Saving Maddie (5 page)

“There’ll be a lot of good-looking prep-school girls there.”

“I had one, remember. It didn’t work out.” I glanced at my watch. “Don’t you have a date tonight?”

“Guess that means you don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Tony stood and then helped me to my feet. “Hey, why don’t you come along? We’re just going to the movies.”

I faked a shocked look. “How are you supposed to get your groove on with me hanging around?”

“For you, I’ll make the sacrifice,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

“Haven’t you heard that three makes a crowd?”

“I could probably get Charlotte to invite one of her friends.”

“Four makes an even bigger crowd.”

He shook his head. “I don’t get you, Josh. You say you want to be normal, but you don’t do the stuff normal kids do.”

I followed Tony into the kitchen. “So what—I have to curse, drink, and have sex to be considered normal?”

Tony’s arm jerked sharply as he opened his refrigerator. “Now see, it’s when you say things like that that people don’t want to be around you. I know you mean well, but you can come off as pretty damn self-righteous sometimes.”

I frowned. I probably sounded as bad as some of the holy rollers at church. “Sorry, I don’t mean to come off as judgmental. It’s just pretty clear in the Bible that—”

“Josh, I know you love the Lord and everything, but come on. You can pray and ask for forgiveness when you’re old. Now’s when you’re supposed to be enjoying life.” Tony grabbed a two-liter bottle of Coke from the shelf, and quicker than you could say
unhygienic
, he tilted his head back and started guzzling down the soda.

As I tried to formulate a rebuttal, I heard footsteps behind me. “You know, we do have glasses.”

I turned around. “Rachel?”

The girl who had just walked into the room
sounded
like Rachel, but she sure didn’t look like her. The Rachel I knew always wore scuffed-up Nikes and jeans, not frilly summer dresses. And … was she wearing makeup?

Rachel smiled. “Hey, Joshua. I’m sorry Tony is acting so uncivilized.”

Tony paused long enough from his guzzlefest to let out a large belch. Then he winked at me and brought the bottle back to his lips.

“You’re disgusting,” Rachel said. “I can’t believe you did that in front of a guest!”

Tony finished off the soda and tossed the empty plastic bottle toward the trash can. It fell five feet short.

“What are you talking about? Josh ain’t a guest.” He looked his sister up and down. “Is that lipstick?” he asked. “Since when did Mom start letting you wear makeup?”

“I’m fifteen years old. I’m not a little girl anymore.” Rachel brushed her hair from her face. “And it’s cherry lip gloss, not lipstick.”

Tony picked up the soda bottle and deposited it in the trash. “You know, if you’re so grown-up now, why do you still sleep in Winnie the Pooh pajamas—”

“Antonio Myers! I can’t believe you just said that!” Rachel balled up her fists and marched toward her brother, her lips curled into a snarl.

Tony sprinted around the table so that six chairs and a huge hunk of mahogany separated him from his sister. “Josh, I think that’s my cue to leave. I’d show you out, but I’ve got an emotional fifteen-year-old who wants to rip my limbs from their sockets.” With that, he turned and dashed down the hallway.

“You’d better run!” Rachel yelled after him, her fingers clenched into brother-beating fists. She looked down at
her feet. “I could have caught him, if not for these stupid sandals.”

I laughed. Tony was a snail on the basketball court, but given the proper motivation, he was as quick and nimble as a slightly overweight cheetah.

“Don’t mind Tony,” I said. “Some people have a hard time growing up.” I took a closer look at her face. “What’s with the makeup?”

“Charlotte thought it was time I started looking less like a tomboy and more like a girl.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and tilted her face to me. “What do you think?”

“It looks good. It brings out the brown in your eyes.” To be honest, the bright red lip gloss looked a little thick and uneven on her lips, but given her reaction to Tony’s comments, I wasn’t about to say that.

Rachel’s grin widened. “You really like it?” She giggled and brought her hands to her face. “Charlotte took me to the mall yesterday and helped me pick it out.”

As much as I didn’t like talking about makeup, I figured the more she talked about it, the less likely she would be to bring up the idea of forming a praise-dance team.

“You and Charlotte are getting pretty close, aren’t you?”

Rachel nodded. “She invited me to her birthday party, but I don’t think Mom’ll let me go. Are you going?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

Rachel’s shoulders slumped and her lips turned into a mini-frown.

“Why are you so dressed up?” I asked.

“I’ve got a date tonight.”

It seemed like everyone had more of a social life than I did. Tony was having
almost-sex
, Rachel was dating, and Madeline was—Lord, there was no telling
what
Madeline was doing.

“Well, it’s not a real date,” she continued. “A bunch of us are going to the movies. I don’t like any of the boys who are going, though.”

“Good, because you’re too young to be interested in boys anyway.” Finally, someone was acting like they had some common sense. “You can’t trust them.”

She giggled again. She had been doing that a lot lately. “Don’t be silly. Of course I like boys. I’m just not interested in any of the boys we’re going out with tonight. They’re less mature than Tony.”

“All
guys are immature.” I inched away from Rachel. It smelled like she had doused herself in strawberry perfume. “All they want is sex.”

“I know. Every time I turn around, some pimple-faced perv is trying to cram his tongue down my throat.”

“You’re kissing boys now?”

“Weren’t you kissing girls by the time you were fifteen?”

I wasn’t, but that wasn’t anything I wished to share.

“You know, kissing isn’t the worst thing in the world.” She readjusted the plastic bracelets on her skinny wrist. “What Tony and Charlotte do is a lot worse.”

I froze. “What does that mean?”

“It means Charlotte can’t keep a secret to save her life. I know she and Tony have been …” She shuddered. “She must really like him. There’s no way I’d do
you-know-what
to a boy.”

I gulped. “Listen, maybe you’re mistaken. I’m sure they’re not doing anything—”

“Joshua, quit treating me like a kid!” She crossed her arms. “She gives him blow jobs in the backseat of her car. That clear enough?”

I felt my cheeks starting to burn. For the second time in a week, I’d heard someone say something that I never expected to hear come from their mouth.

“Um … I’d better get out of here.” I almost tripped over my feet as I headed for the door. “I hope you have fun on your date tonight.”

Rachel followed me. “Sorry, Joshua. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

I paused at the door. “I’m just a little shocked. I didn’t know you knew about things like that.”

“Just because I’m not doing it doesn’t mean I don’t know about it,” she said. “Don’t you watch TV?”

*    *    *

Mom and Dad weren’t home when I got there; they were, of course, at church. There was always another meeting, another choir practice, another Bible study to attend, and as the first family of Mount Calvary, we were always expected to be there. Tonight, the senior ushers’ board was hosting a banquet, and my father was the keynote speaker.

I took a shower, fully intending to throw on a suit and head to the church. But for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to put on one of those god-awful, heavy-starched, long-sleeved white shirts. Instead, I called the pizza place. Once the pizza arrived, I poured myself a large glass of Coke, planted myself in front of the TV, and flipped to some music videos.

I might have been a rising senior, but to most people, I probably seemed like the most naive person in the world. Everyone else was getting
some
sort of sexual experience, while it looked like I happily stood on the sidelines.

Well, just to set the record straight, I wasn’t happy.

It had taken a while—almost seven months—but I eventually built up the courage to where I could make out with Jenn without feeling like a hypocrite or a fool. I created rules for myself: I could slide my hand under her shirt, but not under her bra. I could squeeze the nipple, but only three times before I had to move my hand. Anywhere below the navel was strictly off-limits.

Unlike Tony, I saw a huge difference between making out (which I enjoyed very much) and sleeping with someone. The church was clear: Premarital sex was wrong. On the other hand, I liked to believe that making out was merely …
discouraged.
Yes, lust was a sin, but I hoped that God might opt to be a little lenient with me on this commandment, especially given my otherwise upright behavior.

Plus, Dad had taught me a long time ago that church leaders couldn’t practice what they didn’t preach. Which
was why Dad didn’t curse, drink, or smoke. And likewise, why I didn’t curse, drink, or smoke, and why I made out but didn’t have sex.

But just because I wasn’t doing it didn’t mean I didn’t think about it. A lot.

After I finished my food, I flipped off the television and headed to my room. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I had an enormous amount of work to do, including writing the essay I had been avoiding all week.

I picked up the comic—no, graphic novel—that Madeline had given me. Why was I even contemplating reading it? Something told me that Mrs. Stover wouldn’t exactly be thrilled to find out I had written an essay on a comic book.

Against my better judgment, I read the first page. Twenty-two pages later, I was interrupted by a rap on my door.

I quickly closed the book, as if it was an issue of
Playboy
, and stuffed it under my pillow. “Come in.”

Mom entered the room. I was surprised she could move her lips, her mouth was so tight across her face. “What are you doing home? Since you never showed up at the church, I figured you had gone out with Tony.”

I sat up. “Tony’s hanging out with his girlfriend,” I said. “I decided it would be best to stay in. I have a lot of reading to do.”

“So I see.” Mom’s gaze floated to the edge of my bed, where a corner of the graphic novel jutted from underneath my pillow. She walked over to the bed and grabbed the book. “Since when did you start reading comic books?”

“It’s called a graphic novel.”

She flipped through a few pages of the book before handing it back to me. “And this is for school?”

“A friend lent it to me. It’s part of my summer reading assignment.”

Mom sat beside me, her skin smelling like baby powder and White Diamonds perfume. “I’m glad you’re committed to your studies, but I have to admit, I was hoping you wouldn’t be here when we got home. You should be hanging out with your friends.”

“Like I said, Tony was going to the movies with his girlfriend.”

“What about the other kids in the youth group? Maybe y’all could have done something.”

That was the tragic flaw in Mom’s thinking. There was a big difference between being
friendly
with someone and being their
friend.
Just because I knew a lot of people didn’t automatically mean we were best buddies.

“Maybe another time,” I said. “I’m really behind on my assignment.”

Mom rose from the bed. She teetered in the middle of the room for a few seconds, her gaze glued on a piece of fuzz at the base of my desk.

“Mom? Is everything okay?”

She cleared her throat. “I figured it might be a good idea for us to chat for a spell, but to be honest, it’s a lot harder talking to you now that you’ve grown up so much.” She cut her eyes toward the door. “Your father should be the one discussing this with you, but he’s too busy saving
the world.” She pulled her lips into a pained smile. “It’s just that—it’s been four months since you broke up with Jennifer. I’m surprised you haven’t talked to me or your father about it.”

This conversation had been building for quite a while. I think Mom and Dad liked Jenn even more than I did.

“It wasn’t working out,” I said. “We had different interests.”
Different interests
—that was a mild way of putting it.

She twisted her wedding band around her finger. “I know it’s tough being a teenager. Sometimes, your body gets the urge to do things you know are wrong.”

I groaned. I was afraid Mom was going to slip into another talk about the birds and the bees. Like with this conversation,
she
had been the one to finally break it down to me, on account of Dad always being conveniently unavailable.

“You and Jennifer were getting really close,” she continued, oblivious to the scowl on my face. “And it’s understandable that, being a young man, you may have wanted to do some things she wasn’t ready to do.”

Someone, please shoot me now.

“I know how it feels to be your age. Lord knows, I wasn’t always a preacher’s wife. In my younger days, I used to—”

“Mom, please.” I picked up the graphic novel. “I really want to finish this book tonight.”

“Oh—of course. I’ll let you get back to your reading.” She looked almost as eager to end the conversation as I
was. “I just wanted you to know I’m available if you ever want to talk.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I was sure she meant well, but there was no way I was going to talk to Mom about Jenn. How would it sound, me telling her I got dumped because I was too stupid to sleep with my girlfriend? Preacher’s son or not, it still sounded lame.

Mom walked to the door, then paused. “I meant to ask—how did it go with Madeline? I heard you stopped by Yvonne’s yesterday.”

I frowned.
How did she …

“Carla told your father, and he told me,” she said. “I heard it didn’t go so well.”

I glanced at Madeline’s book. “I can’t believe how much she’s changed.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it, seeing old friends barrel down a path you can’t follow,” Mom said. “But Madeline’s a smart girl. I’m confident that with enough time, and enough prayer, she’ll eventually find her way back to us.”