The Girl Who Slept with God: A Novel (36 page)

Jory turned the drink coaster around and around in her hand. She was sitting at a yellow Formica table that folded out from one of the trailer’s walls. Grip was sitting next to her in a pair of brown work pants and no shirt. She tried desperately not to look at his bare chest. Or at the snake tattoo that curled around his upper arm.

“Would she go to that pastor of yours? What’s his name?”

“Pastor Ron?” Jory shook her head. “No. Besides, if she did, he’d just call my dad.”

Grip yawned once more. He seemed surprisingly unperturbed about Grace’s disappearance. “I could drive around and ask some people,” he said. “But that’s probably what your dad has already done.”

Jory put the coaster down on the table. “But he might have missed some places.”

“Yeah. Okay,” said Grip. “All right.” He stood up. “How’d you get out here?”

“A boy from school,” said Jory.

Grip gave her a look. “A boy, hm?”

“It’s not like that,” said Jory. “Can I come with you? Please?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Grip picked a flannel shirt off the
back of a metal-legged chair. He put his arms through the sleeves, buttoned the shirt, and opened a tiny closet next to the trailer’s kitchen.

As Jory stood up from the table, she tried to peer as unobtrusively as possible at the rest of the trailer’s contents. This was where Grip lived. Where he slept and ate. On a calendar hanging next to the door a girl with white teeth smiled invitingly and held up a bottle of 7Up. Several dirty plates and glasses were piled in the kitchen’s small metal sink. Across from where she was standing was an uncomfortable-looking brown couch and a pole lamp with three cone-shaped lights that jutted out at various heights and angles. The door to his bedroom—what must surely be his bedroom—was closed.

Grip zipped up an old wool jacket. He grabbed his keys off a hook next to the door. “Well, come on,” he said. “We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.”

“And the
something something
is thick and deep,” said Jory.

“Some poet you are.” Grip bumped Jory’s elbow with his own.

Jory smiled, but her lips felt thin and stretched, her face muscles atrophied. Seeing the inside of Grip’s trailer had jostled something loose inside her, revealing just how nebulous her notions about him actually were. What had she thought—that the moment he left her house, he disappeared? He had a whole other life, or lives maybe, in places and with objects and people that she hadn’t even considered. She dug her hand in the pocket of her corduroys and felt Jude’s quarter still hidden there, smooth and small and warm.

Grip knocked politely on the driver’s side window of the Malibu where it was steamed up. With a startled motion Nick pulled his head away from Rhea’s. He rolled down the window and rain swept in on his jacket, leaving small darkened spots.

“Sorry,” said Grip, “to interrupt. Just wanted to tell you that Jory’s coming with me, so you don’t need to take her back to school.”

“Oh, yeah—sure. Okay.” Nick stared at Jory as if he had never seen her before.

“Hey, hi, Jory,” said Rhea. Her hair was messy and she was rearranging the neckline of her shirt. She had an odd expression on her face, as if she were both angry and sad.

“Well, see you later,” Nick said, and rolled the window back up.

Grip and Jory loped toward the ice cream truck in the rain. “Yeah,” said Jory. “Those are my friends from school.”

“Go Skullcats,” said Grip, climbing up into the driver’s seat. He leaned out the passenger side and pulled Jory up into the truck. “Oh, man,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Not exactly ice cream weather.”

Jory hugged her arms close to her chest. “Grace doesn’t even have a coat on,” she said, and slowly she began to cry.

“Ah,” said Grip. “Don’t do that—don’t do that.” He patted her leg and then started the truck engine. He rubbed his hand over his face. “Grace is a very smart girl,” he said.

“You said that before, I think,” said Jory, wiping her eyes with her coat sleeve. “Or maybe it was my dad.”

“Well, she is,” said Grip. “She’s the smartest girl I know.” He peered backward and backed the truck out of the trailer court. “Present company excepted.”

“Thanks,” said Jory. “I guess.”

The rain came down in uneven sheets. Grip turned on the wipers and they slapped ineffectually back and forth, making a strange squeaking sound on each return trip.

Grip turned on the heater and then the radio. Sam Cooke decided he’d been loving her too long to stop now.

“How come some men have such beautiful voices?” said Jory. “My voice sounds like a squawking crow.” She pulled the hood on her jacket back and tried to straighten her hair with her hands.

“I love crows,” said Grip. “Have you ever seen those bottles of Old Crow whiskey where the crow is smoking a cigar?” He shook his head. “Crows look just like that, like old men who are getting together for a card game . . . and half of them are going to cheat.”

Jory tried to smile. “I like the way they talk to each other. And the way they have to hop before they can take off.”

“Yeah,” said Grip. “They’re too heavy to just start flying, so they have to get a running start.” He leaned forward and peered out the rain-splattered windshield. “I’m thinking about a crow tattoo.” He turned to
Jory. “What do you think—a big old crow right on my chest?” He mock flexed his arm. “Very manly, right? Right?” He grinned.

“When did you get the snake one?” Jory tried not to sound shy.

“Oh. Yeah, well, I was living in Texas a while back, in Austin, and a friend and me went to this tattoo parlor on the corner of Twenty-third and Guadalupe, where an old Indian woman said that snakes were good medicine. That this tattoo would bring me luck.” He grinned. “I must have been drunk.”

“Did it?” Jory looked out at the rain coming down. “Bring you luck?”

Grip adjusted the rearview mirror. “I don’t believe in luck.”

“Not at all?”

“Nah.” Grip wiped his sleeve across the windshield. “People do what they’re going to do and then things happen.”

“So you don’t believe in God, either?”

Grip inspected Jory’s face. “Does it matter what I think?”

“Yes,” she said, and peered down at her feet. She moved her wet moccasins against the truck’s floor mat.

Grip sighed. “Okay,” he said. “So why would God, if there is a god, need us to believe in him? What point would that serve?”

“Because it would prove that we were willing to trust in something we couldn’t see or touch or anything.”

“And why does that matter? Is it some kind of a test that God’s giving? Like, hey, here’s this really outrageous idea, and if you believe it—even though there’s absolutely no proof of any kind—then you get to go to heaven? What kind of weird setup is that?”

Jory watched the rain dripping down the side window and blurring the trees and houses.

“And if God, if there were a god—let’s just say there
was
a god—why did he, if he knew everything about everything, why did he not know that Adam and Eve were going to eat the apple? And why did he set it up so that they
would
? And if he was so great and all-powerful and everything, why did he have to fix his mistakes by making himself human and getting himself killed? None of it makes any sense—not from a logical standpoint or even a theological one.” Grip shook his head. “I mean, it’s a kind of neat
story in a sick, messed-up, tortured sort of way, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

Jory drew a star in the condensation on the window. “My dad says that humans need a god, and that we’re lost without one. That we wouldn’t know how to live if we weren’t afraid of getting punished in the end.”

“Your dad says that?”

“Yeah, sometimes he’s very practical, but he also thinks that we should live like Christ did. That Christ was the greatest living example of how to behave.”

“Well, okay,” said Grip. “And that would be great if that’s what people did, but no one lives like that, so it really doesn’t matter.”

“Some people try to.” Jory erased the star with her hand. The window was now smudgy and impossible to see out of. “Sometimes.”

Grip turned the wipers on high and leaned toward the windshield. “
Shit
, it’s raining too hard to see anything out there. I don’t think it’s even safe to drive. I can’t see the other cars anymore.” He slowed down and tried to steer them toward the side of the road. “Hang on,” he said. “We may end up in the ditch.” They bumped and lurched to a stop, and Grip turned on the truck’s flashers. “We’ll just sit here for a minute until it clears up some.” He tried to peer up out of the windshield at the sky. “I don’t ever think I’ve seen it like this here. In Texas, it rained so hard the rainwater ran uphill.” He turned around and reached back into the truck’s refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of beer. He opened the top and handed it to Jory, and then got another one out for himself. He took a long drink and then leaned forward and fiddled with the radio dial.

“Wait,” said Jory, grabbing his hand. “I like that song.” Jory tried to hum the tune for a second and then stopped. “What is that?” she said.

“Duke Ellington,” said Grip. “‘Prelude to a Kiss.’”

“It sounds like one of the old victrola songs, but there aren’t any words.”

“There are words. Sarah Vaughan does it best.”

“What are they? The words, I mean.”

“Be quiet a minute and I’ll tell you.” He cleared his throat and began singing.

Jory grinned and took another sip of her beer. Since she’d already been drunk, she guessed it didn’t matter much that she was drinking now.

Grip’s scratchy baritone filled the truck’s cab for a moment or two longer and then died away.

Jory clapped her hands and smiled hugely. “You have a really nice voice. How do you know all that stuff? All that old stuff?”

Grip took a drink of his beer. “Because I’m all old and stuff.”

“No, you’re not,” said Jory. She took another hesitant sip of her beer. “My teachers at school are all way older than you.”

“Thank God for that,” said Grip. He clinked his beer bottle against Jory’s. “Maybe you should hook me up with one of those ancient crones.”

“There’s Ms. Lindbloom, my English teacher—she’s actually really pretty. You’d probably like her.” Jory drank some more of her beer. It was tasting a little less bad.

“Nah, I never go for the pretty ones. They’re too much trouble. I like the ones that nobody else likes. The ones with lots of zits and ugly legs.” He drained the last of his beer.

“Well, thanks a lot,” said Jory, making a face.

“What?” said Grip, leaning back in his seat. “You thought I liked you or something?” He rolled his eyes. “Definitely not my type.”

“What? Why not?” said Jory, kicking at him with her wet moccasin.

“Hey,” he said, swiping at his leg. “These are my best pants now, so don’t go getting them all messed up.”

Jory reached over and brushed at the imaginary dirt on his pant leg. “Do you really think I’m too ugly?” she said, looking serious.

Grip grabbed her forearm. His face was suddenly next to hers. “Yes,” he said, tightening his hand around her wrist. He smiled at her and yet he looked angry. “You are one of the very ugliest girls.”

Jory could smell the bitter tang of beer on his breath. She breathed it in and leaned toward him and all of a sudden she could see his eyes quickly searching hers for something. His mouth was cooler than she had expected. His lips were softer and his chin scratched hers horribly. Her head was filled with a thrilling sort of buzzing. He was running his tongue over the front and back of her teeth. She breathed in the whole smell of
his mouth and his face and then his neck. “Jory,” he was saying into her hair, and then he had her by the arms and he pushed her back into her seat. “Hey,” he said, and she could see his chest moving in and out, fast.

“Hey what?” she said, trying to read his face. Her body was still singing with new knowledge.

He turned around and put his hands on the steering wheel. “Hey,” he said again.

“I’m not a baby,” she said.

“I know that,” he said. He ran his hand over his face. “I think it’s clearing up,” he said, and he reached up and wiped wildly with the palm of his hand at the inside of the windshield. “I think it’s mostly stopped.” He leaned forward and turned on the truck’s ignition. It coughed and sputtered and refused to start. “Shouldn’t have left the radio on,” he said. He turned the key again and the truck’s engine groaned once or twice and then finally caught. “Okay,” he said, and pulled the truck back roughly onto the roadway.

They rode along in silence for a block or two. Jory tried to look out through the windshield. The rain was still coming down as hard as ever. The wipers could barely keep up. It was like being inside a gigantic car wash that never stopped. “Maybe we should pull over somewhere,” said Jory.

“No,”
said Grip. “We can make it. It has to slow down in a minute or two.” He rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Dammit,” he said. He tried to wipe off the side mirror with his coat sleeve. It was no better than before. He cranked the window back up. The rainwater ran off his head and down his coat; he shook his head like a dog. “This is insane,” he said, and tried to turn the wipers on high. The wipers whipped back and forth with greater urgency, and then suddenly the wiper blade nearest Jory snapped off and flew away into the wind. “Goddammit!” Grip pounded his fist against the steering wheel. The lone wiper squeaked back and forth. The world in front of Jory was a watery blur.