by Pat Flynn
Angela didn’t move, not one inch, but waited. He was resisting, or at least trying to, but she was a stunner and his body took control of his mind.
Ozzie kissed her, like she knew he would. Her eyes were closed but she led him, at first soft and slow with barely parted lips, and then wider and deeper.
And then she stopped. “I don’t normally kiss on the first date.”
“Is this a date?” He was already feeling guilty, probably because he wanted to keep going.
She got up and brushed down her skirt. “You know, in America we say ‘diddly-squat.’”
They both laughed.
Ozzie felt better, then. But only until he pulled out the letter to Jess after Angela had gone. He couldn’t think of one thing to write.
That night the phone rang. Angela had said she’d call, so Ozzie wasn’t surprised when Alison brought it to him.
“G’day, stranger.”
It shocked him. Not only because of who it was but the accent—so exaggerated it was like she was putting it on.
“Hi, Jess.”
There was a pause and they both went to say something. International phone calls only allow one voice at a time, which is not how nervous lovers talk. Jess finally got the rhythm of the conversation back on track. “So how ya goin’?”
“Good,” said Ozzie. “You?”
“All right. Missing you, though.”
“Yeah.”
He thought of something to say. “How’d you get my number?”
“From your letter.”
It took Ozzie about a second to realize he was in trouble. In these situations he always found it best to say nothing.
“What’s going on, Ozzie? You got a girl over there?”
Ozzie couldn’t believe she’d just asked him that. He could still smell Angela’s perfume on his shirt.
“It’s just that, well, you haven’t written for weeks.”
“Yeah, sorry.” It felt like he’d spent half the day apologizing to girls. “Look, Jess, things have been crazy over here, with footy and stuff. But I’ve been thinking about ya. I was writing you a letter, right when you called.”
“Pull the other one.”
“No, I was. Really.”
“All right, read it.”
“What?”
“Read the letter.”
“Well, it’s not finished.”
“Read what you’ve got so far.”
“But that’ll spoil the surprise.”
“Read it or I’m goin’. ”
He knew she meant it. “Hang on.” Ozzie picked it up.
“Dear Jess.” He cleared his throat.
“Go on.”
“Umm. Hello.”
“Wow. Great letter.”
“Hang on, give me a go. Thanks for your last letter. It was really, umm, good.”
“I’m gonna go.”
“No, don’t, Jess. Look, I said I was sorry. Can’t we just have a talk?”
“Maybe later. Write your pop a postcard, he’s worried about you. So was I.”
“Jess …”
“Bye, Ozzie.”
There was a click, and almost straightaway the phone rang again. Ozzie answered, hoping it was her.
“Hey, stranger.”
“Angela … ” It was a different “her.”
“I had fun today.”
“Yeah.”
“Guess what? I told my parents I have this special friend from Australia and they said I could borrow Mom’s BMW and spend the whole day with him.”
“Do I know the bloke?” Ozzie wanted to say no, but he didn’t know how. Besides, getting away from Hope, forgetting who he was, it was just what he felt like.
“There’s one condition, though,” said Angela.
“What?”
“You have to come to church in the morning.”
“What?”
“Church. It’ll be fine, everyone’s real friendly. And it’ll give Mom and Dad a chance to meet you.”
Ozzie didn’t say anything. The last time he’d been in a church was for his mom’s funeral.
“Are you okay?” asked Angela.
“Do I have to do anything? Like, pray or somethin’?”
Angela laughed. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’ll be sitting beside you the whole time. Trust me.”
“Mmm.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight forty-five,” she said. “Wear something nice and bring a change of clothes for later. Pack your swimming trunks as well.”
“Righty-o.”
“Oh, and bring your passport, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“You’ll see.”
Ozzie got one more call that night. He was beginning to feel like he knew why his grandfather never wanted a phone.
“How’re you feeling, boy?” It was Coach McCulloch.
“Yeah, good.”
“Look, things are bound to get a little crazy around here, especially if we keep winning. You don’t worry about what they say in the papers or on TV. Just stay focused, you hear?”
“I’ll try.”
“See you bright and early, Monday. I want you to show me a few more of those rugby plays.”
“Rugby League.”
“What?”
Ozzie couldn’t be bothered. “See you later.”
“Bye.”
Before he had time to talk himself out of it, Ozzie dialed Jess’s number. Australia was fifteen hours ahead so it was already tomorrow in Yuranigh, and maybe things would be different tomorrow.
But he never found out. An Australian would say Jess was engaged, but in this case Ozzie preferred the American version. Her line was busy.
chapter 25
At eight forty on Sunday morning Ozzie came downstairs dressed in an RM Williams button-up shirt and his very best pair of pants—fraying, coffee-stained blue jeans. Nancy took one look at him and gently suggested that he change into something more churchlike, but the next best thing Ozzie owned was a footy tracksuit.
After foraging in their wardrobe, Nancy brought out a suit that Dave still had from college, when his stomach hadn’t yet expanded from too many pecan pies. It was very 1980s but would have to do, and Nancy was still tying the thin black tie (Ozzie didn’t know how to do it) when Angela rang the doorbell.
“Well, look at you!” said Angela.
Look at you, thought Ozzie.
She wore a strapless black dress, a red jacket that covered her shoulders, and more makeup than you could shake a stick at. Gold dripped from her ears and a matching necklace hung to her cleavage. On the end of the necklace was a gold cross. Her hair was loose, shining down her back.
Ozzie’s eyes widened.
“Shall we?” said Angela.
“What?”
“Go.”
Ozzie shook his head. “Yeah, course.”
At the front of the church was an electronic billboard that flashed, “Hope Shooters 40, Mickson Bulls 28. Thank you, Jesus!”
They drove into an oval of asphalt almost as big as a football field. An usher directed them, and so many BMWs dotted the parking lot that by the time he got to the front door Ozzie would have been hard-pressed to find the car he had arrived in. If it wasn’t a Beamer it was probably a Lexus, a Volvo, or a good ol’ American Cadillac. It seemed God looked after His own real well, here.
Inside, rows of seats were filled with smiling women in long dresses, kids who pulled and tugged at their Sunday best, and men with bowl-like haircuts that were short but not too short. Ozzie’s scruffy curls were as out of place as a Muslim headscarf.
They arrived at a pew near the front where Angela’s family was sitting. Once introduced, Mrs. Janus gave Ozzie a hug, while Angela’s little brother gave him a cheeky grin, like he knew the real reason Ozzie was at church. Mr. Janus gripped Ozzie’s hand like he was trying to break it. “So this is the boy my little girl’s been talking about?” He looked at Angela. “He could do with a haircut.”
>
“Dad!”
Mr. Janus gave Ozzie a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sorry. But if I don’t look out for my beautiful girl, who will? I’m a little protective when it comes to Angela, because I was a boy once and I know how young men think.”
“Dad!”
“There I go again. Let’s change the subject. Tell me, Austin, do you own a gun?”
Ozzie wasn’t sure what to say. His grandfather had an old .22 that Ozzie had used often enough, but it wasn’t his. “No.”
Mr. Janus looked disappointed. “I got my first gun when I was eight. Still love to hunt.”
“What do you shoot?”
“Deer mostly, a few quail, and boys who treat my daughter wrong.”
“Dad!” said Angela.
Ozzie went quiet.
The service started, and in the introduction Pastor Slipper drew attention to the fact that “this morning we are blessed with the attendance of Hope’s newest football star and Friday night’s MVP.” Ozzie even had to stand up. He felt like a fool, and when he sat back down he wanted to slink even lower and crawl out the door.
Angela took off her jacket and spread it over their laps, slipping her right hand underneath and resting it on his leg. This made him feel better until he remembered that Angela was sitting beside her father.
Pastor Slipper put his hands in the air. “We are here today to give thanks to the one, true, Christian God, a God who sent his only son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for each and every one of us. This is a God who wants us to be rewarded both now and in the eternal life after our deaths. To receive this reward, all we need to do is accept Jesus as our personal savior and ask that our sins be forgiven. That’s all we have to do, and we will have riches beyond our wildest dreams.”
“Seems easy,” Ozzie whispered to Angela.
She gave his leg a squeeze.
The pastor kept praying. “And so we are here to confess our sins to God, and if there’s anyone in this room, anyone at all, who hasn’t yet accepted Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior …”
Ozzie could have sworn that Pastor Slipper was looking right at him.
“… then we pray with all our hearts for that person. For if one sheep is lost, we must help it be found.”
“AMEN!” answered the congregation, so loudly that Ozzie jumped in his seat.
Then there was music. Well, not at first, just a large choir clapping a beat. There was no organ, no guitar, and none of the wind instruments that Ozzie had grown accustomed to from the school band. But when a boy stepped forward and started singing, eyes closed and hands clenched into fists, there was definitely music.
People get ready, there’s a train comin’
You don’t need no baggage,
you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’
You don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.
The choir started humming in the background.
People get ready, there’s a train to Jordan
Picking up passengers coast to coast
Faith is the key, open the doors and board them
There’s hope for all among those loved the most.
For a few seconds Ozzie shut his eyes. He forgot about his girlfriend in Australia; he forgot about football. The voice washed through him and made everything clean.
People get ready, there’s a train comin’
You don’t need no baggage, just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’
You don’t need no ticket, just thank the Lord.
The voice stopped.
“Holy hell, can he sing or what?” Ozzie said to Angela.
“Shhh,” someone hissed from behind.
Pastor Slipper stood and began walking around, a microphone clipped to his collar. “People of God, I want to talk to you about something that’s been troubling me. Yesterday I turned on the TV, not late at night or in the early hours of the morning, but at seven thirty p.m.—family time—and let me tell you what I saw. There was a man and a woman, and they were having … sex.”
Ozzie stifled a laugh. People around sucked the roofs of their mouths, making tch sounds.
“Now in the show this man and woman weren’t married. In fact, they hardly knew each other. But it didn’t stop them engaging in what Paul himself declared the most holy, sacred act of God.”
A couple of people murmured “Amen.”
“And let me tell you something that troubled me even more. These two characters showed no guilt or remorse, and imagine the message that sends to the young men and women who watched television at seven thirty last night across America.”
“Amen.” It was a little louder this time.
“I know a lot of people might say, ‘Big deal. This is the new millennium. Loosen up a little bit, Pastor.’ ”
A few chuckles.
“But if Americans can’t see that fornication and homosexuality and sexual deviancy are ruining our country, then God knows, this ain’t the country I grew up in!”
“AMEN!”
The pastor was working the crowd now, getting them excited.
“The America I know is not a country that accepts boys and girls as young as ten experimenting with drugs and sex. The America I know does not admit that the union of two unmarried people before God is anything less than a grave sin. And those who commit that sin without begging and praying for God’s forgiveness will do no less than BURN in the fires of hell!”
“AMEN!” Angela joined in with everyone else.
The rhythm of the pastor’s voice became faster and more urgent. “The America I know is a country where men are men and women are women. Heck, I walked down the main street of Denham the other day and saw two men with tight shirts and hair in, what are they called, ponytails? And two women, both wearing pants, with hair so short you could hardly tell it was there. This ain’t what God wants for our country, people! He wants an America where a family means a husband, wife, and well-behaved, God-fearing children!”
“AMEN!”
“You remember what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah when they started sinnin’ in a disgusting way? He sent down an army of angels and those towns EXPLODED in a fire that could never be put out. And don’t you believe, people, that He couldn’t do the same thing to America. And when He does, He will start in Hollywood—and take out all the fornicators and gays and deviants—and leave the God-fearin’ people of West Texas, the good, Christian families like yours and mine, alone.”
“AAAA-MEN!”
Angela’s hand slipped out from under her jacket. “Amen,” she said, smiling at Ozzie.
Ozzie leaned back and saw a statue of Jesus on the cross, at the front of the church, frowning down on His people.
chapter 26
After church Ozzie wasn’t too keen on another discussion with Angela’s dad, so he excused himself and had a look around. There were arches and domes made of marble, and Ozzie was examining a stained-glass window with an intricate drawing of an apple tree when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” said Malivai.
“I didn’t expect to hear you sing like a bloody pop star,” said Ozzie.
They laughed and shook hands.
“So what’d you think?” asked Malivai.
“About church?”
“Yep.”
“Good music.”
Malivai smiled.
“It feels a bit strange, though,” added Ozzie. “I don’t really fit in, you know?”
“Join the club,” said Malivai.
“Yeah, not too many people look like you, eh?”
“Most blacks go to church on the south side, where Reverend King has a choir that sings so high the notes almost reach heaven. This congregation is what you’d call more”—he leaned in closer—“musically challenged.”
“They’ve got good cars, though,” said Ozzie.
“They sure do.”
; “Do you have a good car?”
He shook his head. “We have an old Buick that barely starts.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Ozzie joked.
Malivai shrugged.
“When I was a boy my parents moved to an apartment north of the interstate.”
“That must be all right.”
“It’s so close that when the oil tankers drive by our windows rattle like in an earthquake. If we’d stayed on the south side we’d own a house by now, but even with Mom and Dad working we can barely afford the rent.”
“Why’d they move?”
“For me. My parents are always talking about breaking the cycle.”
“What cycle?”
“Poverty and ignorance.” Malivai touched the stained-glass window. “Live in a place that’s drug and crime free, get a college education and a good job, and the cycle’s broken. That’s my dream.”
“You have a hundred universities almost breaking down your door,” said Ozzie. “You’ll break the cycle, no worries.”
Malivai didn’t answer.
“C’mon,” said Ozzie. “Everyone thinks you’re a legend.”
Malivai shrugged. “The white people are friendly enough. But if I couldn’t sing, or run, maybe to them I’d just be another nigger. And at school, when I walk past the brothers from the south side, sometimes I think they’re waiting for me to slip up.”
“Hey, you two.”
Ozzie turned and felt his stomach drop. “G’day, Unity.” He hadn’t seen her in church. There were so many people, though, that it wasn’t surprising.
“You gettin’ some tips on how to sing?” Unity asked Ozzie.
“No way.”
She touched Malivai on the shoulder. “He’s good, isn’t he?”
“Real good.”
She smiled and looked at Ozzie. “I didn’t know you were a Christian.”
Ozzie could see Jesus on the cross, behind Unity. He also spotted Angela approaching. “Me neither.”
Angela put her arms around Ozzie. “Unity Summer-Andrews. Stop trying to steal my man.”
