Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) (20 page)

The plan was to rise early (before the Glenns awakened) and to quietly load my stuff into Sara’s car. (She and Sky had decided just this evening that it was God’s will for her to take her car as well. I wasn’t sure what her daddy would think about all this but figured that was for God to sort out later.) With any luck, and God’s help, all the parents (and the Glenns) would just assume we were at school as normal. And we’d be far, far away before anyone actually began to notice our absence.

I can still remember the chill of excitement that ran down my spine as I stood next to the Glenn’s modern split-level house in the gray, predawn shadows, expectantly waiting for Sara’s car to pull up. I had my things piled behind the protection of the laurel hedge as I looked hopefully down the street, watching for her yellow bug.

And oddly enough, in the silence of that moment I thought about Joey Divers. I’m still not sure what exactly brought him to mind—maybe it was thoughts of how I was once and for all leaving Brookdale. But for whatever reason, I thought of him and I remembered his last words to me, right there in the produce section of the supermarket.
“Be careful, Cass,
” he had warned me.

What had he really meant? Wasn’t I being careful to “go where God led me”? How could a believer be any more careful than that? Surely if Joey really understood everything I’d been through—especially lately—he’d support me wholeheartedly in this brave decision to go forth into the Promised Land. (That’s what we were already calling our destination in California, “The Promised Land.”)

My heart fluttered with excitement when I finally spied Sara’s car approaching and thoughts of Joey’s concern vanished. We’d soon be on our way! Now if only I didn’t have to wait until the Citizen’s Bank opened up at nine o’clock in order to empty out my savings account.

But at least I could be thankful that I had such a gift to give. Everyone in the group was treating me with the utmost respect because of my contribution. Even Sky had refrained from calling me “little one” after he’d learned of my nest egg. I told them that we should view the money as God’s provision for all of us—not just from me personally.

Naturally Sky had agreed and I could see that he’d been impressed when I said this—I could tell by his eyes. And sure, I knew it was a pretty big sacrifice on my part. But I also knew that I was doing it wholeheartedly for God (and for the group). I believed I was being a cheerful giver! And I think that I truly believed that God would take care of me from that day forward. Of course Sky had assured me that I could count on that. And he’d also said that God would surely reward me for my generosity. Sky told me that God’s Word promised that I would be rewarded generously and sufficiently—and in due time! Whenever that might be. And so I had no reason to doubt.

Fifteen

I’
m sure if my Grandma
had been looking down upon me (from her front-row seat up there in heaven) she’d have been thinking that Cassandra Jane Maxwell had jumped right out of the frying pan and straight into the fire. And I’ll admit that thought actually did pass through my mind, be it ever so briefly, but I immediately convinced myself that it was simply one of those deep, dark doubts that needed to be dismissed. And so I did.

“Look in that bag,” Sara told me after I’d thrown my things into her backseat and was sitting safely next to her as she cruised a nearly deserted Main Street. I could see she was suppressing giggles as I opened the brown paper bag to see about a dozen cans of spray paint—in a rainbow of different colors.

“What’s this for?” I asked as I examined the hot pink color on one plastic lid.

“We’re going to anoint my car for the trip!” She laughed as she turned on the street that led toward the railroad tracks.

“You’re going to spray-paint your car?” I was incredulous. How could she bear to mess with the beautiful yellow paint job on her VW bug?

She nodded. “Yep. And then I’ll head on out of town ahead of you guys. Sky said we’ll meet up again in Sedgewater.”

“Why’s that?”

“Less conspicuous, I guess.”

I wondered how inconspicuous a psychedelic bug would be, making its way out of the conservative town of Brookdale, but kept these thoughts to myself. And so Sara parked her car next to Sky’s trailer and the seven of us all grabbed a spray can and just really whooped it up. With inspired creativity we “anointed” Sara’s little bug with wild stripes and rainbows and flowers and fishes and crosses until you could hardly see a speck of the original yellow paint.

“Good thing you don’t have any neighbors,” said Mitch as he put the finishing touch on a large purple cross that stretched across the hood of the little car. “They might call the cops on us for vandalizing or something.”

Sara laughed. “Oh yeah, sure, vandalizing my own car!”

I tried not to think about what her father might say about all this. In fact, I found it quite irritating that my mind seemed to be plagued with so many doubtful thoughts in the first place. I knew those kinds of thoughts would just deflate my faith and so I decided I must keep them at bay, or as Sky would say, “take them captive,” which meant, he’d explained, that if your thoughts impaired your belief in any way then you should simply disregard them altogether. This became quite common practice among us as time went on, almost as if we were disengaging our minds entirely. Because how could we trust our own thoughts—weren’t they human and sinful? In other words when you enter “The Promised Land” you’d better just check your brains at the door.

Finally Sara’s car was properly “anointed” and after a prayer for God’s blessing it was decided by a coin toss that Mitch and Cindy would ride with her and the rest of us would follow along with Sky after I’d collected my money from the bank. We remaining four passed the next hour by “anointing” Sky’s van in a similar fashion—more rainbows, doves, crosses, fishes, flowers, and trees, until the spray cans were all emptied with only the rattling sound of the mixing ball going
clickity-clack.

I thought the van looked rather beautiful in a psychedelic sort of way and not entirely unlike numerous other vans and buses that we would later see along our cross-country trek. But just as we were finishing up, a horribly frightening thought crossed my mind again and try as I might I couldn’t “take it captive.”

I never told a soul that day or even thereafter, but it occurred to me that morning that perhaps something would go wrong at the bank—perhaps the teller would refuse to let me take out my money! I can’t even begin to describe the horror this filled me with—I worried about Sara, already on her way in her “anointed” automobile, with less than twenty dollars in her pocket. And Sky didn’t have much more. Between the seven of us we had maybe fifty bucks—barely enough to get us to the next state. What would I tell everyone if something went wrong now? What would Sara’s daddy say about her car if because of me she was forced to drive it back home and park it in the driveway?

My palms were sweating and I could feel the heat rising up my neck and into my face as I walked into the nearly empty bank that gray winter morning. And I swear I felt just as guilty as a real-life bank robber when I approached the teller clutching my purse between both hands.

I sensed everyone’s eyes on me and felt certain they suspected the very worst. I wouldn’t have been too surprised if they had already alerted the security guard or maybe even the police. I felt sure I was just seconds away from crumbling and confessing to the teller that I was only sixteen years old and about to run away with a bunch of other kids.

I held my little passbook in my trembling hand as I forced a smile to my lips.
You can do this, Cass,
I told myself firmly.
It can’t be any harder than growing up with a drunk for a dad.
As ironic as it may seem, that crazy thought strengthened me inwardly somehow. And the next thing I knew I was informing the teller that I wanted to close my savings account.

“You want to close it completely?” She eyed me with curiosity.

“Yes.” I took a breath. “You see, I’m buying a car today and it’s going to take every penny in there plus all the money here in my purse. But I just really need this car.”

She nodded. “Yes, I can understand that, but have you considered getting yourself an auto loan from our bank and then you could keep your savings—”

“Thank you, I know how that works. But you see I just don’t believe in owing people money.” I smiled again. “I promise I’ll reopen my savings account just as soon as I can.”

“Well, okay, then. How do you want the bills?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about twenties?”

“Twenties?” Her brows lifted. “That’ll be a lot of bills.”

I smiled again, trying to mask how ignorant I felt just then. “Oh, that’s okay. It might be kind of fun to see that much money all at once.”

So she counted out
forty-one
twenty-dollar bills and a ten, a five, and then sixty-five cents. I slipped the thick wad of money into my oversized purse and thanked her, then walked out of there feeling just like Faye Dunaway in that
Bonnie and Clyde
movie that had come out a couple years earlier, right after the first time she’d helped Clyde to knock off some bank. It was all so thrilling and exhilarating that it took every ounce of my self-control not to just run out of there and into the parking lot screaming like a banshee.

Instead I walked slowly and deliberately, attempting some deep breaths in order to suppress my excitement.

“I did it!” I cried after the van doors were safely closed. I turned to Sky from the front passenger seat of the van (reserved, I suspected, for the most generous contributor to the trip) then reached into my purse and pulled out the huge wad of cash.

I held it up and proudly fanned the bills as I showed my fortune to everyone. I’d never actually handled that much money in my entire life and it felt kind of invigorating. Everyone else seemed to like it too, because we all just whooped and hollered and screamed as Sky pulled out of the Citizen’s Bank parking lot and drove down Main Street and out of town.

We all began to sing a rowdy worship song—loudly praising God for his mighty provision! I felt so thankful and relieved right then that the thought never occurred to me that this pile of money had actually been my little nest egg, my college fund, my future.

No, quite honestly, I only saw those green bills as my ticket to freedom—my means of serving God within the comfort of this “family” that he’d so graciously given me—I was going to live with my brothers and sisters in blissful harmony from now on! And I think I was almost completely happy as Sky drove out of town. Euphorically happy even. Honestly, although I didn’t actually know it at the time, the high that day was even better than drugs. And it lasted me all the way to Sedgewater, where we met up with Sara, and beyond. I’m sure it kept me high for at least twenty-four hours. Well almost, anyway.

Despite the fact that only three of us were actually licensed to drive (Sky, Sara, and Mitch) we all took turns at the wheel in order to continue our round-the-clock trip. All except for Linda that is, for we all knew she was a little high-strung and too easily freaked out to drive. Not wanting to be killed in a wreck we didn’t pressure her any.

Sky felt it was imperative to reach California as quickly as possible and so our colorful caravan of bus and bug began its beeline to the West Coast. Sara and Sky drove for most of that first day. After a long day we had a late dinner at a McDonald’s in town just outside of Oklahoma City and after running around the parking lot and acting crazy for about five minutes (we definitely had ants in our pants) Sky, the ever responsible one, told us it was time to pack it up and move on. Mitch took over driving for Sara and I took over for Sky. The plan was to take turns driving and sleeping and to stop only for gas, food, and bathroom breaks.

Other than those few rare times when Mrs. Glenn had asked me to drive her Cadillac to the grocery store (she didn’t know I only had a learner’s permit) I really hadn’t driven all that much. My first driving experience came while living with the Crowleys. Fortunately Roy had taught me to drive his truck, which was a stick, and so I was fairly comfortable driving Sky’s manual drive van. But due to Roy’s untimely death I’d never had the chance to get my driver’s license.

I swallowed back the lump in my throat as I thought of the Crowleys and Roy’s accident with the tractor. Like so many other segments of my life, that comparatively happy time spent on their farm seemed far removed now—almost another lifetime away—as if I’d lived a number of varied and different lives in my short sixteen and a half years. And although the era with the Crowleys contained mostly good memories, I tried not to think of them as I drove. I didn’t want to consider what the Crowleys might think of my “spiritual pilgrimage” if they knew, which of course they did not.

This was just one more thought I forced myself to “take captive.” Like so many other things, I simply wouldn’t think about it.
It’s all in the past,
I told myself—
all in the past, all in the past
—I repeated these four words over and over in my mind as I drove in the darkness. Matching the beat of the words to the rhythmic sound of the tires, I directed the van down the long, dark strip of highway. I kept my eyes straight forward, focusing all my attention on keeping the van just to the right of the white stripes that ran down the center of the road.
Just keep going,
I told myself,
just like those white stripes, keep going, keep going—for God is leading the way.
And that was enough to sufficiently occupy my attention as the others tried to catch some shut-eye.