In the Beginning
©2003 Roger E. Moore
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Synopsis: Brittany Taylor is hiding a
guilty pleasure. How will people react when they discover what she’s been
doing, and how long will she keep lying about it?
Author’s
Notes: This
story began as an entry in a May 2003 Iron Chef contest on PPMB. MMan asked for
stories about guilty pleasures, secret things that certain characters in the
Dariaverse did that they enjoyed.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to MMan for the
contest.
In the beginning was the
word, the word
That from the solid bases of
the light
Abstracted all the letters
of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of
the breath
The word flowed up,
translated to the heart
First characters of birth
and death.
—Dylan Thomas, “In the Beginning”
In the beginning, it was easy to lie
about it. Later, it wasn’t.
“Dad? Ashley-Amber?”
“In the kitchen, Brittany.”
“Is Dad around?”
“No, he’s still at work. You going
out?”
“Yeah. I’ll be back about nine,
nine-thirty.”
“Cheerleading again?”
“Uh, no, not really. I’m not a
cheerleader anymore. I graduated.”
“Oh! Stupid me. New guy?”
“Oh, um, no. Just going out.”
“It’s not that Kevin guy, is it?”
“No, we broke up. It’s not him. I
just want to go out, maybe shop or something.”
“Oh! Okay! Drive safely!”
“Okay! Bye!”
“Bye!”
The key turned in the ignition of
the white Mustang, a gift from her dad. The engine roared, the garage door
opened, and Brittany rolled down to the street, turned, and headed out of Crewe
Neck. She took with her a paper bag in the glove compartment, her purse, and
her guilt.
It was impossible to shake a nagging
guilt over what she had just done. She didn’t feel guilty about what she was
doing, actually, just guilty that she wasn’t being honest about it with anyone.
It was a big secret, what she had started doing on Tuesday nights since
mid-June after she’d graduated high school. It was a secret because if everyone
knew what she was doing, they’d . . . well, they think she was even more stupid
that they already thought she was, and that would be pretty stupid indeed. It
would make her unpopular with a lot of people, maybe with everyone. Brittany
had always been popular. What would she have left if no one liked her?
However, not being honest about
where she was going was . . . well, it was a sin, especially since she wasn’t
being honest with her Dad or Ashley-Amber. That was definitely a sin, even if
Ashley-Amber wasn’t really her mother, but she was Brittany’s stepmother and
that was close enough.
Brittany felt her face turn red, and
she frowned. Distracted, she negotiated the streets through Lawndale, heading
for the west side. This was dumb. It was really dumb. She knew she wasn’t the
smartest person in Lawndale, the smartest person in Crewe Neck, or even the
smartest person in her family (her mother in Los Angeles was the smartest, she
suspected), but even so, she knew she was doing something wrong when she lied
like she had been lying. Some lies she told were okay, of course, like if she
lied to a guy about what a great lover he was, or lied to Brian that she didn’t
know why his pet mice kept disappearing, but that was okay, no one got hurt.
Lying about what she was doing now, however, was just wrong.
She swallowed, feeling bad. She’d
have to ask about this tonight, definitely, after the meeting. The light ahead
of her turned red, and her Mustang rolled up to it and stopped. Brittany
reached over to her right and popped open the glove compartment and reached in,
pulled out a paper bag, and emptied it on the seat beside her.
A small Bible with a black leather
cover slid out of the sack. Brittany tossed the paper sack to the floor and put
her hand on the Bible—her Bible, with her name written on the inside after she
secretly bought it at Books by the Ton a month ago. She tried to will herself
to feel better, but touching the Bible didn’t help. She had been lying about
attending Bible study classes for three weeks now, and it was eating her alive.
“Well, what difference does it make
if anyone knows, anyway?” she abruptly said to the red light. “I’m grown up
enough that I can go to Bible study classes. I’m learning a lot, and I’m not
doing bad things, and I’ve made some good friends who like me because I know
stuff about life and not because they’re trying to go out with me, I think, and
I know all this really wild stuff about Genesis now, all about God making the
world in five days and creating the weekend, and the Hanging Gardens of Eden,
and the Leaning Tower of Baby-something, Bibble, whatever, and Noah’s Ark and
all the animals except the dinosaurs and aliens and stuff, and why he had to
take even the gross things. I know a lot now, so why should I be ashamed
because I don’t want anyone to know I’m going to a Bible study class? I don’t—”
She reached up and wiped at her
eyes. A car honked its horn behind her. She realized she was talking to a green
light and started through the intersection, more embarrassed now. “Sorry!” she
called to the car behind her, though its driver couldn’t hear her.
She knew pretty much why she was
going to Bible study. Her life had changed too much lately, and it was
uncertain and loose and scary now. She broke up with Kevin weeks ago, but she
still sometimes wanted to see him. Ashley-Amber always reminded her that it was
no good seeing a guy who wasn’t going to college like she was, which was what
Brittany had said to Ashley-Amber in the first place but now Brittany wasn’t
remembering her own advice so well. She had all sorts of guys who wanted to go
out with her, guys from other schools even, but even with all that she was
lonely and sad and felt lousy most of the time. She wasn’t the happy, perky Brittany
she used to be. At least Kevin knew her enough to cheer her up, so it was hard
to keep away from the phone so she didn’t call him and ask him over or go see
him, but she was doing fairly well so far, most days.
And college was coming. College scared
her, though it didn’t used to scare her when she applied to Great Prairie State
and got accepted with the other cheerleaders. After graduation, Brittany began
to think too much about college, even though she knew thinking too much would
lead to trouble. She couldn’t help herself. The more she thought about it, the
worse she felt.
College was really for smart people
like Brittany’s former classmate, Daria Morgendorffer, who knew an incredible
amount of stuff that made her an incredible brain even if it made her miserable
sometimes, too. Once she was in college, Brittany would learn a lot of stuff,
too, and she was afraid it would make her miserable like it had made Daria
miserable. “It’s not good to know too much!” Ashley-Amber liked to say, but
sometimes it was not good to not know too much. Brittany frowned. Had she
gotten that right? She went through it again. Yeah, it sounded right, sort of.
Even if knowing stuff made you feel bad, it was sometimes better to know the
truth, like the way Brittany knew her dad was working late because he was
seeing someone at his office, his secretary with the long black hair and big
bust, and Ashley-Amber didn’t know that but Brittany wouldn’t tell her because
. . . well, she couldn’t. It was better, sort of, to know what was really going
on, though knowing what her dad was doing made Brittany feel rotten and ashamed
and terrible. He was her dad, after all, and he shouldn’t be messing around
with someone else when he had Ashley-Amber, who was sweet and tried to do mom kinds
of things and really liked Brittany and even tried hard to like her little
brother Brian, who wasn’t easy to love or like or even tolerate for a short
while.
“Damn it!” Brittany said, because
she was going to cry and she couldn’t afford to get teary while she was trying
to get to Carter County Christian Church for her Bible study class. She was
only halfway there, but her vision was all blurry, so she pulled over to the
side of the road near a warehouse and found a handkerchief in her purse and
wiped her eyes clear. Now, two blocks ahead of her, the railroad signals at
Twelfth Avenue began flashing. She groaned and briefly considered gunning the
engine and racing through the crossing, but she had seen a picture once of a
car that tried that, and it didn’t look like a car anymore.
Brittany put the Mustang in park and
turned off the engine and waited, hearing the train horn blare across the late
afternoon sky. She had plenty of time to get to the church for her class, but
she had hoped to get there a little early and ask Dr. Martinson about whether
it was a sin to lie about going to Bible study. She sighed and reached for her
Bible. It was light in her hands, and she flipped through its pages: Numbers,
Judges, Kings, a bunch of long names she couldn’t pronounce, Luke, John, a
bunch more names she couldn’t pronounce. She had never read anything much in
it, since the last time she’d been in church had been, um . . . a long time. In
the last three weeks, though, she’d read more Bible stuff than she’d ever imagined
possible—and they weren’t even out of Genesis yet.
She flipped the Bible shut. It was
stupid to even ask Dr. Martinson if lying was a sin, and she knew it. She had
to stop lying about it sometime and just tell everyone where she was going. And
when she did, her dad would just . . . and Ashley-Amber would . . . they’d . .
. they might . . .
Brittany shook her head, her eyes
closed. No, they wouldn’t understand. The train horn blared louder, still some
distance off but coming. Her dad would blow up. She knew it. He’d say, “Why the
hell do you need to go to a Bible study class? Whatever possessed you to do
something dumb like that?” Her dad said he loved her, but he didn’t know her
and when he couldn’t figure her out, he called her dumb. She would say, “Dad, I
just had so much on my mind with school out and Kevin and I breaking up and
college coming and—” No, couldn’t say anything about his cheating “—and all
kinds of stuff, and my head hurts and I just have to think about things and it
helps me to think about things when I go to Bible study. It makes me feel
better, you know?” But her dad didn’t know. He would never understand. “You
don’t need it!” he’d say. “Go see Kevin or someone else, go to a party, have
something to drink, but stop this stupid class!”
Thinking about this extremely likely
scenario, Brittany had a gut feeling that if she talked about the Bible, it
would scare her dad even more than going to college scared Brittany.
And Ashley-Amber was really sweet
and lots of fun, but she would be all confused. “Why do you want to go to
church, Brittany?” she’d ask, even after Brittany had explained that to her
dad, and Brittany would say, “You remember when Dad had that big party for me
last year, and he gave me that big crystal glass cheerleader’s bullhorn, but
Quinn Morgendorffer leaned on that music thinger and the shrieking noise made
the crystal bullhorn break? I was really bummed, but I thought about it and I
wondered if maybe it was for a reason, you know? Like maybe God or someone
wanted to show me that the bullhorn wasn’t so important, even if Dad spent a
lot of money on it for me, and maybe other things were more important, which I
know now is true, like—” No, couldn’t go any further. She was about to mention
her dad’s cheating again, which was definitely more important than a crystal
bullhorn getting smashed, but she couldn’t talk about it with anyone,
especially not Ashley-Amber. Or her dad. Or anyone else.
The train horn was ten times as loud
now, and closer.
And Brian. Brittany shook her head
again, looking out of her car to the side. Brian wouldn’t understand at all. He
was into dumb boy stuff like knives and guns and shooting things and blowing
stuff up, and he was also into experimenting on pets and other animals in
really bad ways, and Brittany had to watch him like a hawk, even more than she
used to watch Kevin to make sure he didn’t cheat on her. Brittany had freed
lots of little animals from Brian’s room and let them run away outside, but she
had been too late sometimes to save others and when that happened, it was
awful. Her dad was thinking about taking Brian to see a doctor about this, but
he never did anything, even when Ashley-Amber saw one of the failed experiments
and freaked out and screamed and cried rivers and complained to her dad about
it, too.
Brittany rubbed her forehead. She
was getting a headache, and the train’s ear-blasting horn was getting on her
last nerve.
When would she be able to tell her
dad and Ashley-Amber about her Bible study class? When would she tell anyone,
and stop lying? She had started the classes because she was curious and wanted
to get her life sorted out and thought the classes would help, and they had
turned out to be fun, lots more fun than she’d imagined, but she was so afraid
of what others would think of her, now it wasn’t so much fun. How was she going
to work this mess out?
The Mustang vibrated all over from
the approaching train’s thundering roar. Brittany picked up her Bible and
opened it and read the first thing she saw. The book opened at the place where
Brittany had found Psalm 23, which she had heard before on TV or maybe the
radio, and she had marked the page with the built-in bookmarker.
However, it was the Psalm before
that that caught her eye, Psalm 22.
Psalm 22 began: My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?
The train shot through the crossing
two blocks ahead of her, rumbling Brittany’s insides and her bones and her head
as it went.
Where are you, God? Brittany
thought, staring at the passage. Where are you? Can you bail me out of this?
Can you make everything okay for me? I’m so afraid everyone will laugh at me,
or call me stupid, or make me quit going, or . . .
Brittany’s thoughts faded. She read
on, struggling with unfamiliar words and strange phrases: But be not Thou far
from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. . . . Save me from the
lion’s mouth. . . .
The book fell shut in her hands.
Whoever wrote Psalm 22 had felt just
like she was feeling now. Alone. Abandoned. About to be made ashamed of doing
something she thought was good, which seemed as bad as being eaten by lions,
sort of.
Psalm 22 had no solution that she
could pick out.
But the writer had understood her.
Brittany sniffed and put her Bible
aside. The long, loud train had passed. The crossing ahead was clear.
“I’ll tell Dad and Ashley-Amber
tonight,” she said aloud. If her Dad wasn’t home, she’d tell Ashley-Amber
first, since she might have to explain this a bit, but she wouldn’t mention
what her dad was doing late at the office. If her dad wouldn’t listen when she
told him, fine. She could deal with it. She’d still go.
Maybe Ashley-Amber would go with her
to Bible study next time. She probably wouldn’t, but it was worth asking. If
she ever found out about her husband’s fooling around, she might want to go to
Bible study just to find out what to do about it.
Brittany started her car. She would
tell the truth tonight when she got home. For the first time in weeks, she
didn’t feel guilty about the only pleasure she had left to her, this last summer
in Lawndale.
She only hoped Dr. Martinson
wouldn’t be mad at her for skipping ahead in the book. They weren’t supposed to
read past Genesis yet.
Original:
5/18/03
FINIS