Wake (71 page)

Comforting.

Willa and I don’t go to mass. We stop at a diner in Perth for breakfast and grab a booth. Willa orders waffles and I nurse a tall glass of milk. I think the waitress imagines she’s being subtle, the way she doesn’t look at me while delivering the food, yet stares at me from behind the counter. I watch Willa drown her waffles in syrup, totally unfazed by Shirley the waitress’s curious gaze.

“Do you mind being stared at when you’re with me?”

“No.” She licks syrup off her thumb. “Better you get stared at than me.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She gives me the strawberry garnish on her plate as a peace offering and digs into her soggy waffles. “Does it bother you to be stared at?”

“Duh.” I wouldn’t have brought it up if I were okay with being gawked at.

Willa looks over at the waitress, who promptly averts her eyes and busies herself wiping mugs. Every few seconds I can see her peering at me under her lashes.

“Watch and learn.” Willa raises her hand and waves the waitress over. Shirley grabs a pitcher of orange juice and makes her way to our booth, thinking Willa wants a refil .

“More?” she offers.

“No, thank you. I just had a question about the diner.”

“Yes?”

“Does it improve your tips to stare at the customers like sideshow freaks?”

Shirley turns red in the face and mumbles, “I’m sorry.” She scurries away, through the kitchen door and out of sight. We don’t see her for the rest of the meal, and Willa pays the bil for her waffles with exact change.

*

The church hall seems even plainer than last time we were here. Willa and I walk in hand in hand, and once again she scoots her chair closer to mine. The porn addict sits down on her other side and offers her a smile.

“I don’t like RedTube much either,” he whispers before Arthur calls the meeting to order. Arthur opens the session with the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant us the Serenity to accept things we cannot change,

Courage to change the things we can, and the

Wisdom to know the difference

Patience for the things that take time

Appreciation for all that we have, and

Tolerance for those with different struggles

Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways, the

Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other and the

Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.

That’s Eric’s favorite prayer. Don’t ask me how I know this. Arthur makes a point of welcoming Willa and I back to group, since we missed last week’s session.

“Tell us about your week,” he says. He doesn’t address either Willa or I specifically, since we end up speaking for each other anyway.

“She’s being indecisive.”

“He hates the way he looks.”

“It’s only temporary,” another girl chimes in. “Hair grows back.” She speaks to me with a gentle expression in her eyes, but it’s still Willa who replies.

“But he’ll never look the same as he did before he got sick,” she says. “He’s a walking contradiction.

He hates the fact that he’s invisible, but he hates when people notice him because the looks remind him that he’s not well.”

My hand barely moves—just the slightest twitch of the pinkie—but she sees it and understands. Willa gives me her hand to hold.

“Appearance is a big part of who we are,” Arthur says. “But it’s not all of who we are. The beauty of the human spirit shows in the things we do, not the way we look.” I expect him to bust out a quote from scripture, but he spares us. He speaks to the group as a whole. “Each of us here has personal struggles with self-esteem, don’t we?” He makes my problem sound like the worries of a tweenage girl.

Willa leans over to whisper in my ear, “You’re beautiful.” Her obvious secretiveness makes Arthur turn his attention from me to her. He asks Willa if she has a difficult decision looming.

“Not so difficult,” I say. Or at least that’s what I think.

“Would you like to share it with the group? Get an outside perspective?” he says directly to Willa. She doesn’t even look at him. She just shakes her head and says she’s praying on it.

“Are you really?” I say.

Willa looks at me sideways. She’s got the shades drawn over her eyes, showing no emotion. “Yes.”

“Talking to God helps,” Arthur encourages her. “He has a way of helping us through difficult decisions.”

“I don’t talk to God,” Willa says. “I talk to the dead.”

“You lost your sister, yes?”

“Among others. There was a friend…” She shrugs. “I don’t know when he died, but he didn’t have long to live when I last saw him.” She never told me about that. Arthur encourages her to pray directly to God, or at least to a saint, and then moves on to another group member. I wonder if I should be worried that Willa is talking to Thomasina in her head. For one, it’s a little crazy. For another, she’s said a few times that Thomasina wouldn’t have liked me. These imaginary conversations do not bode well for me.

I don’t say much for the rest of the group session. AA Boy is only six days porn-free this time. Willa claps inappropriately. Next to me, the kid with bul ying issues bursts into tears during his turn, which is uncomfortable as all hell to watch. Arthur hands a box of tissues to Pothead and tells him to pass it down the circle to my neighbor. I hold out my hand to take the box, but it stops with Willa. She holds it up and raises an eyebrow at Arthur. “Really? This is the best you can offer?”

She gets out of her seat and gives the perpetual victim a hug. If there’s one thing Willa understands, it’s ostracism. The kid looks so relieved to receive a shred of commiseration that I can’t stand to look at him and have to turn away.

Two of the other girls get up and join the hug. I don’t know that it’s helping, because his sniffling turns into full -blown sobs; or maybe that’s what catharsis sounds like.

“Now, now, don’t crowd him,” Arthur says. “Give Michael some room to speak.”

Willa is a little busy, so I answer for her. “Arthur, shut the fuck up.”

*

After group Willa walks Michael to his car. He’s not such a bad guy, it turns out. I leave them in the parking lot to use the bathroom before the long drive home, and when I come back out Willa is nowhere to be found. Her car is still here, so at least I know she didn’t leave without me.

I try the parish hall , but the doors are already locked. I check the church, but the pews seem to be empty and so is the side chapel. I knock on the door to the ladies washroom, but there’s no answer and when I open the door a crack I can see that the lights are off. I try calling her cell but she doesn’t answer.

“Fine, be difficult.”

I find Willa down in the cemetery, sitting on the flower in the center of the labyrinth. She’s fascinated with that thing. Her legs are crossed and her elbows rest on her knees, holding up her chin. She’s a mil ion miles away. I cross the stones to crouch down in front of her.

“Hey.”

“You cheated,” she says of my stroll across the labyrinth.

“Are you okay?”

“I didn’t want to let him drive away,” she admits. “People like him end up on the six o’clock news for killing themselves.”

“He won’t,” I try to reassure her. “He’s going to be fine. He had a good day in group.”

“And he’ll have a shit Monday at school.”

“You can’t worry about everyone, you know. You’ll stretch yourself too thin.”

Willa doesn’t say anything. I take her hands from under her chin and pull her up. I lead, she follows, out of the labyrinth, properly—together.

*

I thumb the children’s missal as I sit in the empty pew, waiting for Willa. She’s giving confession a try. It wasn’t her idea, which might screw up the whole spirit-of-contrition thing, but I think it could be good for her to unload to an anonymous stranger.

In the back of the missal I find a list of the Ten Commandments. No wonder Willa has been in the confessional so long. Thou shal not kill . Broken. Honor thy mother and thy father. Broken. Thou shal not commit adultery. Grey area, but only because she isn’t technically married. Thou shal not steal. Way broken. Thou shal not bear false witness. Broken. As far as I know she’s an atheist, so there goes ‘Thou shal not worship any other God but Me.’ Likewise for thou shal keep the Sabbath day holy and thou shal not take the Lord’s name in vain. Eight out of ten Commandments broken. This could take awhile. I wonder if she covets shit...

“Jem.” I look up to find Arthur standing at the end of the pew, arms laden with hymnals left at the back of the church. “Waiting for confession?” he asks. He’s being extremely polite, considering I told him to shut the fuck up not a full hour ago. I guess he’s turning the other cheek.

“Willa’s worried.” Even outside of Group, I can’t stand to tell him about myself.

“Oh?”

“About Michael, harming himself.”

“Michael has been doing better lately,” Arthur tries to assure me. Because people who are of sound nervous constitution burst into tears in front of a group of strangers. “Six months ago I might have thought that of him, but he’s made quite a bit of progress.”

I’m still betting on Willa’s gut feeling. She’s been there; she knows what drives a person to his or her own personal ledge. I tell Arthur about Willa’s botched attempt.

“It’s touching, the way you both take care of each other,” he says. “But you both need to learn to speak for yourselves in Group. Self-expression is an important part of healing and growing as a person. Will you encourage Willa to bring up her issues on her own?”

“Will you at least start trying with people like Michael? When you suspected six months ago did you get him on suicide watch?”

Arthur stares at me for a few seconds. He promises he’ll call that poor kid’s family to discuss the problem, in exchange for my promise to speak about my own junk in Group. He walks away to the parish office, tottering behind his stack of hymnals. If Arthur is full of shit, he’s good at hiding it.

You did the right thing.

What if that kid wasn’t really going to hurt himself?

What if he was?

You’d resent him.

Would not.

You resented her for trying to jump.

I shake away thoughts of Willa in the same state as Michael. I can’t think of her like that. It makes me so intensely uncomfortable that I can’t breathe.

It seems like an hour has gone by before Willa opens the confessional door and steps out. She looks bewildered and little sad.

“Can I borrow that?” She takes the missal and flips through until she finds the page with the Our Father prayer printed on it. Willa sits down on my lap with it and sighs.

“Apparently I need to recite this ten times and everything will be better.”

I take the book from her, closing my fingers around her little hands. “No one ever taught you how to pray, did they?” I already know the answer. She described herself as a heathen two weeks ago. Religion wasn’t part of her upbringing.

“It doesn’t make everything all better,” I tell her quietly. “It centers you.” Even still , she recites the Our Father ten times. I say it with her, and it reminds me of monks of various religions, chanting to focus their attention on the divine.

“I don’t feel any better.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You really think you want me?” She sets the missal in the slot for hymnbooks.

“Yeah, I do.” I brush a lock of hair behind her ear. Willa has her problems, but for all her flaws she’s still a good person, even when she doesn’t mean to be. She would comfort a total stranger if they needed it.

She would stay up all night with me, riding out the pain. The food she makes, and lending me her notes… Before I even liked her on the most basic level, she was good for me, refusing to put up with my bad moods.

“I think I want you too,” she says quietly. I can’t help but smile. “One condition, though?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not dating the old Jem,” she says firmly.

“I’m trying.” Only not really. I think Willa knows I’m lying. She slips her hand into mine.

“You’ve got to let me be with the new you. I don’t like Old Jem. That guy’s a prick.” Her smirk is infectious.

“Okay.” She bends her neck for a chaste kiss—we are in a church—and she still tastes like maple syrup from breakfast.

I could fall uncontrollably in love with you.

“Come on.” Willa gets off my lap and offers me a hand up. “Lets get out of here.”

*

Willa fits in seamlessly with my family. I resented that when she cut me out because her absence was everywhere, but now I love it, because her presence fills a gap I never really noticed. I love the way she talks to my mother with such patience, not seeming to mind that Mom can’t stay on one topic for long and the conversation always comes back to architecture eventually. Mom doesn’t think anything weird of the arm I keep wrapped around Willa as we sit on the couch, but when Dad comes in from the yard he does a double take. He actually stops mid-sentence and gapes at us.

“Yes?” Mom prompts when he doesn’t finish.

“Er, have you seen the rake?”

“I might have.” She gets up and goes to the garage to help him look. The minute they leave I capitalize on their absence, turning Willa’s chin up for another kiss. We keep it simple and tongue-free, just in case my parents come back suddenly. It’s hard to deny that we’ve been making out if our lips are swollen and wet from exchanging saliva.

Suddenly I feel a breeze on my cheek. I open my eyes and find Elise standing behind the couch, hands and chin resting on the backrest. She’s got an impish grin on and looks from Willa to me with eager eyes.

“Whatcha doing?”

What the hell does it look like?

“‘When,’ Elise,” Willa answers. My sister squeals and throws her arms around Willa’s neck.

“Don’t strangle her.”

“Final y!” Elise sings, and skips away flapping her hands excitedly. I apologize to Willa about my sister’s behavior, but she waves it away.