“It’s late. Let’s go to the Quick Stop and get you a pregnancy test.”
Aly moaned. “Let me wake up first, before you throw life at me.” She sat up and stretched. Her collarbones peeked from the neck of her baggy T-shirt. She’d always had great bones. His artist’s eye scanned the cluttered garage. He catalogued every detail about Aly who had fallen back on the bed to finish waking up. He clicked a picture with the camera in his phone.
He’d have to paint her in the morning before the shading floated away, the sleepy look in her eyes. And he wouldn’t smoke until the painting was done. He never painted well high or loaded. He’d ask Aly to pose for him, but she’d get the wrong idea. He needed something besides Raine to think about, a reason to stay sober for a couple of days.
At the convenience store, he stood in front of the selection of sunflower seeds and flavored corn nuts not bothering to pretend interest. They guy behind the counter had sold Aly a home pregnancy test and handed her the key to the restroom on a foot-long replica of the State of Florida. No secrets here. He got tired of waiting and went out to sit on the curb under the hum of the white neon tubes.
Aly burst out the front doors with the State of Florida in one hand and something that looked like a plastic thermometer in the other. “It’s blue, it’s blue!” She danced around.
He stood up, laughing at her. She threw her arms around him, planting a loud kiss on his cheek and released him. She danced on the curb, down on the oil-polished cement, up on the sidewalk. “No mini-Gar! No borderline-I.Q.ed toddler who walks around in love with his belly button!”
Aly’s glee was infectious. Tomorrow he’d paint.
#
Drew
speed-walked
Rainey
around the square block of
Old Fort
Park
for the
third time, and he hadn’t let her talk yet. Banyan trees crowded out the night sky, but streetlights warmed the sandy path.
He knew, deep down, she wanted to make the right decision about Africa, the one God wanted her to make. She couldn’t do that when she was mad. Maybe he should let her work it out on her own. But they had talked and prayed about this so many times. And they were together at her folks when she finally blew.
Rainey puffed her breath into her bangs. “Real funny, that crack about marriage. As if—”
“As if you should consider waiting till you’re married to go to Africa?
“Not you, too.”
“Your dad’s only concerned about your safety.”
“You might as well say I have to stay here because no man wants to go to Africa, at least not with me. If no one stepped up to the plate at college, where am I going to find a man who wants to be a missionary to Africa—put an ad on Craig’s List?”
“Your folks wanted to know why you keep bringing me by the house instead of the guy who wants to marry you.”
“They actually said that?”
He flattened his lips and nodded.
“What did you say?”
“That we’re friends.” He looked over at her. “I’d marry you and go to Africa if it weren’t for—”
Cal.
“Sam. And you don’t love me like that. And you haven’t dreamed of Africa your whole life.”
“What if I did?”
She stopped and looked at him. “Dream of Africa your whole life?”
“Love you.”
She started walking again, her sandals scraping against the shelly dirt. “Okay, this conversation is getting weird.”
“Answer the question.”
She stood on the sandy path and stared at him for a heartbeat, an invisible current zinging back and forth between them. “We’d go to Africa.”
“Do you think—”
you could love me?
Or did she
just
want to go to Africa that badly? “Never mind.” He didn’t want to know. There was no point in getting neck deep into the hypothetical. “What are you going to do?”
“Sign this contract.” She pulled the envelope out of her back pocket.
“But—”
She ripped the end off the envelope. A single typewritten sheet—not a contract—slid into her hand.
Her eyes moved back and forth across the page under the street light. She sunk down onto a nearby bench and handed him the letter. When the organization got her teaching application they realized there had been a huge misunderstanding. They needed a teacher with special education certification, something Rainey didn’t have. The director felt terrible about it and would circulate Rainey’s resume among the other agencies on the continent.
He looked back at Rainey.
Tears streamed down her face. “I’m going to Africa. I’ll find a way.” There was steel in her voice.
#
Raine walked quickly away from Drew’s truck. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she walked through the dark patch between the parking lot and the Canteen. She was getting paranoid like Eddie. No, she was paranoid of Eddie. With good reason. She sped up. Ah, out in the bright lights of the athletic field.
Drew had asked, what if he loved her—not that he did love her. Just what if. What kind of question was that?
What if he kissed her because he wanted to—not only to comfort her? What if Drew loved her and not Sam? She filled her lungs with pine-scented air, trying to imagine. He’d take her in his arms and tease her about her biceps. When she laughed, he’d kiss her—finishing the kiss she’d barely tasted last time, the kiss she wanted so badly her subconscious dreamed about wanting it. He’d say he loved her feet so much he’d follow them to Africa. Right.
Drew was always out of reach—first in junior high, then when the smorgasbord of goodies showed up on his birthday. And did he forget the little detail of Sam—whom he’d loved all of his adult life? Why did he bring up the possibility of loving her?
She’d go to Africa for one more reason. To get away from Drew and his passive aggressive weirdness. She could be free of Eddie
and
Drew—and Dad, for that matter. Men in general.
Note to self: check out convents and Catholic missions in Africa.
She pulled open the screen door to her cabin. And she’d as much as said she’d jump at the chance to marry Drew. She might as well have baked him snicker doodles on his birthday. He was going to think she was another one of those women hunting him down for a husband.
Tomorrow, she’d comb the internet for all the mission agencies operating in Africa, polish her résumé one more time, write a cover letter, buy stamps and envelopes.
#
Drew leaned his forehead on the steering wheel. Him and his big mouth. Now, he was going to pray. Better late than never. He’d been out of line saying so much to Rainey. But why had Rainey said she’d go to Africa with him if he loved her? Was Africa more important to her than Cal?
Lord, it’s time—past time—to lay my life out on the table. Do what You want with it.
How could he not check things out with Sam? Tomorrow he’d call.
#
Cal and Aly sat in his car watching the waves roll in the moonlight. He stuck the plastic spoon in the almost-empty pint of Chunky Monkey and passed it to
her
. “You know, Al, we’re both pretty screwed up, but we’re good for each other.” He looked at her across the tattered bench seat. “Why is that?”
Aly shrugged. “But you’re right.” She shifted around to face him. “The combo of thinking I was preggers, your pegging I need touch, and…
.
” she looked at the Ben and Jerry’s carton in her hands, “your turning me down…
.
” She lifted her eyes to Cal. “I’m done with sex—until I get married, if I do.”
Let her think he had her best interests at heart instead of his own.
She set the empty carton on the dash. “Thanks—for everything.”
He couldn’t stand the admiration radiating from her eyes. He didn’t deserve her respect. “I’m a virgin. The only reason I didn’t say yes was because I didn’t want to look stupid.” He rubbed his temples. “I’m unemployed with no education. This evening while you were with me I got an idea to paint that will keep me sober for three days.
That’s
who I am.”
His tone was harsh. But if he was going to start being honest with people, he had to start somewhere.
“I
can’t
live up to everyone’s expectations. I’m done trying. I’m who I am.”
Aly laid her hand on the three-day’s growth on his cheek. Her eyes were serious, boring into his. “I love you, John Calvin Koomer.”
For now he wasn’t going to freak over how Aly meant that statement. He’d shown her his worst, and she still loved him. He let the wonder fill his gut. “Thanks, Al.”
#
Raine wiggled her fingers around in her ears. She wouldn’t be surprised if she had hearing loss after the gymkhana. The children were at last sitting quietly in cabin clumps around the gym waiting for Drew to dismiss them. She could almost feel the vibration in the weathered wood floor from the afternoon’s competitions.
Jesse came through the gym door motioning to Drew he had an announcement to make. All eyes turned to Jesse.
“Cash is missing all over camp. This is why we tell you to put your money in your snack bar account and not to keep it in your cabin. If anyone knows anything about this, see me. If you took the money and feel badly about it, give it to a staff member or put it on one of their bunks—no questions asked.”
She could feel the blood draining out of her face, the shock settling in. Her gaze shot to Drew. He’d seen her reaction. He knew. Eddie.
For the second time in a month Raine scanned the inlet looking for Eddie. She’d texted him,
I have something you want.
Maybe she should have been more specific. Money. It was too late to tell him now since she had forgotten to bring her phone along.
She scrutinized the surfers on their boards, a couple of them up, riding a curl; most floating in the waves a hundred yards out like bobbers on a line. She’d been hyperaware of Eddie’s invisible presence days before he stole the cash. Now, she felt nothing. Maybe he wouldn’t show.
Cars with board racks baked in the sun. Two hoods sported
mahogany-tanned
surf babes in bikinis. She sunk down on a sand dune and watched the sandpipers hot-foot their three-pronged prints into the mounds.
Drew would call what she was doing enabling or some kind of twisted extortion. But it was partly her fault the money got stolen. If she wasn’t working at the camp, Eddie wouldn’t be hanging around. Wasn’t it her job to protect the camp if she had the power to do it? Five hundred dollars was a hefty chunk of her savings, but if it kept Eddie away from the camp for the rest of the summer, it would be worth it. If she was careful, she’d still have barely enough for her ticket.
She dug her toes down toward the cool sand. Where was Eddie? Anger bubbled up to the surface, and she realized how familiar the feeling was. This was who she’d become—a simmering volcano ready to spew at any provocation.
All her anger traced back to Eddie. She reached for a jagged piece of cowry shell. What exactly had Eddie done to make her mad? Where to start? She smoothed the sand in the valley in front of her and wrote,
stabbed me with a meth needle, scarred me for life inside and out
, stole my teen years.
A half an hour later she still carved words into the sand, wringing every incident from her memory. Finally, she sat back and surveyed all the pain Eddie had inflicted—three dune’s worth, the last two dunes in her own shorthand.
What do I do now, Lord?
Forgive.
The word swooped into her mind and squatted like a pelican coming in for a landing. Why? She didn’t want to forgive Eddie. He didn’t deserve it.
Look!
She flung her arm out toward all the words she’d written in the sand—as if God didn’t understand.
But the word sat there—a pelican on a piling settling in for the duration.
The tears started.
I can’t. I’m not strong enough.
I am.
She wiped tears away with gritty hands, but more came, cresting like waves.
It’s too hard. You’re asking too much.
Eddie’s sins blurred through her tears. The sobs came one after another, wrenched from deep inside. She couldn’t stop them now.
Oh, God.
Her chest heaved.
Help me.
The sobs backed off, a storm withdrawing out to sea.
Her diaphragm shuddered like she was still crying on the inside. She knew what she had to do.
“I forgive you for scarring me.” She wiped the words away and took a ragged breath. “I forgive you lying to me about… stealing…
.
”
At last, she sat in the dip in the dunes surrounded by smooth hills. She took a shaky breath, stood, and walked out of the dunes—free. As she moved down the beach, love for her brother poured into her soul. Now she had something
better to give him than money.