Nick went back to the church, again and again, until Sarah agreed to go out with him.
In Mill Valley, believing in God was something you just didn’t talk about. But his friend Ryan’s family was Christian, and once, when after a sleepover Nick’s parents had been too busy to pick him up, Nick had gone with the Harbingers to church. And the pastor or reverend or whatever had trembled red and declared that God was their constant companion, and Jesus the Truth and the Light. There was a whole thing about how God was Jesus and Jesus was God that made no sense, but Nick didn’t worry about that. He remembered instead the after part, when he stood in line with Ryan and his mom and dad and little sister, and when their turn came, the pastor gripped Nick’s hand in both of his and told him, “Son, always remember that Jesus loves you. No matter what.” Nick stared back, his hand trapped in the pastor’s palms. Beside him, Ryan jabbed his ribs. Nick just stood there, the squeeze of palms so wet and close that he wanted to pull away, but, just for a minute, he didn’t.
The first day he entered Sarah’s church, he wanted to laugh. The mantras, the chanting, the sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor discussing God’s abiding love—it all seemed so self-conscious, pretentious. The old guru in charge had taken the bits and pieces of religions that he wanted and left the rest behind. Nick couldn’t believe in it. But he did believe in Sarah.
So he stayed. Removed his shoes and socks and sat beside Sarah and watched as she placed her palms on her knees and closed her eyes.
“There is nothing but this moment,” the guru said. “We will close our eyes and feel the universal love move through us.”
Nick stifled his laugh by fake-coughing.
The guru said, “Now we will make one sound together.”
The people in the circle puffed their bellies, and then a low hum carried through the room, building power slowly, reverberating. Nick smirked and turned to Sarah, but she had her eyes squeezed shut and was humming as earnestly as all the others.
The rug they sat on was old and gritted and had bald patches in its oriental pattern. This was something his mother wouldn’t stand for. He stared at it, at one space where the rug had been worn but not worn through, and as he stared he shook his foot, which kept tingling and falling asleep, and felt the presence of Sarah’s body beside him and tried not to hear what the guru was droning on and on about. When the guru finally shut up, Nick closed his eyes and listened to the silence. The room smelled increasingly of feet. There was the occasional cough or sigh and, once, a low, whistling fart that cracked him up, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that the guru was staring at him and that no one else had laughed or even seemed to notice, so he made a straight face and forced himself to watch the worn spot on the carpet until after a year or two passed someone finally said,
“Amen. Namaste.”
The people bowed, then stood and stretched. Dazedly they smiled at one another, brushed off their pants and skirts.
“What did you think?” Sarah asked him as they walked into the open air.
“I think, where can we go now?” he said.
But she turned him down.
So he’d returned, again and again, each time forcing himself to sit through the entire service, staring at the objects in the room and holding his breath as much as possible and trying not to laugh.
One day he’d focus on the rolled edge of a flyer unpeeling from the wall. The next, the guru’s weird bent toes, big and tanned with blond hairs sprouting, the nails clipped short and buffed to shine. Next time, it was the electrical cords that were tangled like briars on the floor in one corner of the room, and from there, a crooked outlet halfway up the wall, a small blank face with nothing plugged into it. And then, when he knew he could get away with it, he focused on Sarah’s small hand as it cupped her right knee, her short, unpainted nails, the freckles on her fingers and the thin gold ring around her pinky, like something given on Christmas to a child.
The weeks went on like this. Each Saturday, she drew him in. Each Saturday, he sat and watched the objects in the room while the guru droned about love, forgiveness, God and meaning and universal truth, until they settled into that long and awkward silence in which Nick was supposed to feel something. And each time, he felt nothing but the wanting. Her. Afterward he always asked her to hang out with him, but she’d just smile and shake her head.