Small Town Sinners Part 23

"It's okay, Lacey," Tessa says, turning her warm smile on me. "I'm glad you came." She looks around the room at Dean and Ty, then at her sister. "I'm glad you all came. It's been pretty empty here since Monday-three girls left last week, so we're waiting for the open rooms to get filled this weekend."

"Who else staged a surprise drop-in?" asks Starla Joy.

"Jeremy," Tessa says, looking right at me.

"He came," I whisper.

"Thanks to your dad, Lace," says Tessa.

"Really?" I ask, surprised.

"Jeremy said that Pastor Byer encouraged him to visit me after they prayed together one afternoon," Tessa says. "I guess he said it would be good for us to see each other and talk."

"Oh," I say, still caught off guard.

"He's such a good man," Tessa says.

I'm guessing she's talking about my dad and not Jeremy, because Jeremy's not really a man yet-more like in guy stage-but I'm not sure. I'm also contemplating the news that my dad talked to Jeremy. Why didn't he tell me that? I wonder if Jeremy came to him. I wonder if what I said to my dad about how Jeremy needed to visit Tessa had an effect? Maybe he does hear me sometimes.

I'm so lost in my own thoughts that I miss part of the conversation and I rejoin reality just as Tessa says, "-asked me to the prom too!"

I see Starla Joy roll her eyes. "Yeah, well, he'd better ask you to the prom after what he's putting you through."

Tessa's gaze narrows and her voice gets low and angry. "I'm almost out of here," she says to her sister. "Leave it alone."

"Besides," she continues in her usual bright tone, addressing all of us again, "I've always wanted to go with Jeremy to the senior prom, and now I have seven whole months to pick out the perfect dress."

I smile at Tessa warmly, but her cheeriness feels thin to me. Her hands are resting on her large stomach, and I can't help but wonder if she ever thinks about the baby. I mean, she must. But it's clear we're not talking about it.

"I hear h.e.l.l House is going so well!" says Tessa, nodding enthusiastically. She's making up for the rest of us and our awkwardness by filling the silence. "What's it like playing Abortion Girl?"

She looks right at me, and I wonder if she resents my getting the role. But all I see is sunshine in her smile.

"It's pretty intense," I say. "My voice gets hoa.r.s.e after rehearsals sometimes because Pastor Frist really wants me to practice my screaming. And Dean's got this great fake blood on order-he says it looks really real."

"It's perfect," Dean says, leaning forward in his chair. "I've got one kind that clumps so we can have that dripping from the fetus-"

"Also known as hamburger meat," I interrupt. "Did Dean tell you how good he is at sculpting with beef?"

"I am," says Dean, all modesty gone. "It's really real looking! I found instructions online about how to make raw meat look like a preemie baby. And anyway, the other blood is really liquidy so it'll run down Lacey's legs like syrup while she's on that table."

I laugh at how animated Dean gets when he talks about the props for h.e.l.l House. His smile is like a million miles wide.

But when I look over at Tessa, her face is pale.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! How can we all be sitting here talking about a hacksaw abortion when Tessa's about to have a baby, on a table, with lots of blood? It's not exactly the same thing, but it's enough to make anyone weak in the knees.

"Oh, Tessa, I'm sorry," I say softly, and then everyone turns and sees her wobbly smile. She's trying to keep it together but it's clear she's shaken. Starla Joy reaches out to hold her sister's hand, and Tessa closes her eyes for a long moment while we all sit on the edges of our seats.

When she opens her eyes again, she looks straight at Starla Joy. "I'm so scared," she says. I see a couple of tears slip down her pretty face, and I wonder if Ty, Dean, and I should leave the room and let Tessa and Starla Joy be alone.

Ty's already thought of that too. I see him standing up and motioning to me and Dean. "We'll go get a soda," he says quietly to Starla Joy, but she doesn't look up. She's holding her sister and whispering in her ear.

Dean, Ty, and I head down the hallway toward Tessa's room. We pa.s.sed a c.o.ke machine before, and we stand in front of it now. Ty takes out a dollar bill and presses it against the corner of the machine to get it flat before he tries to put it in the slot. It gets rejected once but some more flattening works, and he presses the Sprite b.u.t.ton.

When he opens the can, the noise echoes loudly in the hall. He leans back against the cream-colored wall and takes a sip.

"Maybe we shouldn't have come," Dean says. "It's my fault, it was my idea. And then I went on and on about the blood-ugh! I'm so stupid!" He looks down at the floor.

"It's not your fault," I say. "I'm the one who brought up the blood in the first place. It's just that when you look at Tessa's face, she seems like her old self. It's like you forget-"

"You forget that she's pregnant," Dean finishes for me.

"I think she wants to forget," Ty says. "But she won't be able to. Probably not ever."

I lean against the wall next to him. Our hands are so close that I can feel the heat between us, and I blush at how easily my thoughts wander to kissing him. The girls who are in here felt this kind of heat too, and I understand how it can carry you away a little.

I imagine that we're all thinking about our own lives, and how our experiences relate to what Tessa's feeling right now. Can anyone ever see the world in any other way but through their own personal lens?

After about twenty minutes, Starla Joy and Tessa come down the hall toward us. Ty, Dean, and I look up expectantly, unsure of what emotion is going to greet us from the Minter girls. They've got their arms around each other, and Tessa is leaning on Starla Joy's shoulder. For the first time, in this moment, Starla Joy looks like the older sister.

When they get close, Tessa lets go of her sister and turns to me for a hug. "Lacey, I'm so glad you got the part," she says, opening her arms.

"Thank you," I say, wrapping her up as close as she can get with her stomach in the way. "That means a lot. I think of you every time I-"

And then I stop, realizing that I'm telling her I think of her while I act out having an abortion. It's like I am totally oblivious today.

"It's okay," Tessa says, leaning back from our hug and giving me a grin, like she thinks it's funny that I just put my foot in my mouth again. But she doesn't start crying. In fact, her smile looks more genuine right now than it has all day.

Tessa moves around me to give Ty a kiss on the cheek, and then she pulls Dean in for a hug too. He pats her back awkwardly, looking so uncomfortable that I almost want to laugh, but I don't.

"Truly, thank you guys for coming," Tessa says. "It means more than you'll ever know."

"Meet you guys at the car?" Starla Joy says. "I just want to say good-bye to my sister real quick."

"Sure," says Ty, and he leads us past Dottie, giving her one more princely hand peck before we walk out into a gently falling rain. We stand by the truck, without keys or umbrellas, getting wet.

Dean pulls on his hood. We're still not sure we should've come. But when Starla Joy walks out a minute later, her grin is as big as Texas.

She presses the unlock b.u.t.ton on the keys and we settle into our seats. Before she starts the engine, Starla Joy turns around to all of us.

"Thank you," she says. "That was the first honest conversation I've had with my sister in forever."

"Really?" I ask. "And it was because of us?"

"Well ...," says Starla Joy.

"Was it the blood description?" Dean asks. "Did that make her face the reality of birth?"

"No," says Starla Joy. "That was actually pretty awful of you guys."

"No kidding!" Ty says. "You were rambling while Tessa turned as white as a ghost."

"Hey!" I say. "You were just sitting there."

"Yeah, sitting there horrified!" laughs Ty.

We all start to relax now that we know the visit was a good thing overall.

"So what did get Tessa to open up to you?" I ask.

"The fact that my mom wasn't there," says Starla Joy. "Tessa's so afraid, but she told me she feels like she needs to be strong when Momma's around and act like it's not really happening, like she's a normal high school senior who just got waylaid for a few months."

"Is your mom in denial?" asks Ty.

"Big time," says Starla Joy. "She doesn't even like it when I allude to the baby or Tessa's being at Saint Angeles. She just pretends like Tessa's away on vacation or something and she'll be home again soon."

"Wow," I say.

"Yeah," says Starla Joy. "I didn't really think about it before, but I realize now it's my mom who's making the *it's all normal' charade important. Tessa's just going along with it to keep the peace. But she's really afraid."

"I could see that," I say.

"I think Jeremy's visit opened her up a little too," Starla Joy says. "She was pretending it didn't matter that he hadn't come, but now she doesn't have to do that anymore, because he did show up. He even told her he was going to come to the hospital when she goes into labor. He talked to his parents about it and they said the car would be his when he needs it."

Starla Joy looks at me as she talks about Jeremy.

"That was really great of your dad," she says.

I nod, making a mental note to somehow ask Dad about all this.

"It's good Tessa got to talk to you," Dean says.

"What else did she say?" asks Ty. "I mean, about the baby and stuff."

Starla Joy looks at him and gnaws on her bottom lip a little, like she's not sure it's okay to tell us what her sister expressed. But then she does anyway.

"It was really surprising," Starla Joy says. "She's scared, of course. She's also glad she's giving the baby to a family who's been wanting a child for a long time-Saint Angeles set up the adoption."

"That's so great," I say.

"Yeah," says Starla Joy. "But all that I knew already."

She looks at Ty, then at Dean, and finally at me. We all stay quiet, knowing there's more to come.

Starla Joy bites her lip again and takes a breath. "She also told me she's glad she didn't play Abortion Girl this year-that she wouldn't want the role."

"Why not?" I ask.

"She's not really sure if she believes abortion is wrong anymore," says Starla Joy.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

On the four-hour drive back home, Starla Joy explains the details of what Tessa said to her in the Saint Angeles den. Tessa is calling herself "pro-choice and anti-abortion." Ty says he gets that right away.

"But that means she thinks women should have the right to kill their babies if they want to," Dean says.

"I don't understand," I say. "I thought Saint Angeles was a Christian home."

"It is," says Starla Joy. "I think Tessa talked to a lot of the girls in there, and they all come from different places. There was one who'd been abused by her own father, and that's why she's there."

I gasp. "Really?" I ask.

"That's sick," says Dean.

"I know," Starla Joy says. "And that girl wanted to get an abortion, but her family would hate her forever-even more than they do now, I guess. You guys know Tessa. She just sympathizes and empathizes with everyone. And even though she knows abortion would be wrong for her, she thinks it should be everyone's individual choice."

"But that abuse situation is an extreme case," says Dean. "Even then, I don't like that choice. It's a life that's been created by G.o.d. Right?"

"Right," I say, but my voice is quiet. That must be a terrible situation to be in.

"I don't know," Starla Joy says. "I got kind of confused too, just listening to her. She just thinks that it's a good thing to be able to make your own choice, I guess."

"The choice to have an abortion?" I ask.

"Yeah," says Starla Joy.

"They do have a choice by law, and I agree with that," Ty says. "Tessa realizes that although she hates the thought of an abortion, it's a choice that some people make."

"Ty Davis, are you a closet liberal?" asks Starla Joy.

"I'm not anything," Ty says. "I just have some thoughts that aren't the same as my parents' thoughts."

He looks at me.

"I have my own thoughts," I say defensively. "But excuse me if it still surprises me that Tessa's in favor of abortion."

"Listen harder, Lacey," Ty says. "Tessa's not in favor of abortion. But she does believe in choice."

I sit back, silent for most of the rest of the discussion. It isn't that I'm ignoring my friends. In fact, I am listening very, very closely. But all these ideas are jumbled in my head and I'm not sure how to sort them out. I can't get past the notion that Tessa would be okay with abortion, however she explained it.