Small Town Sinners Part 10

I glance over at Mom for help, but she's looking down at her hands, which are folded in her lap. It's like she's willfully bowing out of this conversation because Dad's being loud.

"How am I supposed to be affected?" I ask.

"Well, maybe you'll feel like everybody's breaking the rules, and that it's okay to stray from your morals," he says.

"Oh, yeah, Dad," I say, incredulous. "Knowing that Tessa had premarital s.e.x and got pregnant really makes me want to run off with a guy right away."

Mom looks up sharply, and I feel a pang of guilt for saying something so shocking.

"Lacey Anne," says Mom, recovering, "when girls like that get themselves into trouble, they can affect other girls in the community too."

"Girls like what?" I ask.

"Like the Minter girls," says Dad, softening his voice now and walking toward my chair. "They're lovely, and I know you've looked up to Tessa. But she and Starla Joy are girls without a male role model. They've grown up in a house with a mother who's had different boyfriends. It can get confusing for them, I know."

"But we don't want it to get confusing for you," Mom says, looking at me again.

"I'm not confused," I say. "And Mrs. Minter has dated maybe one man since Mr. Minter left." I wonder why my parents aren't blaming Mr. Minter for some of this instead of calling Starla Joy and Tessa girls like that.

For some reason, that phrase sets off an alarm bell in my head, and I think of Jeremy today at lunch, laughing and hanging out like every other carefree senior, while Tessa is probably sitting in some gray room at Saint Angeles, scared and alone. What about boys like that?

"No one's blaming the Minter girls," Dad says. "Your mother and I just think you should branch out in your friendships a little bit ... maybe find some other girls, like Laura Bergen or Maryanne Duane, to hang around with."

"I can't believe you're saying this," I say, straightening up in my chair.

"Honey, we're not asking you to drop Starla Joy," says Mom. "We just think you've spent so much time with her and Dean, and now Ty, that you're limiting yourself. Maybe you should find some other social circles too."

I feel the hairs on my neck start to p.r.i.c.kle.

"What does this have to do with Dean or Ty?" I ask.

"Nothing," Mom says, looking quickly at Dad. I know there's something they're not saying, but all I can think about is that they're asking me to avoid Starla Joy, my best friend, when she's in total crisis. And I feel as surprised as if they'd asked me to help them steal a car. This isn't what I've been taught my whole life. John 15:12-13: "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." I almost want to say it out loud to them.

Dad kneels down next to my chair, and I stare at our soft beige carpet, focusing on a tiny faded stain next to the leg of the coffee table. It's from when I was six years old and Starla Joy and I were trying to paint each other's nails. We spilled a whole bottle of pink Frosted Pearl nail polish, but Mom just laughed as she cleaned up the mess, calling us her little beauty queens. That one spot never came out.

As I fixate on it I feel a tear run down my cheek, and Dad thinks it's there because I'm sad, because I'm giving in. He reaches up a finger and brushes my tear away, like he's always done.

But I surprise him by standing up and pushing his hand aside.

"I'm not abandoning Starla Joy," I say. "I don't care what you think."

Dad stands up, his brow darkening. "Careful, Lacey Anne," he says.

"I'm sorry," I say, feeling my anger simmering beneath the surface. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I'm also not going to stop spending time with my best friend when she needs me the most. That's not what I was taught."

I spit out that last word so they know I think they're not acting Christlike. Then I grab my bag and walk toward the door. "I'm going for a walk," I say calmly.

No one objects.

I wait until I'm out of the driveway and halfway to the woods before I let more tears fall.

When I get to our spot, I sit down on the fallen log and listen to the wind rustling the leaves around me. I watch a black beetle work its way across the forest floor, half seeing it, half lost in my own thoughts.

Whose fault is this? Why did Tessa make such a stupid mistake?

I'm not sure how long I've been sitting here when I hear a familiar shuffle walk.

"Hey, Dean," I say, looking up and seeing my flannel-clad friend standing over me.

He settles on the left side of the log, and I move over to the right to balance our weight. We've fallen off this thing a hundred times, so we know how to share it now.

I notice that Dean's hair is cut a new way since earlier today-it's got this asymmetrical emo thing going on.

"Nice haircut," I say.

"Thanks," he says, but I can tell he's not really looking for compliments.

I'm not sure he wants to talk. We just sit there in silence, and I look down at the black beetle again-now halfway across our log circle.

"Weird day," he says after a minute.

"The weirdest," I say.

"I guess I never thought we'd know someone who-" he starts.

"I know," I say. "I mean, not someone we really know."

"Yeah," says Dean. "Tessa was so ... so ..."

"Good," I finish. "She was so good."

"She just doesn't seem like the type of girl to do something like this," Dean says.

And there it is again-the type of girl. Dean sounds angry when he says that about Tessa, like she let him down personally or something. Which I guess she did. I guess she let us all down.

"Do you think it was, like, a one-time thing?" I ask. I feel flushed just talking about this out loud, but it's Dean, so I let myself.

"Who knows," he says. "They might have done it a bunch of times."

"Did you hear something?" I ask. "Like locker-room talk or whatever?"

"No," Dean says. "Jeremy can be a jerk, but not like that."

"I know," I say. "Jeremy really loves her."

"Maybe that's why she did it," Dean says.

"Because she's in love?" I ask.

"They say pa.s.sion can do crazy things," he says. "Make people forget who they are and what they know about right and wrong."

"Yeah," I say. "Pa.s.sion seems dangerous."

"It is!" says Dean, speaking loudly all of a sudden. Then, softer, he says, "At least, I think it is."

We sit together in silence for a few more minutes until the sun starts to set, and then both of us get up to go. As I'm turning toward my house, Dean asks, "So you'll get the part, right?"

"Oh," I say. "Um, yeah, I guess so."

I don't want him to know that Abortion Girl has been in the back of my mind all day. I don't want him to know that there's a little piece of me that's jumping up and down because I'm going to be the star of the show. Me!

"Well, congratulations, Lacey," says Dean. "And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, because of Tessa. I mean it in a real way. I think you'll be really good."

I turn to Dean and give him a hug. He pats my back.

"Thank you," I say.

Chapter Fifteen.

"Let's all take a seat," says Pastor Frist, stepping up to the podium in the sanctuary.

It's the Wednesday night h.e.l.l House meeting, and the first time we've all been together in church since people found out about Tessa. My stomach has been doing this flipping thing all day.

People are coming right up to Starla Joy to say they're praying for her and her family. I sit next to her and hear her thank them all graciously, even some of the same people we know were gossiping about Tessa in school. I love Starla Joy for being so above them.

"I have a few announcements to make," says Pastor Frist as people quiet down. "Everyone knows that Tessa Minter has had to drop out of h.e.l.l House due to personal matters."

A little chatter rises up from the pews, but it quiets pretty quickly as he continues. "According to the h.e.l.l House casting, Lacey Byer will take over the role of Abortion Girl, with Laura Bergen acting as understudy."

I try to keep my face calm, but I can feel my mouth stretching out into a wide grin. It's official! It's mine. I got it! I knew this was probably going to happen, but hearing that it's really real makes my heart beat faster.

"Lacey, you'll have your first rehearsal tonight," says Pastor Frist. "Your father says you learned the lines for the audition, so I hope you're ready to go."

"I am!" I say, louder than I normally would in church. I even pop up from my seat a little bit in excitement, and I can tell everyone is surprised.

"Congratulations, Lacey," says Pastor Frist. "We know you'll do us proud."

Someone in the back of the church starts clapping and I look up to see Ty leaning on the back doors of the sanctuary and leading the applause. Everyone else joins in, and soon the sound is thunderous. I can feel my face getting red.

Starla Joy squeezes my hand. "You'll be awesome, Lacey," she says.

I look for a flicker of sadness, a flash of doubt, but I just see encouragement in her eyes. "Really?" I ask.

"Truly," she says. "It's meant to be you."

I grin back at her, so grateful to have such a selfless friend, and even more determined to stand by her side. "Thanks," I say.

Then I see Laura Bergen, who looks almost as happy as I am just to be the understudy. I have to have one, since a couple of years ago Molly Bradford lost her voice in the middle of h.e.l.l House weekend. It can happen because of the intense screaming and the emotional strain of the role.

The applause dies down and I watch Ty slip out the back door. He isn't supposed to be in here since he's not in the show ... I wonder if he came for me. I know he's proud of me. I could see it in his face.

I haven't been able to spend any alone time with Ty in a few days. Part of that is because I've been laying low with my parents. They seem to understand that our relationship is in a precarious place. I'm not willing to talk with them about things I'm thinking, like I normally would. It feels strange, because my father's entire job is to help kids through tough times. But he works with little kids, and this year my life seems more complicated than it used to.

And then there's the fact that I don't wholly trust Mom and Dad anymore.

I look over at Geoff Parsons, whose h.e.l.l House script is rolled up in the back pocket of his faded jeans. I know he's excited to have such a big part in the show, but I still can't help but feel he doesn't deserve to be in it at all. It seems the stuff between him and Dean has blown over for everyone but me. I haven't forgotten.

Tonight is the first casual h.e.l.l House rehearsal, and after a few minutes of vocal warm-up and prayer, we break up into our separate scenes. I go to the nursery, soon to be decorated like a medical clinic. Dean told me we're getting a real hospital bed that adjusts up and down so I can be sitting in an upright position, as if I'm giving birth. "It'll be more emotional if it looks like this could be a life-or-death scene," he said. I'll have fake blood all over my hospital gown as I scream in pain, both emotional and physical. He and the other prop guys have even figured out how to make a pa.s.sable first-term baby out of raw hamburger meat, so I know the visuals will be amazing.

Right now, though, we don't have any props ready yet, so I sit on top of a long table and pretend that it's a bed. Because it's the nursery, there are still toys all around the edges of the room. They'll be cleared for performances, but tonight they actually add something for me. The scene starts with the doctor dropping the fetus into a bucket as I scream and cry. Then I rock back and forth in the bed and say, "I killed my baby! I made a mistake ... I want my baby back!"

It's a lot to jump into all at once, but I do my best. I think about Tessa, and the choice she might have made if she hadn't grown up in this church community. How regretful she would have been for her whole life if she weren't at Saint Angeles, ready to let her baby live and be raised by a family who's probably been praying for a child.

In the scene, the doctor-played by Randy Miller, who was always really good at that game Operation-just shakes his head at my screaming. But the nurse-that's Laura Bergen-she tells me firmly and somberly that it's too late. Laura Bergen is excellent at being firm and somber.

When my dramatic shrieking winds down, Skyler Gordon comes in as an angel, and she's holding the hand of one of the three younger kids who's been cast to rotate through the scene as the night goes on. Even though little kids can't be in the audience for h.e.l.l House, they're allowed to be in the show. Pastor Frist says they're often the most effective actors because of their innocence. Tonight, five-year-old Heather Jenkins is rehearsing with us. She's got brown curly hair and a giant smile that shows a big gap tooth. Pastor Frist tells her she's smiling too much when she delivers her line in my direction: "Mommy, why did you kill me?"

I'm supposed to start wailing at that, of course, but I can't help but smile back when she beams at me as she says it. After a few more times, she learns to do the scene more seriously, and on our last run through, my mind flashes to Tessa and her lovely, freckled face. What will her child look like at five? At least we'll have a chance to know. At least she's not committing another sin by going to a clinic like this.

Skyler Gordon ends the scene by telling me that it's too late for my baby to live but it's not too late for me to repent. As I lay dying, she reminds me, and the audience, that G.o.d is always forgiving if you're truly remorseful about your sins. The abortion act always gets the girls in the room weeping-and Skyler is really good at delivering her lines: "Though you have committed the sin of fornication before marriage vows, though you have chosen darkness over light, though you have killed your own child, there is hope. For these actions are in the past, and today, right now, you can choose to take Jesus's hand and start walking into a brighter future. Repent! And his arms will open unto you and welcome you into the Kingdom of Heaven."

She comes over to embrace me, and I scream out, "Lord, forgive me!" just before I die. That's supposed to show that you can give yourself up to G.o.d even in the last moments of your life-there is always room for faith and hope. When we're done, I shake Skyler off with a shiver and jump down from the table. We've been working on the scene for an hour and I'm tired, not to mention hungry.

I grab my bag and see Pastor Frist clasping Randy's hand. He slaps him on the back and says, "Excellent job, doctor!" Their synchronized laughter rings out loudly as they leave the room. I say good-bye to Laura, Skyler, and Heather and go out into the hallway to sit on the bench in front of the conference room where my dad's been rehearsing the h.e.l.l scene. I can hear the screaming through the door-it sounds like they're really getting into it. Dad can be truly scary when he plays Satan. He whispers in your ear things like "I know what you did," and "I've seen your every sin." Now that I think about it, it's probably even more creepy since he's my father.

I hear footsteps coming down the hall, and I look up to see Ty walking toward me. He's carrying a Subway bag with a sandwich and chips stuffed inside.

"Hey," he says, kicking my toe gently as he sits down on the bench beside me.

"What are you doing here tonight?" I ask with a smile. "I thought h.e.l.l House wasn't your thing."

"Well, Aunt Vivian's working late," he says. "I came by earlier and she asked me to go pick up some dinner for her."

He points to the bag.

"Sure," I say. "You weren't curious at all about the rehearsal."

"Maybe a little," he says, smiling. "I'm proud of you, Lacey."

"Thanks," I say, looking at him looking at me.