Faking Faith (5 page)

“Hey, hey, cut it out, guys,” he said wearily, as Scottie pushed me and I pushed him back. I decided that later on, I’d have to bribe Scottie to keep quiet permanently.

After my brother and I had finished our customary shoving match, I brought the conversation back to the task at hand.

“Seriously, though, did you go to church? I’d really like to know,” I said. “For the essay, I mean.”

Dad shrugged. “Besides weddings and funerals, I guess I remember going once or twice, for Christmas or Easter, I think. But it was with my mom’s parents or great-aunt or something. I think we just went to be polite. Well, you know your grandparents. They aren’t exactly … ”

“Observant? Pious?” I supplied. “Faithful?”

Dad looked totally zoned out. “Whatever you want to call it.”

Like I said, not too interested in pondering the deeper questions of human spirituality. Not even interested in talking about it for more than two sentences. Then something occurred to me.

“So … are we not baptized?” I asked.

Dad shrugged again. “When you don’t believe in those things, there isn’t much point to all that ritual.”

“Wow … ” I frowned down at the pizza, a little scandalized. I knew what Abigail and her family would think about that. Baptism of some sort was the absolute bare minimum for being Saved. I didn’t even qualify on an entry-level basis.

“Wait, if you’re not baptized does it mean you’re going to hell?” Scottie asked.

Dad sighed and ripped at the label on his beer bottle. It was obvious he would much rather retreat to his basement man-cave with the big-screen TV and prerecorded episodes of
SportsCenter
than have this or any conversation.

“I guess some people would believe that,” Dad said. “Personally, I don’t believe in hell. And I’m not sure what I even think of God. I put my faith in things I can see and touch and feel. I guess I’m fine with whatever gets you by in the world as long as you don’t force your beliefs on others. I’m not going to tell someone else they’re wrong to believe in a white-bearded old man in the sky watching our every move and keeping a tally sheet, but I certainly don’t want anyone telling me that
I
have to believe in that in order to be a good person.”

With that, he took a decisive gulp of his beer, looking a little embarrassed.

I blinked at him. This was just about the longest speech I’d ever heard my dad give on something other than the bullpen of the White Sox or the idiocy of clueless
clients.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay then.”

“You guys are free to believe in whatever you want, of course … ” he said, trailing off. “Just don’t try and get me to donate money.”

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to laugh at that or not, so I didn’t.

We were all silent for a few awkward moments, then Dad’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display and swore softly. “Hold tight, kids, I have to take this.” He wandered off toward the living room, muttering, “One of the junior associates. Incompetent little twerp.”

My brother and I glanced at each other, knowing Dad was done with the fatherly portion of the evening. Scottie grabbed another slice and headed toward his room. I sighed and picked at the pizza carcasses, half-listening to Dad bark into the phone at the poor associate who saw him more than I did.

. . .

Later on, I was in bed with my computer, working on a new Faith entry and trying not to obsess over how pathetic it was to be home on a Friday night, when Dad knocked on my door.

He peeked in. “Is everything okay, Pickle?”

I blinked at him in surprise.

Pickle used to be my parents’ nickname for me (get it? Dylan, Dyl, dill pickle? Hilarious, right?) but Dad hadn’t called me that in years. Even prior to the whole webcam picture thing, my relationship with Dad had taken a turn for the distant after I grew boobs and turned into a definitive girl. It hadn’t helped when I’d quit my soccer league in eighth grade, which had been one of the only things he could ever be persuaded to leave work early for, and one of the few subjects we ever had to talk about. He’d transferred all of that sort of attention to Scottie.

And since the Blake Incident, he’d barely spoken to me at all. I guess that being called into the principal’s office about topless pictures of your teenage kid being published on the Internet would be awkward for any father-daughter relationship. The phrase “excruciatingly humiliating for everyone involved and then never spoken of again” comes to mind.

I mean, Mom and I had gotten into plenty of shouting matches in the last few months, but Dad had more or less been treating me like we were casual acquaintances.

“Yeah, Dad, everything’s fine,” I lied. Because why bother changing the trend now?

He hesitated for a moment, his lawyer instincts no doubt catching that I was lying even though he was probably four microbrews into the night.

“You’re sure?” he asked, putting one tentative foot in my room. “That talk about church and baptizing and stuff. I guess it threw me for a loop. It’s just … never anything I knew you were thinking about.”

There have been a lot of things you’ve never known I was thinking about
, I wanted to say.

“Just for a school essay,” I said. “No big deal.”

He’d stopped, one step into my room.

“How has it been meeting with that … uh, that doctor?” he asked.

After I’d gotten suspended, Mom had set me up with a fancy child psychiatrist to “talk about my acting-out issues.” But after a few unhelpful sessions that were really mostly staring contests, I called up Dr. Brenner’s office pretending to be my mom and cancelled the future appointments. No one from the office had followed up. And my parents, unsurprisingly, had forgotten about it. Until now.

“Okay,” I said, looking at him steadily.

“Is school going well? Are your grades still okay?”

“Sure,” I said. Having no social life had, in fact, done wonders for my work ethic. “They’re fine.”

“Because it’s really important to keep them up in your junior year, you know. Colleges really want—”

“I know, Dad,” I said, trying not to let my voice sound bitter. As if I hadn’t had the college thing drilled into me since I was in elementary school. Keeping up appearances for the applications was the only thing that had ever seemed important.

“Okay, well … ” he said. “If there’s anything else you ever want to talk about … ”

Ugh, save me from parents who intermittently want to pretend like they’re all Involved.

While you’re at it, save me from disappearing friends and hot boys who turn out to be awful human beings.

“Nope, nothing else,” I said, with a small smile. “I guess I went through a rough time, but now it’s fine.”

“Okay,” he said, turning to leave. He stopped and his shoulders slumped a little. “Hey, I know that we talked about going to that movie tomorrow, but it turns out—”

“You have to go into the office,” I finished for him. “It’s fine, Dad. The movie looked stupid anyway.”

He looked at me with those same tired eyes, grimacing a little, seeming almost appreciative that I was letting him off the hook so easily. I couldn’t understand why he did it. What was so awesome about being a lawyer anyway? When he was my age, did he dream of growing up and spending his Friday nights yelling into the phone at some underling while his kids grew up and kept secrets?

I knew one thing for sure—no way in hell was that
my
dream.

“You’re positive it’s okay?” he said.

“Yeah, seriously, don’t worry about it.”

I’ll just hole up in my room and assume a fake personality, like always.

“Sorry, Pickle,” he said, and closed the door.

SIX

M
y blog,
Faith’s Surrender to His Bountiful Glory
, progressed nicely. So nicely that I had to remind myself every so often that it was totally fake and I was a big awful liar who was making it all up out of nothing.

But it was just so … addictive. I researched country life and spun stories about Faith’s daily chores. I looked up recipes and pretended to try them out. I did some further reading into fundamentalist beliefs and discussed fake sermons that my fake pastor had given and how they had encouraged me. I named all of Faith’s siblings and created personalities and anecdotes for each one of them in a detailed spreadsheet, just to keep it all straight.

By the last month of the school year, I was averaging over a hundred hits a day and had a nice cadre of loyal commenters.

Your journey is so convicting, girlie! It is AWESOME to see the Lord work in your life!
—Hisdaughter29

I wish I had half the energy you seem to have …
what a wonderful stay-at-home daughter you are.
—BlessedMaiden4Him

I got so much reinforcement from my readers that it was easy to stay motivated. More than that, it was straight-up
fun
to invent Faith’s life.

As I walked alone through the school halls between classes, I would think about what I’d write next. I’d type up drafts of blog posts while hiding in the library study carrel eating lunch. As I deleted taunting, anonymous messages from my school email account or erased nasty, non-anonymous messages from my Facebook inbox (which were still arriving regularly), I’d make up nicknames for Faith’s new kittens. And when balls of paper were thrown at my head during study hall and everyone snickered, I hardly noticed because I was brainstorming about what adorable antics Faith’s younger siblings could be getting into.

And when I wasn’t faking Faith, I was surfing the other blogs for ideas. I didn’t plagiarize or anything, but it was easier to get into character when I was drowning in the language and beliefs and images of these girls and their families.

Sometimes I would stare at the family pictures they posted, mentally placing myself into the background, perhaps holding one of the younger kids in my arms, smiling beatifically.

Abigail remained my constant favorite.

There was just something about her—the complete confidence she had in her beliefs and her goals, the sweet way she wrote about her parents and family, as if they all completely adored each other and never disagreed or fought, and the recipes for old-fashioned food like soda bread and sticky toffee pudding that she posted with lovely pictures that got scads of fawning comments. Many more comments than I ever got.

Combine that with her apparent complete unawareness of the outside world, and her innocence was beautiful and somehow … contagious.

When kids around me in school would swear, I found myself flinching over how offended Abigail would be to hear such profanity. When I watched movies at home, I started averting my eyes during violent or sexy parts, envisioning how disappointed Abigail would be to know I’d allowed myself to see such unwholesome things.

To be honest, my obsession with her was only slightly based in jealousy. Mostly it was plain adoration.

. . .

“Mom, is it okay if I bake this weekend?” I asked one morning. I was, as always, on my computer and she was shuffling through a file of papers at the breakfast table. A cold piece of toast with one missing bite sat at her elbow.

She didn’t even pause in her work. “Sure, Dylan, just don’t burn the house down.”

“Okay,” I said, happily going back to clicking through all the recipes that Abigail had posted on her site. I hadn’t decided which one I was going to attempt yet. They were all so tempting. Lemon cake or apple strudel, perhaps? Or maybe strawberry rhubarb crisp!

A full five minutes later, my mom jerked up her head.

“Wait, what?” she said, as if suddenly processing what I’d said.

I looked at her.

“Did you just say something about baking?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Like … some of that pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough, like we did when you were little?”

That had been the extent of my activities in the kitchen with my mom. Half the time the cookies had turned out burnt. She used to barely be able to slice up oranges for my soccer team without cutting herself. She always made Dad do it.

“No, Mom,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That cookie dough stuff is for wusses. I want to make this.”

I turned my computer toward her and showed her a picture of Abigail’s strawberry rhubarb crisp. It was perfectly browned and you could just about smell the sweet waves of baked goodness coming off the computer screen.

Mom squinted hard at the picture. “You really want to make
that
?”

“Sure, why not?”

Mom looked back at me, wrinkles of concern on her forehead.

“Don’t you think that’s a little … well, ambitious, Dylan?”

My first instinct was to snark at her—
and what would you know about ambitious baking, Mom?
But I swallowed back my sarcasm and smiled instead. I really didn’t feel like fighting with her this morning. I just wanted to bake.