The Truth About Faking

motion.”
    “I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Perkins tries to act like it was simply an innocent mistake. As if anybody’s buying that.
    “Stuart is very supportive of my mentoring a student every year,” Mom continues. “He approves of whoever the college sends me.”
    “That sounds convenient,” Mrs. Perkins says. I wonder where Mrs. Bender is. She normally jumps in and defends Mom in situations like these.
    “Well, I won’t keep you from your lunch,” Mrs. Perkins says. “Come along, Sandra.”
    Mrs. Perkins takes Ms. Jackson’s arm, and the two ladies walk toward the car where Trent is waiting, looking at his phone. I turn to my mom and she’s biting the inside of her cheek. Her eyes are somewhere else, thinking, and she touches my arm for a moment but doesn’t look at me.
    “Harley, I’m going to find your dad,” she says.
    “Sure, but I—” Too late. She’s gliding back toward the front of the church clearly irritated and not listening to me.
    I decide not to wait and start walking to my house alone. Now I’m really worried. The way Mom and Ricky acted at the game might’ve been overlooked by parishioners who’ve grown accustomed to Mom’s annual student trainees, people who once upon a time saw no evil. But after the fallout from Shelly’s dad and how surprised everyone was by his affair, it seems anything’s possible now. Ms. Jackson’s suspicions might’ve seemed outrageous before last summer, but now it won’t take much for her insinuations to lodge in everyone’s minds. And then what?
    For that matter, what is going on with Ricky? Their behavior is suspicious and it isn’t right for him to be at my house at odd hours alone with my mother. My phone goes off as I approach home. It’s Shelly. I sit on the front steps to talk to her.
    “Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” She’s gushing.
    “What?” I mumble.
    “Jason kisses like… oh my god, I just can’t even describe it,” My stomach does a clench. This is not what I want to hear right now.
    “So you kissed him?” I try to sound enthused and fail.
    “Mm-hm and it was heh-van!” she sings.
    I feel even more ill. “That’s nice,” I say.
    “It was more than nice. It was hot.”
    “Okay! Well, great.” I try to think up an excuse to get off the phone.
    “So what happened with Trent?” she asks.
    “Oh, we went down to the creek and sat and talked.”
    “That sounds about right.” I can hear Shelly rolling her eyes through the phone. “And?”
    “And he kissed me.”
    “What?” Shelly shrieks. “I don’t believe it.”
    “Believe it.”
    “And?” she waits. “Were there sparks?”
    “There was something.” I leave off the part about having to work for it. Or about how it felt like he was doing mental math.
    “Something like sparks?”
    “He asked me out again for Friday!” I try to sound optimistic. There’s no way I can tell Shelly what really happened. At least not until I understand what happened.
    “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you. I’m very impressed. I tried everything.”
    “So are you going out with Jason again?”
    “I don’t know,” she sounds discouraged. “He didn’t say, and I figured I should let him ask me for once.”
    I look up and speak of the devil. “Well, you never know. Hey, I gotta run.”
    We disconnect, and Jason’s standing there in front of me. He wasn’t in church this morning, so while I’m in my Sunday best, he’s in his usual jeans and a t-shirt.
    “So?” he asks.
    “So what?” I frown up at him.
    He smiles then. “Doxology go okay?”
    “Of course.”
    I get up from where I’ve been sitting on the front steps, and we walk a few paces in silence. I notice his car’s parked up ahead.
    “That was Shelly,” I say.
    “Oh, yeah?” He’s just the slightest bit squirmy.
    “Yes. She was very happy about last night.”
    “She’s very… determined.”
    “Sounds like you got over me and Trent fast enough.”
    Jason stops walking and turns to face me. “Look, Shelly’s okay, but you know how I feel.”
    I look at him. For a second I have the most overwhelming urge to kiss him .
    “I’m going out with him again Friday,” I say instead.
    “So you think it’s going somewhere?”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “You and this Trent guy. You think something’s going to happen?”
    “I don’t know. But I’m going to give him a chance.”
    “Fine,” he says. “Good luck with that.”
    He turns and starts walking away, and I can tell