Trinity (40)

The next two weeks pass quickly. With the end of the school year approaching, our teachers have begun to assign more test, more projects, and more papers. Not to mention all the festivities still being planned for Easter.

At this point Easter’s beginning to feel like a chore, not a holiday. Sister Anne has assigned a five page paper about the meaning and importance of Easter, which is irritating because we’d all written the same paper but shorter last year. Unfortunately, we can’t reuse any of our work because Sister Anne read them all last year, and told us she’d be comparing the two, to verify that we’ve improved in our studies.

Easter also means the Easter Rising Talent Assembly, which I’d thought wouldn’t be so bad. Usually it’s quite entertaining to watch other kids perform songs, or dance, or dribble a basketball. The elementary kids, in particular, are always funny to watch, since they’re too young to be embarrassed.

However, I’m going to have to sit and greet everyone at the assembly, which I don’t want to do, but Maggie will be there with me, so I won’t have to do too much talking, I hope. What’s worse, though--what’s the worst--is that I somehow agreed to be in the talent assembly. Mrs. Vena had really liked my English paper, and she’d told me I should read it to everyone. In the moment, I’d frozen, and my brain had let my mouth say, ‘ok’. Now I don’t know how to tell her that I absolutely do not want to read a paper in the assembly. In front of everyone. I get sweaty just thinking about it.

What’s not so bad about Easter, though, is that Kelly and I hung up all the decorations around the school. We’d stayed after one day and taped up a bunch of garland and pastel streamers. We even cut out pale yellow and pink and blue egg shapes and taped them to everyone’s lockers. And, right before we left, he pulled a bag of plastic eggs out his backpack. This hadn’t been in our plan, but he started hiding them around the school, telling me they’ll be fun for people to find.

I’d opened one up, and inside was a small print-out of Principle Sumner’s face, with “Happy Easter!” written underneath. It was strange, and it made me smile, and Kelly had taken that egg and hidden it in under a bench in the front lobby with a gleeful laugh.

That, at least, had been fun.

Speaking of Kelly, I was glad that we continued to meet up at the library every Thursday. I truly don’t know how I ever got my homework done without him. When I have a question, he always knows the answer. And when he doesn’t, he puts his chin in his hand and reads my textbook and scribbles on a random scraps of paper until he’s figured it out.

Thursdays are now my second favorite day of the week.

And on my favorite day, on Fridays, I still see Pearl. The weather keeps fluctuating between warm and cool, as spring tends to do, but we’ve been able to sit outside every week. She seems better, though every once in a while she’ll mention something about YRJ, and she’ll frown, and a darkness will pass over her. I’ve found that if I touch her hand, she’ll come back. She’ll smile at me, and in that moment I think everything feels ok, for both of us.

Today, however, isn’t a Thursday or a Friday. It’s Wednesday, the day of our monthly all-school service. I sit down in the pews next to the rest of my third-period class, and immediately zone out. Easter’s just a week and a half away, and I still haven’t said anything to Mrs. Vena about the Easter talent assembly.

The pastor is talking, but I’m not listening. I stare around the chapel, realizing that Pearl isn’t here. I scan the crowd again, and it doesn’t surprise me that I can’t find Henry either. How do they always get away with sneaking off?

I sit and stare at my hands for a couple of minutes, thinking, waiting. Then everyone stands for one of the songs, and, with my heart pounding in my ears, I shuffle across the pew to the end, muttering ‘excuse me’ as I go. Sister Bertha stands at the end of the row, and my voice sticks in my throat for a second before I ask, “Can I go to the bathroom?”

Her eyes stare into me, and I swear she knows that I don’t have to go to the bathroom. I think a year of silence passes as she considers me. Then, “Yes.”

I tiptoe out of the chapel, then outside. I march myself across the campus to the school building, since the chapel doesn’t have any bathrooms. I’m already certain this is a terrible idea. Pearl was probably sitting behind me, and I just didn’t spot her. I’ll just go to the bathroom and go right back to the service.

Those plans are immediately dashed when I enter the school building.

“--won’t you just admit, then? I spent all that time trying to fix you, and–”

“He does not need to be fixed!”

“I–”

“Don’t you–!”

The voices overlap, but I recognize them. I rush around the corner, stopping just outside the bathrooms, where the voices are coming from. Well, it looks like I will be going into the bathroom, after all.

I push open the girl’s side door, and the all the noise stops. The door squeaks on its hinges. Henry bolts to his feet, swaying from the movement. His eyes are red. Pearl’s got a grip on his arm, her gaze hot and angry, her mouth screwed into a frown. And at the sink is Katherine, a hand on the basin. She whips her head around towards me, and I’m surprised to see tears on her cheeks, her eyes shiny.

Katherine is the first to speak, her tone clipped. “Leave us alone, Trinity. Use one of the other bathrooms.”

“I think it’s time you should go,” Pearl spits back, letting go of Henry. He’s scrubbing a hand through his hair, his gaze on the bathroom floor.

I stand just in the doorway, and the door swings shut behind me. I make a move to go further into the bathroom, but Katherine puts out a hand, and I stop. “Listen. I’m trying to talk to Henry, ok? That’s all.” She rubs the cross necklace at her throat with two fingers. Her tone borders on hysteric.

Henry doesn’t answer her, he just holds his head, his breathing uneven. I wonder if this is one of his panic attacks.

“What’s going on?” I ask, looking to Pearl.

She’s got her hands on Henry’s shoulders, and she asks him gently, “Do you want to sit down again?” To me, she says, “Just get Katherine out, please.”

Katherine’s breathes out heavily and turns to me. “No. No, you want to hear something? He’s gay. Yeah, they’re not dating at all. Henry Foley is gay, and he wouldn’t let me fix him. I could do it! He was so much better, then. If he would just let me pray with him again, God will fix him, I’m sure. Then–then we can be together, like we’re supposed to.” She’s crying openly now, her hands over her face. She doesn’t even look angry. In fact, I barely recognize her as Katherine Davies at all.

She comes towards me, and I think she’s going to knock me over and run out of the bathroom, but instead she puts her forehead on my shoulder and cries some more. I exchange an incredulous glance with Pearl over her shoulder. When Katherine doesn't move, I pat her awkwardly on the back with one hand.

“He’s the best boyfriend I ever had,” she tells me tearfully. “I loved him.”

Henry’s sitting on the floor now, his head bent. He’s breathing in and out steadily, like he’s meditating. His eyes are closed, and Pearl is murmuring to him, sitting next to him on the ground.

Pearl glances up at me with her wide eyes, and she doesn’t need to speak for me to understand. I give her a curt nod and gingerly reposition Katherine so I can open the bathroom door and guide her out.

She pulls away from me and wipes at her eyes, and the hallway feels thick and silent and too bright. I rub my palms on my skirt.

“You know you can’t fix him, right?” I say lowly.

She turns her head sharply in my direction, and, embarrassingly, I flinch. She sniffs. “I must. Otherwise, he’s just… he’s-- It’s against the bible.”

I watch her hand, still holding her cross necklace, and I think of what Amber had written on that sign. We are called to discriminate as He discriminates. Why is this what’s being taught? When Henry can’t help the way he is?

“If I can’t fix him, then he’ll go to Hell,” Katherine whispers to me, her face pale. “And he shouldn’t, because other than that, he’s a good person, he really is.” She hiccups and stares into the lights on the ceiling, trying not to cry.

“But he doesn’t need to be fixed. Don’t you think being a good person is more important than who he likes?”

Katherine doesn’t respond right away, and then she doesn’t get a chance to. Footsteps interrupt us, followed by a deep voice. “Miss Reeding, Miss Davies, have you lost your way back to the chapel?”

Sister Bertha stands in the hallway some feet away, still as a statue. Her face gives away nothing. She doesn’t look upset, or disappointed, or annoyed. She just looks at us.

My face heats, and Katherine dabs at the corners of her eyes. “I just, uh…” Katherine starts.

Sister Bertha procures a tissue from the skirts of her habit. “Why don’t you step outside for a moment, Miss Davies? Fresh air will help.”

Katherine gives me a look, and I’m not sure what it means, then stalks away, taking the tissue from Sister Bertha as she goes.

Sister Bertha’s eyes move from me to the bathroom door. “How are they?”

I start, and I think my heart stutters. She knows! How does she know?

She folds her hands together in front of her, the picture of serenity. It only makes me fidget more. I don’t know what to say.

“Everyone’s fine,” I squeak out. That doesn’t implicate anyone, on the off-chance she doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s silent. “I’ll go back to the chapel now,” I say, my head bowed.

“God is with you whether you attend service or not, Miss Reeding. I think He’d rather you stay with your friends when they need you.” I stare at her open-mouthed, and a thin smile lights her face. “You’re right, Miss Reeding. I believe that God cares more about us being good people than anything else.”

And then, she walks away.

Confused, I turn back to the bathroom door. I stare at it, I frown, I look back down the hallway. No one’s there.

I laugh. A short, little laugh. I’m not in trouble. Somehow, Sister Bertha knows everything, and still, none of us are in trouble. I shake my head, and enter the bathroom again.

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(first part: https://theprose.com/post/432343/trinity)

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(previous part: https://theprose.com/post/457738/pearl-39)

(next part: https://theprose.com/post/459253/trinity-41)