Argosy Junction (33 page)

“You’re cute when you sleep. How did I never notice that?”

“Oh give me a break. You just want to go to the IHoP!”

Laughter filled the room as a pillow flew to Lane’s bed. “Well that too, but no, I just woke up and you were snoring—”

“I don’t snore!”

“Liar!” Before she could interrupt, Tad continued. “Do too! So I laid there and thought, ‘I wonder what Matt sees in her anyway.’ That’s when I noticed that you are kind of cute, especially asleep. He ever see you asleep?”

“Yes,” she mumbled remembering waking up on Matt’s couch.

“That’s it. That’s what did it then.”

She lobbed the pillow back at him and jumped out of bed. “I need coffee. Want one?”

“Since when did you take up the coffee habit?”

“Since I spent a week with Matt and his parents. I thought our family drank a lot. The Rushby’s practically send it through an IV.”

Tad grabbed a shirt and slipped his jeans on over his pajama bottoms. “Wait, I’ll come with you!”

She stood, hands full of clothes, and eyed him disgustedly. “Get dressed correctly, Tad. You think I’m going out there in this thing?” Lane pulled at her favorite flannel nightgown and slipped into the bathroom before he could answer.

Less than an hour later, they sat with heaping plates of pancakes, eggs, and bacon surrounding two steaming cups of coffee. “What are you going to do for money when I have to slow down for the spring work? Dad’s doing fine with the lambing, but I can’t leave everything for him.”

“I’m paying double month’s rent every month to get me through till summer. By February, I’ll be paid up through July so that’ll ensure I’ve got food and shelter.”

“Shelter anyway—”

“I found several places around the country that still serve breakfast and dinner boarding house style. I chose one of those so I wouldn’t have to cook and buy all that kitchen stuff.”

Tad’s snort sent eggs into directions he didn’t care to explore. He choked and sputtered while Lane giggled, causing the other patrons to eye them irritably. “Starve you mean. You didn’t want to starve.” He changed subjects abruptly. “Does Matt know where you live yet?”

“Nope. I’m not going to slip, Tad. When I want people to know, I’ll tell someone.”

For the next several minutes, the only sounds at their table were the clanking of dishes, utensils, and sips of coffee. Tad finally caved and threw up his hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m not going to ask again. How’s Matt?”

“Still pushing his Jesus on me.”

Something in Lane’s voice was different. She’d said the same words for four months, but now there was a different tone—resignation had crept into her voice. Tad couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing.

“Meaning?”

Her eyes glared at him over her fork of eggs. “Meaning that nothing has changed.”

It wasn’t true and both of them knew it. Something had changed. Tad saw it in Lane’s eyes. The resignation wasn’t dejection, but defeat. “Lane—”

“Tad, don’t. It’s bad enough to get it from him—”

“Let’s go. C’mon. I’ll get the bill; you go get in the car. We’ll wander around the town and see what we see.”

Unbeknownst to his family, Tad had slowly forged a new relationship with the Lord. Matt’s steadfastness and patience with Lane had taken the forgiveness his father sought and watered it into a deep sprung faith. He didn’t know how to talk about what he was learning and how he was growing, but seeing that side of Lane gave him hope that the old bulbs of childhood faith would bloom again after the cold winters of the past five years.

They wandered up and down streets, peering into trendy shops, old antique stores, and strip malls. Lane pointed to a yarn shop with a sign, “Lindsey’s Woolseys “over the door. “I have to go in. I’ve got to tell Matt. Hey, get a picture of me in front of that window. He’ll never believe me unless I give him proof!”

Inside the store, she itched to finger each hank of yarn, and then laughed and jerked her hands behind her as the storeowner encouraged her to feel the silky smoothness of finely spun wool. “I’m allergic.”

Too polite to ask the obvious question of why someone allergic to wool would enter a yarn shop obviously dedicated to the sale of wool, she showed Lane bins of spun silk, bamboo, and cotton, and Tad laughed as she bought several skeins of variegated cotton yarn. “What will you do with it?”

“I’ll roll it into balls and put them in a basket in my room. It’ll be cheerful. I wish I could say I’d learn to knit and make me something exquisite like that set over there, but—”

“What set?”

Lane pointed to a hand knitted Fair Isle skirt and sweater set hanging on a mannequin in the corner of the store. The blues, greens, purples, and whites blended into an icy frost that looked as Nordic as anything she could have imagined. “It’s wool. I’m sure of it. I’d knit it in silk or cotton.”

Trying not to laugh at the idea of Lane being patient enough to knit anything, he filed the interest away for future teasing opportunities, thanked their shop guide, and led her into the balmy streets. “I think it’s time for a quick rehearsal and then back to the hotel room for you. I see bags under your eyes. You didn’t sleep last night did you?”

“You’re worse than Mom!”

“I was taught by the best.” Tad opened the car door with a flourish and shut it smartly behind her. A glance through the store window caught a last look at Lane’s sweater set. She would look good in it. He couldn’t deny that. Well, at least until she swelled up like a balloon!

~*~*~*~

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
Christmas

Tad,

You won’t believe this, but I found a woman in Kansas who is going to knit that set for Lane. Kirky, you remember her, knows this amazing knitter, and she’s going to do a rush order for me. My mom would kill me if she knew what it is costing me, but I just had to do it. Lane so rarely says she actually wants what she can’t have. It’ll be made out of 100% cotton so no worries about hospitalization.

I got an email yesterday and she said she’s coming to see me. Do you have any idea where she is? I could have sworn I’ve seen her half a dozen times—once at church even, but she’s too far from here to do that. It was a good five or six hours after she left before she called to say that she was there. That can even put her out of state!

I’m worried about her. This solitude isn’t what she is used to. She’s comfortable in her own skin, but this—I don’t know it doesn’t feel right. I’m just worried. How is she when she sees you?

Anyway, I have to turn in my final in tonight, so I’d better review it one more time and get it sent in. Pray for me, guy. My counselor wants to know what I intend to do with these classes. She suggested Christian counseling or even becoming a pastor, but I’m not sure about that. I know it sounds pathetic, but honestly, I think Lane would never speak to me again.

Got to go. I’ll write when I’ve seen Lane.

Matt

~*~*~*~

Lane shivered on the park bench as she waited for Matt to saunter down the twisting concrete pathway. When he wasn’t conscious of his surroundings, he had the lumbering gait of an inner city thug. A lifetime of movements resurfaced in unguarded moments. She saw hints of that gait until his eyes met hers and then he straightened unconsciously, looking almost military in his bearing.

“Lane!”

One look at her eyes and he knew he had seen her around town. Lane, unaware that Matt knew of her occasional forays into the city, welcomed him excitedly. “It seems like it’s been forever!”

They strolled through the park, talking until Lane’s chattering teeth sent them into a nearby coffee shop. “I’ve been talking to my landlady. She’s an interesting woman. She’s always talking about her friends, but eventually I figured out that they’re not real. They’re from the Bible. She told me that I remind her of Jonah.”

“Jonah? I would have thought Paul.”

She eyed him oddly. “Why Paul? I get Jonah. He’s a guy who got ticked at God over rules. I get that. Paul just switched one set of rules for another.”

Matt reached across the table and stroked her cheek. “You have it all wrong Laney, but that’s okay. You’ll see it someday.”

“All right. I have it all wrong. Show me. This is one of those days when I really want to see it, so let me have it.”

Matt hung his head in his hands. Lane thought, at first, that he was angry, but as he raised his head and locked eyes with her, unshed tears glistening in his. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.”

He started his tale. He started with the fall, Adam and Eve, and the story of Babel. Noah’s cleansing flood, all the way through the Levitical laws and to the cleansing blood of Jesus filled Lane’s mind as he explained it. A myriad of emotions ranged over Lane’s face as she listened.

“Do you see the difference Lane? It isn’t that God was unfair in the Old Testament as much as He is always just. Justice demands payment for sin. Before Jesus died, man had responsibility to find atonement. After Jesus died, atonement found man. Both were God’s plans, but now… “

“Okay, I see that. I’ve always understood that. It’s almost beautiful. My problem is
after
that atonement.”

Matt’s head shook as she spoke. “No… see you’re trying to see things through man’s eyes instead of God’s eyes. Lane, I understand. I get it. I agree with you! I don’t understand why it is that people work so hard to add to God’s Word. There is enough that we’re responsible for without us making up rules that He never required.”

“Then why—?”

“I don’t know. I think it boils down to basic pride. People like to feel better than others. They make rules and keep them, and doing that makes others who don’t do it look bad. That’s all it’s about.”

Her eager expression bothered him. Lane liked his explanation more than was comfortable. “No, Lane. Stop. Christians aren’t the only ones who do this. This is
human
nature, not Christian nature. In school, there are several groups of kids that do this. There are the jocks. The privileged few that are like school royalty. If you aren’t in their group and don’t do things by their rules, you’re scum.”

She listened and saw a new side of the school system that she’d never known. “Is it really like that? I’ve seen it in movies and books, but I thought it was a stereotypical scenario.”

“Lane, stereotypes exist because there is some truth, or once was some truth to them. They aren’t the only ones. The geeks are school scum, but they know in their heads that they’ve got a better chance at success in life. Then there are the activists and the gangs…”

“I get it. Everyone is trying to find a way that they’re ‘better’ than everybody else. But shouldn’t Christians be better than that?”

The truth of her words were painful. “Yes. You’d think so.”

“Why aren’t they?” Lane’s pained words showed how much this truly mattered to her.

“Their sins are gone Lane, but not their sin nature.”

“Is it just like that here in the city or is it like this everywhere?” She deliberately ignored the point as she focused on the differences in their backgrounds.

“I suspect it is everywhere. To a degree. The difference is that in Brunswick or Fairbury, the majority of students that enter as freshmen, graduate after four years. Here it isn’t like that. Half of the kids in my freshman class didn’t finish. The girls got pregnant to escape school, the guys quit to work, deal drugs, or were killed in gang fights… “

Lane’s voice taunted him as she spoke. “I don’t understand how their parents can allow that? Where are the responsible adults around here? How is it that—”

“Lane Argosy, you are no different than the
Brethren
. You come into my town, judge the people living there as though you can possibly understand what their life is like, and then turn up your nose at the result. Tell me how that is different than what you claim the
Brethren
do?”

“I never judged you like that! I was unnerved by the unfamiliar, but I never looked down on you or your parents—”

He sighed. “No. But you knew me before you came. If you’d just been dropped onto Warmack Street in front of my building and saw me coming down the steps, would you have asked me directions or would you have assumed I’d hurt you?”

“It isn’t being judgmental to be cautious or prudent! Since when is it ever safe for a woman to ask a strange man—”

“Lane. Would you have asked a man in a business suit going into a bank?”

Nodding silently, Lane held up her hand. “No more. Not now.”

He excused himself to the bathroom and whipped out his cell phone. “Hope? I have a very awkward favor to ask of you…”

~*~*~*~

Lane circled the Rockland loop twice. She wasn’t ready to go home, but she was too tired and too unfamiliar with the area to drive through unfamiliar territory. Unaware that Hope and Jay took turns following her, Lane leisurely wove in and out of the traffic at a leisurely pace.

Hope flipped open her cell phone. “Matt? She’s just driving around the Loop! I think maybe she lives in Rockland.”

“I don’t think so. She’d have driven straight home. Maybe she missed her exit.”

“I don’t think so—wait. She’s getting off in Brunswick. Did you say she mentioned an elderly woman is her landlord?”

“Yep. She sounds a little eccentric, but I think she’s a Christian; so, that’s a good thing.” Matt sounded relieved.

“I know where she’s going. I’m going to get ahead of her and park across the street from her house to make sure. Bye.”

Hope’s suspicions were accurate. Thanks to her friend Grace, she was very familiar with Charity Stafford and her boarding house. She watched Lane pull into the driveway and enter the house.

“Hmm. Very interesting place you chose to move into, Miss Argosy. If you’re running from God, you picked a lousy place to do it.”

Twenty-Four

Thanksgiving passed. Lane spent the day with the Rushby family, fascinated at the differences in how people celebrated. She and Matt spent the Saturday before Christmas window-shopping all over Rockland. They bought little, but the ringing of bells by Salvation Army volunteers dressed in uniform or as Santa Claus punctuated the air until Lane thought she’d burst with the feeling of anticipation in the air.