Hometown Favorite: A Novel (27 page)

He had been able to say all this to her in the back of the
church where the Jobes were members.

That Sunday, Dewayne had given the testimony of his life,
and while hordes of people had surrounded him after the service, wanting to be close to the aura and catch a glimpse of the
favored one, Sabrina had detached herself from the throng
and gone to the ladies' room in the vestibule. When she had
exited the bathroom, she was stunned at the sight of her former
boyfriend. Her Bible fell to the floor and her hands went to her
mouth to stifle her scream.

"How did you find me?" Sabrina asked, her words muffled
by her hand.

Tyler stooped down and retrieved the Bible. He smoothed
out the crumpled pages while he spoke. "Everyone in the country knows Dewayne Jobe. I just happened to see in the paper
where he would be speaking at Quail Valley Church. I was
here last Sunday and saw you, but ... ;" a slight choking in the
throat, the misting of his eyes-a marvel Sabrina never thought
possible-"after what happened back in LA, I figured you and
your brother would be living with them. At least that's what
I'd heard, and I just had to see for myself. I just had to take a
risk and see if there was any chance for us. After all I've done,
I don't expect you to forgive me, but I could never live with
myself if I didn't try."

"You ... you nearly killed my brother. You gave drugs to my
mother. You made me love you," she said in choking whispers
as she hit him on the chest with her fist.

"I was an evil son of a-" and there he remembered the
ground upon which he stood. "I was evil, and I am unworthy
to ask for your forgiveness, let alone hope I might receive it. But if I'm lucky, if God grants me my last wish, and you can
give me your forgiveness, then after that, maybe I can get your
trust. After that, maybe your love"

Across the lobby, Bruce waved for Sabrina to join them as
they went out the doors into the church parking lot.

As Sabrina moved to rejoin her family, Tyler stopped her,
laying his hand gently on her arm. He gave her his card-an
actual business card with his name listed as an employee of a
professional company specializing in website design for upand-coming hip-hop artists to help market themselves and
their music on the Internet-and told her not to tell her family that he had gotten this new life and moved to Houston. He
wanted to prove himself to her first. If he could win her back,
then he would take the next step to win her family. One step
at a time, he had told her, no need to rush, and no need to let
her family know they had met; it would be their secret until it
was time to be revealed.

"Call me;" Tyler said. "There is so much I want to tell you,
so much I want to do for you" And he disappeared back into
the sanctuary.

When the family was piling into the car, the first question
asked was who the young man was in the lobby. Sabrina said
it was someone from the church, new in town, working for a
website design company. When Dewayne commented on the
"clean-cut" quality of the young man's appearance and Rosella
mentioned the cuteness factor of his overall countenance, Sabrina could not hold back the smile that insisted on having its
way on her face. She fiddled with Tyler's card inside her purse
all the way home, studying it like a forensic scientist and rubbing her fingers over the embossed lettering. It was no cheap
card with its high-quality paper stock, nice lettering, and a
phone number. She memorized it, dialed it on her cell phone, and let it ring once before she clicked off the connection. The
number seemed legit. When Bruce asked who she was calling,
she told him it was just a friend.

For the next test, he would need to answer the phone. She
delayed this test until she got home, and implemented it in the
privacy of her bedroom. She still disconnected the call once he
answered, but his "Hello's" were a small validation. It only took
seconds for him to return the call to the mystery number and
to identify himself on Sabrina's voice mail, and say perhaps the
other party had misdialed or gotten the wrong number ... or
perhaps not. In any case, he would be happy to speak with them
about any professional or personal needs they might require.
This made her giggle. How did Tyler get so professional? When
did he get to be so polite? Maybe it was Jesus.

"You believe people can change?" Sabrina asked her family one
month, five dates, and multiple phone conversations after the
epiphany on the Sunday morning. "I mean, Jesus can change
anybody, can't he?"

"What are you talking about?" Dewayne asked, home from
doing the latest in a series of television commercials for the
national credit card company. The company had built a sixspot campaign around Dewayne that would air next season
and had signed him for $1 million per spot with a $5 million
signing bonus before the first sixty-second advertisement was
even in the can.

This was Sabrina's first test to see how the family might react
to the entry of a former villain into their lives. It had taken some
serious persuasion on Tyler's part. Persuading Sabrina to continue to see him after their first date had not been so difficult.
They had to keep their encounters brief and semisecluded. He drove her by the downtown office building where he worked
and pointed to the fortieth floor. The company he worked for
was expanding into the record business, he told her, with a recording studio in LA, and he would be required to make regular
trips to the Golden State with new artists he had discovered.
Twice he took her out to dinner-modestly priced restaurants,
the first time they had ever eaten out somewhere that wasn't
fast food, the first time they could hold a menu in their hands
instead of read from a lit-up billboard hung above a cashier's
head, the first time for a real waiter who brought food to their
table and didn't speak through a mechanical voice box. When
she asked about any obligations he might have to the juvenile
justice system in Los Angeles, he showed her his most recent
round-trip plane ticket-Houston/LA for a monthly checkin with all the appropriate people who were monitoring his
progress. They were all very pleased with his new life, and six
months from now, if he stayed out of trouble-and it was very
important to him to stay out of trouble, to show the fruit of a
reformed life-these trips would be business-only excursions
that would not include visits to his probation officer.

These were all impressive selling points for Sabrina, but she
still could not tell her aunt and uncle the truth about whom
she was seeing. The lies were simple, she was meeting with
friends from church, friends from school, but she knew she
could not keep up the subterfuge and the subject would soon
see the light of day. Every time they were together, he treated
her with the utmost respect. There was never any hint of drugs.
There was no demand for sex; they went no farther than holding hands and the good-night kiss when he dropped her off by
her aunt Rosella's borrowed car at the suburban park where
they always met.

Tyler and Sabrina always kept a safe distance from each other at church, not wanting to arouse suspicion. Even though
she thought it a bit unusual that he didn't seem to have many
friends-only the few people she saw him speaking with at
church or the fellow workers he spoke of at his job-Sabrina
was grateful his former LA posse was out of the picture.

In spite of all these positive experiences, Sabrina had still
been reluctant to raise the subject of Tyler's transformation with
the family. What convinced her to move forward on the matter
was her own mother. Even though no one had laid eyes on her
in more than six months, Bonita had begun to communicate
with the family by letter four months into her rehabilitation.
She allowed no visitors-Franklin and Joella could not have
even five minutes with her, and this was Bonita's choice. There
was never a phone call. She said that to be seen or heard until
she was truly ready would retard the positive changes she was
making. She did not confess to a "come to Jesus" moment nor
did she refer to the sins of her past and ask for anyone's forgiveness. She just said she was making positive changes in physical
health and general well-being that the doctors and social workers confirmed, and she would continue to remain in contact
with infrequent and short epistles of her improvement.

When Tyler inquired after Bonita and Sabrina commented
on her mother's recent correspondence and improved condition, he mentioned that after his release from detention, he had
gone to see Bonita at a halfway house where she was staying.
He could authenticate the status of her change for the better.

"She never mentioned seeing you," Sabrina said.

"We talked about not bringing up any bad vibes from the
past;" he said. "I wanted a fresh start"

That was all it took to convince Sabrina now was the time.
So before Tyler left to return to Los Angeles for a juvie checkin and a major Web design presentation of two new artists to the marketing department of his company, he made Sabrina
promise to discuss the possibility of reentry into the family.
She had finally decided on her approach.

"It happened in the Bible all the time," Sabrina said, running
her fork through the pile of peas on her plate like a blind mole.
"You know, God changing people"

"Yeah, well, so it can happen" Rosella shoveled a spoonful
of pureed carrots in Robert's mouth. "You're talking about
your mother?"

"Yeah, her, but anybody," Sabrina said. "God can change
anybody, right?"

"What's impossible for man is possible for God," Dewayne
said. "Or something like that"

"And if they changed, we'd have to forgive them and love
them, right?"

"Of course, we would;" Rosella said. She gave Sabrina an
inquisitive frown, her hand suspended in the air with another
spoonful of pureed carrots. "Where are you going with this,
girl?"

Sabrina was smart enough not to tell the whole truth. Telling about meeting Tyler at church on Sundays was all the information they needed to know at this point. Rosella's hostile
and Dewayne's skeptical reactions to the news that Tyler had
appeared on the scene bore out the wisdom of her choice not
to tell them about their clandestine rendezvous. She spent the
rest of the evening fielding the same questions she had asked
Tyler, and where Sabrina had been satisfied with his answers,
her aunt and uncle reserved their judgment.

Dewayne seemed a little more receptive than Rosella to the
idea of a new Tyler, and Sabrina saw a reason for hope and a
confirmation in her own ability to size up a person. Her uncle
treated her like an adult. Her aunt was much more protective ... overbearing. She appreciated both reactions and knew that
in the not-too-distant future she would be able to tell them
all about their relationship. A meeting at church could be arranged, just a chance to talk to him, hear in his own words what
new life he had embraced, and from there the family would
know how to proceed.

It was Bruce who shut down the discussion at the dinner
table with an "I don't want to ever see him again." What followed was a prolonged silence as the family quietly but hastily
finished their supper. The matter had to be settled later that
night in Bruce's bedroom. Sabrina was kind. She did not try to
force the issue or give her brother an ultimatum. After all, his
attack on Tyler and his gang had been out of love for her and
their mother, and under the circumstances, it felt justified.

"It took a lot of guts to do what you did," Sabrina said. She
leaned on the door frame into his bedroom, hesitant to enter
without permission. "You stood up. You were a man, and I
didn't appreciate it at the time"

Bruce had been silent while he listened to his sister, his face
buried in his pillow. He now rolled his head over to look at her.
"You never said that before."

Sabrina took that as an invitation and sat on the edge of
the bed. "I wouldn't let anything or anybody drive a wedge
between us."

She patted his back gently, knowing it was her brother who
had suffered the most because of Tyler; it was her brother who
had been the innocent one and endured the corporal pain and
mental distress of a punishing defeat at the hands of a monster
allowed into his life by a wayward mother and a delinquent
sister. But could not this onetime monster be regenerated by
God? Does he not deserve another chance? Was he completely
unlovable?

Bruce raised his head off the pillow. "Do you really love
Tyler?"

Sabrina did not have an immediate answer. She was wading into deeper water. Both of their lives had been lived in
extremes ... extreme chaos and destruction, extreme peace
and blessing. Tyler had been a major contributor to the former;
her uncle, the provider of the latter. They were the only two
men she had known. In the examination of her heart inspired
by her brother's question, she expressed all she understood to
this point in her young life.