Leaving Fishers

  “It wasn’t so much what Pastor Jim said, as the way he said it,” Lara said. “He seemed so . . . calm, so at peace with himself and his beliefs. He touched my hand and said, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ and I felt a power jolting through me, and it was like, for the first time in my life, I could see the truth. I felt the Holy Spirit.”

  “Oh,” Dorry said.

  Lara laughed. “You’re not exactly thrilled by my story, are you?”

  “It’s not that,” Dorry protested. “I mean, I guess I’m happy for you that you have your, uh, beliefs—”

  “But you feel a little left out, that you’ve never had a similar experience, that God’s never spoken to you so profoundly?”

  On her own, Dorry would never have said that was the source of her discomfort. But she found herself saying, “Yes.” And maybe Lara was right, maybe that was it.

  “So will you come to a Fishers of Men get-together with me tonight?”

  Dorry blinked, not sure how they’d gotten from Lara’s story to this invitation.

  “It’s a no-pressure situation,” Lara said. “You go, you don’t like it, that’s it, we forget about it.”

  “And nobody’s mad at me?” Dorry asked, thinking of eating alone again.

  “Nobody’s mad at you. No big deal. But if you do like it—-just think what you might gain.”

  Dorry couldn’t think of anything—she wasn’t a Holy Roller, she couldn’t imagine having a Holy Spirit jolt or glowing the way Lara did. But she knew she couldn’t tell Lara that. And it wasn’t as if she had any other plans. Both her parents had to work evening shifts. She had expected to just stay home alone with the TV

  “Okay,” she said.

  Chapter

  Four

  IT WAS A PARTY.

  Walking in behind Lara, Dorry saw balloons and bright lights and a crowd. She remembered something her friend Marissa had said before she left Bryden: “You’ll have to tell us everything about your first party in the big city.”

  “I bet it’s not in a barn,” Dorry had joked, because her going-away party was. It was a cleaned-up barn that Marissa’s uncle rented out for wedding receptions and 4-H dinners and other events, but if you breathed in really deep you could still catch the faintest whiff of the hogs that had originally lived there. Then Dorry had felt bad, because Marissa had looked so hurt. “And I’m sure it won’t be as much fun,” Dorry added quickly. “I’ll miss you.”

  Now Dorry did miss Marissa, and the safety of having someone she knew would hang out with her the whole night. She wasn’t entirely sure what Lara would do. But it was exciting to be somewhere new, to hear pulsating rock music (so much hipper than the country tunes that dominated at Bryden parties), to catch a glimpse of Brad and Michael across the room and think, maybe they’ll talk to me more here, away from school. The party was in the clubhouse of an apartment complex halfway across Indianapolis from Crestwood. That struck Dorry as very grown up. And it was a much nicer apartment complex than Northview. Dorry could see an indoor swimming pool through the row of sliding-glass doors along the far wall.

  “Not too scary yet, is it?” Lara asked, leaning her head close to Dorry’s to be heard over the music.

  “No,” Dorry said, though her stomach was doing flip-flops. Sure, it looked like a perfectly normal, fun party, but what if everyone started acting weird and religious? What would Dorry do then?

  “Who are all these people?” she asked. “They don’t all go to Crestwood, do they?”

  “No,” Lara said. “They’re from schools all over the city. Some are from the colleges around here, too.”

  Wow, Dorry thought. A party with college kids. She looked around, trying to figure out who was in college, who was in high school. But no one stood out. There were at least fifty people in the clubhouse. Several kids were out in the middle dancing. Another group stood back by what appeared to be a refreshments table. Others were clustered in groups of threes and fours all around the room.

  “Come on,” Lara said. “Let’s go say hi to people.”

  They circled around the dance floor. Angela was out there, dancing across from a tall, dark-haired guy. She danced just the way Dorry would have expected, with a smooth grace that almost looked dignified. Her long hair floated around her shoulders, bouncing with the beat. She turned toward Dorry. Dorry grinned and gave a little wave. For a split second something ugly crossed Angela’s face—if Dorry hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that Angela was furious at the very sight of her. But that was gone in a flash, and Angela gave her a huge smile. She mouthed words that looked like, “Talk to you later,” and made a face and a helpless gesture at her dance partner. The whole pantomime lasted no longer than the angry look, but it left Dorry feeling that Angela was delighted to see her after all, that she’d rather talk to Dorry than dance.

  Dorry followed Lara to a group that included Jay and Kim, the quietest of the lunch gang.

  “I talked Dorry into coming,” Lara announced.

  “Great,” Jay said. “I didn’t realize ... are you having fun?”

  “Sure,” Dorry said. “I was so happy to be invited.”

  There was an awkward pause, then Lara introduced Dorry to the others standing with them, Jenny and Tom. But she barely had a chance to say hi before Angela and Brad were beside them.

  “Dorry!” Angela exclaimed. “What a great surprise!”

  She hugged Dorry. Dorry could smell the herbal shampoo in Angela’s hair. Then Angela let go.

  “Lara asked me to come,” Dorry said. “She told me a little about Fishers of Men.”

  She tried to keep her voice steady, but the “Fishers of Men” part came out like a question. Dorry longed to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me about Fishers of Men?” or, “Why didn’t you invite me to this party?” or, “Will you still be my friend if I’m not in your group?” But she knew better than to say anything like that. She looked down.

  “Ah,” Brad said in a bantering tone. “Our little secret is out.”

  Dorry looked up in time to catch his devilish grin.

  Angela laughed lightly. “It’s hardly a secret. Everyone at Crestwood knows we’re in Fishers. I thought you knew about it, too.”

  “No,” Dorry said. “I’m new, remember?” She didn’t like the way she sounded—whiny and wronged, like a little kid who hadn’t gotten her way.

  “I’m really sorry,” Angela said. “I was going to talk to you about Fishers soon, but I didn’t want to, you know, scare you off or make you feel like I was pressuring you to join. And I wanted to invite you to this party, but since it was a Fishers event, I thought it might be better to wait. We have parties all the time.”

  For a suspicious moment, Dorry thought Angela had caught herself in a lie. First she said she thought Dorry knew about Fishers, then she said she had planned to tell her about it later. Dorry thought of the way her father talked back to political commercials on TV: “Now, wait just a cotton-picking minute. It can’t be both ways at once.” But Angela had her arm around Dorry’s shoulder again. She was smiling kindly, not like a liar, but like a friend. Dorry suddenly saw how both things could be true, that Angela thought Dorry knew something about Fishers, but that Angela planned eventually to tell her more—an in-depth confidence, the kind shared between friends.

  “Anyhow,” Angela said. “You’re here now. And that’s great. Are you hungry? There’s lots of food.” Brad and Angela ushered Dorry over to the refreshments table, which was loaded with chips and deli trays and two-liter bottles of pop.

  “A feast fit for a king,” Brad said. “Or queen or princess in this case.”

  Dorry giggled, because it was impossible not to laugh at Brad’s goofy expression. And she suddenly felt light and giddy. She was at a party in Indianapolis, in a fancy clubhouse with an indoor pool. She was with friends, good-looking, interesting, nice friends who really cared about her. If only Marissa and everyone else back in Bryden could see her now.

  Brad handed Dorry a paper pl
ate, and she started filling it. When they reached the end of the table, the three of them stood off to the side eating—or, in Angela’s case, sipping a diet Coke. Someone turned down the music, so it was easier to talk now.

  “So did Lara get you straightened out on your American Lit?” Angela asked.

  “Yes,” Dorry said. “She was a lot of help.”

  “Good,” Angela said. “You do really well in school, don’t you? Tell Brad about your history test.”

  Dorry felt honored that Angela remembered. She’d only mentioned it in passing in the hallway

  “I’m all ears,” Brad said, and somehow managed to wiggle both of them at once.

  “How do you do that?” Dorry asked.

  “Great muscle control,” he said. “But what about history?”

  “Oh, it really wasn’t anything,” Dorry said, trying not to sound like she was bragging. “I just got an A on a test I was really scared about. I’ve been worried about my grades because Crestwood is bigger than Bryden and the teachers expect so much more. . . .”

  “But if you’re smart, you’re smart. No matter what school you’re at,” Angela said.

  “Right,” Brad said. “And you are smart.”

  They flashed her twin, caring smiles. Dorry took a step back. She’d never had friends like these, who seemed to think so much of her. It made her a little uncomfortable. She missed the mocking “Get over yourself” Marissa always tossed out whenever Dorry had fretted about grades back in Bryden.

  “It’s just that I want to go to college, and I’ll have to get a scholarship, so—” Dorry jumped as a hand firmly grasped her shoulder.

  “Don’t tell me,” a voice boomed behind her. “This is Dorry.”

  Dorry turned. From the voice she expected to see a giant bear of a man, someone like Paul Bunyan in the folktales her teacher had read to her class back in fifth grade. But the man behind her was only a little taller than she was, five-eight or so, and slender. He had thick, stylishly cut brown hair and a neat mustache. His eyes were a strange, piercing green. He clearly wasn’t a high school or college student, but Dorry thought he wasn’t much older.

  “I’m Pastor Jim,” he said, in a slightly lower voice. “Brad and Angela and the others have told me how much they’ve enjoyed getting to know you.” He squeezed her shoulder in a friendly way and dropped his arm.

  “Uh, thanks,” Dorry said. “I like them, too.”

  Pastor Jim laughed, and his laugh matched his voice—booming and rich. Dorry wasn’t sure what she’d expected from Lara’s story, but this man was too handsome and too young. Dorry thought about what he’d said to Lara the first time they met. She braced herself for him to say something about sin or forgiveness. She tried to think how to answer. How about, “Don’t worry. I’m a Methodist, not an atheist”?

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Dorry said.

  “Fishers of Men throw great parties,” he said. “I hope you’ll come to lots more.”

  Somehow the way he said it made the simple words seem vastly significant. He seemed overcome with joy at Dorry’s presence, overwhelmingly eager to see her come back.

  Then someone at the other end of the room shouted, “Pastor Jim,” and he excused himself with a parting wink and a final squeeze of Dorry’s shoulder. Dorry watched him leave, thinking how different he was from Reverend Patton back at the Methodist Church in Bryden. Reverend Patton was probably sixty, a squat, balding man you’d never notice in a crowded room. He spoke in a barely audible monotone. Dorry had heard her sister Denise and sister-in-law Charlene joke that they’d like to hire Reverend Patton to put their kids to sleep at night: “Just a short bedtime prayer from him and they’d be out all night,” Denise had said last Easter.

  Pastor Jim would be better at morning wake-up calls. There was something about him—something more than good looks, more than the booming voice. Dorry couldn’t have adequately described it if her life depended on it. He had a presence, an aura almost, that affected everyone around him. Angela and Brad were beaming.

  “He’s incredible, isn’t he?” Angela breathed.

  “My hero,” Brad said. For once, Dorry thought, he wasn’t joking.

  Dorry shifted uncomfortably, feeling out of place. She wasn’t a Fisher, after all. Her tennis shoes squeaked on the tile floor. Brad and Angela snapped their attention back to her. “What were we talking about? Your grades?” Angela asked.

  “Yeah, but never mind,” Dorry said. “Can you tell me about Fishers? I mean, 1 really don’t know anything about it except that it’s a religious group and you’re all in it.”

  “Sure,” Angela said. She had a jubilant gleam in her eye. “I don’t know about you, but I was always turned off by religion. My family’s Episcopalian—talk about boring. Fishers isn’t like that. We really try to live by the Word, and to revel in the joy and excitement of being God’s children.”

  “She just learned that word today,” Brad said. “From vocabulary list in English. ‘Revel.’ Not exactly an Angela word, is it?”

  “Oh, stop,” Angela laughed. “You try describing it.”

  “Life is good in Fishers,” Brad said. “It’s like the Bible says: If God is for you, who can be against you? What’s there to be unhappy about if you’re right with God?”

  Dorry thought about that. All her new friends did seem incredibly happy, incredibly satisfied. She’d been eating lunch with them for a week, and had never once heard anyone complain, even jokingly. And they all seemed so sure of themselves—Dorry couldn’t imagine any of her friends back in Bryden walking up to a total stranger and inviting them to lunch, the way Angela had with Dorry. Dorry had thought before that Angela was just more confident and sophisticated because she was from a big city. But maybe it was because of Fishers.

  “You’re welcome to come to our service on Sunday,” Angela said. “I could take you.”

  “Um, okay,” Dorry said. She and her parents hadn’t gone to church at all in Indianapolis, and she really hadn’t missed it. But she was curious now.

  “Great,” Angela replied.

  Dorry feared more religion talk, but after that they talked about a prank someone had played at school, painting a huge rock outside the door with the school colors of Crestwood’s arch rival. Before long, Angela excused herself to go to the bathroom. Dorry marveled at her luck, being alone with Brad. But suddenly Kim and Jay and Michael were there, too.

  “You need to—,” Jay started to say to Brad, but broke off when he saw Dorry listening. He cleared his throat and began again. “Sorry, kids, the party’s breaking up. And Brad here is on cleanup duty.” Then he added, just to Dorry, “We only have the clubhouse rented for three hours.”

  “Oh.” Dorry realized she hadn’t seen Lara since the very beginning of the party. She hadn’t left, had she? Dorry let herself drift into fantasy for a second. Maybe Brad or Michael would have to take her home. She imagined a quiet car, intimate talk. But then they’d have to see that she lived in awful Northview.

  “Excuse me,” she said, thinking she ought to look for Lara.

  “Going to the bathroom?” Kim asked. “I’ll show you where it is.”

  Figuring she might as well start looking there, Dorry followed Kim through the crowd, out of the main room and down a hallway, past the manager’s office. Dorry didn’t see Lara anywhere.

  “Here it is,” Kim said. “Want to go first?”

  “No, that’s okay. You can,” Dorry said.

  Kim went inside and locked the door. Dorry felt like a fool standing around outside the bathroom, so she wandered on down the hall to see what the rest of the clubhouse looked like. She passed a water fountain and a wall full of tasteful art. She was about to turn back when she heard voices around the corner.

  “—was mine! You knew that! You’re a thief, that’s what you are!”

  Was that Angela? Dorry listened intently. The reply was muffled. “—wasn’t like that. I just thought, why wait? She n
eeds it—”

  It was Lara, earnest and pleading. They were fighting about something. Dorry wanted to listen, but she didn’t want them to come out and see her. They’d think she was eavesdropping. She was eavesdropping.

  “Dorry?” Kim called from behind. Guiltily, Dorry turned around. She rushed back to the bathroom. “Your turn,” Kim said.

  Dorry tried to act normal, but Kim gave her a puzzled look. Dorry went into the bathroom. When she came out, Lara and Angela were standing with Kim. They were all smiling, acting normal.

  “There you are, Dorry,” Lara said. “Having fun? I forgot—I have to help clean up. Is it okay if Angela takes you home?”

  Dorry looked from Lara to Angela. Were they still mad at each other? They couldn’t be—they were leaning together toward Dorry, both obviously wanting her to agree. “That’s fine,” Dorry said.

  “I’ve just got to borrow Brad’s car,” Angela said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Why Brad’s car?” Dorry asked. “If it’s a problem, I can wait for Lara. My parents won’t be home yet, anyway—”

  “No, there’s no problem,” Angela said, waving her hand airily. “It’s just, oh, complicated logistics.” She disappeared down the hall. Dorry walked more slowly with Kim and Lara toward the main door of the clubhouse.

  “Did you meet Pastor Jim?” Lara asked. “Isn’t he great?”

  Dorry nodded. “He was very nice,” she said, though “nice” was hardly the right word.

  “Just wait until you hear him preach,” Kim said. “You forget you’re in church.”

  In a few minutes, Angela came back, waving keys. “Ready?” she asked Dorry. “Bye, Kim. Bye, Lara. See you Sunday.”

  Angela hustled Dorry out the door and to the car, chattering about the party, Brad’s car, the weather. Angela expertly pulled out of a tight parking space and drove out of the apartment complex. They were in the thick of traffic on Meridian before Dorry realized she hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to all her friends.