Embittered Ruby (9 page)

“She’s touching me,” Harper whined, and scuffle noises ensued.

“Girls, please don’t fight. You’ll mess up your dresses,” Mom begged.

Maybe they would rip each other’s clothes. Then they’d have to go home. Carmen would make them a consolation lunch, and they could watch old movies all afternoon.

“Speaking of dresses”—Mom looked Carmen over head to toe—”couldn’t you have worn something other than jeans today?”

Carmen shrugged. “I like my jeans, and I doubt God cares.” Or notices.

The car turned into the parking lot of Hackensack First Christian. Oh boy. No more stalling.

Carmen followed Mom into the church, averting her eyes from any potential recognition from classmates. Probably the children of Mom’s old classmates. Same people, different outfits. These people wouldn’t understand her. Tears stung her eyes. Why was she acting like such a baby? She’d never been a loner before, but now she wanted to hide in her room all day. She missed the old happy, outgoing Carmen she’d once been, but that girl had disappeared. The girl without a care in the world. The one who mattered. Carmen dug her fingernails into her palm. The pain was good for a moment’s relief.

“Look, girls. There’re tons of kids over there.” Mom gestured to the section at the front left where three rows were filled with teens and younger youth. “Do you want to go sit with them?”

What, like a play date? No thanks.

“We do!” Kimberley grabbed Harper’s hand and yanked her toward the front.

“Uh. I’ll pass.” Carmen slid into a chair next to her mom and slouched, for once wishing Kim and Harper were less friendly.

The music started.
Ugh. Here we go
. Carmen rose from her chair after she made sure everyone else had stood. Once upon a time, she’d loved this stuff. Until logic made her almost positive God didn’t exist except as the higher power people could find deep within themselves. He was a good idea for people to lean on when they were in trouble. But God or no God, Carmen’s life had gone up and down, been happy or sad, subject to everyone else’s whims and stupid decisions. None of it seemed to depend on an unseen force of nature, so it made more sense to accept that He wasn’t real.

The woven fabric on the seat back in front of her prickled under her fingernail as she picked at the loose threads. Ten. Ten lighting fixtures hung low from the ceiling. Three. Three men in suits occupied thrones—okay, seats—on the stage. Or they’d probably call it a platform. Whatever.

Why did people have to raise their hands when they sang? Maybe they wanted to be the best little worshipper to convince everyone around them they were closest to God. Didn’t the Bible say people should be private when they prayed and stuff? Carmen could swear she’d heard that somewhere.

Where were the doors? Carmen shifted her feet and glanced around the room for an escape route. Could she leave to go to the bathroom? No. Everyone would look at her, and she’d make a spectacle of herself. What if she just sat down? Was there some rule against sitting if you weren’t pushing a walker? She could check her text messages to pass the time. Surely Nate had written. He’d better have—not one message yesterday. First time he’d missed a day in the history of their relationship. Hopefully the last time.

“Thank you, worship team and band. You can all be seated.” The silver-haired pastor held his hands out in front of him and gestured downward.

Finally.

“I’m privileged to introduce our guests to you today. They’ve come all the way from Colorado to share the ways God has touched them and is now touching lives through them. I could ramble on and on…”

I’m sure you could
.

“…save as much time as possible for our guests to share with you. I’d first like to welcome Ben Bradley, director of Diamond Estates.”

A wavy-haired guy in a shiny gray suit took four steps—more like leaps—and bounded onto the stage. He pumped the pastor’s hand and flashed a full set of sparkly whites at the congregation. Oh boy—one of those.

“Before I begin, let’s put first things first and pray.” He lifted his arms toward the ceiling and looked up. “Father, I come before You surrendered as Your servant. Please grant me the words to say to reveal Your heart to these precious people, and please open their hearts and minds to Your touch. Amen.”

Hmm. Figured he’d be more wordy.

Ben ran his fingers through the silver-peppered hair above each ear then looked out at the audience with kind eyes. “Today’s teens are hurting. Sometimes so much so the only way to get them grounded in faith and teach them how to make good decisions is to pluck them out of their current environment completely. We’ll call it a reboot.”

Several people laughed—not sure what was funny. Carmen felt like her life had been rebooted already, and it hadn’t been fun at all. What was this guy trying to sell? Whatever it was, Carmen wasn’t buying.

“At Diamond Estates we work to uncover God’s most precious gems from the deepest mire. Teen girls come to Diamond Estates and live there for approximately a year. They’re immersed in Bible study, prayer, worship, service, and everything else that goes into a well-rounded faith walk. Plus they participate in several counseling sessions every week—personally, in a group setting, and by Skype with their families. The goal is for the girls to return home with a new faith, vigorously ready to walk with Jesus and face the world with a family prepared to support her.”

Quite a lofty goal.

The congregation broke into applause.

“These girls come to us with all sorts of issues: promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, and anything else you can imagine. You’re going to get the opportunity to hear from two of those girls today. One of them is already a graduate of Diamond Estates and lives in Colorado. The other is one of our longer-term residents who is about to graduate and go home to her family. I’ll let them tell you their stories themselves.”

He smiled and nodded at a girl in the front row. “First, I’d like to welcome Julia Hernandez to the stage.” A tiny Mexican girl popped out from among the group of teens. She’d fit right in—like she’d belonged there. Well maybe she could take Carmen’s place. Maybe they could trade.

“Hi. I’m Julia. Peeps call me Ju-Ju. I’m going to start by telling you a little bit about my background. This part is always the hardest. So I hope you understand if I stumble around a little.” Her hands shook as she tucked her wild curls behind her ear.

“The story starts before I was born—don’t they all? I mean, we’re all born into trouble of some kind, no? But for me, my life consisted of gangs and a ‘hood full of violence.”

Much like Carmen’s new home, probably.

“My mom tried really hard to shield me and my brother from everything, and we did pretty good until…well, until I turned twelve.” Ju-Ju’s knuckles turned white on the sides of the podium.

“Mom and Scotty were shot in a drive-by while watching TV in our apartment.” She took a ragged breath. “I was in my room asleep when it all went down. I woke up and—you know how it can take awhile for you to figure out what the noise you heard while you were sleeping actually was?” She raised her eyebrows until some people nodded.

“Well, that’s not at all how it went for me. I knew right away what had happened, but I stayed in my room, shaking, too scared to come out. I huddled under my covers, trembling for over an hour before I could bring myself to go out there. I kept imagining the scene, and I didn’t want to see it because I knew there’d be no going back once I did. But no matter what I pictured in my head, the real sight was worse.”

Ju-Ju gripped the podium. “I often wonder to this day if they’d be alive if I’d been strong enough to get them help sooner instead of huddling in there like a coward.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “But there I was, facing my new reality of being all alone in the great big scary world. I knew they’d come for me and send me to some foster home, and I couldn’t let it happen ‘cause I’d heard stories. So I ran.” She shrugged as though the weight of her decision wasn’t a big deal. Like it had been the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

Alone on the streets at twelve? No family at all? And Carmen thought
she
had it bad. She glanced at some of the faces in the audience. Several men shook their heads in disbelief, and a few women in hats dabbed their eyes with a tissue. She moved her gaze to the teens in the front few rows, expecting them to be mocking and smirking, but they were riveted.

“So, over the next year, I kind of scrambled for food and begged for money. I found places to sleep wherever I could—benches, doorways, alleys, and sometimes a shelter had room, but I couldn’t stay too long or someone would call family services, and I’d get hauled off to foster care.”

She shrugged. “Eventually I figured out that big-city businessmen would let me stay in their nice warm hotel rooms and send me off with money the next morning if I gave them some company. So I did.”

Had Carmen heard that right? Was Ju-Ju talking about prostitution? Carmen leaned forward just a bit.

“Over time it got easier and easier, and I forgot what life was supposed to be like.” The young speaker gasped for breath. She’d let those words roll out so fast—probably wanted that part of her speech over as soon as possible.

Vibration in her pocket jolted Carmen out of the story. Would it be rude to check her messages? Of course it would. But she had to know if Nate had texted.

“Drugs, alcohol, prostitution. Who’d have thought all of that just by looking at me?” Julia shook her head. “I can hardly believe it myself sometimes. But the worst part? The decisions that stick with me to this day—the ones that will haunt me for the rest of my life—are the ones in which I chose to take the lives of my unborn babies.” She held up two fingers and wiped a tear from her cheek. “This is the hardest part to talk about, and I’m not going to stay on this for too long, but I do want to say one thing.” She made eye contact with the teens in front.

“Never, ever, ever is life so hard or is your situation so bad you have to resort to sin to get out of it. Ben will teach about that from the Bible in a minute. But it’s a promise from God in First Corinthians chapter ten that He’ll always make a way for you to not have to choose sin. I made the wrong choice, and I’ll regret it forever.”

Carmen glanced at her mom. Her makeup looked perfect, except one penciled-in eyebrow had smudged when she wiped away a tear. She still hadn’t gotten used to her new look and how to maintain it. But she sure did seem to be enjoying the guest speakers.

“But!”

Carmen gasped and jolted in her seat along with the rest of the congregation as Ju-Ju shouted, her face all lit up with joy.

“One day I wandered through the streets like I did every day, looking for a meal or a companion for the night. I passed over a few guys who gave me the creeps and then got hired for the entire night by an out-of-towner. An all-nighter was considered a cherry job because it usually meant a few hours of good sleep and a warm shower in the morning.”

Ju-Ju smiled. “The dude turned out to be an angel. Or at least the next best thing. Mark Stapleton happened to be a Chicago police officer serving as a short-term missionary in New York who posed as a john.”

On a mission trip and he hires a prostitute? What a hypocrite.

“He paid me well and then spent every minute he paid for telling me about Jesus. By morning I was lugging all of my possessions in one carry-on bag as I boarded a plane for Colorado. I moved into Diamond Estates and haven’t looked back since.”

Julia gazed out at the audience and locked eyes with several teens in the front then moved her gaze to Carmen. “Officer Mark Stapleton led me to Christ, but being at Diamond Estates has allowed me to learn and grow in my relationship with God. I’ve been healed, forgiven, and fully restored.”

The church broke into applause as Ju-Ju walked across the stage.

Wow. Quite a story. How would Carmen have handled the same situation? Could she have been so strong?

Ben jumped from his seat to assist Julia down the stairs.

Perfect timing. Carmen slipped her phone from her pocket to the empty seat beside her. With one finger she swiped it open to her most recent text.

C,
CELL BATTERY DIED AND
I
COULDN’T FIND MY PHONE
.

C
HARGING NOW
. W
ILL CALL U LATER
.

Carmen fought the urge to squeal. He’d been concerned about worrying her. Phew. Should she sneak a quick reply? Nah. Waiting and wondering wouldn’t hurt him a bit. She slid the phone back into place and raised her eyes to listen to the speaker.

Grinning, Ben had taken the microphone again. “Ju-Ju graduated from our program about two months ago, and she lives with a local family serving in the church and the community. God radically changed her life.” He looked down at his companions and smiled.

“Next, I’m going to welcome Tricia to the stage.” He nodded to a statuesque African American who glided toward the front like she walked on air. Was it arrogance? No, not arrogance. She just had grace. Elegance bubbling up from deep within. Something Carmen would never have.

“Tricia came from a life of modeling. It’s very difficult for an insecure girl—even one from a large, happy, loving family—to thrive in a world demanding perfection. As a result, Tricia searched for love in all the wrong places, to quote an old song. She looked for identity and approval in the attention she got from boys. Tricia’s identity search eventually led her to Diamond Estates, where we’ve worked to teach her how Jesus sees her. Tricia’s going to talk a bit more about life at the center.”

That kind of made sense. Nate sure did fill Carmen’s soul. When he looked at her just right, she felt like the most beautiful woman on the planet. When he paid a lot of attention to her, she felt valuable. Then again, when he didn’t…

“Hi. I’m Tricia. Like Ben said, I’m going to graduate from Diamond Estates in about six months. Quite a long while after I should have.” Her lip twitched, and her bracelet clinked against the microphone as she gripped it with white-knuckled fingers. “This is the first time I’m telling my story to strangers, so bear with me. I’m a little nervous.”