Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore

most of the other farmers in the county because Hank lived in a two-story, redbrick house with four white columns holding up the roof. There was even a fountain in the middle of the front yard that did nothing but spout water day and night.
    But if that wasn't reason enough not to like him, he also had the most beautiful mama in town. When we were in grade school, she was always coming by our classroom to help our teacher cut odd little shapes out of colored construction paper and staple our artwork to the bulletin board. On his birthday, she would appear wearing a smoothly pressed dress with her warm golden hair pulled up in a neatly braided twist, and in her hands, she carried a platter of perfectly decorated cupcakes. My mama would have done that for me, I'd tell myself, only my cupcakes would have had chocolate frosting with pink sprinkles on top.
    I told Martha Ann once that Hank was kind of like Joseph with his coat of many colors, which Miss Raines stuck up on the felt board. Joseph's father, Jacob, loved his son. In fact, he loved Joseph more than his other eleven boys. Joseph was handsome and perfect just like Hank. And when Jacob gave Joseph a rich, colorful coat, it made his other brothers so jealous that they threw him in a well and then sold him into slavery for no more than twenty lousy pieces of silver.
    I never planned on throwing Hank in a well, but I can't say I never thought about it. It might have done him some good to sit down there for a while. He had the highest grade point average in Mr. Polter's algebra class, just two points better than my own. He was the town's essay-contest winner three years in a row. And he was always putting down my Bulldogs whenever he got the chance. A boy like that deserved to come down a notch or two.
    But worse than any of that was his dogged determination to personally embarrass me at my daddy's own church. Hank Blankenship won the gold medal at Miss Raines's Bible Verse Sword Drill, every single year; and I know he did it just to make me, the preacher's daughter, look like a fool.
    On the third Sunday in June, the day before the official start of Vacation Bible School, Miss Raines would have us move our chairs into a straight line stretching from one end of the classroom to the other. Each of us was assigned a chair where we would sit with a Bible resting carefully on our laps. Then Miss Raines would slowly and meticulously explain the rules of the Bible Verse Sword Drill, which we already knew by heart. And finally, when you couldn't stand the anticipation any longer, she would draw a small piece of paper from a basket and announce a chapter and a verse.
    “Girls and boys, the first verse is E-PHE-SIANS FIFTEEN THIR-TY-SIX,” she would say, annunciating ev-er-y syl-la-ble.
    We would flip through the pages of our Bibles as fast as we could, racing to be the first to put our left index finger on the verse and our right hand high in the air signaling our success. The last person to find the verse was eliminated from the line, and the first one to go was usually Billy Thornton. Actually it was no big surprise when Billy was diagnosed with some sort of learning problem and sent to a special school down in Marietta. But for now, Billy, who was madly in love with Miss Raines, didn't seem to mind losing much because he still got his prize, standing next to his teacher and watching for hands, and Miss Raines's breasts, flying in the air.
    One by one the others in the class would leave their Bibles in their chairs and take their place at the front of the room. And in the end, year after year, the glory of a first-place finish was always a race between Hank and me. And without fail, that boy would manage to find that last verse just a split second before I could get there. I'd have my finger moving down the page when I'd hear a shout from the other end of the room, “I've got it,” and Hank would leave with another gold medal hanging around his neck.
    By the time I turned