After Maria made her ridiculous declaration, I had refused to discuss it. Dodd Cunningham? Not in a million years. If he had any interest in me at all, it was only as a missionary project. But JohnScott would know what I should do. He may have changed in the past six weeks, but he still represented my tether to sanity.
Slipping into a pair of worn sweats, I shuffled to the kitchen and grabbed the cordless phone, but it was dead. Apparently Momma had forgotten to pay the bill again.
She was banging around in her bedroom, getting ready for a late shift, and I called to her. “Could you drop me at Uncle Ansel and Aunt Velma’s?”
A dresser drawer slammed. “You could’ve asked a little earlier.”
Ansel and Velma lived less than ten minutes away, but Momma had a point. She wouldn’t make it on time. “Sorry.”
“What good is an apology, Ruth Ann? It won’t get me to work on time.” She hurried into the kitchen, where she smeared peanut butter on a slice of white bread. The smell reminded me I hadn’t eaten, but I didn’t want to take the time. “Can’t JohnScott pick you up?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know. The phone’s out.”
She picked up the phone, listened, then punched it off. “Shoot. I forgot.”
I replaced the lid on the peanut butter and tossed it in the cabinet while Momma reached for her purse and sweater.
We didn’t speak during the short drive. Instead, Momma tuned the radio to her favorite country-and-western station, and I speculated about how to tell JohnScott the preacher might have feelings for me. This was impossible. I wished my cousin weren’t such good friends with Dodd, because he would have a better perspective if he weren’t.
I glanced at Momma. She never listened to my problems, but I knew how she would react to Maria’s news. It wouldn’t be pleasant.
I shuddered.
“What? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, Momma.”
“You in some kind of trouble?”
Her usual question. “I’m not pregnant.”
“Don’t get sassy with me, Ruth Ann.”
I sighed. “Just drop me at the end of the drive.”
“I was planning on it.” She stopped the car just long enough for me to get out, then did a three-point turn and headed back to town.
I stood knee-deep in johnsongrass near my aunt and uncle’s mailbox and watched the hatchback sputter away. Why couldn’t God help her be happy when I needed her so badly?
“Love you, too,” I mumbled.
Ansel and Velma lived on a small farm a few miles outside of town. The older, ranch-style home, set back from the road a hundred yards, had been filled to bursting when all my cousins lived there, but I had always considered it a cozy safe haven.
JohnScott’s double-wide lay fifty yards past the house, but I had a feeling he’d be at Ansel and Velma’s. Normally, he ate Sunday lunch with his parents and then lay around talking to Ansel about livestock all afternoon.
As I tramped up the gravel drive, Ansel’s old blue heeler came trotting around the end of the house, silently wagging his tail. “Hey, Rowdy.” I scratched behind his ears, and then let myself in the front door instead of going around back, where we usually parked. I hadn’t been in through the front door in years. Nobody had, yet it remained unlocked.
The house felt abnormally still.
My family wouldn’t have seen my approach because only the dining room had windows facing the front yard, and that room went unused except for Thanksgiving Day. I expected Velma to be in the kitchen, so I stepped through the living room, but before I could call to her, I heard a voice.
Dodd’s voice.
My chest tightened with a strange mix of hope and terror, but then I realized the sound came from the back porch, and I’d only heard him through the open windows. Creeping to the corner of the room, I glimpsed Dodd sitting at the old wooden picnic table with JohnScott and Grady. Rowdy was just settling down at JohnScott’s feet.
What in the world? I scanned the living room, searching for Velma even though I could feel the emptiness. Ansel’s two-toned Silverado could be seen out back with the El Camino, but the absence of Velma’s car made me wonder if my aunt and uncle had made a trip to Lubbock. They might not be home for hours.
I hovered behind the recliner, searching my mind for a possible solution, prepared to bolt to the back bedroom, if necessary. Common sense told me I was overreacting, but the knot of anxiety between my shoulder blades insisted otherwise. I didn’t want to talk to them. Not like this, but eventually they would come in the house and find me. And I’d look like a fool.
I sneaked a look out the window again while JohnScott was speaking in his slow drawl, “… need to wait until I get my life right, don’t I? I’m not a very good person on the inside.”
Grady shook his head. “Coach Pickett, no matter how long you wait, you’ll never be good enough. That’s the point.”
JohnScott leaned his elbows on the table. “How can He love me with all I have in my past?”
For crying out loud, they were talking about Jesus stuff. I knew the Debate Club discussed the Bible, but why on earth would JohnScott have them over to the house?
The preacher shrugged. “His love is bigger than your sin.”
My cousin let tears fall down his cheeks unashamedly, but his fists clenched on the table. “I don’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive me.” His voice broke.
Dodd leaned toward him. “Your mother?”
JohnScott ran his fingers through his hair. Whatever was wrong, I hurt for him and wished the Cunninghams would leave.
I dug my fingertips into the velour headrest of the recliner as JohnScott slid his arms into his lap, defeated. “Not Mom.” He met Dodd’s gaze. “Ruthie.”
Understanding hit me with all the force of a softball sailing over home plate, and I pressed my palms against my heart, almost feeling the pain of impact. JohnScott wasn’t just talking about Jesus or the Bible. He was talking about the church. I paced across the room and back again.
He held his head in his hands, but if I knew my cousin, any minute he’d chuckle and say, “Naw, not for me.”
He lifted his head. “I guess there’s no reason to wait.”
“There’s no hurry, Coach Pickett.”
“No, I’m ready.” JohnScott wiped his cheeks. “Do we have to go to the church building, or can we do it here?”
“Water is water.” Dodd scoped the yard. “What do you have in mind?”
JohnScott swung his legs over the splintery bench of the picnic table. “We’ve got a holding tank across the way over there.”
Dodd and Grady asked in unison, “What’s a holding tank?”
“You guys are such city boys.” JohnScott laughed. “Big, round cement basin full of well water, like an above-ground pool.”
“Slime?” Dodd stepped off the porch.
“And maybe a few goldfish.”
As they moved out of sight, I stumbled down the hall to the back bedroom, where I lifted the curtain at the window overlooking the side pasture.
JohnScott and Dodd kicked off their shoes, then sat on the side of the holding tank and swung their legs over and stood in the thigh-deep water. Dodd gripped JohnScott’s shoulder, and my cousin nodded. When the preacher dunked him under, the block of ice between my shoulder blades melted into a slushy pool of emptiness, and I closed my eyes.
Why did he think this would hurt me? I didn’t care.
I fingered the rubbery lining of the curtain before letting it fall back into place, and then I wandered down the hall and waited in the entryway with my back pressed against the wall and my palm gripping the doorknob. When I heard them in the mudroom, I slipped out the front door as they came in the back. They would never know I had been there. I would see to that.
Trudging down the highway on my way ba
ck to town, I hugged myself not only to ward off the brisk fall wind but also to fill the loneliness in my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I knew JohnScott would come.
I waited for him on the couch, entranced by the blank television screen. Thirteen years before, I had curled up on the same couch watching the Power Rangers while Momma and Daddy argued in the bedroom. When I turned up the volume, Momma had yelled at me to turn it down.
“Don’t holler at her, Lynda. She didn’t do nothing.” Daddy had been in a dark mood that day, and so weary I remember thinking he needed a nap. He had long stretches, days at a time, when sadness seemed to consume him body and soul.
Momma followed him into the living room, then leaned against the doorframe. “You’re right, Hoby. She didn’t do anything.”
Daddy knelt in front of me and took my face in his hands. I smiled at the attention he gave me, but the longer I looked into his eyes, the more my mood mirrored his own. His sorrow warmed my cheeks as he examined my eyes, lips, and nose. His fingertips trailed across my forehead, and I felt his tension—studying, hunting, searching … but for what?
“It’s her eyes, Hoby,” Momma had pleaded with him. “Remember, babe? It’s her eyes.”
He shook his head and sighed, then plodded past the Power Rangers and out the front door.
“Daddy, wait.” I ran after him.
“I’ve gotta go to work now, Ruth Ann.”
“But you don’t have your work shirt.”
He glanced down. “Yeah, I guess it’s in the laundry. You be good, okay?” He grasped my miniature hand with his calloused one and kissed it before climbing into his truck. His whiskers tickled, and I pressed my palm against the leg of my cotton shorts to still the sensation before returning to the couch for the rest of my show.
Daddy never came back.
For two days I asked Momma when he’d be home, but she had only gazed at me with a lost expression. Finally Aunt Velma sat me down and explained.
A rapid knock jolted me out of my memories, and I lifted my eyes to see JohnScott’s curls through the diamond-shaped window in our front door. Inhaling a ragged breath, I steeled myself for the inevitable confrontation. “Come on in.”
He opened the door hesitantly, but he smiled. “Hey there, little cousin.”
He had changed into dry clothes, but his hair was still damp, and I pretended not to notice the peculiar expression on his face as he followed me to the kitchen.
“You want some chocolate milk?”
Normally he would have sprawled in one of the mismatched maple chairs at the table, but instead he stalled at the counter. “I’ve got something to tell you, Ruthie.”
“All right.” I reached into the refrigerator for the milk, hugging it to my hip while I grabbed two glasses off the drain board. The coldness remained on my shirt and stomach even after I set the jug on the counter.
“I need to tell you something, little cousin.”
“You said that.”
He took a step toward me. “I got baptized this afternoon.”
Pausing in my preparations, I intended to acknowledge his statement, but he rushed on.
“Dodd has been talking to me, but I’d been waiting because I thought I wasn’t good enough. Then today it just felt right, you know?”
I scooped Nesquik into the glasses, inhaling the chocolaty powder.
“Dodd and Grady explained I don’t have to be good enough. God wants me the way I am.” His voice drifted to a murmur. “Cool, huh?”
The spoon tinkled hollowly against the sides of the glass, mimicking the void in my spirit. One good whack, and everything would shatter. “I guess so.”
“We did it out in the holding tank.” He shivered. “I thought Dodd would turn blue from the cold. You should’ve seen him.”
A drop of guilt splashed in my heart.
“He and Grady came over to the house for lunch, and we talked for an hour or more. I feel so clean, Ruthie. Like I’m a different person.”
I handed him his chocolate milk.
“Afterward I cried, Ruthie. Can you believe that? JohnScott Pickett cried.” He raised the glass to his lips but lowered it before drinking. “You’re not mad?”
Of course I wasn’t mad.
I took a sip of my drink, and the coldness crept from my throat, behind my heart, and into my stomach. “I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, you’ve been meeting with the Debate Club.”
He slowly turned his face to the side, but his eyes remained fixed on me.
“It’s no big deal, JohnScott.” I settled into a chair at the kitchen table, wishing for the first time in my life that JohnScott would go home. What good would it do to talk about it?
“Ruthie, I want you to feel this good too.” He sloshed milk on the table as he sat down. “Will you let me tell you about Jesus?”
I pulled a paper napkin from the plastic holder, laying it over the spill to soak up the milk. Then I wiped the vinyl tablecloth and wadded the napkin in my fist. If only the messes of life could be cleaned so easily.
“I remember Jesus … from Sunday school when I was small.”
He rotated his glass, exposing a ring of milk, which we both studied to keep from looking at each other. “So you know He died for you?”
I nodded, but indignation lifted my chin stiffly.
“Do you believe it?”
“It makes sense.” His questions goaded my patience like an electric cattle prod—zzt, zzt, zzt.
“Then why—”
“Because of the people.” The words clunked across my tongue, and I imagined the low echo of an angry fist pounding a pulpit.
“The people?”
I slapped at a tear but refused to let a second escape. “JohnScott, Jesus may love you even though you’re not good enough, but I’m not good enough for the church.” I gave a sarcastic chuckle. “And they don’t love me in spite of it.”
My statement surprised me as much as him.
“The people aren’t important, Ruthie.”
“The people are everything.” I rose and dumped both glasses in the sink, slamming the faucet back and forth as I rinsed them.
He waited until I settled, until my mind returned to my present-day kitchen and the weight of thirteen years lifted from my chest, until I could breathe again.
“It’s about you and God,” he said, touching the brown ring on the tablecloth. “But I suppose people can get in the way.”
I straightened the glasses in the sink. “That’s a fact.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Over the next two weeks, JohnScott and I redefined our cousinship. While the Panthers won the district title and were solidly throttled at bidistrict, I realized my relationship with JohnScott had become strained, if not remote. Uncle Ansel and Aunt Velma had yet to voice an opinion about his baptism, but they seemed to have made an unspoken agreement not to mention it to Momma.
Gradually I spent less time with him and more time with Maria, even though he still gave me rides to and from work. Dodd offered me rides too, but I wouldn’t agree to that again. I stayed a safe distance from the preacher, assuming he’d get the hint and stop offering, but one day in mid-November, I realized my assumption was flawed.
I sat in the teachers’ lounge picking at my peanut-butter sandwich while Maria rattled on about a weight-loss program. When Dodd sat down next to her, she slapped her palm down on the table. “Are you lost, Mr. Cunningham? The Debate Club meets at the back.”
“Very funny, Maria. Or should I say Ms. Fuentes?” He smiled. “I heard a rumor we were being called a debate club.”
“Well, you know what they say,” Maria said. “If the boot fits …”
It shamed me to avoid eye contact, but I hadn’t yet figured out my relationship with my own cousin, much less how the preacher fit into it
. I reached for a saltshaker and tilted it until a steady stream flowed onto the table.
“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?” Dodd directed the question to me, but I didn’t respond. Instead, I scooted the salt into a pile with my fingertip.
Maria bumped my knee and answered the question. “I’m visiting my folks in Amarillo. What about you?”
“We’ll make a trip to Fort Worth. Both sets of grandparents are there. And about five hundred cousins.”
His gaze prickled my skin uncomfortably.
Maria looked between the two of us, shrugged, then lifted her lunch tray. “Be right back.”
With my pinky, I made a well in the top of the salt pile, forming a volcano. I felt like a volcano. My impertinence built up so much pressure, I thought I might explode. Maybe I should tell him I didn’t need a ride to work and get it over with. To ease the tension, I lifted the corners of my mouth before returning to my sculpture.
My feeble smile must have increased his confidence, because he leaned across the table. “I wondered if you might want to go to a movie with me. On Saturday night? In Lubbock?”
I held my breath.
“Mom’s going.” His voice carried a frown. “And Grady.” His hand brushed mine as he slid a finger into the salt, denting it. “We’d be back before late.”
Unbelievable.
Maria was right after all, and I had been so upset with JohnScott, I hadn’t asked him about it. What could I say? Going to a movie with the Cunninghams would either turn Momma into a dust devil or send her tumbling into depression again. And I had no idea how a date would affect Fawn and her parents. Maybe even Emily.
I raised my gaze with the intention of setting him straight but lost my train of thought when I looked into his eyes. He held me motionless with an expectant expression, his eyebrows raised.
Had I never noticed his eyes? They were blue. Startlingly blue with dark lashes, and when he smiled, they crinkled at the edges. But more than anything, I noticed how near they were to my own eyes. As we hunkered over Mount Vesuvius, his breath warmed my cheeks, sending a flame of panic coursing through my veins like molten lava.
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