Lake Overturn (38 page)

The boys shrugged and nodded.

“Follow me.”

The bishop wore the same jumpsuit Abby did, but huge. He looked like a star-shaped Mylar birthday balloon, partly deflated, as he crinklingly led Abby up the staircase. The boy was just climbing up the stairs out of the font. His bottom eyelids were red and there was spit on his chin. “Elder Lowell,” the bishop said to the white-haired man in the pool, “would you like to get some lunch?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

The man climbed the stairs out of the pool, and the bishop, then Abby, slowly descended into the water, allowing the air to be squeezed from the jumpsuits and out of the collars. Abby felt a deep shiver behind her sternum, despite the warmth of the water.

“It’s just like when you were baptized at home,” the bishop said. “When you’re ready, plug your nose. I’ll bear your weight as I submerge you. I won’t let you fall. Are you cold?”

“No,” said Abby through chattering teeth.

The bishop gave her a worried nod. He turned to a tile podium built into the side of the pool. There was a matching one on the opposite side.
They can do two baptisms at once
, Abby thought;
an assembly line
. A stack of papers that had been individually slipped into plastic sleeves lay on the podium. The white-haired man, who had not yet followed the boy down from the catwalk, knelt and pointed to a name on a long list. “Start there, Joe.”

Even Abby, so unfamiliar with the ways of the Temple, knew that the man had slipped up by using the bishop’s first name. Joe. A small name for such a big man. Your average Joe.

The bishop, Joe, put his hand to Abby’s shoulder. She plugged her nose. “Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you for and on behalf of Hannah Shuck, who is dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” The bishop’s large hand covered Abby’s and took her down into the water. Even though she was expecting it, she still gasped a little, and inhaled water. She came up coughing.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Shut your mouth this time. Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you for and on behalf of Hans Shuck, who is dead . . .”

The bishop baptized Abby for one after another member of the family Shuck, strangers whose names might have been lost to the great vacuum of the past if a Mormon volunteer hadn’t looked them up in the records of some hospital, coroner’s office, or church.

Bridget Shuck.

Rudolph Shuck.

Abby was glad for the water streaming down her face when she came up, and the fact that she could sputter and gasp, because that way the bishop—Joe, her mother’s gentle murderer—couldn’t see her cry.

Chapter 20

E
nrique was no longer a lone wolf, he was a spy plane flying above the town. This sensation that arose from riding his bike. On Christmas day, when Enrique had raced across town to retrieve Jay from the Van Bekes’, he had been impressed by how quickly he had gotten there. Now, as the weather warmed and the soil softened and began to give off a loamy aroma, Enrique realized he could zip to and from school on his bike and avoid having to walk past Gene, who still sat alone at the front of the bus. The bicycle afforded him new views of his hometown, ones that could only be caught by someone at a certain altitude, who was moving at a certain speed. When in a car, he was too confined and moved too fast; when he was on foot, he was too exposed, worried too much for his safety. But on his bike he could swoop in, check things out, and still be home in time for dinner. And it was exhilarating, freeing, to fly about town using his own strength and balance—his own wings, if you will.

He especially loved to cruise the back alleys downtown. Most of these were tidy lanes populated by delivery trucks and employees on smoke break milling among the aluminum trash barrels. There was one exception. The stretch of alleyway behind the Greyhound station was by far the most colorful in Eula. The area was always littered with bottles and was very rarely deserted. Enrique was guaranteed a glimpse of life, whether it be sleeping, drinking, playing, or fighting. Hobos sat on milk crates and played dominos on a makeshift table; once a woman in a leather jacket with tassels hanging from the sleeves like bat wings screamed at a man who cowered against the blue cement wall, demanding he give her the money he owed her. It was a one-block stretch of a big, faraway city in the heart of Eula.

A few times a day a bus would come through, and people on their way from Seattle to Salt Lake City would spend five minutes in Eula. They were bowlegged cowboys in their tight Wranglers, women in tube tops with jagged teeth and big hair, and black people. They got off the bus, blinking, dazzled by bright bits of cottonwood fluff that hung in the air, stretched, and walked stiffly into the bathroom, whose graffiti-covered metal doors opened directly onto the parking lot. Or they went into the station, used the pay phone, and bought a Twinkie from the vending machine. Some of them stayed sleeping on the bus, their hair forming flattened blossoms against the windows, like pressed flowers. They were people who were going somewhere but didn’t own a car. Enrique had never known an adult who didn’t own a car—even those who didn’t have a house to live in—and he had never met a black person.

There was a different type of person at the bus station, too, men who weren’t getting on or off a bus. Enrique knew, because he saw them again and again. (An old man in sunglasses and a white
Miami Vice
blazer was there nearly every day.) These men would sit in the station pretending to wait for a bus, or browse the businesses along the street. But again and again, they’d return to the bathroom off the parking lot. Enrique sat on the curb under a tree late into the afternoon, daring himself to go in and see what they were up to.

“D
ISAPPOINTED?” THE NOTE
said.

No, Liz wasn’t disappointed. She couldn’t care less. She had put the entire affair behind her, figuring only a junior high prankster would have sent her to the Rollerdrome to find a Baggie full of water and a soggy note.
YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE I LIKE
. It had creeped her out, and this new one was nearly as creepy. In a few months she would graduate and never again have to deal with any of these stupid boys, or these stunted, depressed teachers, or these ammonia-smelling halls, or that bleak landscape visible through these grated, prison-like windows.

But an unsolved mystery was an unsolved mystery, and with little else to stimulate her, as her schoolwork was easy and Abby had been in Salt Lake City since February, Liz couldn’t help taking it up again and looking it over. How would any junior high boy know that she had applied to Stanford? Of course, now it had gotten around, but back in November, when her secret admirer had placed the note in the Stanford section of the college catalog, only Liz’s and Abby’s families had known. Had Winston told one of his friends? Liz had given Eddy Nissen plenty of opportunities to confess and had at last, shortly after the Rollerdrome incident, teasingly prodded him, “Come on, Eddy, tell me who you like.” Eddy blushed and looked away, causing her heart to race—it
was
Eddy! She could tease him now! What a thrill, to keep him at arm’s distance! But then his blue eyes swam shyly back up to meet hers, and he said, “Trisha Morton. But don’t tell anyone, Liz. Her parents don’t know.” Liz swallowed, and her throat had made an embarrassing click. So Eddy was secretly seeing Trisha. It made sense. Trisha’s father was a Methodist pastor who would never let her date Eddy, a Mormon.

Liz turned haughtily from the memory. Which other of Winston’s friends could it be? Did she care? How she longed to ask Abby that question face-to-face, not during their hour-long phone conversations, and receive the disdainful answer:
Of course you don’t care, Liz. Some Eula boy? Please
.

So, with indignation, Liz decided that she must solve the mystery once and for all. She couldn’t let some stupid Eula boy waste any more of her time. She had to root him out and turn him down in the hall at school in front of his friends.

This note—“Disappointed?”—did not lead her to any sort of mailbox; there was no key sending her to a locker or card directing her to a library book. Even so, it didn’t take long for Liz to figure out another way to answer.

The
Eula High Gazette
, of which Liz was assistant editor, featured a classifieds section on its back page. Here, for a dollar donation, students could post anything they liked, as long as it was free of profanity and under twenty words. “Ten-speed for sale. $20. Call 467-4531.” “Binky loves Carlos, 4-EVA.” The paper was distributed in homeroom every Friday, but—and this was what made it perfect—only to high school students. A junior high boy could get a hold of a copy easily enough, Liz supposed, but he would have no reason to, as the paper covered only high school events and sports. It was a good, if not foolproof, way to shake a junior high pursuer.

So she placed a notice, centered neatly in a box, among notes of encouragement to the baseball team and birthday greetings, to appear in that Friday’s
Gazette
:

Disappointed?

How could I be when I don’t know who you are?

Be a man. Declare yourself.

The response came that afternoon, in the form of another typewritten note dropped into Liz’s locker.

DECLARE MYSELF?

I thought I had. But I’m glad I didn’t.

When I thought you were disappointed, I couldn’t sleep.

When I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t dream of you.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!

Liz couldn’t suppress the thrill. Someone had lost sleep over her.

T
HAT FIRST INSEMINATION
didn’t take; after a week, Wanda did the stick test and a tiny pink minus-sign appeared. Good thing she had kept up the ovulation chart in the meantime.

Despite this disappointment, Wanda enjoyed leading a quiet life, her days beginning and ending under her little clowns.

The advance the Weston-Sloanes had given her had dwindled, despite the babysitting jobs she had. She needed another, and she found it advertised on the bulletin board at the grocery store. Wednesday and Sunday nights she began to babysit the five Jarrett children while their parents attended church meetings. They lived a ten-minute walk from Wanda’s in a big ranch house where all the surfaces were sticky. In the backyard stood a trampoline covered in pine needles next to a sandbox in which several dolls were partially interred. The younger children seemed unimpressed with Wanda—only obeying her the third time she said something—while the oldest girl, an eighth-grader named Lucy, stayed in her room. “She’s pretty grown up,” Mrs. Jarrett told Wanda the first night. “Best to leave her alone.” Lucy’s wavy red hair, cut in a bob, formed two curtains through which a narrow triangle of her freckled face was visible. Wanda caught glimpses of her walking swiftly through the side rooms of the house on bare feet, a notebook covered with drawings braced under her arm, her chubby legs jiggling under a long skirt.

After Wanda put the younger ones to bed on her third time babysitting, Lucy came to the living room and curled up into the far corner of the sofa. They watched TV in silence until Lucy said, without turning toward Wanda, “The last babysitter got eight dollars an hour.” Her sneer appeared to be unintended; she had to clear her lips from her braces in order to speak.

Wanda, who only got five dollars an hour, nodded.

Lucy opened her notebook and began to draw. “She threatened to quit, and they offered it, just like that. I was there.”

“Thanks,” Wanda said.

“You’re welcome,” Lucy replied.

I
N THE WEEK
she had to wait before she could post a response in the
Gazette
, Liz decided that simple demands wouldn’t work with this boy. He obviously enjoyed their cat-and-mouse correspondence too much. Perhaps he clung to it out of fear he would never touch her. She would have to play his game and gently draw him out.

To my sleepless friend:

I’ll be in Chandler tonight. Will you?

This was a tactical move. Maybe it wasn’t as subtle as he had been, but it was the best she could do. There was a boxing match in Chandler that night and, as much as she despised the sport, she would go watch Winston compete. Any of Winston’s friends who were on the boxing team would be in Chandler, as would, coincidentally, many of the brains, since there was a debate competition that night at Chandler High. The baseball players, on the other hand, would be stuck at a home game in Eula. Anyone who fell in-between these teams could certainly drive the fifteen miles to meet her in Chandler, so long as he had a car. In short, Liz could learn much from the response.

The note arrived in her locker between fifth and sixth periods that afternoon. Perhaps not having had time to make it to the typewriter, he had hand-written this note in small, straight letters:

I won’t.

The population of boys had been effectively reduced by half, so long as her secret admirer was telling the truth. And she sensed he was. There were rules to this game.

These same rules required that Liz go to the boxing match, as she said she would. So, that night at the Chandler Field House she spread her things onto a few folding chairs to keep anyone from sitting beside her and glanced up from her work only occasionally to gauge which Eula boys were here and, hence, out of the running. After several matches, Winston jogged over in shorts and padded mask with towel hanging from around his neck. “I’m up next. Afraid you picked a bad night, though. It’s like spic city here.”

“What did you say?”

“It’s all beaners. I don’t know how we’re supposed to compete against dropouts with nothing to do but train all day every day. And half of them have full beards by the time they’re twelve. Just don’t expect me to score a knockout tonight.”

Liz studied Winston’s face. Blows had blunted its delicate angles, and the training had drawn its dimples into creases. Meanwhile, his shoulders had become as round and hard as veined stones. “When did you start talking about Hispanics that way?”

“I dunno, sis. Maybe around the time you became a boring, self-righteous bitch.” He squinted a smug smile at her, then inserted his mouth guard and headed for the ring.

She gathered her things, hoping her brother would see her leave before his match.

A new possibility occurred to Liz over the following days. Cordy Phillips, the student body president, and one of the only boys she would actually consider dating, was a member of the baseball team. He wouldn’t have been able to go to Chandler on Friday. It began to come together. Cordy would have had every reason to keep a crush secret. He had been dating Sarah Fagan—a friend of Liz’s—since junior high. There was talk that the two would marry that summer before Cordy left on his mission. This might be his desperate last lunge at the girl he had always secretly loved, before settling for Sarah, who, despite having thick, honey-colored hair and being bright and well-spoken, tended, in class, to hunch her shoulders and twiddle her fingers like an old woman knitting a scarf. It all fit. Before putting his future at risk, Cordy wanted to slowly test the waters, see if Liz was open to his advances. It was sweet.

Liz planned her next posting carefully.

To my sleepless friend:

Why not meet me for Lunch at Church on Monday?

There would be a meeting of the student body council during lunch that Monday. Cordy would have to tell her, again, that he couldn’t meet her and, wittingly or not, declare himself. The friendly, offhanded tone was meant to put Cordy at ease. They were friends, after all. She would never ridicule him or tell Sarah. She might even give him a little consoling hug in some private recess, which would turn into a clinging, groping make-out session before she pushed him off.
What are we
doing,
Cordy? I can’t do this to Sarah. I’m sorry.
Liz would tell only Abby, and they would share a sigh of pity for poor Sarah. Cordy would tell no one, but treasure the memory forever. He would call it up when he made love to Sarah, when they conceived their children.

No answer came that Friday, but this wasn’t a surprise. Cordy realized he was cornered and was taking the weekend to consider how much he was willing to risk. But when there was no answer Monday morning, Liz began to wonder if he would now drop out of their little game and return to the script of his life that his parents and Sarah had written. It took a lot to turn your back on everyone, to have a Big Plan.

Or might she go to Lunch at Church that afternoon and find him there, sitting alone, his eyes fluttering up to her, then back down, his face glowing with shame and desire and surprise at having found himself willing to skip the student council meeting—and the rest of his life—to be with her?