When I wake the next morning, Edie is snuggled next to me, slumbering, angelic. Peter and Harp are gone. I sit up, and notice Harp standing at the window, biting her fingernails and peering through the curtain. She waves for me to come over. I have to step over Peter, who at some point during the night must have rolled onto the floor and either not woken up or decided to stay there. I fight the instinct to sit on the edge of the bed to watch his sleeping face—the dark outline of his long eyelashes forming little half-moons, his lips parted, the dark scruff of an incoming beard. I walk to the window, and Harp pulls the curtain open further so I can see.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” she whispers.
Outside, snow falls lightly onto the parking lot. I can see my grandparents’ sedan where we left it, covered in a dusty layer of white. It’s the middle of May. I don’t know much about the weather patterns in Des Moines, but I have a feeling this isn’t normal.
“I had to get up. She prays in her sleep.” Harp jerks her head towards the bed to indicate Edie. “A girl can only take so many Our Fathers mumbled into her ear.”
“Harp,” I say, “do you want to talk about yesterday?”
She shrugs, watching the snow fall. “Not really. I know I’m being whiny, but Edie’s harmless. And I am seriously glad she’s not living in a BurgerTime supply closet anymore.”
“Not that.” I can’t help getting a weird nervous smile on my face, because I’m trying to make this not sound like an intervention. “I meant your water bottle full of vodka.”
Harp doesn’t answer for a minute. She picks thoughtfully at her fingernail. “I was freaked out. Okay? The brick freaked me out. Going on this trip freaks me out.”
“You could have said something. You could have drank all the vodka you wanted, but you could have given me a heads-up.”
“I don’t know, Viv,” she sighs. “Historically, you’re the one who curls up in the fetal position, while I charge ahead, getting shit done. I’m not saying it’s not nice to let you take the reins, but it’s embarrassing, too. It’s embarrassing to feel scared and small and helpless.”
“I know it is.”
“I know you do. And don’t get me wrong: I’m into Vivian 2.0. She’s headstrong and willful. She’s a delight. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to be easier on our friendship if at least one of us is always coming apart at the seams.”
I want to tell her that I don’t believe this—I believe we both can and should be as strong as we can at any given moment. We’ll get more done that way. But behind us, Peter and Edie have started stirring, and Harp looks about ready to pull down the jokey, deflective mask of insincerity once again. I take her hand.
“If you feel yourself coming apart at the seams, tell me, okay?”
“Don’t worry, Viv,” she says. “Next time I’ll share the vodka.”
When we’ve stuffed our clothes back in our suitcases and wiped the windshield clean of snow, we sit in the car with the heater on and examine our road map. The distance to Keystone doesn’t seem that great—on the map I can pinch the drive between my thumb and forefinger. But Peter says it will take something like ten hours, and then who knows how much longer to actually find the New Orphans. He’s the only one who has a phone that’s still in service, so we use it to tweet Spencer G. “Where is the compound located?” Peter writes. “Heading to Keystone, need help.” I hold the phone in my lap while Peter takes the first shift driving, but a response from the Orphans never comes.
We try to break the driving as equally as possible between Peter, Harp, and myself; Edie offers to take a shift, but also admits that she doesn’t technically have a permit. It seems like an unnecessary risk to take, so as a result Edie gets extremely bored, and drives Harp crazy with her attempts to initiate sing-alongs. All the songs Edie knows are obscure Baptist hymns, so the rest of us can only sit and listen politely. For Harp, this involves a lot of sarcastic comments every time Edie launches into a new one—“Oh, gosh, you literally know a million of them! How neat!” and “Wow, this sure has a whole lot of verses, doesn’t it?” When Edie runs out of songs, she asks us each to recount our particular Rapture stories, and the results are four dismal tales about waking up to find the world completely different, each of us to some degree abandoned. Harp tells Edie a succinct version of the story of Raj’s death. She tells it in a bored, drawling voice, like she has no interest in Edie’s sympathy, but she leaves out the fact that Raj was gay, which makes me think that she at least wants to avoid Edie’s disdain. But as a result, Edie is confused.
“Did they kill him because he wasn’t white?” she asks Harp.
“No,” Harp says. Then she pauses. “I don’t think so …”
“The Church is very white,” says Edie. “I know I said it’s a community, and they all care for and protect one another, but I have to say that didn’t always feel true. I think some of the Church Elders might have given Christopher a hard time about marrying me. I can’t prove that, but it was always just something I felt.”
There’s a long silence, and then Harp says gently, “They killed Raj because he was gay, Edie. Not because he wasn’t white. I’m sure your family is safe.”
“Oh!” Edie’s clearly flustered, but relieved. I glance in the rearview mirror and watch her compose herself. After another long moment, she says, “That’s a tragedy, what happened to your brother. It makes me sick that that could happen in the name of my God.”
Harp smiles weakly at her. “Thanks, Edie.”
After that, both Harp and Edie seem a little less manic. They pass out granola bars and grapes from Peter’s bag of food, and in the late afternoon start up a new sing-along, focusing now on Christmas songs, as a nod to the snow still making the roads slick outside the cozy car. All of us know Edie’s religious carols, despite our varying levels of secularism, and Edie is game to learn the ones Harp teaches her—“Winter Wonderland,” and “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which Edie is scandalized by. In the early evening, after Harp has driven her three hours and is dozing peacefully against Edie’s shoulder, I take over. We’ve left the snow behind: now the landscape is huge and empty, just parched-looking grass on all sides, and above us the huge unending sky. The sun has just set and the clouds are a deep, aching blue. It looks like what I used to imagine heaven looked like, when I was a child and had been explained the concept by my parents. Even then, they subscribed to the idea of heaven, but from their description it seemed to me to be nothing more than a peaceful cloud palace populated by all my dead fish.
“What are you thinking about, Vivian Apple?” Peter asks. He’s been sleeping behind his sunglasses in the passenger seat, his feet up on the dashboard, but now he sits up straight.
“Nothing.” I say it automatically, then change my mind. “Actually, I was thinking that I feel very small, out here. Like I’m just a speck on this highway on this planet in this universe. It’s really, weirdly comforting. Like, that must be how Believers feel all the time. That there’s just so much more going on in the world than whatever’s going on with me.”
Peter says nothing. I glance away from the road and see that he’s smiling. “What?”
“It’s just, that came dangerously close to a statement of belief. Which, if I recall your claim correctly, I’ve been apparently trying to get out of you for two months.”
“Peter,” I say, very seriously. “I finally trust you enough to tell you: I believe in the sky.”
As it gets darker, the wind picks up, until literal tumbleweeds blow across the road and we can feel the car shuddering slightly against the force of it. Peter asks me if I want him to take over, but I’m too afraid to slow the car down, to stop it. I imagine myself stepping out and getting blown away. Soon we can see nothing but what’s directly lit by our headlights: a few feet of highway, and the red dust swirling above it. Suddenly an owl appears in the glow, struggling to flap its wings against the wind, and before I can react, we hear the thud of having killed it.
“What was that?” Harp yelps, waking up.
“A bird.” Peter puts his hand on my arm.
“Yiiiiiiiiikes,” she says. I hear her turning in her seat, like she’s trying to see the owl’s body on the road behind us, but we’re already well past it, and anyway, it’s too dark. “Cold-blooded, Viv. This really is a whole new you.”
“Are you okay?” Peter asks me.
I nod, but my vision starts to blur with tears.
“Pull over,” he says firmly. “We’ll be okay, I promise. Pull over and let me drive.”
The wind whips at my face as I step out of the car, but I can still walk solidly in front of the parked car. He meets me there halfway, and again, he puts his hand on my forearm. His skin is warm to the touch. He is looking down at me in the dark.
“Are you okay?” he asks again.
I shake my head. “I killed it.”
“It happened too fast. It was an accident.”
“I know. It just makes me sick that I killed it.”
“Hey,” says Peter, and he pulls me into a hug. I’m predisposed to be wowed by the warmth of his hug, seeing as I already consider his eyes the bluest, his face the kindest—but he holds onto me so tightly, for just the right amount of time, that I am immediately comforted, deep in my bones. When he pulls away, he tips his head backward and indicates for me to do the same. The sky is black and enormous and freckled all over with stars. “Look at how small we are, Viv. Look at how little of the universe we occupy.”
I say nothing. I think, I could love this boy. Someday soon, I could find myself loving him.
When we get back in the car, Harp is snoring again and the wind has died down. Peter gets back on the highway, and I close my eyes, too. Then Edie leans forward, sticking her head between the front seats.
“I hope this doesn’t embarrass you,” she says, and I don’t know at first which one of us she’s talking to, “but you two seem to have a very beautiful, godly relationship. I’m so happy you’ve found each other.”
I start to giggle nervously, and then even more so when I notice Peter isn’t laughing at all. “We’re not together, Edie,” he says, and it sounds pleasant enough, and Edie makes some flustered apologies, but then none of us say anything for a long time. We just drive along silently, not together, in the dark.
We stop at a cheap motel in Keystone, and Peter books the room by himself, borrowing from Harp a handful of twenty-dollar bills. When he comes back to the car with the keys, his face is tense and nervous. He has us huddle behind the car as he carries the bags into the room by himself, and then one by one, with him keeping lookout, he sends us into the room.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he whispers, sliding the deadbolt behind him. He’s turned on the desk lamp, and in its dim glow, we can see how grim the room is—dead flies swatted flat against the white walls, the sink in the bathroom dripping noisily, the huge and gruesome crucifix hanging over the bed. “The owners are not faking it. After I paid, I turned around and there was a line of obvious, real Believers behind me. They’re all here for Mount Rushmore, obviously. And they seem a little testy.”
“How is this possibly New Orphans headquarters?” Harp hisses. “How do they manage it, if it’s crawling with Believers?”
“I don’t know,” says Peter. “I didn’t realize how bad it was. Either my information was wrong when I got it, or it’s wrong now.”
I feel a tension headache crawl up between my eyes. Edie sits on the edge of the damp-smelling bed and hugs her huge stomach; she begins to cry as silently as she can.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpers. “It’s probably the hormones, but I’m just so hungry.”
“It’s okay, Edie,” says Peter. “I’ll go out and bring us back some food.”
“I’ll go with you,” I volunteer.
“That’s okay, Viv. You’ve had a rough night. Harp, do you want to?”
But Harp sinks down next to Edie on the bed. I notice she’s brought her slowly depleting supply of vodka in with her. Her eyes are wide as she shakes her head. “I can’t,” she whispers.
Peter and I dress in the most conservative outfits we can put together out of our four suitcases. I have a shirt I can button to the collar, and Edie gives me a long black skirt to wear. Peter puts on a tie, and shaves. Just before we leave, Edie clears her throat and then hands me a small gold band.
“Oh, Edie,” I say. “That’s alright. We’ll pretend to be brother and sister.”
“You’ll be safer if you don’t go out there as a single woman.” She puts the ring in my hand and folds my fingers over it. “Just bring it back to me, okay?”
We turn off the light before we leave so that nobody appears to be in the room. Harp and Edie are happier to wait for us in the dark than attempt to see what it’s like out here. When we reach the street, Peter points to a restaurant in the distance—La Casa de Millard Fillmore: Mexican Done American Style—and we head there. Peter walks in short, staccato steps, and keeps turning to look at me.
“What do we do?” he says. “What do you think I should do? Should I hold your hand?”
“No. They never hold hands. You just walk and I stay a step or two behind you.”
“Right.” Peter continues to walk, turning his head every few feet to assure himself that I’m still in his peripheral vision.
It would be one thing if we were in Keystone pre-Rapture, when I thought Believers to be maybe a little unhinged, but fundamentally not too unlike my own parents—capable, I would have thought then, of changing their minds. But the Believers swarming around us now, eyeing one another suspiciously and muttering tersely and practically inaudibly to their wives and companions—these people have a dangerous sort of glint in their eye. The Believers before had a smugness about them, a sureness that they’d go to heaven and the rest of us wouldn’t; these Believers aren’t quite so sure, and that makes them angry and violent and desperate. I do my best to keep my eyes on the ground, off their faces, because I am supposed to be playing the part of subservient female, and because to look at them scares me. Because I can feel them leering at me—just subtly enough to not subvert the Book of Frick’s teachings (“Let not your attention be swayed by your neighbor’s wife, though she be a temptress and the devil himself”), but a second too long for me not to notice. It’s amazing to see up close the difference between how they treat Peter and how they treat me—for him it’s a sober nod, a muttered greeting of “Brother”; for me it’s a scrutinizing gaze that makes me feel exposed and dirtied and ashamed.
Peter orders quickly at La Casa de Millard, and not much: the prices are way high, in that this is a tourist trap, and it costs us $50 to get two chicken burritos and a small plastic box of nachos to share. But I can tell what he’s thinking—if we order more food than two people can eat, will they wonder about us? Will they follow us back to the room? How well can we play the role of young married Believers?
I carry the bag of food as we walk back down the street to the motel. Peter won’t let me stay too far behind; he keeps slowing his step so that we’re practically in sync.
“You’re being too courteous,” I murmur to him. “You have to walk more like you don’t give a damn about me.”
“Well, that makes me sick,” Peter mutters back. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to,” I say. “It’s what’s keeping us safe.”
This convinces him, and he bolts ahead a bit, as I scurry to stay within my rightful place. It would feel like a flirtatious game, if there weren’t couples all around us doing the same thing, worried to slip out of their roles lest they be judged by other Believers or God. When we turn down the side street, within sight of the motel, Peter slows down again. He looks around to make sure no one’s watching, then grabs and squeezes my hand.
“Vivian Apple,” he says with satisfaction. “And she claims she’s not badass.”
I keep my head down, because I’m blushing, thinking, You bring it out in me. You make me brave. And then suddenly my heart thumps in my chest, and I know I’m about to do something even braver, something the old Vivian would have never dared. I want to tell Peter how much I like him, that I’ve liked him from the moment I saw him at the Rapture’s Eve party. I can hear my own voice in my head, telling him: I know I’m seventeen, and my bangs are too long, and I don’t yet know how to carry my own arms; I know it’s the end of the world. But I would be his if he wanted me; I would be so happy to be his. We’re nearing the motel, and I’m running out of time to say it. But I only have to be brave. I take a breath, and—
“Viv,” Peter says, almost breathlessly, again somehow reading my mind. “I have to say something I don’t want to say, but it would be unfair not to say it: I can’t really imagine … being with anyone right now. I think there’s just too much going on, in our lives, in the world, and I think that if … any two people, per se, thought it would be a good time to be with each other, they’d be wrong. I think they’d be doing each other a disservice. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” I say. No.
“It’s all happening so quickly,” he says. “Too quickly. And there’s just not enough guaranteed time left to … We could all be dead in September. It would be bad enough to be dead in September, but to have to watch someone I … That’s why I don’t think it’s fair.”
“Of course it isn’t,” I say. “I agree.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.” We’re standing at the door of our motel room, and all I want to do is get inside. I want to sit and share a burrito with Harp, and get out from under the buzzing white bulb hanging in the motel corridor, which must be lighting up my face in all its mortification. I wish more than anything at this moment that a trap door would open in the concrete and the earth would swallow me whole. Peter has a worried look on his face as he gazes down at me. I need to get inside before I start crying at it. “It doesn’t make me happy,” he says softly, “to have to say that.”
I use Harp’s trick, and summon the stone mask of complete indifference. I shrug. “It doesn’t make me feel anything. Can we go inside now?”