by Lamar Giles
Dedication
FOR ADRIENNE, WHO WAS THERE ON
THE NIGHT OF
&
FOR THE CURIOUS
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Books by Lamar Giles
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Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
PASTOR NEWSOME’S RULES FOR FIRST Missionary House of the Lord were simple. Every head bowed (mine wasn’t) and every eye closed (nope) while he went on and on with his crazy freestyle prayers.
“Lord!” He gripped his lectern as if fighting a holy tractor beam trying to drag him to heaven right before our eyes. “We know they need to feel that touch from your never-changin’ hand, and we know someone is out there hurtin’ this morning . . .”
Hurtin’? For sure. Between my near-empty wallet forcing me to sit lopsided on that pew-of-steel and yet another infinity sermon, my pain was not in short supply. Newsome was on a roll. He ranted, threw in weird stuff no one seemed to notice, the way he totally did all the time.
“. . . and we see the evil on our TV and in our news reports, Lord. Bless those endangered spider monkeys of the Amazon rain forests!”
Like that.
“Yes, Lord, yes,” Mom mumbled. She squeezed my hand, nearly crushing my fingers with pulsing robot strength on each word. It sounded like she was cosigning on the old man’s insanity, but over the last few weeks I’d noticed her lips moving even when he wasn’t saying stuff. Not repeating Newsome’s lines. Having her own conversation with God, I guessed. The protocols of Mom’s Sunday worship were still fairly new to me.
We Raineys weren’t hard-core Church People. At least we didn’t used to be. Christmas, sure. Easter. Mother’s Day (which always felt weird because if Mom didn’t normally go, why was it so important to be in service on Mother’s Day? We could’ve been getting those early seats at the Golden Corral buffet). We mumbled grace before we ate meals. When terrible things happened in the world, my parents posted stuff about thoughts and prayers on their Facebook pages. We were that kind of religious.
Dad still was that kind of religious. He’s remained dedicated to not dressing beyond b-ball shorts and slippers on Sunday mornings. As he said, that was his “Adult Privilege.” I probably could’ve exercised my “Teen Privilege” and done the same thing . . . if I was stupid. But, Mom was one-half of the votes on my “Driving Privilege,” and my Spider-Sense warned me that refusing church would have had consequences.
So, each of the last four weeks inevitably gave way to a moment of temptation where I wanted to gnaw my arm off, dive through a stained-glass window, then Usain Bolt my way home, yet I endured. Partially to not endanger possession of my car keys. Though, if I was being honest, there was another incentive for my continued attendance.
Kiera Westing.
While Pastor Newsome ranted, I watched her. She sat across the center aisle, on the same row as me and Mom, so Prayer Peeking was the only time I could really look at her. Otherwise she’d see me, too.
Head bowed. Eyes closed. Kiera leaned far forward, her bare fingers interlaced as she whispered her own prayer. No promise ring in sight.
She’d switched up her hair—a move I recognized thanks to my sister Cressie cycling through hairdos with pop-star frequency, “testing looks” before she left for college. Girl stuff.
At school on Friday, Kiera had been happy, smiling, and rocking springy twist outs that bounced when she passed me in the hall. Since then, she’d flat-ironed her hair into black waterfalls that crested her dark shoulders and the thin straps of her wine-colored dress.
She hadn’t smiled once since service started, though she still looked hot hot. Volcano hot. Dragon hot. Summer barbecue in southern hell hot. Happy or sad, there was no changing that.
With effort, I tore myself away. There’s Prayer Peeking and there’s Prayer Staring. I wasn’t a creepy dude.
Plus, if all went well after service, I wouldn’t have to sneak glimpses anymore. In the meantime, there were other entertaining sights in the church.
Along the side of the sanctuary, six prismatic windows stretched high. On sunny days, the eastern glass turned outside light rainbow and doused chunks of the congregation in paintball colors. All our varying shades of brown got psychedelic.
Missus Baines, the old lady in the pew ahead of me, who shambled in with a cane every week, and smelled like the inventor of cigarettes and peppermints, turned Oompa-Loompa orange. Almost had to squint to look at her. I liked her because she was unpredictable. For the moment, she was quiet, but at any given time she might catch the Holy Ghost, pop up from her pew, and sprint the aisle, swinging her stick. Get too close, she’d knock you out.
Three rows back was another of my Prayer Peeking All-Stars. Coach Scott, tinted leprechaun green, with his eyes squeezed shut hard. He was one of the few First Missionary House of the Lord members I ever saw outside of church. Usually barking at my school’s JV basketball team from the sidelines.
My boy, Qwan, perpetual benchwarmer, claimed Coach Scott wielded curse words like the Force. When the guys were goofing off in practice, he’d hit them with f-bombs that slammed them into stuff. Here, in the house of the Lord, he was still loud, but high-pitched, a weird cartoon-mouse voice. Hands raised and spread wide to catch all those blessings from heaven. He shouted, “Thank you, Jay-SUS!”
A lot of little shows played out among the eighty or ninety people in the congregation every week. There were nose pickers, and throat scratchers, and nail biters, and ear diggers—and all of them wanted you to shake their nasty hands after service. Mom thought I was OCD the way I hit up that little bottle of Purell in her purse some Sundays. Mostly, it was funny to me. Seeing what I wasn’t supposed to see, and knowing what I wasn’t supposed to know.
“We praise you, Lord! We love you, Lord! We need you, Lord!” Newsome, barely taking breaths, kept at it. No sign of slowing down.
I couldn’t resist another peek, and was right back to eyeballing Kiera and her family. The way I was with her, you’d have thought she was a new girl. A transplant from some big city, here to shake up the status quo. Someone from another world. Like the movies. Naw, though. We were born in the same hospital, right here in Green Creek, Virginia.
I’d known her since kindergarten. Had a thing for her since kindergarten, when I was her leading man in the class production of The Wizard of Oz.
(I mean, she was Dorothy, and I was the Cowardly Lion, so there were three leading men if you weren’t counting the kid who played Toto—and I wasn’t; dude didn’t have any lines. Regardless, me and Kiera had obvious chemistry.)
So, what happened? A smooth brother like myself must’ve made a move sometime in the last decade, right. Right?
No. Because Kiera Westing h
ad never been single. Nev. Er.
Actually, there was a brief window from kindergarten to almost the end of elementary school, but—I can admit this—I was more cowardly than lion during those years, and didn’t know we were working a deadline.
On Valentine’s Day during fourth grade, Devin Thompson hit her with some sick game. A homemade, purple “Do you like me? Yes/No/Maybe So” card. She circled yes, and they were like engaged all the way to sixth grade, where they realized they were different people with different dreams. By the time I heard about the breakup, later that afternoon, she was with Corey Thurgood, who wooed her with some lackluster trumpet play.
If she’d watched him drain his spit valves—think waterslide—something I witnessed during my brief stint as a band xylophonist, she probably wouldn’t have found it all that sexy. Neither here nor there. Corey was her boyfriend all the way to the summer before freshman year, when Corey’s mom got a job with some company in Chicago and his family moved, leaving Kiera heartbroken.
My family was doing the vacation thing down at Disney World in Florida, so the heartbroken part I got from a Qwan text. Girls, gossip, and b-ball, in that order, were life for him.
Qwan: Dude! K. Westing is a free agent. Get your game right.
Me: I’ll be back in 3 days.
Qwan: I suggest you start running now.
Three days later, in the airport waiting to board our flight to Virginia, an alternating soundtrack of J. Cole and Kendrick thumping in my headphones, I got the last text on the matter.
Qwan: Maybe next time. Colossus, yo.
I snatched my headphones off, cussed loudly. It drew the attention of my sister, my parents, a TSA agent coming off her lunch break, and some lady’s toddler, who immediately started machine-gunning the four-letter word I’d released into the ether. If Mom wore pearls, she would’ve clutched them.
That kid’s mother did not accept my apology. Worse, they sat right behind us on the plane, and Dad wouldn’t allow me the use of my headphones, so I had to listen to the mini Samuel L. Jackson I created all the way home.
As unpleasant as that was, it had nothing on what awaited me back in Virginia. Kiera’s new boyfriend. Colossus Turner.
Who named their kid Colossus? Maybe psychics who knew their son would grow into a thick-necked state champ wrestler incapable of un-shrugging his shoulders.
Colossus and Kiera’s relationship . . . two years strong. He gave her a promise ring that she wears on her left middle finger. Wore.
I’d given up hope. Even though I saw her every day at school, and now here on Sundays, I came to terms with never having a shot.
Until last night.
Me and Qwan were on a double date. Sort of.
Really, he was on the date with some girl named Erin or Erica, engaging in backseat debauchery while I drove and my uninterested date, whose name I don’t even remember, rode shotgun. Over sloppy sounds of making out and my not-quite-loud-enough music, Erin or Erica’s friend said, “Oh my God!”
Then, she had the nerve to mute my music.
“Never touch my radio,” I said, ready to crank my barely alive tweeters back to max.
She ignored me, contorted into the space between our seats with her phone held out like the Olympic torch, passing it to Erin or Erica. “Look! That hot wrestler boy from Green Creek broke up with his girlfriend.”
All the wet smacking stopped. The girls went Gossip Level Orange talking about Colossus cheating, and how it was only a matter of time, and “some heifer named Angie.” I caught Qwan’s gaze in my rearview, but we didn’t say a word. We didn’t have to.
It was my time.
Kiera’s deacon and deaconess parents were bodyguards on either side of her. Her mom was closest to me but sat stiff and straight and didn’t obstruct my view despite a cream-colored hat that was as wide as a UFO. Her dad’s consistently conservative blue suit looked presidential on her far side.
My plan: after service, I’d catch the Westings in the foyer, where they hovered every Sunday, shaking hands and exchanging niceties—“have a blessed week, brother” and “have a blessed week, sister.” I’d approach Kiera’s dad first, like, “Deacon Westing, I hear you’re in charge of the Ushers’ Board.”
Just curious enough so all the Westings thought What a fine young man this is but not so gung ho that I committed myself to any real work.
We’d chat like that a minute, then Pastor Newsome would come, right on schedule, talking church business with the Westings. Instead of Kiera huddling up in the parking lot with the other church girls, it’d be me and her. At the very least, I’m walking her to her dad’s Cadillac. Talking her to her dad’s Cadillac. I contemplated hitting her with some Langston Hughes poems, or some Drake, but this was short notice. No time to rehearse.
Anyway, I’d be letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that I’m into her, and I want that next-boyfriend slot. Just needed Newsome to let church end. Then I could execute the pl—
Hold up.
Kiera stood. Excused her way past her mom, continued to the front of the church while her dad slow-clapped. He wasn’t the only one.
The applause went viral throughout the congregation, creating a pattering echo under the high ceiling, while Newsome uttered, “Hallelujah, hallelujah.”
Six more kids, some I recognized from school, rose and approached the altar, forming a line when they faced the rest of the congregation. Shanice Monroe and Helena Rickard were sophomores at Green Creek High. Ralph and Bobby Burton, who were eighth graders at the middle school, I believed. Mya Hanson, a fellow junior and my super-serious coworker. Then Jameer Sesay, class Golden Boy. With the exception of Mya, I only knew this group well enough to speak to, nothing more.
“Hallelujah, hallelujah,” said Newsome.
Over the last couple of months, I’d gotten my black belt in daydreaming during sermons. Usually a good thing, but this time I’d missed something important.
A lady approached the pulpit. She was a grown-up, old, like twenty-five. I’d seen her around, but never met her. Flowery sundress. Plump cheeks, light brown skin, a forever smile.
When she stepped to the pulpit, she reached for the mic, an act that seemed to make Newsome uncomfortable enough to abruptly cease his hallelujahs. He gave her the “wait a minute” finger.
One final, emphatic “Hallelujah.” Then he handed over the mic.
She said, “Are there any other young people who’d like to join us on this wonderful journey?”
Oh! An opportunity!
In the early moments of service, before I zoned out, they’d talk about volunteering. Go read to old folks at the nursing home. Help scrub graffiti off the community center. Whatever it was, Kiera would be there. If I got in now, I could still execute the plan, with the added bonus of an obvious shared interest. We’d be volunteering together.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Mom’s head tilted, all confused when I brushed by her.
I hit the aisle; the varnished wooden planks creaked loudly under my weight. Every eye in the place seared me, making my belly feel twisty and moist, giving me second thoughts. I only kept going because it would be more embarrassing to turn back, and I could not be embarrassed in front of Kiera.
While the other kids lined up to Kiera’s right, I took a spot to her left so we were side by side. It sort of wedged me between her and this potted fern Pastor Newsome kept near the pulpit, but I wasn’t going to risk anyone getting between us.
Because I took that spot, when the lady stepped to us with the wireless mic, she came to me first.
“Tell us,” she said, beaming, the happy-face emoji come to life, “why do you want to remain sexually pure until you’re joined in holy matrimony?”
I said, “Huh?”
Chapter 2
“WHAT’S YOUR REASON FOR WANTING to remain sexually pure?” the friendly lady repeated, shoving the mic in my face. My stomach churned so loud I was afraid it’d come through the surround sound. Everybody in the p
lace was waiting. Kiera included.
I leaned in and said, “Because I love God.”
Casual Churchgoer pro tip: know the appropriate answers. When you did something good, and someone asked why you did it: “Because I love God.” If you did something bad, and someone asked why you shouldn’t do it again: “Because God loves me.” If you threw a Bible verse on top of it, even better. I wasn’t so great at that, so I kept it simple.
My heart rammed my sternum in the silence that followed. A lone moth fluttered across the sanctuary.
Then, the church went stadium crazy. Claps, shouts, cheers. I wondered if I was going to get a Super Bowl ring.
“That’s awesome,” said the woman. “Bless you, young man.”
She moved on to Kiera. “And you?”
Kiera said, “I also love God. And I want to be sure I’m with someone who loves me the way He does before I give away any part of myself, because I value my body. My temple. First Corinthians 6:18 says: ‘Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits—’”
Her answer was comprehensive. Debate team worthy. She got those good chastity belt cheers, same as me, and the mic went down the line. Everyone’s answer was some version of what me and Kiera already said. Jameer Sesay was last to go.
He was a dude I only knew by reputation, his name and face mounted in the cafeteria under our class banner every grading period for Honor Roll and Perfect Attendance. Type of guy who said hi to teachers he wasn’t even taking classes with. I expected a State of the Virginity Address from him, but when asked the magic question, he gave the shortest answer. “God.”
By then, you could feel the end-of-service fatigue in the room; he still got the victory cheers, though.
The lady wrapped it up with, “Purity Pledge will be a ground-breaking, heart-changing, soul-enriching journey. At the end of this eight-week period—”
Eight? Weeks?
“—these young people will be ambassadors of God serving as positive influences for their peers and the community at large. The course culminates with our Purity Ball, where the parents, and any of you in the congregation who wish to attend, can bear witness as they pledge, before the Lord, abstinence until the day they’re married. I’m so excited, by—”