“You’re not mad, then?” Teri asked as she and Jessica drove to the meeting that night.
“I’m still deciding.”
“Deciding if you’re mad at me, or deciding if you’re going on the trip?”
“Both.”
Teri’s good-natured laugh bubbled over. “Can’t you think of at least one good reason you should go?”
Jessica did have a good reason. Kyle. It surprised her that she would admit that to herself. “For Dawn’s sake, I guess.”
“There you go,” Teri said. She parked the car and turned off the engine. “Hold that thought, okay?”
Jessica turned to open her passenger door and jumped when she saw Bill’s face pressed up against her closed window with his mouth open like a fish. She opened the door, and Bill peeled himself off the moving window.
“How did you like my impression of a dead bug on the window?”
“Very realistic,” Jessica said.
“Thank you, thank you,” Bill said.
The three of them entered the double doors on the side of the church building and walked into a large, multi-purpose room. Teri led the way down a hall to the only room with lights on. About a dozen teenagers in the room were involved in lively conversations. Jessica scanned the room, recognizing all but three of the teens. Kyle stood in the corner, talking to a parent, and Dawn sat alone toward the back of the room. The minute Jessica entered, Dawn stood up with a bright smile and hurried to greet Jessica.
“I was worried you would change your mind,” Dawn said, motioning for Jessica to follow her and sit with her. “I decided that if you didn’t show up, I was going to leave and forget the whole thing.”
They sat down, and Jessica said, “Dawn, you shouldn’t depend on me so much. You need to make decisions for yourself.”
“You don’t understand,” Dawn said softly. “That’s all I do every day. I decide what I’m going to wear, what I’m going to eat, where I’m going to go after school. And I do everything by myself. I didn’t want to go on this trip alone. Can you understand that?”
Jessica understood. Maybe even more than she wanted to. The strength of her empathy with Dawn made her feel vulnerable.
Kyle finished with the parent and called the group together to start the meeting. He spotted Jessica and looked at her for what seemed to be longer than necessary. His look made her wonder if he had thought about her while he was in Nevada. Had he noticed her outfit tonight? She had changed four times and then sat on her bed and laughed at herself. Why was she expending so much effort when she supposedly didn’t care about impressing Kyle? She had ended up pulling on a pair of jeans and black scoop neck T-shirt, which she wore tucked in with a wide belt. Very basic. And that’s how she would act toward Kyle. Very basic. Natural and unpretentious.
As the meeting progressed, Jessica noticed how comfortable Kyle was with the teens. Even more comfortable than she felt as their teacher. He didn’t seem to pay any special attention to her as he went through the list of what everyone needed to bring and what time their flight left on Friday from Portland.
A horrible thought came to Jessica. What if Kyle didn’t want her to go on this trip? When he was at school he hadn’t said anything along the lines of, “I hope you can come” or “It would be great if you would come.” He hadn’t volunteered any personal commentary on his feelings.
Maybe I’ve been thinking about him and daydreaming for so long that I want to believe he wants me around him. And maybe I’ve decided that I want to be around him, and so I’ve talked myself into it.
Jessica thought about how she had treated him the last time he was in her home, ordering him out of her house and her life. What had changed in her heart and mind since then? Why did she want this relationship now?
What if it’s too late? What if he wrote me off that afternoon? What if I’ve blown the one chance I had?
Chapter Twelve
The teens going on the Mexico trip huddled in a circle in the church parking lot on Friday morning, bracing themselves against the early morning chill. It was barely sunrise. Jessica could see her breath when she slipped out of Teri’s car and joined the huddle.
“How about some help loading up this luggage?” Kyle asked from the back of his white truck. “Form a firefighter’s brigade,” he suggested.
The group shuffled into position and passed the sleeping bags and other gear from one person to the next. Bill was the one who ended up at the back of the truck, handing everything up to Kyle. With each piece of luggage came a comment. “Whoa! Heads up! Cannonball! Comin’ at ya’!” Jessica noticed how Bill’s attitude quickly infiltrated the rest of the group, and as the final pieces of luggage went into the truck, everyone had a joke to make. Even Teri.
She lifted her large duffel bag and said, “Here you go. This is my cosmetics bag.” Everyone knew by looking at Teri that she was about as natural as they come.
It helped that the mood was light, because the sky certainly wasn’t, and Jessica’s emotions weren’t either. She had almost backed out the night before and told Kyle and Teri that she had changed her mind. The only problem was she didn’t know how she could tell Dawn. Whether motivated by guilt or insanity, Jessica was here, and she was about to spend the next four days in Mexico.
“Hey, you guys,” Kyle called out as he hopped down from the back of the truck. “Let’s pray, and then we need to hit the road if we’re going to make that 9:30 flight out of Portland.”
Jessica liked the way Kyle handled the students. She also liked the way he looked. A little bit sleepy. His hair a little bit wild. His grin a little bit crooked. She knew he had to be tired after returning from that intense fire and then having only a few days to pull everything together for this trip.
The group gathered in a lopsided circle, and Kyle prayed. Kyle sounded a lot like Teri when he prayed, as if he was talking to a real person, someone approachable and not distant like the God Jessica was acquainted with.
“Amen, amen,” the teens all echoed when Kyle finished. It seemed like a secret handshake, something they all did automatically. Dawn was the only one who looked like an outsider.
They all climbed into a van, which was being driven to the airport by one of the dads. Jessica sat in the front bench seat, and Dawn slid in next to her. Kyle came over to the van, looked in the front window, and fixed his gaze on Jessica. She wondered if he would treat her any differently from the rest of the group.
He had called her two days before to apologize that he wouldn’t be able to repair the tub before the Mexico trip. Jessica had told him it could wait and that was about the extent of their conversation.
“Does anyone want to ride in the truck with me?” Kyle asked, looking at Jessica.
“I do!” a short girl from the back of the van shouted. She quickly vacated her seat, crawled out of the van, and hot footed it over to the truck.
“Do you have room for one more?” Bill asked.
“Sure,” Kyle said, still gazing at Jessica.
“I’ll go with you,” Bill volunteered. He was still outside the van, filming the loading of the group with his video camera. “This is Wild Bill signing off until next time.” He clicked off the camera and hurried to take his seat next to the cute girl already seated in the front of Kyle’s truck.
Jessica kept her nonchalant gaze on Kyle as he jogged back over to his truck. He had on shorts and a gray sweatshirt. He looked good. How was she ever going to keep her focus on the kids this weekend with Kyle around all the time? She didn’t imagine she would make a very good chaperon.
The ride to Portland took several hours. Jessica leaned against the window and tried to sleep. It was impossible. She ended up listening in on the conversations flowing around her. One thing she noticed was that these teens appeared to be stronger morally than a lot of the other students in her classes. It showed up in their dialogue and even in the way they treated each other. She had found out from Teri they took this trip over the weekend of Columbus Day because th
e first year they had gone over Thanksgiving and too many families had protested about their kids being absent from family celebrations.
Jessica imagined Dawn didn’t have that problem. Single dads, in Jessica’s experience, didn’t tend to make much of a todo over holidays.
Jessica’s thoughts floated back to one particular Christmas when she was in high school. Her dad had taken off for the week with his latest girlfriend, and Jessica had stayed home alone. Since that time, Christmas and other holidays meant pain and isolation to Jessica.
She longed for her own life where she could oversee the celebrations. She pictured herself living in Oregon and putting on a feast at Thanksgiving that would mirror a Norman Rockwell picture of turkey dinner with all the trimmings and a dozen smiling faces around the table. Now that she was in Oregon, the question was, “Who are those smiling faces supposed to be?” She had consistently cut herself off from relationships and held people at arm’s length since the day she had arrived. Who would want to come to her Thanksgiving dinner? Teri maybe? Dawn? Could she possibly invite Kyle?
The van came to a halt at a stoplight. Jessica opened her eyes and saw a sign that said, “Welcome to PDX.” They were at the airport already, and she made herself admit that during the entire drive she had cut herself off from everyone.
I have to change. I must find a way to open up a little. I can’t go on like this the rest of my life. I’ll only become more lonely, and that’s not what I want. I have to change! But how can I as long as I’m harboring my secret?
Jessica made a supreme effort to be more open on the airplane ride to San Diego. Dawn sat by her again. Jessica asked all kinds of questions. It was a way for her to establish contact without revealing anything about herself. In their conversation, Dawn mentioned that she was struggling with her Christianity, and she asked Jessica if she ever struggled.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Jessica said.
“I became a Christian about a year ago, but it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
“What do you mean you became a Christian? How do you ‘become’ a Christian?”
Dawn looked a little surprised at Jessica’s question. “You know, you give your life over to God. You ask him to forgive all your sins, and you surrender everything to him.” Then, as if this had been a pop quiz question, Dawn added, “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“I’m asking you what you believe,” Jessica said, putting the responsibility back on Dawn.
“That’s what I believe,” Dawn said firmly. “It’s just that it’s hard sometimes. That’s why I wanted to go on this trip so much. I wanted to prove that I’m into God and Christianity and everything. A lot of people at school think I’m a party girl, but I’m not really. I guess I feel like I know what’s right, but I still sort of stand on the edge a lot of times.”
Jessica didn’t feel she had any advice for Dawn. In some ways, Dawn seemed to have her goals and beliefs more clearly defined than Jessica. The “becoming a Christian” part of Dawn’s answer confused her. Jessica considered herself to be a Christian. It was something she was born with, the way some people are born Jewish or Italian. Christianity was a part of her Caucasian heritage, not something she decided to become.
Once the group arrived in San Diego, the fun began. Kyle had rented a fifteen-passenger van and a small U-Haul truck, which were waiting for them at the airport. All their luggage and extra gear were thrown into the back of the truck, and the teens climbed into the van. The luggage overflowed the back of the truck, and Bill volunteered to climb in and squash everything so it would fit.
“Human horizontal bungee jumper!” Bill shouted and then slammed himself into a mound of sleeping bags.
“Careful!” Teri warned. “The ice chests are underneath all that.”
“You’re just worried about your cosmetic bag, Miss Moreno,” Bill teased. “Hey, somebody get my camera. This is great footage.”
One of the guys retrieved the small video camera from Bill’s bag in the van and began to film the squashing of the luggage. Jessica had a feeling this videotaping of every little event was something they would be plagued with for the trip’s duration.
Joel, the guy handling Bill’s camera at the moment, turned the lens on Jessica and said, “And how about you, Miss Fenton? Are you ready for the mysteries and perils that lie in wait for us in the remote regions of the Mexicali Valley?”
Jessica looked away from the camera and caught Teri’s smiling face focused on her. “Mexico?” Jessica said with mock horror. “Teri, I thought you said we were going to Maui!”
Everyone laughed. Joel turned the camera on Teri and said, “Do you have a comment to make, Miss Moreno, regarding Miss Fenton’s accusation?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Teri said. Joel focused the camera in for a close-up of her face. With a mischievous grin, Teri began to rattle off a string of Spanish words, ending with a perky, “¿bueno?”
“No fair!” Bill said. “All comments for the camera must be in English.”
“Oh, come on,” Teri said. “You, of all my students, should be able to understand what I said.”
“Oh no,” Bill groaned. Joel focused the camera on him. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Bill said in his mock announcer’s voice, “we are about to enter the ‘Bueno Zone, where unsuspecting second-year Spanish students like myself suddenly find themselves required to spout entire phrases in a foreign tongue. We warn all you kids watching us out there, don’t try this at home!”
Kyle came around the side of the van and caught the last few lines of Bill’s monologue. “You guys ready to hit the road?”
“We could, but it might hurt our hands,” Bill quipped.
“Come on, get in the van,” Kyle said. He tossed a set of keys to Teri and said, “You ready?”
“Sure. Jess, you want to ride with me?” Teri asked.
She really wanted to ride with Kyle and the other crazy guys in the van. “Okay,” Jessica heard herself say. She noticed that Kyle was looking at her again. How that man’s look haunts me! How does he do that? One look, and I turn into a big marshmallow.
Everyone found a seat, and the caravan began the long, hot journey. When they arrived in Calexico, the city on the American side of the border, Kyle dropped off the group at a Burger King while he and a couple of the guys made a run to a hardware store. They bought an odd assortment of lumber, paint, and supplies for their building project. It took another hour of driving beyond the border to reach the village.
Jessica had expected poverty and dirty villages the moment they crossed over to the Mexican side, but she was amazed by the huge industrial buildings and modern stores in Mexicali, the Mexican border town. The buses, which rambled a little too close to their truck on the narrow roads, looked archaic though. One of them looked as if it might fall apart any minute and the dozens of passengers inside would come spilling out.
When they finally pulled into the village of Nueva, it was nearly dusk. Teri nodded and smiled at the people who stood outside their simple wooden or adobe homes. They all waved to Teri and Jessica, and from out of nowhere, dozens of children came running and squealing toward the van. Some young boys hopped onto the van’s rear bumper as Kyle drove slowly over the rough dirt road to the center of the quaint village.
“Shouldn’t you tell them to get off?” Jessica asked Teri. “It’s so dangerous!”
“It’s sort of their way of welcoming us,” Teri said. “I think they’re okay. Kyle knows they’re back there.”
A barefoot girl with her front two teeth missing came running up alongside the truck and grasped Teri’s arm, which she had hung out the open window. “Ana Maria!” Teri cried out in recognition. “¿Cómo estás, mi chica?”
The endearing little girl held Teri’s arm and trotted alongside them the rest of the way, chattering happily. It was a touching scene. Jessica could understand why Teri said earlier that many of these kids look forward to them coming down from year to year the way America
n kids look forward to Christmas.
Jessica had seen the boxes of clothing, toys, and Bibles the church had collected and was sending down with Kyle and his team. In a way, Jessica did feel like a Santa Claus. These kids had so little.
They pulled up in front of a partially finished building and parked the van and truck. The minute they stepped out of the vehicles, dozens of dirty little arms wrapped around each of the Americans, and a jabbering chorus of excited children filled the air. To her surprise, three little girls immediately attached themselves to Jessica, hugging her and looking up at her with glistening brown eyes. They all spoke to her with rapid words that sounded like they could be questions. Jessica could only shrug her shoulders and smile. “Teri,” she called over her shoulder, “what are they saying?”
Teri had a baby in her arms, a young woman standing proudly beside her, and at least eight children clinging to her shirt and her legs. They all looked overjoyed to see Teri.
“They’re probably asking your name,” Teri said. “You can tell them that in English.”
Jessica pointed to herself and said, “I’m Jessica.”
The three little girls tried to pronounce Jessica but found it difficult.
“Jessica,” she repeated. It didn’t help. They couldn’t say it.
The girls giggled and then pointed to themselves and rattled off their names, which Jessica found hard to understand and even harder to repeat. It didn’t seem to matter to the little ones. They grasped Jessica’s arms and pulled her over to where their mothers now stood, gathering with many of the other people from the small town.
It was a moving reception. The men shook hands heartily with Kyle and the other guys. The women slipped their rough, work-worn hands into Jessica’s and warmly welcomed her. One older woman came up to Jessica, and speaking gently, she motioned for Jessica to bend down to her level so she could kiss Jessica on the cheek. Tears were in her eyes. Jessica wished she could understand what the woman was saying, even though in her heart the message was clear. These people were thrilled to see Kyle and his group. Jessica felt honored to be a part of them.
Secrets Page 12