“Did you ask them to help you avoid being martyred?”
“She’s got a point,” Chris added. “You did sort of lie to them about what you knew was going down. They would have helped save you if you’d asked them to.”
Jesus crossed his arms. “Sure, sure. So I guess … do as I say not as I do.”
“Now wait a second,” Jessica said, narrowing her eyes at her half-brother. “You could have avoided being martyred fairly easily and you didn’t do what you could?”
“I guess not.”
“Could you explain why, exactly?” The thought of Jesus not doing everything he could to keep from being murdered publicly got under her skin.
Jesus raised his hands in a cartoonish shrug. “Seemed like the thing to do.”
“But why?”
He paused, screwed up his nose, then said, “You know, I’m a little bit hazy on it. It was a while ago.”
Chris offered an answer. “Wasn’t it so we could all have our sins forgiven?”
“Eh …” Jesus said, shaking his head slowly.
“That can’t be it,” Jessica said.
“Yeah,” Jesus seconded, “that doesn’t really make any sense. I mean, why would everyone still be sinning and asking for forgiveness if I just knocked it all out in one go?”
“Okay. So maybe just the sins of people already dead?” Chris offered weakly.
Jesus chuckled. “That would hardly be fair, would it? Holding people responsible for doing the wrong thing before I even told them it was the wrong thing or gave them a way to fix their mistakes. No, not even our Dad would be that mean.” He turned to Jessica again. “I’m serious, though. You have to rely on your friends here. Not the money changers, not Dad, but the people who want to help you for human reasons. Part of being a good friend is helping your friends, and part of it is allowing your friends to help you. So do it, okay? Don’t make me come all the way out here again.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Chris said. “I think we’ve pretty much banged out all the majesty of this landscape.”
Jesus grimaced. “Agreed.”
“So if you’d just relied on your friends more,” Jessica said, “would you have been martyred?”
“In hindsight, probably not.”
“Done!” Jessica said. “You win, Jesus. I’ll do literally whatever you didn’t do to keep from going out the way you did. Just promise me one thing.”
“Yes?”
“You’ll talk to God and see about another option for us to have these delightful little chats.”
“I’ve consented to worse,” Jesus said, walking away along a thick bough. “Much, much worse.”
Chapter Eleven
The honeydew melon exploded in a splatter of seafoam green, sending chunks in all directions over the barren landscape, silencing the nearest cicadas.
“Not bad,” Miranda said.
“Not bad?” Jessica replied. “I just smote the shit out of it.”
“Yeah, but look at the cactus behind it.”
Jessica stepped to the side to peer around the four-foot stack of cinderblocks. “What cactus?” Then, “Oh, was there a cactus before?”
Miranda nodded. “It’s okay, though. A honeydew is a much smaller target than you’re used to.”
“I don’t know, a grackle is pretty small, and I managed to explode one when I was a kindergartener.” She sighed, her hands on her hips. “I should be much better at this by now.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve had sixteen years to practice.”
“But have you been?”
“Well, no.”
Miranda braced her hands on her hips and smirked. “Then there’s no reason why you would be better at it. Try with that cantaloupe.”
Jessica stared at it, but couldn’t stir the emotion. She imagined Eugene Thornton’s face, but still not even a slight tingle in her fingers. “I think I need a break.”
“Of course. No problem.” Miranda reached into the cooler and pulled out two bottles of water, handing one to Jessica. “You’re definitely improving, you know.”
“And I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t set this up for me.”
“Well, I figured you needed a stress release. Softball has always been that for me, but this is the last year I’ll do it competitively, and that got me thinking, what happens afterward? What’ll I do to blow off steam when life does what it does best? I still don’t know the answer, but it did make me realize you don’t have anything and haven’t since you graduated high school. So, I thought I’d help.” She chugged the rest of her bottle and threw the empty back into the cooler. “And it’s actually gratifying as hell to watch you smite the shit out of melons. If I put this on YouTube, it would get fifty million views immediately. Oh man! What if I did it in slow motion?”
“Please don’t.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t.”
“Cash would literally have a heart attack.”
Miranda nodded understandingly. “I forgot you have that filter now.”
“Oh!” Jessica pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “Speaking of which, I should tell them about this.”
She texted, At target practice with Miranda and sent it away. When she looked up from her phone again, Miranda was squinting at her through the late September dusk.
“Cash knows about the smiting range?”
“Nah. Just mentioned target practice.”
“Eek.” Miranda grimaced. “You think they’ll post about target practice?”
She chuckled. “Oh, not a chance. It’s just fun to screw with them.”
On cue, Jessica’s phone vibrated and she glanced down at Cash’s response: Omg wut? Can’t you do normal things? I’m posting that you’re at a charity dinner.
After shoving the phone back in her pocket and finishing off her water, Jess turned again to her best friend. “I know you’ve already helped out a lot, Miranda, but can I ask for one more thing?”
“Hold up. You’re actually asking for something?”
Jessica nodded begrudgingly. “Yes.”
“You mean I don’t have to guess on this one? You’ll just tell me what you need?”
“Yeah.”
“Then shit yes, you can ask a favor of me. Whatever it is.”
Jess inhaled deeply mustering the strength to say what she knew was the right thing but what still felt like a terrible idea for numerous unnameable reasons. “I need help getting money for the bakery. Without the loan, I don’t know what I’m going to do, how I’m going to get a quarter of a million dollars. God keeps dangling it in front of my face, but I don’t want to take help from him, and Jesus supports that.”
“I support that too,” Miranda said. “And don’t worry, I’m already on it.”
Jessica blinked dumbly. “What do you mean, already on it?”
“I mean, I’ve already started working on that problem. You think I’d hear about you needing money and just sit on my ass and do nothing?”
Jess groaned. “Your mastery of friendship is really starting to piss me off.”
Miranda grabbed Jessica’s empty water bottle and threw it back into the cooler. “Good. Use that.” She pointed over to a cinderblock tower thirty yards away with a personal-size watermelon on top. “If you focus on how I will always out-friend you, maybe you can actually hit your target without blowing up anything else.”
“Screw you,” Jessica said, then she turned and smote the melon.
Miranda jogged over to it to examine the scene then hollered back. “You got the top cinderblock, too, but otherwise looks good.”
When she returned, she added, “You just have to focus a little bit more.”
“Sorry. I guess I’m a distracted.”
“What now?”
Jessica hadn’t had time to process it in the two days since her lo mein date, what with Jesus and browsing the internet for alternative funding options. Or maybe she’d just been avoiding it.
“Chris might be going into the NFL d
raft. What if he moves across the country? Do I follow? Do we get married? Will we still be able to have dream sex if we get married? Or even worse, what if he gets drafted a thousand miles away but won’t go because I’m here?”
Miranda pressed her lips together and waited until Jessica was completely finished before responding. “To that last point, I know Chris loves you obsessively, but I don’t think he’d miss an opportunity to live his childhood dream just because you’re not in the same city as him. He could’ve dropped out of college or transferred to UT to live in the same city as you but he didn’t. And now y’all have the long-distance relationship thing down, right?”
“No, it’s more complicated than that.” How could she explain it to Miranda, though? Chris was an angel, and his pull to Jessica was stronger than just a boyfriend wanting to be close to his girlfriend. It was cosmic.
Miranda waited patiently, but her gaze was relentless. “Well, are you going to explain it? We’re out in the middle of nowhere, nothing pressing on either of our schedules, and clearly it’s bothering you. So, what is it? Do you have something on him? Why wouldn’t he be able to leave? Wait, is he gay? Has this been a cover? Are you gay?”
Jessica waved her hands in the air to stop her. “You’re actually making it more complicated than it is.”
“Then just tell me.”
Would Chris care? Probably not. While Jessica wasn’t going to out Quentin, it didn’t seem fair for Miranda to be the only one in the small group of friends who didn’t know she was among at least one heavenly being. Well, besides Jessica herself.
“Chris is an angel.”
Miranda stared blankly, saying nothing.
So she added, “Literally. He’s an angel.”
“Come again?”
“I don’t really understand it, but he’s apparently an angel, which doesn’t count for much but does mean that he’s naturally inclined to, um, serve me.”
Miranda pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “So angels exist, Chris is an angel, and he’s your … slave?”
“What? No! He’s not a slave.”
“Okay, then I’m going to need further explanation.”
If only she could provide it. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite understand the nuances herself. But she tried to explain what little she did know. “He’s more of a guardian. He and the other angels sort of have a magnetic pull toward me. They can resist it, but it’s, I dunno, uncomfortable.”
“Uh-huh.” She squinted toward the horizon, silent for a moment, and Jessica allowed her the space to digest the new information bomb. Finally Miranda turned back toward her. “You mention ‘other angels.’” She leaned forward, watching Jessica’s face closely. “How many others, and do I know them?”
Jessica rubbed her shoulder and neck. “Um. A bunch, and yes you know some, but I’m not supposed to out them.”
“But you outed Chris.”
“I don’t think he’d care that you know. But other ones might. Don’t tell anyone about Chris, though.”
“I’ll do my best.” A silence fell between them again, then Miranda asked, “Would you out one if knowing might affect my life one way or another?”
Oh shit. Does she know? What if she knows about Quentin and this is a friend test?
But Miranda wasn’t that kind of a person. She would just come out and say she knew about Quentin.
As much as Jessica wished she could be honest with her best friend, she knew it wasn’t up to her to decide when Quentin came out to his girlfriend. “Yeah, if I thought it would negatively affect your life to not know, I would tell you.”
Miranda accepted that answer, nodding and turning back toward the range. “So how do you know if someone’s an angel?”
“I usually don’t, I just have to wait until another angel outs them.”
“That sounds frustrating.”
“Yeah, it really is. They don’t always mention it. Or they mention it offhandedly way after the point where it would be especially useful. I guess they’re just so used to it they forget to mention, ‘Oh hey, Dr. Bell is an angel, and that could—’” She gasped. “Shit. I didn’t say that.”
“Ha! Okay. It’s good to know, though. It makes me feel a little better that you have plenty of people watching out for you.”
“What? I don’t need people watching out for me!”
“Yes, you absolutely do.”
“Screw you,” Jessica said.
Miranda reached into her canvas grocery bag and pulled out a grapefruit then glanced sideways at Jessica. “Good. Harness that. Now you think you can blast this out of the air, you walking disaster?”
“Just throw the damn fruit.”
Miranda chuckled confidently. “If you insist.” She let loose, putting her softball muscles to work, and the grapefruit was yards away before Jessica could even react, but then she steadied her mind, condensed her aggression into a thick syrupy energy, and shot it from her fingertips in an energy blast.
The grapefruit fell to the ground with a soggy squish, untouched.
Miranda frowned. “Eesh. I guess we still have some work to do.”
Chapter Twelve
“It sure is green everywhere,” Destinee said, her head swiveling to take in the trees on all sides of the Greenbelt trail.
“To be fair, everything’s green compared to Mooretown.”
They were only ten minutes into their hike, and Jessica was already starting to relax like she hadn’t done in months. Not only did she never get out of the loud city streets anymore, but the Greenbelt also allowed her to spend much-needed quality time with her mother without fear of aggressive reporters and paparazzi. A week of heavy rain at the end of September had left the woods with a lush ground cover, and Jessica felt confident she’d hear rustling if anyone tried to stalk them. So, while they did occasionally pass other people heading in the opposite directions whose dogs were still dripping wet from an impromptu swim, Jessica and Destinee were mostly isolated and able to indulge in conversation without constantly worrying about filtering.
“I know you been working hard lately, baby, so I’m glad you could take a day off for me to visit.” Destinee was slightly out of breath already, but grinned despite it.
“I haven’t been working that hard.”
“Bull. You’ve been baking your ass off. You know I never bothered making shit from scratch. Pillsbury had my back for a lotta years. Still does, to be honest, though now Rex sometimes handles the baking.” She wiped sweat from her hairline. “I tell ya, Jess. Feminism is just the gift that keeps on giving. If only your father were a little more feminist from the start, we might all have it made.”
I HAVE NO BIAS.
“He says he has no bias,” Jessica said.
“That right there’s a load of horse shit. He told me the night we met redheads weren’t his type. If that ain’t bias, I don’t know what is.”
“Don’t worry, Mom, I’m with you on this.” They stepped to the side of the path to let a young couple in full hiking gear with two wet golden retrievers pass by.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
The couple disappeared and Destinee jumped back into the conversation where they’d left off. “I don’t actually know how God could make a single decision if he weren’t at all biased. Just don’t make sense.”
A path split from theirs, and Destinee raised her chin to peer down it. “Sounds like there’s water that way.” They walked until they reached the edge of the creek, a strong current rushing by them. “Well, I’ll be damned if this ain’t the prettiest sight I’ve seen in my whole life.”
THOU SHALT REMIND HER WHO MADE IT.
Jessica groaned. “God wants to be sure you remember who’s responsible for it.”
Destinee met her daughter’s eyes and tilted her head dubiously.
Jessica nodded. “I know.”
They turned and headed back toward the main trail. “You gotta listen to him bragging all the time?”
“N
ot all the time. It’s worse when you’re around.”
IT’S LIKE YOU’RE SET ON EMBARRASSING THE LORD.
It would only work if you were prideful, though. Are you prideful?
… NO.
Then I’m gonna keep doing what I’m doing.
“Has he been helping you lately?”
“He’s been trying.”
OH WOW, LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS ON YOUR LEFT.
I see them. And they are beautiful, I’ll give you that.
MAKE SURE YOUR MOTHER SEES THAT GLORIOUS CREATION.
That’s not my responsibility.
TRUE.
Destinee tripped over an exposed root along the trail and caught herself just before she hit the ground. “Shit! Nearly busted—oh hey, those sure are some pretty flowers.”
Jessica cringed at God’s satisfaction.
Once Destinee had her feet properly underneath her, she said, “I miss having you at home, baby, but I get why you would want to move away. I been thinking about it myself.”
“Really? But you’ve lived in Mooretown your whole life.”
“And a lotta good that did me. Been working at the same damn pharmacy for going on fifteen years and ain’t got a single promotion past pharm tech. If the house wasn’t already paid off by your grannie, I wouldn’t be able to put food in my mouth on what they pay me. Thing is, it’s one of the best paying jobs in town for folks like me who only got a GED, which is most of us.”
“You don’t have to sell me on Mooretown being a dead end, Mom. If you want to move away, you should.”
LET HER KNOW I WILL BE WITH HER WHEREVER SHE MAY GO. SHE CANNOT ESCAPE THE GAZE OF THE LORD.
… Said the Divine Stalker. You need serious help talking to women.
Destinee inhaled a lungful of the freshest air within twenty miles. “Driving into Austin got me thinking about moving to a city.”
Jessica glanced over at her mother, feeling guilty for what she was about to say but knowing it had to be said. “You wouldn’t like a city, Mom. People here wouldn’t understand you and you sure as hell wouldn’t understand them. And I mean that in the best way.”
It is Risen Page 12
