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Suzi sat on one side of her and Nance on the other. Most everyone else was standing up, swaying with their eyes closed, singing a song about the wind bending a tree in a hurricane. What did that have to do with God?

“There he is,” Suzi said, elbowing her, pointing at one of the screens.

“Ouch,” Ava yelled, pushing Suzi away. Ever since Suzi was little, she’d poked Ava, prodded her, yelled in her ear, tried to hug and kiss her, anything she knew that Ava didn’t want her to do; and then when Ava pushed her away she acted hurt, even went running to their mother, crying about how she was only trying to be nice to Ava and how mean Ava was and so on.

Now, though, Suzi didn’t react to the push. She even leaned closer to Ava. “There he is,” she said again, pointing to the people singing up on the stage. “That guy in the middle, the tall one, who looks like Orlando Bloom. That’s Buff. The minister who wants to meet you.”

Ava said in her regular voice, refusing to whisper. “He doesn’t look like Orlando Bloom. Why does he want to meet me?”

“He just does,” Suzi said, making a “duh” face. She knew more, but she wasn’t telling.

Nance scooted closer to Ava, too. Now Ava was in the middle of a human sandwich, being pressed into a pulp. “What are you talking about?” nosy old Nance asked her.

“Nothing,” Ava said, and knew she’d sounded rude but didn’t care. She didn’t like Nance, even though everyone else in her family did. Ever since they’d gone to have those pictures taken and Nance had used reverse psychology on her to get her to pose naked, she didn’t trust the woman. So, basically, she was in the middle of two untrustworthy pieces of bread. A pressed liar sandwich.

Nance leaned past Ava and repeated her question to Suzi. The two of them were BFFs. “I was just showing her Buff,” Suzi explained to Nance.

The head minister—a roundish, baldish, friendly-looking man—jumped onto the stage, and the congregation finally sat down and collected itself, and he began talking, welcoming everyone on that fine summer morning.

It would’ve been okay if Suzi hadn’t added, “Buff wants to meet Ava.”

“Why?” Nance asked.

“Exactly,” Ava said.

They shouldn’t be talking now, because the minister was talking, but Suzi kept right on, explaining that Buff had wanted to meet Ava after Suzi had talked so much about her.

Nance frowned.

Ava lost interest in Buff, what little interest she’d had, because she’d just spotted Travis, the cuteish guy who’d visited her Asperger’s group, sitting across the aisle. He’d spotted her first and was waving at her. He was wearing a felt hat with a feather through it, like Bartholomew Cubbins wore. People wore unusual clothing to this church. She waved back at him.

All through the endless church service, which both Suzi and Nance seemed to be really into, listening to the minister talk about stirring up the fire of God and walking out further into the water, she thought about America’s Next Top Model. Nance had helped her fill out the application and everything was ready to be sent off, including the photos Mr. Boy had taken of her—not the naked ones, of course—and as soon as she sent them off, all there was to do was wait to see if they’d want to interview her in Jacksonville, and if they didn’t, they were idiots, Nance declared. It was creepy that only Nance knew about what she was doing—except the guys in her Asperger’s group, of course, which meant that Travis knew, but he’d probably have forgotten all about it by now. What would Elvis think of Ava becoming America’s next top model? He would approve, because he liked models.

And what would Elvis think of this church? He’d probably like it, being kind of a Christian and a showy guy, but she didn’t like it. It reminded her of a poor man’s version of one of Elvis’s Vegas shows. There was too much going on at once with the screens and music and live entertainment and headline news, everything way too loud. It was like they were trying to duplicate what it was like in her own house. Why