her offspring.
“God, no!” I laughed riotously. “I’m the Camp Skeptic.”
“Oh!” Now she laughed. “How nice to meet you!”
There’s nothing more telling than parents. Craig’s father was a military man. His uniform was as stiff as his expression. He looked like he had a cement pylon shoved up his butt. He barked questions at his son and then cut off the answers. Craig scratched at his neck every time his father addressed him. I even heard him stammer.
Fleur’s mother was wearing a Chanel suit and white gloves, like some society matron, but she was a spit-talker, and when she laughed it sounded like a catfight.
I was leaning by the door, thinking about how Dad and Norma almost seemed normal, when Sarita grabbed my hand. “You must meet my parents.”
“Really?”
Sarita’s mother was beautiful, but sad. She looked like she’d seen the sky fall. Her father just looked gray. Poor Sarita. She squeezed my hand and bubbled under her new bob. “This is Riley Rose—she is my mentor. The star that lights the southern sky!” Her parents didn’t give any indication that they’d even heard her. Sarita sighed. She turned to me with her eyes flashing boldly. “The fuck of it is I’m all they’ve got.” Then she pinched my arm. “Fffff! It feels so good to finally say it!”
Roslyn kicked off the talent show by bugling “How Great Thou Art.” I sat through the program and let myself be swept away by the jerry-built beauty of it all—the hyperkinetic Bronzewings and the manic Mallees and the heartfelt Honeyeaters, all trying so hard to please. The parents applauded politely and trapped their yawns behind cupped palms. Time crawled. Richard and Ethan rapped. Sarita’s MC style was smooth and insinuating; I predicted a career in television journalism. I thought about Dylan. For last year’s talent show he’d performed magic. He had put Fleur in a box and sawed her in half while she squealed with laughter. I pictured him up there, sawing away, owning the stage. I thought that for his mother it was probably the picture of how she wished he could be. But I liked the new, damaged Dylan. I closed my eyes and wanted him next to me.
And then Roslyn was hissing at me. “You’re on!”
Sarita hailed me as I walked onto the stage. I saw my father’s quizzical eye.
The room fell silent. I looked at all the certain faces. I wanted to tell them that the God thing was imposs but instead I took Utopia out of my bag and opened up to the back of the book and read Sir Thomas More’s prayer for the Maybes.
Oh God, I acknowledge Thee to be my creator, my governor, and the source of all good things. I thank Thee for all Thy blessings, but especially for letting me live in the happiest possible society, and practice what I hope is the truest religion. If I am wrong, and if some other religion or social system would be better and more acceptable to Thee, I pray Thee in Thy goodness to let me know it, for I am ready to follow wherever Thou shalt lead me. But if our system is indeed the best, and my religion the truest, then keep me faithful to both of them, and bring the rest of humanity to adopt the same way of life, and the same religious faith—unless the present variety of creeds is Thy inscrutable purpose.
I stopped there, because it was only going to get fruitier. The audience clapped, slowly at first, then louder and louder. I saw my father clapping so hard his hands must have hurt. I heard my mother saying “Jay-sus!” Everyone sang “Amazing Grace” in various strains of dodgy disharmony. And I didn’t feel like a wretch, and I didn’t feel saved, but maybe no one else did, either, maybe they were all just singing. Maybe it was the being together that counted.
After the group photo I was back on the smokers’ bench—alone. I wasn’t smoking. I was just sitting. The clouds in the sky looked all bundled up, like a mummy or a roast or a fat girl in a mesh vest. I was thinking about Survivor, the TV show, how week after week the contestants drop off until it’s down to two—and then the final two have to do this so-called spiritual walk where they go back to their old camp and revisit each of the old contestants. The final two fake reverence. They drop fond comments: “Oh, yeah, Taneka was really strong.” Or they quote the contestants: “No way am I eating that witchetty grub, dude!”
Sitting on the bench I had something of that final survivor feeling. I visited the sites in my mind: the river, the crater, the merry-go-round, Dylan’s cabin, Fraser’s house. I saw Fleur’s first snarl, and Bird’s creeping blush. I saw Sarita whirling around in my mother’s necklace, and Richard and Ethan chanting to God. I saw Olive scrubbing away in the kitchen, her mind somewhere infinitely more exciting, and I saw Roslyn holding her little green book in both palms like it contained the answer to everything.
Roslyn’s thought for the morning had been this: go on knocking and it shall be opened unto you. I closed my eyes and pictured the world and all its hinges. It was open, just a crack. There was a thin sliver of light. I could almost touch it.
Also by Simmone Howell
Notes from the Teenage Underground
Manifesto Revised
• I believe in Chloe and friendship and love now.
• I will always think of Dylan when I hear the Boobook owl.
• I believe most girls are insecure and most guys are bluffing.
• I believe the more you spill the messier you get.
• I don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe inspirits.
• I believe there are more questions than answers.
• I believe the best part is still to come.
• I still believe in chocolate!
Acknowledgments
I would like to extend elaborate thank-yous to Melanie Cecka, Anna McFarlane, Jill Grinberg, and Fran Bryson for all their smart stuff; country roses to my family and friends who put up with me nicking their stories and dodging their phone calls; excellent scotch to Alana Lucas and Campbell Message for tech support in all things “mutard”; Tiffany glass to Melita Granger, who believed in Riley from the first; and everything beautiful to Mark and Willeford, who keep life sweet.
I wrote Everything Beautiful at Glenfern, an old St. Kilda mansion-turned-writers’ residence. Without its existence my book would be half written and covered in Play-doh. Many thanks to Joel Becker, Iola Matthews, and The Victorian Writer’s Centre for the residency, and to the writers with whom I shared cups of tea and word counts.
Copyright © 2008 by Simmone Howell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever witho
ut written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Lines from With Mercy for the Greedy
Reprinted by Permission of S11/Sterling Lord Literistic Inc.
Copyright by Anne Sexton
First published in the United States of America in November 2008
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in April 2011
www.bloomsburykids.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Howell, Simmone.
Everything beautiful / Simmone Howell.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When sixteen-year-old Riley unwillingly attends a religious summer camp,
she forms a deep bond with another camper who happens to be wheelchair bound.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59990-042-1 • ISBN-10: 1-59990-042-4 (hardcover)
[1. Camps—Fiction. 2. Religious life—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. People with
disabilities—Fiction. 5. Wheelchairs—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H8383Ev 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2008017211
ISBN 978-1-59990-808-3 (e-book)
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Contents
Dedication
On the Fifth Day
1 Outlaws
In the Beginning
2 The Palace of Suckdom
On the First Day
3 Safe Fun
4 Black Ball
5 A Rare Bird
6 Poetic and Condemned
7 Orientation
8 The Idea of Kinship
9 Breaking and Entering
10 Bad-Weird and Jesus-Freaky
11 Lucky Smoke
On the Second Day
12 Drama Queens
13 Capsized!
14 Healthy Animals
15 The Tail of a Q
16 Fatal Flaws
17 Field Recordings
18 The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth
19 In the Thick
20 Wildlife
21 It Is All Good
On the Third Day
22 Spiritual Development
23 A Pig’s Ear
24 Wheelchair 101
25 Period of Adjustment
26 A Basically Hostile Environment
27 God’s Great Hearth
28 Assorted Guys
29 She’s So Satan
30 Fond Farewell
31 Walkabout
On the Fourth Da
32 Nevermore
33 Involved
34 The Story of February 2
35 Crazy People
36 Are You Rampant?
37 Healing Properties
38 Yesterday’s Girl
39 Petition
40 A Little Salvation
41 Aces
On the Fifth Day
42 Wonderfully Made
43 Past Life
44 Cultural Anthropology
45 Conversation Without Words
46 Dressed!
47 Accidents 1 and 2
48 Parallel Lines
49 Wanting
50 Repent, Repent
51 Trust Games
On the Sixth Day
52 Everything Beautiful
53 Suckingfish
54 Contact High
55 A Different Movie
56 Que Sera, Sera
57 The Girl I Was
58 End of Faith Discussion
59 This Way Utopia
60 Hootenanny
61 The Appeal of Wrongness
On the Seventh Day
62 Sir Thomas More’s Prayer for the Maybes
Also by Simmone Howell
Manifesto Revised
Acknowledgments
Imprint
Everything Beautiful Page 18
