Jackpot

by Nic Stone

He laughs. “The fact that she wants to meet you should make it clear my report was full of praise.”

  “What’s there to praise?”

  “Oh, a lot.” He looks me over again and winks.

  * * *

  —

  Victorious Faith Chapel is big. And it looks nothing like a church. Well…nothing like I’d expect a church to look. There’s no steeple, no stained glass, no bell tower (is that the same thing as a steeple?). What it does have is a two-story cross near the entrance to the parking lot, and a metal globe the size of our living room plopped in front of the main building. At least I think it’s the main building…there are three and it’s the biggest one.

  “Man, they weren’t lying about it being multicultural,” Zan says.

  He’s right. It’s like we’ve stepped into a UN summit. There are saris and dashikis and hanbok…even a guy in a kilt.

  Also fascinating: there are tons of luxury cars in the parking lot, but also a slew of people crossing the street from the nearby bus stop. Just as we step into the globe-containing plaza, a small shuttle bus pulls up. HELPING HAND: AIDING ATLANTA’S HOMELESS SINCE 1991, it says on the side. When the people step off that bus dressed in the finest scraps of clothing they could come up with, I feel…conflicted.

  Something I didn’t tell Zan: the whole God thing’s always been a little suspect to me. Before the radio in the truck stopped working, every time we’d get in, Mama would turn on what I called the Sermon Station, so I’ve heard all about how good God is and how much He loves all His children.

  But for as long as I can remember, Mama has prayed without ceasing, and…well, I find it tough to believe this God character is so great when we continue to barely scrape by despite how hard Mama works and prays.

  Seeing the mind-boggling difference between the Victorious Faith three-piece suits exiting Audis and Teslas and the attire cobbled together by the homeless bus people definitely isn’t making me a believer. I mean, they’re all going into the same building, aren’t they? Why does the gulf between their respective *blessings* seem so wide?

  Anyway.

  Inside is even more intense. In addition to the ethnic garb, there are people standing around the perimeter of what I guess is the lobby holding various national flags.

  And everybody is smiling.

  “Freaky,” I say.

  Zander has apparently inhaled the Kool-Aid because he’s not paying me any attention. Too busy looking around, beaming like a kid who just stumbled into Santa’s workshop. “Is it like this every week?”

  “Goodness no!” a frighteningly familiar voice rumbles from behind us.

  We slowly turn around.

  Oh God…I mean, gosh.

  “I thought that was you two!”

  It’s the security guard from Checker Cab.

  “Officer Kenny! Wow!” Because who could forget the man? “Fancy meeting you here!” I look to Zan for help, but he’s still smiling and tossing waves at random strangers.

  “Welcome to VFC!” Kenny says. “So good to see y’all in the house of the Lord this morning!”

  “Uhh…” What to say? “Good to be here!”

  “You’ve chosen a fabulous Sunday to visit. Today is our Parade of Nations!”

  “Parade of Nations?” Zan is utterly in awe.

  “That’s right! We’ve got ninety-three nations represented in our congregation. Most multicultural house of worship in Greater Atlanta!”

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as proud as Kenny is right now.

  “Amazing,” Zan says.

  Trying really hard not to side-eye him.

  “Glad you think so, young man.” Kenny gives Zan’s shoulder a shake, and Zan stumbles forward a good couple of feet.

  Then Kenny looks at me. “Did you ever find your locket, young lady?”

  And crap.

  “Ummm…”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Zan says. (So he is still on planet Earth.) “We’re trying to track down the woman who was in the cab after my friend here. Maybe you know her? Driver said he dropped her off here on Christmas Eve.”

  Well damn, Macklin.

  “Really now?” Kenny replies.

  “Mm-hmm. It was her first time here, apparently.” He pulls out the picture…if you can even call it that. More like a series of grayscale blobs on an 8.5x11-inch piece of paper with multiple creases from Zander’s folds. “Sorry the photo isn’t great. Retrieved it from some security footage at a convenience store. You can kinda see her, right?”

  Kenny squints and rubs his chin as he looks at the paper. “We get a lot of visitors for the holiday services.”

  Trying not to panic. (Because I suddenly care?) “She was a little old black lady with a white Afro and light-up sweater—”

  “You’ve seen her in person?” Kenny says.

  Oops.

  “Yes…” I look at Zan. “I work at the convenience store where we got the picture. The driver was dropping me off as he picked her up.”

  Kenny lifts an eyebrow. “She caught a taxi from a convenience store?”

  Crap, crap, CRAP. “Yep.” I gulp. “No clue how she got there.”

  He narrows his eyes and visually volleys back and forth between Zan and me. “What’d you say she looks like?”

  This is going south super fast.

  There’s a giant clock over the entrance. Service starts in four minutes.

  “Small frame, brown skin, large glasses, little white Afro…”

  Kenny opens his mouth to say something else, but a petite lady with big, bright eyes and the most stylish tapered bob I’ve ever seen materializes at his side (thank God). “Who do we have here, Kenneth?”

  Kenny smiles. “Pastor Darlene! This is…” He gestures for us to introduce ourselves.

  “Gustavo Maxwell,” Zander says, thrusting a hand forward. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  Gustavo Maxwell?

  “And you?” She smiles at me.

  I glance at Zan. “Oh. I’m…Reneé.” I say. “Reneé…Banger.”

  Zan chokes and starts coughing.

  “Oh my! Are you all right, young man?” Pastor Darlene says. Kenny smacks Zan on the back a little too hard and he stumbles forward again.

  “Fine, fine,” Zan says once he recovers. “Saliva went down the wrong pipe.”

  “Ah.” Pastor Darlene blinks a few times and clasps her hands in front of her. “Well, welcome to Victorious!”

  Good gracious, we are so busted.

  “Thank you!” Too enthusiastic? Probably too enthusiastic.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Pastor,” Kenny says. “These two are looking for a congregant…Older African American woman. Very small with large spectacles and a white Afro…that right, Ms. Banger?”

  Zan chokes again.

  I hate him I hate him I hate him.

  “That’s right,” I say. “She was a first-timer on Christmas Eve.” Please don’t let her ask why we’re looking because I cannot lie to a pastor twice.

  “You’ll have to speak with Ms. Maybelle,” she says. “She’s our visitor coordinator…Don’t think she’s here this week, though.”

  Of course she isn’t. Motherfu—lover!

  “Ms. Maybelle?” Zan says.

  And I’m thankful. I certainly can’t speak right now.

  “That’s right. Ms. Maybelle Carver. Pleasure meeting you all. I’ll see you inside.” She winks and bounces off.

  * * *

  —

  I’m pretty much a sizzling, sparking ball of nerves through the whole service and ride home, but once we’re back outside my apartment, Zan tells me to wait so he can come around and “let me out.” (Hmm.)

  Once my feet are on the ground and the door is closed, he crosses his arms and leans against the Jee
p. There’s a wicked little glimmer in his eye. “So I was thinking,” he says.

  And that’s it.

  Why is my heart racing? “Do I get to know what you were thinking, or is it ‘classified’?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  I laugh, and he blushes.

  So my face gets all warm too.

  “As I was saying, since the commencement of our quest, we’ve already broken the law, taken a road trip, slept together—literally—and gotten our Jesus on. As such, I really feel we’ve reached a point where it’d be wholly appropriate to part with a brief embrace.”

  Is he for real? “Oh.”

  “No pressure, obviously.” His cheeks are re-reddening. “I just thought maybe—uhh…” He runs a hand through his hair.

  “You want to hug me?”

  He gulps. “Is that weird?”

  “Well…I wouldn’t say weird….”

  I don’t know what to say.

  I can feel him examining my face. “You find it hard to believe?”

  “No, I just—” Can’t look at him. BLAH! “Maybe a little?”

  “Why?”

  I shrug. Shove my hands into my pockets and dig my nails into my palms. He’s hugged me before, and it was nice…but the first time was a front for Mr. Z, and the second he’d been drinking.

  (Yes, I remember both.)

  (This is so uncomfortable.)

  “Just outside my realm of experience,” I say. “We’re not really huggers in my family unless it’s like a special occasion.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I see. Well, we don’t have to….” He looks off into the distance and rocks back on his heels. Clears his throat. “Sorry. You have to get ready for work and everything, right?”

  “Zan?”

  He looks back at me. “Yeah?”

  I step forward and spread my arms.

  I’ve overheard my share of interesting conversations, but I must admit: when I heard Macklin spoken at my table tonight—everyone around here knows that name—the holes in my top perked right up. All started when the downright dashing African American boy to my right ended a phone call and set his device at the foot of me, beaming like he was witnessing the first sunrise of his life. When the pretty blond girl with him saw his face, a smile split hers as well.

  I couldn’t look away.

  Blondie: Zan?

  Black Boy: Yep.

  Blondie: Guessing the “outing” he refused to tell us about went well?

  Black Boy: I’ve never heard him sound like that, Jess.

  Blondie: How’d he sound?

  Black Boy: Like he’d won the damn lotto or something. All giddy and shit.

  Blondie: Stop.

  Black Boy: I’m for real. Don’t know what it is about her, babe, but she’s really doing something for our boy. You know he’s real skittish about this stuff.

  Blondie: Still can’t believe that trashbag stole his mom’s bracelet.

  Black Boy: Allegedly.

  Blondie: Allegedly, my ass. First time you bring someone new into the house, something valuable goes missing? Gimme a break. And how much you wanna bet she knew the Macklins wouldn’t press charges because it would cause a media frenzy? Every time I see her at school, I wanna punch her in the face—

  Black Boy: Relax, Ronda Rousey. Point is, Zan’s really into this one.

  Blondie: Her name is Rico, Ness.

  The black boy smiled.

  Black Boy: So she’s got you too then.

  And the blond girl flushed the color of a freshly bloomed rose.

  Blondie: What are you talking about?

  Black Boy: Rico. You’re sprung too. I can see it all over you. You wanna be BFFs and have slumber parties and shit—

  Blondie: Technically it’s b-Fs-f, but fine: yes. I like her. She’s real. And like…not-judgy. Or snobbish.

  There was a pause as Lucy deposited their food on the table. (I love that Lucy. Always gives me a good wipedown with a warm cloth before her shift is over.) Blondie picked me up—real warm hands though her cuticles were a little worse for the wear—shook me a few times over her smothered, covered, and chunked extra-crispy hash browns, set me down, took a bite, and shut her eyes as she hummed in ecstasy.

  Black Boy: They really would be cute as hell together.

  Blondie: I hope he asks her out. Though if he does, we’ll have to watch her back. If there’s one thing I know for sure, the minute Zan Macklin has a girlfriend, those snooty bitches at school are gonna be salty.

  And now I’m distracted.

  Very distracted.

  Like, just-closed-the-register-drawer-on-my-pinky distracted. “Shit!”

  The soccer-mom customer snatches her vittles and beverages from the counter and rushes her three children out the door.

  “Everything okay, Rico?” Mr. Z says from the doorway to his office.

  “Mm-hmm. Nuss mass mah meen-he inuh weh-yeh-tuh—”

  He comes out, clearly confused and concerned, and I take my finger outta my mouth. “Sorry.” Good lord, this hurts.

  His eyes drop to my hand and widen. “You’re in need of a bandage. We have a first-aid kit just there beneath the counter.”

  Now I have to look (which I really didn’t want to do).

  Ugh. There’s blood pooling beneath the nail and oozing out at the cuticle. Now I’m queasy. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I promise.”

  “Bandage.” He points to the kit and disappears back into the office.

  By the time I get the Band-Aid on, the store is empty. So now I’m stuck alone with my thoughts.

  Of Zan.

  Mama and Jax have both been relatively healthy, Mama’s truck’s running fine, and there are no outstanding bills to fret over. Which means it’s easy to let the ticket drift into the background and just…Zan-out.

  Zan…who decided that in addition to parting with an embrace, we must also greet with one.

  None of them have been “brief.”

  Zan…who spent the last two days trying to convince me to let him be my chauffeur: pick me up for school every morning, take me home every afternoon, drive me to and from work, be the taxi for my and Jax’s grocery runs.

  Zan…who is slowly consuming my every thought, as well as creeping into my visions of the future: Maybe it won’t be so bad sticking around after graduation. Zan’s sticking around too, after all….

  Visions of the future that didn’t exist a few months ago.

  Thing is, the more interest he shows in me, the more awkward I feel. Like today in the media center, I looked up from the book I was reading to find him staring at me with this little smirk tugging at his mouth. I gulped and asked if there was something on my face, and he goes, “Danger, you have the coolest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  The compliment caught me off guard.

  “Are you kidding?” I squawked in response. “They’re weird,” and I lifted the book so he couldn’t see me anymore.

  It seems dangerous, this development of something inside me that’s highly reactive to Zan Macklin. It makes me…want.

  Except—and I’d never admit it to anyone because I feel stupid about it, but—I can’t imagine our differences in background not mattering to the point where we could really be friends, let alone anything else.

  I push the drawer closed—without my finger in it this time—just as the door chimes.

  “Hiya, gorgeous!” Jess beams like the frickin’ North Star as she bounces in.

  Can’t help but smile back. “Hey, Jess.”

  She props her elbows on the counter and sets her chin in her hands.

  I look past her. “No Finesse? What is this, the apocalypse?”

  She sighs.

  “Sweet
mother of Mary, you are pitiful.”

  “You hush your mouth.”

  I laugh. “You know it’s true.”

  “Mm-hmm. You’ll get there soon enough.”

  Boom. Just that quick, the lid on the box full of crap I’m trying not to think about is blown not only off, but up into the air and across the damn room. “Ha!” Totally forced laugh. “Doubtful.”

  “You’ll see,” she goes on, oblivious.

  “I’ll, uh…take your word for it.”

  And now I feel like an exposed nerve. This is the Jessica effect. Where being around Zan makes me want to dream, Jess exists as this itchy reminder of what life could look like if I did.

  It’s uncomfortable.

  She nods and stands upright. “So how are you? I was in the area and figured you were here, so I decided to drop by.”

  The doorbell chimes again, and a group of pubescent boys pile in with the force of a freight train. The local middle school is named Pinckneyville, so the warm-ups they’re wearing have PMS BASKETBALL emblazoned across the front.

  They smell like damp gorillas who all have athlete’s foot.

  “Damn, girl!” the apparent ringleader says when he sees Jess. Voice cracks and everything.

  “Oh God. Grow some pubic hair.”

  I snort. Despite not knowing each other, it’s impossible not to like this girl.

  As the PMS barbarians ransack the store—I see bags of chips flying through the air across two aisles—Jess goes on. “So how are things with Macklin?”

  Ugh. I don’t want to talk about this.

  And yet, I obviously do. I need to talk about it, in fact. I need a friend to talk about it—about this boy—with. I’m frickin’ seventeen years old.

  I sigh. Look over her shiny blond hair, blushed cheeks, and brand-name clothes. Everything about Jessica Barlow seems perfect…until I remember her shower cap and secret cigaretting. Her chewed-to-nubs nails and scabbed-over cuticles.

  Is she trustworthy, though? Her care for Zan seems genuine…and so does her interest in me.

  And really, do I have any other options? It’s not like potential friends are falling from the sky….