Avra's God (12 page)

He ended the kiss and smiled.

“Do you think you could wake me up every
morning?” She laughed when she realized what she’d said.

“Next Saturday, garbage detail?”

“It’s a date.”

“And the lady hasn’t even seen the truck
yet.”

Avra shifted away from Cisco to better read
his expression. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Why do you kiss me good night, then jump
over the porch railing and disappear like you’re running from a
fire?”

He tapped her nose with his finger. “Keeping
my promise to your daddy.”

“Oh.” So, this was how Bella felt in
Twilight
when Edward protected her from himself.
Cherished.

“You’re my best friend,” Cisco said. “I mean
that. Everybody in my life has issues. You’re my sanity. I like the
whole package—your smarts, your family. You listen to me. I like
the electric blue in your eyes, the way you fit in my arms, your
lips—” He coughed. “Uh, let’s just say I
really
like the
package.”

“Aw, man, are you done so soon? I was just
getting into this.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Now you’re
supposed to tell me why you’re into me—although I don’t know if it
really counts if I have to ask for it.”

“I don’t know if I can spell it out like you
did. I just know that—I love you.” The realization came with the
words.

His eyes widened. “Yes!” He punched the air.
“She loves me!”

She glanced self-consciously back at the
picture window behind the swing.

Cisco dropped his voice. “I never loved
anyone before you.” He hugged her, and her tears wet her face.

As if on cue, the garbage truck pulled to the
curb.

Kallie ditched her Saturday afternoon voice
lesson with Jesse. Jenna’s Screaming Pinks could coach his singing
for all she cared. She hoped he froze his butt off in the damp shed
waiting for her.

Kallie adjusted her backpack and rounded an
unfamiliar corner. She pedaled harder, wanting to get as far away
from the shed as possible. Her tire veered off the pavement into
the grass—like her life. She couldn’t blame that on Jesse. Had it
been a divine shove, or, more likely, Dad’s?

Not Avra. Avra rode down the center of the
street, hands high off the handlebars in delight—loving a reformed
player.

The bare thought iced her with fear. She
wouldn’t even trust one-step-removed-from-priesthood Jesse.

A glint of light flashed at the corner of her
eye. She halted, caught by the beauty of the winter sun glancing
off the stained glass windows of Sacred Heart Church. A cloud
passed over the sun and dulled the colors. Beauty brushed the
deepest part of her, but it came in elusive gulps that never
satisfied. Like religion. Add that to her list of gripes. Could you
tell God you didn’t like the way He ran life? Probably not.

Staring at the church woke up the ache to
know the unknowable that had been inside her as long as she could
remember. She leaned her bike against the side of the church and
let the ache pull her up the steps and through the doors she’d only
entered on Sundays.

She stepped into the dim interior,
automatically checking her pockets for change and looking for the
stubby candles burning in rose-colored glass. But the candles had
been in the Miami church. She sighed. She didn’t have a clue what
she’d ask God for anyway.

She continued down the aisle beside the
carved Stations of the Cross and slipped into a pew. Something was
missing from her life.
Probably the crater where Dad used to
be.
Jesse said God was a father to the fatherless. How could
God be the Daddy she craved, one who held her in His arms when she
cried?

The sun filtered through the stained glass,
casting yellow-red-blue tints across the carpet. Her backpack
clunked against the varnished pine pew. She pulled down the kneeler
and slid onto it, resting her forehead on her folded hands. She
whispered the prayers she’d known from childhood, one after the
other until she ran out. She sat in the silence—waiting for what?
She didn’t know. Her stomach growled. Her knees numbed.

Had she genuflected when she entered the
church? She couldn’t remember. She stood and headed for the doors,
crossing herself as she went.
Sorry, God.

The wind blew in rain from the Atlantic a
couple miles away. She zipped her sweatshirt jacket and straddled
her bike. What was the most she could hope for? To do more good
deeds than bad—and someday get to heaven perhaps after a stint in
purgatory? What about
now
?

The sky turned as dreary as her thoughts, and
she flipped up her hood. She wished she wasn’t mad at Jesse. He
would understand how she felt. She’d heard the cries of her heart
in his songs—
I’m a pinecone, aimless, empty, tumblin’ across the
beach in the wind.
And as the son of a minister, he had to have
more of a clue about God than she did.

“What up?” Cisco sandwiched himself between
Kurt and Drew on the stubby bleachers beside the soccer field. He
leaned past Drew and said “hey” to Avra’s parents.

Drew rubbed his stomach and craned his
neck—mouth open. “It’s the big one.” He let out a hearty belch.

Cisco laughed.

Cindy Martin thwacked her son on the
shoulder. “How are you ever going to land a wife and give me
grandchildren with manners like those?”

“This is a manly skill.”

“Let me know when they put belching in the
Olympics,” she said.

Kurt leaned across Cisco and slapped his
brother’s hand. “Nine point eight.”

The warmth of the evening sun seeped inside
Cisco. Avra’s family made him feel like he belonged.

On the field Avra pummeled the grass toward
the goal with dancer’s legs. The coach said she’d grown an
aggressive streak and kept her at forward.

Cisco sat back to savor watching her.

Avra sprinted into scoring distance. She
darted away from the defender, fielded a hard pass from the left
wing, and rifled the ball into the goal.

Cisco bolted from his seat with Kurt and
Drew. “Yeah, baby! That’s my girl!”

Avra stepped into the stadium lights.

Cisco leaned against the fence. His face lit
up when he saw her.

Her breath caught. She felt desirable—maybe
for the first time in her life.

He shouldered her duffle and scooped an arm
around her. “Mmm, love that aggressive streak. Two goals,
mí
vainilla
.” He kissed her hair as they walked toward Frank Roca
Park. “You gotta do a victory dance. None of this, ‘What? I made a
goal?’“

She laughed and climbed up the ladder to the
metal play gym. “You’re why I’m playing forward. You’ve given me
confidence.”

“Before I even talked you into going out, I
thought you’d be good for me.” He monkeyed onto the metal platform
near the kiddy slide and sat beside her. “Look, I’m doing homework
for the first time. I’m even pulling a B in Humanities. I’m going
to church, haven’t partied since I met you.”

“Do you miss the things you used to do?”

“Just one.” He ran his finger from her ankle
to the slit in the side of her soccer shorts. Fire traveled up her
leg in the wake of his finger.

He grabbed the launching bar overhead with
both hands, branding her with his gaze. Something hot crackled
between them in the cool night. A car sound system blared Rihanna’s
Under My Umbrella
. A baby cried.

“What are you thinking?” A smile played at
the corner of his mouth.

“I’m thinking we’ll be late for dinner if we
don’t leave now.”

He dropped one hand to the platform and
leaned in. “Liar.”

Only his lips touched hers in a long, pliable
kiss that melted bone and cartilage into soggy papier-mâché. When
it ended, night air puffed across her moist lips. She stared
unblinking into the dark pools in his eyes.

He slid down the slide.

Her fingers gripped the nonskid bumps in the
play set to keep her balance.

Cisco grinned up at her. “I thought you were
worried about dinner.”

“Dinner? What’s that?”

He laughed and crouched to catch her when she
slid down.

Kallie slouched in her seat in the News
Journal Center’s theater as if Jesse would spot her from the
stage.

Beside her, Avra craned her neck, peering
into the sound booth. A banner reading
Battle of the Bands
stretched over the stage.

She didn’t want to analyze why, but she
needed to be here.

The lights came up in the packed stadium. A
teasing moment of silence, then Jesse’s hand arced across the
strings. Cisco and Billy played in such perfect sync with Jesse
that they seemed like part of his body. She’d never heard them so
tight. Hard-driving music spilled from stage, a song Kallie hadn’t
heard.

Ice cold, nice—so fine—she’s Ice Girl.

Nice, she’s cool as ice.

Summer Solstice combs your hair and

Never warms you. You’re a beauty—

So remote, so chill—the guys line up

But never melt you.

Ice cold, nice—so fine—you’re Ice Girl.

Nice, you’re cool as ice.

Once, I knew the girl inside the ice.

Your heart beat red and warm.

Your lips were soft.

Your voice joined mine and soared ...

The song ended, and for a heartbeat its
caustic mood hazed the air like a drug. Then, screams and applause
erupted.

Realizing she’d been clenching her jaw,
Kallie relaxed. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a block
of pink T-shirts. Her teeth clamped back together.

Jesse walked the stage, inhaling the praise
like oxygen after three minutes under water.

Kallie pinched the bridge of her nose and
shook her head. Why did she think every song Jesse wrote was about
her? “Jesse’s so good, he scares me. I’ll
be
Jesse’s ‘
Ice
Girl
,’“ Kallie muttered as she sidled past Avra.

“Someday you’re going to have to take a
risk.”

It sure won’t be with Jesse.
Kallie
fluttered her hand at Avra and slipped out of the row.

Moonlight poured through the shed window onto
Jesse like a spotlight. He clutched the Battle of the Bands’ second
place trophy, the red and gold metal cool and unyielding in his
hands. He should have let Cisco or Billy take the thing. But, he
hadn’t been able to let go of it, not while a milliliter of
adrenaline still pumped the sense of connection with the crowd, the
power of the music, invincibility, through his body.

He deposited the trophy on the dusty floor.
Kallie used to celebrate his victories. He imagined joy breaking
out on her face at her first glimpse of the trophy. But, he’d
barely seen her since she ditched the band. He slid his phone out
of his pocket. His thumb hovered over her speed-dial number.

He filled his lungs and emptied them.

Avra had been right. Kallie was
all-or-nothing. And he didn’t like
nothing
. And
all
was way too much to ask.

He flipped the phone shut.

He groaned and shoved the stack of hymnals
into the moonbeam and plunked the trophy on top. Leaning back, he
peered through the viewfinder on his phone. He reached for the
trophy and angled it so light washed the letters of
Beach
Rats
.

The camera click of his phone echoed in the
shed’s attic.

He sent the photo to Kallie.

Sender’s remorse settled on him like dew.
Kallie would take one look at the pic and know he was alone in the
shed, connected to no one.
Morose,
that was the word she’d
use.

Only Kallie would recognize the irony of the
trophy sitting on Dad’s hymnals. In two seconds she’d figure out he
wouldn’t risk hauling it home and having Dad find out he fronted a
rock band.

Ice cold, nice—so fine—she’s Ice Girl.
Kallie’s personalized ring sounded from Jesse’s phone.

Avra hadn’t moved from the kitchen chair in
an hour—since the last of her armies bit the dust in
Risk
.

Between turns of taking over the world, Cisco
rubbed the spot on the back of her neck that turned her body to
jelly.

“Yeow!” Kurt dropped the frozen pizza onto
the oven rack and stuck a knuckle in his mouth.

Cisco glanced up from moving five cannons
onto Western Australia. He jerked his thumb at Drew. “You’re outta
there. Game over.” Then he jumped up and strutted around the room
like a rooster, fingers splayed on top of his head and under his
chin. “I rule the world!” He scrubbed his scalp till curls sprung
out in every direction. “I the man!”

Avra laughed. She’d probably fallen in love
with Cisco’s sense of humor before anything else.

Pasting a crazed expression on his face, he
took another lap around the table.

Kurt hooted, and finally, a smile cracked
through Drew’s disgust. The more they laughed, the more Cisco
played the rooster. Kurt slumped over the stove in spasms. Avra
clutched her stomach. Even Drew laughed out loud.

Cisco yodeled one last cock-a-doodle-doo and
collapsed into his chair.

After pizza and a game of
Scattergories
, Avra walked Cisco to the front door. She
reached to turn on the front porch light. He laid his hand over the
switch, stopping her.

They moved through the doorway and settled
onto the deeply shadowed swing.

Cisco’s fingers found the spot on her neck
and massaged it.

“Mmm.” Avra lifted her face to his.

“A good spot, huh?” Cisco said against her
lips.

Her mouth trailed to his cheek, and she
murmured, “A very good spot,” in his ear.

He kissed her again, more demanding.