Save Yourself (14 page)

The room felt too hot. As soon as she could, she made her way to the sliding glass door, eased it open, and slipped out into the backyard. The sun was setting and the dwindling light brought the yard’s contrasts into relief: the house on one side, all rough stucco and sharp corners, and across the grass the dense trees, overgrown with ivy. The air was cool and felt like fall. The prickly heat inside Verna dampened.

The glass door slid open and shut behind her. Layla said, “Broke away from the Jesus brigade, did you?”

“Were they always so awful?”

“Good Christians, all.” Layla sniffed. “Hey, do you smell cigarette smoke?”

They traced the smell to the side of the house and saw Toby squatting against the wall on his haunches, cigarette held like a dart between the fingers of his right hand. There were no windows and no landscaping on that side of the house, just a thin swath of grass and the high board fence that separated their house from the one next door. Toby started when he saw them, and then looked guilty.

“B-b-b-b-busted,” Layla said. “Give me a cigarette, T-t-toby.”

“No.”

“I’ll tell my dad you’ve got porn in your car.”

“You think he’d believe you?”

“So I’ll tell Verna to tell him.” Layla held out a hand. “Officially, she doesn’t even know what porn is, though, so if you make me do that, you’ll really go to hell.”

Toby frowned, but tossed her the pack. “You shouldn’t l-let her use you like that,” he said to Verna.

Verna rolled her eyes, feeling very Layla-esque. “Relax, Toby. It’s just a cigarette.”

“Ah,” Layla said, taking a cigarette and returning the pack to Toby, “but that’s how the devil gets you. First cigarettes, then strawberry wine coolers—next thing you know, you’re in the park, giving blow jobs for meth. Right, Toby?”

Toby stood up. “God still loves you, Layla. You can come back to Him whenever you’re ready.” Then he stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his boot, carefully palmed the butt, and walked away.

“You’re mean to him,” Verna said, without much conviction.

“He loves it. It gives him an opportunity to be all superior and holy. Speaking of people who love feeling superior and holy, Amberleigh Costa and Jenna Latshaw seem to think I’ve cast a spell on you. And not with my charisma, either. With, like, candles, and goat’s blood.”

Verna half-laughed despite herself, but said, “Nobody said it was because of a spell when you dyed your hair.”

“I didn’t have the benefit of a scandalous older sister to blame it on. Justinian always says the way we look is an expression of how we feel. If you don’t feel like them, don’t look like them.” Layla flicked her ash. “I can’t tell you how much of a revelation it was, that I could choose not to look like Dad’s virginity poster girl anymore.”

“Is that why you cut your hair?”

“I cut my hair because Calleigh Brinker and her friends set it on fire.” Layla smiled humorlessly. “They said they wanted me to know what burning in hell would feel like.”

Verna stared at her. “You never said.”

“What, so Dad could parade me and my burned hair in front of a bunch of news cameras? Pass.” She paused for a moment. “It was better just to cut it off. Cut that part of my life away. Justinian’s idea, of course. And he was right. He usually is.” There was a note in her voice that Verna couldn’t quite identify, something as small and bitter as her smile during Worship Group. “He was right about you.”

“What do you mean?” Verna asked. Baffled, as always, that he’d thought about her at all. Sometimes she lifted the bracelet he’d given her to her face to smell it and think of him. Which was the sort of thing that she imagined somebody in love doing, but Verna wasn’t in love. Being in love with Justinian would be unfathomable, like being in love with a star—not a famous actor or musician but an actual star, like Polaris. Layla could be in love with him; with her confidence and her cool Layla sometimes seemed nearly celestial herself.

“That you were miserable,” Layla said. “He likes you, you know. Criss, too.”

“Eric doesn’t,” Verna said. Although warmth was filling her like cocoa, utterly unlike the prickly heat that had come over her inside the house.

Layla laughed. “Eric doesn’t like anybody. He and I got it on once
and the whole time he was telling me what a bitch I was. And not in a fun, dirty-talking way, either. He meant it.”

Layla’s calm demeanor didn’t match the words leaving her mouth. “That sounds kind of scary,” Verna said, carefully.

“No, it was profound. Hate can be just as intimate as love. You know, Eric’s family is a disaster. His mom’s been in prison for assault since he was ten.”

“I didn’t know.”

“How would you? He never talks about it and nobody ever bothers to ask. People just see the shaved head and the boots and figure he’s an asshole, so that’s how they treat him.” She took a drag of her cigarette. “Not that he’s not an asshole, ninety percent of the time.”

“If you think he’s—then why did you—”

“I’m sorry. I seem to have lost my ability to speak Repressed Virgin,” Layla said. “Are you trying to ask me why I fucked him if I thought he was an asshole?”

Her cheeks hot, Verna nodded.

“I did it for the same reason that I made out with Criss.” Layla saw Verna’s face and laughed. “Didn’t know about that, did you? True story. Say ‘fuck’ and I’ll tell you why. Come on, Verna. Make an independent decision.”

Verna could guess why Layla had done those things. Because their parents wouldn’t want her to. “I’m making an independent decision not to say it.”

Layla grinned. “Fair enough.” Then she looked down at the tip of her cigarette, and the grin faded, as if she saw something in the red-orange fire and didn’t entirely like it. After a moment, she said, “You know, Vee, if you want to dye your hair back, we can.”

Verna imagined the clothes in her closet, as neat and orderly as parishioners on a pew: flowered dresses, cheerful sweaters, pretty pleated skirts and crisp cotton blouses. Like candy sprinkles on a strawberry sundae, sweet-colored and sunny. If she let Layla dye her
hair back, tomorrow morning she could be the old Verna from a week ago. Ignore the stark black and purple exclamation point hanging in the center of the clothing rod, put on some nice flats instead of her boots—smile at Mother, because her family was not a violent mess and her mother was not in prison, and then go to school—

No. “I like my hair. Amberleigh and Jenna can jump in a lake. Everybody thinks I just do things because you tell me to. Why? Why do they think I’m this simple little thing with no brain?”

Layla blew a column of smoke into the cool evening air and said, “Because you let them.”

“Okay,” Jared said on Thursday. “I’ve been trying to figure out all week if you dyed your hair to look like the Sorceress on purpose, but that bracelet you’re wearing—you did, didn’t you?”

Verna smiled. “Christians can’t read comic books?”

“Yeah, but the
Sorceress
.” It was rare to see Jared looking as animated as he did now. He even pushed his hair out of his eyes so that he could see her better. “I mean, that’s some serious stuff. She’s gang-raped by soldiers in the first five pages, and then she kills herself and goes to hell and— Wait, have you read the whole thing?”

“I liked it. Although it just sort of stopped after they left the winemaker’s.”

“That’s just the first volume. I’d loan you the second but it’s the only one I’m missing.”

“That’s okay. I’ll get it eventually.”

Jared bent over his drawing for a moment. Then, without looking up, he said, “If you wanted, I could borrow my mom’s car tomorrow, and we could go to the mall after school and get it, maybe.”

Jared was Layla’s age. He could drive. “Really?”

“We could even go tomorrow night, if that’s easier.” She couldn’t see his face. “Maybe see a movie. No big deal.”

“Why would it be?” she said, and then she understood. He was
asking her out. One hand flew involuntarily to her mouth. It was the hand wearing Justinian’s bracelet, the smell of which was still strong in her nose. “I—I don’t know.”

“That’s cool.” Jared sounded casual but his tone rang false.

“No,” she said, helplessly. She had never even considered dating, her father didn’t approve of it. “That’s not what I meant. I meant—” She took a deep breath. “I meant, I think so.”

He stole a glance at her, from behind his hair. “You mean, you think you want to go?”

Make an independent decision
. “Yes.”

“Cool,” he said again, but this time he sounded happier, not false at all. “Cool.”

“Who, the guy with the hair?” Layla said that night, when Verna told her about the date. Then she shrugged, sketched a cross in the air with her thumb, and said, “Whatever, my child. Go forth and fornicate. Our parents are going to hit the roof, though.”

They were in Layla’s room, Layla at her desk in front of her open calculus book and Verna sitting on the floor. Layla had gone to Justinian’s house after school and Verna was almost starting to wonder if the two of them had argued, because Layla had been in a foul mood ever since. Her expression was cross, her color off; after she’d come home she’d gone straight to her room, changed out of the Black Sabbath shirt she’d worn again that day, and put on an old sweatshirt, the kind of thing she never even took out of her closet anymore.

Verna shifted uncomfortably. “We’re just going to buy comic books.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a girl and he’s a boy.” Her voice dropped, became as earnest as their father’s. “ ‘Oh, no, dear. You might hold hands and get pregnant and catch AIDS and go to hell. Wait ten or twenty years like a good girl and we’ll find you a nice Christian boy who won’t ever, ever give you an orgasm.’ ” Her voice went back to
normal and she said, “And then Mother will call you a slut and Dad will say, ‘Michelle, please,’ and they’ll both spend the rest of the night searching your room for condoms and automatic weapons.”

Layla had the details wrong but the essence absolutely correct. There was no way they would let her go. On some level, Verna had known that, but she’d been trying not to think about it. Deflated, she said, “Mother hasn’t ever called you a slut.”

“You’re right. She hasn’t. In that one way, she’s a fabulous fucking parent.” Layla glared down at her notebook. “You know, I would care a lot more about solving for
x
if there was actual ecstasy involved. Do you like him?”

Verna nodded.

“Do you think he’s cute?”

Cute? After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded again.

“Does he seem like the kind of guy who’s going to beat you to death and rape your corpse?”

Verna gave her sister an exasperated look. “Come on, Layla.”

Something almost like a smile touched Layla’s bitten lips. “Well, then, go. You have to live your life on your terms, not theirs. Otherwise, you’re going to end up married at twenty to some dipshit like Toby and spend the rest of your life as a choir-singing, pew-scrubbing brood sow. So go to the movies. Have fun. Deal with them later.”

Verna stared down at her booted ankles. Layla’s carpet needed to be vacuumed. “What did you and Justinian do on your first date?”

“We didn’t have one. I went over to his house and then we just—were.”

Verna hesitated, and then blushed. If there was anybody she could ask about this—and she wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with options—it was Layla. “When did you know you were going to—um—”

“Fuck?” Layla half-laughed. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Vee. Sex isn’t nearly the big deal that Dad makes it out to be. Sex is a guy sticking his penis in you. Big deal. I stick a Q-tip in my ear every morning. The package says, oh, god, whatever you do, for the love of
all things good and holy do not insert in ear canal, and yet for seventeen years I’ve somehow managed to avoid puncturing my eardrum. Sex is just sex. It’s everything wrapped around it that’s the problem.”

“I’m serious. When did you know?”

Shrugging, Layla said, “I don’t know. There just came a point when not doing it would have seemed like—splitting hairs. Like being a coke addict who won’t use meth because it’s bad for you.” Layla was quiet for a moment. “We were obviously going down that road. I mean, I took off my clothes for him on the second day I knew him.”

Verna, shocked, said, “Why?”

“Because I wanted him to know everything about me. No secrets. No hiding.” Layla was looking down at her calculus homework, but Verna didn’t think she was seeing it. She didn’t look good. It was more than her poor color: the hairs at her temples were damp with sweat, and the hand holding her pencil was shaking. “Sometimes I feel like he’s with me all the time, even when he’s not. Like we could be a million miles apart, and he’d still be with me, inside.”

“Layla,” Verna said, “are you okay?”

The glance Layla gave Verna held something startled and furtive, but she nodded and smiled. “Ignore me, Vee. I’m just feeling morbid. Go to the movies with Wolf-boy. Have a good time. I’ve never actually been on a real date, you know. You’ll have to tell me what it’s like.”

To have someone with you all the time. To never be lonely. “I’d rather have what you have than go on a date.”

“Make him buy you popcorn,” Layla said. “The guy is supposed to buy you popcorn.”

In Bio, they scraped the insides of their cheeks with toothpicks, dyed the cells with methylene blue, and examined them under microscopes. The experiment gave the boys behind her lots of free time.
“Come on, Venereal,” Kyle said, looking particularly handsome in his maroon and white letter jacket. A year ago, had Verna been shown photographs of Jared, Justinian, and Kyle, and asked who she would most like as a friend, she would have chosen Kyle. “Just show us. Just one little look and we’ll leave you alone.”

They wanted to know if she’d dyed her pubic hair. It had been going on all week and by now, she didn’t even want to cry. She just wanted them to shut up so she could concentrate on her slide, and finish her lab, and get to Art. That day, sitting on the loading dock, Justinian had reached out and lifted her cross pendant with one finger. “Look at you,” he said. “Spending all your time with us heretics, and you still believe.” He dropped the cross, which felt warm from his touch, but maybe she was imagining it. “You’re tough, Verna. You’re titanium.”