Avra's God (15 page)

The first organ notes grated across his
eardrums, tensing his shoulder muscles. He reached for the hymnal
and shoved it back into place without opening it when he recognized
the song. “... Thine the glory. Amen.” Like gum chewed too long,
the words had lost their flavor.

“Open your Bibles to Genesis, chapter
twenty.” The preacher’s voice was high and came from his throat and
not his diaphragm. At least Jesse had learned something from
Kallie.

Jesse flipped his Bible open, turned two
pages, looked at the ceiling. It was a skill he’d honed growing up
a preacher’s kid. He could usually get to the Scripture passage in
less than three motions.

“Abraham was a liar.”

His eyes swerved to the preacher.

“Abraham claimed Sarah was his sister. Sure,
Abraham rationalized that she was his half sister.”

Jesse’s gaze wandered over the potted palms
in the corner and across the front of the church. How many dead
bugs had accumulated in the baptistery since the last baptism
months ago?

“But what was Sarah in his heart? She was his
wife. Abraham exposes our duplicity.”

There was one of Kallie’s ten-gallon
words.

“Maybe you’re two-faced—”

Jesse’s attention skittered from the piano,
across the sanctuary, to the man in the pulpit.

“Maybe you show one face at church, another
someplace else. Which one is the real person? Proverbs 6:17 says,
‘God hates lies.’ Maybe you’ve been lying for so long you don’t
even know what’s true anymore. What’s the truth in your heart?”

Cisco was the same person when they were
climbing through the woods, when he was on campus, with Avra, with
his mamá. That’s what the dweeb preacher was talking about. He
rubbed the back of his neck. How did you live like that?

“God hates lies because He wants our true
heart to connect with His. He doesn’t want to have a relationship
with the person you are at the office, the social you ...”

Jesse half listened, absorbing, not so much
what he said, but how he said it. The guy spoke with certainty, yet
there was an absence of trying to impress. Jesse’s “crapometer”
said the guy was authentic—no posturing, affected speech, jerking
the emotions.

As the church emptied, the preacher shook the
last hand and walked back to where Jesse had been snagged by his
sister begging for a ride to Dairy Queen.

“Fine. Be that way.” Missy flounced out of
the pew, her curls flinging into the man’s coat sleeve.

The preacher sat down beside Jesse—a little
too close—and crossed his legs.

Jesse rubbed his hands on the thighs of his
Dockers.

The man held Jesse’s gaze. “You’ll never be
happy estranged from God. One day you’re going to bare your real
heart to God, and He’s going to step into it—just as it is.”

Jesse watched the guy’s Adam’s apple move in
his throat.

The man stood and walked the length of the
church and out the back doors.

Jesse shook his head. The man was weird, like
an apparition. He half expected to look up and see his dad bobbing
his head to the closing hymn, like every other Sunday night. But
the sanctuary was empty. Someone turned off all the lights, except
the ones around the altar.

He leaned forward, staring at the play of
shadow across the red carpet. For all his feminine mannerisms, the
guy was a real man. He stood for what he believed.

Who was he in his heart? The guy who said,
“Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to his dad? The one who siphoned giggles
and longing glances from the girls? No, the real Jesse only came
out in the dark—in his room when he couldn’t sleep. His heart
slipped into his music, and Kallie was the only one who ever
noticed. Cisco knew all his faces—it came from growing up
together—like you knew all the creases in your favorite ball glove
without actually sitting down and staring at the thing.

Jesse stood. So, the ninety-eight-pound
weakling that lived inside him—that had to inflate himself like a
blowfish to even exist in his fishbowl—that was the guy God wanted
to permanent
-b
ond with?
Like that was
going to happen.

Avra walked across Old Fort Park toward
Cisco, who waited under a Spanish oak. The lights from Washington
Street splayed across the grass, falling short of where he stood.
Even though weary from their arguing, electricity buzzed through
her like the seconds between the coin toss and the kickoff of a
soccer game.

“Come here.” His voice, Brillo rough, raked
her toward him.

She stepped into his arms and he wound them
around her.

He held on, not moving, his chin resting on
her hair. Oak leaves rustled overhead, shading them from the moon.
The light turned green and a string of cars crossed Riverside Drive
heading for the beachside.

“Mmm, you smell good,” he said.

She smiled against his cheek. “I missed
you.”

"Yeah. Me too.”

Their kiss wove wordless conversation between
them.
I’m sorry-You’re so precious to me-We can work this
out.

“I love you,” Avra whispered.

He bent toward her again. His lips settled
against hers, tentative.

We’re good. We’re going to be fine
.
Gratitude swam through her veins, its current washing her against
him.

His fingers tightened on her shoulders.

Tendrils of warmth unfurled. Nothing was
going to happen in a one-block park, twenty yards from the street.
She could relax and enjoy being with him.

Her body, hyperaware of Cisco’s, ferried her
to a place she wanted to be. Why had they argued? She couldn’t
remember.

His arms folded her in.

She moaned and melted against him, ice cream
running down a cone.

Cisco ripped away from her. “You’re so sweet
and hot and innocent.” His breath heaved in and out. “Can’t you
understand that I want more?”

She clenched her arms at her waist, damp air
chilling her skin. “Are you asking?”

“I wish I hadn’t promised your dad. I wish I
had a girl that didn’t play by your rules.”

“I thought you cared about me enough to put
up with the rules.”

“I’m no saint. I’m sick to death of wanting
and wanting and wanting.”

His words crashed over her, sweeping the
desire from her body. She peered at the shadowed sockets of his
eyes. Silence ran like seawater between them.

“This conversation is over.” Cisco spun
toward the street, his heels crushing the grass with each step.

She stood in the dark, her skin
corpse-cold.

His car door slammed and he peeled up
Washington.

She didn’t know this Cisco. Where would this
stranger
go?
What would he
do?
She sank onto the
dirt, her body curling around the shell fragments of fear churning
in her belly.

Dear God,

So, where did all the glorious emotion I felt
for Zack go? Jesse’s letter popped that balloon.

It feels like Jesse and I are grafted
together. How did that happen? Did you do it? Did I have a choice?
I can’t love Jesse. I’ve never felt warm and bubbly about him. Even
his kiss was sloppy.

Why are things so complicated? What now? I
could use a playbook about now. God?

Someone Who Needs a Little Advice Here

Kallie opened her nightstand drawer to “mail”
the letter. She read Jesse’s song again and stuffed both pages into
the drawer already fat with letters to God. Like letters to
Santa—where did you mail them, anyway?

Cisco wove through the pines beside Billy
toward the yellow glow of a bonfire. “Sorry about flipping out the
other day.”

“Yeah, what was with you?”

“Drama with Avra. Not about you, man.”

“I totally didn’t see that coming.”

“Obviously.”

“I throw the next punch.”

“Deal.” Cisco smelled the brew before he saw
the keg on the gate of someone’s pickup. He hadn’t been to a kegger
since he started seeing Avra.

“Hey, Cisco,” called a kid with surfer dreads
and a New Smyrna Beach High T-shirt two sizes too small. “Long time
no see.”

“Yeah,” Cisco yelled back. “Been livin’ the
life of a monk.”

A boom box blared. Couples danced in the
firelight on sand and pine needles. He wiped sweat from his
forehead while Billy took a turn at the keg.

Cisco filled a paper cup and stepped further
into the shadows, away from the heat
.
He was done living by
other people’s rules. He inhaled the yeasty smell of an old friend.
He blew the head off the beer into the sand. It slid cool down his
throat.

Isabel danced toward him. His eyes wandered
her silhouette over the rim of his cup. Her eyes were in shadow,
and the fire picked up a gold thread in her spandex blouse
stretched taut above her navel. A tiny black skirt slung low on
hips gyrating to the beat.

“Cisco, dance with me.”

He heard the slight slur in her words, the
plaintive note.

She moved closer, put her arms around him,
pressed soft parts of her body against him. She rubbed the base of
his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair. He dropped his cup
in
the sand, and his hands found the
exposed skin at her waist.

Avra. He’d never even
seen
Avra’s
stomach.

“I need another beer.”

“‘
S’up, Bro?” one of the
guys standing near the keg asked Cisco.

“Not much.” Cisco smiled over the fire at
Isabel and raised his cup
t
o her. “You?” A
few more beers and maybe he could get Avra out of his head and
dance with Isabel again. She beckoned him with a graceful arm.

He idly surveyed the crowd. His eyes stopped
at Kallie. What was she doing here? He muttered a curse. She saw
him.

Smiling, Kallie skirted the dancers and
headed toward him. She stepped into the shadow beside him.
“Hey.”

“Mother Theresa, what are you doing
here?”

“Mother Theresa? Oh, you mean because I go to
Mass?”

“Something like that.” He swatted at a
mosquito. “So you’re a party girl—get sloshed, go to
confession.”

“I go to parties. I don’t get sloshed.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Think what you want.” She poured out her
beer on the ground at his feet. “What’s your problem?” She stared
at him till he thought she could read his mind, then walked
away.

He funneled the rest of his beer down his
throat and watched Isabel dance with Billy. Her eyes lasered into
his as though Billy were invisible. The fire burned between them
now, playing in her eyes and on the minutest curves of her body as
she moved. She shimmied up to Billy—raising her arms, snapping her
fingers over her head, shaking her hips—and took a step away
again—eyes still rooted to Cisco’s.

He cocked his head and motioned Isabel to
come to him.

Isabel said something in Billy’s ear and
danced toward Cisco. Billy wandered toward the keg.

Isabel placed his hand on the curve of her
hip, their bodies just touching.

The bass throbbed in his chest and under his
palms as she moved. He slid his hand across bare skin to her back
and pressed her to him, joining her in the dance.

Kallie faced him, talking to the guy who made
Jesse jealous.

Cisco watched Isabel weave toward her yellow
porch light. She fumbled with the key until someone opened the door
from the inside, and she stumbled through it. Billy yanked his ’93
Chevy van back onto the street. In the passenger seat, Cisco swayed
with the motion of the vehicle.

Slapping his phone shut, Cisco shoved it into
his pocket on the second try. Isabel had just spent fifteen minutes
programming her number on his speed dial. Avra’s face swam through
the debris floating in his head and his gut clenched.

Billy lurched to a halt at a stop sign. A
picture of Enrique stuffing his Walmart uniform shirt into his
pants so he could flirt with a woman in skintight jeans jostled to
the surface of Cisco’s consciousness.
This is different. I’m not
married and expecting a second baby.

This was Avra’s fault. If she wasn’t
frigid
—
he swatted the thought away. Even wasted, he knew
that wasn’t true.

I’m done with her stinkin’ rules.
He
crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. Isabel’s
fire-lit dance played on the inside of his eyelids.

Billy swerved into the dirt in front of
Cisco’s house. Cisco’s head smacked against the window. He was just
drunk enough for it to feel like a divine thwack. He waved off
Billy’s words and slammed the door. Hard.

Avra sat on her front step, combing her
fingers through Lester’s curly fur. The strained sound of Kallie’s
voice on the phone earlier did nothing to quell the sense of terror
that floated in and out of her consciousness all weekend. She
hadn’t heard from Cisco since he screeched away from Old Fort
Park.

Lester growled.

Purple clouds rolled behind Kallie as she cut
across the yard. “Your dog hates me.”

Lester growled again as if agreeing. Avra
scooped him up and tossed him into the house.

Kallie sank onto the step, her face wan under
her tan. “You’re going to hate me too. Shoot the messenger and all
that.”

Dread weighed Avra down onto the porch beside
Kallie.

Kallie chewed her lip, took a deep breath. “I
saw Cisco at the kegger last night.”

Avra’s gut clenched.

“He danced with Isabel.” Kallie clapped her
hands together, the sound loud in the pre-storm quiet. “Like
this.”

Avra’s stomach heaved and calmed. She
pictured Cisco and Isabel together in her mind as she’d imagined a
hundred times since Friday.
O God, it hurts so badly. Let it be
nothing.
Her mind flailed for some plausible explanation and
came up empty. She’d gambled her heart and didn’t realize until
this minute how much she had to lose. “I thought something was
wrong—not
this
wrong.”