I slide into a folding chair next to Meg in the back row and prepare to zone out. Later, during opening prayer, James takes the end seat next to me. Jenn Hanson leads worship today, like she has since freshman year, singing a version of Beyoncé’s “Halo” with baby subbed in for Jesus. Adam accompanies her on the acoustic guitar as usual, his checkered Vans dangling as he perches on a stool, smiling with his eyes closed while he sings. Then Mr. K gives us a spiel about modesty, briefly citing something from Psalms but mostly making a long, involved case against short skirts.
(The Hot Girls uniform is short jean skirts, Abercrombie sweatshirts, and Rainbow flip-flops. Flip-flops even when it rains. After first period, they’re always caught and given a lecture about Honoring God with Your Body, along with a pair of baggy gym shorts. If someone is wearing gym shorts, they are a Hot Girl, their thongs peeking out of the elastic waistband. It’s almost better (hotter?), a badge of sexy badness. Marissa started wearing those ridiculous thongs last year, and I guess that’s pretty much how I knew we were doomed.)
James is dozing; his hair falls down into his face, and he lurches his head up with a snoring noise. Meg is drawing pictures of dinosaurs in the margins of her Spanish homework, completed early and perfectly. I’m working on an assignment from Susan. Make a list of things you like about yourself.
Good outfits!! Thrift store queen
Hilarious sometimes.
I get good grades.
“I’d like to read from Deuteronomy,” Pastor Tyler says soberly under a spotlight onstage, and hundreds of vellum Teen Bible pages flap their wings.
(I really don’t like this guy. He says “rock on” all the time. Youth pastors have such a look. His hair annoys me.)
“However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.”
Damn. Whoa, what? (Also, what is a kneading trough?) The Lord is going in. This is why I haven’t had the balls to read The Negro and the Curse of Ham. I already feel Pastor Tyler’s words needling into me like a direct address. One word in particular: overtake. All these curses will come on you and overtake you. That’s how my depression feels.
I get that this is supposed to be a back-to-school “make good choices” sermon, but it feels more aggressive than that. It’s a reminder that some people are better—it is easy for them to walk in the light, follow the rules; it’s their instinct to obey, to stay in line. The rest of us deserve every curse that falls on us, all the hardship we shovel through.
Suddenly something makes me jump in my seat, and I shiver. Turns out it’s just my phone buzzing in my lap: a text. I don’t recognize the number.
Two rows behind you.
Slowly I turn my head and scan the crowd. Immediately I spot annoying Tim McCloud, smirking in a too-big button down, and give him the evil eye. Ugh.
I text David instead. He says he’s bored in English, talking about a David Foster Wallace story. Of course, I seethe with jealousy at his normal, real-world education.
We just watched the snl skit from this week.
Did you see it? With Tina Fay?
Oh awesome
*Fey
yeah, I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM MY HOUSE!
So good! I can’t believe Sarah Palin is real.
Yes!!!
I know she is truly unbelievable.
(Someone brought up Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin in AP Gov yesterday, and Mr. K literally put his hand over his heart. As we were leaving class, Jenn Hanson cornered me surreptitiously and whispered, “I think I might be a Democrat, can you help me?” as if it were a wasting disease or substance addiction.)
The spotlight on Pastor Tyler dims as he bows his head for closing prayer.
Father God these teens are in danger every day. They are fighting a war. Father I just pray that you give them the strength and courage and discipline to be your soldiers in the face of temptation. I pray they do not give in to earthly desires. Father God I pray this in your Son Jesus’s precious name. Amen.
We repeat in unison, well rehearsed: Amen. The room comes to.
On my way to the yearbook room I run into Class President Kelly Kline at the center of a blindingly pink and bubbly cluster of girls from our class. I nod “Hey,” and Jenn squeals, grabbing at me, and pulls reluctant, emo me into the fold.
“Look!” Her blue eyes pierce with delight. “Adam gave Kelly a promise ring!”
“What?”
“A promise ring.”
Kelly extends her left hand and I see it, thin and gold on her ring finger.
“I don’t get it. What does it mean?”
She lowers her voice, and seemingly her whole body. “You know,” she whispers. “Don’t have sex before marriage.”
“What?” Stacy Johnson squeaks in her valley girl pitch.
Kelly spits when she repeats, exasperated, “Don’t have sex before marriage!”
I cover my mouth as a laugh escapes. “Sorry.” I bow.
(Everyone is so obsessed with virginity—the teachers bring it up multiple times a day. Sex, I mean. “Resisting urges.” There’s a whole lot of “saving yourself” and “save room for Jesus.” What’s wrong with having urges? You’d have to tighten all of your muscles and squeeze your eyes shut for the rest of your life to resist sinning. How can that be the good life?)
“So,” I clear my throat, “does this mean you’re supposed to get married? To each other?”
Kelly enacts the cartoon definition of swooning. Like, it’s disgusting how stoked she is to leap gleefully into a sexless marriage with Adam; to give up on any life that isn’t this one we’re standing in right now.