SHE WAS WAITING ON HER porch and staring off into the distance. As he drew closer to her, his heart beat faster and his palms started to sweat. Calm the fuck down, he told himself. He was a few yards from her now. She turned toward him and smiled. Her dark blue irises looked even larger than usual, like when a child widens her eyes before crying or telling a lie. Or both. She raised her hand in a half wave, blushed a little, then brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Calm down.
She wore jeans and sneakers and a pink T-shirt. A sweatshirt was wrapped around her waist. She stood and came down the stairs when he reached the porch.
He was with Laura, and this wasn’t a dream. They were side by side. It was so windy that the pink ribbon holding her hair had been blown out and tossed down the street. Andrew was going to chase after it, when she touched his forearm and said, “Leave it.” Now the long amber strands whipped around her face and occasionally grazed his left shoulder. The little brief bites of contact between her hair and his body made Andrew feel crazy.
He was glad for the cold wind. Sultry weather would have killed him. A hot still day and the nearness of Laura might have driven him to commit some rash act of foolishness, like a confession of love, or do something lustful and insane like . . . He looked up at the sky. A gray sky, a slight drizzle, and the sun hanging behind the clouds like a hazy pearl. He looked at Laura, who was grabbing handfuls of her hair and twirling it around her fingers. A nervous gesture?
“I’m so glad you finally called,” she said.
“Me too,” he said. He had restrained himself from contacting Laura until after graduation.
“I just wanted to express my condolences about Sara,” she said.
“She’s not dead,” Andrew said, then regretted his abrupt tone.
“I know that,” Laura said while looking at him carefully. “But I’m sorry all the same.”
Andrew nodded.
“So, Sara is . . .” Laura let the question hang in the air.
“She’s in a coma. She’s on a ventilator, too. They don’t know how much brain damage there is. They were able to get her off the vent for a little bit, but then she got worse and they had to put her back on it. She keeps getting pneumonia.”
“That must be really hard to watch.”
“I wouldn’t know. She got transferred to a big hospital in New Hampshire. Marcia is with her. She calls with updates and stuff.” Andrew felt the color rise in his cheeks, partly because Laura had put her hand on his back, and partly because he felt like he might cry. He thought of the brief and sometimes terse phone conversations that had been occurring between him and Marcia every few days.
How is she?
The same.
And you?
Fine.
Andrew and Laura walked in silence for a few minutes. He felt like he had betrayed Sara by talking about her condition so openly. He felt confused and overwhelmed by Laura. His happiness to be with her was also excruciating. Just calm down and be cool, he thought, but he couldn’t think of anything cool to say.
“We missed you at graduation,” she said.
“How was it?”
“It was really great. And Jason said a lot of nice things about Sara.”
“He must have been thrilled,” Andrew said.
“What do you mean?”
“Getting to make the speech. Because Marcia wasn’t there.”
“Oh, Marcia was the real valedictorian?”
“Yes, of course.” Andrew felt annoyed. Didn’t everyone know how smart Marcia was?
“Oh. Well, I feel sad for her. I mean, it would have been her big moment.”
“To tell you the truth, she was dreading it. She’s very . . . shy.”
“Oh?”
Andrew fell silent. He did not want to talk about Marcia. Graduation had occurred so close to the accident that Andrew had decided to skip it. The protestations of his parents were mild. Like Marcia, he took his exams, picked up his diploma, and called it a day.
“How are you feeling about everything?” Laura asked.
“Fine. Thanks for asking,” he said.
“People care,” she said.
“That’s really nice,” he said.
“I think of Sara sometimes—you know, in my prayers,” she said.
“That’s cool,” he said.
“Sometimes . . .” Laura paused and looked at him. “Sometimes I think it helps to focus on someone you care about with . . . with, like, greater intensity than normal. I mean, more intense than usual. Um, does that make sense?” she asked, and gave a nervous little laugh. Her fingers shook, and she clasped her hands behind her back.
“Sure, yeah, that makes sense,” he said.
“Like, you know, focused intensity,” she said.
A fog began to clear for Andrew. “You mean prayer? So, prayer is just intense focus?” he said.
“Well, not just—” she said.
“No, of course not,” he said.
Andrew thought of one of Janet’s friends—Helen, who wasn’t really a friend but someone from the cheese factory who had showed up at the hospital one day to offer her support. Helen was pushy and unpleasant. She kept crowing about the power of prayer and gripping a Bible in her hands as though it were an oxygen tank and she couldn’t breathe without it. Eventually, in a rare show of her pre-accident self, Janet told Helen that she smelled like rancid whey, and the stench was making her ill.
It was different with Laura. They were just talking, right? And the idea that she was trying to lure him into her faith was paranoid and mean. Or maybe not. He needed to make things clear.
“I don’t believe in that stuff, Laura.”
“That’s okay,” she said quickly. Her hands fluttered out from behind her back, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She looked at the ground and rose up and down on her toes; she was either nervous or impatient or both. It was strange, because she’d been so calm and confident when she’d first given him the note. Andrew wondered if maybe she’d been compelled by someone, somehow, to have this conversation with him. Maybe it had something to do with her church. He had a feeling that these religious types went after people when they were grieving and vulnerable. But Laura wasn’t like that, was she? Or maybe she didn’t want to be like that. He felt sorry for her, but then he thought, Screw it. I’ve got to keep this going.
“Religion is really interesting, though. In literature and films and paintings and stuff. It’s always a big deal. A big th-theme, I mean,” he stuttered, then continued in a hurry. “It’s interesting, you know, in a conceptual way . . .” His voice trailed off. Stop babbling.
“Never mind,” Laura said. “I mean, it’s okay.” She cleared her throat. “Would you like me to go to the hospital with you or something? Is it very far?”
“No,” Andrew said. “I mean, yes, it’s a few hours. But I don’t think you should come.” A protective feeling for Sara reared up inside him as he raised his eyes to Laura. He didn’t want the hottest girl in their class staring down at the second-hottest girl in their class. It would somehow diminish Sara even further and complete Laura’s absolute and incontestable triumph. But he knew such thoughts were ridiculous, petty, and strange. He knew that Laura and Sara were both incapable of thinking about the situation as he did. “I think I’m going crazy,” he said.
He started to walk away, but she followed him.
“I want to show you something,” she said. She lightly tugged him in the direction of the park on the outskirts of their neighborhood. He followed her.
Halgin Park was twenty square miles of protected state forest. The first few miles were outfitted with fitness paths, community shelters, and picnicking sites. Farther in it became wilder, acres and acres of woods with occasional man-made or animal-made trails. They crossed paths with a few joggers who said hello or smiled at them. A very thin woman wearing weights strapped to her ankles and wrists seemed to frown at Andrew. Or perhaps she was just concentrating on her own misery, he thought. Brian used to wear a kind of weighted vest while he was training for football season. He came home sweating rivers, smelling terrible, and idly basking in the adoring gazes of their parents.
“This is a deer path,” Laura said, interrupting Andrew’s thoughts.
“How can you tell?”
“Because it’s so thin. They have small feet and they walk single file. They’re very graceful.”
“Yeah. Beautiful. Sometimes my dad and Brian make noises about hunting them, but it never happens.”
“Because they don’t want to kill them?”
“Inertia. They’d rather sit on the couch and watch the game. Or at least my dad would. But I don’t think anything would stop Brian if you gave him a gun and a license to shoot it.”
Laura turned around and looked at him, her eyes searching his face. He held his breath. Laura said she was taking him to a special place where she liked to pray. Andrew assumed they were going to Shaman’s Point, a sun-drenched valley that appeared like a miracle in the deepest part of the woods. Andrew didn’t know if Laura knew the unofficial name of the clearing, and he wasn’t sure that she’d like it, given its witchcrafty tang.
He was realizing that Laura was curiously, beautifully ignorant of the local customs and culture of other people her age. Even though they’d attended the same schools and grown up in the same neighborhood, she and her religious kinsmen were somehow isolated from the larger world to which Andrew belonged. Laura didn’t know that half the kids in their high school went to Shaman’s Point to make out or have sex. She didn’t know that this wasn’t a deer path they were walking on, but cleverly made to look like one.
“Brian’s your brother?” she asked.
And she didn’t know who Brian was. Andrew felt a warmth in his body that spread up through his heart and reached into his throat.
“Yeah. He’s three years older than me. He was a big star on the football team. Plays college, too,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, and continued to walk.
The canopy of green above them grew thicker and thicker. The sun-dappled light faded, and soon they were enclosed in the daytime semidarkness of a mature forest. He heard the soft rustle of leaves as small animals scurried past. He blinked as his eyes adjusted. The scent of pine became almost sticky in its sweetness. He could feel the wet of the air on his lips and cheeks.
Laura.
Andrew shoved his hands into his pockets, where he fingered pieces of lint that gathered in the corners.
“Careful,” Laura said. She stepped gingerly around tree roots and fallen branches. The valley was just up ahead. A ray of sunlight hit the path in front of them and cast a glow over Laura. Her hair was parted, and the nape of her neck was just visible. Andrew gazed hungrily at that patch of bare skin. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to kiss her as that he wanted to pull her to him and press his face into her neck. He was right behind her, inches from her.
Then they were in the valley. Sunlight was everywhere at once. Laura took off in a sprint. Andrew jumped. Shit, he thought. What was she doing? Was she running from him? He must have scared her. Breathing down her neck like some hulking monster. Fuck! Then Laura, mid-sprint, leaped up into the air like a ballet dancer and twirled around. She shouted to him, but he couldn’t understand her.
“What?” he yelled back.
She ran closer until she was about five yards from him. She was laughing and smiling. Andrew had never seen her so happy, so unreserved.
“Come on,” she said, and took off in another direction.
Andrew was not about to start running around.
“I like watching you,” he said to her retreating form, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He was baffled and charmed by this childlike side of her. She continued to dash around the field. He was almost embarrassed by the whole scene. Laura was so terribly pretty, and the field so picturesque, that it seemed like she was filming a commercial for panty liners.
He caught up to her at the rocks, the most appealing part of Shaman’s Point. The six huge concave formations were smooth enough to sit on comfortably for hours. They looked as if they’d been hollowed out by the ocean, which they probably had been. He knew one of the rocks had a fish fossil on its side, but you had to hunt around to find it. Andrew smiled to himself. Another thing not to mention to Laura. Her parents, or perhaps her church, had arranged for her to leave class whenever the science teacher discussed evolution. Andrew felt bad for her when this happened. “Laura,” Ms. Devaux would say. “We’re going to talk about Darwin now.” With a small, frightened, apologetic nod, Laura would get up and leave class with her eyes on the ground. A few people would usually chuckle, and girls who were jealous of Laura’s beauty would make catty comments. But never Marcia or Sara. They just weren’t like that.
Laura sat on the largest rock and waved him over. He sat next to her and waited as she caught her breath. His first kiss had been on this very rock. He and his one and only girlfriend, Rachel, had made out and fumbled around with each other’s bodies on an almost daily basis for three months when they were fourteen. She dumped him right before sophomore year, after a mutually unsatisfying and almost entirely physical relationship.
“Want to pray?” Laura asked. She was catching her breath and grinning at him.
“Seriously?” Andrew said.
“Why not? I like praying when I’m happy like this.”
“So you jog around before you pray? What if you’re at home? Do you bust out some push-ups and sit-ups and then start?”
Laura looked baffled before she realized that Andrew was teasing. She burst out laughing. When her giggles subsided, she took on a serious expression. Her shift in mood, from hilarity to grimness, came too quickly, too suddenly. It puzzled Andrew. Before Laura could open her mouth, Andrew spoke.
“Thanks for showing me this place. It’s really pretty.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Let’s pray.”
Andrew was about to object when Laura picked up one of his hands. He wanted to entwine his fingers with hers, but she held his hand in her palms as if it were an injured bird. He felt his body go almost limp, and lowered his head.
Laura began, “Heavenly Father, we ask that you grace Sara—”
“No,” Andrew said, “not Sara.”
Laura dropped his hand. “What?”
“Not Sara, okay? I’m—” He groped for words, hot with shame. “I’m not ready for that.”
Laura tapped her fingertips on her thigh and leaned back. Her honey-colored hair fell all around her shoulders and framed her face. One day in English class Mr. Gonzalez had given them an article about words in other languages for which there were no direct English translations. Cafuné had been Andrew’s favorite. It was Brazilian Portuguese for “to tenderly run one’s fingers through someone’s hair.” Andrew wondered what Laura would do if he tried to cafuné her.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s just try something more general.”
“Fine,” Andrew said.
Laura lowered her head, and Andrew followed suit, but this time she did not take his hand. She murmured something, and Andrew leaned closer to her on the pretense of trying to hear her. Or was he trying to hear her? He wasn’t even sure anymore. He was lost in all the sunlight. What was she saying? The Lord’s Prayer? No, it didn’t sound like that. He tried to follow along with her, hoping she’d touch him again. He felt like he could relate to bits and snatches of what she was saying. “Our savior . . . sin . . . save us . . . Jesus . . .” He’d heard something like these words before, in movies and books, or from some small corner of his childhood when his mom took them to church on Christmas Eve.
He closed his eyes. Laura’s voice faded in and out like a radio station playing his favorite song, only he couldn’t quite get the reception because he was in the car and driving away. Driving away with Sara. Going for some ice cream or just driving around for fun and for the meditative calm of the rhythmic wheels on the road. A gently rocking car. Sara in the backseat. Not just in the backseat but strapped in like a baby. Then he realized he was sitting right next to her. Who was driving? He was too scared to look. His heartbeat was fast, too fast, and he could hear it pounding in his ears. No, not pounding, fluttering. The sunlight came in through his lids and settled behind his eyes in spots and waves and jagged flashes. Now his heart seemed to hover in his chest like a hummingbird. He couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t stay here. He gasped and rose to his feet. Laura opened her eyes and looked at him, her expression both elated and curious.
“I think I’m having a panic attack or something,” he said.
“Andrew?”
He walked away and tried to steady his breathing. It was so bright. He felt like he might faint. He heard Laura’s footsteps behind, running to catch up.
“Andrew! Did you . . . ?” She put a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. He whirled around and grabbed her. He buried his face in her hair. Her body was stiff, her arms at her sides. Andrew was gripping her so hard that she couldn’t have hugged him back if she’d wanted to. They stayed this way for some moments. Slowly, he released her.
They walked back to their neighborhood in near silence. Every once in a while Laura asked Andrew if he was okay.
“It can be frightening the first time,” she said. Yes, it certainly can, he thought. Laura asked him if he would come to her house that night. He nodded. Of course I will.
• • •
Andrew lay on his bed with one hand under his head, the other draped on his stomach. He stared at the ceiling. Becky was asleep on the floor, snoring. That snoring was getting louder, Andrew thought. He should call the vet. Loud snoring in big dogs was bad, wasn’t it? He tried to get up but could not. He scratched at his belly button, a nervous gesture that he’d developed when he was little and that his mother detested. Once he’d picked at his belly button until it bled and he’d gotten an infection. He glanced down. I’m literally navel gazing, he thought.
He had a strong desire to talk to Sara and Marcia. The two of them would be able to break this down and give him some perspective. They wouldn’t mind that Andrew had never told them about his Laura obsession. Besides, who was he kidding? They’d probably guessed by now anyway. Marcia would gently suggest that it might not be altogether ethically sound to pretend to have a religious experience to get into the pants of a naive girl. Not above board, Marcia would say, whereas Sara would uncompromisingly be in favor of Andrew doing what it took to get some action. Whatever, Marcia, Sara would say. It would be good for Laura, too. Those superreligious kids get all freaked out about sex. It’s not healthy. Next time, Andrew, start twitching like you’re having a seizure, then tell Laura that God spoke to you and told you that she should— And then Marcia would interrupt, her cool brown eyes on his face, her hands covering Sara’s mouth, her voice saying, Unless you actually had a religious experience. Did you, Andrew?
He wasn’t sure what had happened to him. He’d never had a religious experience before, or a panic attack, for that matter, unless you counted his shitty nightmares. He felt like whatever had happened to him at Shaman’s Point had more to do with his desire for Laura and his grief for Sara. It was all mixed up. It had nothing to do with God. And besides, maybe he’d just been dehydrated or something.
Andrew sat up. Becky stretched and walked over to him. She put her great big head on his leg. There had been some stiffness in her walk lately. The vet’s number was programmed into the phone downstairs. Get up, he told himself. Becky stood.
“Not you,” he said out loud, rubbing her cheekbones. Andrew had ceased to be surprised by his telepathy with Becky. He got up and walked downstairs. He picked up the phone and thought about calling the hospital. He wasn’t allowed to ask about Sara, but he could ask for Marcia, and she would give him an update. An update. Nothing’s changed. Sara’s in a coma. If she wakes up at all, she might never walk again, talk again, eat real food again, have sex, fall in love.
Fuck God, he thought, and slammed the phone down.