Salvation City - By Sigrid Nunez Page 0,56

girls and women in the Church of Salvation City didn’t have to cover up, and that they were allowed to wear makeup. He was surprised, too, that smoking wasn’t forbidden and that although heavy drinking was considered a major sin, alcohol wasn’t strictly forbidden, either.

“We ain’t the Taliban,” PW had told him, grinning. “We love music and laughter and a pretty dress, and we know that sometimes a man needs a drink and sometimes he’s just got to cuss.”

Starlyn had long arms and legs but tiny bones. She was perfectly healthy, had survived the pandemic without becoming infected, but she looked delicate.

“I always feel like a big oafess next to her,” said Tracy, who, except for her breasts, which were about the size of roast chickens, was quite small herself.

But Cole didn’t see how Starlyn could be warm enough dressed like that. The urge to cover her kept rising in him—and not with, say, the flannel shirt he was wearing over his T-shirt today, but with his whole body. And with this urge each time he grew too warm himself and dreamed of cooling his face in the marble curve of her neck.

Her cooling him, him warming her—Cole had to wonder sometimes where ideas like that came from. This one would not leave him alone. All day he would veer between guilt and excitement.

It was like having a fever again. All that great food, including meat loaf and three kinds of birthday cake, and no appetite. A houseful of people, including Mason and Clem from Bible class and a few other kids Cole was normally glad to see, but he kept ending up in some corner, alone, too listless to do more than look on. Starlyn herself kept getting swallowed up by one gaggle of guests or another—Cole seemed to be the only one lacking the nerve to go up and chat with the birthday girl. When her mother came up to tell him she thought his was the most special of all the gifts Starlyn had received, he froze with self-consciousness, unable to move his lips to say thanks.

As usual at such gatherings, PW, too, was always surrounded. There were times (and today was one of them) when Cole couldn’t help being annoyed at how people—how women, especially—demanded PW’s attention. Even Tracy had had enough, complaining that some women used the excuse that he was their pastor to ignore the fact that he was also her husband. But anyone could see that PW was enjoying himself, all smiles and big hugs—the same way he always was when he mingled with parishoners after a service.

Cole was feeling more and more restless and downcast. The memory of the radio broadcast returned to gnaw at him. He thought of slipping away, going on a long bike ride, something that always managed to soothe him, but he knew it would be rude for him to leave in the middle of the party, and his disappearance would probably only make people worry about him.

He was relieved when Clem found him collecting dirty paper plates and cups on the back porch and asked if he wanted to play a video game. It gave him something to do without having to talk much, and when the game was over they played a few more, and then Clem’s mother appeared, saying it was time to go home.

Women were putting away leftovers, men were carrying presents out to Starlyn’s mother’s car. PW had retreated to his home office in the den. Cole looked for Starlyn, and when he didn’t see her he decided to go up to his room.

The party was over, but no one had turned down the music that had played all afternoon (and had driven some of the older guests home early), and so they didn’t hear him. They didn’t see him, either, because instead of continuing down the hall to his room, Cole turned and hurried back downstairs. But if Mason’s face hadn’t been buried in her hair, his 20/10 eye could not have missed Cole.

He was standing with his back to the wall, leaning against it as she leaned into him. Her arms around his neck, his face in her hair, and his hands—looking almost black against the bright white fabric—kneading her flesh so hard that her short skirt was scrunched up, uncovering the backs of her thighs and a smile of white underpants.

“You okay, Cole?” said Tracy. “You look mad or something.”

Tracy and Starlyn’s mother, Taffy, were drinking coffee at the kitchen