Her Name in the Sky (4 page)

“Does he look like the Messiah?” Wally adds. “Think he’s got the potential to save us all from our sins?”

“Doubtful,” Hannah says. “But you know, this is probably the best Baby Jesus I’ve ever found in a King Cake.”

“Better than that one we found last year?” Baker asks.

“Are you referring to the one you ‘accidentally’ threw away?”

“Don’t bring that up,” Baker laughs, lowering her eyes back to her cake. “I still feel bad about that.”

“You know who else feels bad about that? Jesus. Because you
denied
him.”

“Hey now,” Clay says. “Let’s get this mocking under control.” 

They finish their cake slices—Clay finishes Hannah’s and Baker’s second pieces for them—and sit around the table for another hour, long after Hannah and Joanie’s parents have gone up to bed, just talking and making fun of each other, and asking Luke to do impressions of their teachers, and asking Baker to tell the story about the time she walked into Mrs. Shackleford’s office to find her talking aloud to the curtains, and indulging Clay with his questions about how the St. Mary’s crowd reacted to the game tonight (“A couple of old women started speaking in tongues every time you got the ball,” Luke says; “It’s true,” Joanie says, “I sold them a nacho with your face imprinted on it”). Wally pushes discarded sprinkles around his plate while he listens to the conversation, and Joanie leans her head against Luke’s shoulder and starts to doze off, and Hannah stands the plastic Baby Jesus on the table and dances him over to Baker’s plate until Baker, her eyes swinging sideways to meet Hannah’s, tugs him out of Hannah’s hand.

“We should probably go,” Luke says, his voice uncharacteristically hushed as he watches Joanie doze against his side.

“Yeah,” Wally says, rising gently from the table. “Here, everyone give me your plates.”

The boys leave just after midnight. Hannah stands at the sink and rinses the plates and forks, watching Baker hug the boys goodnight. Clay’s hand lingers at the small of Baker’s back and Hannah concentrates on scraping a stubborn piece of icing off one of the plates.

Then the boys have gone, and Joanie has lumbered upstairs in a half-sleep, and now the only thing in the room seems to be the water pouring forth from the sink. Baker turns where she stands and casts Hannah a gentle, sleepy smile before she wordlessly walks to the sink, takes the other sponge, and starts to wipe down the table.

“You don’t have to,” Hannah says, more out of polite habit than anything else, but Baker just sends her a look—
Don’t be ridiculous
—and continues to clean.

They walk up the wooden stairs in silence, their feet tracing the familiar path to Hannah’s room, and Hannah feels content just to be together, just to have another Friday night sleepover in which Baker will borrow one of Hannah’s t-shirts to sleep in, and Hannah will turn the ceiling fan on high because Baker likes it that way, and they’ll fall asleep with some sitcom episode playing through Hulu on Hannah’s laptop.

“Do you want your birthday present?” Hannah asks when Baker pulls the sheets back on the bed.

Baker stills. “I thought this impromptu party was my present?”

Hannah smiles. She walks to her desk and retrieves the carefully wrapped gift from her second desk drawer, and in some part of her mind she thinks about how she’s opened this drawer to check on this present every day for the last two weeks.

Baker removes the daffodil-yellow wrapping paper very gingerly, her slender piano player’s fingers working under the tape with an easy grace. When she finds the book, her face alights with an expression Hannah cannot name.

“Han,” she says as she trails her fingers across the cover.

“I know you lost your copy,” Hannah says, stepping nearer to her. “And I thought you might want a hardcover edition.”

“I love it,” Baker breathes. She opens the book and flips to a random page, sliding her fingertips down the hard paper, the black ink words—
Scout. Atticus. Boo.
—breathing off the page with the mysterious power of gospel. And in the dim light of the room, with the fan guiding currents of air across the leaves of the book and the phantom taste of King Cake on her tongue, Hannah is wrapped in magic.  

“Think it’ll make it onto the sacred shelf?” Hannah asks.

“Front and center,” Baker says, drawing her fingertips across the cover. She shifts her footing to face Hannah. “Thank you.”

They crawl into bed and prop up Hannah’s laptop between them. They choose an episode of
Parks and Recreation
and play it with the volume on low. Baker rolls onto her side and nestles her head into Hannah’s shoulder, and Hannah falls asleep to the rhythm of Baker’s breathing and the smell of her hair.

Chapter Two: Ordinary Time

The following week at school, during Hannah and Wally’s unassigned period, Wally asks her if she wants to go somewhere off campus. “Off campus?” she asks. “What, like, just to experience the thrill of maybe getting caught?”

“To get some food,” Wally says, his sinewy arms moving over his Calculus textbook as he packs it into his booksack. “I’m bored and hungry.”

“You sound like Luke.”

“I feel like Luke.”

Hannah taps her pen against her Calculus binder. “We could bring food back for our friends.”

“We could.”

Hannah pictures her friends’ faces lighting up when she and Wally surprise them with food. She sees Baker’s eyes growing large with her smile.

“You’re driving,” Hannah says.

They sneak out the back entrance and drive down South Acadian in Wally’s old Toyota Camry. Wally plays one of his standard mixed CDs—the one with a lot of tracks by Eli Young Band—and lowers the windows so the fresh, wintry air rushes into the car.

“Where do you want to go?” Wally asks, looking over at Hannah.

“You wanna do Coffee Call?”

“For beignets?” he asks, with a spring in his voice.

Hannah smiles and changes the CD track. “For beignets,” she says.

Wally opts for the drive-through so their school uniforms will be less conspicuous. He orders six beignets and a cup of coffee and they pull up to the window to wait. The smell of rich processed sugar wafts out from the kitchen, making Hannah lightheaded. An older woman opens the window and smirks knowingly at Wally’s red tie and Hannah’s plaid skirt.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Wally says, accepting the white paper bag from her.

The woman looks at them from under raised eyebrows. “You’d better get back to school.” 

“We’re home-schooled,” Hannah says. “Our mom just makes us dress up so it feels more authentic.”

The woman raises her eyebrows even higher, and Wally moves the car into gear, bursting with laughter as soon they’ve pulled away.

They take the long route back to campus, driving down Perkins until they can turn right into the Garden District. The mid-morning sun colors the trees and houses in wintry light, illuminating the purple and yellow LSU flags that hang from the porches. Wally lowers his window all the way to swim his hand through the air, and Hannah looks at him, carefree behind the wheel, his russet brown hair lifting with the oncoming rush of air.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so happy,” Hannah says.

Wally stares ahead through the windshield. After a moment, he says, “Yes you have.”

Hannah clutches the warm paper bag in her lap and turns to look out the window.

To: Baker Hadley & 4 more…

Jan 12, 2012 9:54 AM

Wally and I request your presence in the senior lounge. We have beignets from coffee call. Hurry bitches!

Joanie: How did you go to coffee call??

The way most people go…in a car

Wally Sumner: We snuck out like secret agents. Come eat!

Clay Landry: This is awesome, coming in a min, waiting for Akers to shut up so I can ask to leave, save me at least 4 beignets

Baker Hadley: Beignets?! But I’m in computer systems. I'm learning how to use the space bar

As stimulating as that must be…we have SUGAR

Baker Hadley: Space…bar…space…bar…

Joanie: Coming now. Luke where are you

Wally Sumner: He probably fell asleep in class again

Luke Broussard: O ye of little tiny baby faith. I’m walking down the hall now! You know if you bring me food then I’m there. Joanie hurry up or I’m going to steal yours and I won’t regret it

Joanie: And I will break up with you. Beignet > boyfriend

Luke Broussard: How long did it take you to find that symbol on the keypad

Joanie: …a while

Luke whoops with laughter when he bursts into the lounge. Clay and Joanie follow close behind him, Clay clapping his hands together and Joanie whispering “Bitches and hos” with giddy reverence. Baker comes last, her long hair swinging behind her as she closes the door and turns to face the table. She meets Hannah’s eyes and her smile grows even larger than Hannah pictured.

“You really weren’t kidding,” Baker says.

“I really wasn’t,” Hannah says.

The six of them circle around the table and feast together. Clay and Luke end up with powdered sugar on their mouths and chins and Wally loses his coffee cup to the mercy of the group, all of whom drink from it without asking. Wally catches Hannah’s eye and rolls his eyes up into his head, pretending to be annoyed, but Hannah can tell he’s not bothered in the slightest.

“Y’all hear about Cooper?” Clay asks. “He sent his deposit in to Alabama.”

“He’s going to
Alabama
?” Luke says. “Are you kidding me?”

“He said LSU losing the championship pushed him over the edge. Said he’d rather root for the Tide for the next four years. Asshole.”

“I always thought that kid was an idiot,” Joanie says.

“Okay, to be fair, both his parents went there,” Wally says.

“Yeah, but he grew up
here
,” Clay says. “Anyway, the hell with him. I’m glad I don’t have to spend another four years dealing with his shit. He always challenged just about every decision I made as captain.”

“God forbid,” Hannah says, smirking.

Clay crumples up his napkin and tosses it at her. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m just kidding. You know I don’t like Cooper anyway. Not since that time I saw him lock Marty in a storage closet the first time Marty got drunk.”

“Or when he kicked that dog at our community service site,” Baker says, her voice bitter.

“Tell me this, Han,” Clay says. “Have you decided on LSU yet?”

“I told you, I’m waiting to hear back from the other schools I applied to.”

“It won’t matter,” Clay says, sprawling back in his chair. “When it comes down to it, you’ll want to go to LSU with Baker and me.”

“Can we not have this conversation right now?”

“Don’t pressure her,” Baker says.

“I’m not pressuring,” Clay grins. “Just predicting.”

Hannah opens her mouth to retort, but just then, the lounge door opens. The six of them, taken by surprise with their fingers still covered in powdered sugar, swing their heads around to the front of the room. Michele Duquesne stands in the doorway, one hand on the metal door handle and the other hanging limply at her side. “Oh,” she says, her eyes narrowing as she spots the beignets on the table. “Am I interrupting?”

Clay, his mouth hanging open in uncertainty, rakes his eyes over the group before he shifts in his chair to face Michele. “Not at all,” he says. “We were just having a delayed celebration. You know, for the big win last week.”

“Are you all on unassigned?” Michele asks.

“Yep,” Clay says, pulling his lips together.

She frowns at him. “You don’t have to lie to me, Clay.”

“Are
you
on unassigned?” Hannah asks.

Michele stares at Hannah as if trying to decide whether Hannah is worth her words. “I
am
, actually,” she says after a moment. “But I think it’s better to spend my unassigned period helping in the front office, rather than leaving campus illegally.” She flits her eyes away from the group and continues, in a lofty voice, “Father Simon asked me to come pick up the rosary bags. We have prayer group after school today. Maybe you all should come.”

“Mm, maybe not,” Hannah says.

Michele glares at her before flashing her eyes in Baker’s direction. “I thought you said you had unassigned during fourth block.”

Baker tightens her mouth and looks into the corner of the room.

“Isn’t that what you said?” Michele presses. “So you could take care of student council stuff at the end of the day?” 

Baker raises her eyes. “Yes. That was the plan.”

Michele hikes her eyebrows as she crosses the room to fetch the rosary bag. “Probably should set a better example for the student body,” she says under her breath.