The Mothers(50)

“I’m not scared,” she said.

“Of what?” he said.

“Of you.”

They were both still for a minute, then Miller reached an arm around her waist. She didn’t move. He kissed her, soft at first, then harder, and when his lips trailed down her neck, she froze and burned at the same time. Before she knew what she was doing, she pulled him in the darkened bathroom, onto the grimy floor still covered in damp sand. She could barely see him in front of her, she could only feel him, his large hands squeezing her. He could kill her. He could bash her head against the floor. He could strangle her with those large hands and crush her throat. But she didn’t feel paralyzed by the danger, only excited. She climbed on top of him, and he moaned into her mouth.

“I don’t have anything,” he whispered.

A condom, he meant. She pulled away. Outside, the moon shone brightly over the waves, and through the bathroom door, she could see Nadia and JT bobbing in the water, still laughing and splashing each other. She climbed off of Miller and waded out to join them, soaked again, unable to tell what was the ocean and what was herself.

—

“I THINK HE LIKED YOU,” Nadia said. “The old one.”

They were parked, watching the sun rise over the San Luis Rey River, or what was left of it. In the summertime, the river dried up, cracked earth snaking through the trees. Aubrey leaned against the truck window, the glass warming her face. She swore she could still smell Miller on her. She wanted to tell Nadia about what had happened in the bathroom, how she had taken charge, how she hadn’t felt afraid, but she didn’t, for the same reason she’d refused Miller’s number at the end of the night. She knew she would never see him again and she wanted to keep the memory to herself. She didn’t feel unburdened by sharing hard truths. Hard truths never lightened.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she said.

“Tell you what?”

“About you and Luke. You were never gonna tell me.”

“Why would I? We hooked up in high school. It’s not a big deal!”

“It is to me!”

She had never yelled at Nadia before and for a second, she felt proud watching her flinch. Then Nadia pulled her into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, okay? I won’t keep secrets from you.”

She kissed her forehead, and Aubrey felt too exhausted to fight her. She sank into Nadia’s side, amazed that after everything, she could still feel something as gentle as Nadia’s fingers in her hair.





NINE


The wedding was all any of us could talk about once the invitations had arrived. Shiny gold squares of paper with cursive so fancy you had to squint just to read it, tucked inside a white envelope with gold trim, closed with a seal that bore the first lady’s initials, a slanting L propped against a curvy S. The bright invitations bounced light and when we held ours close at coffee hour, the card made our faces glow. We’d all heard secret details about the wedding; Deacon Ray’s wife, Judy, told Flora the cake was from Heaven Sent Desserts, three levels high and rich enough to lose a tooth. Third John told Agnes there would be over a thousand guests at the wedding. At bingo, Cordelia, the church organist, whispered to Betty that the reception would be in the pastor’s own house, servants ushering glass flutes on silver trays to and fro.

You can’t blame us. At our age, we’d seen plenty of weddings, far too many of them, really. Weddings so boring we nearly slipped to sleep before the minister even spoke, weddings between people who had no business even thinking about marrying, who couldn’t bring themselves to share a sandwich, let alone a life. But this wedding, it got us feeling hopeful again. We were generally unimpressed with the stock of young people in our congregation. The boys were sullen and slow, slouching in the pews, tight-mouthed when you tried to speak to them. When we were girls, we knew boys who were Spirit-filled, Bible-quoting believers. (We also knew pool-shooting, cigarette-smoking gamblers, but at least they had enough sense to wear a belt.) Now the girls were even worse. Our mamas would’ve whooped our legs if we’d dared to come to church like these girls, bubblegum-popping and hair-twirling and hip-switching. Anyone knows a church is only as good as its women, and when we all passed on to glory, who would hold this church up? Serve on the auxiliaries board? Organize the Women of Worth conferences? Hand out food baskets during Christmas? We looked into the future and saw the long banquet tables growing dusty in the basement, the women’s Bible studies emptied, assuming these girls didn’t turn the meeting room into a disco hall.

But Aubrey Evans was different. When we’d seen her crying at the altar all those years ago, she’d reminded us of ourselves. Back when we were just girls piling into camp meetings wearing starched calico dresses and white gloves; girls who sang solos and baked sweet potato pies for the church picnic; girls who kneeled in segregated churches, forced to sit off to the side so the white preacher didn’t have to look at us. In her, we saw us, or us as we used to be. Girls who had felt that first spark of a slow love. A pastor’s hand on our forehead and we had fallen, hands back and arms wide and crying out, for the first time, a man’s name. Jesus! And when we’d cried out a man’s name for the second time, it felt like a shadow of that first moment. So even though we hadn’t known where she’d come from, we’d understood why Aubrey Evans couldn’t stop crying when the pastor asked what gift she’d come forward to receive and she whispered, salvation.