Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels)

by Melody Carlson

  Sometime around 2 A.M. Skip awakened and told me it was his turn to drive. So we pulled over and, trying not to disturb Sky and Linda in the back, quietly switched seats. We waited as Mitch did the same behind us in the little VW bug, this time letting Cindy drive. “There’s room for you back here, Cass,” whispered Sky. “Why don’t you come lie down for a bit?”

  But for some reason that I’m still not entirely sure of, I declined to join them back there. Maybe I was still a little frightened of my own sinful nature. “It’s okay; I’m fine up here,” I told him. “I’m not really that sleepy right now anyway, and I’ll keep Skip company for a while.”

  Skip turned and smiled. “You mean you’re going to keep me awake?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, that’s probably what I mean. All those white lines can be a little hypnotic if you don’t watch out.”

  And so I sat up front next to Skip, fairly wide awake now and trying to make sure that he didn’t fall asleep. We chatted together and for the first time I really began to know him better. He was a senior that year—would’ve graduated in the spring. But he said he’d had no plans to attend college anyway and would probably just get drafted into Vietnam. Besides that, his parents’ marriage of nearly twenty-five years was on the rocks and he suspected that they were both having affairs and would soon be divorced.

  “I guess it was a good time for me to leave,” he said quietly, but I could still hear the pain in his voice.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard on you.”

  “I suppose, but you know what they say about God moving in mysterious ways. I suppose if my parents weren’t such a mess I might not have come—and then just think what I would’ve missed out on.”

  “It’s really exciting, isn’t it?” I began to get dreamy again. “I mean, to think in just a couple days we’ll all be living together in the Promised Land—spending time before the Lord and working together to take care of each other—it’s going to be so neat!”

  “Yeah, kinda like heaven on earth.” He sighed. “And I’ve heard the weather is really great in California too.”

  And then we got a little silly, probably tired from all that driving, but we began singing every old California tune we could think of. Songs like “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “California Dreaming” (one of my personal favorites) and the one that starts out, “If you’re going to San Francisco…”

  Finally I felt a little guilty for singing such worldly songs when we were supposed to be following God to a more holy life. “Uh, maybe we should sing something a little more spiritual,” I suggested.

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

  So then we began singing some of the choruses and praise songs that we’d learned from Sky and before long, both Sky and Linda sat up and began singing with us. Sky dug around until he found my guitar, and right there in the middle of the night, plummeting seventy miles an hour down some Midwest highway, we had ourselves a pleasant little songfest—worshiping God together in unity as we headed toward our spiritual destiny. I’m certain I even got goose bumps.

  After we finally ran out of wind, Sky took over the wheel for the next shift. At this time I went ahead and climbed into the back, and feeling completely but happily spent, I flopped down on the mattress next to Linda. I tried not to envy her (aware that she’d spent the entire night in relative comfort back there and had most likely gotten the best night’s rest of everyone) for I knew that it was sinful and wrong to envy and by then I was working harder than ever to keep my heart pure for Jesus.

  My thinking back then seems strange to me now, but at the time it made perfect sense. And the further we proceeded on our journey, the more important this line of thinking became to me. I actually began to believe that if I could just be good enough—free enough from sin—that all would go well with this thing we were attempting to do and that God would look down upon us with great pleasure and that he would abundantly bless us with all that we needed in life.

  Underneath my thin and untested veneer of faith I still had my little shadows of doubt to contend with—I knew what it was like to be hungry and go without and I didn’t particularly relish the idea of living like that once again. And so I began to convince myself that if I could just be good enough, righteous enough, holy and pious enough—then all would be well.

  We stopped for breakfast in a small town west of Amarillo and I still remember the dour looks we got as we poured out of the van and bug looking all grubby and rumpled. I think we actually enjoyed our “hippy, Jesus freak” status and the attention it got us.

  “Bring your guitar in, Cass,” called Sky. “We’ll sing some songs before breakfast.” So I grabbed my guitar and the seven of us went inside and situated ourselves in a large corner booth and began singing praise songs. I halfway expected the manager to come over and shut us down but to our surprise we got no complaints.

  “Well, that’s right nice,” said a middle-aged waitress. “But if you kids think you’re gonna sing for your breakfast, you better think again.”

  “No,” said Sky. “We’re just hoping to share a little bit of the joy of the Lord with the people in this place.”

  “Now that’s a new one.” She laughed then took our orders.

  After she left Sky told us he had an important announcement to make and naturally we all stopped talking to listen to him.

  I know it sounds just like that old TV commercial, but when Sky talked, people listened. There’s no denying that there was “something special” about him. Some might say it was simply his good looks or his dramatic way with words—before they really knew him, that is. And I’ll admit he was easy to look at with his shoulder-length, wavy blond hair. And his voice had this calming yet compelling authoritative quality to it. But there was something more, too.

  Maybe it was the way he held his head at a certain angle, with his chin tilted just slightly upward, and the way he looked upon us with that even gaze that felt like he was meeting your eyes but was actually looking just a little bit higher, maybe about to the center of your forehead (as if he were reading your mind, which some people later on actually believed he could do). But those clear, blue eyes—just something about their bright intensity made you want to believe that whatever he said was truly spiritual, vitally important, even life-changing, and always, always well worth listening to. He just had that effect on you.

  And so there we were, his six faithful followers, somewhat worn and road weary, sitting in the corner booth, eyes and ears attentive to his “important announcement.”

  “I’ve had another vision,” he said quietly, slowly, then pausing for effect. “It came to me while I was driving this morning. God told me that he is taking us to a new place and that he is making us into new people and that we shall all have new names.”

  “New names?” repeated Sara. “You mean I won’t be Sara anymore?”

  “That’s right,” said Sky. “We will take off the old and put on the new. You know, Jesus said you can’t pour new wine into old wineskins. Therefore, we shall all have new names.”

  “Cool,” said Linda. “I never much liked my name anyway.”

  “How about you?” asked Skip. “What’ll your name be?”

  “Well, as you know, I’ve already changed my name,” said Sky. “Remember, my old name used to be Scott. But God told me I could change it to Sky because that’s how big my future would be—as long and as wide as the sky.”

  “Yes, I remember,” said Cindy. “But what will our names be?”

  Sky closed his eyes for a moment, as if meditating.

  Just then the waitress began bringing our drinks, noisily clunking cups of cocoa and coffee and glasses of juice and water onto the table. All the while Sky just sat there with his eyes closed, his face serene—almost trancelike. The waitress looked curiously at him, then just chuckled to herself as she walked away. When it grew quiet again, aside from the clanking of dishes in the kitchen and the chatter of other diners, Sky
began to speak.

  “Linda, your name shall be Moonlight.”

  “Moonlight.” She sighed dreamily as she pushed back a strand of dishwater-blonde hair. “Yeah, I like that, Sky.”

  “Sara, your name will be Sunshine.”

  Sara smiled. “Cool.”

  He turned to Cindy. “You will be known as Breeze.”

  “Breeze?” Her face looked slightly puzzled for a moment but then she nodded. “Yeah, that’s okay, I guess.”

  “Mitch, your name shall be River.”

  Mitch nodded. “Yeah, I can handle that.”

  “Skip, you shall be called Stone.”

  “Cool, kinda like Peter, huh? Didn’t his name mean rock or something like that?”

  Sky nodded. “That’s right.”

  Now I waited expectantly, the last one to be renamed. I felt almost afraid to move or even breathe—what would my new name be?

  “Cass, you will be our Rainbow.”

  “Rainbow.” I repeated the name quietly as I imagined the beautiful watery strips of colors with the sunlight shining through. “I like it.”

  Now Sky looked around the table. “From here on out we will only refer to one another by these new names. Understand?”

  We all agreed, playfully trying out our new names with each other but getting some, like River and Stone, switched around. By the end of breakfast we’d almost gotten it figured out.

  “This is so cool,” said Sunshine (formerly known as Sara). “I really do feel like a new person now!”

  Sky went up to the counter to pay the bill. I’d handed my money over to him the previous day (as had everyone). But first we’d made a big pile and dedicated every cent of it to the Lord and asked him to bless it and—like the loaves and fishes—to multiply it. I wasn’t sure where Sky had stashed it all but I wasn’t concerned, just curious as to whether the bills had reproduced yet. But quite honestly I was no longer worried. Between God and Sky I felt we were all in good hands.

  “Hey, Rainbow,” called Sky. “I believe it’s your turn to drive now. You ready?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, catching the keys as he tossed them my way.

  “Wait, everyone,” called Moonlight. “I’m getting out my camera. Let’s all line up in front of the van and get some pictures.”

  And so we all posed ourselves in silly positions around the psychedelic van and bug while Moonlight took some shots on her little Kodak Instamatic. Then she practically assaulted a man who’d just climbed down from a semi that appeared to be hauling a load of livestock and somehow convinced him to snap a picture of all seven of us.

  “Crazy bunch of hippies,” he muttered after he took several shots then returned the camera to her. “What’s this world coming to anyway?”

  “God bless you!” Sunshine cried out in return.

  “Jesus lives!” yelled Stone.

  The rest of us pointed up toward the heavens and yelled, “There’s only one way!”

  The man just rolled his eyes and ambled on toward the diner.

  As I climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for the others to get in, it hit me once again that I was really on my way somewhere—somewhere important. And suddenly I imagined myself to be a new person, just like Sky had said. A new person who, from this day on, would be known by a new name—Rainbow! I thought about my new name, running it through my mind. Now didn’t that mean something like hope or promise or something wonderful like that? I focused my eyes on the westbound highway and told myself that at last, I was going home!

  Sixteen

  It takes a cross-country van trip with a bunch of unwashed teen-aged friends to fully appreciate the sacrifices made during the hippy movement. It’s not that our goal was to look and smell like a carload of farm animals exactly—it was simply inevitable. And although the next two days on the road were long and grueling and somewhat odorous we all remained in surprisingly happy spirits. On our second day of almost nonstop travel I asked Sky why we had to get to California so fast—so fast that we couldn’t even stop to bathe or wash our hair. (Not that hygiene was my major concern.) But since I’d never been much outside of Brookdale I felt slightly dismayed that we couldn’t take a little time to see more of the country as we traveled—and I suspected the Grand Canyon was somewhere nearby. Sky said he felt it best we get there quickly. “Partly because I’m concerned about the health of my grandmother, and partly because we don’t want to chance getting stopped.”

  “Stopped?”

  “Well, you know, Rainbow—” he affectionately patted me on the head— “other than River and me, you guys are all underage.”

  “Oh yeah.” I nodded, suddenly remembering that in the eyes of the law we might all be considered runaways.

  Later that day Sunshine wanted to call her parents from a pay phone at a gas station. “Just to let them know I’m okay,” she’d quickly explained after Sky had stopped her from dropping her dime in the phone (in fact, he confiscated her dime).

  “No, Sunshine. No one calls anyone until we get there,” he turned and announced to all of us. “We can’t allow any single one of us to put the entire group at risk.” Sunshine wasn’t too happy about this and for a brief moment I considered how her mother might be feeling right now—I remembered how just days ago she’d shown such concern for her daughter and wanted to patch things up between Sunshine and her dad. I felt bad for her, but in the next instant I made myself forget these things—just more thoughts to take captive.

  And that’s when it occurred to me that if I was “captivating” these thoughts then I must be putting them somewhere. But where was that? So that’s when I began to imagine some sort of big, gray prison cell designed to contain Cass’s—I mean Rainbow’s—errant and sinful thoughts. I must admit this image seemed almost humorous to me at the time.

  It was on the second day, during a pit stop in New Mexico, that Sky announced we would call each other brothers and sisters from now on—since that’s what we were in the eyes of the Lord. “Does that mean we have to say Brother Sky and Sister Moonlight?” asked Sunshine. “That’s kind of a mouthful, you know.”

  Sky considered this. “Well no, I suppose that seems a little formal. Maybe for when we’re meeting outsiders. For our own little family we can be more relaxed. But when you refer to the guys from now on you can call them the brothers, and the girls, the sisters. Does that make sense?” We all agreed that it made perfect sense. We would now be the brothers and the sisters—one big happy family.

  And it was amazing how close we all became to each other during this grueling three-day trip. It’s as if our spirits really were uniting. Even Moonlight, whom I’d felt the most distance from, (and only because I had to keep chiding myself for being so horribly judgmental against her) began to feel more like a real sister to me. It was also on the second day of our trip, just after dinner, that Sky had announced that all the sisters would travel together in the van during the night. And the brothers would ride together in the bug. At first we wondered what this was about, but he told us that God had told him that we were to keep separated for the remainder of our trip to prevent impure thoughts. And that seemed to make sense and naturally no one argued with him. No one ever argued with Sky. Well, almost no one.

  As a result we sisters enjoyed the feeling of sisterhood even more while being together in the van for those last two days. Sunshine took the lead among us, probably because she was just a natural leader anyway and also she was the oldest (almost eighteen). Since I’d never really had close girlfriends before (other than Bryn and that was always a strained relationship) this was new and rather fun for me. And for some reason it felt more relaxed and freeing than when the brothers were present where it often seemed we had the constant strain of vying for attention. I suppose it was mostly the sisters trying to get Sky’s attention, but I think there was a little tension between the brothers too. And even River and Breeze (who were already established as a couple) seemed as if they needed a little break from each other.


  “Hey, Breeze,” said Moonlight, “will you and River get married in California?”

  Breeze giggled. “Oh, I don’t know. What makes you ask that?”

  “Well, don’t you think some of us should get married once we get all settled in and everything?”

  Sunshine, who was driving, threw back her head and laughed. “So what are you saying, Moonlight? Are you wanting to get married or something?”

  “Maybe…”

  We all turned and looked at her (except for Sunshine who glanced up in the rearview mirror and continued driving). “Are you serious?” said Sunshine. “You really want to get married?”

  “Well, it’s probably better than living in sin.” Moonlight poked Breeze in the arm.

  “What’re you saying?” asked Breeze. “Are you saying you think that me and River are doing it?”

  Moonlight just laughed.

  “Well, we’re not, you know,” said Breeze defensively. “We know that’s wrong—that’s fornication, you know.”

  “Yeah, we know you’re not doing it, Breeze,” said Sunshine soothingly. “Moonlight’s just being silly, aren’t you, Moonie?”

  “Moonie?” she said indignantly. “Don’t you go calling me Moonie, Sister Sunny!”

  “Okay then, you better not go accusing Sister Breezie of things you don’t know anything about.”