Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (14 page)

Sacrificial Rides is more expensive than public transport used to be, and it shows in the sleek, clean interior of the bus, the small televisions hanging over every other seat, each of them playing the Church of America News Network. I stifle a gasp as I recognize Pierce Masterson's thin face on a split screen beside one of the newscasters.

“Mr. Masterson, could I get you to just lay it out for me? It's August fourth; we have less than two months left until the Rapture happens—what can we expect from these last weeks of our time on earth?”

“Happily, Scott.” Masterson has a reedy voice, and as he continues to speak, his face takes on a sleepy self-satisfaction. He looks like a cat, I realize. I half expect him to purr. “As we move through August and into September, I expect we'll see the very fabric of human civilization begin to unravel. Democracies will fall and class warfare will erupt—meanwhile, deadly storms will continue to ravage the nation from coast to coast. The Book of Frick talks of a death toll of tens of thousands. Now”—he draws himself up—“some scholars of Frickian theology believe this to be an exaggeration for dramatic effect. But I say that's heresy.”

“Well, you can bet I'll put money on your interpretation. Now take us through the last two days of the world. What will that look like for the people left behind?”

“Well, I imagine the morning of September twenty-third will be quite familiar to all of them—waking to find loved ones gone, ruing their presence on a dying earth. But luckily, they won't have too long to dwell on this self-reflection. Within forty-eight hours, the earth will be destroyed. The exact amount of time it will take for the Lord to destroy the world is unknown, but a careful reading of the Book of Frick reveals we can expect it late in the evening on September twenty-fourth. What we
do
know is that a wretched hellfire will cover the surface of the planet and devour everything that's left. The pain, as I understand it”—he wears a false, pitying smile—“will be absolutely excruciating.”

It takes us forty minutes to reach the Grove, and by the time we do, I'm sick to my stomach from the sound of Masterson's sneering voice in my ears. Harp and I exit the bus into a sunny plaza swarming with people. At its edges, under the dubious shade of the palms on the parched grass, there's a small tent city—signs reading
NEED FOOD AND WATER, PLEASE HELP.
Beyond is the dazzling shopping complex, shimmering in the heat—dozens of expensive stores and well-maintained cobblestone paths. The only evidence of the drought is the elegant stone fountains that sit every couple hundred feet, bone dry.

We make our way through the crowd, keeping space between us at all times. We're not sure where exactly Dylan's event will be, but then Harp points out a pair of Believer mothers in their long skirts and bonnets, shepherding three giggling tweens in matching modest dress. “Bethie,” one of the mothers snaps, “what does Frick say about such unseemly behavior?” One of the girls stops laughing, looking chastened.
“‘The voices of young girls give Satan pleasure and Jesus untold grief,'”
she quotes back. We decide to shadow them.

In the center of the Grove is a white tent with a crowd of young Believers gathered at its mouth, and a banner reading
FRICK BLESS YOU, DYLAN MARX!
to let us know we're in the right place. But we're dressed all wrong—surrounded by this sea of demure femininity, we might as well be wearing mesh tank tops and thigh-high leather boots. Luckily, the crowd seems too focused on the prospect of Dylan to pay much attention to the heathens in their midst—they stand on tiptoe, strain forward, attempting to catch a glimpse. They're very quiet, trying hard not to please Satan. I remember being twelve, killing an afternoon in the mall with my old best friend, Lara Cochran. Outside the food court, we stumbled on a performance by a boy band on the rise. The girls thronging the stage that day were slightly older, totally wild: jumping, shoving, holding up suggestive signs with neon lettering. Above all, they screamed so loud you couldn't hear the band. They were completely undone by desire. I tried to edge closer, fascinated, but Lara hung back, looking revolted. “They're like
animals
,” she said disdainfully—prime Believer material before there even was such a thing.

These silent Believer girls could not be mistaken for animals—they cower under the eyes of their mothers and God. Still, I feel their quiet yearning, all the more powerful for being contained. I'm unsettled by it. I know as well as anyone the strain of being good, and I wish I could convince them it isn't worth it. If I weren't trying so hard to stay anonymous, I'd start screaming and pushing; I'd start a riot.

The meet-and-greet line forms with a hushed excitement. I get in it while Harp makes a loop around the tent. She's gone a few minutes, and every second she's not in my sight is agonizing: I imagine a Peacemaker seizing Harp's skinny arms, dragging her off into parts unknown. I sigh in relief when she reappears, tugging thoughtfully at one of her pigtails.

“Okay,” she says in an undertone. “He's nearly alone up there—there's a woman at the table who seems like an assistant; she sells posters of the
Godly Girl!
cover to the girls, and he signs them. There's also a Peacemaker right behind him—just one, and he doesn't look particularly speedy, so if worse comes to worst, we could probably make a break for it?”

“‘We could probably make a break for it' is a sentence that should never end in a question mark, Harp. But okay. Anything else I should know?”

She shakes her head and then grins. “It's really him, Viv. I got a good look, and it's just—Dylan! He looks so good. He's alive!”

Her excitement is infectious; I grin back at the thought of him at the end of the line, shaking the hair out of his eyes in his casual way, probably desperate for a cigarette. It's like holding a piece of home in my hands, to think of him so near.

Harp appraises the line behind me. She nods. “Okay, I'll go back there. We're too recognizable together. Once Dylan sees you, he'll make a point of talking to you alone.”

“Wait, what?” I shake my head, panicked. “Harp, no! It's too dangerous to split up, and anyway—what if he pretends not to recognize me? How am I supposed to get him away from his handlers?”

“Don't worry!” Harp says as she walks away. “I'll come back when I think of something!”

But she doesn't come back. I think I know why Harp has formed this horrible plan—she's wary of facing Dylan after the way she last spoke to him, when she blamed him for Raj's death and insisted she never wanted to see him again. But I can't help wishing she'd just suck it up. I stand in the slowly dwindling line, fidgeting in my stolen glasses, feeling the sweat pool at the small of my back. I watch as Believer girls collapse onto the pavement, either from heat or from the pressure of repressing their imminent sexual awakenings. As I get closer to Dylan—close enough to see huge posters of his face on either side of the tent, his dimpled grin beckoning me nearer—his fans around me work themselves into as much of a frenzy as their decorum allows. The girls in front of me, their hair tied back into somber braids long enough to sit on, grasp each other's hands, tense and jittery. Behind me, I hear the squeak of a little girl's voice as she recites an endless list of Dylan facts: “His favorite football team is the New Orleans Saints! He likes hiking, sailing, and bowling!
I
like bowling! And he has a sister, and she's the same age as me! And he's
so
handsome!” Her mother whispers, “He's very godly, Trudy, but keep your voice down—you know it's a sin to speak wantonly of the opposite sex.”

Soon there are three groups in front of me, then two. I watch girls run off ahead, clutching signed posters to their chests. Now I can hear the friendly murmur of Dylan's voice as he greets his fans: “Good afternoon! And what's your name?” I try to find Harp behind me. But all too quickly, the girls with the braids in front of me get their posters signed and step away, one trying to suppress a squeal, the other looking pale, leaning against her friend. Right as I step forward, Dylan turns to ask the Peacemaker for a bottle of water, and the man sets off in search of one. Dressed in a crisp button-down and shiny boots, Dylan leans back to flick lazily through an expensive-looking phone. It's so hard not to simply call out his name.

“Forty-five dollars for a small poster, seventy-five for a large,” says Dylan's handler. She's in a modest black skirt suit and her upper lip gleams with sweat.

I slip my hand into my pocket but I already know I have nowhere near that much.

“Uh . . .” I try to pitch my voice higher. “I just wanted to say hi?”

She sighs and glances up with disdain, but seems to look right through me. “Dylan has a very full schedule—if you want to say hi, buy a poster.”

Dylan stays focused on his phone. “Relax, Marnie. It's not gonna kill me to say hello.” He glances up in a jokey, perfunctory way and says it: “Hello.”

I watch his smile hang there a moment as the panic reaches his eyes. Then his face falls. He drops his phone on the table and stands. I feel the muscles in my legs tense—he's about to say my name; I need to run before he gets the chance—but then I see how pointedly he stares away from me. When he speaks, he sounds calm.

“Marnie, I need a bathroom break.”

His handler leans to the side to gauge the line. “Can it wait twenty minutes? We're nearly done.”

“No,” Dylan insists. “I really have to go. Look, it's in my contract that I get at least one fifteen-minute break at every event. I never make a fuss, but
legally
—”

Marnie throws her hands in the air, aggravated. “Fine!”

I step away slowly so as not to attract her attention and head for the public restroom to our left. Behind me, I hear Marnie call out, “Make it quick, though! I'm the one who has to answer to Peter Taggart, you know!”

I don't hear Dylan's response. A moment later, someone shoves me hard from behind, and when I look up, I see him making a beeline for the men's room. I speed up to slip in behind him, hardly thinking about what will happen if anyone else is inside. But the blue-tiled bathroom is empty—Dylan crouches, moving from stall to stall to check, and when he finds no one, he whirls around to face me, eyes blazing.

“What is wrong with you?” he hisses.

“I think etiquette dictates a greeting more to the effect of ‘So happy to see you alive and well in these troubling end times, old friend.'”

“I'm not happy to see you! Seeing you is confirmation that you're actually deranged! The Church of America is looking for you and you respond by accusing them of mass murder; you wait until they call you a terrorist to show up at a
crowded Church event
—”

“I thought it was a sin to read the post.” I stand by the door, hoping Harp has seen me leave the line, that she's followed. If she hasn't, the next time the door opens, I'll have to run like hell. “You're never going to get on the second boat with that kind of browser history, no matter how dashing you look in your boot-cut jeans.”

His face goes pale under the fluorescents, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft and controlled. “I'm glad I could bring you such amusement during these dark days.”

“Dylan—”

“Really, it's a comfort. Frick knows how doomed you are. There's a bull's-eye on your back, Vivian, and if I can bring you some laughs before the Church takes aim, I'll consider it an act of charity. I'm trying hard to give back while I can.”

“We were worried,” I say, feeling uncertain. Were we right to think that Dylan's Believer posturing was entirely an act? “We thought we could help.”

“You have a weirdly optimistic concept of the position you're in. Thank you, but no thank you. I don't need the help of a known heathen.”

“Dylan.” I stare at him hard, but his expression is blank. “Come on. It's me.”

He turns, focusing on his own reflection in a mirror above the sink. He adjusts an artfully tousled curl. “Get out of here, Viv. Okay? Go back to hiding in caves, murdering Peacemakers, whatever it is you do these days. I'll pretend I didn't see you—it's a sin against Frick, but I'll do it, for old times' sake.”

I take a step back, frightened. But at that moment the door bangs open, and to my relief Harp bursts in. Dylan jumps at the sound. When he turns and sees her, his mouth falls open. She moves toward him, determined, and I want to warn her—
it's not safe; he's not our Dylan anymore.
But Harp doesn't even acknowledge my presence in the room. She and Dylan face each other; they wear identical expressions of surprise and sadness and lingering anger. He and Harp are bound together for life: they're the ones who loved Raj; they're the ones who buried him. I lean against the door with all my weight, and wait for someone to break the spell.

“You look,” Harp says after a long moment of excruciating silence, her eyes welling with tears, “so fucking
stupid
on the cover of that magazine.”

Dylan covers his face with his hands. When he takes them away, I see he's laughing and crying. “At least I'm not a slutty Muslim extremist! At least I have that going for me!”

They each take a couple of steps forward, meeting in the space between to throw their arms around each other. After a moment Dylan lifts Harp's small frame up into the air; she squeals.

“This is so weird, you guys,” I tell them.

Dylan pulls away first, wiping his eyes with his forearm. “You have to get out of here. Don't worry about me. I'm okay.”

“How do you know you can trust them?” Harp grips his arm and doesn't let go. “How do you know they won't get rid of you once they don't need you anymore, once you stop making money for them?”