He pulled me closer and then covered my mouth with his in a long, slow, intense kiss. And then just as slowly he pulled back and a pleased smile crept over his lips. “Was that okay?” he asked.
I sighed. “Actually it was better than okay.” And then we kissed some more, and by the time I got out of his car I no longer remembered exactly what it was that had been upsetting me earlier.
All I knew was that out of all the boys who had kissed me before (and there’d been a few) no one had ever made me feel quite like that. And while the feeling was warm and wonderful and amazing, it also struck me that it was just slightly dangerous. Still I refused to think about that. I would only remember the comfort and security of being gathered into his arms—and that kiss!
Jim and I dated steadily for the next several weeks. And it was blissful, mostly. But the pressure was building between us. Before long Jim was pushing me to have sex with him. And I was considering it too. Why shouldn’t I? Everyone else was doing it. And who cared what I did? My daddy was in prison. My mama and grandma were dead. I was nothing more than a live-in maid to my foster parents. And it seemed my only real friend in the entire school was Jim, and other than this sex thing it seemed we’d been getting along just fine. So why not give in? It’d probably be fun.
But still something deep down within me—like this quiet, urgent voice—kept warning me not to. Was it God? Was it me? Was it the ghost of my long-lost mama? Or maybe it was just the memory of my old friend Bryn, who’d gotten into trouble not that long ago.
Finally I felt like I might actually be going crazy—didn’t they lock up people who heard voices? Okay, so it wasn’t an actual voice, but it seemed pretty real just the same.
And then one afternoon at school, between choir and geometry, I just totally lost it. I ran into the girls’ rest room and locked myself in a stall and sobbed quietly. What should I do? I kept asking myself—or maybe I was praying—I’m still not sure. But the next thing I knew, I heard a voice from above. And I looked up to see a head of blonde curls bending down over me.
“Are you okay?” asked the girl hanging over the side of the bathroom stall.
I recognized her as one of the Jesus freaks who’d confronted us at the pizza restaurant that night after the game. I just shook my head.
“Want to talk?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re already late for seventh period. I’ve got a car—we could just skip.”
“Skip?” I looked at her incredulously. “I thought you were supposed to be a Jesus freak.”
She laughed. “Just because I believe in Jesus doesn’t mean I’m perfect.” She tossed back the hair from her eyes. “And besides, Jesus might rather I spent time with you than snooze through biology. So how about it? Wanna go talk?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Her name was Sara Hanson and she drove a yellow Volkswagen bug. “My daddy got this for me on my seventeenth birthday,” she said as she slipped it into gear and pulled out of the school parking lot. “He’s just so glad that I’ve finally straightened out.” She laughed. “I used to be really screwed up. I was into drugs and boys and whatever trouble I could find. But then I found Jesus and now I live for him.”
“You were into drugs?”
She nodded. “Yeah, what a mess. And then we moved to Brookdale last year and these kids all started witnessing to me—especially Joey—”
“Joey Divers?”
“Yeah. In fact he’s the one who really got to me. He’s really smart and what he said made sense. And finally I just decided to give it a try. And well, here I am.”
She parked her bug down at the park and we sat there and talked for a long time. I told her all about Jim and how he was the only friend I had and I thought I might be in love with him, but I just wasn’t sure that I was ready for sex. It’s funny, I never told her about the voices at that point or the other things that had been confusing me. Instead we just talked about sex and she told me why she believed that Jesus had told her to stop having it. “I know it sounds strange,” she said, “but I really believe that Jesus wants me to love him with all my energy. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m having sex with him. I mean that would be pretty twisted, wouldn’t it? But it’s like I’m supposed to love him with all of me, and I can’t do that very well if I’m having sex with every guy who comes along.”
I’d never heard anyone say anything like that before. It sounded slightly fanatical, but it sort of made sense too. “So will you ever have sex then?”
She laughed. “Sure. At least I think so. But not until I get married. And I feel really sure that Jesus has some guy all picked out for me to marry. I’m thinking it might even be Joey Divers.”
“Really?” A strange jolt of jealousy ran through me, but I quickly dismissed it.
“Yeah, I think I’ll go to the university too.”
“Is that where he’s at?”
“Yeah. He got a full scholarship there. He’s such an academic.”
I nodded, fighting the lump that was growing in my throat. “I know. He used to be my best friend.”
“I thought you must’ve been pretty special to him. I mean why else would he ask us all to pray for you night and day like that?” She studied me closely. “Were you his girlfriend?”
I forced a laugh. “No, nothing like that. We were always just friends. Good friends.”
“That’s good. We should all be good friends. That’s what Jesus wants.” She reached over and touched my arm. “But how about you, Cass? Don’t you want to give your heart to Jesus too?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do. I think that’s why you’re thinking about all these things and getting so frustrated. I think it’s just because Jesus is reaching out to you—calling you to himself.”
I had the strangest sensation just then. Not exactly like when I went forward at church, but similar. A compulsion really. It’s as if I couldn’t resist, or maybe I just didn’t want to anymore. “You know Sara, you may be right. You see, I sort of gave my life to God last summer, but then everything just fell apart and I figured God had let me down and so I think I sort of reneged on him, if you know what I mean.”
“I know. But sometimes even when things are looking totally hopeless, we just need to keep trusting him anyway—and then he just turns everything around. But he can’t help you if you don’t let him, Cass. And he can’t show you which way you’re supposed to go if you just keep pushing him away from you. He wants to be your best friend, you know. You wouldn’t just push your best friend away now would you?”
I didn’t tell her I hadn’t had much experience with best friends as a rule (well, other than Joey—and I suppose in some ways I did push him away, eventually). “I don’t know.”
“Well, I know you wouldn’t. You seem like a good person to me, Cass—not that it matters ’cause Jesus takes us no matter how bad a shape we’re in. But I think if you really gave your heart to him—well, I think you’d be true to him.”
And for the second time that day I began to cry. “I don’t usually act all soppy like this,” I sputtered. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today—I wonder if I’m going nuts or something.”
Sara just laughed. “It’s Jesus touching your heart, Cass. Just sit here real quiet for a minute and see if you can’t feel him touching you now.”
And so we just sat in silence in her little car parked down by Oak Grove Park where the trees’ leaves had all turned brown and red and gold and I tried to see if Jesus was really touching my heart like she said he was. And to be honest I truly think he was, and so right then and there I silently asked Jesus to really come into my heart. And it was as if this heavy load was instantly lifted from me. Finally after a long while I turned and told Sara, almost afraid to speak and risk losing what seemed to be going on in me. And she was so happy she hugged me.
“You’re my sister now, Cass,” she said with wet eyes. “I’m so glad for you. I can’t wait to write
and tell Joey. He’ll be so pleased.”
As she drove me home I felt pretty certain that Jim wouldn’t be quite so pleased. But I knew I had to tell him all about this. And perhaps Jesus was calling on him too. It could happen. And so like grasping a little lifeline I held on to the slim hope that Jim would ask Jesus into his heart too—after all, hadn’t he given up drinking and such? Maybe he was ready for something like this. I prayed for Jim during the remainder of the day while I did my chores at the Glenn’s and then got ready to go to the football game that night.
Of course, I thought to myself as I walked back over to the school where I would catch the activity bus that would take me to the football game in a town twenty miles away. Why, of course, Jesus wants to save Jim too—that’s probably why the two of us became such good friends in the first place. And then after Jim sees the light (as I remembered hearing Pastor Henry say) Jim and I can continue to date and have a good time together. And this is exactly what I prayed for as I walked through town. Yet even as I said these prayers I sensed a shadow of doubt hanging all about my words. That would be just too good—too amazing and unbelievable! Especially for someone like me—someone who always seemed to come by everything the hard way. Why should anything change now?
And as it turned out I was exactly right.
Twelve
My grandma used to say you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and I suppose that’s a little how I felt that night when I figured out Jim and I were history. At the time I probably tried to flatter myself into thinking it was simply the result of me becoming a Jesus freak, but underneath all that I felt like a social failure—sort of like Eliza Doolittle gone wrong.
It was almost Homecoming week and naturally Sally Roberts had been nominated as one of the contestants for Homecoming Queen (I heard she nominated herself). But as fate would have it (that very day, during seventh period, while I was sitting in Sara’s car turning myself into a Jesus freak) Sally Roberts had somehow coerced Jim into agreeing to be her escort at Homecoming next week. I came by this information quite innocently enough during halftime in the girls’ rest room (behind a closed stall door) as Sally and her cheerleading buddies adjusted their makeup and sprayed on perfumes that smelled like a rancid mixture of overripe strawberries and lilacs and chattered like magpies in front of the big mirror above the sinks. Just before I opened the door I heard Sally’s high-pitched little-girl tone that always made my skin crawl. “And Jimmy Flynn’s going to escort me!” she squealed with delight. My fingers froze on the little latch that held the flimsy plywood door closed and I sucked in my breath and waited.
“How’d you talk him into that?” asked head cheerleader Julie Miller.
“I consider it a mission of pure mercy,” said Sally in what had suddenly turned into a haughty tone. “Don’t you know I’m saving him from turning into poor white trash just like that Maxwell nerd he’s been seen with late—”
Well, that was all I could take. I threw open the door and stepped out, then instantly wished I hadn’t. Their conversation ceased as I walked past them, my jean jacket brushing against the blur of their red-and-gold uniforms. I headed straight for the sink. Focusing my eyes on the water I quickly washed my hands, not even glancing up into the mirror, not wanting to see their perfectly made-up faces reflected there. Other than the sound of water and a toilet flushing, the room was hushed, but I could feel their eyes burning mean, dark holes into me. I saw Sally toss a challenging look my way as I moved past her. But she said nothing, only smiled smugly, victorious, as I exited the stuffy, perfume-saturated room.
I never did return to the stands that night. Instead I walked around the somewhat deserted town that didn’t look all that different from Brookdale and wondered what was the real meaning of life. I did believe that I’d given my heart to Jesus that day—but for what reason? I wasn’t entirely sure. Why did Jesus need my heart in the first place? And now it seemed somewhat defective—what would Jesus want with a broken heart?
After circling the town I found myself back at the high-school parking lot and the game still only in the beginning of the fourth quarter. So I slipped into the activity bus, went clear to the back, curled up on the cold, hard, vinyl seat, and cried myself to sleep. When the bus finally returned to Brookdale High, I walked straight home—not bothering to wait outside the locker room for Jim. I wondered if he’d miss me. I hoped he would. Still as I walked toward the Glenn’s house I felt strangely and unexpectedly encouraged. For some reason it no longer felt as if my life were completely over. Something had changed in me. And although I felt slightly mystified by all this, I wondered if it might actually be Jesus. Could he be doing something in my pitiful little life? It seemed possible.
Now if I’d been a normal girl, living a normal life, I might’ve thought up excuses to hang around the kitchen the following day expecting the phone to ring. But as it was I had no phone of my own and wasn’t allowed to use the Glenn’s phone for incoming calls (sometimes I could sneak an outgoing call if Mrs. Glenn wasn’t around) so Jim didn’t even have my phone number.
Maybe this was a relief of sorts, for I felt no distraction as I went about my Saturday chores, only a sort of hopeful numbness. And when I got done I returned to my room to do my homework and play my guitar. I even had the clarity of mind to write a little song about Jesus coming into my heart that even to this day I still sing sometimes.
Did I feel bad about being dumped for Sally Roberts? Well of course! But I now realized it wasn’t going to be the end of my life. I think for the first time I really understood deep down in my soul (well, maybe it was just a brief and fleeting glimpse) that I couldn’t fully depend on earthly people. Somehow I figured that eventually everyone would let me down in one way or another, maybe not intentionally, but sooner or later it would happen. After all I’d had a rather full history of being let down—why should I suspect anything would ever change?
But during this same flash of insight I also realized that Jesus would never let me down—somehow I just knew that I could count on him. And I think I really believed it—at least during that moment in time. Unfortunately we don’t always grab on to and really adhere to the things we truly believe. Or perhaps we simply grab on to them too tightly, and then, like grains of sand in a doubled-up fist, they trickle through our fingers and disappear altogether. Sometimes faith can be kind of slippery like that I think.
On Sunday afternoon I went outside to rake the soggy maple leaves from the parking strip along the street (the last activity on my weekend “chores list”) when I noticed a bright yellow car coming toward me. And then I saw someone waving from inside and realized it was Sara in her VW bug. She parked in front of the Glenn’s house and climbed out. “I was hoping I’d catch you,” she said. “I forgot to get your phone number and when I tried one from the phone book, it was disconnected.” She glanced up at the Glenn’s house. “Nice place, Cass.”
I suddenly realized that she really didn’t know anything about me and was just assuming that this was where I lived with my family. So I leaned the rake against the tree and sighed. “This isn’t really my house, Sara, I just live here and do housework for them.” I couldn’t bring myself to use the term foster home since it hardly seemed a fitting description of the arrangement we had going on here.
“Oh.” She looked slightly puzzled. “Well anyway, I came by to see if you want to join us tonight—for what we call a rap session.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, just a bunch of us that get together and talk about Jesus and God and spiritual things and stuff. It’s not related to any church or anything. And it’s pretty laid-back. We all bring pop and chips and stuff, and then we sit around on the floor and just rap together for as long as we want. It’s at my house tonight. Want to come?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a car. Do you live very far from here?”
“I’m only about six blocks away. But I can pick you up if you want.”
“That’s okay. I’m us
ed to walking pretty much everywhere.” So she gave me her address and phone number and I promised her I’d come.
“So are you doing okay, then?” she asked me, concern showing in her blue eyes. “I mean, now that you’ve got Jesus in your heart, are things going okay for you? You seem a little down.”
I shrugged again. “Well, it hasn’t been exactly easy. Jim and I are broken up now—well, at least I think we are. I haven’t actually seen him in a couple days.”
“That’s probably for the best, Cass. Especially since he was pushing you, you know. Now you can just get all that much closer to Jesus.” She smiled brightly, reminding me of an ad for toothpaste—the Colgate girl.
But I sensed despite the perky smile she was sincere. “Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing,” I tried to sound more positive, “and I even wrote a song about Jesus, and I can play it on my guitar and…” I looked down at the leaf-covered ground, suddenly wondering why I was going on like this, telling her all about the song that was so personal to me.
“Cool,” she said. “Maybe you can share your song with the group tonight.”
“Oh no, I don’t think—”
“Oh, come on, Cass, you’re not supposed to keep your light under a bushel basket, you know. And it’d be really neat if you sang—everyone would love it. We always sing songs in the beginning. Some kids bring their guitars and we really get down sometimes.” She tugged on my arm. “Now listen, I want you to bring your guitar and your Bible—you do have a Bible, don’t you?”
I nodded dumbly.
“Okay, then, it’s settled. And on second thought I think I should swing by and pick you up. No sense in you walking and lugging your guitar six blocks when it’s supposed to rain again tonight. I’ll come by around six-thirty.”
I explained to her about the Glenns and my “no visitors” rule, then showed her my back entrance where she could knock on the door.
Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) Page 11
