Allie Mariano
Speaking in Tongues
“Do you want to talk about that in front of her?” Stephanie Perkins says from the front seat. She says her like her is a rebel spy, an infiltrator, an untrustworthy burden. She’s driving and talking to Jessie Stokes who is sitting in the passenger seat; I’m sitting in the back by Stephanie’s duffle bag, which she’d thrown into the car next to me with a smirk. Coheed and Cambria’s “A Favor House Atlantic” is playing on the car CD player.
Jessie, in her eternal sweetness, says, “Of course. I don’t care, I’m not ashamed.” They have been talking for a while about someone from church or something, but I’ve hardly been listening, watching instead the streetlights and, beyond them, the few stars I can see. The music is loud enough that I can effectively tune them out.
“Are you in or are you out?” Coheed sings in that unmistakable rock falsetto. I start listening to their conversation, but I keep quiet, hoping that it translates to apathy, not fear or wounded feelings.
“I’ve heard people do it, but I’ve never done it,” Stephanie says.
“It’s crazy,” Jessie starts. “It’s a full-body experience, and I was, like, there, but I wasn’t there.”
I have no idea what they are talking about.
It’s Friday, and Stephanie invited me to a sleepover, which was a little unusual because my friendship with her is still new. Her former best friend, Maggie, and I are still friends, at least most of the time. Maggie is dating my ex-boyfriend John, which I don’t care about anymore, but everyone is acting like I’m a live wire because I had one dramatic cry in English class three months ago. Unrelatedly, Stephanie and Maggie had a falling out over Stephanie’s partying with Steven. Then, Steph invited me on a church retreat, probably a dig at Maggie. My best friend Kristina didn’t like that I went anyway, so she’s been cold ever since. I’m not sure where I stand with anyone anymore, least of all Stephanie, even though I’m sitting here in her car.
It is exhausting running through these various loyalties, and I don’t enjoy feeling like a pawn, but my other option was a movie night at Maggie’s that I was invited to last minute. I’m tired of high school, of my friends: simultaneously too wholesome and too cliquish. The sleepover feels something like an adventure, even though I am uncomfortable.
We are driving to trade whatever is in the duffle bag for booze from Stephanie’s twenty-one-year-old boyfriend. She always says he’s lucky to date her. She wears cat-eye liner and curls her long hair every morning. She’s skinny and tall and has big boobs. My mom would never let me wear tight jeans like hers. God, to have her confidence; I usually feel like a whirling blob of indecision and insecurity.
“I can’t even say I remember the whole thing; it was like a takeover.” “That’s so amazing,” Stephanie says.
Jessie is still talking about her full-body experience, and I’m not sure if it’s about sex or drugs or something else. I know that they are probably both obscuring to get me to ask, so they can either be coy and superior or try and shock me. I decide to take the bait.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, trying to sound only half-interested, but failing and sounding bitchy.
Stephanie looks over at Jessie, and even in the darkness, I can imagine her arched eyebrow, does she deserve to know?
Jessie, though, says happily, “Speaking in tongues!”
I laugh, a loud “ha!” but the two of them are so serious and unflinching about it that I cough and clear my throat.
“Oh,” I say, as if this is a normal thing that people say all the time.
Ahead, the lights of the fancy, outdoor mall beckon us. Stephanie’s boyfriend is a server at a restaurant there, and he’s supposed to give us a bottle of something. Maggie, John, and the rest of my friends don’t really drink.
I could probably use some Jesus and some rebellion.
“A woman from my church has spoken in tongues during service before,” Stephanie says. “It was super intense.”
“I don’t really remember it,” Jessie says again. “It’s like the holy spirit was moving through me.”
I wonder how many religious experiences are psychotic breaks.
“That’s so interesting,” I murmur, looking out the window at a used car lot. No one responds to me.
“I have to return that stuff to Steven,” Stephanie says tilting her head to the back of the car while she drives. “I don’t want my mom to find it.” She can’t let the conversation be about anyone else for too long.
I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes. I’m so tired.
* * *
Two months ago, these girls invited me on a church retreat called Chrysalis. It was the most time I had spent with either of them. They had talked it up, told me it was amazing, transformative, an experience that had changed their lives. I had found myself hoping for a religious experience, something to tell me definitively that this God people believed in so resolutely was real, that He gave life meaning, that we aren’t all just sacks of cells and DNA.
At Chrysalis, we spent time in the mornings reflecting on Bible passages, followed by crafting activities, like painting a vase, which was meant to help us define ourselves as vessels of God or something. The afternoons were for nature walks followed by an evening campfire sermon. We slept in cabin bunks, which reminded me of the summer camp I went to as a little kid. It was Christian too, but barely. We sang silly songs, swam in the lake, and climbed a ropes course in the trees. Christianity was just an addendum, a reminder that Jesus loves us and that we should do unto others, etcetera and so forth.
This retreat, though, was forcefully, heavily Christian. Evangelical, perhaps. I don’t know this for sure because the distinction between denominations is so far from anything that I care about that I had never thought about it before the weekend. The leaders of the retreat were maniacally happy. They leaned over us to preach that Jesus is the light and the way. The whole thing, to me, was, like this car ride, highly suspect.
***
The mall is new to our suburban town, a topic of manufactured debate before the groundbreaking. It’s not like they were going to build it anywhere else. It was sold to the town as upscale, though the only thing that seems to distinguish it from any other mall is that it is an outdoor mall. It looks nice enough, symmetrically built with a roundabout at the center and lots and lots of manicured bushes. It has all the same chain stores as any other mall, and the restaurants on the corners are “nice chains” that sell steak and fish and pretend to be fancier than Applebee’s.
We pull up to the fish restaurant where couples that look like our nice, suburban parents sit outside, waiting on a bench for their tables. Steven is outside in his uniform, a black chef-style shirt with double breasted buttons and black pants. His thin, blond hair is already receding. He has the fakest smile I have ever seen.
“Emma, grab the stuff in the bag,” Stephanie commands.
My head snaps to look at her. I am reminded why I didn’t spend time with her before Chrysalis. I consider pretending I didn’t hear her. But, I am also a coward, and don’t want conflict. I grab the whole bag.
Steven and Stephanie kiss like they are auditioning for a movie, and Jessie smiles her giant smile, dimples in full relief.
“Aren’t they so cute!” she says. Her curls bounce angelically around her face. Jessie has a celebrity-grade smile and big curly hair. She’s one of those girls at school that everyone loves, the popular kids with their giant Ford trucks and Mustangs that Daddy bought them, the all-AP classes kids, the weed-smoking suburban hippie kids. She seems like someone without a care in the world, like she’s always happy. I wonder if she is on drugs or if she is just really stupid, and I make a sound in the back of my throat that could be an aw.
We make our way to Steven’s car, something old and beat-up, and he pops the trunk. I stand a few feet away, feeling conspicuous. We are teenagers in a parking lot, after all, and I’m the one holding this mystery duffle bag.
***
My family is happily agnostic; my parents took me to church because what else do you do with kids in the Memphis suburbs? They let me believe whatever I wanted. Sometimes so much freedom is confusing though. Stephanie is ensconced in certainty, whether it’s that Jesus Christ is her personal Lord and Savior or that drinking is not a biblical sin and man’s law is to be flouted.
That weekend at the retreat was another in a long series of weird decisions I had made to avoid the rest of my friends. I was grateful for the woods, for the cold air, for walking the trails. But every new clique seems to bring new and foreign rules of behavior. At the retreat, Stephanie oscillated between sweet confidante (as I complained about my break-up) and over-lording savior of my lost soul. I had made the mistake of mentioning my family’s lack of faith. When I told her this, her face contorted into horror.
“We are talking about eternity here, Emma,” she said. “Eternity.”
The last night of the retreat was something that I would later identify as coerced devotion. After a long sermon about God’s love and the temptation of secular existence, there was a “problem” in the kitchen that delayed dinner. Hungry and tired after three full days in the woods, dedicating ourselves to God, we were led to a trail in the dark. It was cold and the trail was lined with white paper bags that glowed. They had little votive candles in them, like my neighborhood does every fall. It was oddly comforting, despite my hunger and chill.
We could hear singing ahead, and Jessie slipped her hand into mine. I was glad for it. I gave it a slight squeeze, and we walked ahead with the other campers. The adults and teen leaders lined the path, and they all held candles. I saw Stephanie among them—her face lit up by the candle, singing in holy serenity. It was a hymn I recognized but did not know. Stephanie had a strong voice, and I could hear her hitting a falsetto when some of the other voices faded on the high notes.
The path led to a wooden chapel, which was welcome and warm. We hadn’t yet been in this building, but I had noticed its stained-glass windows on another hike. Votives were lit around the one room chapel, which was perhaps as big as a classroom at school. There were no pews; instead, there were folding chairs, which were all pushed aside, against the walls. But the floor was not empty. Around the room I saw little mounds: blankets and paper bags with names on them in black marker.
Jessie slipped her hand out of mine and walked to her little pile. I looked around and worried for a moment that there wasn’t a place for me. Then, I found it: A flannel blanket, a bag with Emma written in block Crayola letters. Stapled on the outside was a square of purple paper with “God’s love never ends. God’s love never ends.” printed in a circle on it. Inside, there were, bizarrely, cards and letters with my name on them. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. Inside, each envelope was from a friend or family member, and I tried to make sense of how all these people knew where I was and also grew slightly embarrassed that they now knew I was at a church retreat.
From my grandfather: “I’m sure it’s wise to examine your spirituality now and again.”
From my friend Kristina: “I hope this helps you find something you are looking for.”
And one, after the other, I was moved to tears. I thought of Stephanie going to each of these people and asking them to write me something, and I was moved again. She was prickly, but she could have asked no one. She could have left me with an empty bag.
At the bottom of the bag was a form, printed on cyan blue printing paper. The top of the form had a blank for your name, like an elementary school worksheet. Do you give yourself over to Jesus Christ? It had checkboxes for yes and no and a box for filling in an explanation. And my tears stopped. And I felt nothing.
***
Stephanie calls me back to the present. “Emma! Why are you standing over there? Like, make us even more obvious, k?” she says.
I bring her the bag and just hold it open. Stephanie pulls out black fuzzy handcuffs and a small, silver oblong object. She smiles, self-satisfied, and looks at Steven with her eyebrows raised and hands them to him. He smirks at her.
“Oh my god, Emma, are you actually blushing?” Stephanie is smiling with her whole face, relishing the upper hand.
I’m not blushing, I don’t think, but I do feel uncomfortable. It’s like she can sense my discomfort and immediately prey upon it. I want to be with my other friends, the ones who I used to spend all my time with, making up silly games with complex rules, having movie nights with popcorn and Cokes, being just legit nerdy kids without self-consciousness. Then, I remember Maggie is having a movie night right now. John is there, and she didn’t say she was going, but I’m sure Kristina is there too. I ache to be with those comfortable friends and not with these pretty girls with smirks and secrets and salvation.
“It’s just a vibrator.”
I try to think fast about what the right response is. If I say, “I know,” I’m subject to more questions. If I say, “oh,” I’m a prude for not knowing.
“Yeah,” I finally say.
“She’s so embarrassed!” Stephanie says to Jessie, who seems to have been staring at the sky.
Jessie smiles gently at me, “I’m sure she’s seen a vibrator, Steph.”
I laugh softly, wanting this stupid exchange to be over. But I’m thankful that Jessie can brush her off so easily.
Stephanie rolls her eyes. “I’m just messing around. Sorry, Emma.”
Steven just stands there. He’s looking at Stephanie like a dog begging for food. She wasn’t wrong when she said he’s lucky to date her. He has a nice-enough face, but he looks too old to be dating a high school girl. I wonder if he’s actually twenty-one. His shoulders slope slightly, and he’s got a hint of a beer belly.
John and our guy friends are all eagle scouts. They are earnest and sweet boys, who are fit in the way of boys who are always climbing trees. Lately, I’ve been thinking of them as too goody-goody, never drinking, doing actual community service on the weekends. Even my parents call them wholesome. When I dated John, I could stay out at his house until after midnight, and my parents would not bother to stay up.
When I’m older, I’ll remember those boys and their wholesome goodness and mourn their place in my life. I will know too many Stevens, too many boys after sex and sex alone, who would rather do shots and prey on women than make up games on a Friday night.
Steven finally puts two bottles from his trunk into the duffle bag.
“Vodka,” he says, kissing Stephanie on the forehead, “and peach schnapps.” He kisses her again.
“I wanted rum,” Stephanie says.
Steven rolls his eyes. “Rum is pricier. And you won’t even taste this vodka when you mix it.”
“Ugh, vodka is so gross.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “You can’t taste it.” “How do you even know?”
Once Maggie, Kristina, and I had stolen sips from a bottle in my parents’ liquor cabinet. It burned at first, but it tasted like nothing. We hadn’t told the boys we had done it. That night we stayed up late dancing to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, dressing up in old dance and Halloween costumes. We had slept until noon the next day, and my mom made us pancakes and let us invite the boys over too. We had headaches, but we giggled through the whole breakfast with our secret.
“I’ve had vodka before, Stephanie.” I am sick of her. She doesn’t say anything back.
***
When I later reflected on the whole Chrysalis experience, I could see it as one big crescendo into a forced moment of conversion. At the time, though, I just thought it was stupid. I didn’t want to put my name on a piece of paper, claiming some fake devotion to a maybe fake god. Instead, I re-read the letter from my grandfather, the academic, which spoke of the importance of both the physical and spiritual world and argued for a balance in all things in life. It was so rational and unsentimental. It was so like my family to intellectualize over empathize. I noticed that another person had walked up to a box at the front of the room and dropped a folded piece of paper into it. I saw that everyone else started to do the same. Jessie was across the room, tears streaming past her dimples in the candlelight. I watched her scribble thoughtfully on her paper and then get up to drop it in the box.
I looked back at my little sheet of paper and thought about Stephanie’s devotion, her certainty that there is a God and that God has saved her.
I folded it without writing anything and got up to drop it in the box.
***
It is almost midnight, and we are sitting in Stephanie’s backyard. We have been sipping vodka mixed with peach schnapps and lemonade. It is honestly delicious, and I’m trying to keep myself from drinking it too fast. I’ve only been really drunk once before—on my parents’ champagne on New Year’s—and I can still taste the bile in the back of my mouth just thinking about it.
Stephanie’s dad built us a fire in a fire pit with thorough instructions on putting it out before we go to bed. Jessie did a great job of repeating them back to him verbatim before he went inside.
It’s a cool spring night, and I’m happy to have remembered my sweatshirt. We can see more stars in the sky than we could by the mall, and I lean back into the patio chair and look up. I can see Orion’s belt. The lyrics from the Coheed song come back to me, “The words you scribbled on the walls, with the loss of friends you didn’t have.” They seem profound, but I’m not sure why.
“Steven’s here,” Stephanie says, looking at her pink flip phone. She goes to open the side gate to the yard. She comes back with Steven and two other guys that I think I don’t know.
They come and sit around the fire, and I’m immediately uneasy.
“This is George and Mexican George,” Steven says, then laughs like he’s been hilarious. George is tall and thin with a greasy blonde ponytail, and a goatee.
“Jorge, dickhead,” says the other guy with a wave. He looks familiar, though unremarkable, slightly short with dark brown hair and big eyes. He’s wearing a black hoodie and baggie black jeans. He sits down on the chair next to me and pulls two beers out of his front pocket. He makes a half gesture of offering one to me, and I lift my plastic cup in response.
Greasy George sits down next to Jessie. She smiles, which seems to be her only reaction to anything, and takes a sip of her drink. George lights a cigarette.
Steven and Stephanie are making out aggressively, so the rest of us just kind of look around, at nothing, at the fire.
Jorge is sipping his beer, and he glances at me. I see a line of acne along his jaw, and I decide he must be closer to our age than Steven’s.
“You go to the high school?” he says. “Yeah, I do,” I say and look at him closely.
“I think you were in my biology class last year.” “Oh, right,” I say. “Yeah, you didn’t talk in there.”
“It was so boring. I didn’t think that you drink. You knew like all the answers.” I shrug and take another sip.
Steven and Stephanie finally take a break, and he sits down on a bench and pulls her into his lap. She’s giddy and giggling.
All I can think of in this moment is the rest of my friends, curled up around
Maggie’s living room, eating pizza and drinking Coke. Maggie’s mom and dad are probably in the kitchen, drinking red wine, just like my parents probably were before they went to bed. John has his arm around Maggie, and I don’t even care. I want to be in the warmly lit, over-decorated living room that smells just faintly of apples and cinnamon. Instead, I’m here with the smell of too-sweet alcohol, of fire and one gross cigarette. It’s cold, and I don’t like any of these people.
I look around the circle. Jorge is staring at his beer, and I think he might be nervous or maybe just bored. Steven is whispering in Stephanie’s ear. George and his cigarette have gotten really close to Jessie, and I realize his other hand is on her knee. Jessie is still smiling her manic smile, but I think, even in the shadows, that she wants out of this. Her dimples are screaming.
“Alright,” Steven says, “let’s play a game.” He looks around. “Truth or dare.” George laughs, but Jorge groans.
“Man, that’s so dumb. I’m not twelve.”
Stephanie, normally so dominant in social situations, keeps quiet.
“I went to a house party,” George says, “and they were playing ‘never have I ever’ which is basically truth or truth.”
“So?” says Jorge.
“So, they are in college, not kid stuff.”
George speaks every word like he’s an authority. “Never have I ever,” says Steven. “Perfect.”
***
At the retreat, after I had dropped my blank piece of paper in the box, I started crying for real. Stephanie was next to me in a split second. She gave me a huge hug and held me longer than was comfortable.
“Think of how your life will change,” she said.” Think about being saved by God for not just the rest of your life but for eternity.”
All I could think about was how I didn’t care about this salvation, how I only wanted my life to not change.
***
Steven is explaining how to play “never have I ever,” and I’m not totally following. If someone says something that happened, you drink. If someone says something that didn’t happen, you don’t drink. How do you choose what to say, I think. Do I say something I’ve done or haven’t done?
George is still too close to Jessie, and I can’t tell if he still has his hand on her.
I can’t tell if Jessie is uncomfortable or not.
“Never have I ever. . .” starts Steven, “cheated on a girlfriend.”
George drinks, and Jessie and Stephanie exchange a look. Jorge rolls his eyes and leans back in his seat with his beer in his hand.
“My turn!” Stephanie says. “Never have I ever. . . had sex.” She holds her cup to the side, making a show of not taking a sip.
The rest of us take a drink, except Jessie. “Emma!” Stephanie yells, “you whore!”
The word hurts, even if it is the silliest insult she could come up with. “Wait. So does that mean you and John were having sex?” Her eyes are gleaming.
I only had sex with John once. We didn’t plan on it, and we didn’t know what we were doing. I got freaked out, and John said we could stop. Not too many days later, we broke up.
I feel the shame of it all in a cold sweat on my neck, but I realize I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter either way. I shrug.
“What if I called Maggie and told her?”
“Don’t do that, Stephanie,” I say quietly, trying to keep myself calm. I didn’t think about the social ramifications of this rumor. I realize I am drunk. I realize I feel tears in the back of my throat. I cough.
“I’m just saying. She should probably know.”
Jessie is sitting up and staring at Stephanie. I think she’s trying to get her to shut up, and Stephanie isn’t taking the hint.
“You didn’t drink,” I say, “so you and Steven are not having sex?” “Rude!” says Stephanie.
“Everything but,” says Steven. “TMI!” yells George.
“You are all so stupid,” says Jorge. “This is the lamest party ever. It’s my stupid turn. Never have I ever been to a party this lame.”
I can’t remember if I should drink if the party is lame or isn’t lame. This party is lame. This party is eating away at any soul that I have left.
No one drinks.
“Jorge, I’m not going to buy you beer anymore,” says Steven. He’s glaring at Jorge, the fire casting shadows on his face.
“Whatever, man,” he says and retains an otherworldly calm.
“Your turn, Emma,” says Stephanie. She says it with this saccharine voice that hints at punishment.
I can’t take it anymore. I stand up, too quickly, and sway. I stagger slightly toward Jorge, but I recover and stand on both feet.
“You don’t have to stand up to play the game,” Steven says. Of course. He’s the guy who is going to criticize everyone else to make himself look better. He and Stephanie are so perfect together.
“Soooo dramatic,” says Stephanie, and I hate her so much.
I glance at Jorge who is looking at me like maybe something interesting might happen. I look over at George and Jessie. They are so close to each other, and Jessie is sitting up so straight, still smiling, but in the firelight, I can see her face is shining. She has tears running down her face. I stare at them and realize George has his hand in her shirt and is touching her breast. I cannot understand why she has said nothing, done nothing.
“Never have I ever,” I start, I feel like I’m slurring just slightly, but I get an intense bolt of energy. “Never have I ever been the biggest hypocrite on the planet, pretended to be pious and holy and actually just been a giant, moody bitch.”
“You’re just supposed to say one thing,” Steven says, but I’m looking at Stephanie, straight in the eyes. She is staring back at me. Both of her eyebrows are sky-high, and never have I ever seen her more pissed.
Jessie is still frozen, and I don’t know how to help her. I want to help her.
At Chrysalis, I expected them to read the cards from the box before we left, but they never did. I realized that there was no accounting for what people would actually write. Just putting your paper in the box was enough. Just being seen putting your paper in the box was enough.
I make a decision.
“Shaka-laka-laka,” I say, and I start laughing. “Shaka-laka-laka. Jeeezzzussss Chrissstaaa. Hoooooly hoooooly shaka-laka-laka spiritsssss.” I throw down my plastic cup, then throw my hands in the air. Jessie’s right, this could totally be an out-of-body experience.
“Boooomaaa boooomaaa hooooooly spiritsssss,” I keep shouting and wa- ving my hands around. It’s like I’ve been waiting to feel something for so long, and this burst of insanity is the best I’ve felt in weeks. I feel free. I could do anything. Nothing matters. High school will be over one day, and I will be gone, and Stephanie Perkins will still be a bitch, and poor Jessie will keep getting taken advantage of because she’s been indoctrinated to kowtow to strong personalities and overbearing Gods. But I can be anything I want to be: a pious person, a total slut, someone who bursts into ancient languages at a bonfire.
“What the actual fuck,” Steven says. “Shhhh. Just.” He stands up. “You’re going to wake up Steph’s parents.”
I ignore him and keep going. I can see that George has stood up; he’s not assaulting Jessie anymore, but I keep going, hoping one of them will try and shut me up. George and Steven move toward me, and Jorge is just watching, amused. I hope I’ve made this party less lame for him.
I see Jessie get up quietly and walk toward the house. Stephanie is just watching me, probably plotting my social demise, and I don’t care.
“Sha-lalalalalalalala,” I shout to the heavens, as one of the guys puts his hand over my mouth. I move to stomp his holy foot.