One Good Hustle Read Free

he had to be joking. I turned my head and stared him in the eye. He smiled and looked away. Christian wimp, I thought.
    I left the postcard in my purse and, instead, carefully drew a pentagram on my palm. The wimp blinked down at my hand. I wiggled my fingers in his direction and gave him a wink. He hiccuped, suppressing a giggle. That was Drew.
    “You’re bad,” he whispered. Eyes twinkling, he looked almost giddy.
    “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
    “I can’t wait.” He grinned.
    We were inseparable for the rest of the week. I wished we went to the same school but Drew’s family lived in North Burnaby while Marlene and I lived in South. Maybe he was a church guy but he wasn’t super pious or anything, just kind of abnormally clean-living. Which suited me fine because I’m abnormal too. If I were normal, I wouldn’t be a virgin who doesn’t drink or smoke.
    After our Hollow Tree Ranch week, Drew invited me to some of his church’s DYF nights. DYF stands for Divine Youth Fellowship—Tenth Avenue Divine is the name of Drew’s church. They have these roller parties the first Friday of every month. I went with him to a DYF roller party once. At the rink, I said “shit” when I landed on my ass and Mandy Peterson, one of the DYFers, looked at me like I’d just ripped off a big fart.
    “I used to swear,” Mandy said to me. “People underestimated me when I swore.”
    I didn’t fit in but at least nobody wanted to beat me up. They were nice to me. Even that Mandy Peterson chick was nice. Especially when I tried not to swear.
    The DYFers had a game night at Mandy’s house once. Her parents had a nice place: tons of bedrooms, two cars and a boat. Those church kids all seemed to have boats and swimming pools and camping equipment and rumpus rooms and chandeliers. Marlene asked me once if I felt bad being in their houses, uncomfortable, like I didn’t belong there. I think she was trying to ask if I felt low-class next to them. I was too busy swimming in their pools and eating steak off their fancy plates. Deluxe accommodations suited me just fine. And to be honest,the whole clean-living thing gave me a weird, spearmint-fresh feeling inside. All that chastity stuff was kind of a relief after years of Marlene.
    One time, a year or so ago, I was complaining about my zits. Marlene was acting all ballsy and sexy with a vodka brave-on. She told me I should go get laid and my skin would clear right up.
    That’s when I told her that I was going to save myself until marriage.
    “Over my dead body!” she said. “You want to end up with some guy who does a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and then leaves you lying there? Staring at the ceiling? Stuck with him? Married to him?”
    “God! There’s other stuff, you know. Ways of knowing that someone would be nice to you in bed.”
    “ Other stuff? Those goddamn Christians are going to ruin your life.”
    Treat your body as a temple , the youth pastor would tell us. I started tossing that one at Marlene to get a rise out of her. Drove her bats. Holier than thou sons-of-bitches , she’d say.
    It pisses me off when Marlene slags all that religious stuff as being totally not like us—I suppose because I’m scared she’s right. I mean, why is Drew friends with me? Maybe he’s only nice to me because he has to be—it’s in the Bible. Meanwhile, I don’t know if I even believe in God.
    At the Jesus camp, they sang this song that went, I’ve got the joy joy joy down in my heart . I don’t think I have that. I know my mother doesn’t.

    From the corner of my eye, I saw her turn around on the couch and stare at me. “I love you, you know,” she said. “More than anything in the world.”
    I wanted to pound her. Instead, in this very matter-of-fact way, I asked, “How’re you going to get on the roof?”
    She blinked. “Fine. I’ll go up to the top floor and jump off someone’s balcony.” She pulled her purse straps over her shoulder, stood up, and went