The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills Read Online Free PDF Page B

would definitely be too small for you, I guess…. Maybe Trisha Young has one you could borrow? Just to help you financially?”
    FACT:
Trisha Young was approximately the size of a baby elephant. TR also managed to make the word “financially” sound like something chronic and contagious.
    “I’m only trying to help,” TR added, very softly. “Because left to your own devices, Margo, you dress like a schizophrenic homeless woman.”
    TR’s phrase zinged past us like an arrow. No one spoke.
    “Come on, girls. Let’s get out of here. It’s slirting time!” TR sang. The others cheered. They stepped past our table and left, leaving a cloud of tuberoses and honey-vanilla where they’d stood.
    ANTHROPOLOGIST’S NOTE:
“Slirting,” an activity popular with the BRGs, is a neologism derived from “slumming” and “flirting.” Participants go after socially undesirable males for sport, flirting with them, teasing them, leading them on, andpotentially even obtaining free drinks or other items from them, only to humiliate them ultimately. TR and her pals enjoyed targeting a hangout popular among guys from the county, because they felt that “slirting with rednecks” was a particularly thrilling way to reinforce their sneering superiority. (As an anthropologist, I try to record behaviors without moral commentary, but let it be known that I find “slirting” to be reprehensible and disgusting.)
    “Well,” I said when the door had closed behind them.
    Margo released a pent-up growl. “I can’t stand them!” Her fists were squeezed so tight they’d turned white, and I could see a pulse bound in her throat.
    How much easier it was to be at an anthropologic remove
, I insisted to myself.
Distance
, I thought.
Safe distance
.
    “Margo,” I said. “You’ve got to get a little more anthropological about this stuff. Step back, disengage from the enemy tribe. It’s much safer.”
    Margo glared at me. She was still clenching her fists when I noticed a handsome college-aged guy walk in. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a college brochure in which everyone is reading contemplatively on grassy lawns or in the midst of an Ultimate Frisbee game. I turned my head down to avoid his glance.
    Why avoid the gaze of handsome guys? His gaze was a trick, and I knew it. The guy was a FreshLife leader from the localBaptist college. FreshLife is a fellowship group for high school students that tries to make God seem like your cousin’s friend’s hip, young Hollywood uncle and Jesus like some spring breaker gone wild — gone wild with praise, that is. If you were cool with Jesus, you were a VIP at the hottest spot in town. FreshLife seduced you with the handsome college-aged leaders and free beach trips. Then on Monday nights, you were expected to gather and sing songs to acoustic guitars and play weird, embarrassing games involving Cool Whip or egg tossing. I know because I’d gone before, at my mom’s request, of course. They usually only threw in two minutes or so of God talk — it was just the manic games and singing I couldn’t stand. And the retreats. The retreats were always to places like Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg, and I’d heard they involved much candle holding and tearful soliloquies from otherwise viperish girls — BRGs included. Given the choice, I would rather read long genealogies out of the Bible for hours at a time. Forced friendliness freaked me out.
    The college guy — Colin, I think his name was — looked at Margo and me. Colin was scruffy and, yes, really good-looking. For this reason, he was an extremely effective evangelical tool. The FreshLife attendance (at least the female portion) had surged this year, or so I’d heard. But rather than trying to recruit us, he turned quickly away and headed, scone in hand, out the door of the Mocha Cellar.
    Margo gulped her iced tea.
    “Hey, that was weird,” I said. “That FreshLife guy totally sawus and pretended he didn’t. FreshLife