Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult Page B

“Wilkom.” Then he moved off toward the barn, where the men were gathering.
    â€œThat's a wonderful good thing he did,” Katie whispered. “Now the people won't all be wondering about you while we worship.”
    â€œWhere do you worship?” Ellie asked, puzzled. “Outside?”
    â€œIn the house. A different family holds the services every other Sunday.”
    Ellie dubiously eyed the small, clapboard farmhouse. “There's no way all these people are going to fit inside that tiny building.”
    Before Katie could answer, she was approached by a pair of girls who held her hands and chattered urgently, concerned about the rumors they'd heard. Katie shook her head and soothed them, and then noticed Ellie standing off to the side, looking distinctly out of place. “I want you to meet someone,” she said. “Mary Esch, Rebecca Lapp, this is Ellie Hathaway, my …”
    Ellie smiled wryly at Katie's hesitation. “Attorney,” she supplied. “A pleasure.”
    â€œAttorney?” Rebecca gasped the word, as if Ellie had sworn a blue streak instead of just announcing her profession. “What would you need with an attorney?”
    By now, the women were organizing themselves into a loose line and riling into the house. The young single women walked at the front of the line, but having Ellie there clearly presented a problem. “They don't know what to do with you,” Katie explained. “You're a visitor, so you ought to follow the lead person. But you're not baptized.”
    â€œLet me solve this for everyone.” Ellie stepped firmly between Katie and Rebecca. “There.” An older woman frowned and shook her finger at Ellie, upset at having a nonmember so far up front in the procession. “Relax,” Ellie muttered. “Rules were made to be broken.”
    She looked up to find Katie staring at her solemnly. “Not here.”
    It was not until Katie began to visit Jacob on a regular basis that she truly understood how people could be seduced by the devil. How easy it was, when Lucifer wielded things like compact disc players and Levi's 501s. It was not that she thought her brother fallen —she just suddenly began to see how one archangel tumbling from heaven might have easily reached out a hand and tugged down another, and another, and another .
    One day when she was fifteen, Jacob told her he had a surprise for her. He brought her change of clothes to the train station and waited for her to put them on in the ladies' room, then led her to the parking lot. But instead of approaching his own car, he took her to a big station wagon filled with college kids. “Hey, Jake,” one of the boys shouted, unrolling the window. “You didn't tell us your sister was a hottie!”
    Automatically, Katie patted her sweatshirt. Warm, maybe … Jacob interrupted her thoughts. “She's fifteen,” he said firmly .
    â€œJailbait,” called another girl. Then she dragged the boy backward and kissed him full on the mouth .
    Katie had never been this close to people kissing in public; she stared until Jacob tugged at her hand. He climbed into the car and shoved aside the others so that there would be room for his sister. He tossed a hurricane of names at her that she forgot the moment she tried to remember them. And then they were off, the car shimmying with the heavy beat of a Stones tape and the muffled movements of two people making out in the back .
    Sometime later, the car pulled into a parking lot, and Katie glanced up at the mountain and the ski lodge at its base. “Surprised?” Jacob asked. “What do you think?”
    Katie swallowed. “That I'll have a hard time explaining a broken leg to Mam and Dat.”
    â€œYou won't break your leg. I'll teach you.”
    And he did —for about ten minutes. Then he left Katie on the bunny slope with a ski school full of seven-year-olds and raced up to the top