Leaving Fishers (17 page)

Marissa looked puzzled. “Dorry—you really believe this stuff?”

Dorry nodded. She watched Marissa’s face. Marissa looked uncertain at first, then guarded, as if she’d put up a screen to keep Dorry from seeing what she was really thinking. Dorry felt as insulted as if Marissa had physically pushed her away.

“You know everyone in my family goes to the Methodist Church,” Marissa finally said. “If they go anywhere. Let’s talk about something else. What are kids wearing in Indianapolis?”

“That’s not nearly as important as Fishers,” Dorry said. “That’s just—frivolous. I wanted to tell you about something that really matters.”

“You did tell me. Now I’m asking about something else.”

“But don’t you worry about your eternal soul?”

“No,” Marissa said. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t believe in Jesus and God and all that.” She lowered her voice as if it were slightly embarrassing to be caught talking about religion.

“But—”

“Come on, Dorry, lighten up. Listen, don’t you want to know why Steve and Ashley broke up? Nobody’s supposed to know, but Ashley told Shawn who told Nikki, who told me—”

Distantly, Dorry listened to Marissa’s account of the doomed relationship. Marissa started with the first date, so when she finally ended with, “—Can you believe that?” Dorry discovered she’d missed the main part of the story. She suddenly didn’t care either. All she could think about was having to call Angela that night and admitting that she’d failed to convert Marissa.

“Marissa, I know you’re Methodist and all, but couldn’t you try giving Fishers a chance? We could just pray together, and then—” Dorry realized nobody had told her what to do once she converted someone. Everybody had to be baptized, but surely she couldn’t do that by herself. And Marissa wouldn’t have anyone to be her discipler, as a Fisher all alone in Bryden. If Angela
had really expected her to succeed, wouldn’t she have told her what to do?

Marissa was scooting back on the bed. “Geez, Dorry, why are you acting so weird?”

“I’m not acting weird.”

They looked at each other. Finally Dorry sighed and said, “Anybody else break up lately?”

She left less than an hour later. She had intended to spend the whole day with Marissa, but she suddenly couldn’t stand the gossip she used to love. Wasn’t gossiping like judging others? Wouldn’t God disapprove? And Marissa kept giving her strange looks, as if she didn’t recognize her.

Walking the four blocks home in the cold, Dorry could easily imagine Marissa telling everyone about her at school on Monday. Lots of people would ask, “Hey, how’s Dorry? Wasn’t she back for Thanksgiving?” And Marissa would answer, “Oh, she’s really weird now. She’s some sort of religious nut.”

Probably Dorry’s niece Heidi would be spreading her version of the big scene at Thanksgiving, so by the end of the day Monday everybody at Bryden High would think Dorry had flipped out. It wasn’t like she’d ever been Miss Popularity anyhow, but at least people used to think she was sane. Embarrassment came over her in waves.
She stopped and turned around. Maybe she could tell Marissa she was just acting—pretending to get practice for a school play or something. She could stay the rest of the day and act normal, and Marissa would forget her talking about Fishers.

She started walking back toward Marissa’s. But turning around was like changing the tape in her head. Instead of picturing everybody talking about her on Monday she remembered her Bible Study group talking about persecution. Everybody had agreed that God and Fishers were more important than anyone’s opinion.

“People are going to make fun of you. And who cares?” Angela had asked in her smooth, confident voice. “We know we’re right. God knows we’re right. When they’re in hell and you’re in heaven, you’ll have the last laugh.”

Dorry shoved her cold, chapped hands in her pockets and turned around again. She hoped nobody’d seen her.

Chapter

Eighteen

DORRY SAT WITH ELEVEN OTHERS IN HER newly formed E Team. E stood for “evangelism,” Angela had revealed only the night before, when she told Dorry she had to go to the meeting.

“But—I’ve got a chemistry test the next day,” Dorry said. “I do Fishers stuff five nights a week. Can’t I skip this?” She didn’t add that her parents acted worried now every time she told them she was doing something with Fishers. And they didn’t even know about most of the Fishers events she attended, because they were away so much. Was it a sin to deceive them? Or was it fair defense against the Devil, since they were unbelievers trying to come between her and God? Her mother had gone so far as to get up early Sunday morning to suggest a special mother-daughter shopping trip, to lure her away from the Fishers service.

“No, thank you,” Dorry had said guiltily. But shouldn’t she feel righteous, choosing God over the possibility of new clothes?

Angela didn’t seem to see anything righteous about Dorry. “Oh, Dorry, of course you can’t skip
the E-Team meeting,” she said. “How could you even ask? After you failed so miserably over Thanksgiving—you should be begging me for things to do to get back in God’s good graces.”

Dorry felt the hot flush of guilt that had become a constant companion since Thanksgiving. If only she’d tried harder . . . maybe if she’d turned around and gone back to Marissa’s, not to try to act normal, but to convince Marissa to join Fishers . . . It’d been more than a week since Thanksgiving, and Dorry only wanted Angela to forget the whole thing.

“Can’t you forgive me?” Dorry said. “Didn’t Jesus forgive?”

“Well,
sure
,” Angela said. “When people were sincere. How can I know you’re really repentant until you show that you have changed? Have you given up your sinful desire to overeat? Have you made a genuine effort to convert anyone?”

Dorry didn’t eat the rest of the day. Then she was too weak to think of speaking to anyone, let alone converting them.

Now Dorry sat on a stranger’s bed trying to remember chemical formulas. If she convinced herself she could keep all the positives and negatives straight in her head, she’d only have to study for an hour when she got home. She was concentrating on ions so hard that she almost
forgot to bow her head when everyone began to pray The prayer bounced around the room. Dorry tuned out most of it until she heard Angela’s voice.

“—and we pray for our sister, Dorry Stevens, who comes to you humbled and broken, among the fallen. Thank you for granting us the mercy to give her another chance. Please help her to redeem herself and become a useful member of your kingdom,” Angela prayed.

Anger boiled in Dorry’s stomach. How dare Angela pray like that, in front of people Dorry didn’t even know. It made Dorry sound truly evil. That was part of the prayer she’d seen on the Fishers’ list for drug addicts and prostitutes. Dorry had only skimmed it because she’d never imagined herself meeting people like that.

Angela’s elbow dug into Dorry’s ribs. Dorry looked up, startled. “Your turn,” Angela whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I pray—” Dorry began haltingly She couldn’t say any of the words that sprang to mind: That Angela stop acting so superior. That I finally manage to convert someone so Angela will quit lording it over me. That you somehow erase Thanksgiving from everyone’s memory. The silence in the room grew. Dorry could hear the people around her breathing. How long would
they wait for her to say something? Someone cleared his throat. Dorry rushed to speak. “I pray—we pray for forgiveness. For everyone.”

Then she couldn’t think of anything else. After another long, uncomfortable pause, someone across the room took up the prayer. After the “Amen,” everybody looked up. Were they all staring at her?

Mark, the leader of the group, stood up. It was his bedroom they were crowded into. He was older—a college student, Dorry thought. He lived in his own apartment, but it was an apartment so small the bed doubled as a couch and the kitchen was in the same room.

“Evangelism is the most important job of Fishers,” he said. “People out there are in darkness, in evil, and only we have the light to bring them to goodness. Look around.”

Self-consciously, Dorry did. Most of the others were probably high school students. She could tell that everyone was sitting in discipling pairs—she thought she could pick out the person being discipled in each case. They sat with shoulders slumped, eyes downcast. Only the disciplers attempted to look straight at her, and then it was Dorry who looked away. After Angela’s prayer, she felt as guilty as if she really were a drug addict or a prostitute.

The strange thing about the E Team was that,
for the first time since the retreat, Dorry was in a small group that included males. She wasn’t the only one who noticed, either, because one guy, the least-humble looking of the disciplees, whistled. “Hey, look! Girls!”

Mark laughed, but it was a restrained laugh that held back any real amusement. “Yes. We trust that you are all mature enough in your faith now not to be distracted by members of the opposite sex. We’ve discovered that, for some reason, evangelism is done best by males and females together. If you’ll think back, a mixed pair probably converted you.”

Brad and Angela, Dorry thought. Since the retreat, she’d barely seen Brad, except briefly at Fishers parties or at the big Sunday services. He was always polite, but in a hurry. Just thinking about him now made her feel embarrassed and ashamed. How could she have told Angela that she lusted after him?

“To be effective evangelists, you must know and trust each other intimately,” Mark continued. “I want you to turn to another person—not your discipler—and confess your worst sin.”

People twisted and turned, jockeying for position. There was scattered nervous laughter. Angela half shoved Dorry toward a boy with glasses sitting on the floor.

“I’m Zachary,” he said.

Dorry looked closer. “Oh. From the retreat,” she said. “I’m Dorry. Remember?”

She hadn’t recognized him before because he looked so different—no longer merely thoughtful, but anguished, practically tortured. He had the same wild look in his eye that crazy people on street corners wore. It hurt to look at him. Dorry remembered confessing to Angela in her first discipling session that she’d felt attracted to Zachary, as well as Brad. The thought made her blush with shame all over again—both that she’d felt lust, if that’s what it was, and that she’d felt it for this guy. He was much too disturbed looking to think of romantically.

He didn’t notice Dorry’s blush. He seemed only barely aware of her presence. “Yes. The retreat. You’re Chocolate.”

Dorry grimaced, the nickname now just another spur to guilt. She was so hungry, just the mention of food made her mouth water. But that was sin, Angela said, sin to want to eat all the time, putting her body’s longing for food ahead of her soul’s longing for God.

Zachary didn’t see Dorry’s grimace. He was looking down, as if unable to face her while he confessed. “My sin is—I have doubts, terrible doubts,” he murmured shamefully. “What if Fishers
aren’t right? What if it’s Buddhists who have all the answers? Or Taoists?”

Dorry had never heard of Taoists. “I don’t know,” she said. “Pastor Jim and the others seem pretty sure of themselves.”

“But shouldn’t everybody who believes in a particular religion be absolutely sure that they’re right?” Zachary asked. “Aren’t Buddhists or Muslims just as sure?”

“I don’t know,” Dorry said doubtfully. And yet, she did know what she believed. When she was praying—not just mouthing words but truly calling out for God—she often had the sense that He was there, that He cared about her. What she struggled with was everything else in Fishers, the pressure to eat and act and think exactly as Angela commanded. Yet she had found God through Fishers. Surely Fishers was right. She just had to learn to obey.

She was just starting to explain her sin when Mark interrupted. “Okay, now,” he said. “How many of you confessed doubts about the Word of God?”

Zachary and three or four others raised their hands.

“Doubts are the work of the Devil,” Mark said. “You must stifle all doubts to be an effective evangelist. We’re going to do an exercise to end your evil doubtings.”