We didn’t believe when we first heard, because you know how church folks can gossip. Like the time the elders were convinced Sister Janice’s daughter had been turned into a lesbian when she began playing rugby in college. For weeks, we heard the grown folks whisper about how no girl should be playing football—it just wasn’t right—and it must have been that roommate who had come onto her in the middle of the night and turned her gay, until she showed up to Easter service holding hands with a shy boy and that was that.
We thought it was one of those things, but it’s not. It is, in fact, all true, and it did, in fact, happen six months ago, when Nadia Turner, who was knocked up by the pastor’s son, went to take care of it.
Nadia Turner was beautiful but she was a bitch, the kind of female who thinks she can talk to people any which way because she’s got looks. The type who’d always flash you this fake smile and you could tell she thought you hated her. All pretty girls think other girls hate them. Like they float through life with boy admirers flocking to their side, so the other girls hate them for it. We might not have those crazy, see-through hazel eyes or that light-bright skin with the long hair, but we’re pretty too. And we have way more to worry about than hating some pretty girl.
Still, it’s hard not to feel sorry for her that day when you picture her sitting on the metal table, shivering under her paper gown. This was in the nice clinic downtown, not in some back alley apartment where they grin at you with crooked yellow teeth before rolling up their sleeves. Here, the walls were painted lavender with just a framed painting of a desert island featuring a lonely koala bear clinging to a palm tree. Koalas probably don’t even live in palm trees. They live in forests. But maybe that wouldn’t be scenic enough, all that leafy green against purple walls. The furry koala against the palm fronds and the ocean—you were probably supposed to stare into the teal foam and imagine that you were lying out on a tropical island. Close your eyes and pretend you were pressed against grains of white sand, not against a metal table in a sunless room.
The doctor was a fortyish blonde with electric blue eyes who moved her head in little jerky motions when she talked. She nodded earnestly to everything you said and smiled when she spoke, even if there was nothing happy about her words. She probably did this to make her job more sufferable and to put her patients at ease, but it was more unnerving than anything. No one is used to people smiling at them when they talk about cramping and bleeding.
When Nadia met with her three days ago, she’d nodded solemnly, touching her hand at moments, other times patting her knee. The doctor told her that if someone is meant to have children, they will, and if they become pregnant too early and decide to end it, the baby’s spirit goes back into the mother’s heart and waits until she is ready.
Funny what things people tell you when they know you’re not well.
“How are we feeling?” she asked brightly as she strode through the door, her clipboard pressed against her white lab coat.
“Fine,” Nadia said.
“Go-od,” she said, lowering onto the rolling chair as she flipped through Nadia’s charts. “And you took the antibiotics I gave you? Good girl. Everything seems to be in order. Let’s just take one last look before we get this show on the road.”
Nadia lay back on the table, spreading her legs to let this strange, smiling woman peer inside her as she chatted about the traffic on her way to work today—everyone must’ve been on their way to the beach, because it was just such a lovely day outside. When she finished, Beth pulled from between her legs and told her that her cervix had dilated—they were ready to begin.
“Now it’s perfectly normal to be nervous,” she said, as the curly-haired nurse began arranging a tray of gadgets.
“Is it going to hurt?” Nadia asked.
Beth smiled. God, her eyes were blue.
“It’s a relatively painless procedure,” she said. “And you’re going to be asleep. When you wake up, it’ll be over.”
“But after. It’ll hurt.”
“Minimal discomfort,” Beth said. “Bleeding, but not much more than a regular menstrual cycle.”
The doctor nodded, as if she was trying to encourage her to ask more questions, but Nadia was silent. She watched the nurse pile more tools on her tray, gadgets that looked like the pickers and scrubbers at the dentist’s. It was kind of like that, a dental appointment. Beth was a dentist drilling for a cavity, and Nadia only had to close her eyes, open herself wide, and let her dig it out.
Beth prattled on about the beautiful sunshine outside that they’d be able to see if it wasn’t for the Bank of America next to them, and the nurse slipped the plastic mask over her nose.
“Just breathe in and out,” she told her.

Now, she should’ve known that messing with Luke Shepherd was a bad idea. You know what they say about the pastor’s kids. In Sunday school, they’re running around the sanctuary, spilling fruit punch on the pews. In middle-school, the pastor’s son is chasing after girls, flipping up their dresses, while his sister smears on lipstick and glittery eye shadow that makes her look like a harlot, Sister Esther says, as she drags her by the crook of her arm to the sink. In high school, the son is hunched in the back pew, texting his latest girl, and the daughter is not in church because she is being felt up in a bathroom stall by the new boy, who is quietly unrolling the nylons her mother insisted she wore because ladies didn’t show their bare legs in church.
They say the pastor’s kids are always the worst ones and it’s especially true when it comes to Luke Shepherd, that masterpiece of a man. Light-skinned with loose curls, brown eyes, full lips. Yep, we could’ve told her to stay away from him.
Like she would’ve listened anyway.

Nobody knew when or how it’d all started because they refused to publicly acknowledge it. But we could tell there was something there. We could, anyway. It was all in the little ways they looked at each other and touched. Like when Luke would stroll into our young adult meetings, always long after they’d started. He’d drum a rhythm on Nadia’s head as he passed her chair and she’d throw him an irritated look over her shoulder, secretly smiling into her hand once she turned back around.
They were probably in love, but nobody knew because they wanted to keep it a secret. Or Luke did, anyway. He said it was because of his dad. When your dad was a famous pastor, your life was different. This was where Nadia would roll her eyes and say she wasn’t asking him to take her on a park bench, she just wanted to go out to dinner sometime.
“Because someone will see us,” Luke always said.
“And…?”
“And tell my parents.”
Here she’d fold her arms across her chest. “Why don’t you want your parents to know about me?”
He’d shake his head again. “You don’t know how they are.”
They’d been through this a few times before. Eventually she told him she understood, but she never did. His brother Kaleb didn’t have to hide. He and Aubrey could take pictures together and hold hands and attend events where they were complimented on their collective cuteness and cooed at when they nibbled off of each other’s plate.
We all had high hopes for Kaleb. At twenty, he was a saved, Spirit-filled child of God who could quote scripture and tell you what it meant too. He’d been with Aubrey, Nadia’s roommate, for three whole years, and in that time, they had never had sex. And considering this, he had only cheated on her once, but it was just head, so it didn’t really count.
Still, Nadia tried to ignore the fawning over Kaleb and Aubrey. She pretended it didn’t bother her. And she saw Luke at least once a week, in the beginning. Sometimes she would cook for him. Macaroni and cheese with tortilla chips was his favorite. He would smile across the kitchen table, dipping his chips into his bowl of mac and cheese. She didn’t see how he could eat it, but he’d laugh with a mouth full of broken chips and say it was better than nachos.
Sometimes he’d undress her as soon as she answered the door. Sometimes he wanted to hurt her. She could tell from the hungry look in his eyes when he stared at her, or the way he flipped her over onto all fours, yanking her hair.
Sometimes he was gentle, kissing her before he even reached for her zipper, whispering things to her, sweet things. He told her she was beautiful and she knew she was, everyone did, but it was different when he said it. He didn’t call her beautiful like the dozens of boys who came before him, who thought it was the password. He always said it afterward, when they cuddled in her bed or when she was hurriedly re-clasping her bra because Aubrey was on her way home, he’d stare at her and say, you’re beautiful, like he was awe-struck and thinking out loud, saying words not meant for her to hear.
Sometimes he disgusted her. He wouldn’t answer her texts or calls, or he would respond with one-word sentences days later. Other times she wouldn’t see or hear from him for days and weeks. She should have expected this. All pretty girls think they can nail down their man, but they can’t, because there’ll always be some other pretty girl who’s willing to spread her legs for him, and that’s a fact. Still, Nadia told herself she didn’t care about his whereabouts, she wasn’t that wide open, and it wasn’t like they were married or something. He could do what he wanted and so would she. But whenever he sent her a random note or appeared on her doorstep after his absences, she would forget he was ever gone.
Sometimes she disgusted herself.
The last time she’d seen him was on a Sunday, when he texted her at noon, said he had a dime, and he’d be by in a little. It was the first time she’d heard from him in over three weeks.
“You brought it?” she asked, when she answered the door.
He dangled the dimebag in front of her face, pinching the plastic as he passed the olive green blur in front of her eyes. Then he stepped inside, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing her to him.
“That’s the first thing you gotta say when you see me? Did I bring the weed?”
He was smiling down at her, a teasing smile, and she wrenched out of his grasp, pushing past him.
“No,” she said, shutting the door behind him, “it’s why the hell haven’t you called me in the past three weeks?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I like your first question better.”
“You’re not funny.”
Her arms folded across her chest, she stared him down, wanting him to look her in the eyes and tell her why he thought it was funny to hurt her. He ignored her glare, planting his hand on her shoulder and squeezing it. She swatted his hand away.
“Are you fucking somebody else?” she said.
“What? Where did that come from?”
“Let’s see,” she said, “you disappear for three weeks, don’t even pick up your damn phone—”
“Are you fucking somebody else?”
“Yeah. All your friends. Happy?”
He grinned. “You gonna let me watch?”
“Get out.”
“Yo, I’m jokin’, I’m jokin! Calm down.”
“Get out. Go.”
She grabbed his wrist, pulling him toward the door. She knew that once Luke planted his feet, she wouldn’t be able to pull him anywhere. Still, she yanked at his arm and he watched her struggle, his smile fading.
“Baby, no,” he said. “No, I’m not seein’ anyone else. It’s just you, okay? It’s been you, for the past three months. Okay?”
Then he pulled her close, burying his face in her neck as he planted kisses behind her ear. When he pulled away, he gave her waist a final squeeze.
“Now let’s light this shit up because you need to relax,” he said, fishing in his pockets for a lighter. “I thought you were gonna rip my head off right then. Is it that time of the month or somethin’?”
She didn’t realize it until later, after he’d slipped out her door and she was lounging in bed, still buzzed. She thought about what he’d said while he carefully licked the rolling paper, glancing over his shoulder as he told her, I know how you get. Last time you went crazy on my ass. It was only then that she stopped to think about how long ago last time had been.

Later, they lay together entangled in her sheets. Their bodies were sticky, damp, but they lay with their legs intertwined, Nadia tucked into the crook of his arm. She watched him as he snored, her arm wrapped around his chest, fingers spread on top of his ribs, when she heard the front door slam.
“Nadia, I’m back!”
It was three o’clock already. Of course Aubrey’d be back from church by then. Nadia wriggled out from under Luke’s arm and yanked opened a window, trying to let some air in to dilute the smell. Luke watched her, his head resting on his arm, a smile forming across his face. He watched her struggle to hide the distinctive smell with the light breeze blowing in through the window screen and he laughed.
Nadia put her hand over his mouth to shut him up, but it only made him laugh harder. He laughed and kissed her palm, making her giggle too.
“Nadia?” Aubrey’s voice sounded louder. She was standing right in front of the door
“Yeah?” Nadia’s hand was still clamped on his mouth.
“Um, is something burning?”
Aubrey was hesitant, bless her heart. She wouldn’t even acknowledge what her own nose smelled.
“No,” Nadia said. “It’s just incense.”
Now he really started howling. She covered his face with her pillow to muffle his voice, feeling his chest heave under her arm.
“Oh okay,” Aubrey said. “Just be careful with that.”
Nadia heard her footsteps diminish as she walked across the hallway and disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her. She removed the pillow from Luke’s face and he smiled up at her, his breathing slowing. She pressed her hand to his forehead, pushing back curls.
“We have to be quiet now,” she whispered.
“I don’t care. I don’t care if she hears us.”
“Yes you do.”
“I don’t. Not anymore.”
She kissed him to shut him up. It was better than hearing his lies.

You would think that it was the test that stunned her the most, but it wasn’t. That little plus sign that appeared in the magic window couldn’t compare to the moment she received the check.
She didn’t discover it in her mailbox or at the post office front counter. Instead, it was hand-delivered three days after she’d first told him the news, inside a white envelope with her name written across it. She found it wedged under her door and as soon as she held the envelope up, she saw the tan slip inside and she knew what it was.
The check really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her. Maybe she didn’t think Luke was capable of such heartlessness—not just because he gave her the money, but the way he delivered it and fled from her doorstep. You couldn’t really blame him for giving her the money. Still, he could have given her the check to her face, no one disagrees with that.
Somebody should’ve known what was going on, but nobody did. Well, somebody did but not the right somebody. Of course Luke knew, but he was the one who told her to do it in the first place. And everyone else who could’ve helped her…well, no one really knows when these types of things are happening.
Aubrey would have stopped her but she was clueless. Too heavenly minded to be any earthly good, like the old folks always said. We thought that she would have known something, but she told us that the morning that it happened—or supposedly happened—Nadia seemed fine. When Aubrey asked her how she was doing, she just shrugged, not looking up from her cereal as she smashed Cheerios she didn’t intend to eat flat against the side of the bowl.
Yes, Nadia was quiet but she was like that sometimes. Now that she thought about it, it was strange that when she told her that Kaleb would be staying over that night, Nadia said nothing. The very first time they’d had that conversation, Nadia, who was sitting at the kitchen table wearing blue-checkered boxers from an old boyfriend, her foot perched on the chair next to her, stopped in mid-scoop, her spoon clanging against the bowl as she leaned back in her chair, a smirk spreading across her face.
“I see you, Aubrey,” she had said, nodding her approval. “Damn. It’s about time. I was about to say—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Aubrey said, waving her arms in front of her like she was trying to swat down Nadia’s inference. “We’re not—it’s not like that.”
Nadia’s smile melted away, her eyes narrowing as her lips pressed together in a look of sheer skepticism.
“So you mean to tell me,” she said slowly, “that he’s spending the night, but you’re not gonna fuck him?”
Nadia wasn’t shy about her conquests. On mornings when she returned around nine or ten wearing the same slinky dress from the night before, she’d flash a smug smile at Aubrey, daring her to ask about the recently unfolded events; and when Aubrey was too uncomfortable to bite, she’d tell her anyway, practically stretching out on the countertop and smoking the post-coital cigarette when Aubrey tried to eat her oatmeal.
“No,” Aubrey said. “We’re not.”
“Wait. So he’s gonna spend the night…and you’re just going to sleep.”
“Exactly.”.
Nadia just shook her head. “How long ya’ll been together?”
“Two and a half years.”
“Three years, and you haven’t had sex once?”
Aubrey shook her head.
“No you have, or no you haven’t?” Nadia asked.
“Haven’t.”
“Damn. Is he gay?”
“No! He just respects me.”
Nadia shrugged, pouring more cereal into her bowl. Aubrey waited, expecting another one of her snappy comebacks, but she seemed to have moved on, more engrossed in her breakfast and the drama unfolding on MTV than in Aubrey’s intimate relationships. Then, once Aubrey placed her empty bowl in the sink and started toward the bathroom, she heard Nadia behind her say, “He’s gay.”
But that morning, Nadia barely reacted. She replied in monosyllable to Aubrey’s conversation starters and even her declaration about Kaleb received no response, no suggestive raising of the eyebrows or embarrassing innuendo.
Nadia was like this sometime. Some mornings, she didn’t want to be bothered, ignoring Aubrey’s attempts at conversation or avoiding her altogether. Some days she retreated so far into herself that it was just easier to let her be, rather than to drag her back into the land of the living. This was one of those days.
Aubrey had returned to her Biology textbook, ripping apart pieces of toast and dipping them into a glob of jelly spooned on her plate, when Nadia stood, dumping her bowl into the sink, waterlogged O’s splayed in the basin.
“Do you think you could give me a ride somewhere?”
“What time?”
“An hour.”
“Can’t. I have class. You can take my car though.”
Nadia hesitated a second before she said, “Okay.”
Aubrey unhooked her car key from her key ring and slid it across the counter toward her. Nadia reached out for it, her hand slowly raking it off of the countertop.
Half an hour later, Nadia emerged from the bathroom, wearing skinny jeans and pointy-toed heels, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail, large sunglasses obscuring her eyes. Slinging her large purse over her shoulder, she walked past Aubrey to the front door, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. Then she glanced back at her and said, “I’m going out.”
“Have fun,” Aubrey had called after her.
We asked Aubrey if Nadia seemed upset when she returned that night, but she said no, she just wasn’t feeling well. Female problems, you know how that goes. When she walked through the door, she did look a little unsteady on her feet, so Aubrey told her she should sit down. She kept saying she was fine, she was fine, she was fine. It was just cramps, she said, clenching her fists and breathing slowly, waiting for them to pass. It was painful just to watch, Aubrey said.
“Want some Midol?” she asked, putting an arm around her. “Or I could make you tea—”
“No. I’m okay.” Nadia paused, her fingernails digging into her palms. “I’m just gonna go lie down.”
She rose to her feet, clutching her purse in her hands, but she didn’t turn to walk toward her room. She was staring at the couch, where there was a splotch of blood on her seat. She cursed, and when she returned from the bathroom, she blinked back tears as she sprayed the cushion with stain remover and scrubbed.

Nadia discovered the thing about the check later. It was still sitting on her nightstand, preserved in its clean white envelope. She hadn’t spent his money. She hadn’t even opened the envelope.
After staring at it for a minute, she finally reached for it, sliding her finger under the envelope and pulling out a tan slip of paper. Her name faced her in small, bold letters. She glanced at the date. Last Tuesday. A day after she told him the news. The check was for a thousand dollars.
Her eyes fell to the bottom, to the part she dreaded, where Luke decided to sign off everything they had because she was a problem he needed to get rid of—but his signature was not on the line.
John Shepherd had endorsed the check.

In the end, everybody found out anyway. All it takes is one person to overhear a snatch of conversation or to see something that doesn’t look quite right and it’s over. You know how church folks can gossip. Mrs. Gaines, the pastor’s secretary, told us that one afternoon, a hot-to-trot female marched up to the front desk, demanding to meet with the pastor. When Mrs. Gaines explained to her that the pastor was a very busy man, you can’t just walk into his office, you have to make an appointment first, the girl flashed a check in front of her and said that the pastor knew who the fuck she was, she wasn’t making a goddamn appointment, and he better see her now. She looked so crazy Mrs. Gaines was half-afraid she’d reach into her purse and point a revolver at her forehead. Thank God the pastor was not in. The girl said she’d wait. She was young and beautiful, Mrs. Gaines said, who knew why she was so angry? She was a pretty thing but she had way too much attitude, Mrs. Gaines said, cursing like that and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Have mercy.
The only reason why we didn’t believe that she was the pastor’s young mistress, like Sister Robinson claimed, or even worse, his lovechild, like the head alto suggested, was because we saw her and Luke together.
We were leaving mid-week Bible Study when we stepped out into the parking lot and saw the two of them. They were sitting on a bench beside the church, and we probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all if we hadn’t heard her voice cutting through the evening’s stillness. Then we saw her, hovering over Luke, who sat hunched on the bench, his head in his hands.
“You lied,” she said, “you lied.”
He moved his hands from his face and looked up at her, starting to say something, when she punched him. Once, twice, three times, then she grabbed his shirt and shook him, yelling that he lied, he lied, he fucking lied. We watched, not knowing what to say. Luke was silent too. He sat there, taking it all until she’d had enough, until she shoved him and turned to walk away. Then he reached for her hand and she yanked hers away as she started toward the rows of parked cars. Luke sat slumped on the bench, his face back in his hands, shoulders shaking.
When she neared us, she narrowed her liquid amber eyes, her face twisted into a sneer.
“What the fuck are you bitches looking at?” she said.
We were too stunned to say anything, but she didn’t wait for our response anyway. She stormed past us, car keys in hand, not looking back, refusing to look back. For a moment, we had nothing to say. Of course we didn’t know then what we know now. So at the time, the only thing we could think was that Nadia Turner was still beautiful even when she was a complete bitch and wasn’t it unfair to all of us nice girls.
Later, Aubrey told us she still didn’t believe any of it. Nadia and Luke didn’t even know each other and besides, if something was really going on between them, don’t you think that she, the roommate, would have known? Aubrey also doesn’t believe that Kaleb cheated on her once with that girl at the party, so her opinion doesn’t matter much.
For a while, we thought things might explode, but they didn’t. People whispered about it for a few days. Ladies talked about it in the bathroom as they reapplied lipstick and lotioned their hands in front of the mirrors. The old folks discussed it in between rounds at bingo. Then Sunday came, and the pastor delivered a sermon about the power of positive confessions that brought the congregation to our feet. We let the Spirit move us, joining choruses of amens! hallelujahs! let Him use you! and take your time, Pastor, take your time. We harmonized with the choir, clapping our hands, swaying during the solos and dancing during the organ riffs. With the music coursing through us, we duked the Devil and stomped on serpents, our shoes crashing into the wooden floor in time with the drums.
By the end of the service, we were folding the church bulletins into fans, sweating with the rest of the saints.