Part 1 (1/2)
Her Name in the Sky.
by Kelly Quindlen.
For Mom, Dad, Freida, Gorb, and Cakes, with all my love.
Chapter One: Birthday.
Baker is wearing her least favorite pair of knee socks. Hannah can tell even from here-even from halfway up the bleachers, where she stands between Wally and Luke and looks down to where Baker stands in the center of the gym floor-because Baker keeps reaching down when she thinks no one is looking and tugging her knee socks up her calves. Hannah knows that Baker must have woken up this morning and realized that none of her good pairs of knee socks were clean-perhaps they were still in her laundry basket, untouched since before Christmas break-and that she must have dug into her sock drawer, her nimble fingers brus.h.i.+ng against the cherry wood, and pulled out the old cotton pair, the ones she swore back in 9th grade that she would never wear again because they were always falling down.
”They'd better hurry up,” Wally says, glancing at his wrist.w.a.tch. ”It's 2:17 already.”
”It's Friday, Wall,” Hannah says. ”No one's gonna care if we have to stay an extra minute.” She scans the gym and spots their ill tempered vice princ.i.p.al brooding beneath one of the basketball hoops. ”Except maybe Manceau. He looks like he's gonna faint if he doesn't get his end-of-the-day sticky bun soon.”
”I feel him, for once,” Luke says. ”I'm starving and I want a burrito.”
Hannah's about to respond when a deafening buzzing sound swells outward into the gym. Students all around the bleachers jerk their hands up to their ears. Then there's the distant sound of a microphone falling over, and Hannah, clutching her ears, sees Mr. Gauthier, the half-blind old technical director, raising his palms in apology. Several feet away from him, Mrs. Shackleford, the princ.i.p.al, rolls her eyes up into her head.
”Think they finally got it?” Hannah says.
”Mr. Gauthier looks confused,” Wally says.
”He looks the same as ever,” Luke says. ”Like he's high and doesn't know what he's doing here. Gotta love old Goach.”
”-say something to test it?” a clear voice says through the speakers, and they all swing their eyes to Baker, who stands at the half court line holding a cordless microphone in her hand. ”Oh,” she says, half-laughing at herself, her earnest expression visible even from the bleachers. ”I guess it's working now-”
”'Bout time!” one of the football players in the lower bleachers yells. From where Hannah stands, it sounds like Clay.
Baker laughs along with the rest of the gym. She runs a hand through her hair, her smile relaxed and unguarded like it is when she tells Hannah stories late at night. ”Hi, y'all,” she says.
”Hi,” the hundreds of students laugh.
”Thanks, Mr. Gauthier,” Baker says, with no trace of irony in her voice. ”Okay-so should we have this pep rally?”
The student body breaks into whooping and applause. It starts in Hannah's section, with the senior cla.s.s, and moves all around the gym as the juniors, soph.o.m.ores, and freshmen echo their older peers. ”Yeah!” Luke shouts amidst all the cheering. ”Bring on the burritos!”
Several of the seniors on the bleachers below them turn around with quizzical smiles on their faces, but Luke just grins and pumps his hands in the air, making everyone around them laugh.
”Before we start,” Baker says, and at her words, the gym falls quiet again, ”Father Simon is going to lead us in prayer.”
The energy in the gym turns restless and agitated. Boys crack their necks; girls pull their s.h.i.+rtsleeves over their wrists. Father Simon steps toward the microphone, his neck straining against his white clerical collar.
”Kill me now,” Hannah says under her breath. The seniors all around her shoot her conspiratorial smirks.
”Let us bow our heads and pray,” Father Simon says. The ma.s.s of freshmen to Hannah's left obeys his order, their skinny, acne-heavy faces tilted toward the bleachers. Across the gym, most of the soph.o.m.ores and juniors follow suit. It is only here, in the senior section, that Hannah senses resistance. The anxious resistance of young adults, of people caught between the crayon drawings of Sunday school and the cognitive dissonance of grown-up theology.
”Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day...”
Hannah doesn't listen to him. She lets her mind wander as she picks at the chipped green nail polish on her thumb. Next to her, Wally scratches at his forearm, his calloused knuckles hinting at too many nights spent wrestling with his little brothers.
Hannah's mind slips back to the pep rally they had in August, when everyone had fresh haircuts and neatly pressed skirts and slacks, and when she, Baker, Wally, Clay, and Luke had organized a surprise skit for the student body in which their teachers had dressed up as the more memorable students in the senior cla.s.s. She can still see Mr. Akers' impression of Clay's c.o.c.ky strut, can still hear Mrs. Paulk's attempt at Baker's laugh, can still remember the thrill she felt when Ms. Carpenter-her favorite teacher-adopted Hannah's own mannerisms and spoke with her phrases.
”...We thank you for our athletes, these young men who will represent our school tonight and who will seek to glorify You with their performance,” Father Simon says. ”We know You have endowed them with a special gift-”
”Hagh,” Luke says, shaking his head. ”Jeeze. Sorry, everyone. Got a little cough here.”
The seniors all around them snicker and brush their hands over their mouths. Hannah tries in vain to stop her shoulders from shaking with laughter.
”...In Your name we pray. Amen.”
”Amen,” Hannah mutters, tossing the word into the great rush of ”Amen” that sweeps across the gym. She raises her hand to her forehead to make the same Sign of the Cross that everyone else is making, the words and actions ingrained in her brain, her movements mirroring those of every other person in the gym.
”Thanks, Father Simon,” Baker says, taking the microphone back. She pivots toward the senior cla.s.s and her mouth twitches with a smile, like she can read their discomfort all too plainly. ”Alright,” she says. ”So. Does anyone want me to bring out our St. Mary's football team?”
The energy in the gym changes instantly: the crowd erupts, the band launches into the school fight song, and the center of the gym is flooded with color as the football players, decked out in their blood red St. Mary's jerseys, spill onto the gym floor and throw up their hands at the crowd around them.
”Don't you just love when we hero-wors.h.i.+p our own cla.s.smates?” Luke says.
”You know, I actually do,” Hannah says. ”I'll probably ask Clay for his autograph after this.”
”He'll think you're serious,” Wally laughs.
Baker holds the microphone low in her right hand and cranes her neck to talk to some of the football players. The rest of the student body, watching from the bleachers, continues to shout and stomp and cheer, until Mrs. Shackleford pats her hands over the air to indicate that she wants quiet. The gym falls into a relaxed silence, and Baker redirects her attention to the student body, biting her lip as she transitions from a smile to a serious face.
”Tonight's expo game will be a crucial event in the race for the Diocesan Cup,” she says. ”We're already leading the pack with community service hours and our Adoration log, but winning this football game will really put us over the top. And I think the leaders of this diocese know exactly what they're doing in pitting us against Mount Sinai, because there is no better rivalry in Baton Rouge. So tonight, let's set ourselves up for a Diocesan Cup victory and ensure that the St. Mary's legacy continues to grow stronger.
”Those of us who are seniors-” she pauses to wait for the inevitable hollering from the senior cla.s.s-”first set foot on this campus three and a half years ago, back when the football team had an overall losing record, most of us still had braces, and Clay Landry was about four-foot-seven.”
There's a great outburst of laughter, particularly from the senior cla.s.s section of the gym. Clay, who stands at the front of the football team, laughs good-naturedly while several guys. .h.i.t his arm.
”All of that has changed now,” Baker says. ”We had an overall winning record this past fall, all of our seniors are braces-free and beautiful, and Clay now stands at-what are you, four-foot-eight?”
Everyone laughs again, as does Clay, his smile huge and bright. ”Pretty close,” he calls to Baker.
Baker's smile stretches up to her eyes. She tips the microphone away from herself and lets out a series of short, repeated laughs, the kind that always overtake her when she's trying not to find something funny. She casts a look behind her before speaking into the microphone again. ”Sorry,” she laughs. ”Mrs. Shackleford wanted me to use that joke-Sorry! Sorry! Anyway. We beat Mount Sinai back in the fall, and tonight we're going to beat them again, right here in our own stadium, with the whole diocese watching. We're going to show them what it means to be a St. Mary's player, student, fan, and believer, and what it means to be the very best school in this diocese. So, before I turn the mic over to Clay, I just want to say: Geaux Tigers!”
And again, the crowd of students roars, stomps, and throws their hands in the air. Some of the girls near Hannah are practically shrieking. The teachers sitting along the first row of bleachers on the other side of the gym shake their heads and laugh, and Mr. Gauthier actually pulls his hearing aids out of his ear. Ms. Carpenter claps her hands and leans over to say something to Mrs. Shackleford, and they both laugh.
The noise dies down as Baker beckons Clay over to the microphone. He hugs her and whispers something into her ear, earning a smile from her, and then he takes the microphone and pivots his body so he can address the entire gym.
”Our student body president, everyone,” he says in his deep, rumbling voice. ”Hey, y'all know it's her birthday today, right?”
Suddenly the whole gym swells with an impossible level of cheering and shouting. Baker smiles big and tugs on her earring, tilting her head to the floor. Clay lowers the microphone and turns back to look at the football team, holding his fingers in the air-3-2-1-and then the team begins to sing Happy Birthday. Within a half-second, the whole school is singing with them.
Hannah sings quietly under her breath, keeping her eyes on Baker the whole time, watching her tuck her hair back behind her ear. Toward the end of the song, Baker raises her eyes to the bleachers. She meets Hannah's eyes, and Hannah waggles her eyebrows and grins as big as she can, and Baker shakes her head and fights a smile just as the song ends.
It's a standard pep rally after that. Clay pumps up the crowd until the cheering around the gym is so amplified and everyone's emotions are so heightened that Hannah feels almost delirious with excitement. Luke starts to crow where he stands, his eyes wide and his cheeks flushed, and then he sets his hands on Hannah's shoulders and shakes her back and forth until Wally leans forward and jabs him in the stomach to make him stop.