A Song for Issy Bradley (23 page)

She steps into a long, paved garden. It’s cool outside, it smells of damp leaves and wood smoke, and the sky is bare black, dotted with occasional stars. Tubs of dying flowers run along the fence that splits the garden from the neighbors. Adam follows her out and strides past her to a wooden bench that leans next to the back fence. He sits down and pats the slats beside him. When Zippy sits, her little dress rises up past mid-thigh, utterly failing the Sit-Down Test.

“Zippy, you’re a
nice
girl.”

Adam’s words hang in the air for a bit. He leans back and rests his hands on his legs. His hands are lovely, he’s got piano fingers; he can play loads of nice songs, he likes Coldplay and Iron and Wine, but his dad prefers him to practice hymns in case he gets sent somewhere foreign on his mission and there aren’t any pianists. He likes the old hymns that no one sings anymore—“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord”—he says they’ve got better harmonies. Sometimes he sits and plays them after church while everyone’s chatting and Zippy watches him. She watches him on the sports field at school during rugby practices too. He wears a number 8 shirt and he pushes at the back of the scrum, grabbing the other lads and pulling them over. No one at the party would believe that he sometimes sings hymns. She glances at his fingers, happy that a part of him is hidden from everyone except her.

“You shouldn’t be here, Zippy.”

She wonders how much beer he’s had; she’s seen drunken people only on television, where they fall over in the street, pull angry faces, and laugh at stuff that isn’t funny. Adam looks like himself; when he walked to the bench he walked in a straight line, so he can’t be drunk, and he’s mistaken if he thinks she’s going to let him tell her off.

“Neither should you.”

“Well, that’s me told.”

“Yeah, consider yourself told, Carmichael.” She gives him a light punch on the shoulder, glad of the chance to make a joke out
of things, uncertain how else to respond to their mutual misdemeanors: her immodest clothes and his consumption of
beer
while that girl slithered all over him. “Don’t let me ever catch you at it again,” she teases.

“You won’t,” he says.

“Good.” She places a tentative hand on his shoulder. “No one’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. I won’t tell my dad or anyone about the beer … or the girl.” She moves her hand to her lap and waits for him to thank her.

“Right,” he says.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to parties. And maybe I shouldn’t either,” she adds quickly. “But you—you need to think about preparing for your mission.”

“I think about it all the time.”

“That’s good.”

“Some people don’t go, you know.”

“Yeah, sad, isn’t it?”

“And loads of lads muck about before they go.”

“Oh, I don’t think they do.”

“My brother, right? He was drinking and doing other stuff—
everything
. Then he repented and off he went. When you get back from your mission everyone expects you to get married straight away, so the only time to muck about is before you go.”

“That’s just your brother, not loads of lads. It’s no reason for
you
to muck about and break the commandments.”

“Do you seriously think
anyone
keeps all the commandments?”

“People try.” Zippy slips her hands under her thighs, hiding them from the spiky cold. “I try.”

“Do you know what Brother Campbell said once? He said proper kissing before marriage is wrong; if you kiss someone in a way you wouldn’t kiss your mum, your dad, or your sister, it’s a sin. What a load of bollocks!”

Zippy squirms. You aren’t supposed to criticize leaders, even if
the criticism is true. She pulls her hands out from under her thighs and rubs them together nervously.

“I’ve been thinking—it’s the best thing about Critical Thinking, you get to think for homework. Are you going to do it next year?”

“No, Dad says it’s Atheism for Beginners masquerading as an AS level.”

He snorts. “Bishop Bradley’s so serious, no offense—he is, though, isn’t he? So, here’s what I’ve been thinking … if you weren’t already a member, would you join the Church?”

She has thought about this before. “No,” she confesses.

“Me neither.”

“But I’ve worked it out—that’s
why
we’ve been born into it, see? Heavenly Father knew we wouldn’t find the truth any other way. It’s pretty amazing that out of all the billions of people in the world, we’ve got the truth.”

She stares up at the vast black sky. “Look up. See? The universe is so big and like,
incredible
. Do you ever … do you think we knew each other before we came to Earth? In the preexistence? Sometimes I like to think—I think we were probably friends. And now here we are, together.” She pauses and risks another pat on his shoulder while he’s looking at the stars. “We’re being tested to see if we’ll choose the right. If we make mistakes, we can repent. Sometimes when I think about how amazing it is my head goes all spinny. Brother Campbell’s got to be wrong about kissing, my dad’s never said anything like that—and you’re right, he
is
really serious—but he says kissing’s fine, as long as you keep your hands to yourself.”

“Yeah, well, Brother Campbell was reading it out of a book by a General Authority. No offense to your dad, but he’s only the Bishop.”

“Your dad’s the Stake President and I bet he’s never said anything about not kissing.”

“He never talks about stuff like that.”

“Lucky you. My mum and dad did it together. Mum sat there
wringing her hands while Dad talked about the Sacred Powers of Procreation; it was like a Family Home Evening lesson just for me—they even started with a prayer.”

Adam shakes his head.

“I was so embarrassed,” she says. “I kept laughing, but it wasn’t funny. That book of Brother Campbell’s was probably really old.”

“Would you seriously marry someone you’d never kissed?”

She looks at Adam’s mouth and thinks she’d marry him no matter what, even if he’d never held her hand or said he loved her. “Course not,” she says.

“Then he started going on about licking the butter off sandwiches.”

“Who, Brother Campbell?”

“Yeah, he reckons if you kiss a girl and you
don’t
marry her, you’ve licked the butter off another man’s sandwich.”

“It’s just the Campbells, they’re weird. Sister Campbell thinks girls who’ve, you know,
done it
are filthy.”

“It
is
different for girls,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just different.”

“How?”

“Well, think about my finger—how many germs are on my finger? Not many, right?” He holds his hand up and wiggles his index finger at her. “Now think about how many germs are in my mouth.” He turns sideways and opens his mouth wide. When he breathes out his breath smells bready and she wonders if it’s what beer smells like.

“So my finger is a bit like … and my mouth is, well, you know … And it’s not as bad for a bloke, is it?”

Zippy becomes aware of the workings of her heart as it flushes indignation along miles of capillaries. The feeling folds her in half and she reaches for her feet in an effort to curl her body around it, sliding her hands into Lauren’s Ugg boots as she pretends to adjust
her socks. “You
really
think that?” She straightens; maybe he has drunk too much beer, perhaps drunken people fall over their thoughts before they fall over their feet. “Adam, you sound like Angel Clare.”

“Who’s she?”

“Oh, no one.”

“This is a weird conversation.”

She stares straight ahead, at the back of Jordan Banks’s house. People are talking and laughing in the kitchen. Looking at them move behind the window is like watching a reality show on a flat-screen TV. No one in the kitchen has the gospel, none of them know where they came from, why they are here, and where they are going after they die; this thought usually cheers her and makes her feel extraordinary.

“So, have you already …?” She’s glad that the light from the kitchen window is mostly shining over the part of the garden that is nearest to the house and she and Adam are swathed in shadows.

“No.” He shakes his head and his shoulders rise defensively as he adds, “Not yet.”

“Is there someone you’d like to …?” She can’t finish the sentence. Why does he think it doesn’t matter if he breaks the commandments?

“Why are you here? Is it to do with Issy?”

“No.”

“Don’t do anything stupid while you’re upset.”

Zippy bites the insides of her cheeks and digs her nails into the palm of one hand.

“People reckon when bad stuff happens you get some kind of spiritual experience,” he continues. “Like a sort of consolation prize or something, you know
—‘after the trial cometh the blessings.’
 ”

“It’s not like that. You just feel really upset all the time. It’s actually pretty hard.” Her voice wobbles and ducks under her windpipe and it takes her a moment to catch and reclaim it.

Adam sighs. He puts his arm around her shoulder, pulls her
close, and she leans against him awkwardly, holding her face away from his body.

“Oh, come on.” He slides his hand up to her head and angles her jaw with his fingertips until her cheek meets his chest. She holds her breath for a moment, afraid to swallow in case it sounds like a gulp. She can hear his heart through his T-shirt; she would like to turn her head, press her mouth to his chest, and eat every beat.

“I’m trying to be good,” she continues. “It’s not easy, is it?”

“No.”

“Sometimes I think about things I shouldn’t.”

Adam’s chest dips and she can tell he is amused.

“Everyone does,” he says.

“But I’m trying.”

“I know. You’re a good person. You
believe.”
He leans his head down to meet hers and strokes her crown with the slope of his jaw.

“ ‘We believe all things, we hope all things …’ ”
she cites, warming the fabric of his T-shirt with the puff of her breath.

“Don’t quote the Articles of Faith at me.”

“Sorry.”

“You should go home.”

“OK.”

But she doesn’t move. She wants to memorize this moment so she can retrieve it—hang it up in her imagination and take it out every so often to rewear the imprint of his chest against her cheek, resmell his skin, and relisten to the low thud of his heart. Dad says teenagers don’t feel proper love; he says it’s just infatuation. But he’s wrong. She knows what she feels is love, she can tell because it’s not just a shivery, upside-down, flip-flopping feeling, it’s also fierce and determined, and it won’t change, even after all the silly stuff he’s just said.

“Come on, then.” He lifts his arm away and stands. “Up you get.” He extends his hand and Zippy clasps it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “I’ll find Lauren for you, if you like,” he says.

She nods. He’s still holding her hand and she doesn’t want to say anything in case it makes him let go.

His thumb strokes her ring finger. “Is that a CTR ring?”

“Yes.” She unfastens her hand and hides it behind her back.

“As if you need reminding to Choose The Right.”

He reaches out to touch the flower clip behind her ear. She inches forward and so does he and then he is somehow hugging her. His arms lock behind her and his hands press her to him and she can feel each of his fingers stamping their warmth through the fabric of her borrowed cardigan and dress. She wedges her cheek against the bump of his pectoral muscle and clamps her arms around his waist. His belt buckle digs into her stomach and she clings to him until she feels soft everywhere, until her knees are melting and she wants to spread herself all over him like honey on toast. If she could, she would climb right inside his skin and wrap herself up in him. She closes her eyes and forgets all about finding Lauren and going home.

Z
IPPY LIES ON
the roll-out bed, staring at the ceiling as Lauren describes kissing Jordan Banks.

“He was so good at it I was practically having snogasms.” Zippy isn’t exactly sure what Lauren means, but she makes agreeable noises in the right places. She doesn’t say anything about Adam—what happened between them is private.

She’s glad when Lauren stops talking and falls asleep because it means she can cry in peace. The covers are scratchy, they don’t smell like home, and she isn’t sure why she is crying, whether it’s because Issy is dead and Mum is hiding upstairs like Mrs. Rochester, or because of what happened when Adam stopped hugging her in the garden.

“You’re nice,” he said, and then he bent down and kissed her. Perhaps he had intended only one small peck at the verge of her lips, but she didn’t want one of those Brother Campbell-approved kisses, so she turned her head until their mouths bumped and Adam made a noise like a sigh and kissed her properly. His lips were warm and soft and cautious at first. When he slipped his tongue into her mouth he tasted like bread and himself—remembering it makes her stomach
scrunch and reminds her of something Dad always says to illustrate that obedience is freedom:
“Kites have to be tethered before they can fly.”
While Adam was kissing her she felt grounded for the first time in weeks, as if her gravity had been switched on again and her feet were suddenly heavier than her grief; she felt back within herself, completely alive, grateful for the drum of her heart, the thud of her blood, and, somewhere inside, she was
flying
.

When he pulled his lips away she tried to think of a way to make him carry on. She remembered the blond girl in the kitchen standing with her mouth on his collarbone; her own lips wouldn’t reach that high—she’d get a mouthful of T-shirt if she tried to kiss him there—but it didn’t matter because he wasn’t stopping, he was just bending down to kiss her neck, and she couldn’t stand there doing nothing, so she grabbed one of his hands, lifted it to her mouth and kissed the pads of his thumb and fingers, right on the spots where they touch the piano keys. And when she’d kissed every one, she started again, and again, and carried on until he slid the tip of his index finger into her mouth. She explored it with the end of her tongue and he pushed it farther, demonstrating that he didn’t mind the germs in her mouth, and she began to suspect he hadn’t been thinking properly when he said the horrible stuff about girls. She licked his finger and then she sucked it, which he seemed to like because the harder she sucked, the more fiercely he kissed her neck, which was lovely: a combination of cheek and lips, of rough and soft, grazing her neck, her collarbone, and then, as he slid her cardigan and the strap of Lauren’s dress to one side, her shoulder. She wasn’t sure whether he should be doing that, whether it was breaking the Law of Chastity, but when he nibbled her skin her stomach skipped and she responded by testing his finger with the blades of her teeth.