All the Major Constellations (9 page)

HE TOOK BECKY OUT for a long walk, avoiding the woods. She stuck close to his side. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that Marcia had ended their phone call because she'd been pissed at him, not because something new had happened to Sara. Perhaps she didn't want to hear about him trying to pursue some girl while she, Marcia, tended to their sick friend. But maybe it wasn't all about Laura. He didn't like to admit it, even to himself, but last night, and in the woods with Laura, he'd felt
something.
It had been cathartic to cry about Sara with all those people around, offering him their support, looking at him with affection and sympathy in their eyes. No one had talked to him about Jesus or pushed anything like that. It had been weird, for sure, but not
that
weird. They were nice.

The house was empty when he got back. The three of them
had gone out somewhere, probably to buy Brian a big greasy breakfast to work off his hangover. There was a note on the kitchen counter that read
Someone named Matt called. He said to meet them at the church if you can. He's there already
. The note was in his mother's handwriting.

Andrew felt funny about going to their church. It was a Saturday, however, so he didn't think he'd have to endure a service and a bunch of prying adults. He called Laura's house, but no one answered. Not even a machine picked up. He wondered why Matt, not Laura, was calling him. Was Laura trying to maneuver away from him? He grabbed his car keys and left.

• • •

Laura's church wasn't a white-steepled New England beauty like on all the picture postcards of Vermont. It looked like a small office building. It was plain, square, and beige, with ample parking. You wouldn't even know it was a church if it weren't for the small cross and the
ALL ANSWERS HERE!
placard. There were a few men doing lawn work. As soon as Andrew got out of his car, one of them waved to him and said, “They're out back.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Andrew said. Apparently he was expected. As he walked around the building, he heard singing. Choir practice? Andrew thought he had made it pretty clear the night before that he wasn't going to sing. When he got to the back of the building, he saw John carrying boxes of produce.

“Hey,” Andrew said.

“Hey, man!” John said. “I'm glad you came.”

“Me too.”

John peered at him. “Are you okay?”

“Tripped in the woods. I'm fine,” Andrew said. “Can I help you with those?”

“I've got it. Come on down.” John gestured with his head toward a door that was propped open. Andrew followed him inside. Now he could hear the music more clearly. It was reggae. He and John were in a small dark hallway. Off to one side was a set of stairs from which the reggae, and the smell of food, was emerging.

Andrew looked at John questioningly.

“Soup kitchen,” John said.

“Cool,” Andrew said.

At the bottom of the stairs was a brightly lit industrial-looking kitchen. There were two stoves, two refrigerators, and one enormous sink. The walls were lined with hanging pots and pans, some of which were huge and battered with age. Large metal prep tables were everywhere. A paint-spattered boom box blasted Bob Marley. The kitchen was filled with teenagers, some of whom he recognized from the night before. It was a little chaotic, but everyone seemed to move with purpose and intent. It was like a colony of worker ants, Andrew thought. And where was their queen? He looked around for Laura. A quick scan confirmed that she wasn't there.

“Got the veggies,” John said, heaving the boxes onto a prep
table. The table shuddered under the sudden weight.

“You need a reimburse?” asked Carrie.

“Nope. Just bad enough to be free,” John said.

This was followed by a few cheers and a chorus of groans.

“Free is free,” Matt said. He noticed Andrew and motioned him over.

“Can someone say fruit flies?” said another girl. Andrew chuckled.

“I'll get the vinegar,” John said.

Matt was chopping onions at one of the tables. Andrew saw that he had a wide berth. The pile of onions was pretty impressive. So was the gigantic knife that Matt wielded.

“Please tell me you can stand onions,” Matt said.

“I can,” Andrew said. For whatever mysterious reason, Andrew's eyes did not tear up around onions.

“Yes!” Matt said. He pumped his knife in the air. “I'm not alone anymore.”

“Take it easy there,” Andrew said.

Andrew washed his hands and selected a knife, much more reasonably sized than the one Matt had. People smiled and said hello to him, danced around to the reggae, threw flour at one another. It was dorky, but the overall vibe was nice.

“What happened to your face?” Matt asked quietly once Andrew joined him at the table.

“Just some bullshit. Nothing. I mean, I tripped in the woods,” he said.

“Okay. If you ever want to talk . . .”

“About tripping?” Andrew said, but he was touched by the sympathy in Matt's voice. He also noticed that Matt was chopping his onions very haphazardly.

“Here, let me show you something,” Andrew said. “Chop the onion in half first. Now hold it like this. Put your knife right up against your fingers, almost against your nails. As you slice, just keep sliding your fingers back. Let the knife do the work. Make sense?”

“I won't cut myself?”

“You won't cut yourself. Slice with the knife, slide your fingers back, slice with the knife, slide your fingers back. It's all one motion.”

Matt did as he was instructed. “Seems slower,” he said.

“At first,” Andrew said. “Once you get it, you'll go really fast. See? Watch.” Andrew demonstrated his onion-cutting technique. Perfect half-moons shredded out beneath his hands.

“Damn,” Matt said. “Check this out.”

Andrew suppressed a pleased grin when a group of people gathered around to watch him.

“How professional,” someone whispered in his ear. It was Carrie. He turned to say something to her. But just then John asked for her help on the other side of the room.

“You want
me
to help you carry that stuff?” she said as she walked away. Andrew privately agreed with her. Carrie was tiny—why would John want her to help haul heavy boxes? But
maybe John had a thing for her. Andrew wanted to figure out the social dynamics of the group. He continued cutting the onions as the rest of the crowd dispersed, intent on completing their own tasks.

“Where did you learn that?” Matt asked.

“I worked as a dishwasher at the co-op. The chef there was amazing. Like, this French-trained dude. His assistant was this local kid who was always high. He was nice enough, just stoned out of his gourd. One day Chef was really behind, so he taught me how to cut onions.”

“Did the stoner do the dishes?”

“Please.”

“Did you turn him in?”

“What? To my boss or something?”

“Or the police,” Matt said solemnly.

“No, man, no,” Andrew said with a chuckle.

“You're at Avella now, right?” Matt said.

“How did you know?”

“Someone must have told me,” Matt said vaguely.

Someone,
Andrew thought. Had they been talking about him? Discussing him during secret meetings? He heard raucous laughter, and when he looked up, he saw John carrying a sack of potatoes in one arm and Carrie in the other.

“Cute,” Andrew said, motioning his knife toward Carrie. Matt seemed perturbed.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “John's always messing around.”

“I mean Carrie. She's cute.”

“Oh, I know what you meant, sorry. You're right.”

Matt seemed uncomfortable. Maybe talking about cute girls in the basement of his church was against their doctrine, or Matt's personal code of ethics. But Andrew didn't want to drop it. He wanted to steer the conversation toward Laura.

“Speaking of which, where's Laura?”

Matt dropped his knife and instinctively reached to catch it. Andrew grabbed his wrist just in time. The knife clattered to the floor. A few people looked up.

“You guys all right?” John asked, appearing suddenly beside Andrew.

“I'm fine,” said Andrew.

“Me too,” Matt said. He walked away. “I just need to get some air. Back in a sec.”

Andrew watched Matt as he slipped between the prep tables and headed up the stairs. So Matt was touchy about Laura. There must be something there.

“I can help you finish,” John said. He picked up Matt's knife and brought it to the sink. He came back a few moments later, and the two of them put their heads down and chopped, no small talk. Like Andrew, John knew how to work, and Andrew respected that. When they had finished chopping the onions, they piled them into a huge bowl and brought them over to the stove.

“Are we making soup?” Andrew asked.

“Some kind of stew. I never know. I just carry stuff and chop stuff,” John said.

Andrew noticed that John's eyes were watery and red. Even his face looked a bit puffy. “Shit, John, you should've let me finish the onions.”

“I'm okay,” John said.

Two youngish-looking girls and a guy came to take the onions over to the stove. They thanked Andrew, and one of the girls, who couldn't have been more than thirteen, said, “God bless you,” to Andrew.

“Thanks,” Andrew said.

“You want a tour?” John asked.

“I can keep chopping stuff,” Andrew said.

“That part's over. We're not much use here now. I can show you the chapel,” he said.

“I think I'd rather not. Or maybe later.” The God Bless You Girl had freaked Andrew out. She was so young, so very sure of herself, so content. It was eerie. “Where's Laura?”

“Hmm, let's see. She wasn't here? Probably with Chip,” John said.

“Who?” Andrew said, but someone asked John for help and he was already walking away. John, Matt, Seth, now Chip . . . who were all these guys in Laura's life? Andrew wiped down the table and threw away the onion skins. After that, he wasn't sure what to do with himself. Matt still hadn't surfaced, and the only people left were the pious-looking tweens at the stove.
Everyone else had cleaned up and gone off on some other duties.

“Now where did all those little ants go?” he muttered to himself.

“Little what?” said a voice behind him.

Andrew turned, embarrassed. The speaker was a girl about his age or older. She was very thin, rather pointy-looking, and she had short brown hair and small dark eyes. She was frowning at Andrew. She was dressed in jean shorts and a tank top.

“Sorry, just talking to myself,” Andrew said.

The girl stepped forward. Her face was very close to his, and the somewhat accusing expression in her eyes did not change. “So, you're the new guy,” she said.

“Um . . .” Andrew began.

“Nice shorts,” Matt said. He walked toward them. Andrew was glad to see him again.

“Shut up,” said the girl, but she grinned.

“This is Karen,” Matt said.

Andrew extended his hand. Karen looked at it for a moment before taking it. She very faintly snorted as she shook his hand. Her grip was firm.

“I'm Andrew,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“Be nice,” said Matt.

“Whatever. I'll be downstairs,” she said.

“Karen's moody,” Matt said, once Karen had walked away.

“Did I do something to offend her?” Andrew asked.

“I'm sure you didn't. Let's get the banquet hall ready.”

Andrew followed Matt toward the stairs. He wondered where Karen was going, as there was apparently a level even farther down than this one. Was Laura down there too?

MATT BROUGHT ANDREW TO a bright room that had been made up as a kind of makeshift cafeteria. A few kids were setting up tables and chairs. Andrew didn't recognize anyone. It was as though the church had an inexhaustible army of teenagers to do their bidding. These kids seemed more serious, more subdued than the reggae-dancing bunch downstairs. The mood of solemnity affected him, too. He and Matt grabbed some collapsible tables that were stacked against the wall and set them up around the room. The tables were heavy. Andrew was in better shape now that he'd been working at Avella, but Matt struggled. They worked hard.

“When do people come for the food?” Andrew asked.

“Five o'clock,” Matt said, out of breath.

“It's really nice that you guys do this.”

“Thanks. It's cool that you're here,” Matt said.

“Will we serve the food?”

“If you want,” Matt said.

When they were finished, they carried dishes up from the kitchen. Andrew felt good. He'd never done any volunteer work before. He crouched underneath one of the tables so he could plug in a hot plate for the soup. When he crawled back out, someone had extended their hand to help him up. He took the hand and came face-to-face with one of the solemn teenagers. He was pale with very dark slicked-down hair and light blue eyes. “Have you accepted Jesus?” the guy asked.

“Not yet,” Andrew said. He'd planned an answer to this question in advance.

“He's waiting for you.”

“All right,” Andrew said. He tried to pull his hand away, but the guy clasped it tightly. A girl came over and put her arm around Andrew's shoulders. Her hair was pulled into a fierce ponytail, and her expression was comically grumpy. The two of them closed their eyes and murmured. Andrew was spooked, but he didn't want to shake them off, either.

“Come on, you two, back to work,” Matt said.

“We're almost finished,” said the guy.

“Finished what?” Andrew said, and this time he did pull his hand away.

The guy didn't answer. The girl kept murmuring, her arm firmly around Andrew's shoulders.

“Kylie, Jeb, I'm serious,” Matt said. He walked over to them
and pried the girl's hand off Andrew's shoulders. The two of them dispersed, the guy mumbling something about Matt being “too cool.”

“Well, that was weird,” Andrew said.

“Sorry about that.”

“Maybe I should go. I seem to be causing a stir.”

“What are you talking about?” Matt said.

Andrew thought about Karen's catty attitude and comment about him being “the new guy.” He was beginning to like Matt, and John, too, for that matter, but this was going further than he'd intended. He took his keys out his pocket and glanced at his watch. “I really need to get going anyway,” he said.

“Want to see Laura?” Matt said.

“What?”

“She's picking flowers for the tables. She's out back.”

Andrew
did
want to see Laura. His pleasant feelings about helping out were mitigated by the suspicion that he was being manipulated, but damn it, he wanted to see Laura.

“I'll bring you over there,” Matt said.

This is getting weirder and weirder,
Andrew thought. He felt like Laura was being dangled in front of him like a carrot or a longed-for present.
For Christ's sake,
he thought,
she's not a prize heifer; she's a person
. And this final thought at least brought some resolve.

“Yes, I'd like to see her,” he said. “Just tell me where she is and I'll go myself.”

“Go out the door you came in, and walk straight. It goes
right into a field.” Matt spoke with casual nonchalance, as if it were all no big deal. Andrew thanked him and left the banquet hall. When he walked out the door, again he saw John, who was loading boxes into the back of a pickup truck. John waved, but Andrew regarded him warily.

He walked into the field, feeling as though he were being watched. He shrugged off the feeling. Probably just paranoia. Now he thought perhaps he had overreacted. They weren't the Children of the Corn; they were just really religious, right? The grass in the field grew thicker and longer. He stumbled, and something clattered and cracked under his feet.

“Shit,” he said. He leaned down to examine what he'd broken. It was a Mason jar.

“Hi there,” Laura said.

Andrew looked up. Her hair was down, her dress was white, and her arms were full of flowers.

“Hi,” he croaked.

“What are you doing?”

He stood up and noticed that her feet were bare. “Don't move,” he said.

Laura, who had been advancing toward him, now froze. “A snake? Don't tell me it's a snake. I'll totally scream.”

“It's not a snake—”

“Ohmygod, it's a snake.” She dropped the flowers. “And I just took the Lord's name in vain.” She pressed her hands to her mouth. She seemed on the verge of screaming. “And what happened to you?”

“Laura, chill out. First of all, there is no snake. Second, I tripped in the woods last night. And thirdly, I just stepped on a jar. In fact”—he looked around—“why are there Mason jars everywhere?”

“I put the flowers in them.”

“Where are your shoes?”

“Over there, I think.” Laura pointed.

“Okay. Just stay there. I'll go get them.”

“Thanks,” Laura said. She bent down to pick up the flowers.

Andrew waded out into the field, searching for her shoes. He realized after a few minutes that he wasn't going to find them. “Did you leave them by a rock or a tree or anything?”

“Um, no, I just kicked them off.”

He poked around some more, scanning the ground. He was reminded of when he'd first fallen in love with Laura. It had been their sophomore year. He'd been studying geometry in the library. He had finally worked out a difficult problem and had been taking a break by leaning back in his chair and stretching. He'd glanced around and seen her. She'd been leaning up against the stacks in the classics section. Like a lot of guys, he'd thought Laura was very pretty. But he had never been obsessed with her or anything.

He wasn't able to tell what she'd been reading, but she'd been absorbed. She'd worn sandals and shorts. Then it had happened. Without looking up from her book she'd slipped the sandal off her right foot and used her toes to scratch her left ankle. She'd put her sandal back on, turned the page, and sighed. It'd been
as if a thousand stars had burst in his brain and descended into his body. He'd suddenly felt hyperalert and hyperaware. All his senses had sharpened, and the room and Laura had come into startling focus. The smell of pencil eraser and lead, the glare of the fluorescent lights, and
Laura, Laura, Laura
. Just standing there, just reading with a little smile on her face, just breathing and being alive.

He had never been the same. It had been as though he'd dove into a dream, or awoke from one, and the new reality, the Laura reality, was the only life he'd ever known. And it didn't matter if he was eating or playing with Becky or fighting with his parents or horsing around with Sara and Marcia—another part of him was constantly preoccupied with Laura. Now he was always half present; he couldn't stop thinking about her if he tried. And he had tried—he had. It was impossible, it was depressing, it was all-consuming misery. It was that kind of love.

“I can't find them,” he said.

“Shoot,” Laura said. “We'd better get back.”

“Why did you take your shoes off?”

“Oh, I don't know. I like the feel of the grass between my toes. I like—” She giggled. “I like picking flowers in my bare feet.” She had gathered all her flowers into a single bouquet. The sun shone brightly behind her, creating a hazy halo around her amber hair.

“And exercising before you pray,” said Andrew as he reached her.

“That too,” she said. “Can you help me over the glass?” She placed one arm around his neck, and he picked her up easily. His heart felt like a caged animal in his chest.

“Can we make it back?” she asked.

“No problem,” Andrew said. He walked slowly back to the church parking lot.

“Did you have fun in the kitchen?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Don't try to convince me or anything,” she said with a laugh.

“Sorry,” he said. He wondered if he should put her down, as they were way past the broken glass. But she didn't seem to mind being carried, and he certainly didn't mind carrying her.

“Do you need convincing?” she asked.

“About what?” he said.

She wrapped her other arm around his neck and balanced the bouquet on her stomach and chest. To his mortification, Andrew sneezed. He sneezed and sneezed again.

“Oh no—allergies?” she asked, trying to angle the flowers away from his face.

“I'm fine,” Andrew said, who was commanding superhuman strength to prevent himself from sneezing again. “Why Mason jars?” he asked.

“You can only preserve food in them once, just to be safe. Then after you eat the food, you have all these jars,” she said.

“Ah,” Andrew said. “Ah, ah, ah,
choo
!” He turned his head away at the last moment. He felt two thin streams of mucus
running out his nose and down his face.
Unfuckingbelievable,
he thought. Laura lowered her face, either from disgust or compassion or both. They'd reached the edge of the parking lot. John ran up to them.

“What's going on?” he said, his voice sounding the least friendly that Andrew had ever heard. With a quick motion Laura twisted her body and leaped out of his arms. Andrew gave way to a fit of sneezing. Through a haze of snot, breathlessness, and bone-chilling embarrassment, Andrew heard Laura explaining to John about her shoes.

“Here, here,” John said. He took off his shirt and handed it to him.

“Dude, I'm not going to take—” And he sneezed again, twice, then three times.

John shoved his shirt in Andrew's face. It was rank with man sweat. Andrew wiped his nose and face. A few people in the parking lot, including Karen and Carrie, were watching. He heard someone laughing.

“Listen,” John said, standing close to him and almost whispering. “I know today was weird. And now this. Just go home and take some allergy medicine. It's all good, okay? I really think you should go home right now.”

John rubbed his neck briefly and hard before he and his impossibly chiseled torso and his stupid long hair and his arm around Laura's waist disappeared into the church.