“And his son is Jamison,” she continues as she begins to weave my hair into the half-up, half-down style of the girls on the blog. The one who’s closest to my age, her smile doesn’t reach her eyes like her sisters’。 I find myself focusing on her instead of my mother.
“Haley? Haley!” She tugs my hair sharply.
“Ow!”
“You need to pay attention,” she orders. “We’ll be at his church on Sunday.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, turning my attention to my reflection in the mirror.
“Tell me,” she prompts gently.
“Elijah Goddard,” I recite from the files she had me memorize. “Forty-two. Started out as a youth pastor in a small ministry in Colorado, built it up into a million-dollar business.”
“Prosperity gospel is the sweetest con.” She shakes her head. “If I was a man, I would’ve gone into the church. Think of the money we could’ve made.”
“You preach, in your own way,” I point out, and it makes her laugh, which sets off a warm glow inside me. She hardly ever laughs genuinely. I’m used to the fake laugh: light and husky and practiced, a sound of temptation, not joy.
“Continue.”
“Jamison Goddard, age eleven. His mother died in a car accident when he was five. Elijah never remarried.”
“Until now.” Mom smiles. “This is very straightforward—the simplest of long cons for your first real try. You’ll be very sweet and polite to Elijah, but not draw too much of his attention unless I signal. Your job is to keep Jamison occupied.”
“How do I do that?”
She bestows another smile on me; she likes it when I ask questions. She likes imparting her knowledge to me.
“Pay attention when you meet him. If he smiles at you, you’ll know to play it up until he has a crush on you. If he doesn’t, or if he starts acting like a little shit, then you can lean into that, too.”
My eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”
“Every bully needs someone to bully, baby,” she says. “And you’re tough, aren’t you? You can take anything he throws at you.”
I lick my lips. My fingers rub against my thumb before I answer. Back and forth, back and forth.
“Of course,” I say.
Act 2: Don’t Tuck Your Thumb
Jamison Goddard is the princeling of Mountain Peak Ministries. The apple of his father’s eye. The ringleader of the youth group boys.
He’s not just a little shit or a bully. He’s a fucking terror.
He’s never heard the word no without trying to push his way right through it.
He doesn’t notice me immediately. Haley is supposed to be kind of meek, with her golden fall of hair and her modest dresses and the little white-gold cross she wears around her neck. So he doesn’t notice me at first; girls are treated as lesser in quiet and loud ways in this kind of Christianity （in the entire world, too, let’s be honest）。
I do what my mother asks: I let his reaction guide my actions. I stay on the edges that first Wednesday and the Sunday that follows, watching, smiling sweetly, and speaking softly when spoken to. But the next Wednesday, I make my move. I get there early, before anyone else but Michael, the youth pastor, who has a goatee that he really needs to shave off because it does not make him look as cool as he thinks it does. But I don’t tell him that. I help him set out chairs and then make sure to sit in the spot where I’ve seen Jamison holding court.
I’ve watched him; he steals pizza slices off his friends’ plates and no one even blinks. He laughed twice during the last meeting: once when someone made a fart joke—my mother would say that tells you he’s a boy—and once when Michael tripped over his chair—which tells me he’s mean.
So I slide into the chair that he thinks of as his and wait like a canary in a mine that I already know is toxic.
He notices me the second he walks into the room. The hair rises on my arms. Something inside me whispers: Run.
It’s the first time I ignore it.
“You’re in my seat,” he says.
My eyes are big already, but I make them go even bigger, doll-like. “Oh no, I’m sorry.” I get up instantly, moving over a few chairs, and then to really clinch it, I hesitate in front of the new chair and look at him. “Is this one okay?” I ask, like I need his permission.
He nods, and when he turns back to his friends, I catch the smirk.
Abby is right: Every bully needs someone to bully.
So I make Haley the perfect target, and he homes right in.