Bend Read online

  Anglerfish Press

  PO Box 1537

  Burnsville, NC 28714

  www.AnglerFishPress.com

  Anglerfish Press is an imprint of Riptide Publishing.

  www.RiptidePublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Bend

  Copyright © 2017 by Nancy J. Hedin

  Cover art: Natasha Snow, natashasnowdesigns.com

  Editors: Rachel Haimowitz, May Peterson

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Anglerfish Press at the mailing address above, at AnglerFishPress.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-550-0

  First edition

  May, 2017

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-551-7

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  Lorraine Tyler is the only queer person in Bend, Minnesota. Or at least that’s what it feels like when the local church preaches so sternly against homosexuality. Which is why she’s fighting so hard to win the McGerber scholarship—her ticket out of Bend—even though her biggest competition is her twin sister, Becky. And even though she’s got no real hope—not with the scholarship’s morality clause and that one time she kissed the preacher’s daughter.

  Everything changes when a new girl comes to town. Charity is mysterious, passionate, and—to Lorraine’s delighted surprise—queer too. Now Lorraine may have a chance at freedom and real love.

  But then Becky disappears, and Lorraine uncovers an old, painful secret that could tear the family apart. They need each other more than ever now, and somehow it’s Lorraine—the sinner, the black sheep—who holds the power to bring them together. But only if she herself can learn to bend.

  For Tracy, Sophia, and Emma

  And in memory of Mom, Dad, and David

  About Bend

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  More like this

  It was early morning on a Saturday, and my momma was waking up God. Since the night before, when Momma answered a phone call, she had been beseeching God as if she had him on retainer like a lawyer or on a leash like a dangerous dog.

  I stayed in my room. I would have dressed in camouflage or armor if I had any. I didn’t.

  “Lorraine.”

  Christ, I cringed every time I heard her call my name. It reminded me of everything I hated about being seventeen years old, still in high school, and living in Bend, Minnesota. Why’d I have to be called such an old-fashioned name? For that matter, why were we living like we were some hicks from the Stone Age: no cell phone, no cable TV, and no internet? I was trapped everywhere I turned.

  I went to slip through the window, but before I could get completely out of the house and truthfully say I didn’t hear her, Momma called me into the kitchen. She said I should explain what had possibly necessitated a call from the minister and a Saturday morning meeting about “your daughter.”

  “That’s what he said to me, Lorraine: ‘your daughter.’ Who do you suppose he meant?”

  “It could be Becky.” I said it, but I didn’t believe it for a damn minute. My twin sister, Becky, wouldn’t be the subject of a serious meeting with Pastor Grind unless somebody wanted to name her a saint, and I doubted the Church of Christ went in for saints. That was more of a Catholic thing.

  My momma wasn’t Catholic, but she continued the inquisition anyway.

  “What would people think to know I’ve been called in to Pastor Grind’s office? Do you think it’s about the scholarship? So help me God if your sister doesn’t win the McGerber scholarship, I’m going to raise holy hell.”

  What about me winning the scholarship? That was what I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I was smart enough to win a scholarship and smart enough to know I shouldn’t suggest to my momma that anybody but her Becky would win it. It didn’t matter that I wanted the scholarship. It didn’t matter that I wanted out and needed out—out of reach of Momma; out of Bend, Minnesota; and just plain out.

  I’d done what I could to earn college money. I saved every penny I made bussing tables at the diner where Momma worked. I raised chickens and rabbits and sold them. I worked with Benjamin “Twitch” Twitchell, my dad’s best friend and the local vet, when Momma would allow it. I had good grades and plans to study pre-veterinary medicine in college. The librarian had helped me apply, and I had already been accepted to an animal sciences program. I hadn’t told anybody. It was on a need-to-know basis, and nobody else needed to know. For that matter, the college didn’t know I didn’t have the money to go unless I won that scholarship, and no matter what Momma thought, I had a real shot at winning a scholarship.

  Who’s in trouble with Pastor Grind? I wondered. Then I wondered, Who am I kidding? Becky never did anything wrong. I was in trouble, sure as hell, but which sin had Pastor Grind uncovered? I went outside our farmhouse and gave myself the most complete moral frisking I could muster.

  Yes, I had sold my lunch ticket for cash. Yes, I resold candy and pop from my locker between classes. And yes, boys with too many chores and sports practices and too little time and intellect to complete biology worksheets and English compositions had paid me to do their homework. Although these were sins by the book, I doubted that any of that mattered to Pastor Grind. I dug deeper—examined my heart, soul, and hormones. Holy Christ, it had to be the kiss.

  I paced east to west on the open front porch and pulled at the bill of my baseball cap like the pressure against the back of my head
would give me a good idea. It didn’t. My dogs, Pants and Sniff, walked along beside me, their nails clicking on the floor boards. Why hadn’t I kept my lust in my heart where it belonged?

  The screen door slammed, Becky making her typical entrance onto the front porch. She planted herself in the porch swing with her nose in a Good Housekeeping magazine. She set a Brides magazine beside her.

  “Momma’s sure got her undies in a knot about something,” Becky said. “What’d you do now?”

  “Shut up! What do you know about it?”

  “I know that it was Pastor Grind on the phone,” Becky said. “I know that Pastor Grind will announce who wins the McGerber scholarship in May. And I know that the scholarship will go to the brightest, holiest student in Bend. We both know who that is, and it isn’t you.”

  “You’re right. It’s probably Jolene Grind,” I said, knowing that the suggestion would irritate Becky.

  “She’s smart, but her grades aren’t as good as mine,” Becky said. “That scholarship is mine. I’m going to win that scholarship and attend the Bible College in St. Paul.”

  “You haven’t won it yet.”

  I tried to sound confident, but I knew that Becky stood in the way of the biggest scholarship offered in Bend, Minnesota. The McGerber scholarship, named after its benefactor, J.C. McGerber, was supposed to be awarded to the graduating senior with the highest grades, but given that McGerber was a holier-than-though-pew-polishing-member of our church, he might just choose Becky anyway. After all, Becky was a member of BOCK—Brides of Christ’s Kingdom, a club for girls at our church. I had not been asked to join—not that I missed memorizing Bible verses, cooking hot dish for church socials, and knitting potholders for missionaries. What the hell did missionaries need with potholders anyway?

  Becky and I had the highest grades in our class. Which of us had the fraction of a point higher, I wasn’t sure. I hoped that if we were tied, the competition would be settled by a wrestling match, but the way my luck ran it would be a spirituality contest or, worse yet, a beauty contest. Becky was blonde, beautiful, and built. It was like the geometry book was divided between us. She got all the curves, and I got the angles.

  I was usually quick to remind Becky that I was born first. In Biblical terms we were the Jacob and Esau of Bend. I was the hairy firstborn fixated on animals, born every bit dark as Becky was light. My brown wild curls spiraled while Becky’s straight blonde tresses only curled at the ends. I expected to lose my birthright to my smoother, younger twin. Like the twins in the Old Testament story, we had competed since we were in the womb, and like the twins of the Old Testament, Momma favored the younger one.

  The goal was college, but Momma didn’t offer a way to pay for that goal. We were just supposed to make it there somehow. Dad wasn’t any help either. He didn’t believe in student loans. He wouldn’t stand for them, and he wouldn’t sign for them. The winner of the scholarship went to college the next fall. The loser had to stay in Bend and work at the diner where Momma worked, until she had earned enough money to go to school or just given up on college and married somebody.

  If Momma knew any more details about why Pastor Grind called, she didn’t tip her hand. It was like Momma tumbled the information over in her mind, polishing it like a rock. Eventually, she’d sling that stone at someone. I was prepared to duck.

  Becky and I stayed busy on the front porch ignoring each other. Dad was in the barn finishing his farm chores before he left for whatever grunt construction job he’d hunted up to bring more money into our house. God, how I wished that phone had rung when only Dad had been in the house. He wouldn’t have answered it. He hated the phone. He said it was a noise contraption that interrupted the thinking time of good people. Furthermore, he said it was an obsession to a whole group of people who could sure benefit from some thinking time. But Dad hadn’t answered the phone. Momma had.

  Then the peace was broken. Momma’s voice, like a shovel scraping against concrete, carried in the humid August air and filtered out the open windows. More prayers and curses. Her habit of praying and cussing had increased since the Bend congregation had hired Pastor Grind. Momma said she knew him from when she was a girl, and she liked his stand on sin. He was against it, and he defined it broadly. His list of for-certain sins, possible sins, and things a person shouldn’t even think was longer than either the Lutherans’ or the Catholics’. Momma had no time for Jesus, or as Momma called him, “the sissy god-man of the New Testament.” She said Jesus was God and all, and that we should follow his word in the New Testament, but he just wasn’t the man of action like the God in the Old Testament.

  Momma’s God wore pants, and needed to shave several times a day to keep from having a swarthy five-o’clock-shadowed face. Her God threw jagged stones at transgressors and roasted unrepentant sinners in the fires of hell. She clung to the wrathful old timer of the Old Testament who ferreted out and punished sin the way some rogue cop from the movies punished crime.

  The screen door slammed, and Momma rumbled out of the house. She wore her blue dress, her church dress.

  “Crap!” I mumbled.

  That dress was as much of a sign as a screaming siren or a green-tinted sky before a tornado. It confirmed what I suspected—someone was in big trouble. Momma inspected Becky and me, and then she scanned the yard over the top of her glasses. Our yard attracted junk like cat hair on stretch pants. The care of the yard was the only domain I knew of that Dad had not let Momma rule. It was a rare instance, but I remembered Dad using his firm voice when he’d once said, “Peggy, you promised that the yard was mine. I don’t fight you on nothing else, but the yard is mine.”

  I knew Momma wouldn’t pardon Dad for the cluttered lawn he’d created. She wouldn’t excuse it. She would put it in a queue for her attention another time. To that end, she removed her dog-eared, spiral-bound notebook from her purse. Her personal pencil was secured to the spiral by a piece of string. At one time, the pencil had had the golden rule printed on it, but now had been used to the point that it just read: Do unto others. Momma pinched the pencil between her calloused fingers, licked the lead, made a note, slapped the notebook shut, and slid it into her purse. She soldiered down the steps toward the car. “Becky, darling. Keep an eye on that roast I put in the slow cooker.”

  Momma didn’t trust Crock-Pots.

  “Lorraine, you can run to the barn and tell your dad I have a meeting at church.”

  Becky hoisted herself out of the porch swing and came to stand next to me, elbowed me, and we both trailed after Momma while spitting insults to each other under our breath.

  “Pig.”

  “Cow.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Moron.”

  My stomach clenched like a fist. I thought about the scholarship and the kiss. My affliction compounded.

  “Becky, tell your dad I’m going.” Momma looked directly at me. “You might as well come along. It’ll probably save me the trouble of repeating myself later. My guess, this meeting has something to do with you.”

  Becky giggled. I choked.

  “Momma, are you sure you don’t need me to drive you?” Becky called after Momma.

  I rolled my eyes and discreetly flipped my middle finger at the suck-up asswipe.

  “No, honey. I’ll be fine,” Momma called over her shoulder as she marched me to the family car.

  Momma opened the driver’s-side door of our ancient blue-paneled station wagon, designed for family vacations, but sturdy enough for third-world invasions. Momma wedged herself behind the steering wheel, then clawed at the seat belt and negotiated it from that dark, hidden place below her left hip. Dust, hair, and candy wrappers stuck to the sides of her hand. I kept my fingers crossed that Momma would keep hold of the seat belt and not let it speed back to its burrow between the seat and door. She needed no extra aggravation. After Momma had stretched the strap to the last inch of fabric, she forced the silver tongue into the buckle and let it settle against her stomach. Click.

>   My breakfast of Oaty Loops scrambled up my throat like it was fleeing a burning building. Only the distraction and possible danger of Momma’s driving kept me from vomiting right then and there.

  Backing down was impossible for Momma. Backing up wasn’t her strong suit either. Momma jerked the car backward six inches or a foot, then hit the brakes. After five rounds of this, she pressed harder on the gas pedal and the car sped backward until it hit the clothesline pole.

  The clothesline pole brought the car to a full stop. Momma rubbed her neck and pounded her palms on the steering wheel. The whiplash must have knocked Momma’s original idea out of her head.

  “Get out. Get out!” Momma yelled at me. “Just make sure I can find you when I get home.” She shifted the car into drive. I didn’t need a second invitation. I scampered out of the car. Momma weaved the car toward the blacktop. I stood by Becky.

  “Cow.”

  “Horse.”

  “Puke.”

  “Shithead.”

  The faint smell of roast beef filtered out into the yard when Becky opened the door, entered, and returned again from checking the Crock-Pot. She turned to me. “What’s that crashing sound? Oh, that’s the sound of you bussing dirty plates at the diner for the rest of your life, Lorraine.”

  “Becky, you don’t know me or what I am capable of.” God, I hoped I was right, because I didn’t want anyone knowing what I’d done.

  In the heat of the August sunshine and impending doom of Momma and God’s wrath, I allowed myself to think briefly of the kiss. I hadn’t made one slip until the last week of school. I kissed her. I wanted to blame the slip up on the baseball team and fragrance-induced amnesia. The Bend Pioneers had defeated the pukes from Browerville for the conference championship. The whole school had been giddy. I’d been caught up in Pioneers fever when I’d entered the music practice room to work on my map of the Ottoman Empire with Jolene Grind.

  The room usually smelled like valve oil and sweat, but that day it smelled like Jolene’s Baby Magic lotion and strawberry Lip Smacker. The flowery, fruity smells went right to that part of my brain that controlled memory. I completely forgot I wasn’t supposed to be queer. I wasn’t supposed to secretly love Jolene, and I sure as hell forgot I wasn’t supposed to kiss Jolene Grind, the daughter of Pastor Allister Grind.