RECKLESS — Bad Boy Criminal Romance (17 page)

“Would you like to try it again?”

She looks at me, thinks a moment, and then says, “Okay.”

We kiss again, this time much better, her actively kissing back. 

“I have to go now,” she says afterward.

“Alright.  Church, Sunday?”

“Yeah.  Call me and we’ll go together.”

I drive back to my mother’s house.  It’s dark and I find Angela sitting on the screened-in back porch smoking a cigarette and staring at the night sky.  She sits on a rocking chair I sit on one beside her.

“Do you want one?” she asks.

“Sure.”

She hands me a cigarette. 

I perch it on my lip and she lights it for me.

“So did you sleep with her?”

“Hell no.  Just to kiss her, I had to force her against her will.”

“So it that, like, your style?  Forcing yourself on girls?”

“Take it easy.”

“What?”  Angela laughs and playfully pushes my arm. “You know I’m just playing.”  She giggles and taunts, “It must’ve been
fun
, right?”

“Yeah, it was fun.  Fun for all the three of us.  Me, her, and Jesus.”

Angela laughs.  “So should I skip the questions about what you think of her?  Is there
anything
you like about her?”

“She is a pretty girl.  And there are a couple things I like about her.  Her innocence and enthusiasm, I think.”  I look at Angela and then stare at the sky.  “But at the same time she has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”

              She giggles and lifts a glass from her lap that I didn’t see before.  She takes a sip.

              “What is that?”  I take the glass from her and sip it.  It’s Jack Daniels.  “Where’d you get this?”

              “Your mom has a liquor cabinet.”

              “Christ.”

              “What?  I’ve only had a couple glasses.  And I’m not drunk.”

              I don’t say anything.

              “You need to find something for me to do,” Angela pleads.  “I can’t stay cooped up inside all the time.  I’ll go out of my mind, bored.  I know I need to keep a low profile, but there has to be something I can do.”

Once we bought a car, Ariel’s shoe collection expanded rapidly.  New sneakers, heels, flats, boots, and sandals – they all littered her bedroom floor.  Ariel had an employee discount from working at the shoe store, but she still seemed to be blowing all of her hard-earned money now that she wasn’t saving up for the car.

She had a variety of roles at her job.  Sometimes she worked the floor as a salesgirl.  Sometimes she worked the register.  And sometimes she stocked shoes in the back. 

In the back storage room was an extra-large trash can.  To dispose of shoeboxes and mass quantities of paper, it had to be oversized to accommodate all the garbage.  Every so often the can filled to the brim and an employee had to pull out the trash bag and lug it outside to a row of dumpsters behind the mall.  After first gaining employment, Ariel actively avoided this job.   If she threw away the shoebox that filled the can to the tip-top, she pretended not to notice and busied herself with other work.

But suddenly, that changed.  Ariel volunteered to take out the trash anytime it was full.  Her skinny frame struggled to haul the heavy bag outside and hoist it into a dumpster, but she did it anyway.  The store manager, pleased with her initiative, mentioned that her hard work could earn her consideration for a promotion.  She was also given preference for getting shifts on the weekend.

Both her career and shoe collection were on the up and up.  Then Ariel came home early one day with a blank stare.  She’d been fired.  Upset, she didn’t want to talk about it, so I gave her space.  In time, though, she confided to me what happened.

When working in the storage room by herself, Ariel often found a pair of shoes in her size that she liked.  Not having anyone to buy them for her, not wanting to spend her own money, she still had to have them.  So while discarding excess paper and empty shoeboxes into the trash can, she also threw away the shoebox of the pair she wanted with the shoes still inside.  Once the trash was full, she dragged it outside and heaved it into one of the many dumpsters, mentally noting which one it was.  Then, in the early hours of the next morning, she woke up around three or four o’clock.  She drove our Toyota over to the mall dumpsters, found the shoes, and drove back home.  The scheme worked and Ariel acquired three dozen new pairs.

Meanwhile, the store manager was baffled about his loss of inventory.  Shoes vanished without explanation.  And none of his employees offered any insight into their disappearance.  On a hunch, he stopped Ariel as she took at the trash on her final day at Kendra’s Shoes.  He ordered her to empty the trash bag onto the back room floor and open every shoebox.  Lo and behold, a shoebox for Marc Jacobs boots was in the trash with the boots still inside.

“What do you have to say?” the store manager asked.

Ariel played dumb.  “Someone must have made a mistake.”

“You put them in there.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Several other employees had had shifts that day.  Ariel wasn’t going to let him pin it on her that easy.

“You’re always the one bringing out the trash,” he said.  “And we’re always missing shoes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ariel responded.  “You’re blaming me because I do a job no one else wants to do?”

“Listen, you little bitch,” the manager shouted.  “You’re stealing and have cost us a ton of money.  Tell me exactly what you’ve been doing or I’m calling the cops right now and you can tell them.”

He thought he could intimidate Ariel into confessing.  He thought wrong.

“Call them then,” Ariel said plainly.  “It’s not my fault someone else accidentally threw these shoes away and you can’t keep track of the inventory.”

The manager could only stare at her, seething mad, before barking, “You’re fired.”

Ariel left and never returned.  She had a new closetful of footwear but was out a job.

Cassie and I had a date planned for a Saturday evening.  Her parents were on vacation.  Ariel spent the night at Cassie’s on Friday and never made it home.  Cassie and I often planned to have a normal date, dinner or a movie, but these plans always fell through.   When I arrived at her house, she and Ariel were in the living room.  In the room, off to the corner, was a fully-stocked wet bar.  Before I had shown up, they had split a bottle of wine.  They were now working on their second bottle, a feat considering how skinny they both were.

“Oh my god, Brandon, I love you,” Cassie blurted, hopping off the couch, kissing me, and hugging me tight.  “I was hoping you’d get here soon.”  Her words were slightly slurred.  “Ariel, I love your brother.  Why didn’t you introduce me to him sooner?”

Ariel curled up on a couch, amused by Cassie’s behavior.  “You didn’t want me to.  You were acting all embarrassed about it.”

“Was I?  Whatever.  I don’t remember that.”  Cassie thought a moment, then said to me, “That’s bullshit that your sister got fired.  She was, like, the only person I liked there.  I can’t work there now without her.  I’m quitting.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yeah.  I know what Ariel and me can do though,” she said.  “My parents know some rich people with kids who need babysitters.  I did it before and got paid well.”

I couldn’t picture Ariel babysitting.  She wasn’t the most caregiving person in the world.  “You’re into this idea?” I asked her.

Ariel rolled her eyes.

“I’ve been trying to convince her,” Cassie told me.  “It’s not that hard.  Order the kid a pizza for dinner, maybe wash a dish or two.  Or better yet, just eat the pizza out of the box, then send the kid to bed.  Simple.”

“What if the kid starts crying or goes out of control, destroying the house or whatever?  I don’t think I could deal with that,” Ariel said.  “I’d probably want to smack him, but I couldn’t do that, right? His parents would notice the bruises.”

Cassie laughed.  “Trust me.  Just give it a try.  You’ll do fine.”  She rested her head on my shoulder.  “What are we doing for our date?”

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

“No.”  She giggled and rubbed my chest.

“Looks like I should go home now.”  Ariel downed the remainder of her glass of wine.

“You think driving is a good idea?” I asked.

“I can make it home.”

“Or wind up with a DUI.”  I looked at Cassie.  “She can stay here, can’t she?”

“Yeah, take one of the guest rooms.  What’s the hurry anyway?” Cassie goaded her.  “You don’t like me touching your brother?”

“No, I’d just rather not hang around for it.”

“What?  I wouldn’t do anything to make you uncomfortable.”  Cassie trailed her fingers across my chest to my shoulder.  “He does have a really nice body though.  Strong chest and shoulders.”  Her hand felt my bicep.  “Strong arms, abs.” Her fingers trailed to my abdomen and down to my belt.  “And a nice—”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Ariel said.  “I love my brother, but I don’t want to hear about that.”

“What’re you getting so upset about?  I’m just telling you what I like about him.  I’m totally innocent.”

“Shut up, you perv.  I’m going to bed.”  Ariel stood up and started out of the room.

“But hey, seriously,” Cassie shouted to her.  “I’m going to find some babysitting jobs.  For both of us.  It’s going to be way better than the mall.”

Chapter Eleven

“Parishioners, today I want to talk with you about something breaking apart families,” Pastor Donald Boyd begins.  “I speak to you on this issue not with my own agenda, but with God’s agenda.

“One Saturday afternoon several months ago I was walking down the street with one of our church staff members named Paul.  We were stopping by houses and inviting people to come to church on Sunday.  We were praying for different neighborhoods and businesses.  And at the end of one street we ended up in the parking lot of a gay bar.  A guy standing out front asked, ‘Hey, are you guys together?’  I said ‘yes’.  Wait, ‘no.’  ‘Yes’ but ‘no!’”

The congregation laughs.

“About a week later I was with Paul again and it dawned on me to go back to that same bar.  This time we drove and parked in the lot and waited to see if there was anyone we recognized.  Lo and behold a man from our congregation walked out the front door.  Paul and I got out of the car and walked after him and called him by name.

“He froze when he turned around and saw us.

“I told him, ‘Don’t worry.  It’s alright.  We’re here to help you.’

“He dropped his head and began bawling.

“Paul and I each gave him a hug and took him into our car with us.  As some of you may know, we have a program here at Pinnacle Christian that helps people deal with their same-sex attraction.  We drove him to the church and told him about the program.  We gave him the paperwork and he enrolled himself right then to begin attending classes and go on a weekend retreat to overcome his problem.

“After filling out the forms and writing out a check to reform his life, he looked at me, tears in his eyes, and said, ‘Do you really think I can change?  Maybe I was born gay and that’s what I’m meant to be.’

“And I looked back and I told him, ‘You are what you are.  And you can’t change that.  You’re a Christian.’

“I’m proud to report that that man recently completed the program, having wiped out his same-sex attraction, and is currently living a completely heterosexual life.”

The congregation applauds.

“The truth is that nobody is born gay.  Homosexuality is only an idea. You have never heard a doctor say, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, you have a bouncing baby homosexual!’  We’re all born the same and our sexuality is a gift from God.  The union between men and women is sanctified and the means of procreation.  How can same-sex unions be okay?  If everyone was gay, humanity would cease to exist!

“Gays have targeted to evangelize the educational systems of this nation.  All you parents, beware!  Ask yourself, ‘Would God be happy with me letting my child be taught by a gay teacher and being taught gay material?’  You cannot put your heads in the sand.  You must actively ensure that the Homosexual Conspiracy does not ensnare the hearts of our young people.

“Now, in recent times, some denominations of Christianity have decided to welcome the homosexual lifestyle with open arms.  They’ve let gays into their ministry and even performed gay marriages.  Pastors of gay-friendly churches have justified this by citing biblical passages, greatly distorting those scriptures’ intended meanings.  The hierarchies of some Christian churches are now filled with homosexuals.

“What is my opinion and that of Pinnacle Christian?  I don’t have to have an opinion because I defer to God’s opinion.  And it’s written in the Bible!  The book of Leviticus tells us ‘If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act.’”

The crowd applauds.

“The truth is that we’re at war.  We’re at war in our society, in our schools, and in our churches.  Homosexuals, aided by liberal politicians, radicals, and the media, are planning to take over our culture and our country.