Sway (13 page)

My heart nearly cracked in half when she walked onto that stage two hours ago. For her entire speech I didn’t move from the side of my truck, even though I had a speech of my own prepared and tucked inside a folder on my desk. The folder I planned to take home tonight and study after my date with Kate. Yet another reason for the universe to laugh. In my lifetime, I’ve given it plenty.

But even watching with a half-cracked heart was nothing like the pain I felt when she opened her mouth to speak, giving instance after instance of the negative effect religion has on children. Of all the ways God can be equated with Santa Claus—of the cruelty of allowing children to believe in something wholeheartedly only to have that belief ripped away and replaced with the cold reality of nothingness. Because according to Kathy, religion and God and faith are nothing. A childhood dream based on fantasy, perpetrated by blinded adults seeking modern ways to perform centuries-old mind control.

And nativity scenes on public display are just another form of brainwashing. Nativity scenes. At Christmastime. With donkeys. And cows. And dudes wearing crowns. And
babies
. According to Kathy, the display is the epitome of everything wrong in the world today.

She looked right at me the whole time. I looked right back, daring her to label me with every accusation she dropped. She couldn’t. I knew she couldn’t. Because even though her delivery was clear, I could sense the uncertainty behind it. I could hear the monotone in her voice. I could see the nervousness that continued to come through in the way she bit her lip.

So could her father. He cut her off mid-sentence and took over the microphone, unhappy with her lackluster performance.

Once he started talking, I’d had enough. Punishment may have taken a bigger chunk of my life than reward ever has, but even I can only take so much. I kept to the rally’s outside perimeter and ignored her father as I made my way inside the building. Despite my best effort, a few words managed to make it to my ears, one worse than all the others.

Lawsuit.

As I walked, I felt Kate’s eyes on me the whole way, but I didn’t look at her. Not once.

Had I known what would face me inside, I might have reconsidered my decision. I lean back in my seat and snatch up a pen, tapping out a nervous rhythm with the silver cap as Scott waits for me to answer his question.

“Of course I didn’t know,” I say. “It never came up.” Scott can’t seem to understand how I could have spent three days and one night—technically speaking—with this girl without putting two and two together. The guy is exceptionally smart, but on this one issue, he has the ignorance of a crumpled piece of paper. I grab a fresh sheet and begin to drawl circles.

“How did it never come up? You didn’t talk about your jobs? Your families? Anything other than the weather?” His sarcasm is getting on my nerves. The phone rings again. I send it to voice mail.

“You’re not going to answer any more calls?” Scott asks.

“They can get their information from someone else for a few minutes.”

“Caleb, you run the center, and you have a job to do. If you ignore this—if you’re not careful—public opinion will begin to sway in favor of the Hawkins. I can’t believe you didn’t know who she was.”

I’ve never been the most gracious person under pressure. Now is no exception. “First of all and in case you don’t remember, I don’t give a crap about public opinion. If I did, I wouldn’t be a pastor right now, would I? A thousand bucks says I wouldn’t even be a Christian.” I seared him with a look. “A million guarantees you and I wouldn’t be friends.” Scott squirms in his seat. Round one to me. “Second of all, I’m not going to ignore it. You know me better than to think I’d walk away from a fight. Third, you read her driver’s license and didn’t recognize her either. Between the two of us, you’re the only one who knew her last name.” Scott’s eyes dart to the side. End of round two. “Here’s my question; when you looked for her address, did you read her name or just look at the numbers?”

Scott just stares at me, and I think I’ve found my answer. When he stands to pace the room, I’m certain of it. A knockout punch. I set the pen down and focus on my desk, feeling not at all victorious. Something occurs to me then, something I should have figured out when I saw all those missed calls. Something that makes me feel even dumber than I already do. My shoulders sag on a sigh.

“When did you realize it was her?”

“When a press release came through the fax machine about thirty minutes before they arrived.” And I left my phone in the car like an idiot. “Her photo was at the top of the page. I freaked out and started calling you. I’m sorry, man. I read her name on the driver’s license but never put it together. I think I was more focused on Kimball’s puke and that dress she was wearing to think much of anything else.”

“I think we both were. It’s alright, seriously.” I tent my fingers and lean my chin on them while fixing my stare on the desk, trying to come up with a solution to this but coming up with jack crap. Slapping my palms on my face and rubbing them up and down doesn’t help, it only increases my headache. I drop my hands and look at Scott.

“What are we facing with this? In legal terms, I mean. What happens now?” I’m relatively new to this Christian stuff, and practically an infant at being in charge. My technical title is Youth Pastor. My actual responsibilities involve running the Chapman Center—an after school program named after the church’s founding pastor designed specifically for underprivileged children, the majority of whom come from single-parent and foster families. But the program doesn’t just run until the standard five o’clock after-work pick-up time so common in other programs like it. Ours runs into the evening—as late as seven, eight o’clock—for parents who work the late shift.

We make dinner for those who need it, and we help with homework so the older kids don’t fall behind in school. In the direst circumstances, we have beds for kids who need a warm place to stay the night. The church provides safe, caring, capable people who’ve been background checked, fingerprinted, and practically full-body scanned to take care of them. In the two years I’ve been in charge, we’ve never gone a single week without at least one bed occupied. So far, the oldest child was sixteen. The youngest was two.

But we pray before dinner, we pray before bedtime, and there’s a six-by-six silver plaque engraved with John 3:16 hanging on the wall to the left of the front door. And, of course, a plastic nativity scene on our front lawn that some parent didn’t like and complained about, never mind that we’ve fed her kid—and have continued to feed her kid—for months now because we’re sweet like that.

But for that sweetness, she contacted a lawyer who contacted the press who alerted the Hawkins’ and now we’ve been slapped with a lawsuit. For that, a few needy kids with no place to go might be looking for another place to sleep.

“According to Senator Richter, in the best case scenario we’ll have to pay money to the state and take down the nativity scene, then repay the taxpayers who, according to initial public opinion, couldn’t care less about any of this. We don’t exactly live in the most anti-religious state in the country. Most people pray at dinner and ballgames and have nativity scenes in their own yards.” Scott looks at me and then looks away like he would rather end the conversation right now. But I’m not done and he knows it.

“And worst case scenario?” I wonder if my voice sounds as mad as I think it does, because I already know his answer.

“We run out of money, and we’re forced to close our doors.”

Close our doors. The doors of the only good thing I’ve ever done. The door that God Himself opened up after so many others had slammed in my face.

The tension crackles in the room like a firework just before detonation.

“And kick fifteen kids to the curb, just like that,” I finally say. All because we dare to thank God for pizza before we eat it and stick a Virgin Mary in the grass. This is the most moronic thing I’ve ever heard of, but holy crap if the Hawkins’ movement hasn’t gathered steam. At least among the media, and even an idiot like me knows they have the last word on everything.

“Just like that.” Scott nods while I sit there with my mouth hanging open like the defenseless little boy I used to be. But eventually I close it, because I’m not that helpless kid anymore. I ditched that “Poor Me” act a long time ago, back before Scott and his dad found me and gave me the first two people in years I could depend on. The feeling had been so foreign back then, frightening and unwelcome. When you’ve been left to your own devices for over ten years, leaning on another person makes about as much sense as swallowing your own excrement. It’s unnatural. The last thing you ever expect to find yourself doing.

It took a long time for me to trust either of them, but eventually I learned to lean on other people and ask for help when I couldn’t figure things out on my own.

This time, I’m not asking. This time, I’m taking matters into my own hands.

I grab the folder off my desk that holds the speech I never gave and push back my chair to stand. Scott’s face grows alarmed when he sees the determined look on mine—the one that says “Screw The World,” the one he’s seen a million times before that I should have known he would recognize now. He jumps up to stop me.

“Caleb, think before you do anything. You’ve come too far to go off half-cocked, and we can’t afford the negative publicity.” He latches onto my arm, but I shrug it off and try to appear calm.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“Says the man who threw a temper tantrum and gave the head pastor of this church a broken nose.”

“It healed perfectly and your father got over it. You need to get over it, too.” I take a step toward the door, but Scott moves faster and blocks it. If he wasn’t my best friend, I would laugh in his face. With his red hair and five-foot-nine frame, I could obliterate his bones with one blow to the middle. I’ve done it to others before and barely missed a breath from the effort. But I don’t. Because Scott is Scott and the guy has guts. I slam a hand on my hip and glare at him.

“I won’t do anything to give us a bad name.”

“Swear it.” He might have guts, but he’s also a pain in the butt.

“I swear.”

“Hold up your fingers.”

“Oh, for the love of—seriously, dude? Now?”

“Hold them up.”

With a menacing stare that used to intimidate police officers but now actually manages to make Scott look bored, I slap the folder against my thigh and hold up two fingers—the same two-fingered Boy Scout salute we make the kids use when they get caught fighting or complaining or refusing to do their homework. This is stupid. I’ll never make them do it again.

“I swear not to cause any more problems,” Scott prompts me. “Now say it.”

My jaw pops and I itch to punch something. “I swear not to cause any more problems.” My arm falls. “Can I go now?”

“Sure.” Scott wanders over to my chair and sits down, propping his feet on my desk. “But remember, if you wind up in jail again, neither me nor my father is coming to bail you out this time.”

“Fine. Good thing I like bunk beds and open-view toilets.”

“And roommates who could have a lot of fun with a guy as pretty as you, don’t forget about that!” Scott’s laughter follows me through the doorway, and despite my anger and outrage and all the other emotions that have managed to tick me off today, I find myself smiling.

*

It isn’t until I throw open the door of my truck that it really hits me.

She’s gone.

I look up toward the parking lot and notice the absence of cameras and people or even a single pink flier littering the sidewalk. It’s all gone, as if none of it were here in the first place. There won’t be a movie with Kate. Or dinner. Or a hundred other days that I wasn’t aware I even wanted but now want with a longing so strong it nearly flattens me.

I want to go back to this morning and ask her stay, to skip the interview with Ben and her parent’s event and anything else that doesn’t involve just her, me, another kiss, and a long drawn-out conversation. But I can’t, because that chance is over.

And now, like everyone else I’ve ever allowed myself to care about, Kate is gone.

I don’t go straight home. Instead, as if the car has a mind of its own, I find myself in the next town, driving mindlessly. Doing figure eights around my problems as I replay the day, the week, the last seventeen years of my life as though a riddle might be solved somewhere between the mile markers. Even the folder—along with my resolve to do something—are momentarily forgotten.

In the end, I solve something, at least. Something I already know. Something that should have dawned on me sooner but doesn’t until I exit off the highway toward my neighborhood.

It’s Tuesday.

My mother…nine-eleven…Johnny Cash …Kate’s revelation.

More proof I didn’t need that nothing good happens on a Tuesday.

And when it comes to me, it’s becoming more and more clear that nothing good happens ever.

Kate

“Speak Now, I’m Listening”

—Memphis May Fire