Faking Faith (6 page)

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I said cheerfully. It sounded like something Abigail would say.

“But … ” Mom looked at the screen again. “Baking? That? Really?”

I could almost hear her brain churning, wondering what confusing new phase of adolescent development I was going through now, and if this one would involve a potential lawsuit or suspension from school. I just hoped it wouldn’t make her remember the psychiatrist.

“So? I don’t get what’s the big deal,” I said.

“I just … think … well, maybe you need to get out of the house more.”

“You’re the one who grounded me for forever,” I pointed out, becoming more annoyed. “And what’s wrong with baking? It’s a good skill to have. It’s pretty much the most wholesome thing I could be doing with my time.”

“Nothing is
wrong
with it, exactly,” she said, rubbing her temples as if she were in pain. “It’s just very … domestic.”

“So?”

“And I’m not … you know … I’m not the most domestic woman around.” I had rarely seen my mom stumble so much for words. She was usually in complete control of all situations.

“No,
really
?” I said.

She frowned at me. “I just … where is this coming from? Why this sudden fascination?”

“Why do I have to be exactly like you?” I asked, ignoring her question. “What if I want to be different?”

She blinked at me for a moment, looking stung, and then shrugged. “Well, of course you don’t have to be exactly like me, but—”

“Look, Mom, me wanting to bake isn’t a judgment of you or anything,” I interrupted, working hard not to let myself get snippety. I was trying to act how I imagined Abigail would act in this situation, calm and sweet and wanting to please. “I just want to try it, is all. I mean, something a little more advanced than pre-made cookie dough cookies. I think it’ll be fun.”

She still looked disturbed, tapping her fingers on the table. “Are you doing okay, Dylan?”

“Sure,” I said, with a quiet sigh.

Mom reached across the table and put her hand over mine. “I know you’ve had a tough couple of months, sweetie,” she said. “I’m … well … ”

“What?” I asked.

She appeared to gather herself, like she was preparing to say something important.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sorry that things have been so hard for you. And that we have such a tough time talking about it without fighting. It’s something we need to work on, that I really
want
to work on, but I’m just trying to get through this stage of the case and then I’ll be much more—”

“It’s fine, Mom.” I cut her off, gently disengaging my hand from hers. “This doesn’t need to turn into a huge thing. I just want to bake, okay? It’s really not a big deal.”

We looked at each other and then she sighed, glancing down at her work on the table and then back at me.

“Well … all right then. Not sure what kind of baking supplies are in there … ”

Before she could say anything more, I jumped up. “No worries, I’ll walk to the store and buy what we don’t have. I gotta get to school now. Bye, Mom.”

I left her sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the papers in front of her.

SEVEN

A
bigail and I began to email back and forth.

It started simply enough. I wrote to praise her strawberry rhubarb recipe, even though my inedible rendition of it had somehow turned out both soggy
and
burnt.

I’m so glad you like it!
she replied.
I’m so happy that the Lord brought us together through our websites! What an amazing blessing. I’m sure I have much to learn from you, too.

Oh Abigail, you don’t even know
, I thought.

I wrote back to her after that, asking for a book recommendation, and she replied again, and pretty soon we were regular pen pals. Well, Faith and Abigail were regular pen pals. By this point, the situation had spiraled so far beyond that fateful day when I’d clicked on that first link that I sort of felt like an invisible bystander.

It was getting to be the last few days of school, which was wonderful (since it meant 100 percent lower odds of verbal abuse in the hallways and awkward avoidances of former friends) but also made me an anxious, fidgety mess. More than usual, that is. Being at school sucked, but if I didn’t have it to go to every morning, I didn’t know what reason I’d ever have to leave the house. I didn’t know what reason I’d have to even get out of bed.

Scottie had sports camps and trips with friends planned for most of the summer, and, of course, Mom and Dad didn’t work any less just because it got hot outside. We had a trip to visit grandparents planned for August, but that was it as far as scheduled activities with my family were concerned.

If I still had Kelsey or Amanda, or even Blake, that’s where I’d be.

Instead, I was looking at spending a whole summer haunting my house solo, wandering the Internet and watching daytime TV in the cold basement, waiting for my family to come home just to have someone to talk to.

It felt like a death sentence.

I guess maybe a more normal, healthy girl might have put in applications for summer jobs. She might have called her relatives and asked to come visit or signed up for some classes. But I hadn’t been normal for a while and none of that sounded remotely interesting. Besides, I was sure that wherever I went as Dylan, someone would know about what had happened and it would be terrible and humiliating.

There was only one thing that could get me excited anymore, and slowly, an idea began to take shape in my brain. A ridiculous idea that had the potential to get me in huge amounts of trouble. But the more I thought about it, the better it started to sound, and soon I couldn’t think of anything else.

I kept writing to Abigail—at this point, it was daily. We had quite a friendship … well, at least as much of a friendship as was possible when we’d never met and one of us was totally fake. We’d moved beyond just recipe sharing and pleasantries. She confided in me about worries involving her older sister and wanted my advice, and I asked her for her thoughts about some Bible verse I’d looked up online and didn’t understand. We’d gently argued about which Jane Austen hero we’d most want to marry—(Abigail: Mr. Knightley; Me: Mr. Darcy, of course), and talked about what we wanted to name our future children. We’d send links to online videos of adorable kittens and convicting sermons and modest clothing stores back and forth.

Honestly, by that point, Abigail really was my best friend.

I don’t know what I’d do without you, Faith!
she wrote.
What an encouragement you are to me. I hope someday we can fellowship in person!

So one evening, the night before my last final exam of my junior year, I wrote to Abigail about my ridiculous idea. An idea that I hoped wouldn’t sound so ridiculous to her.

My father said it would be okay for me to go visiting this summer,
I wrote.
He would like for me to be exposed to other godly families so I can have more experiences for when I am married and to help me cultivate even more of a servant’s heart. Do you have any ideas about fellow stay-at-home daughters whom I could visit? I know this might sound a little odd, but it’s my father’s will, of course!

I waited anxiously for a response, obsessively refreshing my email while I should have been studying for my French final. Had I gone too far outside the boundaries of what these girls thought was “normal” this time? Was inviting some strange girl off the Internet to come visit something Abigail would even consider? Would she get suspicious and see through me?

Her excited response came just a few hours later.

Oh, Faith, the Lord sent me the best idea! Why don’t you come and stay with my family? I talked it over with Daddy and Mama and they said it would be fine. I’ve told them all about you for months, of course, and they have always thought you sounded like such a wonderful example of faithful maidenhood! I think they believe you’ve been a good influence on me.

I literally laughed out loud at that. Me, the golf-club-wielding slutty screw-up, a good influence on the perfect angel Abigail?

Obviously not, but I wasn’t about to tell her and give up this ideal chance to witness her world. I didn’t even think twice before writing back to accept the invitation.

. . .

After developing a detailed action plan and collecting the necessary materials, I was ready to go. First stop: parental permission. Strategy: divide and conquer.

Which wasn’t all that hard, seeing as I hadn’t witnessed Mom and Dad together in the same room for over two weeks. If I didn’t know better, I’d start to wonder if they were the same person dressing up in different costumes.

But I managed to corner Mom in her usual place. At breakfast, while she was distracted.

“So, guess what, Mom? I found this cool all-girls camp in, um, Springfield that I want to go to this summer,” I said, the very essence of nonchalant. “For two weeks in July. Is that okay?”

As per usual, she was barely able to tear herself away from legal briefs long enough to look at me. “Oh, really? What kind of camp?”

I put down a brochure that I’d swiped from the guidance counselor’s office for some young women overachiever’s camp in the capitol city of Illinois. The cover showed a diverse group of smiling girls doing wholesome, educational activities. The application deadline was long past and you actually had to be nominated by a teacher to go, but Mom didn’t need to be aware of that. And I was gambling on the hope that she wouldn’t look closely.

I rationalized that I’d be doing terribly wholesome things if I managed to pull this off and get to Abigail’s house.

Mom glanced through the brochure. “This looks interesting, Dylan,” she said, briefly smiling at me. “I’m glad you’re taking some initiative. And it seems like a good place to stay out of trouble, too.”

She was obviously referring to the lack of boys with whom I could get in trouble with.

“Thanks a lot for your vote of confidence,
Mom
,” I said, irritated.

She gave me a withering look. “Don’t start with me today, Dylan. I don’t have time for attitude. Do you want to go to this camp or not?”

I sighed and slumped down in a chair.

“It would be good for college applications too, right?” I said. The magic words.

Mom looked down at the brochure, a tight expression on her face. It occurred to me then that she hadn’t pestered me about college applications since before the Blake incident. But who could blame her? I’d screwed up pretty badly. She probably thought I was a lost cause, that there was no use in expecting anything out of me. My face burned in shame for a moment and I felt like crying, which hadn’t happened for a while.

“Right, I’m sure it will be,” she said after a pause.

I took a deep breath.

“So can I use the credit card for it?”

My parents had given me a credit card when I was a freshman, with strict rules about when and where I could use it. But I knew the credit limit on it was far greater than the stated camp tuition. I assumed my parents would probably check the bill, but I’d already planned for that.

Mom flipped through the brochure again, then put it down. “Well, I guess I don’t see why not … go ahead and ask Dad, too. His secretary said he should be home tonight.”

I smiled, knowing I was almost home free.

Because, predictably, Dad had even less to say about my plan.

“Okay, sounds fine,” he said without even looking at the brochure, sprawled in front of the TV with a glass of Scotch in one hand and his BlackBerry in the other. He glanced up at me. “Guess it might be nice for you to get out of town for a while, huh?”

I know they’re my parents and that they’re obligated to love me, but I think they were both relieved I wouldn’t be around the entire summer, hanging out being weird and reminding them of how much they’d somehow messed up with me.

“Sure, Dad,” I said. “Guess so.”

From there on, my ruse was shockingly easy to pull off. The next day I used the credit card to pay the camp tuition money to a PayPal account I’d set up and blandly named
Summer Legislative Experience
. Of course, the account was tied to my bank account and the money was going directly back to me. But I wasn’t going to use it for drugs and alcohol and designer clothes like other kids my age might, oh no! This money was going directly toward a Greyhound bus ticket and a wardrobe’s worth of modest, fundamentalist homeschooled girl ensembles.

I was on my way.

I can hardly wait to fellowship with you!
I wrote to Abigail.
This will be such a blessing!

A month later, I was on the bus.

EIGHT

I
didn’t start to have second thoughts until I was one bus stop away from Abigail’s town, and by then it was far too late to change my mind.