Her Name in the Sky (20 page)

Then Baker takes off her bathing suit top, and Hannah can only breathe.

Baker hovers above Hannah, breathing hard, her face still wet with tears. Hannah’s arms begin to shake, like branches of a tree in a rainstorm, and Baker’s eyebrows crinkle in concern, but Hannah keeps eye contact with her and lies back down on the bed.

Baker kisses down Hannah’s chest, down her stomach, across her bellybutton, at the bones of her hips. Hannah’s body shakes more, and Baker looks at her with pained eyes, asking what to do, asking, wordlessly, whether they should keep going. Hannah looks back into Baker’s dark eyes—darker and richer than the earth’s oldest soil, but still with that desperate light hanging in them—and takes a deep breath. Then she nods.  

Baker hesitates for a second, her wet lips parted in uncertainty, but then she nods, too. Hannah rolls down the waistband of her sleep shorts, and Baker watches Hannah’s fingers move.

And then Baker’s fingers are on Hannah’s thighs, and then they’re peeling Hannah’s shorts down her legs, and then Baker looks at Hannah one more time, still blinking back tears, and Hannah holds her eyes and nods.

It’s a feeling she never could have prepared for, having Baker inside of her like this. They breathe in at the same time, quick and sharp like they’re hiccupping on air, and Baker looks at Hannah with such shy wonder that Hannah smiles, maybe out of nervousness or maybe out of shock, or maybe even out of joy, and then Baker’s mouth upturns with the shadow of a smile, too, and Baker looks down at her hand like she can’t believe it’s connected to her body. Hannah closes her eyes, opens them to watch Baker, closes them when her feelings overtake her, opens them to watch Baker again.  

And then they’re still, no sound in the room except for their ragged breathing. Hannah lies naked on the bed, one hand raised above her head, the other hand reaching for Baker’s face so she can pull her down to kiss her. She can feel Baker’s tears on her cheeks.

Baker moves her hand from between Hannah’s legs to the plane of her stomach, and Hannah feels the wetness of Baker’s fingers on her skin. They both stare at Baker’s fingers, at the proof of their sin, at the seed of their salvation.

Hannah touches Baker’s jaw to get her attention. Baker’s eyes meet Hannah’s again, and Hannah feels overwhelmed by the emotions she sees in them. She pulls Baker down and flips her onto her back, and Baker breathes as Hannah’s fingers move to the buttons on her shorts.

And then Hannah has learned the oldest secret on earth, has connected herself to the long human story, has taken her place in the pattern of human unions. Baker’s stomach rises and falls, her back arching off the sheets, and Hannah hovers over her on the bed, moving her fingers instinctively, touching something primitive and sacred deep inside the basin of Baker’s body. Baker makes small sounds, woman’s pleasure mixing with child’s need, and then she starts to cry. “Please,” she gasps, looking at Hannah, then looking away from her. “Please.” Hannah moves one hand to Baker’s forehead, brushes her hair away, combs a thumb across her eyebrow; she moves her other hand at the base of Baker’s body, pulling prayers from deep within her, until, with one last petition, she comes.

There are fresh tears in Baker’s eyes when she looks up at Hannah, both of them breathing rapidly in and out, trading air between their mouths. Hannah kisses her and rasps, “You okay?”, and Baker doesn’t answer except to pull Hannah toward her, and they lie with their bodies overlapping, skin on skin, beating heart on beating heart.

Baker sits up and hovers over Hannah again. She kisses her with an anguished tenderness, her tears bleeding onto Hannah’s cheeks. She kisses her way down Hannah’s neck and torso, her lips bringing fire to Hannah’s skin. She kisses Hannah’s naval, then her hipbones, and Hannah clenches on the bed sheets, waiting.

Then Baker kisses her way down Hannah’s legs, her wet lips picking over the skin, until her mouth is at the inside of Hannah’s thigh.

“Are you sure you want to—?” Hannah says desperately.

“Please?” Baker rasps, lifting her head to meet Hannah’s eyes.

They hang silently on each other’s questions. There is nothing in the room but darkness and themselves.

Then Hannah feels Baker’s mouth on her, kissing her in this last, indisputable place.

She falls back on the sheets and listens to the new sound in the room—the sound of Baker tasting her—and for reasons she doesn’t understand, her mind starts to meditate on words from the Mass, from the Last Supper—

This is my body….

She tangles a hand in Baker’s hair and moves her fingers over the crown of Baker’s head, asking wordlessly for more, turning her own head into her arm to stifle her gasps. Baker’s mouth closes over her, tasting, eating, and Hannah finds herself praying, first in her mind and then aloud, her new voice begging and thanking, until she comes with the words
Oh my God
ringing around her.

Baker slides up Hannah’s body afterwards, her breath fast and her lips wet. She wraps an arm around Hannah and kisses her on the mouth, and Hannah shares in the tasting of their covenant, of the fruit of their union. Baker kisses her again and buries her face into Hannah’s neck, her tears still fresh on her face, and as Hannah strokes her hair, they fall asleep, naked in the darkness.

Chapter Eight: Broken

Hannah wakes to a knocking sound. “Girls,” a voice calls through the door. “Are you awake?”

The first thing she realizes is that she is naked. The second thing she realizes is that Baker is naked too.

They stare at each other with terrified eyes.

“Girls,” Mrs. Landry calls again, knocking louder this time. The doorknob rattles as she tries to turn it, and Hannah and Baker wrench the sheets over themselves. But the door stays closed, and Hannah remembers, through her adrenaline rush, that Baker had locked it the night before.

Get in the shower
, Baker mouths as she scrambles off the bed. Her eyes are as frantic as a wild animal’s. Hannah rushes into the bathroom and turns the shower on. Then she hovers near the bathroom door, listening to the sounds from the bedroom.

“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Landry,” comes Baker’s shaky voice. “Sorry, I just woke up.”

“Are you two alright in here?”

“Yes, ma’am, we’re fine, I think Hannah’s in the shower.”

“Did you mean to have the door locked, honey?”

“Oh—no, ma’am. I’m sorry. That was my fault. I heard weird noises last night and it kind of freaked me out, so I locked the door. Sorry.”

There’s a short pause before Mrs. Landry speaks again. “That’s alright, honey. Are you two ready to start packing and cleaning? We have to be out by noon.”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ll clean up in here and then we’ll come downstairs.”

“Great. Let me get your sheets while I’m here. I need to start on the laundry.”

“Oh—no! That’s okay, we can get them.”

“No, that’s alright, I have to do everyone else’s, too—”

“Please, no, my mom would be so embarrassed if she heard I didn’t wash my own sheets. Really. I’ll take care of them.”

There’s an awkward pause, and Hannah holds her breath at the door, the steady whistling of the shower the only thing she can hear.

“Well, alright,” Mrs. Landry says hesitantly.

“Thanks,” Baker says, her voice cheerful and overly polite. “We’ll be right down!”

Then there’s the sound of a door closing, followed by silence. Hannah opens the bathroom door a crack to see Baker standing limply by the bedroom door, her body slumped in humiliation, a long t-shirt covering her torso.

“Hey,” Hannah calls softly. Baker doesn’t turn around.

There’s a bad energy in the room that makes Hannah’s stomach clench. She stands still for a long second, her naked breasts pressing against the doorframe. Her heart beats fast in her chest.

She leaves the shower on and steps back into the bedroom, and still Baker does not turn around. Hannah walks up behind her and tucks in the tag on her sleep shirt. “You okay?”

Baker startles and turns to look at her, but she averts her eyes as soon as she realizes Hannah is still naked. She backs away toward the bed, her movements slow and graceless like she might be sick, and then she stands over the bed, gazing down at the sheets.

“Bake?”

Baker says nothing, just continues to look down at the bed. Hannah folds her arms over her breasts and crosses her legs together, suddenly very ashamed of her nakedness.

“You should get in the shower,” Baker says tonelessly. She pauses. “Or at least put some clothes on.”

Hannah feels a coldness spread up from her stomach and into her throat. Goosebumps rise on her skin. “Okay,” she says, releasing the word into the room to see what happens. “But are you alright?”

Baker doesn’t answer. Hannah takes a few steps toward her.

“Don’t,” Baker says, her body flinching.

“What’s—?”

“Please just get in the shower.”

Something in the room, some invisible line between them, has broken. Hannah can almost see it: a vine that had once connected them, had once wrapped them together, now lies, butchered, on the floor. She takes a step backward and feels her navel tugging on her broken half. It retracts into her, coils around her stomach, clogs her throat.

She retreats to the bathroom without another word. But after she locks the bathroom door behind her, she stands in front of the mirror and studies her naked body. She tries to remember every place Baker touched or kissed.

They clean their rooms, they clean the kitchen and the pool area, they load up their bags, and then it’s time to leave. Hannah falls in line behind her friends to thank Dr. and Mrs. Landry, and she’s not sure if it’s her imagination, but Mrs. Landry seems to hug her with rigid arms.

They take a picture in front of the house—Hannah squeezes between Luke and Wally and smiles like she’s the happiest 17-year-old girl on earth—and then separate between the two cars. 

Hannah slides into Baker’s passenger seat and listens to Luke and Joanie jabbering behind her. Baker scrolls through the music on her iPhone without asking Hannah to deejay like she normally does, and Hannah clutches her arms around her stomach, feeling hollow and sick. Then Baker starts the car and backs out of the driveway, away from the house, away from the upstairs bedroom, away from their barest selves.

They arrive back in Baton Rouge just before 4:30. Baker guides the car down familiar streets, past familiar banks and restaurants, and Hannah swells with a sudden hope that this anchoring, common place—this place their friendship is rooted in—will restore the two of them.

But Baker drops Hannah and Joanie off first, even though Luke’s house would have been the more convenient one, and as Hannah grabs her bag out of the trunk and puts on a brave goodbye face, she realizes their shame has followed them all the way from Destin.

“Pizza for dinner tonight,” her mom says while Hannah’s gathering her dirty laundry into a pile. “Want any veggies on it?”

“Pepperoni,” Hannah says listlessly.

“It’s Good Friday. No meat.”

Hannah hangs her head back. “The one time I want pepperoni.”

“Why are you so moody?”

“I’m not moody.”

“You walked in here with a dark cloud circling around your head. Did you not sleep this week?”

“I slept.”

“Uh-huh.” Her mom takes the laundry basket from her and cradles it under one arm. “Take a nap until the pizza gets here.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Then just lie down and relax. We’re going to the Stations of the Cross after dinner and I want you at your best.”

Hannah sighs and throws a rogue sock into the laundry basket. “Fine.”

She fakes sick when her mom wakes her for pizza.

“I knew something was wrong with you,” her mom says, feeling her forehead, “but you don’t have a fever.”

“It’s a stomach bug or something,” Hannah says, squinting into her pillow. “Or maybe cramps.”

“Okay, well, just sleep, then. I’ll wake you before we leave to see if you’re feeling better.”

She lies there in the dark until her mom comes back a while later.

“Still feel sick?”

“Yeah.”

Her mom surveys her with critical eyes. “How about some ginger ale?”

“Yes, please.”

Joanie brings it up to her a few minutes later. “You’re such an ass,” she says, setting the glass on Hannah’s nightstand. “Faking sick to get out of Stations of the Cross.”

“I’m not faking.”

“Should we write out your will before I leave?”

“Shut up.”

“I want those purple heart earrings from Express.”

“Go away.”

“Jeeze,” Joanie says, backing out of the room. “I’m gonna pray for you to get a better sense of humor.”

Hannah lies on her bed for hours and hours, faking sleep when her family comes home from church, faking sleep again when her mom checks her around 11 p.m., faking to herself that everything is okay.