The Believing Game (4 page)

“Joshua
is
Jewish.” Addison squeezed my hand as if he were about to let it go. I held harder. “African Americans can be Jewish, you know.”

“I — I didn't know that, actually.”

“Greer, honestly? That's so ignorant.” I felt sick to my stomach. The gabled buildings of McCracken Hill rose up against the dusky sky. We were almost back to campus. I prepared myself to tightrope walk the rest of the way. Addison said, “Judaism is a religion. A member of any race can practice any religion. We only limit ourselves.”

“I don't know what I was thinking,” I murmured. “I'm sorry.”

“When I first met Joshua, everything about him blew my mind. It's okay to have questions.” Addison wrapped his other arm around me. “We should all have so many questions for each other.”

I had questions.
What are we? If I were to write a letter home to a friend I no longer have, what would I call you?
I wanted to pull him close by the collar of his shirt and ask him before he dropped me off at the door.

He bent his head toward me, but he didn't kiss me. “Greer, Greer — have no fear.”

“Never,” I said, in the voice of the kind of girl who meant it. “Thank you for introducing me to Joshua,” I told him. “Good night,” I said and turned quickly inside, glad that I had said it first.

We got to have a routine. Addison usually got to breakfast much earlier than me, since he worked out in the mornings. So we'd see each other first in class. We stared at each other a lot, but not always. The thing about Addison was that he never made me feel embarrassed about the notes I was taking. I knew when I answered a question, he'd be listening and nodding, not rolling his eyes. It was different from back home.

Ten minutes to walk across the building, down two flights of steps, and then across the hall into the dining commons. Maybe five minutes in line for food. Twenty-five minutes to sit at a table together for lunch. Another walk. Another class. Then separate counseling. Afterward we'd meet at the bottom of the hill by the gate. We'd walk to town and meet Joshua. Each day, I signed out and penciled in
fresh air
in the space left to write my destination. Addison never signed out. “What can they do if they catch me?” Apparently the Bradleys had some kind of court order for Addison to be at McCracken. It even meant they got to write the institution a smaller check.

I knew I'd be staying the school year. “Right now the transcript's looking good, Greer,” my father's voice boomed in the hearty way that was meant to convince me. “We just don't want to uproot you when it seems like you're making some progress.”

It didn't matter. It didn't matter that he didn't even bother with the pretense of putting the phone on speaker. We all knew my mother would have nothing to say on the subject. I was making progress. Each day, the minute we walked through the ornate iron gates at the bottom of the hill, Addison reached for my hand. Clockwork.

And Joshua officially approved of me. We'd get to Sal's or the Boston Market and he'd scoot out of the booth so that I could sit down. Then he'd sit beside me. The first time he did it, he pointed at Addison and said, “I want him to be able to look at you.”

But usually it was Joshua looking at me. “You are one lucky bastard.” He'd say it to Addison, but he'd be staring at me. “Does Chuckie know how he got the Shit. End. Of. The. Stick. I mean, really. What does he get to look at all day? Oprah? Your poor, suffering mother? And you got this?”

“This has a name, Joshua,” I chided him once.

But he said, “Don't even pretend you feel objectified. I know you've been treated like a thing to be owned. No man will ever treat you better than this young man right here. And do you know where he learned how to treat a woman?” Joshua clapped Addison on the back. “What taught you?”

“You did.” Addison laughed.

But then Joshua followed up with, “It wasn't your father running around on your poor mother, right? Leaving her to clean up after her two drunk sons while he spent the night in hotels with pharmaceutical sales reps? It wasn't him, right?”

Addison had stopped laughing. I craned my neck, but he wouldn't meet my gaze. He'd always described his parents as so loving — to him, to each other. Even to Chuckie, who needed his stomach pumped every other week. My teeth clenched with embarrassment for him and then a protective
rage. I turned to Joshua, who hadn't yet looked at my face but still said, “Don't look at me like that. You don't get to judge me. If you're surprised about this, it's because Addison was dishonest with you. I thought we'd all decided not to lie to each other.”

When did we decide that?
I wanted to ask. Instead I sat there, waiting for someone to decide how to move on from the moment.

“It's okay.” Addison finally spoke. “I don't think I lied to you. It's just not something that really comes up.”

But Joshua wasn't going to let it go. “It doesn't come up? The two of you are lying around in bed together and it never occurs to you to examine the relationships you've grown up watching? You don't mention those when you're declaring yourselves the great love affair of the century?”

If I'd felt my cheeks at that moment, they might have seared my hand. My face went that warm, with embarrassment.

“Stop.” Addison said it quietly.

“I'm sorry if I am
challenging
you.” Joshua sounded so angry. I tried to think back to the past few minutes. How had we made him this furious?

“Man, you don't know what you're talking about.” Addison's voice had a serrated edge.

“I know what counts as intimacy. And it's not just blow jobs.” Then my face went full-on scarlet. I didn't know if I felt embarrassed for us or for him.

“It's not like that.” Addison measured his words out carefully. “We don't have chances like that, to spend time alone.”

“You're telling me you're not fucking?” Joshua was incredulous. I considered getting up from the table. Across the way, a lady glared over at us from under her perm.

“That's enough.” Addison sounded like a stern dad.

Joshua's giggle was as high-pitched as a little kid's. “You two.” He pointed back and forth between us. I counted out how many steps it would take to cross to the door. “Start preparing yourselves now, because it is going to be amazing.” Joshua sighed and grunted. He crossed his arms on the table and leaned in to talk to me. “I don't know if you're playing some kind of game with him, but you're only hurting yourself. This boy drives women crazy. Insane. Addison, you should play her some of those voicemails. Seriously, Elizabeth, honey, you didn't strike me as the type to fall for that born-again virgin propaganda.”

“My name is Greer.”

“Now don't get hurt.”

“This isn't any of your business.”

“See, that's where you're wrong. The happiness between you two — I have made that my business. There are plenty of beautiful things in this world. Relationships. Amazing love stories. And sometimes the love between you? It doesn't count for shit. Because no one's standing by, protecting it. But I'm there for you two. That's my vocation. Do you know what a vocation is?”

I could see the wind pick up, a few stray leaves straggle along the sidewalk outside. “A job,” I told him, with the same flat voice I usually saved for bad classes.

“Almost,” Joshua corrected. “A vocation is a calling.” He gazed over at Addison lovingly. I wanted Addison to stand up, grab my hand, and stride toward the door. “Everyone is called to something in this world. I was called in service to him.” Addison bowed his head. “I'm truly sorry if I offended you, Greer Elizabeth. I just want to make sure that you have every joy possible in this life. Especially with him.”

I looked from Joshua to Addison. For the first fraction of a second, I expected Addison to give me the slight nod saying we'd stand up together and leave. But who was I? The least devoted person to him at the table. I mean, he was the most crucial person in my life, but I hadn't heard a message from God about serving him. Addison looked at me with a slight, sheepish smile. As if he was asking,
Is this so bad?

It wasn't like I was going to tell him yes.

 

Had our days always revolved around the cluster of me, Addison Bradley, and Addison Bradley's spiritual guru, I might have objected. But Joshua wasn't the only person Addison had carried into my life. It embarrassed me, since I'd been at McCracken longer, but Add had more friends. And good ones, who were funny and smart and made me laugh even when we sat at dinner tables away from Addison. In a matter of weeks, he had forged a following. Like the girl with the parade of rings marching across her right eyebrow, who always walked him right out the door of the bio lab. She'd see me and veer off toward Self-Respect Hall.

“Did you know Sophie before?” I finally asked him.

“Sophie's from somewhere on the Main Line, I think. She's always talking about almost getting shot in Philly. Why?”

“You just seem really close.”

“There nothing going on between me and Sophie.”

“I know that,” I said. “I just meant …”

“Seriously, Greer? Are you worried about this?”

It took me a few starts and stops to explain. Addison has this ease with people. This wasn't something he'd understand. Finally I just blurted out, “I don't know how to talk to people.”

“God, you're crazy. You just have to be a little warmer. You know, smile a little.”

This was the problem. “But I'm not like that … naturally. I panic, blank out on what to talk about. And then people think I'm cold. A bitch.”

“You don't like to be uncomfortable, but no one does. Would you rather they're uncomfortable?”

“I never thought of it as an either/or scenario.”

“Well, it is, you know? The only reason Sophie thinks you're a bitch is that you never talk to her.”

“She said that?”

Addison shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

“And what did you say?”

“We were eating lunch. I probably said, ‘Please pass the salt substitute.' Greer, I'm not your press agent.”

“I'm not asking you to —”

“You are, though. I know you have plenty to say. But listen, you can't come at Sophie now, all angry and offended. That's only living up to her mistake about you.”

“So what am I supposed to talk to her about?”

The pathetic part was that I started most conversations with Addison. I'd ask, “Have you seen Addison?” Or “You're in Addison's Latin class, right?” It took a week and a half of practice before I tracked down Sophie and said, “I'm planning a surprise for Addison's birthday.”

“I don't do threesomes.”

“What?” Things were not going according to plan. “No, we're going bowling.”

She raised her eyebrow and the metal rings caught the light. “Sounds kinky.”

I forced myself to breathe deeply. I warmed my voice. “I asked permission from the dean of students, and Ms. Ling
agreed to chaperone already.” Sophie grimaced and I said, “I know. But it was the only way. I got them to think of it as a practice for Addison to be out and about on his own.”

“Therapeutic.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” I must have sounded too excited. She shrugged. “Can you help me figure out who else to ask?” She looked dubious. “I just don't want to miss anyone.” She reached out for the list I'd scrawled out during nutrition.

“So are you guys together? Officially? This is very wifely of you, Greer.” I felt the few licks of anger flame up.

“I'm crazy about him.” It's all I said. And then held my breath and waited. It was my last try, I told myself. After that, I could rip the rings out of her face.

“Yeah, that's apparent.” I looked up, ready to unleash. But Sophie kept talking. “He's crazy about you too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it's pretty adorable.” She laughed. “Revolting. But adorable. You guys are like the two-headed kitten of campus.”

We talked for a while then, first about Addison, and then about home. Sophie had found McCracken Hill on her own, after she'd gotten tossed out of her Quaker Friends school for failing three drug tests. “It was this or military school,” she told me. “I chose to serve my time with the broken people.”

I didn't argue, and later that week, on Friday, when we all had gathered at the far lane of the Strike & Spare to wait for Addison to show, I realized Sophie was right — we were a collection of damaged goods. Teenaged angsters and addicts. Disordered borderline personalities. Almost fatalities. But Hannah Green showed up. She'd even baked cupcakes into
ice-cream cones. Addison's roommate, Wes, was there, along with the bench-press bros he worked out with each morning. We totaled twelve people, counting Ms. Ling; considering not all of us were usually even allowed off campus, it qualified as a good showing.

When Addison walked in and looked around for me, the guy who ran the lanes made all the computer scoreboards flash,
SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADDISON!

He scooped me up and swung me around and whispered, “I can't believe you,” into my neck. And then he made his way around, grabbing hands and hugs. We'd almost bowled a full game when he called over, “Hey, when's Joshua coming?”

I'd been standing at the ball drop, waiting for the lightweight, lavender one to come hurtling up to the surface. Addison grabbed at my sleeve. “He doesn't usually get off work until nine on Fridays.” I must have just opened and closed my mouth. “Greer, you told him, right?”

“I didn't. When would I have asked him?”

“I don't know. Maybe during the four times a week we see him.”

Wes looked over from Addison's tense face to mine. “Hey, what's with the dick tone? Greer set this whole thing up for you.”

“Yeah, it's great, but she forgot something.” Two lanes down, an old guy must have gotten a strike. I could hear all the pins crash down. Addison looked at me for a second and then turned away. “Hey, Ms. Ling, may I use your cell phone, please? My sponsor loves to bowl. It would be so great if he could celebrate with me.”

“Are you struggling with your sobriety right now? There's no shame in us heading back to campus, you know.” She smiled
apologetically at him. “Maybe we might have chosen a leisure activity that wasn't so steeped in the alcoholic lifestyle.”

I wished the lavender bowling ball were heavier. I would have hurled it at Ms. Ling's teeth. Sophie sidled up to me. I told her, “It never occurred to me —”

“Don't be stupid,” Sophie broke in. “Of course it wouldn't.”

Addison said, “I'm fine. It would make it perfect if Joshua were here to see how well I'm handling things.”

Ms. Ling handed over her cell to Addison and shot me a disapproving look.

“The hell?” I murmured. We were at a bowling alley. It's not like I'd hired a girl to jump out of a keg or something.

“Let it go,” Sophie counseled.

“No. I should have known about Joshua.”