by Antony John
Matt brings his hands together as though he’s praying. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” He pauses. “Oh, come on, bro. This is Alex’s tour, not mine. Do you hear me reciting entire chapters from the guidebook?”
“You can’t. You’re driving.”
“Oh, man.” He shakes his head. “I’m doing this for her, okay?”
I stab a strip of bacon. “Why?”
“Because I’m freakin’ desperate, you idiot. That’s why.”
My fork hangs in midair. “What do you mean—desperate?”
“I’ve lost her. Can’t you see that? I’ve been losing her all year. I don’t know if there’s someone else, or if she just doesn’t feel the same way about me anymore. But ever since high school she’s talked about driving along Route 66—always said we’d do it the summer after freshman year. So I made plans: not just Havasu Falls, but a bunch of other stops too.” He watches my expression. “Yeah, this has been planned since forever. Mom and Dad knew about it too. When Colin bailed on you, they asked if I could change things so they wouldn’t have to take off work. I didn’t want to do it, but they practically begged me—said Colin would cover expenses. So I canceled all the motel reservations except Havasupai Lodge, and made new ones to fit your stupid itinerary.”
I swallow hard. “Mom and Dad never told me.”
“Because they didn’t want you to feel bad about it. Didn’t want you to have any distractions. Never mind what Alex and I wanted. No, we just have to keep to a ridiculous schedule that means we miss every freakin’ stop I had planned. I have to check my cell phone for messages every two hours. And when I can’t get a signal, I get chewed out—like it’s my fault!”
“I’m sorry, Matt. I…”
“What? You what?” He leans back and rubs his eyes. “It’s okay, bro. This isn’t really your fault. I kind of knew things would be crazy. I just never figured on having to woo Alex all over again too.”
I’m not used to seeing Matt’s vulnerable side. I’m not sure I even knew he had one. Since I don’t know how to respond, I say the first thing that pops into my head: “Did you just say woo?”
The server returns and Matt signs the credit card receipt. He leaves a really generous tip on Colin’s behalf. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”
“Don’t go. Please.”
Matt helps himself to a strip of bacon. “I need some alone time, okay? Anyway, you can counsel me back in our room.”
“Our room?”
“Yeah. Alex didn’t want to…” He shrugs. “I’m sorry.”
He walks away then, and though I feel sorry for him, I also feel sorry for me. I know I shouldn’t—it’s really selfish—but it kills me that I won’t see Fran until the morning.
Tomorrow morning feels like an impossibly long way away.
9:50 P.M.
Hotel Okie, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Matt is lying on his bed. His eyes are closed and he’s wearing noise-canceling headphones. He may as well hang a neon sign saying: DO NOT DISTURB.
Suits me. I’m tired too. Although…
I step out of the room and wait for the door to latch behind me. I need to go for a walk, get some fresh air. Just for a few minutes.
It’s quiet outside, except for the occasional sounds of traffic. There’s no fresh air, just the stale heat of a humid summer evening. Still, it’s peaceful, so I close my eyes and try to shut out the nagging doubts from tonight’s event.
“Oh, hi.” Fran appears beside me. “I didn’t know you were out here.”
My heart leaps, and for some reason I wave. “Yeah. I, uh, just came out for a walk.”
“Me too.” She narrows her eyes. “You didn’t get very far.”
“No. I decided to take a break.”
“Lucky me.”
We sit side by side on a concrete wall, feet dangling beneath us. Fireflies gather just beyond arm’s reach.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it this evening,” she says. “How’d it go?”
“Oh, you know… terrible. People asked me all these weird questions about the book. It’s like they want every word to be so meaningful. Truth is, I don’t think it means anything at all.”
Fran exhales. “Whoa. You know, this is not a good time to have a crisis of faith.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“What do you mean?”
Deep breath. “Look, I wrote most of Hallelujah in the days after we won the debate competition. Andy read a couple pages at the church retreat and said I should keep going, but I couldn’t write the same way anymore.”
Fran must realize this has something to do with her, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“Anyway, when I finished it, Andy sent it to Pastor Mike. And Pastor Mike sent it to an editor he knew. Everything happened so quickly after that. It wasn’t until we were halfway through editing that I realized how much of it meant nothing to me. I asked if we could cut stuff, but my editor said no way. Now it doesn’t even feel like my book.”
“Why not? You still wrote it.”
“Did I? Sure, I wrote the first version, but then I gave it to Andy and he suggested a gazillion changes—all of which I made. And then my editor made more, and my copyeditor corrected all the little mistakes, and by the time it came out, it wasn’t anything like the book I wrote.”
“So?”
“So—it’s like the teachers did my homework, and now everyone’s congratulating me for getting an A on a topic I know nothing about.”
She laughs, and knocks her feet against mine playfully. “It’s not like that at all. Anyway, Andy’s suggestions were so small: Change this word, cut this section, explain something better.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he showed me your first draft. Let me read it too.” She watches my reaction. “We’ve stayed in touch, Andy and me.”
I can’t believe she read it. I wish she hadn’t. Why did Andy even show it to her? Surely he realized how much it had to do with her? And what did she make of the sudden change in tone in the second part, when I couldn’t crack a smile, let alone a joke? Did she know she was the cause of it?
“Look, you want to go for a walk?” she asks. “It’s why you came out here, right?”
She jumps off the wall, and holds out her hand as though I might need help. Her hair falls across her face, giving her an air of mystery. In the dark I can’t tell that it’s purple at all.
I take her hand and jump down. There’s almost no space between us. I figure she’ll let go of my hand now, but she doesn’t.
We wander around the back of the hotel, where a security light casts an amber glow across a bank of grass no bigger than a tennis court. Beyond it, I can see the outline of a pond.
We stop walking—both of us, at the same time. I’m not sure what has led to this understanding that we’ve already reached our destination, but barely a second passes before Fran reaches across and takes my other hand in hers. I stare into her wide eyes. Then, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, I lean forward and kiss her.
With our lips gently touching, the stress of the evening melts away. I can’t imagine what a crisis of faith might be. It’s like I’ve been transported back in time, and I’m standing beside her after the debate competition. I’m in paradise again, and when my lips begin to open, it’s the other Luke making it happen.
Fran pulls back a few inches, enough to break the spell. Our hands loosen.
I turn away from the light, ashamed at myself. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“For what?”
“For doing that.”
“Why? I want to kiss you too. I just need a moment, that’s all.” She looks at her nails. In the light I can see she’s been picking at them again, and the polish is speckled and ugly. She’s hiding behind her hair too, unmistakably purple now. “Hey, lighten up, okay? It’s just a kiss.”
“Yeah, I know. No big deal, right?”
She stares at me with eyes full of hurt. “You kn
ow that’s not what I mean.”
Oh crap. She’s going to leave now—I just know it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Now she looks confused. “So why did you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not good enough. Try harder.”
“Okay, it’s… it’s because I’m afraid you’re going to break my heart.”
“Oh.” She raises her eyebrows. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re Fran.” I take a couple deep breaths. “Under it all… you’re still Fran.”
I expect her to ask me what the heck that means too, but she just waits.
“I was ten years old the first time you came to church,” I tell her. “I remember the date, and the weather, and the dress you wore. And for the next five years, I never heard a word of Andy’s sermon because I was too busy thinking about you. When your mom told me you were going to join the debate team, I got to school early and said I wanted in. I knew I’d never have the guts to sign up if you joined before me—you know, in case everyone guessed why I was really doing it. You were so out of my league. So popular. Outside the church crowd, no one even knew who I was.”
“They do now.”
“Yeah, because they think it’s cool that I have a book. Before that, I wasn’t even friends with the church crowd—not really. They were your friends, not mine. You just shared them with me.”
“Not this year, I didn’t.” She shoves her hands in her pockets. “What’s your point, Luke?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like everything’s changed. Like, I don’t even know why I go to church anymore. I pray to God all the time, but it’s just a habit. I watch the younger kids getting excited, so I pretend to be excited too, but it’s an act. When I look around me, I see this big, happy club. I want to be part of it, but I’m not. It’s like my membership expired a year ago.”
“When I changed.”
“Yeah.”
I sit cross-legged on the grass; not because I’m tired, but because I’m afraid I’ll run away if I don’t. Fran joins me, pulling at the grass beside her.
“I liked you so much the way you were, Fran. Loved you, even. I’ve spent this whole year hating that you changed.”
“Only on the outside. If you’d talked to me, you’d have known that.”
“But the outside was part of what I loved. Maybe that’s wrong, but it’s the way I felt. And just now, when I kissed you, I closed my eyes and pictured you the way you used to be.”
“If this is supposed to be an apology, it’s not going well.”
“I know. I’m just trying to tell the truth for once. When I think of you that way, I still feel like I’m not good enough for you.” I bite my lip. “So I push you away first, say dumb things, just trying to put off that moment.”
I can’t believe I just said that. I guess I’m not the only one either; Fran stares at the pond, head nodding gently. “That’s the most honest you’ve ever been,” she says finally.
“Yeah. It is.”
“You’ve been so weird all year. I’d see you at school, and you just looked pissed the whole time. I thought when the book came out you’d be happy, but you weren’t. But now you’re finding yourself again, I think.”
“Doesn’t excuse me for being an idiot.”
She leans across and kisses me on the lips, just once. “Thank you for admitting that,” she says. “So, come on. Since we’re having this heart-to-heart, you got anything else you need to confess?”
“Well, I may have told someone at the signing that you’re my cousin.”
“Your what?”
“Yeah, and—”
“What do you mean and? There’s more?”
“Yeah. Somehow people have the impression you’re along for the ride because I’m trying to, uh, help you.”
I can tell she was steeling herself not to react, but she flinches anyway.
“I’m sorry, Fran! I know it’s wrong. Please forgive me.”
“It’s a lie, Luke! Forget about offending me. You lied. Is it really that easy for you?”
Actually, it was really easy. And it shouldn’t have been.
Fran doesn’t allow the silence to linger. She’s probably no more eager to hear the truth than I am to tell it. “Well,” she says, “if we’re cousins, I guess we can forget about making out in future.”
“Huh?”
“It wouldn’t be right,” she insists. “The thought of kissing my cousin grosses me out. So no more of this”—she takes my hand and brings it to her lips, kisses it gently—“or this”—she turns my hand over and brushes her lips across my palm—“and absolutely none of this”—her lips glide along my index finger. When she reaches my fingertip, she opens her mouth and places it inside, runs her tongue around it.
It’s so intense, so beautiful I can barely stand it.
She sits back suddenly, her face a giant question mark. “Unless, you know… we’re not really cousins at all.”
I swallow hard. “Does that mean we’re…”
“What do you think?”
She puts my index finger in her mouth again and peers up at me with those irresistible eyes.
“I-I don’t know.” My voice sounds odd, breathy and unreliable. “I guess I’d kind of like it if, well… you know.”
She returns my finger with a butterfly kiss.
“I think it means whatever we want it to mean, Luke. And I think we both want it to mean the same thing.”
I could agree with her, but my hand is already reaching behind her head and pulling her toward me. And as we fall onto the ground and I feel her body beneath me, I realize there’s nothing more to say.
SATURDAY, JUNE 21
Realizations 4: 22–25
22. That was the night the boy gave up, and wept cruel tears, and gnashed his teeth, and pounded his fists, and did lots of other things that signified the extraordinary degree to which he was giving up. 23. And, yea, it was not merely because of the heat—though the desert was hot—or the dryness—though the desert was dry—or the insects (well, actually the insects were a pretty big deal)—but because in his heart he felt abandoned. 24. But as a mirage holds the promise of water, so his dreams assured him that he had not been abandoned. 25. And when, finally, he emerged, he recognized at last the presence that had been within him all along. And it filled him with joy.
6:00 A.M.
Behind the Hotel Okie, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The sun is already rising when I wake up. Fran is folded into me, her purple hair draped across my arm. My entire left side has cramped up from being on the hard ground, but I don’t move a muscle. If I wake Fran, she might leave. At this moment nothing in the world is more important than being beside her.
I can see our campsite at last. It’s a regular dumping ground—entire trash bags tossed into the tall, brown grass. Even the pond is inky, and the stench of waste wafts up on the morning breeze. The whole place is a pit, and yet, as I turn my attention to Fran, I realize that it’s just as romantic now as it was before. With Fran beside me, everywhere becomes Eden.
“You planning to wake me anytime soon?” she asks, eyes still closed. She’s been reading my thoughts again.
“Uh-uh.”
A smile blossoms on her face. “So no more kissing for you, huh?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She opens her eyes, takes in the sunrise. “Today is June twenty-first. Summer solstice.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.”
She shifts position so that her head rests on my outstretched arm. “This event—this sunrise—was a holy time for ancient civilizations. It was a time for worshipping the earth, and getting married, and celebrating the plants and crops. I get it too. It makes sense to me.”
I pull her close. “Do you ever find yourself wishing our faith had moments as… definitive as this?” I ask. “Something you can feel and see. Something so obviously real.”
Fran tilts her head toward me, a ser
ious expression on her face. “Yesterday, I did. But today I woke up next to you. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.”
The sun is already above the horizon, a reminder that just as the solstice is temporary, so our time here is fleeting too. Which is why I kiss her, knowing I’ll never forget this moment as long as I live.
7:50 A.M.
Parking lot, Hotel Okie, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Matt is standing beside the Hummer. “I’ve already put your bags in,” he says without looking at us.
Alex arrives bearing doughnuts and coffee. She hands one to each of us. She even remembered that my favorites are jelly-filled.
“This is cream-filled,” says Matt, spitting out a hunk of doughnut.
“I thought you liked them,” she replies, her face a picture of innocence.
Matt pops the half-eaten doughnut back in the bag and climbs into the driver’s seat. “Bus leaves in twenty seconds. You snooze, you lose.”
“Excellent use of a tired cliché,” says Alex, reaching for the back door handle at the same time as me. “No, Luke. You ride shotgun today.”
“Actually I’d prefer to—”
“Just get in the front seat!”
I do as I’m told, but it doesn’t feel right. I haven’t even finished adjusting the seat before I’m aware of the emptiness of not having Fran beside me. I lower the sun visor and adjust it so I can glimpse her in the mirror, but it’s not enough. I close my eyes and picture her lying beside me, the gentle smile teasing her lips, the delicate curve of her body.
“Stop groaning, dude,” says Matt.
“What?”
“I’m just saying: A sound like that shouldn’t be public.”
Fran reaches around the seat to hug me. “Something on your mind?” she whispers. “Maybe someone?” She laughs softly, which sends a rush of air that jolts every fiber of my body. She leans closer, so that her lips brush my left ear. “Dream on, Luke Dorsey. Just make sure it’s about me.”
I’m bright red now, but since she said it’s okay, I close my eyes again and dream sweet dreams as the purring engine lulls me to sleep.
