Rapture Practice (37 page)

The ride to church in the station wagon does nothing for my stomach, and the nerves of getting every note perfect at the piano make me sweat in my suit jacket and tie. After I get through the first hymn, the pastor makes some announcements, and I look out over the four hundred people in the congregation.

I wonder if they can tell I’m hungover?

Several of my friends and their parents are smiling up at me. Everybody thinks I’m this great guy because I’m only in high school and I’m playing the piano in church.

If they only knew.

That afternoon, Bradley calls. “Hey. I just woke up.”

“I don’t even want to hear it,” I say. “I was at church at nine
AM
playing the piano for congregational singing with the worst headache I’ve ever had.”

“Oh my god. I wondered why you were gone already when I woke up.”

“I told you I had to play in church this morning.”

“Really? When?”

“Last night,” I say, “while you were pouring grenadine into twenty-seven glasses of tequila.”

“Was that before or after the hot tub?” he asks, groaning.

“Yes.”

“Ow,
ow
! Don’t make me laugh,” he says. “My head hurts so bad.”

“I was playing the piano, afraid that God was going to strike me dead with an electrical jolt from the nearest microphone.”

“I wish somebody would strike me dead.” Bradley groans again. “I am wrecked.”

I smile. “Brad?”

“Yeah?”

“Last night was a blast.”

“It was, huh?” he says.

“Thanks.”

“For what?” he asks.

“For having me over. For being my friend.”

“Whatever, man. Wait’ll I’m back this summer. Your graduation party is gonna be
epic
.”

“I’ll have to check my schedule,” I say.

“Shut up,” he says, and laughs. “See you tomorrow.”

Mr. Friesen finds me in the hall between classes the next day.

“Aaron, we need to talk.”

I am sitting in his office, smiling. He’s not. He takes a seat behind his desk. He leans back in his chair, sizing me up.

“While you were on ensemble tour last week, the kids from Bob Jones University were all home for spring break. Tyler Gullem and Dr. Spicer’s sons came to see me.”

Tri-City students are encouraged to go to college wherever the Lord leads them, but you can tell that most of the
teachers and the administration hope that the Lord leads you to Bob Jones.

“It seems Tyler Gullem is really concerned about some things that are going on here at Tri-City. Namely, students not living for Christ.”

I am not smiling anymore.

What does this have to do with me?

“Tyler told the Spicer twins he saw you drinking alcohol at a New Year’s Eve party at Bradley Westman’s house.”

As soon as he says it, I have a strange sensation—a sort of knowing:
This is the beginning of the end.

“Really?” I say. My face is incredulous, puzzled, perfect. “That’s strange.”

“Are you saying that you didn’t have a drink at the New Year’s party, Aaron?”

“No. I had plenty to drink—Diet Coke, all night long.”

Mr. Friesen chews his front lip, then sits up, takes off his glasses, and rubs his eyes. When he looks up at me, he seems tired.

“Why would Tyler lie about something like this?” he asks.

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean any harm.” I smile. “You know Tyler. He always wants to do the right thing.”

“Aaron, this is a serious allegation,” he says. “You don’t seem concerned.”

“There’s nothing to be concerned about. I wasn’t drinking at Bradley’s party.”

“Tyler seems to be under the impression you go over to Bradley’s to drink often.”

I give a single, silent laugh. “Don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Friesen. I haven’t seen Bradley very much this year.”

“You know that if you were drinking, that’s grounds for expulsion.”

“So why would I drink?” I ask him.

He is quiet again for a moment, then puts his glasses back on.

“I’ll be calling your dad.”

“Please do,” I say. “I’m sure he’d be interested to know that somebody who never liked me that much has decided I was drinking at a party six months ago.”

It’s a challenge, pure and simple. I almost can’t believe I said the words. I’ve never talked back to an adult authority figure like this.

I stand up to gather my books. “I’m also sure he’ll be interested that you’re more inclined to believe Tyler Gullem than me.”

Am I shaking with anger or fear? I can’t tell. I am barely able to hold on to my stack of library books. I’m writing my senior thesis on Oscar Wilde and want to get a little reading done in journalism next period.

“We’re not done yet, Aaron.”

“Oh?” I ask.

“Senior trip is next week. I’m not sure I’m going to allow you to go.”

“Why would that be, Mr. Friesen?”

“I don’t like the attitude I’m getting from you about this.”

Will there ever be a day when I’m not being questioned by adults?

“Maybe I’ve misunderstood.” I smile broadly to mask my rage. “I’m not going to be able to go on the senior trip because the pastor’s sons say Tyler Gullem thinks he saw me drinking at a party?”

Even I am surprised at my tone. It’s not respectful at all.
Who is this person? Where did the guy who plays the game go?
I can’t seem to stop myself. When Mr. Friesen is silent, I pepper him with questions.

“Is there any
evidence
I was drinking? Is there some way to
prove
that there was anything in my glass other than Diet Coke? And if there was drinking going on at the party, what was Tyler Gullem doing there?”

Mr. Friesen glances down at his desk, and moves a pencil back in line with several others that are lined up in a military roll call at the edge of his blotter. He straightens his tie clip. He looks back up.

“Tyler and the Spicer twins will be home from college by the time you return from the senior trip. At that point, I’ll need to meet with you and your parents. Then we’ll see what he has to say.”

“We certainly will,” I say, smiling. “I’m so curious to hear all about this.”

The adrenaline surges through me as I walk out of Mr. Friesen’s door and down the hall to class. I am still shaking as I sit down in journalism class and flip open my copy of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
, but I can’t see the words on the page.

All I can see is Tyler Gullem in the doorway at Bradley’s New Year’s Eve party, looking down at my cocktail.

Mom is putting the finishing touches on the Empty Tomb Cake when I walk in the door from school, and I remember that it’s Good Friday.

The Empty Tomb Cake is one of Mom’s specialties, a cake in the shape of the grave where Jesus was buried after he died on the cross. It’s usually chocolate cake with gray frosting, the color of stone. She’s puts shredded coconut into a plastic Baggie with green liquid food coloring and shakes it onto the plate around the cake so it looks like grass. She adds a round Hostess Ding Dong to the front as the stone that seals the door of the tomb, and stands a little cross ornament in the frosting on the top.

The cake will sit in the middle of the table tomorrow as a centerpiece, then late tomorrow night, after everyone has gone to bed, Mom will steal into the kitchen under cover of night and roll the Hostess Ding Dong away from the door of the Empty Tomb Cake. She’ll retouch the frosting and add her small black Bible to the display, the book open to the passage where the angel speaks to Mary in the garden:

Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.

I feel like a dead man.

I have to tell Mom and Dad about Tyler Gullem and the conversation with Mr. Friesen. I decide to wait until after dinner.

When I get to my room, I close the door. Mom has left
some clean laundry folded on my bed. I open the top drawer of my dresser and put away my socks and underwear. In the back of the drawer underneath some T-shirts, I pull out the tiny pink scrap of paper with Kent Harris’s phone number.

I walk into my parents’ bedroom, and sit on the bed next to the phone on Mom’s nightstand. I pick up the phone, and dial the numbers.

My heart races as I wait for a voice to answer.

What if he actually picks up? What will I say?

An answering machine clicks on, and when I hear his recorded voice on the message, my stomach flips, and it’s hard to catch my breath. I can see his clear blue eyes staring at me on the rink last month. I can feel his hand in mine.

When I hear the beep, I pause for a split second, then hang up the phone.

Idiot. You’re an
idiot.
What are you doing?

A new book in the stack on Mom’s nightstand catches my eye. The picture on the cover is a silhouette of a child walking on a balance beam. The title says something about raising children in a risky world. I flip the book open to a bookmark stuck in the pages. The chapter is about helping young men remain morally pure. The word
homosexual
jumps off the page at me.

Is this the chapter that made Mom and Dad want to get this book?

I’m afraid Mom might walk in on me reading this book, so I scan through the chapter, skimming the information from the Christian author, hoping. Maybe there is something here
that will make it okay, explain it, ease my mind. As I read, words pop out at me one after another—
abomination, agenda, molested, predatory, sin, pedophiles, addiction
…

The phone rings. I jump at the sound. My stomach fills with dread.

What if Kent is calling back?

Quickly, I close the book and slide it back into place. I slip the pink scrap of paper into my hip pocket, then head back to my bedroom and close the door. As I am hiding Kent’s phone number under the T-shirts in my underwear drawer, I hear Mom call up the stairs:

“Time to eat.”

“That was Mr. Friesen on the phone before dinner,” Dad says.

“I thought it might be,” I say. “He called me into his office today to tell me that Tyler Gullem told Dr. Spicer’s sons I was drinking at Bradley’s New Year’s Eve party.”

Stay calm. It’s your word against Tyler’s. You’ve won this game before.

“Were you drinking at the party at Bradley’s?”

I act astonished. “What? No! Dad!”

“Well, son, why would this rumor be going around if it weren’t true?” Dad stares directly into my eyes, his gaze heated, unwavering. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach.
Why are you surprised? He has no reason to trust you.

“I don’t know.”

“Were other people drinking at this party?” Mom looks stricken. “Do his parents drink? Do they keep alcohol in their house?”

It’s time to give them a little bit, so that they buy it. I can’t escape this totally unscathed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You never told us that, Aaron,” she says. “You knew we wouldn’t want you spending time around people who drink.”

“I’m so disappointed in you,” Dad says.

I’m angry now, and I don’t have a leg to stand on. “We go to Royals games all the time, Dad. They have beer there. You don’t drink it. I don’t drink it. Besides, it wasn’t like Bradley’s parents were drinking every time I was over there.” My voice is unwavering. I’ve become an expert liar.