Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels)

by Melody Carlson

  “Cool!” Then she turned and waved. “See ya then!”

  I finished raking the mushy leaves and returned to my room, where I practiced my little song again and again, worried that I’d make a complete fool of myself in front of this group of Jesus freaks. Why I was so worried about impressing these kids that I had only six months ago completely put down and disdained was a pure mystery to me. But for some reason it mattered now.

  Sara picked me up as promised. “Now let me warn you, my parents aren’t exactly saved. I know that probably seems weird since I’m having this thing at my house, but I figure the influence will be good for them. But I just want you to know that they smoke and drink and cuss and stuff—and so if you think you’re coming to some goody-goody churchy home, then you’d better be forewarned.”

  This actually made me laugh. “Well, I doubt there’s anything your family could possibly do that would shock me. I’ve pretty much seen it all. My dad was well-known as the town drunk and now he’s in prison—or maybe he’s out by now. But it was his second time, so I don’t know.”

  “Wow, what did he do?” She actually seemed impressed.

  “He beat me up while he was under the influence.”

  She glanced over at me as she pulled into the driveway. “Man, I knew your family had some problems, Cass, but I didn’t realize it was anything like that. That sounds pretty exciting.”

  “Exciting?” I felt my brows arch. “It’s pretty gross, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I know. But it’s just not your everyday small-town story.”

  “I guess ‘everyday’ people should be thankful for that.”

  I had to admit the rap session was pretty cool. I couldn’t believe how warm and friendly and genuine the kids seemed—it’s like I suddenly had this huge group of friends who accepted me just as I was. I didn’t even mind playing my song for them, and everyone said they really liked it.

  It was so strange—kids from all walks of life were gathered in this one place and yet there was this unity. I knew that only Jesus could do that. And for the first time ever, I think I felt almost completely at home. It was amazing.

  A guy who’d graduated a couple years ago and was now taking a correspondence Bible course was obviously leading the group. His name was Scott Jones but his friends all called him Sky. (Sara said it was because his eyes were sky blue, but Joe Allen, a guy with a witty sense of humor, jokingly said it was because he was such an airhead.) Anyway, Sky directed the group during the discussion and his deep spiritual beliefs and religious convictions became increasingly apparent to me. You could just tell that Sky really wanted to serve God.

  I stayed late to help Sara clean up and asked her about Sky and how he’d come to be such a strong Christian. “Oh, you and Sky have some things in common,” she said as she placed a tumbler in the dishwasher. “His dad’s an alcoholic too, and there’s been a lot of violence in his home.”

  “Does he still live at home?”

  “No. He’s got a place of his own—a dumpy little trailer over by the railroad tracks. But he says he’d rather be there than living in his parents’ home where they fight all the time.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that.”

  “Well, I should warn you that half the girls in the group think they’re in love with Sky.” She laughed. “I try not to be one of them—although he is awfully good-looking, don’t you think?”

  I shrugged, unwilling to commit myself one way or the other. “So do any of the kids in the group date each other?”

  “Yeah. Mitch and Cindy have been going out for a while now. And there’s a few others too. Sky says he doesn’t want to date anyone because it might get in the way of his taking care of all of us.”

  “So does he see himself as being kind of like a pastor or something?”

  Sara nodded as she closed the dishwasher. “Yeah, he’s sort of like our shepherd, I guess. We’re not exactly a church of course, and some of the kids do go to churches with their families and stuff. But some of us think of this group as our church. And Sky says that’s how churches first got started back in the early Christian days. Kind of cool, huh?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It seems more real than those churches where you go and sit in pews and read prayers from books and stuff like that.”

  “So you want to keep coming?”

  “Sure.”

  “We meet on Wednesday and Sunday nights. And it looks like we’ll be meeting at my place for a while. Cindy’s folks said she can’t have it there until her grades improve.”

  And so I guess that’s how I became a Jesus freak. A boy broke my heart and Jesus fixed it.

  It’s funny to think of now, but Jim and I never really “officially” broke up. Maybe it’s because we never really “officially” went together. The next conversation I had with him was the following Monday, when I told him I knew about this thing with Sally Roberts. He seemed somewhat apologetic and said he’d been talked into escorting her. But I told him it didn’t matter anyway since I’d given my heart to Jesus and was now an “official” Jesus freak.

  “You kidding me, Cass?” He looked at me as if he actually thought I was pulling a fast one and he was all ready to crack up laughing.

  I shook my head firmly. “Nope, I’m serious. This is for real, Jim. And it’s just what I needed in my life.”

  He blinked. “You’re really serious?”

  “Yep. And if you ever want to know more about giving your heart to Jesus, just feel free to ask.” I forced a bright smile to my lips (because the truth was, I still hurt a little inside, especially when standing face-to-face with him like that). “I’d still like to be your friend, Jim, but my heart belongs to Jesus now.”

  “Well, okay, then.” He stepped away from me as if I might have some contagious disease and then he nodded and just kept walking. I felt like someone had punched me and yet I simultaneously felt something like a martyr too—like I’d given up something important just so I could serve Jesus.

  Never mind that Jim had already sidestepped me to escort snooty Sally Roberts at Homecoming, which I later heard she won although I didn’t attend that football game—or any others for that matter. Suddenly football games not only seemed “carnal” (a new word I learned from Sky the following Wednesday) but silly as well. Carnal meant something was opposed to the ways of Jesus. It was like sin or something. And it seemed according to Sky that most things in life were fairly carnal.

  But for some reason I didn’t mind hearing this news. In fact I think I was eager to embrace this sort of teaching. In a weird way it was a relief for me to find out that so many things were wrong and bad and sinful and “worldly” (another word Sky liked to use that meant the same thing as carnal).

  Somehow all these classifications made it easier for me to make choices because everything was either right or wrong, black or white—clear-cut and straightforward. It’s almost as if I no longer needed to think for myself. And the truth was, my troubled mind had already been abused and exhausted with all the thinking I’d been doing and I felt more than ready to give my brain a little break… or as it turned out a rather long one.

  So for week after week I did little more than school, homework, chores, and then rap session and Bible study. (Wednesday was called Bible study, although it seemed we listened more to Sky than to the Bible. And Sunday was rap, where Sky would lead us in group discussions.) When I wasn’t busy with these activities I was either scouring my Bible (which I began to mark and underline like I’d seen Sky do) or making up new songs on my guitar.

  To my amazement I soon became something of a leader myself in our little group. It seemed my musical abilities were a little more accomplished than the others and Sky started calling me his “right-hand girl” when it came to leading our worship time. And I must admit that I greatly enjoyed his attention although at the same time I constantly repented of my “carnal” nature lest I enjoy his favor a little too much.

  It was during those weeks that I began to come down
hard on myself for every little thing I did that seemed wrong (which seemed to be mostly everything). I would get down on my knees before Jesus in the privacy of my little windowless abode and beg and plead for his forgiveness, and after that I might even deprive myself of things like food or my guitar as a form of penance.

  Sky talked about penance a lot. It was a way for us to show God how sorry we were when we blew it (which seemed to be most of the time in my case). I had problems using the “bad words” I’d picked up during junior high with Bryn. And I sometimes told lies, mostly to the Glenns. And my thoughts were just always running away to some earned place. It just seemed I could never get myself to be quite good enough to really please Jesus. But it was a good challenge for me and I never wanted to give up trying.

  Just before Christmas our little group decided to launch an all-out campaign to spread the good news about Jesus to our entire town. We devised a plan where we would go door-to-door in pairs and tell every single living soul in Brookdale about Jesus and how he wanted them to repent of their sins and to understand the true meaning of Christmas.

  Sara and I were partners, and with less than two weeks before Christmas we began to work out “our district’s plan for salvation.” Sky had warned us, quoting from the Bible how many would ridicule us for our faith but that we were to simply shake the dirt from our shoes and continue on to the next house when this happened.

  I suppose in a way this ridicule and rejection was something of its own reward (for it proved to us that Sky once again was exactly right-on). But to my surprise there were actually some people who welcomed us into their homes and they actually listened to our little speech, and some even asked us what church we attended. When we said “none” there were some who appeared slightly taken aback and concerned.

  “You girls don’t attend a church?” said a sweet old lady with blue-tinted hair. I must confess I liked her. She had soft, powdery-looking cheeks and a cozy old-fashioned home with crocheted doilies on every armrest. And her homemade snickerdoodle cookies just melted in my mouth. I liked her so well that I briefly imagined “adopting” her as a surrogate grandmother and I’ll bet she’d have been willing. But of course I did not.

  “Well, we don’t go to a regular church,” explained Sara. “But we all meet together to pray and stuff—just like a church, only better.”

  The woman frowned. “But you girls need to be in a real church too, with a real pastor who’s trained to preach God’s Word and to watch over you.”

  Sara and I smiled knowingly. How uninformed and stodgy some of these elderly folks could be. But we were polite and tried to humor the old woman.

  “We have a nice youth group leader at our church.” She tried again as we walked toward the door.

  “Now don’t you worry about us,” I assured her. “We meet at least twice a week with our brothers and sisters and we’re more devoted to Jesus than most people who go to regular churches. Thanks for the cookies, ma’am.”

  Still she seemed unconvinced and kindly invited us to come to her church for the Christmas service. “We have candles and a living Nativity scene and the choir’s been practicing for weeks.”

  Once again we declined and she said she would be praying for our spiritual well-being. We thought this highly amusing since it seemed perfectly clear to us that we were living far more spiritual lives than she and most likely everyone else in her fuddy-duddy little church, but we thanked her anyway.

  We met several more like her, but for the most part people just turned us away, and then we would dramatically stand on their walk and pretend to be shaking the dirt from our shoes before we walked on to the next house, usually even laughing as we went. But the most amazing thing was when we actually came across some poor soul who had never heard the news that Jesus could forgive sins, and like ripe fruit just waiting to be picked they listened to every word and then even allowed us to pray with them. The only slightly frustrating thing at this point was if they asked us what they should do next. Like one particular woman with young children who seemed to be trapped in a horrible marriage.

  “You girls are a real godsend to me,” she said after we finished praying. “But what should I do now? My husband is a real mess and my mama keeps telling me to leave him and come live with her. But I’ve got these little kids, and I don’t know… I think I just need someone who is wise about these things—someone I can talk to.” Her eyes lit up. “Can you give me the name of your church—so that maybe I could call up someone there? A pastor or something?”

  So once again we explained our situation to her but then we didn’t really know quite what to say. We took down her phone number and told her we’d ask our leader to give her a call. But I’m sure he never did. We were all pretty overwhelmed with our “reaching the town” mission just then and the most important thing seemed to be hitting every household with our gospel message. What came after that? Well, no one really seemed to know.

  As we tramped from house to house Sara informed me that Joey Divers had come home from college for Christmas vacation and I asked her why he hadn’t come to any of our meetings or joined us in our citywide crusade.

  “I invited him to come,” she said as we walked away from another unbelieving doorstep, pausing to shake the pretend dust from our feet, “but he didn’t want to.”

  “Oh dear,” I said. “Do you think Joey has fallen away from Jesus?” I felt proud to be using all this new terminology—phrases like falling away or getting saved or washed in the blood—it was all like a brand-new language to me but I took to it like a duck to water as my grandma might say.

  “You know, I was thinking the same thing, so I asked Joey about his spiritual condition. He assured me he was doing just great.”

  “Well, what’s his problem, then?” I asked, feeling mildly irritated.

  “I think he’s jealous of Sky.”

  I stopped walking and turned to her. “Jealous of Sky?”

  She nodded, her lips pressed together as if she’d just used a bad cussword (one of the last bad habits of my flesh that still gave me trouble from time to time).

  “But that’s awful,” I said quietly. “Jealousy is a sin, isn’t it?”

  She nodded again. “We’ll have to be praying especially hard for poor Joey.”

  “That’s for sure,” I agreed as she knocked on yet another door.

  Our mission continued right up until Christmas Eve day, and all during that time I never once saw or spoke to Joey Divers. I felt just slightly bad, though, because even if he was committing a grievous sin by being jealous of his brother and our spiritual leader, Sky, I still felt a childish loyalty toward my old friend Joey. I must admit I struggled with it some, fearing it might actually be a part of my “old sinful nature” trying to veer my spiritual allegiance away from Sky. And so as a result I made no attempt to see Joey during that time. Somehow I felt it would be wrong—sinful, even.

  Thirteen

  They say that a prophet is never accepted in his own hometown, and I suppose that was the case with us and with Sky.

  Shortly after Christmas (after the completion of our crusade) the local newspaper ran a mean-spirited article about our group’s “insensitive and somewhat crazed evangelistic efforts” and how we Jesus freaks had “literally assaulted the entire town” with our fanatical beliefs. The editor even accused us of being a cult! Not that I knew exactly what that meant, but it surely didn’t sound good to me.

  Sky was extremely upset and affronted by these wild accusations. He actually seemed quite depressed as he held a somber meeting just after Christmas. He carefully explained to us that this was a sign of the times and we were being persecuted for our religious beliefs, and then he read aloud a strong rebuttal letter that he’d written and sent to the paper, although he said he doubted that they’d dare to print it. But to everyone’s surprise it appeared in the paper the morning before New Year’s Day. And on that same day I just happened to be in town picking up some last-minute groceries for Mrs. Glenn whe
n I ran into Joey Divers in the produce section.

  I noticed him over by the orange bin before he saw me. His cane had caught my attention. (He’d exchanged his metal crutch for a sturdy wooden cane during his last years in high school. I suspected it was a little less dependable but it probably made him feel better. And if you didn’t look too closely at him you might not even notice the shiny metal of his leg brace beneath the neat hem of his pants.) All in all Joey looked good—and surprisingly collegiate—in his dark gray sweater and tan cord pants. He’d replaced his heavy black-rimmed glasses for smaller wire-rims and had allowed his hair to grow some. It now fell in dark waves just above his collar line.

  He saw me as he turned around to set a bag of oranges in the cart. “Cass!” he exclaimed. His face broke into a huge smile, and for the first time in my life I felt that Joey Divers was actually quite handsome (funny I’d never noticed before, or perhaps it was something college had brought out in him). Those unexpected feelings caught me off guard and I felt my cheeks blush as I realized I would surely need to kneel and confess the sins of my carnal flesh in order to become clean again. “Hey, Joey,” I said soberly, hoping my eyes wouldn’t betray me.

  “It’s so great to see you!” He walked over to me and looked as if he was about to hug me—although we’d never hugged before, or at least not since we were quite small. But then he hesitated (probably due to my dour expression) and extended his hand. A confusing mixture of disappointment and relief washed over me as I took his hand, enjoying the strength and warmth for a long moment but knowing I’d have to repent of this as well later. What was wrong with me?

  “How’re you doing, Joey?” I tried not to look into his eyes.

  “Great. College is great.” He released my hand, then reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, leaving it there for just a moment. I knew it was meant to be a gesture of kindness. “How’s it going with you, Cass?”

  “It’s going really good,” I finally said, stepping back just far enough to cause his hand to fall away from my shoulder. Then I looked down at the bunch of bananas hanging limply in my hand. “I got saved, you know.” I looked up at him then, waiting for some sign of approval—approval was critical to me in those days, almost an addiction I suppose.