Save Yourself (7 page)

“You probably think I’m a jerk for saying that,” he said. “I just knew this one girl at my old school and she was all, hey, let’s hang out, but then it turned out she only wanted me to go to church with her. They got some prize for bringing new people.”

Verna sighed. “Well, are you a jerk?”

He stared at her for a moment. Then, softly, he said, “No.”

“Good,” Verna said. “I’m tired of jerks.”

Friday morning, Layla came to breakfast wearing a tight T-shirt with
god is dead
printed across the chest and nobody mentioned it. Before they ate, Dad read from the book of James:
Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance
.

Layla, of course, laughed. “That’s nice. Am I facing the trial, or am I the trial?”

“Each of us faces trials, and each of us is somebody else’s trial. So I guess you could say a little of both.” Dad smiled wanly and then looked at Verna. “Do I see wheels turning up there, Verna?”

Verna was trying to think of somebody whose trial she might be. “Math pretest.”

“You heard the verse,” Layla said, poking at her cereal. “Be joyful.”

“And bring a calculator. Calculators on math tests! Now that’s something you can be joyful about.” Mother smiled at Layla in her
god is dead
shirt just as if they all shared a joke together. It was always like this for a day or two after a big fight, with both parents trying hard to act relaxed and forgiving. The sweat practically stood out on their brows. Consider it nothing but joy.

In the car, Layla screwed her face into a simper and her voice into a falsetto mockery of their mother’s. “ ‘Let’s all thank the Heavenly Father for blessing us with calculators! Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!’ ” Her voice dropped back down to normal. “You know who gave us calculators? Texas fucking Instruments, that’s who.”

“I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

Layla thumbed the steering wheel, changing the music until she found a suitably aggressive song. “Yeah? And are you going to remember to feel grateful today when Kyle Dobrowski calls you Venereal Elshere? Are you going to consider it nothing but joy?”

Verna flinched. “How do you know about that?”

“Justinian told me.”

“How did he know?”

“He knew because, unlike most people, he actually pays attention to the world around him.” Layla sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, they screwed both of us in the name department. My sophomore year was one long, endlessly repeating chorus of ‘Layla, I had you on your knees.’ ”

It did make Verna feel better, weirdly. “Which one is Kyle Dobrowski?”

“Pretty eyes. No soul.” Layla snorted. “Mother and Dad are idiots. Satan doesn’t look like Justinian. Satan looks like
him
.”

Verna clung to that all through Biology, while Kyle and his minion, whose name was Brad Anastero, asked her in harsh whispers how many genital warts she had and Calleigh snickered. They were getting bolder. Mr. Guarda talked obliviously about cell structure,
mitochondria, alleles; either he couldn’t see what was happening in the second row or he felt no obligation to intervene, despite Verna’s magenta cheeks and damp eyes. She tried to pay attention anyway, but it was hard. Because why should she care about his world if he didn’t care about hers.

After Bio came Art, and Art was jumping into a lake on a hot summer day, the first pain-free step after shaking the rock out of your shoe. When the bell rang, Jared was telling her about religious themes in
The X-Files
, so they walked out together, and then Verna made her way to the parking lot alone.

Where Justinian sat on the hood of Layla’s car with his arms draped over her shoulders, his fingers laced loosely together in front of her throat. Layla leaned between his legs, one languid finger tracing the faint blue veins on the back of his hand. “Verna Faith Elshere,” she said, with a lift of one carefully plucked eyebrow. “Was that a boy I saw you talking to, you slut?”

Verna’s cheeks grew warm. “He’s just a friend.” Trust Layla, she thought bitterly, to take the one decent thing in her day and turn it into something horrible. Even if she was joking.

Justinian jumped down from the hood of the car like a lanky, trench-coated cat. “I know that guy. He draws wolves.” If Jared’s voice had held a note of contempt, Justinian’s played the entire symphony.

This time, instead of dropping Justinian downtown, Layla drove home. The driveway was empty; their parents were gone. Layla put the car in park and turned around to look at Verna. “All right. Should Pastor Jeff or the Whore of Babylon inquire, I am studying at a friend’s house. I will not be home for dinner, because I was invited to eat with my new friend’s family. Should they inquire further, this friend’s name is—oh, let’s say Brittany.”

Verna glared at her. “I’m not going to lie for you. Tell them yourself.”

“I could tell them water was wet and they’d assume I was lying.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t lie so much, then.”

“Maybe you should lie more.”

“Well, I’m not going to start now. You can just forget it.”

“Such a sweet little lambkins,” Layla said. “Such an obedient little zombie.”

Justinian glanced at Verna in the rearview mirror, but said nothing. She wanted to wither up and blow away like a dead leaf. “I am not.”

“Prove it,” Layla said.

“Fine.” Verna grabbed her books and climbed out of the car.

By the time her parents came home, she’d changed her mind a hundred times but, in the end, she lied. Not because Layla wanted her to, but because she couldn’t listen to another huge screaming fight. Not tonight. She even invented a blue sweater for the imaginary Brittany to wear, thinking of the cardigan Calleigh had worn that day. Every syllable she spoke seemed to shine with untruth, but her parents accepted it.

After dinner, she wiped the table while her parents talked in the kitchen. As she listened, the arcs her rag made grew smaller and smaller and Verna grew smaller and smaller, too; because she had discovered, long ago, that if she was
very
small, people often forgot she was there. This was how she’d learned that the original manufacturer of the Price Above Rubies rings had employed eight-year-olds in his factories, and that when Toby slept on their couch for a month it was because the director of his sober living facility had found a fifth of vodka under his bed, and that there was a GPS transmitter hidden in Layla’s new car.

“A friend named Brittany, huh?” Mother said now.

“Who wears blue sweaters. Maybe we’re coming to the end of this thing, praise God.”

Mother, sounding dubious, said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Verna heard a cabinet door open and close. She often prayed for the strength to stop eavesdropping, but God never gave it to her. Maybe
because the things she learned left her less baffled by the mysteries around her. How could a ruby ring cost less than four dollars wholesale? Why did Toby, who was in his twenties and an official grown-up, always have to be home by ten o’clock? Why did Mother and Dad buy Layla a car when she’d been nothing but trouble for months?

“Verna doesn’t lie,” Dad said. “She doesn’t have it in her.”

“If Layla pushed her, though—”

Mother still sounded doubtful, but when Dad said, “Verna is a good girl,” his voice was confident and sure.

Verna’s hands gripped the rag and wrung it until it wept. Verna was a good girl. Layla was bad, Layla was fallen, but even Layla could almost be redeemed if sweet innocent Verna vouched for her. The child of God, the harmless sheep. The obedient little zombie.

Anger rose up in her, hot but good. We are not those people, she thought. The distinctions were too clear and tidy and people weren’t like that, people weren’t clear and tidy.
She
wasn’t clear and tidy.

Answering calls from home was part of the contract. Verna called Layla from the cordless phone in her parents’ room. When the older girl picked up, Verna could hear faint music in the background, a long, sibilant inhale. Layla was smoking. “What,” she said, sounding bored.

“If they ask you about Brittany’s sweater,” Verna said, “tell them it’s blue.”

Later, Layla said, “The sweater was a nice touch. Added verisimilitude.”

The two girls sat on Verna’s bed, Verna propped up against the headboard—she’d been reading when her sister came in—and Layla sitting at the foot. Verna was wearing her pajamas, a tie-dyed shirt from church camp and flannel pants with kittens on them. Layla was dressed to go out. Verna could smell the patchouli oil her sister used, the leather of her jacket and boots.

Verna didn’t look away from her book. “I don’t know why I helped you at all, after the things you called me today.”

Layla looked surprised. “What did I call you? Sheep? Oh. Slut.” She nodded. “Yes. That was bitchy. I apologize.” Verna still didn’t look at her, and Layla touched her blanket-covered foot. “Seriously, Vee. I’m sorry. You did good tonight.”

“Well.”

“Well what?”

“Grammar,” Verna said. “I did well.”

Layla smiled. Her real smile, not the Justinian one. “You’re priceless. I bust out a fifty-center like
verisimilitude
and you’re jumping on me about
good
versus
well
?” She patted Verna’s foot again. “Get up. Change your clothes.”

Verna stared at her. “Why?”

“Because Justinian wants me to bring you to the fire circle, and you can’t wear flannel pants with kittens on them.”

So Verna traded her pajamas for a long black dress of Layla’s, and—even though she was so nervous she was shaking—managed to hold still while Layla ringed her eyes with black kohl and covered her lips with waxy, wine-colored lipstick. “It feels weird,” said Verna, working her sticky new lips and blinking her stinging new eyes, and Layla said, “That’s just Satan taking over your soul.”

Down the hallway, close to the walls to avoid the creaking floorboards, and through the silent kitchen they crept. Then out the sliding door and across the lawn toward a car idling at the curb, old and boxy but as silver as moonlight. The passenger door opened and the blue-haired girl stepped out. “You brought her,” she said, not sounding annoyed or even disappointed. She took Verna’s shoulder and hustled her into the back, where Verna found herself pressed against a boy with a shaved head that she’d never seen before. He laughed, slapping his knee, and Verna heard something clink. The blue-haired girl squeezed in on Verna’s other side.

“Hello, Verna,” Justinian said from the front seat, where he’d just finished kissing Layla.

“Verna, Criss, Eric,” Layla said, pointing in turn. “Let’s go.”

The blue-haired girl—Criss—giggled. “Aw, Layla, you gothed her up.” When she spoke the stud in her lip glinted.

Eric laughed again. The sound was grating and slightly manic. “Still wearing her Jesus Saves chastity belt, I hope.”

Verna huddled deeper inside her cocoon of borrowed black. Layla glanced over her shoulder and said, “Eric, be nice to my sister or I’ll stomp you.”

“Take a fucking joke,” Eric said, and Layla said, “You’re a fucking joke.”

“Children,” Justinian said. His tone was dry, ironic, but the car went silent.

He drove fast. The music was loud, and at night, all the roads looked the same. Perched on the raised middle of the seat, Verna felt off-balance and precarious. She could see Layla’s boots propped up on the dashboard, wrists crossed lightly on top of her knees, the red coal of her cigarette an orange firefly hovering around her hands. The smoke made Verna dizzy. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt and she couldn’t stop imagining herself flying through the windshield as it shattered around her.

When the car stopped, before the headlights cut off, Verna saw trees: thin trees, broad trees, trees in layers, trees upon trees upon trees. They were parked on a single-lane dirt road. Outside, in the blissfully fresh air, Verna saw no lights and no houses, heard no highway sounds or barking dogs. Criss had a flashlight and was already disappearing into the woods. Justinian took something from the trunk of the car and handed it to Eric, and then he and Layla, arms twined together so they looked like one creature, melted into the shadows. “Come on, Vee,” Layla called over her shoulder.

Verna hesitated, then followed. Twigs and branches caught at
her and her feet couldn’t seem to find the flat spots. She prayed she wouldn’t fall, not in front of everybody. Although technically she was behind everybody. From somewhere in the darkness, Layla called, “Verna, hurry up!”

“I’m trying.” Frustrated, she pulled at a grasping frond. “It’s dark.”

She heard Justinian say, “She doesn’t have any light?” The sound carried clearly in the silence. A moment later, Verna saw a white beam gliding through the woods toward her, a black shape behind it.

“Sorry. I thought you had a flashlight.” If there’d been contempt in his voice that afternoon, there was none now. His face seemed to float.

“I’m okay. Just clumsy,” Verna said. He reached out a shimmering hand to help her. She couldn’t imagine taking it. But then her toe caught a root and she found herself not just holding his hand but clutching it, almost desperately. His fingers were warm.

He steadied her. “I doubt that.”

“You haven’t known me long.” She sounded bitter even to herself.

“How long you’ve known someone isn’t important,” he said. “Sometimes you can see somebody every day for years and not know them at all. Other people, it seems like you’re born knowing. Come on. Eric has the fire going.”

Indeed, a warm light flickered through the trees and the air was full of the fumy tang of lighter fluid. Justinian led Verna to a small clearing, where Layla was draping a blanket over a fallen log. On the other side of the fire, Eric was doing the same thing; Criss was bent over, struggling with some object she held between her knees.

“Sorry, Vee,” Layla said. “I thought Eric gave you a flashlight.”

“Eric didn’t have a flashlight to give,” Eric said, settling down on his blanket. “Eric is not made of flashlights.”