Savages

89

When O asks Paqu how things with Eleanor are, Paqu gives her an odd, uncomprehending look.

“Eleanor?” O prompts. “Your life coach?”

“Jesus is my life coach now.”

Uh-oh.

Turns out Paqu has joined a megachurch up in Lake Forest. Paqu being Paqu, of course it’s the largest church in the nation.

“Uhhh, do you know anything about Jesus’s life, Mom?” O asks. “Read a biography or anything?”

“Yes, darling, the Bible.”

“Have you gotten to the end, because—”

“I’ve accepted Christ as my personal savior.”

“—it didn’t turn out that well for the guy. You know, the crucifixion thing and stuff.”

Three Things I Will Do Today to Get Myself Nailed to a Cross:

1. Piss off the money changers

2. Piss off the Romans

3. Tell my dad I don’t want to

(Young Jesus hangs from a cross, learning a lesson about trust. “Just get up there, I’ll catch you.”)

“Would you pray with me, Ophelia?” Paqu asks.

“Yeah, no. Thanks, though.”

“I’ll pray for you.”

“Where’s my passport?”

This sets off Paqu’s alarm system. “Why?”

“I want it.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“I’m thinking France.”

“What’s in France?”

“I dunno, French stuff. The French.”

“Is it a French man, Ophelia?” Her skin is stretched so tight across her bones you could drum on it.

O is tempted to say that actually she got double-teamed by two perfectly fine all-American guys last night, just to see her face actually go jigsaw puzzle, but she doesn’t. She wants to say that she’s going to Indo with these two men and maybe try to build some kind of life, she wants to say goodbye, but she doesn’t say that, either.

“It’s my passport,” she hears herself whine.

“In the upper left desk drawer in my office,” Paqu says. “But we need to talk about this.”

Yeah, we need to talk about a lot, Mom, O thinks. But we won’t. She goes into Paqu’s office, digs around in the desk drawer, finds her passport, and goes out the back door.

B4N.