Sometimes you gotta make your own genre

What is Floridian Gothic? If it exists, how does it differ from Southern Gothic? I suspect that a Floridian Gothic subgenre would take those core themes of racism, poverty, decay, grotesquerie, and alienation and focus them more narrowly as stemming from immigration issues, a specific climate, the veneers of Disney World and other tourist operations, and attempted whitewashing of state history (for a variety of reasons). The values of Florida are wildly variable; sympathies, pastimes, and idiosyncrasies are striated according to region. Surfers and white supremacists exist in the same state, sometimes even in the same person, and the experience of a Cuban-American whose family helped shape Tampa's history differs greatly from that of a first-generation Cuban immigrant in Miami. Plenty of Floridians will tell you that “we’re not part of the South,” and plenty more will proudly wear head-to-toe Stars and Bars. Florida cannot be painted with the broad brush of "the South," and for a state with an image to maintain, it’s always been a chimera. 

(abandoned Splendid China, Orlando)

Florida is a liminal space. As a state with an immigrant and emigrant-heavy population, its continuing history is one of fusing beliefs, values, religions, cultures, and ethnicities. As a place unimaginable to inhabit without modern convenience yet vastly suitable for vacationing, its environment and physicality--the things we capitalize on--are a doomed honeymoon. As a mixed bag of northerners, southerners, and foreigners, environmentalists, real estate agents, and corporate bigwigs, its politics are a jungle. Ancestral magic lies cheek-by-jowl with Disney’s charms and goes out for shots with imported Afro-Caribbean beliefs. The hard history of Florida race relations and its ongoing racism are whitewashed for the benefit of tourists and boosters, yet memorialized in courthouse names; orange groves stationed on burial grounds are overtaken by McMansions whose inhabitants don’t stop to wonder what they’ll do when the citrus is gone and are baffled when bones show up in their backyard.

(strip mall botanica, Tampa)

Floridian gothic is “Everything That Rises Must Converge” on a Magic Kingdom tour bus, or Suddenly, Last Summer with a cast of holy rollers. The natural magic and destiny-making of Janie Crawford's journey is Floridian gothic. The mysteries of the Coral Castle; the gated community of Candor under mind control and its real-life analogue, endlessly creepy Celebration; the reclamation of the Bigtrees' gator park by the swamps: that's Floridian gothic.

Still I'm holding out my hand

If you don't follow my Tumblr, I recently rebageled this quotation from Natalie Goldberg: “Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released."

This has been said before by many, I'm sure, but I think it's the core. There are stories that I will never finish writing. There are themes and motifs and images and turns of phrase that live inside me like the vampire; sometimes these things can be written out or bled off, and sometimes they are never-healing wounds. And this is most of the reason why this here blogge has had such a dearth of material lately: because I am distracted by writing a story that I have been writing for nearly a decade. Maybe this time it'll finally hive off and become its own being.

Part the sixth of an untitled half-satire half-serious short story about LDS teens on Trek

After Relief Society and Priesthood had ended, they were given instructions for solo time. Lissa took her bag, which contained a lunch of oranges, trail mix, and granola bars, a folder of themed material, her scriptures and journal, and a letter from her mother. Everyone dispersed into the woods, trying to find a quiet place to read and study. Lissa chose a tall pine tree with a mound of needles cushioning its base and plopped onto the soil, her back against the tree. She spread out her skirt, feeling picturesque, and opened the folder. It held a few pamphlets and notecards, and instructions to read several scriptures and then the letter from her mother, and finally to write in her journal about the Trek experience. This could all take as long as she wanted—she was to wander back to camp when she felt ready to.

The letter made her cry, harder than she could remember crying in a long while though it seemed that these days she cried all the time. Part of it was a good cry, reading in plain black print how much her mother loved her, but a larger part of it was a horrible, weak, hopeless bawl, dredged up from her shame and guilt and the knowledge that she wasn’t actually the daughter her mother wrote about in the letter. Yes, she got good grades and yes, she attended church faithfully and yes, she fulfilled her calling as Laurel class secretary, but that didn’t make her good. She tried to keep quiet as the tears fell, knowing that someone from Eau Gallie ward was only a few yards away, perched on a log.

The warm familiar world felt like it was crumpling around her, into strange shapes she couldn’t recognize. The hum of cicadas grated on her ears.

Eventually Lissa stood, legs stiff. She gathered up her spread of materials and stuffed them into her bag. She was supposed to head back to camp when she was ready, but she turned toward the empty space of pastureland to the east, carefully skirting around bright spots in the grass which were people studying and praying and, she thought, probably napping. She ducked beneath the rim of barbed wire, lifting her skirt well clear of it, and walked along the treeline. The sun beat down and she swerved into the trees for some shade. Among the pines and oaks and loblolly she slowed, touching branches and vines of kudzu. The forest calmed her nerves, bird chatter lulled her. She walked.

And finally as her path curved back around toward the camp, she walked into Justin. Not literally into him; she saw him some feet ahead and stopped on the path. He was standing under a tree, peering up into its branches. At the sound of her feet on twigs he jumped and turned around.

“Oh, ah—hey, Lissa.” He waved, kind of lamely. Lissa pressed her lips together and lifted a hand.

“Hey.” She made herself walk toward him instead of running like a terrified deer. “Watcha looking at?”

“Oh, there’s some scrub jays up there,” he said, pointing at the tree. “I think. They’re pretty rare now, even back here where there aren’t any people.”

Lissa stopped a safe distance away and looked up into the tree. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any.”

“Too populated, where we live. They're practically extinct.” He shuffled his feet in the leaves. “Hey, are your arms ok?”

Lissa folded her arms, tugging at her sleeves. She wished she’d left them long, but the heat had forced her to roll them up. “Oh yeah, just…some, you know, poison ivy.”

“Oh. Yeah, I got some on me too.” They stood awkwardly for a moment on the path.

“We should probably go back to the camp,” she said at last. He nodded. They began walking, perhaps more slowly than either would have walked by themselves.

“I like you a lot,” Justin said abruptly. Lissa tripped on a tree root and nearly fell; he grabbed her shoulder. Mad tears pricked behind her eyes at his touch, his words.

He continued, avoiding her eyes, “I don’t…I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

She didn’t know what to say. Somewhere inside her brain the right response lurked, but it wouldn’t come to her, she couldn’t remember how things were supposed to go. Sly, poisonous happiness was breaking over her like a wave. She thought that maybe just now she knew what Florence was singing about.

They stood like idiots in the woods. Visible ahead was the clearing where people milled about, preparing for the last bit of hiking toward their end goal, Zion. Justin reached out, grasping Lissa’s hand lightly. She looked at him full in the face for the first time since they’d met by the scrub jay tree. His jaw was tight, dark eyes worried.

She hated that he looked like that. She hated that she knew she had the same expression on her face. What were they afraid of, after all?

The fine hairline cracks in her faith widened. She felt, as she had begun to feel more and more lately, that her belief was a veneer painted over her true self, a varnish of righteousness covering up a soul that did and thought the wrong things no matter how hard it tried. No wonder God wasn’t answering her prayers. She looked at their hands together. She had remembered the proper response.

“I don’t think we did either.”

Their hands firmed around one another and they walked on toward the camp, taking their time.

Part the fifth of an untitled half-satire half-serious short story about LDS teens on Trek

The next morning Lissa woke up scratching her arms. She pushed her sleeping bag aside and peered at her skin.

“Oh, nuts.” It looked like poison ivy. She tried to remember when she would’ve been dumb enough to not notice poison ivy—and the events of the previous night came rushing back. She shook her head, trying not to cry again, and pulled her legs out of the sleeping bag.

“Ma Shannon?”

Ma Shannon came up, tying on her bonnet. “Lissa, look at your arms! Did you get into poison ivy last night? Well, go to the infirmary before breakfast.”

She went over, scraping her hair back into a ponytail. Thankfully the infirmary was busy with an assortment of war wounds garnered during the night, ranging from a black eye on a boy from Cocoa Beach to a row of stitches being sewn into Garrett Singer’s lip. Lissa looked away. Clearly Justin had won the bet over whether someone would run into the barbed wire fence.

“Lissa, what can I do for you?” Sister Walters, who worked at the hospital in Cape Canaveral and had volunteered her services for repairing broken-down Trekkers, came up.

Lissa held out her arms. “I think I ran into some poison ivy last night.”

Sister Walters tssked. “Looks like. Come over here, I’ll get you some aloe and calamine.”

Lissa sat on a bench and waited as Sister Walters rummaged in her box of first aid supplies. Alex thunked down next to her, holding out an arm with an impressive gash on it.

“Yeah dude, definitely ran into that barbed wire fence last night. Getting me a fresh Band-Aid.” He grinned, floppy ginger hair falling over his eyes. Lissa shook her head.

“How dumb are you? I knew that was gonna happen.”

“Yeah, well, at least my face is fine. Unlike G-dude over there.” Alex jerked his head at Garrett, who was managing to pout even through his stitches. Then he turned his attention back to Lissa. “So how’s it going with you and, uhh, Justin?”

Lissa’s heart stopped for a beat. Did he know? Had Justin told someone—told everyone? What if her bishop heard…or her mother? But Alex’s face was questioning, not knowing.

She brushed the question away. “You don’t want to know.”

“Oh my gosh, something happened?” His eyebrows were waggling.

“No!” Lissa burst out, annoyed. “Nothing happened, nothing’s going to happen. He doesn’t like me, Alex, just get over it.” She didn’t know why she was lying, exactly. Becky had told her stories of guys she’d kissed at youth conference and EFY or on the stage at basketball games, hidden behind the curtains. She’d heard similar stories from and about other kids too. No one really got in trouble for it as long as nothing serious happened.

But she couldn’t bear to think of herself that way. She’d prayed again and again last night, begging for repentance. It wasn’t ok for her to sin. She didn’t know why, but it wasn’t. She remembered all the things she’d said the night before, and all the things Justin had said. She wondered, miserable, if her friends ever felt like this.

Alex looked uncomfortable. “Ok. Sorry. Geez.”

Lissa ignored him while Sister Walters spread calamine lotion on her arms and gave her a small tube of aloe. “Now don’t scratch! I know you’ll want to, but when you do, just spread some aloe on.”

Lissa nodded and went off toward the bonfire circle, leaving Alex behind to get his bandage. The Leaders That Be instructed the assembled Families to attend Relief Society or Priesthood, as today was apparently “the Sabbath.” Lissa tried to ignore the fact that it was actually Thursday and went off toward the Relief Society clearing with her sisters. Ma Schwartz and Ma Green gave the lesson together, talking about what everyone could do to preserve the spirit of the Trek in their everyday lives when they went home. The lesson made her feel uncomfortable; worse yet was her assurance that had it been given the day before, she would have felt wonderful.

Part the fourth of an untitled half-satire half-serious short story about LDS teens on Trek

It was her first kiss. Even in that moment she was aware of it, her vague shame that it had taken her almost eighteen years to be kissed. But the shame melted away, replaced by heat and want and was that his tongue? They weren’t supposed to be doing that, she was sure, well, they weren’t supposed to be doing any of this but nothing was going to stop her, not after that conversation, the kind of conversation she’d wanted to have for so long, not threat of damnation or haunting passages from For the Strength of Youth floating through her head in President Packer’s voice, not even—yep, they were falling out of the tree.

Thud. “Aagh,” Justin grunted. He rolled over on the leaves. “Geez, my elbow.”

Lissa pushed herself off the ground. Her butt hurt like no other. She’d landed almost squarely on her tailbone. Thankfully they’d only been about eight feet in the air. She crawled over to Justin. “You ok?”

He smiled up at her, rubbing his left elbow. “Yeah. We’ll have to compare bruises tomorrow. This one’s gonna be legendary, I think.”

Lissa briefly considered the idea of showing Justin her bruise, which she knew would appear exactly between her buttcheeks, and discarded this bad idea in favor of a slightly less bad one. She leaned down and kissed him again. They sank into the leaves and for once no thought of scorpions or fire ants or poison oak entered Lissa’s head. His mouth was soft and she could smell him, boy-sweat and shampoo from their hair-washings earlier and dusty soil, an intoxicating perfume in the heady night. His wonderful cellist’s fingers were on her back, pulling her close. She sighed and wound her fingers in his hair. She felt warm all over, a slow spread of heat from every point of contact.

Something thunked onto her head and dampness burst out over her hair. Lissa sat up abruptly. “What--?”

The A&W soda can rolled to one side. It had toppled off the tree branch where she’d left it. She rubbed her head, scowling. Next to her Justin sat up as well. He didn’t look at her. After a moment they both stood, Lissa gathering the soda can and the crumpled Starbursts wrapper. She hated people who littered.

Neither said anything as they walked back toward the camp. At the first possible moment Justin split away from her, going to join a group of guys jostling one another at the water fountain. Lissa rubbed her arms and walked back to her Family’s camp. The night had grown oddly chilly and she snuggled down into her sleeping bag, pulling the fabric over her head so that no one could see her cry.

Part the third of an untitled half-satire half-serious short story about LDS teens on Trek

The dance ended. Lissa trudged back toward her Family camp. Her friends had disappeared off to their own families. They were all supposed to have prayer together and go to sleep, but everyone knew that on this, the last night of Trek, they would stay up, play Capture the Flag or Uno or Murder in the Dark, gossip with people they hadn’t seen in a while, and eat illicit goodies. Earlier Lissa’s mom had slipped her a roll of Starbursts and some A&W root beer.

Justin hadn’t asked her to dance. She hadn’t ground up the nerve to ask him. She’d danced with Alex and Trevor, with a guy from Cocoa who was about a foot shorter than her, and she and Becky and Lizzie had danced together until the bishop from Palm Bay had sternly told them to stop. She was angry at herself for her lack of courage. What year was it, after all? She could certainly ask a guy to dance. She was angry at Alex for telling her nonsense about how Justin liked her. And she was angry at Justin for coming to find to her, then ignoring her—yanking her out of that stupid canal like he was worried, then not asking her to dance.

A few yards away was the fire of her Family’s camp. Lissa stopped in only to grab her Starbursts and soda and to tell Pa Shannon she was planning on playing Capture the Flag, though she was planning no such thing. She headed for the low-hanging oak tree she’d found earlier. This time she climbed higher, into a broad branch that stretched out over the fenced pasture. She cracked open the root beer and began unwrapping her Starbursts.

As she munched on chemical deliciousness, a rustle sounded below her. Someone was walking around. She glanced down, squinting in the dark. It looked like Justin—he’d pinned a giant sunflower to his hat earlier in the day, which made him easy to recognize from above. He stopped and looked up. Too late Lissa wondered if he could see up her skirt, then decided that bloomers left quite a lot to the imagination.

He waved. “Hey!”

Lissa swallowed hurriedly and coughed, “Hey.” He set his hands on the bark of the oak and climbed up, perching awkwardly on the branch by her feet. “What are you doing up here?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She drew up her feet to give him more room. “I didn’t feel like playing Capture the Flag. Seems like kind of not exactly the smart thing to do…it’s so dark out here and, hello, there’s a barbed wire fence.”

“Bet you the rest of my M&Ms that someone runs into it.” He laughed. Instinctively Lissa grinned. His laugh was so nice, almost as musical as his cello playing. He was the best musician of any age in their stake. Her horrible traitorous brain wondered for a moment if that was why his hands were so nice, then took it a step further to the memory of last Christmas at stake conference, when he’d played “Carol of the Bells” on his cello, accompanied by violin and piano, and she’d had to remind herself not to stare at his legs and the instrument between them and the picture they presented.

For a moment they were quiet. Justin looked up through the oak leaves at the sky. “It really is dark out here. There are so many more stars than you can see at home.”

“Pretty scary,” Lissa said. “I like Star Trek and all, but I don’t really want to go into space.”

“You like Star Trek?” Justin asked. Then he laughed again. “Of course you do, you like everything cool.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Lissa joked. “My tastes are about the opposite of cool. What lies has Alex been pouring in your ear?”

“It all seems accurate so far.” Justin glanced at her, then away to the stars again. “Alex said you guys and Lizzie went to see Florence and the Machine in Orlando. That’s pretty cool. I love them, but my parents hate concerts.”

 Lissa breathed in and out very slowly. He liked Florence too! The wretched humidity of the night seemed even worse. She swore she could feel his body heat next to her. She swung her legs over the side of the branch.

“You’re not leaving, are you? We haven’t even talked about Florence yet.” He said it like he was trying to joke, but Lissa thought his voice sounded strange. She slid her eyes sideways. His profile stood out against the moonlit field. “They’re really great. My parents never let me go to concerts.”

“Mine don’t really either,” Lissa said. “I actually got in trouble for going to that one, but I paid for the ticket with my own money, so…whatever. It was worth it.”

“Are they awesome live?” he asked. She nodded. “Man. I can’t wait to go to college in a real city where I can go to whatever concerts I want.”

“Me too,” Lissa said. “I’ll see Corinne Bailey Rae and Damien Rice and—I don’t know, everyone I’ve always wanted to see. I…” Her voice trailed away. She was afraid to say what she wanted to say. She swallowed, mouth dry. “It’s weird but I feel like—like I can feel the Spirit at concerts. Like how it’s supposed to feel.”

She had never said anything like that before, not out loud, hardly even to herself at night when she listened to “The Curse” on her headphones and felt like her chest was going to burst. And now Justin would know that she wasn’t the best choice of girl to hang out with. And he definitely wouldn’t like her.

The night was heavy and still, no hint of breeze. A ways off the sounds of the camp were audible. In the pasture kids darted around, yelling and laughing.

Justin touched her hand gingerly. After a moment, after she hadn’t moved her hand away, he said, “I know what you mean, Lissa.”

“But…” she whispered. “Your testimony, during the meeting before we left…”

She felt him shrug. “Sometimes I don’t feel anything. A lot of times. And a lot of times I feel things I’m not supposed to or I feel the right thing at the wrong time. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not what’s supposed to happen. You know?”

Lissa nodded. She was afraid to look at him, afraid it would break the spell. She had never heard anyone say things like this—things that she felt but knew were wrong—not even Becky, who skipped Sunday school and had kissed a boy in every ward in the stake and occasionally smoked cigarettes.

She turned her head and looked at Justin. He looked back and by some mutually-felt and unspoken agreement they leaned toward each other.

Part the second of an untitled half-satire half-serious short story about LDS teens on Trek

That night they gathered at Winter Quarters, which was a pine hammock bordering a stretch of fenced-in pasture. After a lunch of chicken stew cooked in their Dutch ovens, Lissa and her sisters went over to the hairwashing station. Her mother was there among the other women volunteers from various wards, and for some reason she felt shy as they hugged. Her mother was a reminder of the world outside, the world they would have to go back to once the Trek was over. For a little while longer she wanted to remain in the cocoon of unbearable heat, no deodorant, lukewarm Gatorade, and aching muscles. She felt closer to God and to the kids from all over the stake with whom she’d never spent much time or felt much in common with. Even the popular girls, like Sara and Ellen and beautiful, perfect Josie, seemed friendlier as they all ducked their heads under the spigots and washed out three days’ worth of sweat and dust.

And Justin was here, instead of across the stake in Palm Bay. Close enough to touch.

At the thought Lissa jerked her head upright and clocked her skull against the spigot. “Ouch.”

“Honey.” Lissa’s mom steadied her. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lissa shrugged away. “I think I’m going to go learn how to shoot guns.”

She wandered over to the gun range, set up a safe distance away from the center of the camp, but it couldn’t hold her interest. The stick-pulling competition was no competition at all, with her height and arm strength. “Pioneer Idol” was an assault on her ears as Ma Atkins, who considered herself to have quite a voice, caterwauled a terrible rendition of some song off the Sons of Provo soundtrack. Lissa felt restless as she walked through the camp. Inside her warred two sets of feelings: the part of her that wanted more, that didn’t understand, that thought a lot of what Sister Staples said in Sunday school didn’t make sense at all, that liked boys and wanted to kiss boys—and the part that loved the closeness of her ward and the security of the scriptures, magnified by being out here on the ranch with only other people who believed the way she did.

She didn’t know what she felt, or wanted to feel. Her prayers weren’t being answered anymore…or maybe they never had been. Lissa stopped beneath an oak and climbed onto a thick branch that dragged close to the ground. She knew that when the week ended and she returned to the real world, the world waiting for her at Trek’s end, this would vanish. Her Family would disperse. She would no longer be close with the cool people from her ward and the rest of the stake. And Justin would never talk to her again.

“Hey Lissa.”

Her head snapped up. Speak of the devil and he would appear…Justin stood in front of her with one of his brothers, a lanky guy named Alex who was a friend from her ward. They slouched with hands shoved in their pockets, hats pushed back.

“Hey, uh, we’re all supposed to go over to the bonfire pit for the fireside,” Justin said.

Lissa stood up, brushing ants off her skirt. “There’s a dance afterward, right?”

“I believe you mean a hoedown,” Alex drawled. He made a little jigging movement as they walked. Lissa giggled.

“Right, of course, a hoedown. If only I’d brought my prettiest hoopskirt.” Hoopskirts were an old-timey thing, right?

“I like that pioneer style,” Justin joined in. They all laughed together. Lissa’s heart ached. They came to the bonfire pit and Justin swerved off to sit with his Family. Alex ignored Trek protocol and dropped down next to Lissa onto the blanket with the rest of the Shannon tribe. He nudged her in the ribs.

“Justin’s totally into you, dude.” Alex called everyone dude, regardless of sex.

Lissa just managed to keep her jaw from falling open. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Totally,” Alex repeated. “We were over at the blacksmith station making those “prairie diamond” things—“ He made air quotes. “—and I asked him who he was going to give his to and instead of, like, making a joke out of it he didn’t say anything.” Alex grinned and waggled his pale gingery eyebrows. Lissa craned her neck to see what Justin was doing, trying to be casual about it. He was talking to Sara and one of their brothers.

“Dude, you’re off,” Lissa muttered. “He’s always talking to Sara. Alison told me they went out a couple of times.”

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em, yo,” Alex said.

“Well, thanks for the analysis, Dr. Love.” Lissa rolled her eyes. Ma Shannon shushed them as President Lesley stepped up to the front.

She couldn’t concentrate on the fireside. By some miracle she kept herself from glancing over at Justin every ten seconds. She wanted the fireside to be over so that the dance could start—the hoedown, her brain sassed. Hoedown. Hoeing a garden. Garden hose. Pantyhose. Panties. Girls at school with jeans so low you could see their panties. Hos. That was what other girls and some guys called them. Hos.

Ho, like whore. Was that where the word came from? She wondered vaguely if there were any real whores in her hometown. It seemed too small to support a community of prostitutes. She winced at the bad words filling her head just then. Was she a ho? For wanting Justin’s hands to slip down her shoulders that morning in the canal? For not caring that he could see her boobs through her soaked shirt? For hoping he asked her to dance in a few minutes once the closing prayer had been said? For thinking about all the dark corners and hollows this camp had, behind giant old oak trees and across the pasture in the patch of thicker woods?

She was breathing too hard. Alex looked at her out of the corner of his eye, one eyebrow cocked. It was his specialty; he thought it made him look like a Bond villain. Lissa swallowed and shifted her weight on the blanket, folded her arms for the prayer. After Pa Lancaster had finished, everyone surged up and bolted toward the clearing where the dance was supposed to take place.

Lissa could already hear an R.E.M. song booming out of the speakers. She rolled her eyes—it was everyone’s least favorite amateur DJ, Danny from Melbourne who thought that being into music released when he was eight years old made him cool and retro. “Everybody Hurts” wasn’t even a love song, and who started off a dance with a slow song? Lissa followed her family at a leisurely pace. Along the way some friends from her ward, Becky, Lizzie, and Trevor, caught up to her. For the time being she allowed herself to be tumbled along in their wake of laughter, goofy dancing, and shouts of “More Ke$ha!” to DJ Danny.

Part the first of an untitled half-satire half-serious short story about LDS teens on Trek

Lissa pushed damp strands of hair out of her eyes and resettled her straw hat. It was only about nine o’clock in the morning but her legs already felt like crumbling, her calf muscles shaking when she stood still for too long. The June sun beamed down relentlessly as she and her Family shoved and yanked their handcart through the scrub. When Pa Shannon called for a break, she chanced a look backward to see how far behind them the Schwartz Family had gotten. Their handcart was lumbering around a bend in the trail--partly hidden by pine trees, but she had a clear view of Justin as he braced his arms against the side of the handcart, trying to lever it past a mass of tree roots.

His arms…Lissa leaned against her handcart and mopped at her upper lip. His sleeves were rolled up past the elbow, his olive skin turning even darker in the sun. He was so cute, and he had a huge testimony; he’d borne it during the testimony meeting before they set off two days before. She hadn’t borne her testimony in ages; she felt guilty just thinking about it. She thought maybe he’d looked at her during the fireside last night, but then one of the girls in his Family had whispered something to him and they’d laughed together. Lissa frowned. Sara was way prettier than her and petite—her long blonde hair stayed smooth in its French braid even in the brutal humidity—and somehow she was managing to make even their dowdy pioneer duds look fashionable.

Lissa smoothed her apron and went to fill her tin cup with water from the cooler.

They came to a reasonably sized canal a few hours later and halted with the other eight Families. The Leaders That Be had bad news: the bridge a few hundred yards to the north was out and they would all be taking the ferry across the twenty feet or so of water. Slowly the handcarts loaded on, two at a time. Lissa stood with her siblings and watched as the first few went across. Finally it was their turn, along with the Schwartz Family. Lissa tried to ignore the fact that Justin stood mere feet away and grasped the handcart rail while the ferry hove off.

And promptly sank. As her head hit the water, Lissa thought perhaps the catastrophe could be attributed to the girth of Pa Schwartz, a man of redoubtable faith and significant size. But she couldn’t feel that the whole shebang was a bad thing—even the brackish canal water felt wonderfully fresh on her baked skin. Someone was thrashing in the water nearby and nearly kicked her in the head. She swerved sideways and came up beneath a handcart. That was no good. Cursing the long skirt and bloomers dragging her down, she shoved off and toward the bank.

Hands grabbed her, yanking her up from the water. A face was close to hers: olive-skinned and dark-eyed, black curls plastered against his forehead. “Lissa, are you ok?”

He was even cuter up close. How was that possible? People were supposed to be less perfect up close where you could see all their pores and zits and flaws. She herself was acutely aware of her sunburned nose. “Yeah, uh, I’m on the varsity swim team. At school.” Was she blushing or was it just the darned sun?

He laughed sheepishly. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Sorry.”

“No, it’s ok,” Lissa burst out. Duh, of course he didn’t know that, they went to different schools, how could he have known that? He hadn’t let go of her shoulders yet. They knelt together in the muck, knees touching. His fingers felt like brands. She knew without looking that her blue button-up blouse was stuck to her chest—her currently-unprotected-by-a-lined-bra chest—and her face burned hotter. As if on cue his eyes darted downward, then up again. He jerked his hands away from her shoulders.

“Oh, there you are!” Ma Shannon came bustling up, wringing out her bonnet. “Lissa, we were worried! How did you get all the way over here?”

Lissa started to say, “I swam,” but Ma Shannon steamrollered over her. “Justin, did you help her out of the water? Thank you so much.”

Justin nodded awkwardly. “No problem. Uh, I gotta go see if I can find my hat. I think I lost it in the water somewhere.”

He loped off. Lissa forced herself not to stare at his butt. Ma Shannon placed an arm around her shoulders and nattered their way back to the handcart.