“Now, Father God, I pray for your blessing of safety upon my precious grandchildren; that you would send your angels to make the car run smoothly, and bind Satan from the engine block. Put an angel on the hood of the car, Lord, and one at the back; an angel on top and underneath, and one on each tire, so no harm will come to my children. We ask all of this in the name of your Son, Jesus, who loved us so much he gave his life for us. So we say, ‘Come quickly, Lord Jesus,’ and it’s in his name we pray. Amen.”
As we walk toward the carport, Nanny wads three twenty-dollar bills into my hand while she hugs my neck and whispers into my ear, “Sit up front and watch your daddy’s eyeballs. Make him pull over and let you drive if you see him start to nod off. Last thing I want is you gettin’ to heaven before I do.”
I could spend eternity talking to Nanny. It’s all the heaven I’d ever need.
Bradley’s New Year’s party is packed.
“Who are all these people?” I ask Jacob. I met him at the front door a half hour ago and still haven’t seen Bradley.
“Who cares?” Jacob grins. “This is the Bradley Westman Public-School Girls Network. Don’t change the channel.”
When we finally make it to the kitchen, I see that Drake has stocked it with enough alcohol to get us through tonight, New Year’s Eve next year, and quite possibly an unforeseen zombie apocalypse. The music is loud, and it’s cold outside, but the keg is on the deck, and people are already in the hot tub.
Sure beats praying in the New Year at church during the midnight watch service.
“It’s a beer-free evening, gentlemen!” Bradley sees Jacob and me headed to the fridge and directs us to the drink-mixing operation he has arranged at the wet bar in the downstairs family room. I’ve never really experimented with hard liquor before, but Bradley has a new cocktail recipe book his dad gave him for Christmas, and sets to work making one of almost everything.
“Did you see this?” Jacob hands me a brochure for the University of Iowa. Bradley stares off into the sunset on the first page, his square jaw set with determination to tackle the future.
“They made you the cover model for your college?” I cannot stop laughing.
Bradley nods slyly. “Yep. And female enrollment is already up by twenty percent.”
“How was your Christmas, Hartzler? Any good loot?” Jacob slides me a screwdriver to begin.
“My parents gave me luggage.” I smile and raise my glass.
“Subtle,” snorts Bradley. I chink my glass to his, then Jacob’s, and take a big swig.
Bradley whoops from behind the bar and begins to mix another round immediately. “Gentlemen! Start your engines.”
By 11:30 PM, my whole body is buzzing, and I’ve learned I like simple drinks the best: vodka and tonic, scotch and water—two ingredients at best, and nothing sweeter than rum. Jacob has determined he prefers doing shots of anything Paula, Pamela, and Tamara will let him pour into their belly buttons while they lie on the family room floor, giggling, their tops pulled up to reveal their stomachs.
“My sister is coming back for you,” squeals Tamara as Jacob runs his tongue down toward the button on her jeans. “You better watch it!”
As if on cue the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it.” I jump up with my rum and Coke.
“Hartzler! Grab me a bag of ice up there. I’m almost out.” Bradley is shaking martinis now.
“Roger, that.” I head up the stairs and pause on the landing to throw the door open to let Tamara’s sister in.
Only it’s not Tamara’s sister.
It’s Tyler Gullem.
My stomach lurches, and suddenly I feel dizzy. My church smile kicks into overdrive automatically.
“Hey! Tyler!” I say brightly, and I hope loudly enough that Bradley can hear me. I swing the door closer to myself from it’s thrown-wide-open position, trying to block the scene behind me down the stairs, and play it off like I’m cold. “Yikes! It’s feezing out here. I didn’t know you were coming.”
Tyler’s eyes move slowly from my face down to the glass in my hand and back. “I’m not coming,” he says without a smile. “I’m looking for Janice. I called her place, and her mom said she was at a party. I figured it was this one.”
“Nope, no Janice here,” I smile, not moving an inch.
“I need to talk to Bradley,” he says.
Mayday. How do I keep him outside? If he walks through the front door, the jig is up.
“Bradley’s not here,” I lie. “He’s on a pizza run.”
Tyler looks at me hard, like he’s trying to see into my thoughts.
Keep him on the sidewalk.
I broaden my grin into the friendliest smile I can muster. “He’ll be back soon. You should come in and let me get you a drink,” I say.
As the words fly out of my mouth, I know I’ve taken a huge gamble. What if he takes me up on the offer?
Tyler glances down at my glass. “Diet Coke?” I ask, lifting it toward him, grin firmly in place.
“Doesn’t sound like Tri-City–approved music is playing in there,” Tyler says.
“Well, Bradley isn’t a Tri-City student anymore. Really, man. You should come in and hang out.’ ”
Tyler shakes his head, and backs down the front steps. “Will you have Bradley call me when he shows up?”
“Sure thing, buddy.”
Tyler turns to walk down the driveway toward the sidewalk.
“Happy New Year!” I call after him. He stops for an instant. I think he might turn around. I think he might say something else. Instead, he keeps walking.
“Holy crap!” Bradley is wide-eyed. Even the girls are quiet. The rest of the party is raging upstairs, but Jacob and Bradley are both staring at me like they’ve seen a ghost.
“So, who cares if this Taylor guy saw you here?” Paula isn’t quite as smart when she’s plastered.
“Tyler,” says Bradley, correcting her.
“You were holding your drink?” Jacob starts laughing. “Did his head explode?”
“He didn’t know there was anything in it,” I say. “It’s not like he knows for sure we were drinking.”
“Who cares if you’re drinking?” Tamara is genuinely confused.
“The school,” Jacob explains. “If it gets back to the administration that he’s here drinking, he’ll be kicked out.”
“Why did he come over?” Bradley asks.
“Said he was looking for Janice. Then he asked for you.”
“What did you say?” Bradley doesn’t even look worried.
“Told him you were making a pizza run. Then I invited him in and offered him a Diet Coke,” I say, raising my glass.
Bradley’s eyes go wide. “Oh my god. Are you serious?”
“It was the only way I knew he’d leave,” I say.
Jacob and Bradley collapse into laughter. “Man!” Jacob says shaking his head, “You’ve got balls of steel.”
“I need to sit down.” I slide down the wall next to the bar, and land on the carpet.
“Barkeep!” Jacob shouts at Bradley. “Get this guy a drink.”
Bradley mixes me a fresh rum and Coke. Jacob leads the girls upstairs to the hot tub as Bradley hands me the drink and sits down next to me on the floor.
“I don’t think you need to worry about Tyler. Even if he did want to get you in trouble, he doesn’t have any proof.”
He doesn’t need any, I think to myself, but I smile at Bradley, and nod. The rum makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. Bradley’s here, we’re hanging out, and having some drinks. That’s all I’ve wanted since he was here at Thanksgiving.
We clink glasses and wish each other a Happy New Year, then Bradley stands and offers me a hand. When he pulls me up, he keeps my hand clasped in his, between our chests like we’re arm wrestling, and he pulls me in toward him.
“I’ve missed you, Hartzler.”
I am so close to Bradley at this moment I can feel his breath on my chin. My whole body is
electric again, like that night in the hot tub. The air is thick in the family room, and I search his eyes for some flicker of recognition, some sign that he might feel something similar.
Bradley smiles, then drops my hand and heads up the stairs. “C’mon, man. Can’t keep the ladies waiting.”
I take a gulp of my rum and Coke as I watch him go. All at once, I’m worried about what just happened. I’m so buzzed everything is hazy right now. Was that weird? Maybe I’m just feeling paranoid. I feel hot and my head is spinning a little, so I pause and grab the banister to steady myself for a few seconds. Then I take a deep breath and follow Bradley up the steps to the party above, the hot tub out back, and the New Year beyond.
CHAPTER 23
It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
I am the resurrection and the life…
Seven days after Bradley’s New Year’s bash I am back in Memphis, standing on the frozen lawn of a cemetery next to my cousin Sadie. Papa died on Monday, and Dad drove us all back down to Memphis for the funeral.
The minister wraps up the graveside service with Psalm 23, and at the final “amen,” I turn and walk with Sadie back toward the warmth of our cars, waiting in the parking lot. Tears slide slowly down her cheeks, and I reach down to take her hand. At some point in the past ten years we stopped climbing the trees in Nanny’s front yard, but we still tell each other secrets.
“Remember that time when we were kids and Uncle Hank gave us the stickers out of the price gun from the grocery store? We pretended Papa was sick, and you were the nurse. He let us stick those little price tags all over his forehead.”
Sadie laughs and wipes her eyes. “I’m so glad we’ll get to see him in heaven,” she says. “Just think! The next time we see Papa, he won’t have smoker’s lungs anymore. He never has to struggle for breath ever again.”
I’m quiet as I consider this. I can’t imagine seeing Papa again. I know everyone here would tell me the real him—his soul—is up in heaven. They’d say that’s only his body in the coffin being lowered into the cold, hard clay behind us. Will there really come a time when we all see each other again in heaven? When I was in fifth grade and Grandpa Hartzler died, I didn’t think about it much. It was a given: When Christians die, our souls go to heaven, and our physical bodies will be resurrected on the day Jesus comes back. I accepted as fact that we’d all see Grandpa alive again. But today, I feel something different.
My mental image of Papa and Grandpa coming back to life and shooting out of their graves to meet Jesus in the clouds during the Rapture makes me angry. This idea seems to mock the man we’ve laid to rest, a man who taught me how to make life a little more beautiful one loop of yarn at a time. I haven’t cried since Papa died, but now I feel the tears on my cheeks, and Sadie stops to hug me.
“I can’t remember what I said to him last week before we left,” I tell her. “Did I whisper good-bye? Did I say I loved him? I’m not sure that he heard me.”
“He can hear you now,” Sadie whispers. “He can hear you now.”
I want to believe her.
But I don’t.
Help thou my unbelief…
I can see my breath as I whisper these words. A white cloud of steam escapes from my lips, then floats away on the breeze like a puff from the tip of every cigarette that brought us here in the first place.
Bradley is back in Iowa by the time we get home from Memphis. January and February are cold and gray. I turn eighteen, but without Bradley to throw a party, it feels anticlimactic.
By early March, the Carriage Club ice rink is dead. No one is in the lodge area, or on the ice. It’s only me and Carla on the final Saturday night of the season.
“You wanna go home early?” she asks.
It’s only eight o’clock. I’d be home by eight thirty. And then what?
I feel a familiar ache. I wish Bradley were still in town. Only two more weeks and he’ll be home for spring break. Megan is visiting her brother in Nebraska this weekend, my homework is done, and I’ve already practiced the piano today. At least if I stay at work I can ice skate.
I shrug. “I could use the money,” I say.
“You should go skate,” Carla says, smiling. “Somebody should be using the ice.”
I lace up my black leather figure skates and walk outside to the rink. Peter Cetera and Chaka Khan are singing a duet on the loudspeakers over the ice. The music is one of the reasons that Dad was hesitant about letting me work here, but as I step out onto the smooth, white expanse and practice back crossovers, Dad and Mom and all of the rules seem to leave my head.
I love these moments at the ice rink. When it’s only me, and the music, and the sound of my blades scraping over the ice. Picking up speed as I come back around to the door, I see Carla standing at the windows watching me. I reach back and stretch into a waltz jump as high as I can leap. It’s a beginner’s jump, but impressive enough with the speed you can muster on a rink free of six-year-old girls. As I sail backward into the landing, I hear shouts and cheers.
I turn to see two girls and a guy clapping and cheering as they walk down the sidewalk toward the rink lodge.
“That was awesome!” The guy has an infectious smile.
I laugh at myself, embarrassed. “Sorry, didn’t realize anyone was here.”
I skate over to the break in the wall of the rink, step off the ice, and hold the door to the lodge open.
“You guys here to skate?”
“Yes,” says one of the girls. “Skate, then have a drink at the bar.”
Carla and I get their skates, trading in sizes for one of the girls, helping the other pull her laces tighter.
“Looks like you’re all set,” I say as the three of them wobble to their feet.
“You’re coming back out there with us, aren’t you?” the guy asks.
I glance at Carla. “Go,” she says. “There’s nothing to do in here but the crossword.”
Out on the ice, the girls hang on to the railing and each other at the edge, flailing and laughing until they are red in the face. The guy skates toward me clumsily, his ankles collapsing in toward each other in the plastic rental skates. He slips about three feet away from me, and I reach out and catch him. His arms grab at my waist, and I hold him up as I feel him struggle to regain his footing.
“I’m Kent,” he says, straightening up and extending a gloved hand.
“Aaron.” I smile.
We shake, but when I try to drop his hand, he holds on to mine. I feel the air grow heavy around me as if a message is hanging there between us in a frequency I cannot hear.
“Thanks,” he whispers in a tiny puff of breath that steams against the cold night air. I can see his words.
“You’re welcome,” I say, and smile. I take my hand out of his and do a couple of back crossovers away from him.
“Whoa—hang on! Where you going?”
I look over my shoulder. He is standing on the ice, arms outstretched, gloved hands hovering at his sides about waist level. He looks like he’s trying to keep his balance on a rope bridge that might give way at any moment, his whole body locked, like he’s bracing for an impact.
Frozen.
“C’mon.” I laugh. “You gotta learn to do this on your own sooner or later.”
“If I move one inch, I swear I will fall down.”
The girls have their backs to us, clutching the rail, hauling themselves around the ice like bulldozers, dragging the load of their legs and floundering skates behind them. I circle back to his right side. As soon as I’m close, he grabs for me in a panicked tremor. I hold my arm firmly up against his grip.
“You’re fine,” I say. “Take little steps. Think of marching.” This is how we teach the three-year-olds in tot classes. “Gliding comes later. You just need to feel your edges.”
I do a quick outside turn so I can skate backward in front of him. He grabs both of my hands in his and hangs on for dear life.
“Relax.” I smile. “
Don’t watch your feet. Look up.” He does exactly that. His eyes are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen.
“You’re right,” he says, and smiles back at me. “That’s a much better view.”
I feel myself start to blush, and I drop my gaze.
“Unh-uh.” He laughs. “Don’t watch your feet, Aaron. Look up.”
I’m short of breath, but I haven’t been skating hard. We come to a complete stop on the ice, and I raise my eyes to meet his. I feel silly, standing here, staring at him, but I can’t look away.
The girls are squealing and giggling as they reach the door in the side of the rink.
“Hey, Kent! We’re going up to the bar. We’re freezing, and I’m getting a blister.”
He doesn’t look away from me. “That’s cool,” he says. “I’ll meet you guys up there in a minute.”
I hear the door to the lodge open, then close. It’s completely quiet on the ice now. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.
“Let’s try again,” he says, softly.
My mouth feels dry, and hot. When I try to speak, I croak, then cough.
“Try what?” I finally ask.
“Another lap.”
There must be a reason to say no. It feels like there should be, but I can’t think of what it is.
We start to skate again, this time side by side. Kent takes my hand in his, tightly, and when he does, I feel my knees go shaky over my skates, like I’ve been skating for many hours. I’m afraid someone is going to see us holding hands on the ice.
And think… what?
“You live around here?” Kent asks.
“Lee’s Summit. You?”
“Not far—over on the Plaza. Studying music at UMKC.”
“Cool. You’re a musician?”
“Dunno about that,” he smiles. “I play the cello.”
“You grow up here?”
“No. My dad’s the music pastor at a little church in the middle of Missouri. Got to the city as soon as I could.”
Rapture Practice Page 23