After all, why should Agnes get to have all the fun?
Cory waited for her beneath their juniper tree, at the canyon’s edge.
There the earth plummeted into a sunset-colored abyss, a gash yawning wide and vast. When the wild winds swept it, the earth itself seemed to howl.
Most girls feared the canyon, and the coyotes and catamounts that made it their home, but the canyon was the most adventuresome, romantic setting Beth could picture. She loved it.
Only sometimes, like now, the sight of its vastness saddened her. Made her think how small her life was. How suffocating.
But Beth never stayed melancholy long. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of warm earth, and when Cory emerged from behind their tree with a rakish grin, she pressed herself against him and kissed him hard.
“Wow,” he said when they broke away. “What was that for?”
“I guess I missed you.”
Cory frowned, then cursed vehemently under his breath. “What a fucking mess we’re in.”
She raised an eyebrow. Red Creek’s golden boy liked to sling Outsider curses when they were alone. He learned them from the television at the nearby gas station, where the owner let him watch shows for a quarter. He often “borrowed” his father’s truck to get there.
Beth felt a tug of jealousy, thinking of the freedoms he enjoyed. Cory’s forays were secret, but even if he were found out—well—who wouldn’t forgive the golden boy for breaking a rule here or there?
Boys will be boys—especially the golden ones.
Yet Beth often felt she’d been buried alive.
“So, you didn’t miss me?”
His eyes blazed in a way that made her belly clench. “I couldn’t think of anything but you all week.”
“Is that so bad?”
“What we’re doing is wrong.” She heard the conflict in his voice, the yearning. “Beth, I think we’d better stop meeting.”
Though she kept her face serene, on the inside she panicked.
She’d known Cory Jameson since childhood. He’d always accepted her, flaws and all.
And the kissing was lovely.
Sometimes she’d lean against the juniper tree, just letting herself be kissed while he murmured: I love you, God help me, but I love you. At night, she’d write all about it in her diary, which she kept hidden beneath her side of the mattress, replaying every delicious moment before she fell asleep.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” He ran a hand through his sun-kissed hair. “I can’t keep doing what I know to be a sin. I’ll have responsibilities soon.”
She tipped her head back to look at him, aware of the afternoon light prettily illuminating her brow.
“We’re not hurting anyone. Anyway, if it wasn’t a little sinful, it wouldn’t be any fun, would it?”
He laughed, and looked more like himself.
“Beth, you’re a hell of a girl,” he said, surely quoting some secular movie he’d caught on the gas station television set. “But it’s the hereafter that matters. We’ve had our fun, and we’ve got to start taking eternal life seriously. Before it’s too late.”
She slipped from his grip, irritated by the mention of the hereafter—that vague concept around which her life was forced to revolve.
“If that’s how you feel, then why did you ever want me?”
He winced. “There’s no harm in sinning when you’re young, as long as it doesn’t mean anything. But now it does. We were never supposed to choose each other. We ought to have waited for God.”
“Oh, that’s only about marriage,” she said airily.
“Treat the other sex like snakes,” he shot back. “And stay chaste.”
“Is this about your father? Did he say something?”
He scowled, trying to decide how much to tell. Now that she felt on the brink of losing him, he looked more handsome than ever.
So don’t lose him, she chided herself.
“You know I’m meant to inherit the homestead?”
She rolled her eyes. “Everybody knows.”
“Yesterday, Father said God would surely bless me with many wives—as soon as I’m old enough to marry. Can you even imagine what a huge responsibility that is? I’ll be a patriarch, Beth. And not later. Soon.”
A burst of pain, swift and sharp. Girls married as young as fourteen, but boys, as heads of households, waited until eighteen.
Cory was seventeen already.
“Is that what you want?” she demanded. “To be a big exalted patriarch with dozens of dull, obedient wives?”
“I want to be a righteous man.”
She stamped her foot—she couldn’t help it. “Cory Jameson, you’re boring! You’re smart enough to be anything, do anything. You could leave, if you wanted. Have a life Outside.”
The word quivered on her tongue like a breathless dream.
“But then I’d be damned,” he said. “If it’s here or the lake of fire, I’d much rather stay where I am.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her eyes towards the canyon.
What was wrong with her, that she didn’t give a damn about being damned?
I just want to live, she thought desperately. To kiss a boy, see new things, have real friends…
The tears streamed hot and sudden down her cheeks.
In an instant, poor, conflicted Cory had her in his arms. “Oh, there. Don’t cry. Please don’t.”
She rested her cheek against his collarbone. “I hope you’re happy with your dozen wives,” she said bitterly. “I hope they’re god-awful nags.”
He stroked her hair. “Let’s not think about it now. As long as I’m free, we can keep meeting. But you know, if anyone ever found out—”
Beth thought of Agnes—her sister, hoarding her secrets—and cried harder.
“You knew it wasn’t forever when we began,” he said. “So what’s really bothering you?”
“It’s Agnes,” she cried. “She’s been sneaking out!”
He frowned. “Which one is Agnes?”
“It’s because she’s plain you haven’t noticed her,” she said accusingly, pushing back. “You know all the pretty girls by name.”
He blushed. “Not all.”
But Beth knew she was right. It was the strangest thing, because to her, Agnes possessed a striking beauty. There was something in the way she held herself. Something in the tilt of her head. Her features were undeniably coarse and square, and yet sometimes Beth found herself unable to take her eyes off her.
She’d always thought privately (and with mild irritation) that to a certain kind of man, her sister would eclipse her entirely.
“Agnes is my elder sister,” she said, her voice shifting to irony. “The paragon of virtue.”
“Oh, right.” Cory sounded amused. When he wasn’t in high-holy mode, amusement was his default position towards life. “So, she has a secret boyfriend?”
“I don’t think so.” Beth bit her lip, pondering. “I don’t think she’s ever sinned, even inside her own head.”
“What do you think she’s up to, then?”