“I’m gonna see what’s taking James so long,” Angel shouts in my ear with hot, dirty breath. He left forever ago to get us drinks. She grabs my arm and tries to pull me off the dance floor. “Come with me.”
“Nah. I’ll just stay here,” I yell back. “Will you bring me a soda?”
She rolls her eyes. “Kay. Hold that table for us.” She points at a tall table with two stools at the edge of the dance floor.
I nod and dance my way over to the table with an icky and gross-in-all ways-imaginable top. Probably never washed. I scoot my rear onto the stool. My stilettos slip as I do.
Angel skittles across the floor to the food counter. That’s what she reminds me of, a bag of Skittles, like the colors of the rainbow. One minute, she is true to her name—all sweet and organic sitting in the Burgerville with James. The next day, poof, bang, and she becomes all vixen-like. Boys turn to watch her walk and she returns the compliments with a smile or a bat of her eyelashes. For every boy’s head she turns, a glare or snicker escape one or two of the girls in the room. Well, I shouldn’t say all of them because a couple of the girls look like they would jump her bones just as quickly as some of the guys.
The music changes to a new rhythm, something I’ve never heard before. It starts dark and grungy, my type of music, but with a beat that screams for movement and a sadness that warrants more than just that. Stone Temple Pilots meets Muse meets Black Eyed Peas. I stand from the bar stool, nearly tripping in these crazy shoes. My feet throb. I kick the stilettos off and sway back onto the dance floor, letting the music wash clean my mind.
I still can’t believe I agreed to come here, but figured it would take Jacinda off my mind. Normally, I would have scrounged for an excuse not to come here with Angel, but no excuse became available tonight. I erase all my worries from my mind, just for tonight. I smudge out the thought of the faceless-pastor-dad, of Jacinda, and concentrate on the task at hand: feeling the music.
“You look lonely, beautiful.” A chocolate voice comes from behind me, close to my ear. I don’t turn, but I see his reflection in the mirror. “I can remedy that.” The darkness of the room along with the flashing strobes makes it difficult to see his face. Oddly, I don’t care. He could look like Frankenstein right now for all I care. He stands just a foot away. His black clothes blend with the air, and his dark eyes pierce through the mirror. I still don’t turn around, just dance to the rhythm. Breathing and moving and forgetting and dancing and then holding. His hand caresses mine.
The strangeness of his strong fingers wrapping around mine shoots up my arm. My internal organs flip-flop from the touch of this outlander. Curious, I hold on, even though it feels every kind of wrong. He moves along with me, from behind, and with his other hand he brushes my hair to one side and says in my ear, “Autumn.”
I stop. And I stare into the mirror.
He knows my name. My head is light, and it feels like I should care, it feels like he has whispered, “Danger,” but he really only whispered my name. He’s just a boy. A strong boy. A handsome boy. A boy who can dance.
I sway again and watch the mirror. His shaggy blond hair, green from the black light, caresses my shoulder. His lips brush my neck and his sweet scent stirs a longing to turn and face this mystery man in black, but I don’t. We aren’t doing anything wrong if I don’t turn around. We’re just dancing. His strong grip on my hand keeps me in place. He leans into my shoulders, his pelvis swaying along with mine.
With closed eyes, I let loose and do what seems natural in an aberrant way, but mechanical at the same time. We dance back and forth for what seems like an eon. This must be a tease, a taste of what carefree is like. Hot, spicy, sweet and sour all at the same time. I like it. It’s not the wind through my hair, it isn’t speeding down a country road in a roadster, it’s not my sweet Evan, but it is jump-up-and-down, laugh-and-cry-for-no-reason freedom. I don’t have to cry for Gramps, for Grams, for Jacinda. I can cry for Autumn if I want to—something that I’ve never been able to do. But I don’t want to cry. Instead I want to dance with this dark strong boy with golden hair who knows my name.
I turn into him, not thinking. His arms wrap around my neck and my face buries into his chest. His cotton shirt is warm and slightly damp. We keep moving. He has a musky expensive scent, Sak’s Fifth Avenue expensive. I’ve never bought cologne or perfume from there before. It’s the same smell that’s in the air when I walk through that store at Christmas time when seasonal part-time-perfume-squirters stand in the hall of the department stores and offer free sprays of liquid cash in a bottle.
The music stops for the first time tonight.
“Good night everyone!” a male voice announces over the speakers. The lights flicker on. A loud groan echoes throughout the club, as if the dancers are one and their groans are a single sound escaping a large body. Chairs scrape, footsteps trample, and voices create a murmur that wasn’t there before the music stopped. The room no longer travels along the same path, no longer an orchestra working together, but is chaos and flow every which way possible.
Sak’s Fifth Avenue pulls my face up to his so fast that I don’t get to see it. That’s the least of my worries though, because his lips are on mine—all warm, moist, strong and soft. They part and his tongue forces mine open. I try to pull away, but he holds me tight. Wet heat penetrates my mouth, searching, tasting, running along my teeth.
Uh, hello. My name is Autumn. I’m dating Evan. This can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. I struggle with him in the bustle of everyone leaving. Just as I decide to bite his tongue off, he’s ripped away from me. Finally.
“You get the fuck off her!” James says in the meanest voice I’ve ever heard from him and then he punches Sak’s in the face.
I step back. “Whoa, whoa…” And then I see Sak’s face.
His smile I know, with gleaming white teeth. But he’s not smiling in a nice way. He’s grimacing with blood dripping off his bottom lip. His eyes I know, pure as bad can be. I even know the diamond studs decorating his ear lobes and I kick myself for not recognizing his shaggy blond hair earlier.
A succulent gnaws away my intestines. Vomit toys with my throat.
Ace.
Ace charges James and knocks him into the crowd. People trip over the two wrestling and punching and kicking each other on the ground. A circle of bodies forms around the free entertainment, but before it’s complete, two security guards with swollen chests and arms bust through and breaks-up the fight. The audience groans in disappointment.
Angel pushes her way toward James. His crooked nose seeps blood from the nostrils, but he continues to struggle to get away from the man holding him back to get another swing at Ace.
Ace rips himself away from the security guard and points at James. “You’ll pay for this. “ He spits blood on the wooden floors and then stomps out of the building.
Shock. Dread. Horror. Hate. Tears. Numb.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sunday, November 15th
A car splashes through the puddles covering the street in front of The Road Church. We stand at the foot of the stairs, waiting.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” Angel closes the top button on her bedazzled pink sweater to cover the cleavage the world outside of the church is allowed to see. Nobody inside, though. Bound and covered. That’s the proper way.
“You? I can’t believe Evan talked me into this. But, thanks for coming with me. Rainy changed the subject when I asked her.”
Angel rolls her eyes. “Have you talked to her today? James wasn’t answering his texts this morning.”
“No. But it’s early.”
“Yeah. I guess.” She crinkles her nose. “I’m just worried. He went to a party without me last night and didn’t even call or anything.”
Weird. Since James has been back from rehab, they’ve been stuck together like barnacles to a rock in the sea. “We can walk by their house after church if you want.”
“Cool.” He
r eyes sparkle. “Why couldn’t your boyfriend give us a ride? And where is he now?”
“He’ll be here.” I push my hair behind my ears and then comb my fingers through the long strands on my shoulder. “He would have picked us up, but his mom made him give his cousins a ride or something.”
He appears. Walking from the parking lot, alone, he smiles at me with his eyes and a small grin on his lips. He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his beige corduroys.
“What do we have here?” Angel turns her attention to the hottie walking our way.
“Uh, that would be Evan, so put that tongue back in your mouth. He’s off limits.” I push her playfully.
“Well, good for you.” She gives me a proud wink. “I’m impressed.”
Evan reaches us and introduces himself to Angel and then he leads us up the bazillion stairs into the looming church with giant wooden doors. I inhale stale, cool air fringed with fresh coffee and old wood.
“Where’s your family?” I ask Evan.
“They’re around somewhere. They like to sneak in through the backdoor.”
“Good morning.” A wrinkled woman hands us a folded flyer made of gold paper.
People stand around the lobby in groups, eating cookies and drinking coffee and juices. They chat and laugh. My nerves burn the lining of my stomach. Angel sticks close to my side as though my sweater is made of double sided tape.
Evan pulls my hand. Angel grabs my other, and we make our way as a train through the crowd of smiling, happy people. Most are young, like twenty-somethings, with tattoos and cool hair. Totally not the types of people I imagined at church. Well, not the type of people who would be at Grams’ church.
Evan stops, I stop, and Angel runs into me. “Oh, sorry,” she murmurs and then blushes. She’s out of place, or seems to feel that way at least, and hides her eyes behind long red curls. Something I’ve never witnessed her do in my entire life.
“This is Josh. He’s a youth leader,” Evan says and then introduces us.
Josh, maybe only twenty, with messy brown hair, flesh tunnels in his ears and Woody Allen glasses, holds out his hand to shake mine. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Angel turns, day-dream like, to stare at the stained glass windows in the next room, the chapel I presume, not responding to anything Josh is talking about. Stuff about welcoming us and various church groups and mentors. I don’t pay much attention either. But that’s okay because he seems to be talking more to Evan than us anyway.
We find an open bench in the back of the small chapel. Three sections of benches, ten rows deep, surround the front half of a cramped stage. Two electric guitars and one acoustic-like guitar rest in stands on each side. A keyboard and two microphones sit in front of two stools at the front of the stage and a drum set fills the back portion. The dark wood walls behind the stage encase a backlit stained glass of a cross at sunrise. Spotlights reflect sparkles off the instruments.
I sit, sandwiched between Evan and Angel. Evan waves at people entering. I pretend to look at the gold flyer. Angel bites her bottom lip and stares at the ground and then the surrounding colorful windows that tell stories of times billions of years ago when there were angels and stuff.
A middle-aged couple scoots onto the bench in front of us. They introduce themselves before turning around to wait in silence for the service to begin.
Smiles. Waves. Hi-how-are-yous. Just-fine-thank-yous. Handshakes. Hugs and sometimes kisses. All around, filling the chapel, echoing like the buzzing in a bee hive.
A thin, tall woman with blond hair pulled into a bun of perfection on the back of her head, glances our direction several times. She’s in mid-conversation with two women surrounding her. The women embrace her and then she glides toward us. My gaze snaps straight to the Bible nestled into the bench in front of us, and then to the green carpet on the floor. Brush marks from a vacuum give the illusion of two shades painted green, one light and one dark.
Evan turns to face me. “My mom’s coming this way.” He picks at a splinter of wood in the bench. “Remember what I told you?”
“Yep.” I try my best to sound confident. “No worries.”
He sucks in a chest full of air and then blows it upward so his bangs flutter off his forehead. I laugh.
Angel pinches my leg. “What—“
“Good morning, love.” The blond woman hovers over Evan. Thin lips stretch across white teeth. Not a trace of make-up covers her glowing, ivory skin. Brilliant blue eyes gleam beneath clean, blond lashes.
“Oh, hey Mom,” Evan says, jumping to his feet. “These are my friends, Autumn and Angel.”
She reaches past Evan to hold my hand. Weird. “Hello, Autumn. Welcome.” She takes her warm, soft hand back. “And you, too, Angel. Both of you be sure to get a cookie before the service starts.”
“Thanks,” we say in unison.
Evan’s mom pushes her shoulders back. “Okay then.” She turns to Evan, winks and then walks away.
“Thanks, Mom,” Evan calls after her.
I shove Evan’s shoulder. “You totally had me believing she was going to be some monster or something.”
His face scrunches into a confused grimace. “Yeah, I’m baffled. Sorry, ‘bout that.” He shakes his head. “I mean, she’s not a monster. She just isn’t friendly with my, uh…” He blushes. “Well, you know. People I date. Girls.”
“Hello! What’s going on?” Angel asks. I fill her in on the details of Evan’s prior warning of his mom.
One woman and four men squeeze through the aisle to the small stage at the head of the chapel. The house lights dim. Spotlights grow brighter. People find their seats and the buzzing goes silent.
“Welcome,” the woman says. She wears low-rise jeans, a crystallized belt buckle, and knee-high black boots. The band plays. And not the type of music they play at Grams’ church, either. Good music. Rock-like music, but with a folk-like feel to it.
Evan nudges closer to me. His warmth rubs on my shoulder. Angel squeezes closer to herself, stuffing her hands beneath her legs. A screen above the stage displays lyrics, almost like poetry, with words like Jesus and Savior and Love and Glory. I like the instrumental, but maybe not so much the words. They feel too mushy. The woman sings with a soulful voice traced with a piece of sandpaper. Now, the words aren’t so bad. She should be on the radio. She’s good.
The audience stands. Evan stands. Angel’s eyes widen and dart around, almost horrified. We stand together. Some people raise their hands into the air, like they are drying out their armpits, or getting ready to catch a fly-ball or push the ceiling with invisible force. The audience sings and sways. Evan sways in a light breeze while the rest of the people are in the middle of a wind storm.
I stand rigid, next to Angel, watching the dancers and singers and prayers and the musicians rock out to Jesus-loves-me songs.
The song ends. A new one begins, but not as rocky. The acoustic guitar, drums, and a man’s voice performs a slow song. A sad song, maybe. The lyrics appear on the screen.
When my world is crumbling to the ground
When I have only dreams and hopes heaped high upon a mound
And my life is lost, blinded by the unknown
And tossed to the famished
I can run to find hope
Or I can try to cope
With the battles thrust unto me
But I won’t give in
Or turn away
Because only you can set us free
Only you can set me free
Angel’s face turns to the ground. The music is so loud, but I think she sniffs. Her hand moves to wipe her face. I pretend not to notice. Moisture builds on my upper lip.
When life is gray, happiness goes away
Hopeless confounds thoughts
We seek pleasures that can only be bought
Powders, liquids, pills, they all delude
Strip the soul
Leaving it nude
Exposed, helpless, bound
Ro
tting the body
Please, I long to be found
I can run to find hope
Or I can try to cope
With the battles thrust onto me
But I won’t give in
Or turn away
Because only you can set us free
Only you can set me free
I feel all alone
Stumbling blind through obscure
Trapped in a great unknown
When faith is the only cure
I can run to find hope
Or I can try to cope
With the battles thrust onto me
But I won’t give in
Or turn away
Because only you can set us free
Only you can set me free
Free
Free
Your love sets us free
Tears prick my eyes, but I hold them in. A vice squeezes my throat. The words replay in my mind. It’s as if this song was chosen just for me, like God knew I’d be here today and commanded the singers to perform this song I’ve never heard before in my life and I want to hear again.
Evan’s hand hangs near mine. His finger traces along my palm, shooting shivers up my arm and lightening my heavy heart.
We sit. Another rock-type song begins. Angel squeezes past me and then Evan and out the door to the lobby.
“I’ll be right back,” I say into Evan’s ear.
***
She’s bound into a ball on the front steps of the church, her head resting on her knees and back hunched, shaking into sobs.
Dream Smashers Page 12
