Out (2 page)

What was that
about, anyway? It was a girl, for God's sake. A female. I go hand-to-hand with
my sister Jana all the time, put an arm around my best friend, Andrea. But
there’s no kind of...spark...or whatever that was. Where is that girl?

The wave of
geriatric molasses finally spills out onto the sidewalk in front of the church.
Got to find Andrea. She’ll know what to do.

“Chris?”
David’s calling to me.
Dammit
. I usually try to avoid
him after the service.

 
“Yes, sir?”

“Chris, I want
you to meet Jim McFarland.” He gestures toward a man, about thirty, with rugged
features and the faint outline of a mustache that doesn’t seem too
enthusiastic. “Jim is from the Garden Grove congregation in California.”

“Nice to meet
you, sir.” Shake the guy’s hand. I focus on him just to be polite, and the
man's eyes are a deep brown, small and narrow, not too kind. But Dad works with
all sorts of people. Where is that girl in the red blouse? “Dad, I'll see you
at—”

“Jim is from
Garden Grove,” Dad says again, as if it’s important. “In California.”

“Right.” I
still don’t get whatever secret message my father is trying to shoot out there,
and I figure if I play dense, maybe I can get away. “Well, I need to find
Andrea. We've got a project due for AP Art History, and we're way behind. So if
you'll excuse me, Mr....”

“McFarland,”
the man says, an easy smile creasing his lips. “Call me Jim. I've spoken to
your father about you, Chris. I'm hoping we can be good friends. I want to help
you.”

 
David’s now shaking hands with a pair of old
spinster sisters in matching hats, but he glances over every few seconds to see
how I’m getting along with McFarland, who inches a bit closer. He smells of
some subtle aftershave mixed with sweat. “Your father says you've got great
potential, Chris. I think we could do big things for you.”

“Great.” The
guy seems nice enough, and since Dad’s watching, I attempt to smile as
winningly as possible. All I can think about is getting away, finding
Andi
, and talking to her about this weird thing, this girl
who made my hormones spike off the charts.

Father has
brushed off the old ladies as quickly as he could while still being respectful,
and he is at McFarland's side now, nodding and smiling. “Chris, Jim here is in
charge of admissions at
Westhaven
.” Jim McFarland
nods. Ah, so this is about college. This is definitely not the time for that
conversation. I have more important things to think about.

“Dad, I'm sorry
to rush off, but I really need to talk to Andrea or we'll fail this project.” I
smile apologetically at McFarland. “It was so nice to meet you, sir.” I scoot
away, and I don’t look back. Looking back is deadly.

Andi
is leaning against the old oak in front of the
churchyard, as if she’s waiting for me.
 
“Hey,”
she says, reaching up for a low-hanging branch whose last leaves have made a
carpet of burnt orange on the browning grass. “Getting cold, huh?”

“Listen, I need
to talk to you. Let's go.”

She peers over
my shoulder. “I think the Reverend wants you for something. He's looking over
here.”

“It's a college
thing. That's why we need to get out of here. Come on.”

We trot through
the church parking lot, to a brown lawn laid out behind the rear entrance to the
sanctuary. In the center of the lawn is a wooden gazebo, scraped with the
initials of lovers past who have used it as a meeting spot. I dive onto the
worn-smooth floor, hunch my back against the side closest to the church door,
and hug my knees.

“Are you having
some kind of psychotic episode?” Andrea lays a hand on my forehead. “Fever?”

I swat at her
hand. “No, no. I just...I'm having a crisis.”

“Really?” she
asks sarcastically. “What a surprise.”

“What do you
mean by that?”

“I just mean
that for you, a crisis is pretty much like clean underwear or tooth brushing: a
daily event.”

“I’m serious,
Andi
. This is different.”

“Sorry.”
Andi
takes a stick of gum out of her pocket, offers me a
piece, then sets about creating a turtle or a Volkswagen bug with the silver
foil.
 
She has a collection of gum
wrapper sculptures. “Go ahead.”

“I don't even
know how to explain it. I was lighting a candle in church, and—”

“A religious
epiphany?”
Andi
grins. “About time.”

“
Andi
, listen to me. Shut up for once.” The sharp tone makes
her stop chattering. “I brushed into someone. Into a girl. And I felt...I
felt...”

Andrea searches
my face, looking for the completion of the sentence. “You felt...a sweater? You
felt stupid? Clumsy?”

“I
felt...attracted.” Saying it out loud makes me sweat.

The weight of
the comment takes a minute to sink in. “Are you out of your mind?” Andrea chews
her gum at a machine-gun clip, curly red hair bobbing with each wide-eyed
chomp. “Are you insane?”

“I guess. Oh,
God, what am I going to do?”

“Okay, tell me
exactly what happened.”

I pull my
stupid stork legs up straight.
 
“I went
up to light a candle, and bumped into this person, and then I got these weird
chills and hot stabs and just felt like...like I was going to pounce on him and
lick him all over. But it wasn't a him. It was a
her
.”
I miserably pick up the silver foil
Andi
has dropped
and start to fold it into the shape of a gun. “Oh, God, I am so dead. What if
my dad finds out? I could be arrested. I could be sent away—”

Andrea grabs my
hands. “Listen,” she says, mud-brown eyes widening as she leans in. “You've
just got to forget about it, right? I mean, it's just a freak thing. It could
happen to anyone. So, you touched a girl's arm, and you got the chills. So
what? Nobody knows except you—”

“And you.”

She sighs as if
burdened with my stupidity. “I'm certainly not going to tell on you. My point
is, if you don't say anything else, it will just go away.”

I stretch out
on the wooden floor, stare up at the symmetrical pattern of planks in the gazebo
ceiling, and see the sign of the Parallel cross embedded there, as it is in
everything. Hot guilt stabs at my stomach, along with a nauseous sense that my
life is over, no matter what I do. “It’s not just against the law, Andrea. It’s
not natural. It's a sin. I committed a sin. God knows about it. “

She picks up a
pebble and throws it against the gazebo wall. “You've been listening to your
father too much.”

“I probably
have.” The gazebo ceiling gives me no answers. “Maybe it's not true. Right? I
mean, it could have just been some weird reaction to her perfume, or to
somebody else I saw. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. Who was that girl,
anyway? I've never seen her before. Do you know?”

“No.” Andrea
lies down next to me, still chewing.
 
“And
you don't want to know.”

“Why not?” I
turn on my side to look at her. “I've got to find her again. I've got to find
out if this was just a stupid mistake, or hormones, or if I have a brain tumor
or something that's screwing up my judgment. And I won't be able to do that
unless I see her again.”

 
An image of the girl comes rushing back,
brief, luminous, dark hair shining like a curtain of watered silk, full pink
lips drawn into a surprised smile, eyes crinkled at the edges as if they'd
endured too much laughing, the second our eyes had met. That split second
stretches on into an infinite horizon of inappropriate urges and potential
excommunication.

 
“I just brushed into her, just for a second,”
I mutter. “It was probably just some mistake or something.”

“Do you remember
what she looked like?” I can feel
Andi
squinting at
me.

“Dark hair,
blue eyes, really pretty lips. Red blouse. And she had these cute wrinkles
around her eyes, like she laughs a lot. And I think she had on some kind of
jasmine perfume, something I've smelled before but I can't remember—”

“Whoa.” Andrea
holds up her hands to stop me.
 
“Yeah, I
don't think it was a freak, meaningless thing if you can remember where she had
lines in her face.”

“Not lines.
Just those cute little laugh wrinkles people get. Anyway, I just brushed into
her. It could've happened to anybody!”

 
“Sure. But if I brushed into her, it wouldn't
be a big deal. Hey, there's a thought. Maybe I could start dating her, and then
I could tell you all about it, and you could live vicariously through me.” She
grins leeringly.

 
“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Of course I’m
not.” She sighs. “It’s nothing. I swear, you find things to make you crazy.
Isn’t being related to Minister Bryant enough to make you nuts? You don’t need
to go looking for more drama!”

I peer over the
banister: no sign of my dad or his California friend. Or the girl. “You really
think it’s nothing?”

“I think it’s
less than nothing.”

 
Relief washes over me.
Andi
knows me so well…she’d know if this was something to worry about.
 
“Well, I'd better get back. I'm sure Dad has
something for me to do.”

“Hey,” Andrea
grabs my arm as we step out of the gazebo. “Really, just forget about it,
Chris. It's just something that happened. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe you
were thinking of somebody else. Maybe...she has a brother!” She scampers down
the steps and runs across the dry grass toward my house, the sprawling
two-story at the edge of the property. “Can't catch me!”

I catch up to
her even before we reach the steps. “Not even a race,” I pant. “You need to
work out more.”

 
Dad comes out onto the porch. “Chris!”

 
I grab onto the porch railing. “Yeah, Dad?”

“My cue to
leave,” Andrea mumbles as she bows her respectfully. “Good afternoon, Reverend.”

“Afternoon,
Andrea. Tell your parents I said hello. I wish I saw them more at church!” He
grins at her, but she knows the message is genuine. David hates when people
skip church.

“Yes sir.” She
shoots me a secret smile, then dodges down the path toward the tree-lined
street and home.

Crap. There’s
really no way to avoid the college talk now. All I want to do is race up to my
room, shut the door, and stand in the shower to drown out my thoughts.

Dad drapes an
athletic arm casually around my shoulders and walks me to the door. “I thought
we could go for a drive. In the
Spyder
.”

The
Spyder
? That’s his baby, his dream car, his most sacred
possession. Reserved for only the most serious discussions. He holds the door
for me.

“Maybe I'll
even let you drive,” Dad says as the screen door bangs shut behind us. “Get out
of your good clothes. We're
gonna
have the top down.”

 
Great. I take the stairs two at a time to my
bedroom. At least if I’m going to get chewed out, it will be in style. He's
going to let me drive the
Spyder
? He's never done
that before. Is that good or bad? Maybe he's going to let me start driving it
on my own sometimes. What about that girl? Andrea’s probably right. Maybe—

“What's the
rush?” My year-older sister, Jana, hears me galloping up the stairs and barges
into my room. She plops down on my bed, uninvited, and leans back into the
pillows. “Going somewhere?”

“Dad and I are
going for a drive. In the
Spyder
.” I rummage through
my drawer looking for a
sweatshirt.Jana
just laughs,
a snide, I-know-more-than-you chuckle.
 
“What?”

“Nothing.” She
swings herself off the bed and ambles out the door. Without looking back she
says, “Better watch out, though. The only time I got to drive the
Spyder
, he threatened to disown me.”

“Because you're
such a crappy driver?”

“No,” she answers
quietly. “It was when he wanted to sell me off to Abbess Perry, and I said no.”
She smiles sweetly. “Have fun.”

 
God, I hate her.
 
I know it’s wrong, but I do. She’s managed,
again, to ruin one small thing that might bring me a little temporary happiness,
a skill she's perfected over the past seventeen years. When I was a little kid,
she told me Santa Claus was a myth. She told me that the cute little pigs we
raised for 4-H were going to slaughtered and turned into a side of bacon at the
local pancake house.

I do not need this today. Sold her off? What
does that mean? What does it have to do with me and ride in the
Spyder
?

As usual, I
take the bait.

“Jana!”

“Yes?” She
turns, crosses her arms, and smiles, a cat watching a canary begging to be
eaten.

“What do you
mean, Dad was trying to sell you to Abbess Perry?”

The smug
expression disappears and is replaced with a hard, stone mask. “I don't want to
talk about it.”

“Hey, you
brought it up.” I catch her arm as she turns to go. “What happened? I can't believe
Dad would do anything like that. You must be interpreting it all wrong.”

 
She hesitates, glances down the stairs, then
walks back into my room. “What do you know about what happened?”

“Chris?” Dad
calls up the stairs. “You coming?”

 
“Just have to use the bathroom real fast! Be
right there!” I turn to my manipulative jerk of a sister. I don’t need her
drama, but now, of course, I have to know what she’s talking about. I’m
curious. “Hurry.”