True Believer

The second book in the Make Lemonade trilogy, True Believer follows fifteen-year-old LaVaughn, who lives with her single mother in an inner-city housing project. LaVaughn's father, Guy, was shot and killed when she was very young, and his photograph hangs on her bedroom wall. Her mother works tirelessly, and the two share a driving goal: LaVaughn will go to college and escape this neighborhood of gunshots and metal detectors at the school doors. Her mother accepts a harder, better-paying job to build LaVaughn's college savings but warns her not to do anything foolish that could derail the plan.

LaVaughn's lifelong best friends, Myrtle and Annie, have taken cleaning jobs at the Joyful Universal Church of Jesus and joined its youth group. They now believe all non-Christians will go to Hell and pressure LaVaughn to join. LaVaughn considers several paths, including Myrtle's church group Cross Your Legs for Jesus, but none feels right. Each refusal widens the distance between them.

Then Jody reappears. He lived in LaVaughn's building years ago; they attended each other's birthday parties, and their mothers exchanged apartment keys for emergencies. His mother moved them away to find Jody a better life, likely because his best friend Victor was killed by violence in sixth grade. Unable to keep up with the higher rent, she has brought them back. When LaVaughn sees Jody in the elevator, the skinny kid from childhood has become strikingly beautiful. Her heart pounds, and she can barely speak. Jody swims constantly at a distant pool, working maintenance in exchange for coaching, and plans to earn a college swimming scholarship. His determination consumes LaVaughn's thoughts.

LaVaughn's academic life also expands. A former teacher sends her to Grammar Build-Up, an after-school tutorial taught by Dr. Rose, a formidable instructor who challenges her small class to believe they are the one percent who will rise. LaVaughn's study partners, Ronell, Doug, and Artrille, call themselves the Brain Cells. Dr. Rose teaches them a refrain: "We will rise to the occasion, which is life." A guidance counselor moves LaVaughn into a harder Biology class and pairs her with Patrick, a quiet boy who wears a cross necklace from the nuns who raised him in foster care. Patrick asks LaVaughn to the Food & Flashlight Formal dance; she lies and says she is going with somebody else. She also takes a job at The Children's Hospital, where encountering gravely ill children gives her a sense of purpose.

Jody invites LaVaughn to help him practice lifeguard rescues at the pool. He tows her through the water and confides that he wants to save someone's life. She asks him to the dance, and he agrees casually. At the Formal, they swing dance in flashlight beams. LaVaughn wears a blue crushed velvet dress from Goodwill. At her door afterward, she tells Jody he could kiss her. His mouth swoops across the corner of her lip and her nose, barely a kiss, and he laughs softly and walks away. LaVaughn spends the night crying, bewildered and heartbroken, and begins avoiding him.

Myrtle and Annie grow more distant, canceling shared traditions and filling their time with church activities. Annie accuses LaVaughn of being "too big for your britches" and too good for Jesus. Patrick also confronts LaVaughn, calling her "disdainful" and revealing his painful history of foster homes. LaVaughn is sickened by the truth in both accusations.

LaVaughn's mother begins dating Lester, a man from her new job. LaVaughn resents his presence, noticing her father's photograph removed from the bathroom. Lester proposes moving the family to a house far from their neighborhood, but the plan unravels when her mother discovers he has lied about paying bills and has suggested borrowing from LaVaughn's college savings. Her mother gives him three minutes to leave, then copes by ironing everything in the house deep into the night and restoring Guy's photographs to their places.

The story's turning point comes when Jody is home sick. His mother asks LaVaughn to deliver homework. After school, LaVaughn bakes cookies and uses her emergency key to enter Jody's apartment. In the dim lamplight near the fish tank, she sees Jody kissing another boy. The plate drops to the rug. LaVaughn backs out and runs.

She spirals. She cuts her dance dress in half with scissors, strips Jody's name off her notebooks, and stuffs the dance photo into a shoebox. She briefly identifies with students who seem normal before dying by suicide, noting she understands what they might be thinking. Her Biology grade drops, but the Brain Cells rally around her; Doug tells her quietly it will pass.

Slowly, LaVaughn rebuilds. When she tells the guidance counselor she might want to be a nurse, he seizes on the idea and begins monitoring her grades. Her Biology teacher signs her up for a Career Tour of the Nursing School. LaVaughn approaches Patrick, admits he was right, and apologizes. He turns on his lab stool and says, "Me too." They study together again.

LaVaughn starts asking people about God. Patrick tells her the Bible and evolution do not cancel each other out. Her mother reveals they used to attend church but stopped because it was too lonely. After attending a play at Myrtle and Annie's church depicting homosexuality as a sin, LaVaughn enters a different church and asks the minister whether gay people are welcome. He tells her everyone is welcome and that if there is a Hell, it is when people stop caring about each other.

The Joyful Universal Church is expelled from its fourth host church for being "too extreme." A rally turns violent, and the head shepherd, the church's top leader, is arrested. Myrtle and Annie are shaken. Meanwhile, LaVaughn scores well on the Science Aptitude Test and is recruited for Summer Science, an intensive program that could strengthen her college chances.

After crying for hours in her mother's arms, LaVaughn finally reveals what happened. Her mother holds her and feeds her supper in bed. LaVaughn arrives at a private realization: Religion must be for trusting, and trusting helps you go on when you cannot go on. She calls herself a true believer, believing in the possibility of possibility. Her mother suggests a Sweet Sixteen birthday party.

LaVaughn approaches Myrtle and Annie to apologize and invite them to the party. They say they must "limit contact with non-Christians." She erupts, insisting she is a lifelong friend, not a "contact," and they agree to come. The party assembles LaVaughn's fragmented world: Myrtle and Annie bake the cake, the Brain Cells bring food, Patrick brings flowers, and Jolly, a teen mother LaVaughn baby-sat for the previous year, arrives with her new boyfriend Ricky and her two children, Jeremy and Jilly.

While LaVaughn is under the table cleaning up dropped cake, Jody arrives uninvited. He squats down and hands her a book of Michelangelo's art, noting that Michelangelo painted on the ceiling too, a reference to LaVaughn's own painted ceiling. Under the table, LaVaughn realizes the worst of her misery has not been Jody's secret but her own refusal to forgive him for being who he is. She recalls Dr. Rose's words and understands that this, not the day she discovered Jody's secret, is the defining moment. She crawls out, takes his hand, and announces, "This is my friend Jody." After a brief pause, Artrille says, "Yo, Jody, have some cake."

LaVaughn surveys the party and thinks she can live with the way life is. She silently addresses her dead father: "Guy, your daughter is sixteen. How do you feel about that?" The story continues in the trilogy's final book.