The Girl Who Slept with God: A Novel (4 page)

Tonight was Grace’s good-bye dinner. In the kitchen, there was a large chocolate cake with pink frosting that read
We Love You, Grace
in smeary letters. Jory had spent most of the afternoon making the cake while her mother was in the bedroom crying. At one point during the afternoon, her mother had come out and blown her nose and then picked up the frosting tube and written
Don’t Go, Grace
in large, shaky white letters.
Right before dinner Jory had blended the letters back into the frosting and started again.

Now the five of them sat in their usual places around the maplewood table. Her father was squashing his lentil loaf into a paste and forking it into his mouth in the happy fashion he did every night. He glanced up at Jory and smiled. Jory looked back down at her plate and began cutting her loaf into smaller and smaller pieces. She moved these pieces around to brand-new locations on her plate. Once, in fifth grade, her Sunday School teacher had invited all the girls in her class to spend the night. After they had gotten done splashing around in Mrs. Jewel’s freezing blue swimming pool, Mrs. Jewel had made them dinner: spicy cooked hamburger and cheese with shredded lettuce and tomato chunks in some kind of hard envelope-like shells. “What
are
these?” Jory had asked Mrs. Jewel, still shivering slightly under her beach towel. “They’re wonderful.” “You mean the tacos?” Mrs. Jewel had said, opening her eyes wide and laughing. Jory had laughed quickly too, and said no, no, she was just joking—she loved tacos, they were her favorite. Now she stirred her canned peas with her fork. She knew that her family and their habits were beyond strange. Even in fifth grade it had been apparent that her parents were of a different breed than the rest of the citizens of Arco. The Quanbecks didn’t even pass unnoticed in their own evangelical church, which was full to the brim with odd conservative folks of every stripe and shade. Jory hadn’t realized the full extent of their strangeness when she was younger, but with each passing year the exotic nature of her family was becoming more noticeable. And more horrifying. And it wasn’t just the food that they ate or didn’t eat, or the old battered car that they drove (which had been given to her father from the college in lieu of a paycheck), or the endless book reading, or even the plain and modest hand-me-down clothes that each of the Quanbeck daughters wore in turn. It was the fact that her parents acted as if this were the better, more superior way. As if it were not only vital, but practically holy to never watch TV or buy anything new or show any interest in what was modern or current or popular or fun. And it was being these very things—modern and current and popular and fun—that Jory most wished for and aspired to in life. And this was a problem.

“I’m going to take baton twirling with Deedee Newman,” Frances announced suddenly.

“So,” said Jory.

“It costs fifteen dollars and it’s at the high school gym.” Frances stared unblinkingly at Jory. “It’s all summer.” Now Frances turned toward their mother. “Dad said I could.”

Jory’s mother seemed to be saying something with her napkin. She creased and recreased one edge of it. “Baton twirling, Oren?” she said in a strange voice. “Isn’t that the type of thing cheerleaders and Miss America contestants do?”

Jory’s father stopped chewing. He picked up his glass of milk and then seemed to think better of it. He cleared his throat. “Well, it seems to me that they’re just little girls, Esther. Does it really matter if a few little girls march around in a gym pretending to twirl batons? I don’t think baton twirling is technically a form of dancing.”

Her mother wadded up the creased napkin and threw it at Jory’s father. It hit him softly in the tie and then fell onto his plate. He sat perfectly still, looking at their mother in disbelief.

Grace held her fork and knife suspended above her plate. “Would it be possible to borrow your Spanish Bible commentary, Dad? Pastor Ron says that yours is probably quite a bit more comprehensive than mine.”

Jory’s father turned his head toward Grace and opened his mouth slightly just as their mother stood up and grabbed Jory’s plate. “Jory, if you’re not going to eat that, why don’t you give it to Frances? I can’t stand it when you leave perfectly good food just lying there.” With two quick swipes, she scraped its contents noisily onto Frances’s clean plate.

Frances surveyed her newly filled plate and took several deep breaths. “I do too get to take baton,” she wailed. “I already picked one out and it has silver and gold streamers and I have four dollars of allowance left.” She gulped frantically.

“Frances.” Grace leaned forward. “Pastor Ron says that at least half of the children in Guanajuato are severely malnourished. Think how lucky you are. Those children have probably never even seen lentil loaf.”

Jory’s mother knit her dark eyebrows together. “Was that some kind of a joke?”

“We have cake!” Jory jumped up and glanced from person to person. “We have cake,” she said again, a little more softly.

“I like cake,” her father said.

“Oh, by all means,” her mother said, rubbing at her temples with both hands. “Bring on the cake.”

Now there were only four lawn chairs and four books and once a week an airmail letter covered with stamps of bright birds with yellow-and-green tails. The letters weighed nothing when Jory held them in her hand. Inside the paper was crinkle thin and lavender colored and covered with Grace’s firm, straight up-and-down printing. The church in Guanajuato was going up on schedule. Grace was learning to make bricks. The villagers were very grateful for the box of clothes and old
Reader’s Digest
s and the powdered milk. On a bus ride to Lake Chapala, Grace had seen an old woman carrying a chicken in her purse and once the chicken got out and another old woman grabbed the chicken and put it in
her
purse and then there was a fight—a big fight.

“Oh,” Jory’s mother said, her lips crumpling at the corners. She brought the letter closer to her face and squinted a little as if she might have read it wrong.

“A chicken!” Frances screeched. “How did she fit a chicken in her purse?”

“
Shh,
Frances. Their purses are probably different than ours—more like big mesh bags or something.” Her mother waved her hand as if waving away all purses everywhere. “
Any
way,” their mother said, lifting the letter up again. “She says the church group visited a coffee plantation, and then they went to the
mercado
, where everyone bought bananas and mangoes, which were delicious, and really nothing at all like American fruit. Oh!” she said, dropping the letter back into her lap. “Don’t they need to wash the fruit? Oren! Don’t they?”

Their father put down his magazine
.
“I’m sure they did, Esther. Grace is a very smart girl.” He smiled and tried to pat their mother’s hand, but she was peering at the letter again, and he patted the metal armrest of her lawn chair instead.

Their mother sighed and shook out the lavender paper and continued
reading: “‘There are men everywhere here. They line the streets and alleys. None of them seem to have jobs. They stare at me and make comments and hissing noises through their teeth. Pastor Ron says it is probably because I’m so tall. That they’ve probably just never seen a girl as tall as me before.’” Their mother’s voice died suddenly away and she jerkily refolded the lavender sheets and stuffed them back into the envelope, but she hadn’t done a very good folding job and now the letter didn’t seem to fit anymore.

Frances squinted at her mother. “Shouldn’t she have said ‘I’?”

“Shut up, Frances.” Jory stood up out of her lawn chair and grabbed her little sister’s hand. “C’mon, I think I hear the ice cream man.”

“Ow! You’re hurting my arm.” Frances glared reproachfully at Jory. “I don’t hear anything.”

Jory said nothing but held tight to Frances’s strong little hand and pulled her down the sidewalk. She stopped after about a block and a half. “Listen,” she said.

“Oh.” Frances’s face softened. “How did you hear him?”

“I don’t know.” Jory shrugged. “I just always do.”

The truck’s tinkly carnival music reminded Jory of things just barely hidden, like Easter eggs and sparklers the second before they catch and light. The two of them stood together watching the small white truck approaching in tiny increments, its tinny music growing ever louder. Finally it swerved over to the curb and stopped next to them. The man inside stared down at them expectantly as the music ground to a halt. “That’s not Al,” said Frances loudly.

“It’s okay.” Jory walked staunchly toward the open door of the truck. “She’ll have the Chocolate Swirl and I’ll take a cherry Push Up.” Jory blinked a couple of times in quick succession and then took the smallest of steps backward.

“Hm-
mm
,” said the man sitting in the driver’s seat. He leaned his elbow on the steering wheel and rested his chin in his hand. His long red hair was tied back with an old black shoestring. “They’re made with whipped lard, you know.”

“What?” Jory practically whispered. Was he talking to her?

“Whipped lard. Not even real lard, actually.” He grinned, revealing a
silver tooth somewhere in the back of his mouth. “Fake lard. Now that’s worth thirty-five cents of babysitting money.”

“I don’t babysit.” Jory could feel a rush of blood flooding her neck and face.

“Why not?”

“I—I’m not very maternal.”

“Me either.” The ice cream man frowned at her. “Who’s this, then?”

“My little sister.” Jory tried to bring Frances around in front of her, but Frances was having none of it.

“Well, Sister Sue,” the ice cream man said, opening the lid on his silver freezer and pulling out a chocolate-covered ice cream bar, “here’s your bit of sheer deliciousness, or as delicious as you can get using ice milk.” He stepped down one of the truck’s steps and held the paper-covered treat out to Frances. Frances was clutching the back of Jory’s shorts and would not let go, so Jory took the ice cream for her. “And,” he said, reaching back into the freezer again, “one cherry Push Up for the lady with daisies in her eyes.” He held the ice cream bar in front of his chest. Jory noted the hand holding the ice cream. There were tiny red hairs on each of his knuckles and some kind of blue tattoos between two of his fingers. She reached into her pocket again and pulled out the quarters. “Nah,” he said and gave his head a shake. “These are definitely on the house.” Jory had to take the ice cream. She reached for it and felt his fingers, rough and warm, still holding the wooden stick. “Well,” the ice cream man said, and moved up into the driver’s seat, “back to work.” He nodded at Jory. “Look out. Those melt quick.”

Jory watched as the truck lurched away from the curb and then tootled on down the street.

“Who
was
that?” Frances asked, her ice cream sloping toward the sidewalk. “Do you know him, Jory?”

“I’m not sure,” she said slowly, not sure which question she was answering.

E
arly the next morning, even before it got hot, the lady from the tall stucco house on the corner came to ask if Grace could babysit, and of course Grace was in Mexico and had been for a month, so now, amazingly enough, Jory had a job. A real job that paid a dollar twenty-five an hour, even though Jory wasn’t very maternal.

Mrs. Hewett was beautiful like Linda Evans on
The Big Valley
, but with higher heels and still higher hair. Her husband was a private detective. Jory’s mother always said she couldn’t imagine what on earth there was to detect in Arco, Idaho.

Now, at the suggestion of Jory’s new job, her mother was shaking her head. “She smokes,” she said. “And that skirt!” She made the strange clucking noise in the back of her throat that stood for all manner of verbal disapproval. “I don’t
think
so.”

“I’ll be good. I’ll do a good job. I can witness.” This last was a final effort on Jory’s part. A trump card that should be pulled out only in emergency situations.

Her mother lifted one eyebrow. “That would be the day,” she said. “At the very least, though, I expect you to be a good example over there. A good Christian example, Jory.”

Monday afternoon found Jory at the Hewetts’, dutifully poking Barbie and Ken into their coral-colored Corvette and arguing with Dinah, Mrs. Hewett’s three-year-old daughter, about which doll would drive.

“Barbie doesn’t drive,” Dinah was insisting. “And Skipper’s the baby.”

“Skipper is nobody’s baby. She’s like some cousin or orphan or something. I mean, look at her hat.”

“I don’t like you.” Dinah chugged over and climbed up into a high-backed chair at the far end of the living room.

“What a coincidence.” Jory rewound her ponytail and then pulled a piece of gum out of her shorts pocket. She began to unwrap it and then stopped. She held the piece of gum out. “Want some?”

Dinah climbed warily down from the chair. She hummed a little as she dragged Skipper’s dog along on its side by its little leash, then sat down on the floor to unwrap the gum. “Skipper can too go.”

“Only if she’s in the trunk.” Jory rolled the Corvette along the sculptured carpet. “They’re probably gonna make out. You know, kiss and stuff. Strictly grown-up beeswax.”

Dinah frowned.

Jory stopped the car and folded her legs under, Indian-style. “You do know how to kiss, don’t you?” She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Look, I’ll show you. Come over here.”

Still clutching the plastic dalmatian, Dinah inched closer to Jory.

“Stick out your lips a little. Like this. And close your eyes.” Jory leaned forward and touched Dinah’s lips with her own. They were smoother and different than she’d imagined. It was like kissing a fat flower come to life. Jory sat back. “Now this time you kiss me.”

Dinah rested one small hand on Jory’s shoulder and pressed her face up next to Jory’s. She smelled like baby shampoo and graham crackers. Jory felt a small worm twist sweetly somewhere in her stomach. Dinah carefully put her mouth on Jory’s and Jory pressed down a little, turning her head slowly from side to side.

“See, that’s how they do it on TV.” Jory smiled and pushed her bangs back. “Doesn’t your mom ever kiss you like that?”

“No. Jory, I want some Quik.”

“Doesn’t she kiss your dad like that? I bet they do when you’re asleep.”

“Why can’t Pinky come in?”

“Because he pees all over everything, that’s why. C’mon, after your Quik you’re supposed to take a nap.”

Jory opened the door a little and peeked in to see if Dinah was really asleep or only pretending. She could hear the clock’s soft tick and Dinah
sighing a tiny bit every once in a while. She took off her Keds and padded quietly over the thick carpet.

In the Hewetts’ bedroom the shades were down; only amber-colored light filtered through and lay in slanted bands across the floor. The bed was huge and covered by a shiny deep purple bedspread. Jory sat down on the edge of it and felt the smoothness under her bare legs. She ran her hand along the satiny bedspread and then over the knobs of the dresser beside it. In the top drawer were panties and bras and complicated-looking garter belts. Jory pinched the rubber stocking nibs in and out of their metal clips. Mrs. H had day-of-the-week panties exactly like hers!
Saturday
stitched in red on black nylon—obviously the most sinful day. Her
Monday
and
Tuesday
panties had faint stains in the crotch, though. Not blood, which Jory knew about in theory, but something else. She glanced back at the bedroom door and then quickly pulled her tank top off over her head. She tried on each bra in turn. The black lace one that had no straps at all but still stayed up, and the shiny red bra that had rubbery push-up pads that snapped in and out. She examined herself in the round vanity mirror. Her new nipples seemed very small and pale peeking out of the dark blue lace. She turned to the side to see. The mirror was low and she couldn’t see her head at all, only the bra and the bare skin below. She touched one of her nipples for a second and watched it pinch together at the tip. An internal string of some sort tugged tight between her nipple and her navel and Jory quickly unhooked the bra and crammed her tank top back on. She folded the bras back into the drawer, skipping entirely over the slips and nylons, with only a quick glance at the Summer’s Eve boxes and can of Gentle Spring Hygiene Spray.

The bottom two drawers evidently belonged to the detective. Boring black and brown socks in neat rolls, white jockey shorts (gross and huge!), and tons of pitted-out undershirts. And under the undershirts were magazines. Jory sat down on the floor and held one in her lap. She turned each page, a weight settling inside her that was heavy and fluttery at the same time. Miss February cupped her own impossible breasts as if testing them for ripeness. Some of the women did this to their bottoms or the inside of their thighs as well. Miss August appeared to be in pain or possibly praying. A tiny cartoon woman wearing only gloves winked as she rode a rocketlike lipstick toward a long-tongued moon.

After closely inspecting all of them, Jory felt like the time she’d gone swimming in her cousins’ pool with an ear infection. Her head and chest were tight and buzzing and she had a strong desire to run her fingertips over and into the pictures—the women were so smooth and swollen, and oddly more real than anything she had ever seen. Women like this actually lived somewhere and knew that men were turning the pages slowly and then faster to look and look and look at them. They wanted men to be looking at them. Didn’t they? Jory stood up and began shakily stuffing the magazines back into the drawer. She couldn’t remember what order they had been in, which month had been on top. It probably didn’t matter. Within seconds, she had refolded the undershirts and tried to smooth away any footprints she might have left in the carpet, then closed the bedroom door with a soft click.

Virgil Vail stood on the platform playing “Fill My Cup, Lord” on his trumpet while the elders passed the collection plates from row to row. Rhonda Russell snickered and nudged Jory, showing how she was missing two front teeth on top, even though she was nearly fourteen. The dentist said it was just too bad and a fluke, but Jory thought that, even without her front teeth, her best friend possessed the allure of a gypsy. She had slanted cat eyes and black bangs that hung down to her eyelashes and knew all the lyrics to “Cherry Hill Park” and everything else that was necessary to know. Everything that Jory had no thought of knowing. Rhonda had even gotten Andre, of Andre’s Hair Salon, to pierce her ears. Jory was filled with unbelievable envy. Jory’s family was so strange, and Rhonda’s whole life was so
cool
. Even Rhonda’s
parents
were cool. Even though her father was a Christian music minister, he let Rhonda and her sisters watch TV and drink Coke and straighten their hair. A few times Rhonda’s mom had even driven Rhonda and Jory to Super Thrift, where they had spent the better part of several afternoons deeply ensconced behind the makeup counter, carefully testing all the lipsticks for just the proper shade of frostiness. Jory had swiveled the beautiful pinky-white crayons up and down, inhaling their diaper rash ointment smell and picturing a tube’s gold chunkiness sliding oh so neatly into her imaginary fringed leather purse.

As Virgil Vail and his trumpet stepped down from the platform, Brother Elmore stood up from his chair and moved briskly toward the pulpit. “Tonight we have a special treat,” he said, rubbing his hands and grinning broadly at the Wednesday night crowd. “Our church’s very own science scholar, Dr. Oren Quanbeck, is going to speak to us. You all know who he is, so I don’t even have to offer up his ten-page résumé.” Brother Elmore grinned again.

Rhonda turned to Jory and widened her cat eyes. “It’s your
dad
,” she whispered.

“I know,” said Jory. She squinched her toes together inside her shoes.

“His distinguished record speaks for itself,” Brother Elmore continued. “And even if we don’t all understand everything he says”—Brother Elmore paused to let a murmur of laughter run through the congregation—“we know we will be the better for hearing it. So, as it says in Matthew 11:15,
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
” Brother Elmore smiled once more and stepped away from the pulpit.

Jory stared fixedly at the wooden floor beneath the pew. She refused to lift her eyes toward the front of the church, where her father, in his good brown sports jacket and striped tie, was shuffling some three-by-five-inch note cards against the wooden top of the pulpit. She had heard him practicing this speech down in the bomb shelter earlier that afternoon and she knew exactly how it went. Even so, it gave her a strange feeling in her stomach to listen to that voice and those words coming out of the pulpit microphone. It seemed as if he were speaking into her ear alone, but through an enormous tunnel of some kind that filled all the available space in the church with his particular and achingly familiar voice. She peeped out from under her lids at the people sitting in the pews close by. They were all staring straight ahead, intent—listening to her father. Jory felt naked. And nervous. And fearfully, fearfully proud. The three things her father always made her feel.

Her father set his note cards down and paused for a moment. “There wasn’t a lot of excitement on my father’s farm in Kansas,” he said, “just mainly work, but I found that in the summer evenings I could go into my mother’s vegetable garden and lie down and look up at the stars, and it was a wonderland. It was also, I guess,” her father continued, “a form of
escapism. I was captivated by the notions of infinite space, of how the planets moved and what the stars were made of. From the age of six or seven I can remember wondering about these things.” Jory knew the part that was coming next; she could feel herself anticipating the words as if she had made them up herself. How by the age of twelve her father had made a radio out of chicken wire and an old vacuum tube, and at fourteen he had built his own telescope. It was then, he said, that he’d had his first glimpse of the real magnitude and mystery of the heavens and man’s tiny, ridiculous place in it.