Donut Days (16 page)

“It wasn’t me! It was Molly O’Connor. She screwed me, just like her dad screwed you!” I pictured myself saying those words to my parents, then scoffed out loud. A convenient excuse for sure. Who would believe it? Probably everyone would just believe I was trying to exact revenge for the board’s verdict.

My head felt swimmy. No women preaching. No women in positions of authority. What would my parents do now? Would they stay and lead a church where they disagreed with half the congregation (and a majority of the board)? Or split and start another church on their own?

I hope they leave,
I thought. Because how could I respect them if they stayed? And yet, how could they leave everything they’d worked so long and hard for?

Just then the door burst open and both my parents rushed in, Lizzie in tow. How had they found Lizzie? Did that mean they’d talked to Jake? Was Jake the one that called to tell them about me getting hauled away?

“Emma!” my dad said, ever the preacher with his resonant voice. “What in the world is going on here?”

I was still seated, so he and my mom were standing above me. The light was behind them and for a second their shapes were ethereal, like angels.

Mom sat in the chair next to me and faced me full-on, like getting closer might get better words out of me. Lizzie stood behind her chair, hiding her face like she was afraid to look at me.

I looked at my mom and tried to see her—really see her—but I couldn’t do it. There she was, just as she was: a forty-something woman who had still managed to put on fresh lipstick, even when visiting her daughter in jail in the middle of the night. I looked down, ashamed that I had no idea what was happening inside of her and aware that she probably felt the same way about me.

“Emma,” Dad said, “speak. What happened?”

I looked at him too and saw how angry and frustrated he was. His church abandoned him and his daughter got called down to the police station, all in one day.

“Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “please sit down.” To my surprise, he actually seemed to calm down for five seconds and slowly lowered himself into the chair across from me.

I took a deep breath. “I know this sounds crazy and you probably won’t believe me, but Molly O’Connor set me up.”

My dad immediately pushed his chair back from the table, but he didn’t stand up. Still, the sharp noise startled Lizzie, who jumped a bit.

“I think I’m going to take Lizzie into a different part of the station,” Mom said. “I trust you two will work this out.”

Of course. Absolutely she would do that. She’d focus on Lizzie and not me, since Lizzie was the good kind of Christian and I was the kind who got thrown into jail. Maybe she could counsel some church members on her cell phone while she waited. Same as it ever was.

I willed myself to evolve to a higher level of numbness. I wouldn’t cry about it. Not now. Not at the police station.

She and Lizzie exited just as Officer Malcolm came in. Without a word, he settled himself into the chair my mom had just vacated. He splayed his feet out in front of him, then pushed his clipboard at my dad.

“I need you to fill out the top form, sign at the bottom,” he said. “It ensures that the minor in custody is yours.”

Dad pulled the clipboard toward him and glanced at it. “Are there charges being pressed against my daughter?” he asked Malcolm.

“That depends. We’re bringing in the potential plaintiff.”

“Bear?” I asked.

Officer Malcolm blew air through his narrow nose. “You mean Arthur Holden?”

“I guess,” I said. “I just knew him as Bear.”

“Well, I sure hope it’s him, then,” said Malcolm, and he left the room again.

And then it was down to me and my dad.

I
’m sorry about the board,” I said softly, tracing an invisible pattern into the chrome table while Dad filled out the paperwork. As I stretched out my arm, I was suddenly very aware I hadn’t showered in two days. I glanced up at the two-way mirror and saw how greasy and unkempt I looked, how wild and unsettled.

“Don’t make this about the board,” he said, his voice low, his head bent over the clipboard.

“What, like everything that happens to us isn’t connected to the church?”

Dad put down the pen and pushed the clipboard away, apparently finished. “That’s a pretty convenient excuse, Emma.”

“But it’s
true
.”

“Perhaps you should think about how all this might not have happened if you’d come home when your mother told you to. Instead, you sent that O’Connor boy to babysit. Here your mother and I were, on the brink of facing his parents, and he shows up to care for Lizzie. And then, to have to hear from
him
that you were in jail. We had to go to the camp to pick up Lizzie before we came down here. I’m so disappointed in you, and so completely confounded by this situation, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“But I
couldn’t
come home tonight,” I said. “You don’t understand. I was in the middle of something.”

“Really?” His blue eyes flashed with anger. “Please, I’m fascinated to know what was
that
important at a
donut camp
.”

I looked up and didn’t flinch. “I’m writing an article for the
Paul Bunyan Press
. They’re having a contest and the prize is a college scholarship. I’m going to win it. And I’m going to go to a non-Christian college. The one I choose for myself.
That’s
what’s so important.”

I certainly succeeded in surprising him. He sat up straighter and looked at me for a long moment.

“That’s what made you stay? For heaven’s sake, Emma. That?”

“You say it like where I go to college doesn’t matter.”

“You sent us Jake O’Connor in your place!” Dad said, throwing up his hands. “An
O’Connor
! And you know as well as I do what they ’ve done.”

“Actually, no, I don’t,” I said. “Not officially, anyways. I’ve been trying to figure it out for myself because you and Mom never told me, or even hinted to me, what was happening with Mr. O’Connor and the prophecy. Not once. And you should know that Jake and I were on our way to the board meeting to try and help defend you. So before you go blaming him, you should think—”

Dad slammed his fist on the table suddenly. “Enough!”

The son of a Southern preacher, he had inherited what nearly all Southern preachers are known for: their temper. He’d grown up in Texas and preached in the South before moving to Minnesota, and when he got really mad, his long-lost accent came through a bit. Just then,
enough
had sounded like “aye-
nuff!
”

I hated it when my dad got mad, but I hated it more when he got stubborn and stopped listening. Mom used to say I did the same thing, and she used to compare us to two rhinos charging at each other. They ’d smack together, and the force of the collision would set them right back to where they started from. They’d get nowhere—just like we were doing right now.

“Watch yourself, young lady,” he said. “I don’t need to hear anything from you right now except your version of how you came to be here tonight. Understood?”

I clenched my jaw and nodded.

“Now, this Bear,” said my dad. “Who is he?”

“I think you can ask him yourself,” I said, since, at that moment, Bear’s shape filled the entire doorway.

“Bear,” I said, like I hadn’t just been accused of stealing all of his gambling rehab money, “this is my dad, Pastor Goiner. Dad, this is Bear.”

“Sir,” Bear said politely. His lips and whole face seemed stiff when he spoke, like he was trying to be on his best behavior. My dad nodded at him curtly, apparently unsure of what to make of the tattooed, leather-clad giant now in the interrogation room.

I looked at Bear and tried to be cool, I really did. I tried to tell him that I never would have betrayed him. I tried to tell him everything—tell him anything—but I could only cover my hands with my face. I was embarrassed and ashamed and sorry he had to be there after he’d been so nice and let me write about him.

“Now, Em,” said Bear, eating up the distance between us in one single stride. “Come on. I know you didn’t steal that money. Come on now. Look at me. I know you didn’t do it.”

Somehow, Bear knowing I didn’t do it made my heart fill with more emotion, not less. I screwed my eyes closed and tried to keep the tears from leaking out of them. Bear’s leather jacket creaked as he reached out and gently pulled my hands away from my face.

“I know you didn’t take that money,” Bear said again. With the huge thumb of his right hand, he squeegeed a tear off my cheek. “You know how I know that?” Bear asked.

I shook my head no.

“Because anyone who spends five minutes with you can tell you’re a good kid. In fact, I told myself that if
my
Emma grew up to be an Emma like you, then she’d be all right. In fact, she’d be better than all right. She’d be someone I’d be proud of forever.”

I put my fist up to my mouth, like I was trying to keep all the emotion from escaping my throat.

“No more tears, now,” Bear said. “We’ll get this sorted out just fine. Okay?”

I finally raised my eyes to meet Bear’s brown ones, which were tender even though they were bloodshot from not sleeping.

“I swear, B-Bear,” I stuttered. “I never would have taken that money.”

“I know,” said Bear, putting both my hands in one of his enormous ones.

“If Emma didn’t take the money, who did?” my dad asked.

“I think we should ask the guests of honor,” said Bear. “Anita made sure they could be part of the show. I think they ’re set to join us right about now.”

You could hear Molly O’Connor coming from a hundred yards away. She was screeching and complaining and threatening a lawsuit against the city. Officer Malcolm had his hands full as he brought Molly and Natalie down to the interrogation room and shoved them inside. Anita followed. Then Malcolm slammed the door behind him.

“My shift is ending,” he said tersely, “and I want to go home. So somebody, tell me what’s going on.”

“Ask her,” Molly said, raising her chin in my direction. “She’s the one who stole the money.”

Bear approached Molly and stood to his full height. “Is that so?” Molly flinched, but didn’t answer. Bear looked over at Natalie.

“I anticipate you have something to say,” he said. Natalie looked at me, at the floor, then at Molly.

“Natalie?” asked my dad. He seemed not to trust his own voice, as if he couldn’t believe she was standing here too. She was the one who came out of the baptism glowing. Nat was the true believer.

“It was a setup,” Nat whispered. No one asked her to speak up. In the quiet room, we’d all heard what she’d said. “It was a setup to get revenge on Emma. Molly was still mad about Emma calling her dad a liar. About the prophecy, I mean. And then she saw Emma with Jake, and that didn’t exactly help.”

From across the room, Anita winked at me as if she’d believed that was the case all along. I felt so weightless with relief, I wondered if I might begin floating off the floor toward the ceiling.

“I was supposed to distract Emma while Molly put something in her tent,” Nat said, linking her fingers together and holding her hands in front of her stomach like she was cradling a wounded bird. I stood up and tried to take a step toward her, to make sure I’d heard her right, but my feet wouldn’t move. Had Nat really just admitted she’d been in on the trick? That
she’d
been part of the setup?

“I did my part—I got Emma into my car,” Nat said, “but I didn’t know Molly was going to put the gambling money in the tent. I mean, we’d heard Bear and Emma talking about all this cash earlier,” she continued, “when we were spying on them. But I didn’t know that’s what was going to end up in her tent. I thought it would just be dog poop or something. I swear . . .”

Nat trailed off a little bit and looked right at me. “I swear,” she finally managed to say. “When I got you into the car, I had a change of heart. I was trying to get you out of the camp, Em. I didn’t want Molly messing with you.”

Molly’s mouth fell open a little bit, but she didn’t say anything. I noticed her neck was blotchy—like how it would get when she was nervous or sick—but other than that, she was playing everything cool.

“If you dust for fingerprints on that lady’s motorcycle, on the part where the money was,” continued Nat, now looking earnestly at Officer Malcolm, “you’ll find Molly ’s prints, not Emma’s.”

Dust for prints? Nat had been watching too much
Law & Order
.

I caught my dad’s eye. In the harsh fluorescent lighting of the interrogation room, he looked old and pale and tired. And sorry.

“Mr. Holden,” said Officer Malcolm, “do you wish to press charges against Miss O’Connor and Miss Greene?”

Molly was indignant. “Press charges? For what?”

“For tampering with personal property, for one,” replied Malcolm. “And I could nail you for bringing up false charges and wasting my damn time.”

Natalie looked sick, and Molly’s small lower lip trembled.

Bear put up his hands. “Perhaps we’ve had enough turmoil for one day. I have my money, and that suffices for me. I have a date with a rehab center in a few hours and I’d like to get some rest. I suggest we all retire.”

Bear’s rehab was in a few hours? I glanced at my dad’s watch and was shocked to see the hands pointing to 5:00 A.M. The donut store was going to open in an hour!

“Come on, Emma,” my dad said, putting a weary arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go.”

I walked out of the room, past Molly and Natalie, who were still standing there like they were waiting for someone to tell them what would happen next. Natalie opened her mouth when I passed, like she wanted to say something, but I looked away. I wasn’t ready to hear anything from her just now.