Rapture Practice (32 page)

The Country Club Plaza has large, sweeping boulevards with beautiful classical sculptures and giant, ornate fountains. It is one of America’s first outdoor shopping centers, and the buildings are scale models of the architecture J. C. Nichols loved in the city of Seville, Spain. Every year, every inch of these buildings is outlined in solid-colored Christmas lights, and thousands of people jam into the space of several city blocks to countdown the lighting of the Plaza on Thanksgiving night.

Dad drives us slowly through the Plaza, and we ooh and aah at the lights.

“Oh, isn’t this wonderful?” Mom says, “It’s so fun making memories.” The radio is tuned to KLJC, which started playing Christmas songs this week. She reaches over and turns up the volume on an orchestra playing a beautiful carol, and starts to sing.

O come, all ye faithful

Joyful and triumphant

O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem

One by one we join her, first my dad then me, then Caleb, Miriam, and Josh. My mother’s beautiful, light soprano
drives the melody and even Dad’s attempt at harmony, which can sometimes make my brothers and me call out in protest when we’re rehearsing a special number for church, sounds rich and full, and right on pitch.

It’s already getting down below freezing at night and there are snow flurries swirling in the air. The frost and steam on the van windows make halos around the Christmas lights, and I look up at the outline of a star strung in lights from the top of a cupola at Seville Square. Even an ordinary shopping center seems transformed in the light of Christmas. As the song crescendos, we sing out with another stanza:

Sing, choirs of angels

Sing in exaltation

Sing all ye citizensof heaven above!

And that’s really what the Christmas story is all about: this idea that the pure light of perfect love can make the lowliest feed troughs a sacred place and fill the bleakest sky on the coldest night with the brilliant warmth of harps and angels.

O come! Let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

Mom’s eyes are shining, almost brimming over with tears and she grabs my dad’s hand in between the front seats of the van. She turns to us, smiling, and says, “ ‘And Mary kept all of these things and pondered them in her heart.’ ”

It’s one of her favorite verses. She says it all the time
around the holidays. It’s the verse that ends the traditional Christmas story in the middle of Luke, chapter 2. After the angels appeared, and the shepherds came to the stable and went out to spread the good tidings of great joy, Mary quietly pondered these events; she kept them close in her heart.

Mom seems acutely aware that we won’t all be here in this family forever, and it’s something that I forget sometimes. When she quotes this verse about pondering, I am reminded she’s storing up memories.

Before we leave for Memphis in a couple of days to spend Christmas at Nanny and Papa’s she’ll bake a red velvet birthday cake for Jesus, iced in white. We’ll invite the neighborhood kids over for a special Christmas edition of Good News Club. There’s usually a manger scene on the cake, little cutouts of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. We’ll sing “Happy Birthday to Jesus” with all of the kids, and blow out the candles.

As Mom hands out slices of red velvet cake, she’ll explain to the boys and girls that the cake is red because it represents Jesus’s blood that he shed for our sins on the cross. This is the reason that Mom says she’s so serious about the holidays and making them a special, joyous time: because Jesus was born to die. There isn’t only a manger in her Christmas story; there’s a cross as well, but the Good News is that Jesus is coming again soon, not as a baby in a manger, but to take us home to heaven.

She tells the boys and girls that the reason we give gifts at Christmas is not because of Santa Claus. It’s because Jesus was God’s love gift to us. His birth offered the gift of salvation
to sinners like herself and you and me—a simple, elegant gift of grace.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son…”

The idea of atonement is always easier to swallow with a slice of her homemade red velvet cake, and as I smile back at Mom from my seat in the van, I try to quiet the nagging voice in my head and the strange twist in my stomach that these thoughts are making me feel.

For tonight, I’m going to focus on the beauty of the lights and bask in the glow of the miracle—angels appearing to shepherds. There is something strange and wonderful about the idea of a deity being born in a barn among commoners.

Even better than that, I realize that there is something truly wonderful about my family and our togetherness in this moment. As Dad turns the van toward home, I stare back out at the lights above the Country Club Plaza and tuck this feeling away to keep for always, to ponder deep in my heart.

Nanny has gathered us all in her living room in Memphis. Mom is staying behind to spend a few more days with Papa, who is back in the hospital. Dad loads the rest of our luggage into the van. He’s driving us back to Kansas City so we can start school next week.

Earlier, we said good-bye to Papa. Nanny hasn’t missed a beat the past few days. She is cheerful, even though I know
she must be tired, and I have never felt closer to her. She always has a smile for me. We’ve laughed about something together every day, and as she calls us all into the living room, she hands me a box of mud pies.

“For the trip,” she whispers with a wink.

We stand in a circle around the den, coats buttoned, bags packed, ready to go. The only thing left is for Nanny to say the prayer she always gives before we drive away.

She grips my hand, closes her eyes, then raises her head and her voice. “Father God, we thank thee and praise thee for the gift of this time we have had together celebrating the birth of your Son. We know that this may be Papa’s last Christmas with us, but we commit him to you, and we know that you have a plan for each of us—a plan of good and not of evil, to give us a future and a hope.

“Now, Father God, I pray for your blessing of safety upon my precious grandchildren; that you would send your angels to make the car run smoothly, and bind Satan from the engine block. Put an angel on the hood of the car, Lord, and one at the back; an angel on top and underneath, and one on each tire, so no harm will come to my children. We ask all of this in the name of your Son, Jesus, who loved us so much he gave his life for us. So we say, ‘Come quickly, Lord Jesus,’ and it’s in his name we pray. Amen.”

As we walk toward the carport, Nanny wads three twenty-dollar bills into my hand while she hugs my neck and whispers into my ear, “Sit up front and watch your daddy’s eyeballs. Make him pull over and let you drive if you see him
start to nod off. Last thing I want is you gettin’ to heaven before I do.”

I could spend eternity talking to Nanny. It’s all the heaven I’d ever need.

Bradley’s New Year’s party is
packed
.

“Who
are
all these people?” I ask Jacob. I met him at the front door a half hour ago and still haven’t seen Bradley.

“Who
cares
?” Jacob grins. “This is the Bradley Westman Public-School Girls Network. Don’t change the channel.”

When we finally make it to the kitchen, I see that Drake has stocked it with enough alcohol to get us through tonight, New Year’s Eve next year, and quite possibly an unforeseen zombie apocalypse. The music is loud, and it’s cold outside, but the keg is on the deck, and people are already in the hot tub.

Sure beats praying in the New Year at church during the midnight watch service.

“It’s a beer-free evening, gentlemen!” Bradley sees Jacob and me headed to the fridge and directs us to the drink-mixing operation he has arranged at the wet bar in the downstairs family room. I’ve never really experimented with hard liquor before, but Bradley has a new cocktail recipe book his dad gave him for Christmas, and sets to work making one of almost everything.

“Did you see this?” Jacob hands me a brochure for the
University of Iowa. Bradley stares off into the sunset on the first page, his square jaw set with determination to tackle the future.

“They made you the cover model for your college?” I cannot stop laughing.

Bradley nods slyly. “Yep. And female enrollment is already up by twenty percent.”

“How was your Christmas, Hartzler? Any good loot?” Jacob slides me a screwdriver to begin.

“My parents gave me luggage.” I smile and raise my glass.

“Subtle,” snorts Bradley. I chink my glass to his, then Jacob’s, and take a big swig.

Bradley whoops from behind the bar and begins to mix another round immediately. “Gentlemen! Start your engines.”

By 11:30
PM
, my whole body is buzzing, and I’ve learned I like simple drinks the best: vodka and tonic, scotch and water—two ingredients at best, and nothing sweeter than rum. Jacob has determined he prefers doing shots of anything Paula, Pamela, and Tamara will let him pour into their belly buttons while they lie on the family room floor, giggling, their tops pulled up to reveal their stomachs.

“My sister is coming back for you,” squeals Tamara as Jacob runs his tongue down toward the button on her jeans. “You better watch it!”

As if on cue the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it.” I jump up with my rum and Coke.

“Hartzler! Grab me a bag of ice up there. I’m almost out.” Bradley is shaking martinis now.

“Roger, that.” I head up the stairs and pause on the landing to throw the door open to let Tamara’s sister in.

Only it’s not Tamara’s sister.

It’s Tyler Gullem.

My stomach lurches, and suddenly I feel dizzy. My church smile kicks into overdrive automatically.

“Hey! Tyler!” I say brightly, and I hope loudly enough that Bradley can hear me. I swing the door closer to myself from it’s thrown-wide-open position, trying to block the scene behind me down the stairs, and play it off like I’m cold. “Yikes! It’s feezing out here. I didn’t know you were coming.”

Tyler’s eyes move slowly from my face down to the glass in my hand and back. “I’m not coming,” he says without a smile. “I’m looking for Janice. I called her place, and her mom said she was at a party. I figured it was this one.”

“Nope, no Janice here,” I smile, not moving an inch.

“I need to talk to Bradley,” he says.

Mayday. How do I keep him outside? If he walks through the front door, the jig is up.

“Bradley’s not here,” I lie. “He’s on a pizza run.”

Tyler looks at me hard, like he’s trying to see into my thoughts.

Keep him on the sidewalk.

I broaden my grin into the friendliest smile I can muster. “He’ll be back soon. You should come in and let me get you a drink,” I say.

As the words fly out of my mouth, I know I’ve taken a huge gamble.
What if he takes me up on the offer?

Tyler glances down at my glass. “Diet Coke?” I ask, lifting it toward him, grin firmly in place.

“Doesn’t sound like Tri-City–approved music is playing in there,” Tyler says.

“Well, Bradley isn’t a Tri-City student anymore. Really, man. You should come in and hang out.’ ”

Tyler shakes his head, and backs down the front steps. “Will you have Bradley call me when he shows up?”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

Tyler turns to walk down the driveway toward the sidewalk.

“Happy New Year!” I call after him. He stops for an instant. I think he might turn around. I think he might say something else. Instead, he keeps walking.