They pushed me out of the way to clasp Dad’s hand, pat his back. I backed up, wanting to be far away from all of them. As I started to turn away, to run to my room, and wait for Mom to come home to find out if she was infected with this, too, the guy who seemed in charge turned to stare at me. He’d been handsome before he got all soft and jowly. He turned his round blue eyes on me and my knees went watery. When our eyes met again, I could see the flames Dad talked about, like a forest fire behind his eyes. I turned and ran into my room and locked the door...
There was only one thing I could think of that scared me, Robert James. Even thinking of his name made me shudder and I wondered if Dad finally got a taste of that. --Veronica
Imagine if you would, as I did, that the setting of this book is in a small town, either at present, or as planned for the near future... No, I rarely know the storyline before I get a new book... Title and cover is enough, as long as it is within my budget... I have to admit that I'm beginning to feel like these books are coming into my hands "supernaturally..." Because this story is too close to what we've been learning about plans of "project 25..." where government at the lowest levels is being taken over by Christian Nationalists... or MAGA...or whoever is behind all the chaos!
Veronica is our main character and the book ranges from her being 12 through to present as she is moving toward high school graduation. Veronica is an only child of two loving parents. The father has been offered a job and they move to Dalesville where he will be working for Faith Fellowship...
With absolutely no explanation as to how, when, or the possible why, Veronica has a special psychic gift of, upon touch, she is able to read another person's mind... There is no reference that even her parents know about this ability... Of course, Veronica may not have been given this ability until the relocation.
Because since they've been to Dalesville, Veronica's mother has disappeared. Her only clue since that happened, is that, in shaking hands with a woman at church, she saw a vision of her mother, in bed as if ill. Of course, there was no way for her to question a church member as to how she had seen her mother...
Veronica saw a definite change in her father. He was changed from the fun-loving father she remembered:
Dad was the lively one, in both voice and manner. He was always enthusiastic about something, whether it was stoking the coals of the barbecue or scribbling notes in books or on articles. I’d pick those up later, most sailed high and wide above my head. “Colonization of the other?’ or “PG again,” although not all, I picked up one article praising former president Nixon full of margin notes reading “asshole” and “dipshit.” Dad caught me with it and yanked it away, blushing. Then he gave a big booming laugh and ruffled my hair. “Your old man’s got some strong opinions, kiddo.” “I don’t mind.” I pointed at the picture of Nixon in the center of the article. “He looks shifty.” He’d swept me up in his arms and planted a kiss on my forehead, the tickle of his beard made me giggle. “My kid’s a friggin’ genius.” Mom came in at that moment, a stack of papers in one hand, a gallon of milk in the other, and asked what we were laughing about. Dad told her, and then she kissed me, too, and told me I’d earned a special trip to the bookstore. That was years ago. It was easy to see things were different.
The four who wind up as the lead characters in this YA novel are among the outsiders... Not because of who they are, necessarily, but because the town has two major institutions--one a corporation; one a church... Actually there is a tendency to realize that the two have leaders who are representing all of the town in some major way--either as employers, as a church member or student at the church school, or as those who have spent time at a facility run by the church but in another town...
I tried to think objectively about the situation. There was a certain degree of comfort, even relief, in knowing one’s purpose, of being told exactly what you have to sacrifice—autonomy, career—in order to achieve it. But was anybody really ever aware of how big their sacrifice would be?
And then somewhere along the line, I learned that this was an evangelical college... No wonder I recognized the authoritarian aspect of the town...
When he did speak, it was the same kind of thing I’d been hearing for years. “I’m going to have to be gone a great deal over the coming weeks. I trust you’ll continue to behave in the ways I’ve taught you. What I don’t see, God does.” The words were the same, but the tone was wrong, it crackled with something unspoken, something that couldn’t be said. The knuckles that gripped the chair were white. “Do you understand?” Was he talking about Theo following me?
These four students became friends, perhaps, caused by their own rebellion--maybe they were unhappy with the way things were in their own homes... As mentioned, Veronica's father moved to Dalesville to be employed by the church. Chris is also a high school student but writes for the school paper. His father is "Big Pat" and is the owner of the company which supplies most of the jobs for the community, outside of the church campus and other activities they sponsor. The other two are gay; most people don't accept them... I "think" one may be also black, which, well...you know...
We meet the four of them at The Club which is the only entertainment location in town. Veronica sneaks out to go there. Chris dresses differently in rebellion to his father by wearing dark clothes, painting his nails black and adding other goth-type accessories... Being together as a gay couple is fine at this Club... A mosh pit gets the action going...
After I pulled it shut and twitched the curtain closed, I made my way down the alley that ran the length of our subdivision toward Sunset, the road that ran east-west through this crappy town. Toward downtown, where all the freaks hung out, hoping this was the time I’d run into Chris. I thought he might be able to help me keep my promise to myself to find out what happened to Mom. Whatever other motivations I had I did my best to deny as I walked down the hill leading to Sunset. “I’m trusting you,” Dad had said. More’s the fool him. Trust was for suckers.
I MOVED, THEY MOVED, we moved together. The bounce and sway of the mosh pit, the black-clad mass pressed against my body, the music pressed against my eardrums, colored lights pressed and flashed against my eyes. We were one. I flailed and fell, drowning. I leapt up and slammed against another. So much noise, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts...or anybody else’s. I was no longer Veronica Simon, alien and alienated. I was no longer alone. Just because I had a plan didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun, right?
The song ended, segued into a slow jam suitable only for the love sway, couples hugging one another with no visible rhythm. Of course, my mocking was only the slim coating over a bitter pill. Seventeen-years-old, and the only commandment I’d managed to break, goddamn it, was not taking the Lord’s name in vain. I still honored my mother, but Dad cared more about his stupid Faith Fellowship Community than me, so he didn’t deserve it. And maybe I’d done a bit of coveting of a certain sharp-faced, black-haired boy reporter with a quirky little smile. The thought of him made me smile as I plowed through the crowd, trying not to touch anyone. I wouldn’t mind breaking a few more commandments with him. Much as Dad and his cohorts tried to convince us otherwise, “Thou shalt not engage in sex before marriage” hadn’t actually made it onto Moses’s big stone tablet. I almost wished it had, for the fun of breaking it. Then again, I thought, as I got closer to the bar, who knew what would happen with that much closeness? I shuddered. Keep my distance. Tamp it down. Caution: use only as directed. And if a few things still slipped through the cracks, all the more reason to keep to myself. Best to concentrate on this opportunity. I rapped my knuckles on the bar to get Mike the bartender’s attention, and gave him what I hoped was a winsome smile. I hadn’t had a lot of practice with talking to people since we’d moved to Dalesville, but the few times I’d made it to The Club, talking to Mike had been easy. Someday, I might even be able to talk to someone else. He grinned when he saw me, his natural expression. He had a kind of teddy bear face and physique that was made for tapping kegs and giving the highest of fives. “What can I get you, Veronica Simon?” “Vodka tonic, if you’d be so kind, Michael Higgens.” I matched his tone. He crossed his arms, tried unsuccessfully to settle his round face in hard lines. “ID?” “Mike. Do me a solid. Jesus’ll love you for it, you know.” The grin reappeared before he could stop himself. “You could go to hell for saying shit like that.” I felt my good humor crack a bit. It was a reminder of things I wanted the drink to forget. My smile and banter felt rubbery and fake, but I pushed on regardless. “My bad. I thought this was hell.” He coughed and laughed simultaneously. “Fine. Three bucks.” I put four on the bar. “Price-gouging bastard. Thanks, Mike. May God bless you.” He laughed all the way down the bar.
I swiveled in my chair, sipped my drink, and watched the dancers. An involuntary sigh escaped me, and I took a large gulp of my drink. Pathetic. I lit a cigarette from the pack I’d bought at the beaten-up little store around the block and commenced watching again, but the dizzy dance-induced endorphin rush was long gone, replaced by the slow-simmer anger I’d carried for the past four months. What did I expect, coming to this place? I didn’t know anybody. Five years of home, school, church, or church-related activities had rusted any social skills that didn’t involve quoting the Bible or praising Jesus. Even with Nancy, my best friend until Jeremy Barnes asked her out and proceeded to monopolize her, every word had to be monitored and measured, so I wouldn’t offend her. She’d never be caught dead in a place like this. And Mr. Mulligan, sadly, was nowhere to be seen. I crushed out the cigarette, half-smoked, polished off the last of the vodka, adjusted my gloves, and slid off the stool. I snaked again through the dancers to the exit and out into the cold night air to be actually alone. I wasn’t alone. On the outer rim of the streetlamp outside the parking lot of The Club was a guy, leaning against a station wagon festooned with an array of discordant bumper stickers from an NRA “from my cold dead hand” to an Earth Day decal. He held a cigarette between long pale fingers, nails painted black to match both his hair and ensemble. My laugh was both unstoppable and loud. He looked up and saw me, then shoved himself off the car and ambled in my direction. Despite the vampire drag and the dark parking lot, I wasn’t remotely scared. I knew who he was, the reason I’d started haunting The Club in the first place, hoping it might be one of the places he’d hang out. Finally, risk met reward. I leaned against the wall of the club, bass thrumming through the plywood, a soothing counterpoint to the fluttery sensation in my stomach as he came closer. I told myself it was the nervousness of asking for a favor from a stranger.
He reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a pack of cheap cigarettes, offering me one. I took it and the offered lighter. It was only then he spoke. “Were you laughing at me?” No accusation in that deep, soft tone, only curiosity. I darted a glance at him, smiled. “Yes.” He returned it. “Just checking.” I took a drag of my cigarette, exhaled the smoke toward my boots. “Are you offended?” “Terribly.” His somber voice was immediately undercut with a laugh. I chanced looking up again, and let my smile widen. “Then please accept my deepest apologies...” “Chris Mulligan.”
“Veronica Simon.” He squinted at me as if the fluorescents above the door hurt his eyes. “You look familiar.” “I think we go to the same school, although your distinctive style should’ve made you more... distinctive,” I finished lamely. I was lying. I’d been noticing him for a long time, a math class here, an English class there, sneaking glances at his profile over my copy of Huck Finn, reading his stories in the Dalesville High Journal with a little more interest than a profile of Coach Blake necessitated. I didn’t want to open with that, though. I thought I might come off as a stalker, especially since I’d never actually worked up the courage to talk to him until now. I watched him as he took a drag on his cigarette, the sharp plane of his cheek sucked in slightly. It should’ve made him look gaunt, but his face was softened by long lashes and lips whose curves always seemed to quirk on the edge of a smile. Not that I’d ever visualized kissing those lips or anything, or thought about running my hands through that shiny black hair. Nope, not me. I wasn’t remotely disconcerted by his proximity and was in no way having any problem paying attention to what he was saying. Absolutely not. This was purely professional.
“...anyway, there’s a day-Chris and a night-Chris. Mostly ‘cause day-Chris has enough to do getting up and getting dressed without killing someone to manage more than jeans and a shirt. Then again, my dad hates it when I dress like this.” “That’s enough of a reason to do it, yeah?”
My voice didn't shake at all. Go me. “Pretty much.” He finished his smoke and ground it out under his boot. “My friends are going to think I died. I should get back in. I’ll look for you.” “Do that.” He smiled and was gone again into the bowels of The Club, so named because it was the only one in town. I hefted myself upright from the wall, turned and stared at the door that shut behind him. In the minute after he left, I knew I could pull open the door and follow him inside. Hell, maybe I could ask him to do the sway. Instead, I crushed the smoke, turned again, and made my way through the parking lot and out into the streets of downtown Dalesville. The night was sullen with silence as I walked past alleys lively with trash and their furry inhabitants, boarded or soaped windows of stores and restaurants, victims of the now decades-old mall where the shinier kids took their economic and social business. As I meandered past the shuttered Blue Moon CafĂ© toward the square, I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t gone back inside, found him, and asked him to do the clutch and sway on the dance floor. I’d been waiting for this opportunity. Keep your distance. Find out what happened. All my planning and thinking hadn’t given me any idea on how to achieve both. Focus on the latter, I lectured myself as I continued my walk, the square coming into view. That was the important thing, wasn’t it? Not the way his smile quirked on and off, like a shorted-out lamp, or his gangly walk, or the shock of black hair he kept pushing back from his forehead. I wanted him intrigued, not me. You could just ask him. My foot stumbled over a rock on the sidewalk. I kicked it hard into the street.
When had asking nicely ever gotten me anything? The nip of night air felt nice on my skin, and I let my sudden bad mood trail away. I dug another cigarette out of my bag and lit it, focused on the fact I’d kept my head around him, and known to quit while I was ahead. The light from a trashcan fire in the alley next to the St. James Hotel—formerly the “jewel of downtown Dalesville” and now home to anyone who could pay the ten dollar a night charge—illuminated the stark dark branches of the catalpa in the center of the square. I ambled over there, took a seat on the warped wooden bench under the tree, and leaned back, sending smoke up toward the icepick stars above. Alone was better.
Dad would be home on Sunday, in time to drag me to church, where I had the joy of being surrounded by people whose only connection was how much they hated everything not like them. I wasn’t like them, and the effort to hide that was exhausting. Worse, the collective crazy of Dad’s church of freaks had a way of sneaking through the chinks in my mental armor even without touching them. I hugged my arms more tightly around myself. Alone was definitely better.
The square was deserted, and the silence loud. My ears strained to pick up a sound, any sound. Relief came in the form of an idling car nearby. A door slammed, and I stood, turned away from the street. It was time to move on, sneak back into the house. “Hey. I thought it was you.” I spun around again, on my guard, and was facing Chris, giving me that same flickering smile. He stepped back, the smile gone. “Unless you didn’t want to be bothered.”
I let my face relax. “No, it’s fine. I wasn’t doing anything important.” It quirked on again. “Cool. We’re,” he gestured toward the station wagon, where two shadows lurked in the depths of the car, “going to Sam’s for some coffee and grease. Wanna come with?” “Well...” I thought about the walk and the pleasure of solitude, that smile and the sharp teeth of the wind. Thought about sitting next to Dad and being harangued for my sinful nature in this our sinful world, anger like incense lingering in the air. Smiled, because it worked. “Why not?” We walked together toward the car. Chris opened the passenger door for me. Up close, I noticed two boys in the backseat sporting a motley collection of piercing, tats, and other blasphemous attire, and scrambled right in and slammed the door behind me.
~~~~
The smell of incense was worked into the wooden pew. In front of him was the doleful face of the suffering Christ. He saw no judgment there, no expression carved into the face that said, “Chris, you have sinned. You are cast from my kingdom.” There was enough of that in the pinched faces of the communicants’ heel-toe-ing it up the aisle. He stared instead at the lip of the pew where he was kneeling, trying not to slump and lay his head there. The wages of sin were falling asleep in church and waking up to see the red creep up his father’s neck, and the disappointment in his mom’s eyes. His father—his Dad’s friends called him Big Pat, and so did Chris in his head—was always angry about something lately, and thus easy to dismiss. Mom’s disappointment was rarer and harder to take. Be a good boy. When he was little, he’d wanted that life. A modern-day Saint Francis, working with the sick and poor. A life of service to the greater good. Christ’s representative on earth. That was all gone. He wasn’t sure exactly where it had gone. Maybe it was as simple as getting old enough to be horrified at the idea of never getting laid. Maybe it was Catholic grade school and the bitter nuns and pietistic priests and the hypocritical good boys and girls they praised, who were no better than anybody else. If it hadn’t been hard for him to figure out they were full of shit, shouldn’t people who’d devoted themselves to God be able to see through all that crap, too? There was one thing left that could still give him an echo of that old magic. The darkened church, priest in the nave with a large candle, and then the parishioners lighting their candles, each to each, until the church was full of hundreds of flickering flames. Easter vigil:
the return of Alleluia, the return of the Lord from the hell of death. Eventually, the candles were snuffed, and he’d start counting the hours until the vigil was done. “The mass is over. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
The organist crashed into the recessional like he was playing Notre Dame rather than a mid-sized Midwestern Catholic church. Chris wasn’t the only one who jumped. He suspected Big Pat actually had dozed off, given the wide-eyed bleary gaze he returned to the priest. Still, he managed to get himself together to lead the procession out of the pew as soon as Fr. Nickols and the altar boys had swept past. Chris outdistanced his family almost immediately, pulling on his jacket as he walked down the aisle and out the doors into the sharply cool sunlit Sunday morning. He lit a cigarette the minute his feet hit the mended asphalt of the parking lot, picked out their rust-bitten station wagon among the shiny sedans and SUVs of the other parishioners, and strode in that direction. Their newer truck was in the shop, and money was tight while Big Pat was on disability. From that vantage point, he could watch his parents nod and smile at Fr. Nickols, watch his sister Meg squirm with irritation at being forced to stand still after an hour of sitting in church. He took a drag of his cigarette and followed the lazy drift of his thoughts to Friday night and the girl who got into the car. They’d driven over to Sam’s, the mangy twenty-four-hour diner on Sunset amid with strip malls and dollar theaters and fast food joints like neon pimples on the green backside of the hills surrounding the town. The fries were undercooked, the pie was rubbery, the coffee could either strip paint or be thin enough to read through, and the air was thick with cheap cigarette smoke, old grease, and beer sweat from the good ole boys who’d stumble in when The Rambler across the street closed, but it was theirs. The girls with shiny hair, the guys with visible biceps? They never set foot in Sam’s. It was the boys clad in black, pale from choice or from spending hours in their parents’ basement reading Lord of the Rings or playing Dungeons and Dragons, the girls who pierced their noses or dyed and spiked their hair in electric blue or Kelly green or cherry red. Even more subtle outcasts—the girl who’d rather read English lit or was too fascinated by string theory, the boy who liked to draw, or even the ultimate crime in a mid-sized Midwestern town in the mid-nineties, the boy who like other boys—flocked to Sam’s. Sam’s, The Club, the Blue Moon coffee shop, Lou’s Used Records—those belonged to all of the above. To hell with the rest of the town.
Chris was counting the days, and his savings, until he could leave for good. They’d stood in the doorway, and he could recognize almost everyone under twenty. Mark, who could quote verbatim from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and laughed at any mention of the number forty-two, or Cecilia and Tim, with heads both shaved on one side so when they sat together, it looked like one head of dyed black hair. They were the town’s answer to Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, and played their brand of odd, intellectual rock every other Saturday at the Blue Moon.
Veronica? He couldn’t remember her at any of those places, only coming out of the ground fog at The Club, laughing at him, or sprawled on a bench under the worn catalpa in the square, staring up at the sky. That was weird. She was memorable. Tall, with dark brown hair in a careless ponytail, and a glance so sharp, it could cut glass...
...he realized what it was: he felt chosen. But for what?--Chris
Robert James, staring at me with that smug little smile as he said, “No one will stand in our way.”
Reading this book set in the '90s was a new experience for me... I realized just how little the gulf between people actually was and, still, is... That's sad, don't you think? My thoughts turned to just exactly when large churches became so influential and massive, often separating parents from their children--their children who witnessed a change of the level of fun and happiness in their home, which was the only barometer that could be used at their age...
Once again, I am caught trying to understand just how white men ever got the idea that they are special... especially knowing that the greatest man who walked on earth, at least in my opinion, was not...
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“You know, sweetheart, the fear of the moment is always worse than the reality.” Mom’s voice was so clear in my head I could be sitting next to her in our old white truck, with its sprung seats and tall stick shift one of us would always knock into getting in or out. We’d sat outside of school for what seemed like forever, the truck growling and rumbling as it idled. I hadn’t wanted to go in, something bad happened—a fight with a classmate, maybe, or something embarrassing like my shorts falling off in gym class, too many humiliations to count—and I hadn’t wanted to walk through those doors either. “Always?” She leaned over, knocking her elbow on the stick shift, she ignored that and kissed me on the cheek. “I promise.” I took one last drag and stood up, dropping the butt in the ashtray by the door. I could disappoint Dad and drive off Chris, but I owed it to Mom to be strong.
Here's one reader who hopes there will be at least a sequel to this extraordinary novel! The book was published this year, so I didn't expect another to be available, but I still went looking... The book did close out the theme that was running through the book, but... Either this book is a fantastic first book with some type of follow up book/series, or it lacks the closure that I needed to see. I don't regret reading the book, but if the things that remain hanging, especially with Chris and Veronica, it's my guess that 95% of readers will be heartbroken, especially the teens... I've done a little research and can find no reference to there being a next book... BUMMER! Rating reduced to 3 then...
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