The Abstinence Teacher. Tom Perrotta

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СКАЧАТЬ had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. God had a plan for him, and it involved something more important than a big house and a beautiful wife and a happy intact family. He slid off the stool and pressed his palm over the lid of his coffee mug.

      “I better be going,” he told her.

      MOST OF the time, Tim felt pretty good about his new condo—it was a two-bedroom townhouse with wood floors, central air, a gas fireplace, and Corian countertops—but it always struck him as cramped and dingy after he returned from Greenwillow Estates. Everything was all squashed together—the closet-sized half bath a step away from the front door, the kitchen table wedged between the refrigerator and the dishwasher, forcing you to turn sideways when serving or cleaning up. The furniture, which was perfectly nice, and not cheap by any means, seemed common and nondescript, and even slightly tacky, in a way he couldn't put his finger on.

      He had a similar reaction to Carrie, who was sitting on the living room couch, flipping through Parade magazine. With Allison fresh in his mind, she seemed paler and less vivid than usual, vaguely disappointing. He must have stared at her a moment too long, or with a little too much intensity, because she put down the magazine and looked up with a worried smile.

      “Everything okay?” rune.

      “How's Abby's mom?” For some reason, Carrie insisted on referring to Allison in this way, and Tim could never quite decide if she meant it as a subtle dig or an expression of respect.

      “Hard to say I just stopped in for a minute or two.”

      She nodded, keeping her gaze trained on his face, as if awaiting instructions. Though she was already dressed for church, he knew she was expecting him to take her by the hand and lead her up to the bedroom, the way he did on most Sunday mornings, taking advantage of this brief interlude—their first free moment of the weekend—between dropping Abby off and heading to church.

      But Tim just stood there, hands jammed into his pockets, reminding himself of the promise he'd made to Pastor Dennis after Wednesday Night Bible Study, not to touch his wife until he cleared his head and purified his heart. Because it was deceitful and disrespectful, making love to Carrie after being aroused by Allison, turning one woman into a substitute for another.

      “You look upset,” she said. “Can I make you some eggs or something?”

      He shook his head, feeling a sudden wave of affection for her. Carrie was a sweet girl and wanted nothing except to make him happy. He stepped toward the couch and extended his hand, as if asking her to dance.

      “Pray with me,” he said. “Would you do that?”

      TIM AND Carrie had been married for less than a year. Pastor Dennis had introduced them at a church picnic shortly after Tim had found his way to the Tabernacle and been reborn in Christ.

      “There's someone I want you to meet,” he said. “I think you'll like her.”

      Tim was pleasantly surprised when the Pastor led him over to the condiment table, where a folksingery blond was struggling with a big Costco bag of plastic forks, spoons, and knives that didn't seem to want to open. Unlike most of the single women who worshipped at the Tabernacle, she was young and reasonably cute, with long straight hair and startled-looking blue eyes. In the strong afternoon sunlight, Tim couldn't help noticing that her peasant blouse—a gauzy embroidered garment, the kind of thing pothead girls wore in the late seventies—was translucent enough that you didn't have to strain to see the outline of her bra underneath, which was about as much excitement as you could hope for at a gathering like this. Her breasts were plump and pillowy, not what he normally went for, but he had to make a conscious effort to stop staring at them. He wasn't proud of himself for behaving in such an ungodly way, but he'd been lusting after women since he was twelve, and it was turning out to be a harder habit to break than he'd expected.

      Pastor Dennis relieved Carrie of the troublesome bag.

      “You're fired,” he told her. “Now get outta here. And take this guy with you, okay?”

      Carrie smiled sheepishly at Tim, wiping the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead.

      “Hey,” she said. “You're the guitar player.”

      “Bass,” he corrected her, momentarily distracted by Pastor Dennis, who was having no more luck with the bag than Carrie had. He was tugging at it with both hands, grimacing fiercely, like a man trying to rip a phone book in two.

      “Gosh darn it,” he muttered.

      “That's really thick plastic,” Carrie warned.

      With one final heroic grunt, the Pastor tore the bag asunder, unleashing a mighty cascade of utensils all over the table, including a few knives that landed in a bowl of bean dip. Tim and Carrie tried to help him with the mess, but he shooed them away.

      “I'm okay,” he insisted. “You two go and get acquainted. I bet you have a lot in common.”

      THEY SAT in the shade, drinking lukewarm soda, watching the kids tie themselves together in preparation for a three-legged race. The Tabernacle was a relatively new church at that point—it had only been planted for two years, after Pastor Dennis and a handful of disaffected families had split off from the Living Waters Fellowship in Gifford Township, which he accused of being “a namby-pamby, touchy-feely bunch of mealymouthed hypocrites who loved their cable TV better than they loved Jesus Christ”— so there were only about a dozen contestants in the race, ranging in age from five or six to twelve or thirteen.

      On the whole, Tim couldn't help thinking, they were an unprepossessing bunch, the boys scrawny and somber, the girls overdressed for such a hot day, visibly uncomfortable, nothing at all like the confident little jockettes Abby played soccer with. They stood at slouchy attention, nodding earnestly as Youth Pastor Eddie explained that sin was like a third leg, a foreign growth that hobbled us on our walk through life. If we could just cut ourselves loose from it, we'd run like the wind, with our Savior at our side.

      It was an interesting metaphor, and it didn't seem to spoil anyone's enjoyment. When the first heat began, the little kids leapt forward, managing a few herky-jerky steps before squealing in alarm and toppling onto the grass with their partners. After a few seconds of hilarity, they untangled themselves, got up, and started over, dragging that extra limb around as best they could.

      “You've had such an interesting life,” Carrie told him. “I haven't done hardly anything.”

      As far as he could tell, she wasn't exaggerating. She was a twenty-four-year-old woman, raised in a strict evangelical home, who hadn't gone to college or even lived on her own. She rarely dated, had no close friends outside of church, and spent her days running the office of a Christian insurance agent who was a friend of the family The way she described it, the only act of defiance she'd ever committed was to follow Pastor Dennis to the Tabernacle, against the wishes of her parents, who'd stayed behind at Living Waters. It made sense that she'd be intrigued by Tim's checkered past, especially the rock bands he'd played in when he was her age.

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