The Right and the Real

by Joëlle Anthony

  What was kind of weird, though, was Derrick had the exact same big build, blond flattop, and blue eyes, but he wasn’t attractive at all. I think it was the sour look he always had. He didn’t like school very much. They headed over to the pop machine, shoving each other out of the way to get to it first. Then they fed dollar bills into it while they laughed and joked around.

  I snuck up behind Josh and put my arms around his waist. As soon as I did it, his whole body stiffened and he pulled my hands apart. Derrick stood there watching us, his arms crossed like those guys on that Iron Chef TV show…the one where they try to look all hardass, but all you can think is, Really? A tough chef? How stupid.

  “Uh, Jamie,” Josh said, “let’s talk over here.”

  He took me by the elbow and led me to the corner where you dump off your tray. Derrick followed so close I could practically feel him breathing on me.

  Josh shifted his weight back and forth and wouldn’t look me in the eye. Finally, he said, “We have to break up.”

  “What? Just like that?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  “If it’s because of Saturday nigh—”

  “I have to go,” he said. And then he just walked off, leaving me standing there with the iron chef. I started to run after him, but Derrick grabbed my arm.

  “Just leave him alone,” he said. “He’s not allowed to talk to you.”

  “Because of the Pledge?”

  Derrick moved in closer; his hulky body hovered over me. “You’re not supposed to talk about it at school.”

  All the kids from the R&R were homeschooled except Josh and Derrick, and the two of them tried to keep their involvement in it a secret. Derrick never talked about it because the Teacher had convinced him the other kids would try and shake his faith, but Josh kept his mouth shut because he was embarrassed to be part of the church. The only reason they got to go to public school at all was that they had athletic promise. Josh’s dad was convinced his boys had a shot at the NFL if they could play high school and college football, and the Teacher had made an exception for them.

  “Well, is that why he’s upset?” I asked in a low voice. “Because I didn’t sign?”

  Derrick nodded like I was an idiot. “Duh. You can’t expect someone like my brother to date a sinner.”

  “But I’m not,” I protested. “I’m going to sign tomor—”

  “Forget it,” he said, walking off.

  I tried to grab his arm, but all I managed was a handful of his jersey.

  “Derrick, wait!”

  “What?”

  I leaned in confidentially. He smelled like gym socks and too much cologne. “I…I made a mistake.” The next bit was going to kill me, but I pretended like it was a line from a play. “And I’m ready to do it tomorrow night,” I said.

  Derrick made a noise, something between a snort and a laugh.

  “The Pledge,” I whispered. “Tell Josh I’ll be there. At Wednesday Night Fellowship.”

  “Too little, too late,” Derrick said, and he jogged off after his brother.

  chapter 5

  I HAVE ADVANCED DRAMA LAST PERIOD, AND I spent it being consoled by Liz and Krista on pillows in the downstairs rehearsal room. They had their arms wrapped around me and were taking turns stroking my hair and telling me it would be okay.

  Emotional meltdowns in the drama room were so common, no one bothered to ask us why I was crying. Besides, by then, everyone had heard anyway. Mr. Lazby was holed up in the costume shop as usual. We were supposed to use the class for homework so we wouldn’t get behind because of rehearsals, but no one ever did.

  “I’ve got to talk to Josh,” I said.

  “Honey, just forget him,” Liz told me.

  Then Krista said, “Speak of the Devil.”

  Josh stood in the doorway, scanning the room, his arms crossed. He couldn’t really get inside because Juan and Patrick, two guys in our class, were using half the floor space for a sword fight. Well, one sword and one fencing foil, since that’s all they could find in the prop room. Juan swung the sword at Patrick, yelling out some improvised Shakespeare, and Patrick dodged and lunged with his foil.

  “I seek revenge for the fair maiden,” Patrick shouted. “Your head is mine!”

  Josh spotted me and tried to get around them, but they jumped and flailed their weapons so much, he had to back into the hallway. Juan danced out of the way of the foil. “Egad, man. Is that your best effort? I will cut your miserable life short with my sword before you—”

  Patrick dived at Juan’s legs and took him down with a tackle that left them wrestling on the floor. “You cheat, man, I say!” shouted Juan from underneath him. One of them cried out in pain, and they rolled apart.

  “Watch my stuff,” I told Liz and Krista.

  “Do you want us to go with you?”

  “I’m good,” I said.

  By the time I got into the hallway, Josh was already heading into the scene storage room like it was just one of the zillions of times he’d ditched his last class to come see me.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a library pass for the whole period,” he told me. “I thought we’d hang out like usual.”

  “Ummm…excuse me, but didn’t we break up at lunch?”

  He pulled me inside the scene shop and shut the door so Lexi and Matt, a couple of big-time gossips who were standing around the bulletin board in the hallway, wouldn’t hear us. Instead of switching on the glaring overhead fluorescents, he turned on the little flashlight I’d given him for his key chain.

  “I didn’t break up with you. Didn’t you get my text?” he asked.

  “My phone’s in the car,” I said.

  “Wait a minute! You really didn’t get it?” The light played eerily across his features.

  “What part of ‘it’s in my car’ don’t you understand?” I demanded. What was wrong with him? “And what do you mean you didn’t break up with me at lunch?”

  “Jamie! I’m so sorry.” He tried to reach out and take me in his arms, but I pressed myself up against the wall so he couldn’t. “I wasn’t really breaking up with you. That was all for show…for Derrick.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I would never break up with you,” Josh said. “Come here…come here.…I’m so sorry. I love you…really.…I would never dump you like that.”

  What was he saying? He’d pretended to break up with me? My body relaxed a little, and he slipped his arms around me, pulling me close. As I snuggled up next to him, his familiar warmth pulsed through me. I was still confused about what had happened in the caf, but Josh’s body was so comforting. I felt a shudder go through me, and his arms tightened around me.

  He whispered into my hair that he had to break up with me or his dad and the Teacher would pull him out of school and he’d lose his scholarship for the University of Oregon next year. He didn’t want Derrick to have to lie for him, so he’d come up with the idea of a fake breakup.

  “Jamie,” he said, nuzzling my neck, making my skin tingle, “you looked so hurt in the cafeteria, all I could think was, Wow, she really is a great actress. I had no idea you hadn’t gotten the text I sent. I’m so sorry.”

  I clung to him tighter, glad it had been a misunderstanding. I couldn’t take my dad and Josh abandoning me in the same week. “It’s okay.” I stroked his hair. I was still maybe a little angry, or hurt, or whatever, but at least I had my boyfriend. “So what happens now?” I asked.

  “We’ll have to see each other in secret,” he said.

  My body tensed up. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I thought of being in a relationship. “I don’t like it, Josh,” I said. “It makes me feel…I don’t know…like—”

  He tilted my face up and kissed me long, soft, and sweet. Any apprehension I’d had about being in a secret relationship dissolved with that kiss. Besides, once I took the Pledge tomorrow n
ight, we could get back together.

  “It’ll be fun,” Josh said, his voice soft and husky. “Like when we sneak off into closets at the church. You like that.”

  I laughed a little. “Because it seems wicked.”

  “I like it when you use that word,” he said, running his hands up and down my back.

  Josh was as familiar with the storage room as any drama student, and he picked me up and carried me through the maze of old scenery flats. All the set furniture was piled haphazardly in the back, and over the years, students had arranged some of it into a little sitting area. When we got there, Josh laid me down on the couch. He pulled the chain on the single bulb over the prop storage shelves, so a faint light washed over us.

  “I like to see how hot you look when I kiss you,” he said. And then he lay down on top of me.

  Sometime later, Josh’s phone buzzed, and he dug in his pocket for it and turned off the alarm. He always set it for when class was over because we tended to lose track of time. Reluctantly, we separated ourselves. It felt like being pulled out of safe warm waters and plunged into icy ones. It wasn’t until after Josh was gone that I remembered I’d never told him about being kicked out of the house.

  For some reason, when Dad had packed my clothes, he’d kept my three church dresses. Maybe Mira wanted them. We were both the same height, five-foot-one, and wore the same dress size. Luckily, because Krista practically lives in the costume shop, she was able to score me something to wear on Wednesday night.

  After a quick pasta dinner with Krista and her stepfather, George, we went upstairs so I could get ready. She zipped up the powder-blue dress for me.

  “I look like Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof,” I said.

  She grabbed my hands and swung me around in an impromptu dance, singing, “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch.”

  “Shut up.” I covered her mouth, but she fought me off. We wrestled around on her fuzzy carpet, laughing and trying to outsing each other until we heard a seam rip. Then she had to stitch me up before I could leave for Fellowship.

  I got to the church early, and the parking lot was only about a quarter full. Inside, when I passed through the lobby, I could hear people in the auditorium. I wondered if my dad was in there, and I almost stopped to check, but first I wanted to catch the Teacher alone if I could, so I went directly to his office.

  “Enter,” he called out when I knocked. Inside, I found him sitting in a swivel desk chair, pretty much naked. I backed out into the hallway. “No, no…,” he said. “Come in, Jamie. You’re not interrupting.”

  He had a towel draped across his midsection and his feet in a basin of water. A woman, who I swear wasn’t more than twenty and was wearing a dress almost exactly like mine, knelt beside him, gently scrubbing his feet with a loofah sponge. Another girl, who I think might’ve been even younger than me, stood behind him, and he rested his head against her small breasts while she rubbed some sort of oil into his bare shoulders.

  It was no secret that the Teacher loved the opposite sex. He had three wives that I knew of, all members of the church, but only one of them lived in the mansion. The others had trailers in the compound. He had a whole bunch of kids too, some from each wife. No one had ever told me if they were consecutive wives or if the R&R really did condone polygamy, but I was starting to think it was the latter. Seeing the two girls caressing him made me feel sick to my stomach, but I tried to hide it by keeping my face as passive as possible.

  “Maybe I should come back,” I said.

  “Don’t be shy. This is just my preservice cleansing.” He waved his arm, gesturing at me. “Come in, child. I was expecting you.”

  “You were?”

  “For some reason,” he said, smiling sadly, “the Devil was in you on Saturday night, but I had a vision this morning you would see the way and return for guidance.”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Wonderful.” He waved at a metal chair. “Have a seat.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was sit down and watch those girls touching his bare skin. But if I was going to play the part of the repentant daughter, I had to pretend like it didn’t matter. I pulled the chair away from the wall, but not too close to him. “I’d…I’d like to sign the Pledge.”

  “Of course you would. And we here at the Right & the Real are happy to welcome you into our flock.”

  The girl standing behind him picked up one of his arms and massaged his biceps.

  “So…will I do it at the Fellowship meeting tonight?” I asked, looking at a red stain on the carpet so I wouldn’t have to watch those girls. “Or maybe right now?”

  “What’s the rush?” he asked me in a cooing voice. “Let’s talk first.”

  “Ummm…okay.”

  “There are some things you need to understand,” he said. “Because you didn’t sign at the ceremony, and because you humiliated your father, you will have to pay retribution to be welcomed back into the church. Bad deeds can’t go unpunished.”

  “What do you mean?” I hoped it didn’t involve washing his feet.

  “You’ll need to spend some time with Mira doing Bible study.”

  Oh, great. I pasted a smile on my face. “I think that’s probably a good idea,” I said.

  “And, of course, you’ll leave school right away…tomorrow. That should help tame any rebelliousness.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t quit now.”

  “Young ladies here at the Right & the Real stop schooling at menstruation. Am I correct that you are a woman?”

  The heat rose up my face.

  “I have to graduate,” I said. “I’m going to drama school next year, and I need my diploma.”

  I hadn’t gotten the results of my audition back yet, but I knew I’d study acting somewhere, even if I didn’t get into the Redgrave Actors Conservatory, which was my first choice.

  “Jamie,” he said, leaning slightly forward. The girl sitting on the floor stopped washing his feet, and I knew she was watching me under her lashes. “I’ve discussed this with your father. Either you sign and agree to leave school tomorrow, or you’re banned from the church and his home forever.”

  “But I can’t,” I said. “Josh and Derrick go—”

  “They’re boys. They’re not susceptible to the evils of the world.”

  “Neither am I,” I argued.

  He shrugged his bare shoulders. “Sign or don’t sign, Jamie. God has given you an opportunity to make up for your wickedness and to honor your father, but this is your last chance.”

  I stood up so fast my chair tipped over. “I want to see my dad.”

  He folded his hands together into a little tent and smiled up at me. “I’m sorry. He’s not allowed to see you until you’ve signed the Pledge.”

  “You can’t keep me from him.”

  He leaned forward and pushed a button on the phone on his desk. “I already am,” he said, still smiling.

  This wasn’t a religion, it was a cult. I’d known the people at the R&R were fanatical, but it hadn’t really hit me until the Teacher said he could keep my dad from seeing me. He controlled people in a way no regular minister ever would.

  “If you’re not going to sign,” he said, “it’s time for you to leave.”

  “But—”

  Two men in brown servant robes appeared in the doorway.

  “Show our visitor to her car,” the Teacher said. “She’s no friend of God.”

  They reached out as if to take my arm, and I pushed past them and ran for the lobby. A small figure wearing a pale green dress that looked awfully familiar hurried down the hallway ahead of me.

  Mira.

  I sprinted after her. “Wait!” I said. When I reached the lobby, it was empty, but I heard the door to the women’s bathroom thud shut.

  I threw it open. “I know you’re in here, Mira,” I said.

  “What do you want?” she asked from the end stall.

  “Why did you do it?” I asked. �
��Why did you convince Dad to cut me off?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “It wasn’t me. It was Jesus.”

  I’d always thought Mira was manipulative but sane. Now I wasn’t so sure. “What do you mean?”

  “Jesus told him to do it,” she said.

  I stared at the pink metal door dividing us. “What? Like in a dream?”

  The door flew open and Mira faced me, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. “Not in a dream! The Teacher is Jesus Christ our Lord come again.”

  Oh. My. God. I’d heard the Teacher say that a million times, but I guess I never realized people actually took it literally.

  “And he told my dad to disown me?” I asked in the kind of nonthreatening voice one uses with a crazy person.

  She nodded. “Yes, yes! He told us that you are evil and all you want is Richard’s money. But now, the church will safeguard his inheritance for him, and you are banned. Praise God.”

  “And my dad believed him?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Jesus would never lie to us.”

  I was still taking this idea in when Mira darted around me and ran out through the bathroom door.

  chapter 6

  I HEADED TO KRISTA’S.

  None of this had seemed real, but now I couldn’t believe I’d been stupid enough to think Dad would go to the trouble to pack my stuff and kick me out just to make a point. As I climbed the stairs to Krista’s room, part of me was surprised at how little emotion I felt. Sappy commercials can leave me a weepy mess, and those crazy stories, like the one where someone has a heart attack and then the doorbell rings and it’s the pizza guy, only he’s actually an out of work paramedic and he saves the day…I cry rivers over. And I’d sobbed buckets on Monday, but now, when my whole life was falling apart, all I felt was cold. A deep, bone-chilling iciness.