This Side of Salvation

CHAPTER 22

FIFTY-TWO TO FIFTY-ONE DAYS BEFORE THE RUSH

Kane called me three nights after tryouts, screaming. It sounded like he was being stretched on the rack.

“I got third base. I got third!!” He let out a triumphant cackle. “No more squatting behind home plate, sweating my guts out in that chest protector. Yeeeeeessssssss!”

I lowered my cell phone’s speaker volume before putting it back to my ear. “Congratulations.” I’d already known, since Coach Kopecki had called me half an hour before. Since then I’d been sitting in my room, trying in vain to focus on my history paper.

“Kopecki said you got the number one spot in the rotation and that they hired you a private pitching coach. How awesome is that?”

“Yeah.” I rolled my shoulders, which were tightening at the thought of this unprecedented level of pressure to perform—with a new catcher, no less. “Brendan Rhees is probably planning my assassination as we speak.”

“He doesn’t get the top spot just because he’s a senior. You’re better than he is. You’re better than anyone Middle Merion has had in years.”

“I don’t know.” I got up from my desk and started pacing, flicking my ballpoint pen’s button in and out. “Doing great in tryouts is one thing. Games are different.”

“Whatever. Just relax. And don’t ever call Brendan your ‘number two’ to his face.”

I managed a feeble laugh. “It’ll be weird without you behind the plate, man.”

“Miguel’ll be great. Besides, you need to get used to different catchers. That’s how it’ll be in college. And the minors. And the majors.”

“Whoa, whoa. Let’s get through this season first.” The mere thought of a bigger stage made my stomach hurt. I reached up to the top shelf of my desk and adjusted the wooden model of John’s A-10 fighter jet, though it was already perfectly straight.

“This season is going to rule,” Kane declared. “We’re gonna sweep Lower Merion, I can feel it.”

I’d looked at the schedule. The Rush was in the middle of the regular season. Would Mom and Dad even let me play that long?

“New topic,” he said, “almost as important. Do you want to go to prom?”

“With you?”

“Officially, yeah, because only students can buy tickets, so I’d have to put you down as my date. Someone else would buy a pair of tickets for Bailey and himself.”

Taking Bailey to prom hadn’t even occurred to me. Other than baseball, I was far outside normal high school events, and so was she. Missing traditions like prom was one of the downsides of homeschooling. The mental image of her in a short, hot dress—or a long, hot dress; whatever—sent my pulse racing.

But a piece of this puzzle was missing. “Who is this someone else? You have a date? Like, a real guy?”

“I thought about what you said the other day in the dugout. I felt like a hypocrite telling you to go for it with Bailey when I was afraid to ask Jon out.”

The name stopped my thoughts, as it always did, even though it was so common. “John?”

“But with no H,” he hurried to add. “Short for Jonathan. Yeah. He goes by Jonathan, usually. Sorry.”

I shook my head and focused on Kane’s monumental news. “That’s great, man. Have I met this guy?”

“No, he moved from New York last summer. Theater type, a set designer. Bailey’d like him. Hey, we should go on some double dates before prom. It’s May tenth, by the way.”

Disappointment smothered my excitement. I gave the caster of my desk chair a half-hearted kick. “Kane, I can’t. The Rush is supposed to be at three a.m. on the eleventh. I should be home with my parents when they have their meltdown over the world not ending.”

“We’ll get you home by three. Look at it this way,” he said with a laugh, “if the Rush happens, then you’ll be with them for all eternity. You’ll have tons of time to tell them about the last night of your life. Which could also be the greatest night. I hear Stephen Rice is having a faaaaaabulous after-party.”

“I thought you said Stephen Rice was a jerkwad.”

“A jerkwad who throws legendary parties. Everyone in senior and junior class is invited. We’re going. End of story.”

“Also, you and me, tux shopping, this Friday after school.”

We hung up but I continued to pace. Prom meant more than dancing, especially if we went to the party. The Rices had a pool and a hot tub, and their pool house was a notorious hookup locale.

Prom could mean sex. Maybe. Probably? Definitely possibly.

Between that and the top pitching position, it was almost more pressure than I could take.“You know that guy Kane Walsh?”

Bailey looked up from her calculus textbook. We were studying at her dining room table—actually studying, because her grandparents were visiting and they were sitting in the next room chatting with her parents.

“That guy Kane Walsh who’s your best friend, who I’ve hung out with, like, ten or fifteen times?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“I know Kane.”

“Cool.” I jammed my pencil into the crease of my calc textbook so it stood up straight. “Will you go to prom with him?”

Bailey was silent for a moment, tapping her fingernails on the table like she was playing piano, even though she didn’t. “That’s a confusing question for more than one reason.”

“You’d be going with him in name only. Obviously.”

“Who would I be going with in spirit?”

“Jonathan’s date.”

“Aaaaaand what is his or her name?”

I shifted my notebook a few inches away from me. It bumped into my calc book, knocking the pencil over. “David Cooper.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. You think he’d be a good prom date?”

“Well, he’s not a bad dancer, for a complete dork. He doesn’t drink, so he probably won’t puke on you. He’ll sell a bunch of old baseball cards on eBay so he can buy you flowers and dinner.” I repositioned the pencil in the calc book’s spine. “And he is in love with you.” I cleared my throat. “Which, I hear, helps.”

I realized, too late, that the voices in the living room had gone silent.

“Yes.” Bailey’s hand touched mine, the outsides of our little fingers pressed together. “It does help.”

It felt like my hand weighed a ton as I lifted it to rest on hers. “So what do you think?”

She leaned in close to whisper in my ear. “I think I love . . .” She laughed a little, her breath making me shiver. “I love the idea of going with Kane to prom.” Before I could react, she added, “Because I’m in love with Jonathan’s date, too. Just from hearing about him.”

“Wow. That’s really awkward. For Jonathan and Kane, I mean.”

“They’ll deal.” Bailey kissed me, leaning so far forward her chair rocked on its two side legs. I wrapped my arms around her, to catch her if she fell.

The Brynns invited me to stay for dinner, where Bailey announced our prom plans. Her grandparents were so happy they raised their glasses in a toast. I joined them, not only to celebrate prom, but also because Holy crap, Bailey said she loves me.

Her parents, however, seemed dismayed.

“Proms are so bourgeois.” Ms. Brynn pushed her cascade of strawberry-blond curls behind her should to keep them out of her food. “I wish schools would come up with some alternative. Maybe you could all spend the day building houses for the homeless. Or planting trees.”

“We already do those things, Mom.” Bailey speared a slab of stirfried seitan that simulated beef in appearance only. (It actually tasted really good, just nothing like beef.) “It’s okay to just have fun every once in a while, right?”

Now I saw why Bailey sympathized with my own parental plight. Both hers and mine judged everything against some impossible ideal, political or Biblical.

“Depends on the kind of fun,” her dad grumbled. “What time will it be over?”

“Prom ends at eleven,” I told him, “then some people are getting together for a few hours afterward.” My parents had reluctantly agreed to prom but forbade me to attend any after-parties. I had no intention of obeying.

His eyebrows popped up. “A party? Will there be adults there? What about drinking?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Rice will be home.”

“That doesn’t answer my second question. Alcohol is easy to hide.”

He probably would have felt better if I’d said everyone would be getting high. I’d seen the Brynns’ array of bongs, disguised as “incense holders.”

“David has to be home at two thirty,” Bailey said, “so he’ll bring me home at two. That’s not too late for a special occasion, right?” She gave her dad a smile completely unlike the ones she used to persuade me, but it still made my face ache with happiness. Bailey loves me.

“All right, all right, you can go.” Her dad gave her a stern frown, barely visible within his thick, Jerry Garcia–style beard. “Why can’t young people understand, alcohol kills brain cells.”

Bailey’s grandfather sighed. “I’d like to kill some brain cells right about now,” he muttered.

“Ernie, please.” Mr. Brynn glared at his father-in-law.

“What? They work hard, they deserve a little meaningless fun once in a while.”

“You tell ’em, honey.” His wife raised her glass of papaya juice, then turned to Bailey. “So what color dress do you think you’ll get? I bet you’d be stunning in red. With a slit up the thigh to show off those legs.”

I liked Bailey’s grandmother.

“Mother, please,” Ms. Brynn said, echoing her husband. “Bailey doesn’t want to be objectified.”

“Mom, I can look good without being an object.”

“Besides,” her grandmother added, “all the other young ladies will look like models. You want them to say homeschool girls are homely?”

The three women kept arguing while I took a long gulp of water that wasn’t nearly cold enough to wipe out the image of Bailey in a red dress with a slit up the thigh.

I went back to eating but spaced out on the conversation until Bailey’s mom spoke my name. “Which high school is holding this prom?” she asked.

“Middle Merion.”

She turned to her husband. “That’s the one I told you about, where some kids are planning an apocalypse theme.”

I paused, my fork tines buried in a pile of couscous. “Apocalypse?”

“I read an article in the Suburban and Wayne Times. Apparently a faction of the senior class is planning some kind of alternative prom in addition to the official one. A Rapture party at somebody’s house, to make fun of those kooks who say the world is ending that night.”

“The Rush,” I corrected before I could stop myself. “That’s what it’s called this time, not the Rapture. And the world won’t end on May eleventh. It ends seven years later, after the Tribulation.” They all stared at me. “I mean, I heard . . . somewhere . . . that’s what those people believe.”

“Whatever.” Ms. Brynn waved her hand, topaz rings flashing in the chandelier light. “These cult members say the dead will rise from their graves, so of course the zombie jokes are running rampant. This high school Rapture party has a postapocalyptic ‘Prombie’ theme.”

“The dead won’t be walking around,” I corrected again. “They’ll go straight to heaven when Jesus comes.”

This time when they stared at me, fixating on the cross around my neck, I didn’t bother saying, “According to those people.”

“At least they said I could go to prom.” Bailey took a seat on one of the swings in her backyard set and started unwrapping her cherry Popsicle.

“Your parents pity me.” I sat on the next swing over, though it was a bit small. Bailey’s little cousins came to visit a few times a year, so the Brynns kept her swing set after she’d outgrown it. “They think, ‘Maybe our daughter can save this poor boy from his ignorance.’”

“I do my best.” She grinned at me as she sucked carefully on her dessert. Her bottom teeth were sensitive to cold, so she couldn’t bite her way through. “When did your parents become Rushers?”

I couldn’t lie to her. “Around the time we started going out.” She gave me an exasperated why didn’t you tell me? look, so I omitted the fact that I’d accidentally introduced them to the whole idea. That revelation could wait until never.

“I saw a picture online of that preacher lady.” Bailey scuffed her toes through the pillow-soft mulch below the swings. “She’s kinda hot, isn’t she?”

I chewed through the first third of my lime-flavored Popsicle before answering. “She’s all right.”

“Let me guess: She wants you to recruit all the guys with cute butts on your baseball team.”

I angled my swing’s trajectory to tap her knee with my foot. “And who would that be?”

“All of them. It’s the uniforms.” Bailey grabbed my sneaker with her free hand and held on.

“And here I thought you were coming to our games to see me pitch.”

“Baseball’s a slow sport. Lots of time to check out butts.”

I pointed to her hand. “You’re dripping.”

She let go of me and licked the red juice off the bulge of her thumb. “So what does the Rush mean for you?”

“It’s why I’m not taking community-college classes, not just because we can’t afford it. My parents think I won’t be around to finish the semester.”

Bailey pulled the Popsicle out of her mouth, making a soft suction sound. “It sounds cool to live like there’s no tomorrow, but what happens when tomorrow comes?”

“Mom and Dad’ll be devastated. The Rush seems to make them, I don’t know, not just happy. Ecstatic.” I bit into my Popsicle. A piece broke off and fell to the ground. “I know they’re crazy, but in a way, they’re easier to be with now that they’ve lost touch. A year ago there’s no way they would’ve let me go to prom. Now it’s like they don’t care what I do.”

“Maybe they want you to seize the day and enjoy this beautiful earth before you go to heaven.”

This is heaven, because you’re here, and you love me, and God, how will I ever get used to that?

I brushed my hair off my forehead to reset my rampaging thoughts. “I don’t dare ask them why they’re being so lenient, in case they change their minds.”

“Must be hard, never knowing what they’ll say or do.” Bailey slumped forward dramatically. “My parents are sooooo predictable. I can barely resist finishing their sentences for them.”

“I like your parents. Can I come live here?”

“Yes! Hide out until the Rush obsession is over and it’s safe to go home.”

“There’ll be some other insanity afterward.”

“Maybe it’ll be a cool insanity. Maybe they’ll sell the house, buy an RV, and take you guys cross-country like Gypsies.”

“That would suck unless we brought you.”

“I’d stow away under your bed. They wouldn’t find me until Cleveland.” She started to rotate in the swing, twisting the chains above her head. “Then I’d make you guys the best tofu stir-fry you’ve ever had and you’d have to keep me.”

I started spinning too, feeling the swing rise with every turn as the chains tightened. “Your parents wouldn’t mind?”

“I’ll tell them it’s homework. I’m studying the real America. We can stop at museums and the Grand Canyon. And when we’re way out West, where there’s no light pollution, we can study the stars as part of an astronomy unit. Mobile homeschooling. We’ll be students of the world!”

My swing chains were so tight with tension I needed to hold on with both hands. So I gulped the rest of the Popsicle and dropped the stick on the ground. The resulting brain freeze stole my speech, giving me time to ponder this cross-country fantasy adventure. It was a beautiful dream that made me want freedom so bad. Why couldn’t I be eighteen right now?

“We could see the world’s biggest ball of twine,” Bailey said. “It’s somewhere in the Midwest.”

“How big is it?” I tried to ask, but with a frozen tongue, it came out “Hih bih ih ih?”

“The size of a house, I think. But you know what’d be even better?” she said, still twisting, rising. “Seeing the world’s second biggest ball of twine. It’s one thing to build the first biggest, because there’d be reward in that. Get your name in the Guinness Book of World Records, have all those tourist dollars coming in. But whoever has the second biggest ball of twine—you know they’ve done it for love. For the love of twine.”

I braced my feet against the ground. “For the love of twine.” “I’m done here.” Bailey looked down, where her toes were clutching the mulch. “You can go higher, since your legs are longer.”

“Maybe I’m happy being second highest. Because my love of swing twisting is pure.” I shimmied over, straining my chain. “Or I’ll hold you so we can both go higher.”

She smiled, then whipped around another rotation. The steel wanted to crank her back the other way, but I steadied her, then took her hand. Our arms stretched out in the space between our swings.

When we let go, we flew.