“Love you, baby.”
When Sam and Lisa separated, Lisa was just about to suggest they get out of there, maybe go back to Sam’s or Susie’s house or somewhere else, anywhere but the East Valley High School gym. Sam beat her to it.
“Guys, we’re gonna head outta here,” Sam said. “Is that okay with you, baby?”
Lisa rolled her eyes as she nodded.
“It’s been a blast and all, but, I think we’re all worn out.” Sam put a protective arm around Lisa’s waist.
“I’ve had enough drama for one night,” Lisa said, this time out loud.
“For a lifetime,” Marlee muttered under her breath, but everyone heard it and chuckled.
“Yeah, I think we’re gonna head out, too. Go somewhere nice and quiet.” Ronnie raised a suggestive eyebrow to Jordan.
“Ah, boys in love,” Sam said.
“Hey,” Ronnie blurted, “I just got an idea.”
“Uh, oh,” Karl said.
Ronnie stuck his tongue out at Karl. “I just decided that I’m having a New Year’s Eve party. My parents always go out, so we’ll have the place to ourselves. Everyone’s invited!”
“Sounds like fun,” Sam said. “I’m flying in from Switzerland that day, and I’ll be jetlagged to beat the band, but I’ll be there. Okay, then, have a fun night everybody, what’s left of it. We’re outta here.”
After the circle of friends hugged their goodbyes, Sam texted Cassie to bring the limousine around to pick them up. They collected their coats from the coat room and just as Lisa was about to put her coat on, she realized that she had forgotten to get her silk wrap from the paramedics. Oh, well. It was Freddie’s now.
“There’s our ride,” Marlee said shuffling back and forth on the sidewalk where she, Susie, Sam, and Lisa huddled together to keep warm. The temperature seemed to have dropped since they’d gone in.
“Hey, tall girl,” somebody said from behind them.
They turned around to see who had addressed Lisa. Oh, no. It was that jerk Ryan.
“That was, uh, pretty cool what you did for Freddie back there. I mean, I still think you’re a bunch of queers, but that was good.” His friends didn’t say a word. He smacked one of them on the chest. “C’mon, let’s go find some beer.”
Chapter Seven
“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”— Psalm 133:1
“LISA ANNE BROWN, get out of bed this instant. You will not make us late for church,” her mother boomed into Lisa’s room.
“I’m not going, Mom.” Lisa rolled over to face the wall. “I’m not going to that stupid church ever again.”
“Oh, yes, you are, young lady.” Lisa’s mother threw open the closet door. She pulled out a thick wool skirt and a shirt to match. “There were conditions on going to that dance last night. We are going to church and when we get home you are studying for your exams. If I’m not mistaken, you have two tests tomorrow.”
“English and Spanish. Let me stay home, Mom. I’ll study. I promise.”
“Get up, missy. I’m not fooling around.” The volume in her mother’s voice reached a level Lisa had never heard before. Her mother threw the skirt and blouse on Bridget’s bed and huffed out of the room.
“Geez. Fine,” Lisa mumbled. “Whatever.” She sat up with a yawn. There were some things you did not push her mother about. Going to church was one of them.
Even though she dressed in record time, there was no time for breakfast. She checked her siblings’ seatbelts and then flung her own on. She stared out the window fuming about having to go back to that church.
About a half mile into the trip, Lisa felt the uncharacteristic quiet in the family van. Lynnie was reading in the farthest backseat as usual, so that wasn’t anything new. But although Lawrence Jr. played with his Captain America action figure, he was doing it quietly in his seat next to Lynnie. And even Bridget wasn’t asking a thousand questions or singing or fussing. It was the quietest car trip the Brown family had ever made to church, to anywhere really.
You would’ve thought they had made a vow of silence the way they entered their family pew, heads down, not making eye contact. Once the service started and the kids stood to go to Sunday school, Bridget whispered, “Lisa?”
“What’s up, Sweetpea?” Lisa whispered back.
“Did Mama put you in time out?”
Lisa simply nodded, and put a finger to her lip to shush any further questions. She nudged her sister toward the aisle where Lynnie was waiting to take her hand. Lisa sat back against the pew and stewed. How could her mother make her go back to this place that had so openly condemned her? And her father? He hadn’t stepped in at all. Hadn’t they heard Reverend Rinaldi denounce her last week? Why should she have to sit there and listen to more stupidity? And the congregation, how could she look at them? Word had probably gotten around about the six-foot-tall, dark-haired gay girl from Clarksonville that had gone to the East Valley Snowball Dance last night. There weren’t too many girls that fit that description, and she hadn’t just gone to the dance and sat at the gay table, oh, no. She had gone to the dance with Samantha Rose Payton, daughter of the wealthiest people in Clarksonville County, who everybody knew. And now everyone would know that she, Lisa Anne Brown, was Sam’s girlfriend. She kept her eyes down.
Thank God Reverend Owens was back. Maybe he’d say something about Reverend Rinaldi’s sermon. Lisa brightened. Yeah, maybe he’d apologize for Reverend Rinaldi’s rudeness and ignorance and unguestlike demeanor. But as the service wore on, nothing like that happened. Not even close.
Discouraged, Lisa looked down and picked at her nails. When Mr. Petrov got up to read scripture, Lisa decided she would read scripture, too. But she wouldn’t read what he was reading. She picked up the pew Bible and flipped to the beginning of the book. The good ole Old Testament. She positioned the Bible so that no one, not even her mother, could see what she was reading.
She turned the pages until she found what she was looking for. Leviticus 18:22. She read silently to herself. “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
Yep, she had remembered it correctly. It seemed pretty straightforward. Being gay was an abomination. It said so in the Bible, right there in black and white. Of course, the verse didn’t say anything about two women, did it? Lisa chuckled silently to herself, although she knew that wasn’t a valid loophole. Not that she was looking for loopholes; she was just trying to understand. Why did the book of Leviticus mention anything about gays in the first place? She turned back to the first chapter of Leviticus and read silently as the service went on without her.
Holy crap. In Leviticus chapter one, God speaks to Moses about the proper way to slaughter animals. Gross. Apparently there were right and wrong ways to make your “burnt offerings” to God. Moses was supposed to relay all of this to the Israelites. Lisa cringed as she skimmed the passage. It talked in detail about the different ways to slaughter bulls and sheep and goats and pigeons and turtledoves. Gross to infinity. This was in the Bible? It even specified what side of the altar you should smear the blood on. Clearly, this stuff was written when the world was a very different place. When did the book of Leviticus take place, anyway? She knew all about the parting of the Red Sea and everything, but did Moses do that before or after the Leviticus chapter? And, seriously, what was up with all the sacrifices?
She turned back to the table of contents. Leviticus was the third book of the Old Testament. Genesis was the first, of course, and Exodus was the second. She had read parts of Genesis before, but not that thoroughly. She set her chin, determined to figure this out. She flipped back to Genesis, chapter one. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth—”
“Lisa,” her mother hissed.
Lisa looked up to see the entire congregation standing. Oh, geez. She stood and smoothed out her skirt, a finger tucked in the book of Genesis. Wow. Was it time for the affirmation of faith already? She didn’t need to affi
rm her faith. She had faith. Faith in God. Faith in herself. She just wasn’t sure she had faith in her church anymore.
Once the service was over, Lisa thought her torture was also over, but, no, of course not. Her mother sprang the news on her that she had made an appointment for her with Reverend Owens immediately following the coffee reception. This was the second meeting her mother had set up. The first was in the spring when she found out Lisa was gay. This new one must be because of Reverend Rinaldi. Lisa knew her mother simply wanted her to check in and make sure everything was okay on both sides.
Reluctantly, Lisa followed her family through the side door of the sanctuary to a hallway leading past the Sunday school to the reception hall. Bridget skipped ahead with Lawrence Jr. right behind her. Oddly, Lynnie walked side by side with Lisa and didn’t have her nose in a book like she usually did.
It was basically Lisa’s job to keep the kids in line whenever they stayed for coffee receptions, so Lisa quickly corralled Bridget and Lawrence Jr. into the unofficial kids’ corner of the hall. She grabbed a wooden fold up chair, hung her coat over the back, and plopped down in it. Lynnie scraped another chair across the floor and had her book open before she’d sat down. Bridget and Lawrence Jr. ran around playing tag with a couple of the other kids. All Lisa wanted to do was go home and pretend to study in her room while she texted with Sam and then took a nap. She would have texted Sam right then, but her mother had strict rules about cell phones in church.
Geez, she was tired. She hadn’t gotten home from Sam’s until midnight. After they left the dance, they’d all gone back to Sam’s house and slow danced in the living room of Sam’s suite. Way too soon it was time for Lisa and Marlee to go back to Clarksonville.
Feeling eyes burning into her, Lisa looked up and saw her mother and Mrs. Maynard looking right at her. Her mother had the oddest look on her face. Oh, geez, Lisa thought. Mrs. Maynard must have heard about the dance and the gay table and the fact that Lisa had gone with a girl. Crap.
Lisa swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and looked away. After forever, she dared to look up again and watched as her mother said something to Mrs. Maynard, tapped her arm, and headed toward her in the kids’ corner. Oh, geez, now what?
Just then Reverend Owens appeared from out of nowhere. “Are you ready, Lisa?”
Lisa bolted out of her seat and threw her winter coat on. “Absolutely.” She motioned to her mother that she was going to Reverend Owens’ office. Her mother nodded and headed back to the coffee station.
Lisa followed Reverend Owens out the back door of the rec hall to the main administration building of the church where he had his office. The last meeting Lisa had in his office was in mid-July after her mother found out her relationship with Sam was more than friendship. That meeting had gone okay. It was obvious at the time that neither of them wanted to be there, and Reverend Owens had basically told her to pray for guidance and to make good choices. That was good advice for any occasion.
Lisa couldn’t help thinking that this time would be different.
“Let me take your coat, Lisa.” Lisa would have preferred to keep it on, almost like armor against the judgment she was sure she’d be receiving, but handed it to the reverend and sat down in the same chair she’d sat in the last time.
His desk was piled high with papers and books. Dust a half inch thick covered the old-fashioned computer monitor and the overflowing bookshelves.
“So your mother—”
Lisa didn’t let him finish. “Can you tell me about Leviticus, Reverend?” She wanted to steer this conversation, because once Reverend Owns got talking, it was hard to derail him. “It’s about the Levites, right? One of the twelve tribes of Israel?”
“You’re curious about the Old Testament, are you?” He sat down behind his desk in an ancient office chair. It looked as old as he was.
“Yeah, I mean Genesis was all about creation, right? Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, Cain kills his brother Abel, Noah builds the ark, and all that, but—”
“Lisa, you can’t forget about the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and the valuable lessons we learn from the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah—”
“I know, I know. I learned most of that through Sunday school.” She didn’t mean to be rude by interrupting him, but she had to grab the reins back, otherwise she’d be there until Christmas morning discussing the meaning of every chapter and verse of the Old Testament. Except that the reverend would probably keep talking his way into the New Testament and she’d be there through Easter. “In Exodus, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt, parts the Red Sea, gets the Ten Commandments from God, but how does that lead to the next book Leviticus?”
“Well, remember that in Exodus, Moses delivered the Israelites to Mount Sinai and all along their journey, Moses relays the laws that God wants them to obey and the traditions He wants them to follow.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Lisa scooted forward on the chair. Now they were getting somewhere. “Leviticus starts with burnt offerings, and disgustingly, how to do them.”
“Exactly. Leviticus is basically a detailed list from God to the Israelites about Jewish ceremonial laws that He wants them to carry out. Leviticus is mainly in God’s voice. Did you know that? Back in my seminary days we studied—”
“Why all the rules in Leviticus, though?” Stay on track, Reverend, stay on track. The last time she had a meeting with Reverend Owens like this, she heard way too many stories about his time in seminary. A time he obviously looked back on fondly, but today she didn’t have time to hear about how every Sunday, they were issued one cloth napkin that they had to use for the entire week of meals.
“There were so many rules, that it must have been hard for the Israelites to follow them all.”
Reverend Owens nodded. He leaned back in his ancient chair and put his fingertips together. “God’s rules for the Israelites were strict. Infractions often meant death. God sent fire down to kill two priests who didn’t use the proper procedure for approaching the altar.”
“That seems pretty harsh.”
“God’s not fooling around in Leviticus. If anyone cursed God’s name, or ate meat with blood still in it, or performed sexual sins, these sins were punishable by death.”
“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination,” Lisa quoted and sat back in the chair. She stared at the faded carpet under her feet. It was one of God’s laws. Directly from Him.
“Leviticus 18:22.”
The grandfather clock clicked off the seconds in the uncharacteristically quiet office. Lisa choked back the tears that were building up inside. The old carpet blurred in her vision as tears took over. She reached up and wiped at her eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of Reverend Owens. Why didn’t he say something? Anything.
“Lisa, look at this.”
She looked up to see him stand and take a plaque off a bookshelf.
“Here, read it out loud.” He handed her the plaque.
“‘Love conquers hate.’ This is from the Human Rights Campaign?” She pointed to the tiny blue and yellow square under the words. “Isn’t that a gay and lesbian group?”
Reverend Owens nodded. “A parishioner gave this to me a few years ago. He, I can’t say his name, but he was in the same predicament that you’re in.”
“Predicament?” she mumbled under her breath. Is that what it was?
He put the plaque back on the shelf. “I keep it there to remind me that we have to deal with God’s plan for each of us in our own way. We must each have our own personal relationship with God. We must each deal with the temptations of the devil in our own ways, as well. Beware the tools of the devil, Lisa, for he is quite crafty.” He stood up. Their session was apparently over.
“Perhaps you simply haven’t met the right young man, yet, Lisa. Perhaps this is a test of your faith. God hasn’t given up on you.” He turned away from her and looked out the window to the prayer garden covered
with snow. “Go with God, Lisa.”
Lisa wasn’t sure what to make of his final statement, but it was obvious that she had been dismissed. Remembering her manners, she said, “Thank you, Reverend. I appreciate you taking time to talk with me today.”
He nodded once, but did not turn around.
She stood, shrugged on her coat, and left with more questions than she went in with.
Chapter Eight
“Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.”— 1 Peter 5:8
LISA HAD INTENDED to spend most of her time after church studying for her English and Spanish exams, but she couldn’t concentrate and lay on her bed trying to make sense of life. In her head Reverend Owens kept saying, “Beware the tools of the devil,” and “Go with God.” Sitting up with a start, her unread English notebook hit the floor with a bang as she realized what he had been trying to tell her. He thought the devil had coerced her into the abomination of homosexuality. In other words, “Go with God, Lisa, not the devil.”
Unsettled, she texted Sam and told her about her visit with the reverend. Sam helped her understand that the reverend wasn’t perfect. He was human just like they were, and he was a product of the generation he’d grown up in. Lisa wished she could have talked to Sam on the phone instead of texting, but if her mother caught her on the phone, she would be in time out for real and wouldn’t be able to see Sam at the youth alliance meeting on Tuesday. There was no way she was going to take a chance on that.
After a grueling marathon of three exams in two days, Tuesday evening finally came. Lisa was free and clear until Thursday morning’s
U.S. History and Government exam. Ugh. That one was going to fry her no matter how much she studied. Mrs. B’s exams were legendary for causing the brainiest of brainiacs to cry. Thank God Friday’s Anatomy exam would be a cakewalk. She had an A plus in that class and didn’t expect that to change.
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