A transfer student from another Catholic high school, Rose McCraig liked to
talk about the sickly saints, the holy anorexics who starved themselves for
God.

“St. Maria Maddalene dei Pazzi, St. Catherine of Siena, and let’s not
forget St. Veronica,” she said after introducing herself at the end of
first period. She riddled off each martyr like they might be familiar to
us, taught with the respect they deserve in our mandatory Bible study
class. The other girls managed to quietly back away from her saucer eyes
and skeletal cheeks, disappearing down the hallway. Only I stuck around,
rubbing the back of my notebook while she finished her lurid description of
St. Veronica’s intestinal suffering and eventual death.

“Honestly,” I said when she stopped to take a breath, “it’s more of a Mary
and Baby Jesus curriculum here.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her the school was one holy joke, with a
balding creep for a principal and teachers who didn’t seem to have a
saintly bone in their bodies. The only decent thing at the school was
before first period, during the blank hour in our schedules. Zero Hour. I
glanced over at the new girl’s stringy hair, her bony legs jutting out from
her uniform. The high pitched bell rang through the hallway but she didn’t
wince.

“What about St. Rose?” I asked her.

“Oh, she wasn’t anorexic, she was just chaste,” she replied. “Typical.”

She flipped her knobby hand in the air like she was hitting a virgin, those
airy, easy things. It was the way she said it, typical, as in basic. As in, I am so beyond.

“You seem interested in true devotion,” I said.

“I am,” she said, pushing her chin up so she looked me straight in the eye.
“I truly am.”

“Come one hour early tomorrow,” I told her. “Wear running shoes.”

This how I broke it down, repeating what Mrs. Diante always told us: At
Zero Hour, you leapt for God and lunged for Christ, you inhaled sweet baby
Jesus and exhaled the Holy Spirit. You entered the school gymnasium before
first period to set a bold intention for your day, and if you are lucky,
the rest of your sinful life.

On Rose’s first day, she could barely make it through the Rise and Shine
sequence.

“Who’s the greatest?” Mrs. Diante said as we jogged in place, our sneakers
slapping the exercise mats.

“Jesus Christ!” we shouted.

“Who’s the greatest?” Mrs. Diante said, her big palms raised high in the
air.

“Us!” we shouted, louder.

Early morning sunlight trickled in from the rafters as we leapt and lunged
in straight rows. Rose began to hyperventilate during the second set of
Rise and Shine push ups.

“Weak,” Serena P whispered as she watched her slip around on her exercise
mat.

During relay practice, the other girls avoided being her partner. She and I
were paired together, the two slowest sprinters out of ten. The Asian and
the Anorexic.

“So sorry,” she sputtered as she loped over the finish line towards me,
looking like a white, emaciated angel flitting around the pointy orange
cones.

No matter how much huffing and lifting she did, she smelled clean and she
didn’t sweat. I didn’t mind sweating next to her during the holy drills,
especially on mornings when I moved slower than usual, deodorant seeping
from my arm pits, my shoe laces flopping around, untied. Compared to the
other girls, my jumping jacks were always off, my snap backs lacked pep.

When the Rise and Shine Sequence was finally over, Praise be to God, we
clapped once as a group and transitioned to our hands and knees.

“Contemplation of the soul can be found in the forearm push up,” Mrs.
Diante said as she paced by the basketball hoop. Her pectorals jutted from
her orange terry sweat suit, the major muscles of her arms and legs spongy
under the fabric. Around her neck, she wore the whistle, welded into the
shape of the cross.

I hovered over the mat and lowered myself slowly so my belly button
couldn’t kiss the floor. Beside me, Teresa S did double time. Her biceps
swelled up to her ears like loaves of bread. At the end of the line, Skinny
Rose moved at a pace Mrs. Diante liked to call paint drying.

“C’mon, Mariah Wong,” Teresa S said, watching as my knees began to drop.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

I could feel the other girls looking. I poured desperate energy into my
arms. I willed my stomach to tighten, pictured the activation of bun shaped
muscles under my lumpy skin. They gathered around me and began the chant.

“Pow-er, pow-er, pow-er,” their words vibrated in my ears, punctuated with
rhythmic whistling by Mrs. Diante. She always told us, your power lives
inside, punching at the bulky spot just above her heart.

“Pow-er, pow-er, pow-er.”

The girls kept chanting until I completed the last push up, all except
Rose. She collapsed onto her mat, her arms and legs jutting out like fish
bones. She let out a long, desperate sigh in a pool of sweat, face down.
Mrs. Diante hurried over to make sure she was still breathing.

“Some girls just don’t feel it,” Teresa S hissed to me.

Within a week, Rose’s parents decided to pay for new t-shirts for Zero
Hour, in gratitude for Mrs. Diante’s attention to their daughter. Then,
everyone in the class began calling her Skinny Rose.

“How do we feel? Are we not thankful?” Mrs. Diante said from her perch by
the mirror, the whistle wet against her lips.

“We are thankful!” we managed to yell as we sprinted around the gym, our
arms swinging at our sides.

“How do we feel? Are we not grateful?”

“We are grateful!”

“Now, let us enjoy the gift of Skinny Rose,” Mrs. Diante said.

At the end of the class, she doled out the new t-shirts, still starchy from
the box. They featured a large yellow zero shaped like an angel’s halo and
FEEL THE POWER across the chest. On the back, small golden hands pressed
together to form a church steeple. We stood in a circle and clapped for
Skinny Rose until her sunken cheeks turned scarlet. We filled the gymnasium
with our noise.

On the walk home from school, I tried to maintain a slow pace next to
Skinny Rose. She sat out on the rest of the Rise and Shine Sequence with an
ice pack on her head, leaving me to run relay sprints alone. Still, she
insisted on power walking home to keep her heart rate up. We walked fast by
the stucco church on the corner and then down the side street lined with
bee infested shrubs. The bees seemed to only like me. I batted them away
with my hands as I walked, holding my palms out like small flippers. The
Zero Hour t-shirt bunched under my arms, the Made in India tag digging into
my neck. Skinny Rose extended her legs in graceful arcs, her t-shirt
hanging over her body like a bag. We moved like this for several blocks.

“Break,” Skinny Rose announced, clutching her chest, right below the zero.

We paused at the turn off to her house, a bend that lead to the top of
Lakehorn Hill and a custom home with a white pillar entrance. Skinny Rose
leaned forward on her legs. I watched her chest rise and fall.

“Walk it off.”

The hill rose sharply, curving around private pools and gardens with fresh
water ponds. She shook her head.

“Feel the power!” she shouted as she headed toward the hill, trying to pick
up speed.

“Feel the power!” I responded, watching her jog up to a beautiful house and
parents who truly believe they birthed an angel, their own bony living
saint.

I walked the rest of the way, past the strip mall with the Get n’ Go, the
Flower Basket, and Henry’s Chinese Tavern. To reach the apartment complex,
I crossed a two lane highway clogged with semis and bulky men in pick up
trucks. No one wanted to stop for one girl on the side of the road wearing
a zero on her chest. But then I remembered the mantra. I focused on each
driver, crouched over the wheel, picking their teeth, texting with their
head tilted downward. I bore my eyes into them, willing them to pay
attention, to recognize my power. Finally, one car saw me, an old man in a
blue Chevrolet. He waved as if he knew me, as if he knew a member of the
holy blessed future was jogging by him at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

“Oh girl,” my sister Ness mouthed as I closed the front door. “Hit me.” She
jiggled the paper carton of week old takeout from Henry’s. Her eye shadow
was smudged at the corners and she was still in her blue work scrubs.

“You wouldn’t believe the teeth today,” she said, sitting down at the table
with two sets of chopsticks. “Had Dr. Mantel bill this guy extra for all
the work I did on his molars.”

“You aren’t even going to heat it up?” I poked at the soggy carton of food.

“Jesus, Mariah. The microwave is behind you.”

“Don’t say Jesus like that.”

Ness pressed her lips together until they turned white. She got up and
stuffed the carton in the microwave, flicked the HI button.

“So, how was your day?” she said, dropping the hot cartons onto the table.
“How was sweat cult?”

I rubbed the chopsticks together and lined them up between my fingers.

“I told you, Zero Hour isn’t a cult, it’s a cultivation of Him through
breath and movement.”

“A cultivation of what?”

“Endorphins,” I said, heaping noodles onto my plate. “Spiritual
endorphins.”

“Right,” Ness said, glancing at the block letters on my t-shirt.

“Are you still jogging home with that anorexic girl?”

“She has a name.”

“You two seem to be getting close. I’ve been hearing things about
her…condition. You know she’s been in and out of treatment before, she told
the school counselor she would happily starve herself to death.”

“Well, you can’t say she’s not devoted.”

“Devoted?” Ness swiped her hand in the air, close to my face. “That girl
could die. Do you want to die?”

“No,” I said, swallowing.

“Good,” Ness said. “Then eat.”

Ness shoved the food in her mouth and then got up from the table for her
usual power nap.

“Oh, someone might be coming over later,” Ness said, leaning her hip
against her bedroom door. “A friend.”

“Which friend?” I asked, running through the faces of pasty white men who
have stopped by before. Men who would never be allowed if it wasn’t just
the two of us.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I think he’s religious.”

That night I clasped my hands together on my bedspread. I wished Ness would
keep her sulking face out of my personal life. I hoped Skinny Rose did not
become too sickly, leaving me alone at Zero Hour. As I started to close my
eyes against my pillow, my cellphone buzzed. “Goodnight and God bless!” the
text message read from Skinny Rose. Does she dream of banquet halls, of
platters of food she cannot eat?

“St. Veronica asked God to have her sense of taste removed so she wouldn’t
be tempted,” she told me once.

When I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, I nearly
collided with Dr. Mantel, the dentist.

“Hello,” he said, standing in the dark at the kitchen sink. The door to
Ness’ room gapped open.

“Hi.”

“What great incisors you have,” he said, before retreating into her
bedroom.

Ness disappeared early for her shift at the dental clinic. The dentist left
his fat finger prints on a glass by the sink. I decided to walk to Zero
Hour, the sun behind my back, sweat bleeding already through my t-shirt.

“Contemplation of the soul can be found in the rise n’ shine fun run,” Mrs.
Diante announced as she watched me creep in late from the corner of her
eye. We jogged around the gym in a lopsided circle. At the end of one lap,
we are suppose to yell “Power!” and slap Mrs. Diante’s palm, waiting in the
air for us like a flag. I tried running on one foot so I could tie my
shoelaces.

“For shame, Mariah Wong,” Teresa S said under her breath, jutting her chin
out over her swollen bicep. She ran her eyes over me, confirming my
weakness, and picked up her pace. Skinny Rose was sitting in a chair in the
corner of the gymnasium. I jogged over to her, breaking the circle.

“What happened?”

“Oh, I fell on my way up the hill yesterday,” she said, “But I can still
worship Him, in rest.”

She showed me the hand clenches she was doing in time to “Our God is an
Awesome God,” followed by rhythmic foot tapping, one, two, one, two, and
neck rotations.

“Quite good,” Mrs. Diante said, striding over.

“Wong,” she said to me, “Get back into the glorious circle.”

At the end of the fun run, Mrs. Diante instructed me to keep going. The
other girls were given a ten minute stretch break, pressing their palms
together over their heads, while I ran lap after lap around the length of
the gymnasium.

“His Holiness just cannot stand for tardiness,” Mrs. Diante said, her voice
vibrating off the rafters, cloaked in an unholy yellow light.

I poured strength into my legs. I willed the soles of my feet to stop
burning. There was no chanting or whistling this time, just my uneven
breathing as I drew invisible circles around the other girls. They watched
me with soft eyes as I slowed down and tried to speed up again. I focused
on Skinny Rose in her chair, her eyes closed, her feet barely touching the
floor.

“Keep those knees to the heavens,” Mrs. Diante shouted. “To the heavens,
Wong!”

At the end of Zero Hour, Mrs. Diante told me to stand aside while the
others recited the Praise Unto Him, the prayer to carry them through the
rest of their day.

“Late, again, Wong. Slower than usual,” she said with a grimace. “Are you
certain you are ready to meet His demands? Are you cut out for the rigors
of Him?”

Her whistle bobbed against the fleshy part of her chest.

“Of course,” I responded, my breath sour in my mouth. I tried to lift my
jelly legs to show her how full of spirit I truly was.

The walk home with Skinny Rose took much longer than usual. She leaned over
to rest against a shrub or a stop sign for the sake of her heart, doctor’s
orders. My legs felt like they had been bull dozed. I knew I would be sore
with the glory of Him for days.

“I don’t think it was appropriate, the way Mrs. Diante spoke to you and
made you run laps,” Skinny Rose said, resting one arm against the trunk of
a tree. She wavered on her feet, her face as pale as ever.

“She can be a bit strict.”

“A bit Satan-like, don’t you think?” Skinny Rose began pacing back and
forth on the sidewalk. “Zero Hour should be about tolerance and
forgiveness, as He demands. We should not be punished if we are devoted, if
we are trying, deeply and completely, with our body, mind, and soul.”

“That’s true,” I said, watching her wobble around, her legs sticking out
like tent poles. She coughed from deep in her chest, cupping her hand to
her mouth.

“And,” she said, “let us not forget St. Veronica, who was denied sainthood
for much too long. Some just cannot see the holiness in others.”

Her coughs turned into hacks and when she lifted her palm, it is spotted
with watery patches of red. The blood dribbled down her chin as her eyes
glazed over. I caught her just as she began to really fall, her eyes
fluttering against her hand.

Ness was trotting out a different song when I barged into the apartment,
baring the weight of Skinny Rose. “You gonna break it, girl,” she mouthed
as she turned away from the refrigerator.

“Help me,” I shouted, my arms sore from stumbling past the Get n’ Go,
Henry’s Chinese Tavern, and then the two lane highway with Skinny Rose.
Cars stopped short in both lanes for us before screeching away.

Ness took half the weight of Skinny Rose onto her shoulder and leads us to
a chair at the kitchen table. The dentist emerged from the bathroom,
rubbing his hands on the sides of his khaki pants.

“Skinny goddamn Rose,” Ness said. “She looks—”

“Dead,” the dentist said.

Skinny Rose inhaled, her eyes widening, and then exhaled more blood. It
splattered all over the table and the new cartons of takeout. It covered
her waxen face with flecks of red.

“Get her some water,” Ness said to me. “Grab a towel from the bathroom,”
she said to the dentist.

“I am light,” Skinny Rose whispered, weaving from side to side, her head
dipping against her chest.

The dentist used a towel to mop up the blood on the table.

“This is just too much, Mariah, too much,” Ness said, cradling the
cellphone to her ear to call an ambulance and then Skinny Rose’s parents,
likely worried sick about their holy angel. I licked the edge of the towel
with my mouth and bent down to wipe off the blood on Skinny Rose’s cheeks,
as best I could.

I saw Skinny Rose once more, at my last Zero Hour. Ness allowed me to
attend so I could turn in my t-shirt to Mrs. Diante.

“Some are not made for power,” Mrs. Diante said, the whistle cradled
between her teeth. She handed the t-shirt to another girl in the circle, a
new girl with long blonde, braided hair.

Skinny Rose allowed us to walk home, as she could only walk while her heart
recovered.

“Does this mean you aren’t coming tomorrow morning?” Skinny Rose asked as
we passed the shrubs, the swarming bees.

“Probably not,” I told her.

“You’ll be back.”

We stopped at the turn off, the hill cluttered with the awkward angles of
sloped homes and shiny security fences.

“You’ll be back,” she said again. “You’re the most devoted person I know.”

She headed in one direction and then turned suddenly.

“Feel the power!” she said, her face beaming in the sun, her bones loud
under her skin. I wanted to tell her she would soon be in a hospital gown
and then in a group therapy sessions at a private treatment center, later
hosting her own graduation party in her parent’s custom home to make up for
collapsing in her cap and gown mid flash with the Zero Hour girls in tow,
all toned beyond recognition, their smiles radiating a glorious inner
light.

I wanted to say this to her, but by then she was already walking up the
hill, afloat, a speck soon to turn to nothing.