Donut Days

by Lara Zielin

  “She’s back in New Orleans. Her name is Dee and she lives there with her mother. ‘Momma Jo’ is what we call her mom. The Angelfires will go back to them when we’re done in Minnesota.”

  “Are you and Dee married?”

  “No. But I hope to propose when I get back.”

  “Is she okay with you being in a motorcycle gang?”

  “Of course. She and Momma Jo are Angelfires too. I suppose that means Emma’s an Angelfire as well.” Bear laughed. “The littlest one.”

  Bear smiled big when he talked about them, but I noticed his hands never stopped tapping against his Sprite can. And he didn’t really look at me when he spoke. Part of him actually seemed nervous and sad.

  Good journalists have a keen sense of observation. But the best journalists see what’s going on and then get people to talk to them about it. Here was my test.

  “Minnesota has a lot of casinos. Yesterday you mentioned you have trouble, um, ‘at the racetrack’ is how you put it, I think.” I remembered Personal Finance for Dummies, then asked, “Is it tough being so close to gambling establishments? I mean, do you struggle with . . .” I tried to think of the most polite way to put it. “With your finances?”

  Bear leaned back to take the last swig of his Sprite and then stayed that way, all stretched out, with his eyes closed. Then he nodded slowly. When he opened his eyes, there were tears in them.

  It was weird watching a three-hundred-pound tattooed man cry. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought Bear would get mad, maybe reveal a hidden temper, but he didn’t. He just set his huge face in his huge hands and let the tears eke out silently. I wanted to put one of my hands on his shoulder, but I figured it would probably feel like a mosquito to him. I was also a little unsure as to whether or not I should touch him. “I’m so sorry, Bear,” I said. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

  Bear shook his head and pulled out a handkerchief. It had embroidery on it, of all things. He blew his nose once, politely, and then took a deep, shuddery breath. “I’d like to continue. It’s important.”

  He seemed to compose himself, at least enough to keep talking. “We may have been called by Jesus to Birch Lake,” he said, “but we’re also here because Dee and Momma Jo did research on where someone like me could go to gambling rehab.”

  Oh.

  “The other Angelfires have accompanied me here because they didn’t trust I’d actually come on my own. And they ’re right. If I didn’t have them with me, I would have left Minnesota long before now.” He picked at the skin around his index finger, which was the size of a Twin kie. I noticed that, in general, his cuticles and nails were very neat.

  “I have an appointment tomorrow at eleven A.M. with the Birch Lake Gambling Rehabilitation Center on Old Oak Road. And I’m frightened to my core to go.”

  “But you’ll go?”

  “I must go,” said Bear. “Dee and Momma Jo and all the Angelfires have been saving money for a year to get me here. Everybody has problems, Emma, but the key to making it through is letting the people around you help you.”

  But first they have to talk about it so you can help them, I thought, picturing my parents in my head.

  Bear paused for a second, then added, “Rehab is an expensive process. Do you realize what kind of financial support it takes?”

  “No.”

  “Ten thousand dollars for a month.”

  Holy crap.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Then I sat up suddenly. “You have ten thousand dollars on you?”

  “Please lower your voice,” hissed Bear. “I don’t want to announce it to the whole camp.”

  “Right. Sorry.” I lowered my voice. “You have ten thousand dollars on you?”

  Bear nodded. “Technically it’s locked on Anita’s bike, because Lord knows I can’t be trusted with ten thousand dollars. But it’s there. And it’s safe.”

  “You sure?”

  Bear looked at me hard. “The only people aware of it are the people that I tell.”

  I felt myself tremble. “Then your secret’s safe with me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bear and I talked until the light was long and low while we waited for the rest of the Angelfire Witnesses to return to camp.

  “They must have taken a detour,” Bear said. “And from experience, I know that Angelfire detours can last an extensive duration of time.”

  While we sat around, I wound up telling Bear about the issue with Mr. O’Connor’s prophecy at Living Word Redeemer, which I didn’t intend on doing at first. It wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to go around advertising.

  “Your poor mother,” said Bear when I was done with my story. “All that work, only to have the church members lose perspective. It always breaks my heart when rules become more important than principles.”

  I nodded. “Sometimes I think I just want to forget about God and church and the Bible. Sometimes I think I should just walk away from all of it. It just seems so confusing, you know?”

  Bear nodded. “Indeed, but I think you’d be missing out. For example, as old as it is, the Bible has a lot to offer us. It would be a shame for you to forgo all that wisdom.”

  I thought about how the Bible said God had created the world in six days, and then in First Peter it said that to God, a day was like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. I thought about how Jesus encouraged people to give up their possessions, but then other parts of the Bible said to be fruitful and prosperous, which some people took as God wanting them to be rich. I thought about how the church had fractured over what women should and shouldn’t be allowed to do from the pulpit, since the Bible didn’t spell it out.

  “Wisdom, schmisdom,” I mumbled.

  “Pardon?” asked Bear as a donager walked by.

  “Nothing,” I said, staring at the donager. “I was just thinking it might be easier if we all worshipped donuts or something. I mean, they taste good and they never hurt anybody. It might be pretty cool.”

  “But Jesus never hurt anyone,” Bear replied.

  “Yeah, but Christians hurt people. All the time.”

  “True,” said Bear. “But people are fallible. And their interpretation of religion—any religion—can get skewed. But that doesn’t make the religion wrong.”

  I shrugged. Bear’s reasoning seemed like just a bunch of excuses. Religion should be simpler than that. It should leave out the dumb stuff, like who begat whom at the beginning of time, and instead it should tell you important stuff, like how to spot a fake prophecy. Or how to tell a boy you loved him. For example.

  But if I explained all this to Bear, it would mean a long, involved philosophical discussion, and I didn’t want that just now. The rest of the Angelfires would be back any moment and, besides that, I had an article to write and I needed to get to it.

  “So, Bear?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you care if my article for the Paul Bunyan Press was all about you?”

  Bear squatted in front of the fire and threw on some kindling from a pile of wood Anita had set there earlier in the day. He pulled out a lighter and held it under a small twig until it caught. Within moments, all the kindling was blazing.

  “I don’t know. Are you sure that’s the direction you want to take the story?”

  I nodded. “I’m sure. It’ll be a great story if it’s honest, so I’d need to write about your gambling addiction and stuff.”

  Bear sat back in his lawn chair and looked at me. “Perhaps you could write it so it could help someone?”

  I thought about that for a second. “Well, you know how on Sundays the pastor always asks people for their testimonies?” Bear nodded. “Maybe we could think of this like you sharing your testimony. Cuz the good ones? The ones that help people? They’re always the really gritty ones. Like the guy who shows up all hungover and dirty who says he fell asleep on the railroad tracks but God spared him and brought him to the church to be redeemed.”

&
nbsp; Bear grinned. “I think I missed that one last Sunday.”

  I smiled back. “But you know what I’m saying, right? That being real always helps more people than just smiling and saying, ‘The Lord has blessed me,’ and pretending like everything’s okay. You know?”

  Bear smiled and patted my knee. “I do know that,” he said.

  “So I can write the article?”

  “Please proceed, Emma,” he said. “And God bless you.”

  “Bless you too, Bear,” I said, leaning over and giving him a hug. “Will you be okay until the rest of the Angelfire Witnesses get back?”

  Bear cocked his head. “I think I hear them now.” And sure enough, a low rumbling was coming from the horizon.

  “So, see you in the morning for the big opening, right? Before you take off to your appointment?” I asked. “Doors open at six A.M.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Night, Bear.”

  “Night, Emma.”

  With my story already in my mind, I walked back to my tent to begin writing it.

  To drown out the noise of the camp and help me concentrate, I put my headphones in my ears and pushed play on my CD player. I didn’t have enough money for an iPod, so I was still manually switching out discs every time I wanted to listen to a new band, but I didn’t mind that much. It could be worse: at least I had a cell phone and didn’t have to find a pay phone every time I wanted to call someone.

  Speaking of phones, I glanced at mine, which was quiet next to me. My mom hadn’t called me back. By this time she was at the church, facing the board along with my dad. I bit my lip, thinking about her standing in front of the group in her clunky three-year-old pumps, trying to keep her knees from wobbling.

  The image made my eyes smart. Blinking, I pulled out my notebook, uncapped my pen, and stared at the paper. Where to begin? I decided to write my name on the paper since every story needs a byline. Emma Goiner. With that done, I stuck the end of the pen in my mouth and began to chew. Should I start the story with the Detroit riots? Or should I start the story at the moment I’d met Bear and the other Angelfire Witnesses at the camp?

  But even if I got past the first paragraph, how would I focus my story on Bear? What was at the heart of it? I thought about how ironic it was that Bear was huge and rode a motorcycle, but for all his strength and outward toughness, he still admitted he was weak—at least regarding his gambling addiction. But the good news was that he was trying to overcome it. I tapped my pen against the paper and wondered why Bear could face his flaws instead of running from them. How did a person get to be that way?

  Maybe Bear could come give a guest sermon at Living Word someday, I thought. He could tell people it’s okay to talk about stuff. That you don’t have to go through everything and just say, “I’m pressing through,” or whatever Christian cliché came to mind. Like what my parents were doing right now with the Gary O’Connor mess.

  Except what would I do during a sermon like that? Would I nod and smile and pretend I agreed, but keep all my secrets? Like how I had secretly loved Jake O’Connor but couldn’t bring myself to admit it out loud? Or how I was afraid of losing Nat to Carson, but I couldn’t quite find the words to tell her that?

  But all that stuff is different, I thought, removing the pen from my mouth and looking at it. None of that harms anyone really. It’s a private thing. It’s different than not talking about something that’s affecting the entire church.

  Right? Or was that what Nat meant when she said I had double standards? I put my pen down and tried to think.

  Did I really have double standards?

  All I had wanted was for Nat to understand that her dating Carson was a very bad idea. Plus I’d wanted her to understand I couldn’t just defend something I didn’t believe in—like intelligent design. And then she wanted me to somehow understand that she didn’t believe my mom should be able to preach. All because Mr. O’Connor had quoted the Bible. Well, news flash, a lot of things were in the Bible. Nat was being ridiculous about which parts of the text she put stock in. Not to mention who she put stock in, since Mr. O’Connor clearly couldn’t be trusted.

  From the corner of my eye I noticed my cell phone light flashing. I took off my headphones and looked at the caller ID. My whole body went rigid. JOCONNOR. Suddenly, words piled up in my mouth so quickly that I couldn’t get them out fast enough.

  “Jake,” I said, snapping the phone open, “I’m so glad it’s you. I—”

  “Emmie!” Lizzie cried.

  My emotions fizzled. “Hey, Lizzie,” I said, trying not to sound too disappointed. “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m eating chicken nuggets.”

  “It’s kind of late for you to be up. You think you might go to bed soon?”

  Lizzie skirted the question. “Jake gave me horsey rides all around the house.” Her little voice sounded so light and perfect, I almost wished I could tape-record it. I could picture her sticky hands clutching the phone against her soft blond hair.

  “You gotta go to bed soon, okay? Otherwise Jake’s going to get into trouble.”

  “Will you come home and tuck me in?”

  My heart felt like it was being pushed through a strainer. “Sorry, kiddo,” I said. “I can’t. But Jake will give you a kiss for me, okay? And I’ll see you soon.”

  “Love you, Emmie,” said Lizzie, and I heard the phone being shuffled around. The next thing I knew, Jake was on the line.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I replied. “You hear anything about the board meeting yet?”

  “No,” Jake said. “But I had an idea.”

  “What?”

  “I think we should still try to get the information about Mollico to the board. I think it can still have an effect.”

  I zipped and unzipped a corner of my sleeping bag. “Except you’re at my house babysitting Lizzie. And I’m stuck at the camp without a ride.”

  “So then I’ll grab Lizzie and we’ll come pick you up. I’ve got the documents on my cell, and we can pass them around. We should go through with the plan we made earlier—we’re just doing it later is all. And with Lizzie.”

  My gut twisted as I thought about my mom. “You sure we should do this? I mean, we’ll be crashing the board meeting.”

  “Yes. One hundred percent. You trust me, right?”

  I stared down the abyss. “Yes. And I love you.” The words slid out. Just like that.

  No one spoke for a moment. Then I heard Jake clear his throat. “Well.”

  I put my head in my hand. “Well.”

  “So, uh, what now?” Jake asked, after a moment.

  I have nothing left to lose, I thought. I may as well just put everything out there. “Now we go face the church board,” I said. “We can talk about our feelings after our parents have forbidden us from ever seeing each other again. What do you say?”

  I could hear the smile in Jake’s voice. “All right. Let’s do this. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “Okay,” I said. Instantly my blood felt warmer, like I was hooked up to an IV pumping me full of adrenaline. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was throwing my notebook and pen back into my knit bag, getting ready to meet Jake in the parking lot, when I stopped suddenly. Someone was calling my name.

  “Emma,” said a voice. “Emma, come out here, now.”

  Was Jake here already? I unzipped my tent an inch and got the surprise of my life.

  It was Natalie. At my tent.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  “Come outside,” she said. “I have to talk to you.”

  I unzipped my tent fully and stepped out. The September night air was chilly, and I shivered.

  “Get your fleece,” she said. “We have to go somewhere where we can talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Just trust me, okay?”

  Natalie’s face looked twisted in the eerie X-Files light of th
e donut camp. What was going on? Nat’s eyes were dark—too dark for me to see if they glinted with malice.

  “Where’s Molly?” I asked, looking around.

  “Sleeping,” she said. “Just come on, okay? Seriously. We have to talk.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Someone’s picking me up in a few minutes. I have to go.”

  “This will only take a few minutes. Where are they picking you up?”

  “The Crispy Dream parking lot.”

  “That’s where my car is. We can talk there and watch for them. Okay?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Just come on already,” said Nat, rolling her eyes.

  “Fine,” I said, and reached inside my tent for my fleece. I was trying to be chill about the whole thing—like I supposed I could take three minutes and talk to Nat if she was going to be this completely persistent about it. But inside I felt like a scientist staring through a microscope and not having the faintest clue what was crawling around inside the petri dish at the bottom of the lens. What was going on?

  I pulled on my fleece and looked at Nat. “Follow me,” she said, and took off trotting through the camp.

  I followed her to her Honda in the parking lot. Back when we were friends, we’d christened it the Jane Fonda Honda. “Get in,” Nat said. “I’ll start it and we can warm up.” We hopped in and Nat revved the engine.

  “I only have a couple minutes,” I said as Nat fiddled with the heat. I tried to keep breathing normally and not get too swept up in the fact that Natalie and I were talking. Did this mean she was going to apologize? Would she say she was sorry so we could be friends again?

  Nat pulled her hands inside her sweatshirt sleeves to warm them. “This won’t take long. I just wanted to tell you something. It’s about Molly.”

  I tried not to look too surprised. And disappointed. Why did she want to talk to me about her newfound best friend? “What about her?” I asked.

  Nat, still with her hands inside her sweatshirt sleeves, gripped the steering wheel hard. “Molly saw you and Jake together this morning and she’s pissed. She says she wants you to stay away from anyone she’s related to.”