Rapture Practice (22 page)

“Don’t forget the music on Monday,” Erica says quietly, and then she grabs her script and heads back down to the front rows to watch rehearsal.

“Sorry,” says Angela. “I didn’t mean to cause a problem. I just…”

“It’s okay,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “I didn’t realize I was capable of making two girls mad at the same time.”

“Ashley is really into you.”

“How?” I ask. “We hung out for the first time last night.”

Angela levels her gaze at me. “C’mon, Aaron. You didn’t just hang out. Not according to Ashley, anyway. Besides, haven’t you ever been into somebody right away?”

“I’m barely getting to know people,” I say, grabbing my stuff. “I don’t want to upset anybody. I’m not ‘into’ anyone yet.”

“Well, maybe you should have told Ashley that before you felt her up in the driveway.”

My mouth drops open when she says it, and for the third time in thirty-two seconds, a girl gathers her things and stalks to a different pew, leaving me alone in the back row.

My scenes are done for today. Bradley is still onstage rehearsing. I want to be riding shotgun in his crazy little sports car, with the windows rolled down and the music turned up, headed away from this place and these girls. In the meantime, my car will do.

I walk out to my used Toyota Tercel in the parking lot, worried that Megan, Erica, and Ashley are all upset with me; that Angela will tell Bradley I’m a jerk; that Bradley will stop inviting me over; worried about the questions Mom will ask me when I get home: “Did you have a good time? What did you have for dinner? Did you find out where they go to church?”

She won’t think to ask me: “Did you read Mr. Westman’s
Penthouse
collection? Did you feel up a girl from your geometry class? Did Mrs. Westman offer you a glass of merlot?”

Deep down, what I worry about is that despite the straight As and awards for playing the piano and singing and acting; despite working hard, and looking good; despite my ability to be kind and charming; despite the fact other adults really seem to like me; despite all of that, I’m afraid that I really am a bad kid. I feel a wave of guilt that I know my mom would say is the “still, small voice” of God’s Holy Spirit convicting me of my sin.

Do I really believe that?

As I pull out of the school parking lot, I stare up at the crosses at the top of the church building. There are big, white cumulus clouds behind the steeple—the kind that led Moses and the “children of Israel” into the Promised Land; the kind in which Jesus will appear.

Or, at least that’s what they say.

It makes my stomach hurt to think about it. I need some music. This car was born in the eighties, so it only has a cassette tape player. I reach under the seat for the case that holds my contraband tape collection. My tastes are eclectic, and my fingers flip through my favorites—Amy Grant, Bette Midler, Phil Collins, Michael Bolton, Wilson Phillips, Roxette, Suzy Bogguss, Trisha Yearwood, and several singles—Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville singing “Don’t Know Much” and Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory” from the
Young Guns II
soundtrack. I pop in “Blaze of Glory” and crank up the volume.

I’ll have to hide the tapes again before I pull into the driveway, and that makes me angry.

Why can’t my mom and dad be like Bradley’s?

I think about Mrs. Westman last night, standing in the kitchen. Her eyes were so warm, and kind. I think about how upset my mom and dad would be that Mrs. Westman offered me a drink—not angry upset; they’d be sad. There’d be tears. Mom would cry. Dad would tell me that he was “grieved” that I’d misled them about Bradley’s parents and the kind of people they were. They’d tell me that Mrs. Westman wasn’t “living for the Lord,” that she was not only breaking the state law but leading me down the broad path toward destruction.

How could my experience of Mrs. Westman be so different? When I looked into her eyes, I saw someone kind and loving—someone who understands her relationship with Bradley and his friends differently than my parents think about their relationship with me.

She loves Bradley, but she’s not afraid for him. Or of him. She knows it’s going to be all right. She knows he’s a good kid. She knows I am, too.

And that’s why even though Mrs. Westman is really a perfect stranger, I told her all about my ring, and how silly I felt when I got it, and how I think the whole thing is kind of embarrassing. Those are all things that I’ve never told my parents. Not because I don’t love them, but because I know that it would hurt them. It would disappoint them. It would prove to them that I’m not the son they want me to be—that they
need
me to be. I could tell Mrs. Westman those
things because she doesn’t want me to be anyone I’m not. She accepts me exactly as I am.

I can see it in her eyes.

When I walk into the kitchen to hang my car keys on the hook by the phone, Mom looks at me across the kitchen, and I see something in her eyes, too: tears.

There’s a stack of
GQ
magazines sitting on the island by the sink. My stomach is instantly in knots.

“I found these in your room today when I was putting away some laundry.”

I have nothing to say. There’s no way to make an excuse. I hear my brother and sister shooting hoops outside. My youngest brother is practicing the piano. I wish I could be anywhere but here.

When I don’t answer, Mom stares at me, then looks down at the magazines.

“Aaron, these magazines are full of pornography.”

“Mom, these magazines are not pornographic.”

Her eyes blaze. “Then what do you call this?” she snaps, pulling open the issue on the top of the stack and flipping to a cologne ad. There’s a scantily clad female model lying across a bed, staring out at me, her hands tossed over her head. Everything is covered. Just barely.

“Can you honestly tell me you’re a red-blooded American male and this doesn’t do anything for you?”

I am stunned that my mother has said these words. I feel my cheeks burn. My nervousness turns to anger. What was she really asking me?

Was that a put-down?

“Mom! I don’t read
GQ
to get turned on. I read it because I like knowing what’s in fashion. I like seeing the clothes and the hairstyles.”

“Of course,” she says. “Your hair looks like his. And his.” She points to different models as she flips through the pages. “I can’t get you out of the mirror in the bathroom. You’re more concerned with looking good than you are about doing what’s right.”

“There’s nothing wrong with
GQ
, Mom.”

“Oh, there isn’t? She flips to another page in the magazine. “Look at how immodestly this woman is dressed.”

She holds up a fashion editorial spread: “New Suits for Fall.” The woman on the model’s arm wears a strapless minidress. “Would you want Miriam to walk around in a dress like this?”

“No, Mom. She’s far too tall for that dress. It would look awful on her.”

“Aaron! I am not joking.”

“I’m not, either,” I say quietly.

“I thought after the whole thing with the CD and the play, and putting you in a new school, you’d have learned your lesson.”

I shrug and walk toward the living room. This is an argument I cannot win.

“Don’t walk away from me, young man. We’re not done here.”

I stop in the kitchen door, suddenly exhausted. “Throw
them away, Mom. Do whatever you want. It’s not worth fighting about.”

“It breaks my heart that you don’t see how wrong this is, my son.”

There are tears in her voice, and when I look into her eyes, I see the disappointment once more. I feel it leap out of her and land on my chest in a crushing weight. I’m on a balance beam, shakily walking the line between who I am and who she wants me to be. The force of her need makes me wobble; it makes me want to give up, to spread my arms and let myself fall backward into the nothingness.

I know I’ll always think about fashion and want to look good. I’ll always read
GQ
. I’ll never be the guy who thinks cologne ads are sinful.
I’ll never be the son you want.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say quietly. She thinks I’m apologizing for the magazines. She sighs and shakes her head.

“Don’t you
want
to please the Lord, Aaron?”

Please the Lord.
I realize I don’t know what those words mean. I only wish I pleased
her
. Right now, I do not.

“Of course,” I say. This is the dutiful answer, the answer Mom wants to hear. The one I know will honor her, even if it isn’t the truth.

“From now on, for every minute you spend in the mirror fixing your hair and getting ready for school, I want you to spend at least one minute reading God’s word.”

“Yes, ma’am.” This is always the answer: more God.

“ ‘Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh unto you.’ ” Mom quotes the book of James, but I don’t know how I could
get any closer to God. We pray at every meal and before each class at school. I have Bible class five times a week, not counting chapel services, or devotions after dinner. If reading the Bible made me closer to God, one might think I am already as close as I am ever going to get.

And still, in this moment, God seems very far away.

“If you search for God you will find God.”

Dr. Spicer, the pastor of Tri-City Baptist Church is speaking in chapel today. He is very adamant that God is close. Very close. But must be searched for. There’s a code to it—a combination that unlocks the mystery. You have to seek God with “your whole heart” in order to find him.

“The prophet Jeremiah tells us in chapter twenty-nine, verse thirteen that God says, ‘And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’ ”

Then, he leans into the microphone. His voice is dramatic, and filled with urgency. “Young men and young women, are you
searching for God
?”

With that question, he begins his closing prayer, but instead of bowing our heads and closing our eyes, Erica and I get up and make our way to the front. We’re closing today’s chapel service with the duet we’ve been practicing. I see the pianist take her place at the grand piano stage right with the
photocopy of the sheet music where we Wited-Out Sandi Patty’s name.

As Dr. Spicer prays, I see Coach Hauser get up from his seat at the end of a pew near the stage and station himself at one of the auditorium doors for hair check. Miss Foster stands at the other doors in the back. Today, the boys will file out past Coach Hauser, who will check to make sure our hair is short enough, and the girls will file out past Miss Foster, who will check to make sure that their skirts are long enough.

We don’t search for God here at Tri-City. It seems he’s already been found and written into law. Our God here believes in long skirts and short hair. I realize I don’t have to look very far for this version of God at all—he’s everywhere, and he can hear my thoughts right now. That doesn’t feel comforting, because once again I’m afraid he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.

Not only is there no search for God, there’s no escape from him.

As Erica and I are singing the second chorus, I see Janice sitting six rows back on the right, smiling and mouthing the lyrics along with us, and realize we’ve made a terrible mistake. Erica and I assumed that no one would know who sings this song, because most of the families at Tri-City don’t listen to contemporary Christian recording artists. We were wrong. Janice knows.

This wouldn’t be a cause for alarm in and of itself, except that Janice is sitting next to Tyler. Tyler is not smiling. He looks very serious—as serious as I suddenly feel. Erica and I finish singing and take our seats. I walk back and sit down
next to Megan as Principal Friesen reminds the student body that today is hair-and-skirt-check day.

“That was great,” Megan whispers. She’s talking to me again. My make-out session with Ashley seems to have been forgotten since Ashley told the cheerleading squad about the football player from Lee’s Summit she made out with the next night.

I smile back at her and notice Janice a few pews down, rushing over and hugging Erica. Tyler is right behind her, and he stares directly at me. No smile. No nod. He simply catches my eye and stares.

As Megan walks toward skirt check and I fall into line for hair check, I watch Erica chatting with Janice, and know one thing for certain: We’ve been caught.

“Ready for the big dance-off this afternoon?”

Bradley punches me in the shoulder. We have a special “choreography” rehearsal this afternoon. Mrs. Hastings insists that Baptists don’t “dance.”

“Um, I’ll be doing Approved Baptist Choreography this afternoon,” I say in mock seriousness.

“You do whatever you want,” he says, and grins. “I’ll be dancing.”

“Don’t look now, but Tyler Gullum is shooting daggers our way.”

Bradley glances over at him and shakes his head. “Poor guy,” he says. Then he raises his arms and swivels his hips like Elvis. “Just needs to shake his moneymaker.”

After our haircuts have been approved by a nod from
Coach Hauser, we walk to my locker. I stop to grab my chemistry book. As Bradley continues down the hall toward his next class, he turns around and points at me. “See you in dance practice. And good singing, Hartzler. You make Jesus proud.” Bradley doesn’t see Tyler watching him as he struts down the hall “dancing.”

But I do.

Tyler shakes his head as he gathers his books and closes his locker, then turns and walks away.