Her Name in the Sky

Chapter 1 Birthday

BIRTHDAY

Baker is wearing her least favorite pair of knee socks.

Hannah can tell even from across the gym, nestled up in the bleachers with the other seniors, because Baker keeps reaching down when she thinks no one is looking and tugging the white socks up her calves.

Hannah could have sworn Baker got rid of this pair back in sophomore year—I am going to burn them, and you can light the match, she had grumbled—but if Hannah had to guess, Baker’s mom probably saved the delicate lace torture devices and insisted that Baker wear them today, making some pointed remark about how a girl should look pretty on her birthday, as if Baker doesn’t look pretty every day.

Hannah watches Baker surreptitiously yank up the socks again, and she can almost hear her internal monologue worrying about whether people are noticing this unforgivable flaw right before she delivers her big speech.

You’re fine, Hannah wants to tell her. No one has noticed except me.

“They’d better hurry up,” Wally says at Hannah’s side. “It’s two seventeen already.”

“It’s a pep rally, Wall,” Hannah says. “No one’s gonna care if we have to stay an extra minute.

” She scans the gym and spots their ill-tempered vice principal brooding beneath the basketball hoop.

“Except maybe Manceau. He looks like he’s gonna faint if he doesn’t get his end-of-the-day sticky bun soon. ”

“I feel him, for once,” Luke chimes in from Hannah’s other side. “I’m starving and I want a burrito.”

Hannah is about to respond when a deafening buzz zings across the gym, forcing everyone to cover their ears.

There’s the distant crash of a microphone stand falling over, and Hannah sees Mr. Gauthier, the withered old technical director, raising his palms in apology.

Several feet away, Mrs. Shackleford, the principal, rolls her eyes up into her head.

“Think they finally got it?” Hannah says.

“Mr. Gauthier looks confused,” Wally says.

“He looks the same as ever,” Luke says. “Like he’s high and doesn’t know what he’s doing here.”

“—say something to test it?” a clear voice says through the speakers, and they all swing their eyes to Baker, who stands at the half-court line with a microphone in her hand.

“Oh,” she says, suddenly aware that she has everyone’s attention, and Hannah braces herself, watching for the exact moment of transformation, for that fleeting, shimmering second in which Baker sheds her real self and puts on the armor of the magnetic, self-possessed girl everyone expects her to be.

“Well, hello.” Baker turns to the crowd with a winning smile, and there it is, the transformation complete, like sunlight washing over a wall. “What do y’all think, should we have this pep rally?”

“Let’s go!” one of the football players in the lower bleachers yells.

“Sounds like Clay’s ready,” Baker teases. “St. Mary’s, how about you?”

The student body breaks into whooping and applause. It starts in Hannah’s section, with the senior class, and moves all around the gym as the juniors, sophomores, and freshmen echo their older peers.

“Yeah!” Luke shouts amidst all the cheering. “Bring on the burritos!”

Several of the other seniors turn around with quizzical smiles on their faces, but Luke just grins and pumps his hands in the air, making everyone laugh.

“Before we start,” Baker says, and at her words, the gym falls quiet again, “Father Simon is going to lead us in prayer.”

The energy in the gym turns restless and agitated. Boys crack their knuckles; girls fidget with their shirtsleeves. Father Simon steps toward the microphone, his neck straining against his white clerical collar.

“Kill me now,” Hannah says under her breath, and the other seniors shoot her conspiratorial smirks.

“Let us bow our heads and pray,” Father Simon says.

The mass of freshmen to Hannah’s left obeys his order, their skinny, acne-heavy faces tilted toward their feet.

Across the gym, most of the sophomores and juniors follow suit.

It is only here, in the senior section, that Hannah senses the anxious resistance of young adults, caught between the crayon drawings of Sunday school and the cognitive dissonance of grown-up theology.

“Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day…”

Hannah doesn’t listen. She lets her mind wander as she picks at the chipped green nail polish on her thumb. Next to her, Wally scratches his forearm, his calloused knuckles hinting at too many nights spent wrestling with his little brothers.

Hannah’s mind slips back to the pep rally they had in August, when everyone had fresh haircuts and neatly pressed skirts and slacks, and when she, Baker, Wally, Clay, and Luke had organized a surprise skit for the student body in which their teachers had dressed up as some of the well-known seniors.

She can still see Mr. Akers’s impression of Clay’s cocky strut, can still hear Mrs. Paulk’s attempt at Baker’s laugh, can still remember the thrill she felt when Ms. Carpenter—her favorite teacher—adopted Hannah’s own mannerisms.

“… We thank You for our athletes, these young men who will represent our school tonight and who will seek to glorify You with their performance,” Father Simon says. “We know You have endowed them with a special gift—”

“Hagh,” Luke says, shaking his head. “Jeez. Sorry, everyone, got a little cough here.”

The seniors all around them snicker and brush their hands over their mouths. Hannah tries in vain to stop her shoulders from shaking with laughter.

“… In Your name we pray. Amen.”

“Amen,” Hannah mutters, tossing the word into the great rush that sweeps across the gym. She raises her hand to her forehead to make the sign of the cross, the words and actions ingrained in her brain, her movements mirroring those of every other person in the gym.

“Thanks, Father Simon,” Baker says, taking the microphone back. She pivots toward the senior class and her mouth twitches with a smile, like she can read their discomfort all too plainly. “All right, so. Does anyone want me to bring out our St. Mary’s football team?”

The energy in the gym changes instantly: The crowd erupts, the band launches into the school fight song, and the center of the gym is flooded with color as the football players, decked out in their vivid red St. Mary’s jerseys, spill onto the gym floor and throw up their hands at the crowd around them.

“Don’t you just love when we hero-worship our own classmates?” Luke asks.

“You know, I actually do,” Hannah says. “I’ll probably ask Clay for his autograph after this.”

“He’ll think you’re serious,” Wally says.

Baker holds the microphone low and cranes her neck to talk to the football players.

The rest of the student body, watching from the bleachers, continues to shout and stomp and cheer, until Mrs. Shackleford pats her hands over the air to indicate that she wants quiet.

The gym falls into a relaxed silence, and Baker redirects her attention to the student body, biting her lip as she transitions from a smile to a serious face.

“Tonight’s expo game will be a crucial event in the race for the Diocesan Cup.

We’re already leading the pack with community service hours and our Adoration log, but winning this football game will really put us over the top.

And I think the leaders of this diocese know exactly what they’re doing in pitting us against Mount Sinai, because there is no better rivalry in Baton Rouge.

So tonight, let’s set ourselves up for a Diocesan Cup victory and ensure that the St. Mary’s legacy continues to grow stronger.

“Those of us who are seniors”—she pauses to wait for the inevitable hollering from the senior class—“first set foot on this campus three and a half years ago, back when the football team had an overall losing record, most of us still had braces, and Clay Landry was about four-foot-seven.”

There’s a great outburst of laughter, particularly from the senior class section of the gym. Clay, who stands at the front of the football team, laughs good-naturedly while several guys hit his arm.

“Wait for it…,” Hannah mutters to Wally.

“What?” he mutters back.

“All of that has changed now,” Baker continues. “We had a winning record this past fall, all of our seniors are braces-free and beautiful, and Clay now stands at—what are you, four-foot-eight?”

Everyone laughs obligingly, even Clay, though he’s rolling his eyes. Baker maintains a straight face, but Hannah can tell she’s trying not to lose her shit laughing at the objectively terrible joke.

“Is that the one you wrote?” Wally asks. “Han, that was so dumb.”

“I wrote the first part of it. The second part was—”

“Sorry, Father Simon was really excited about that joke,” Baker says with a meaningful look at the seniors.

“Anyway, we beat Mount Sinai back in the fall, and tonight we’re going to beat them again, right here in our own stadium, with the whole diocese watching.

We’re going to show them what it means to be a St. Mary’s player, student, fan, and believer, and what it means to be the very best school in this diocese.

So, before I turn the mic over to Clay, I just want to say: Geaux, Tigers! ”

And again, the crowd of students roars, stomps, and throws their hands in the air.

Some of the girls near Hannah are practically shrieking.

The teachers sitting along the first row of bleachers shake their heads and laugh, and Mr. Gauthier actually pulls his hearing aids out of his ears.

Ms. Carpenter claps her hands and leans over to say something to Mrs. Shackleford, and they both laugh.

The noise dies down as Baker beckons Clay over to the microphone. He hugs her and whispers something into her ear, earning a smile from her, and then he takes the microphone and pivots to address the gym.

“Our student body president, everyone,” he says in his deep, rumbling voice. “Y’all know it’s her birthday today, right?”