She squinted her eyes and pointed to the smaller star on the far corner of the constellation.
“That one?” She asked.
With a small chuckle and a shake of his head, he moved towards her. Before he was completely aware of what he was doing, he took her outstretched hand by the wrist and pointed it towards the bright star at the very end of the handle on the little dipper.
“It’s that one,” he said. His voice came out much softer than he’d expected it to. It was almost a whisper and he realized now that he was very close to her. So close that he could smell the light perfume she wore. His hand still held her wrist and he could feel her pulse beginning to pound wildly beneath his fingers.
Quickly, he let go and stepped away. She turned to him and, even in the darkness, he thought he could see something like disappointment line her face.
“I should get going,” he said pushing the thought aside. “I’ve got an early class tomorrow.”
“Ok, then,” she answered.
The disappointment was in her voice too. He could hear it now and his heart constricted a bit with it.
“I’ll see you on Thursday for my lesson,” she continued.
“Yeah, see you then,” he said. He hurried across the street and suppressed a very persistent impulse to turn back. If he did, he might not want to leave. Or worse, he might want to ask Joanie out for coffee or dinner or... something.
And he knew that he couldn’t do that. He’d made a bargain with himself when he started at the music school. He wouldn’t date until he had graduated. He was just too busy for it.
Besides, a girl as religious as Joanie seemed to be was bound to be trouble. He’d dated a religious girl once in high school. Inevitably, it became a problem.
It was best they kept it professional. Both for his sake and for hers.
*****
Joanie
“Please tell me you’re not going to flirt to convert.”
Joanie’s friend, Sarah, sat across from her at the small coffee shop in the Student Union wearing an accusatory frown.
“I didn’t say anything about flirting,” Joanie said defensively. “I didn’t even say anything about converting. I just said he was nice.”
“And you said he was cute, and you said he doesn’t like religion or churches,” Sarah said. The accusatory tone in her voice matched the frown on her face perfectly.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to go out with him,” Joanie said. Though the statement was much weaker than she intended for it to be. That probably had something to do with the constant fantasies she’d had the past few weeks about Noah asking her on a date or even kissing her.
The truth was, ever since that night, since their second rehearsal when he’d shown her how to find Polaris and told her about the light pollution, she hadn’t been able to think about much of anything but Noah Harding.
The fact that she saw him twice a week and that he’d taken to walking her back to her dormitory after rehearsals didn’t help this... infatuation... obsession... she wasn’t sure exactly what to call it.
“I’m just saying,” Sarah continued, “be careful. The way you’re talking, I don’t think it would be that hard for this guy to convince you to go out with him.”
“Even if I did,” Joanie said reluctantly, “would that be so bad? I mean, just one date…”
“Everything starts as just one date,” Sarah said.
Joanie looked down at her plate, unsure what to say to that. She only looked up again when she heard Sarah heave a loud sigh and lean back in her booth.
“I’m sorry, Joanie,” Sarah said, “it’s just... I’ve dated a non-Christian before. I thought it would be fine but then I ended up doing things I didn’t want to do. Getting into things I thought I never would. It took me years to get back on track.”
“Noah’s not like that,” Joanie said defensively. “I mean, he doesn’t drink or do drugs or-”
“Even so,” Sarah said, “it’s not just drugs and alcohol you’ve got to worry about. You don’t want to lose your faith.”
“I would never lose that,” Joanie said.
Sarah gave an unconvinced raise of her eyebrow.
“Besides,” Joanie said, choosing to ignore her friend’s look, “he probably doesn’t think of me that way. I mean, it’s been over a month we’ve been practicing together. If he hasn’t asked me out by now, he probably won’t.”
The skeptical look on Sarah’s face didn’t go away, she kept staring at Joanie as though accusing her of some horrible crime. Her gaze was so intense that Joanie began to feel her old anxiety returning. Her heart started pounding and palms began to sweat. Hastily, she reached into her purse for her phone, more to get away from Sarah’s gaze than because she really needed it.
“I should go,” Joanie said checking the time. Really, it was a little early for choir rehearsal, but she didn’t think she could stand staying here with Sarah’s accusing eyes one more minute.
“Just remember,” Sarah said as Joanie stood and grabbed her music bag, “no flirting to convert.”
“I won’t,” Joanie said with an eye roll at her friend.
All through choir rehearsal, Joanie tried to stay focused on the music. She tried to pay attention to what Robert was telling them about the upcoming Christmas services, but her mind kept drifting to the conversation she’d had with Sarah.
She knew her friend had a point. She’d known plenty of girls from her church, both here and back home, who had dated non-believers and regretted it.
She knew she shouldn’t have allowed herself to get so close to Noah. She knew she shouldn’t have allowed this ridiculous infatuation to develop. All the same, she couldn’t seem to help it.
Besides the fact that he was nice, and good looking, and played the piano more beautifully than anyone she had ever known, he was also so... sad. There was a weariness about him that caused him to seem much older than his twenty-one years.
The questions he would ask her sometimes after rehearsal, on their walks back to the dorm, spoke of a sort of longing inside him. Like he wanted desperately to believe in something; to believe the way that Joanie believed but something wouldn’t let him.
Joanie had a feeling that if that thing, that big horrible something that was blocking his mind, pushing faith away was destroyed, he would come back.
After all, he had been a Christian once, when he was very young. He’d been raised in the church. He was the son of a pastor. She was sure he could believe again if he would only let himself. Maybe she could help him…
She shook her head to clear that thought from her mind. That was exactly what Sarah had warned her against. Flirting to convert never worked, Joanie had more than ample proof of that.
Taking a deep breath, she put all her energy into the singing and arrangement of “Angels We Have Heard on High” with the other choir members and tried to push all thoughts of converting or flirting to the back of her mind.
When she saw Noah in the back of the church, giving her a small smile from his back pew just before the prayer was said, it became very difficult to forget about flirtation.
She tried to tell her heart to beat normally as the choir members and Robert left the church. When she found herself alone with Noah, who was coming up the aisle towards her, she knew her heart wouldn’t pay her mind any attention.
Still, she looked at him and managed to give him a fairly confident smile.
“So, what did you think?” she asked, referring to the music the choir had chosen for Christmas services.
“Nice,” he said, “too bad you won’t be here to actually sing them.”
“They asked me,” Joanie answered with a smile, “but, mom wants me home for the holidays.”
“That’s understandable,” Noah said. “Tell the truth, I’ve always liked churches a little better at Christmas time than I do most of the year.”
“Why do you think that is?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I guess it’s nostalgic.
It makes me remember what Christmas was like when I was little at Dad’s church.”
He gave her that sad, weary smile again. The smile that told her he was just a little bit broken. The smile that made her want to put him back together.
“Well, I guess we should get started,” he said quickly. He put his head down and moved to the piano, away from her. She wondered if he had felt the vulnerability in the look he’d given her. She wondered if he hid it from her deliberately.
Joanie put aside the questions and focused on her music. It was only two weeks until her audition, after all. And, she still wasn’t quite where she wanted to be.
They got through two arias well enough. Only stopping to work on one entrance. Just as Noah was getting his music for the third piece, Joanie heard a surprisingly harsh ringtone issue from his pants pocket.
Quickly, Noah searched his pocket, pulled out his phone and made to end the call. When he looked at the screen, his face fell. He seemed to go pale.
“Sorry,” he said looking up at her. “Do you mind if I take this? It’s my mom.”
“Sure,” Joanie answered.
With an apologetic smile, his face still white, he answered the call while standing from the piano bench.
“Mom,” he said quickly. “What’s up?”
His face fell further if that was possible. His eyes widened and his jaw nearly dropped.
“What do you mean Dad’s…? Wait, mom. Just... just slow down.”
Without a backward glance to Joanie, he hurried down the altar steps towards the church’s door.
Joanie stood rooted to the spot for several moments, wondering if she should follow him. Clearly something had happened. Something terrible, involving his mother and his dad.
Wringing her hands nervously, she paced back and forth beside the piano at the front of the church, her stomach churning, and her heart pounding. His face when he left... she had never seen Noah look like that.
His face was usually pulled into a blank, neutral or even half pleasant expression. Just then, it wasn’t neutral at all and certainly not pleasant. He looked as though whatever had been said on the other end of that phone had knocked the life completely out of him.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, half wanting to run after him, to comfort him, half worrying that she would be intruding if she did. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, she rushed down the steps and, slowly, opened the door to the church.
She found Noah sitting on the steps of the church, phone hanging limply in the hand at his side.
Joanie’s steps slowed as she walked towards him. Hesitantly, she reached out a hand to his shoulder. When she touched him, he jumped and turned around.
“Sorry,” she said automatically. “Is... is everything ok?”
She saw his blue eyes wide and bloodshot now. Even in the dim lights outside the church, she could see two tiny tear tracks on his cheek.
Even so, he gave her an entirely fake smile which came out as a grimace.
“Yeah,” he said. “Everything’s…”
The empty assurance was cut off by a crack in his voice that caused her to move closer to him, concern lining her face.
He turned away from her and, giving a dark chuckle, shook his head.
“Actually,” he said, “no. Everything’s not ok. But... it’s not something you should worry about.”
Wrapping the coat around her against a freezing wind that picked up, she slid down beside him on the top step.
“What happened?” she asked.
“My dad’s being... my dad again,” he said with another humorless chuckle. “Like I said, you shouldn’t worry about it.”
He gave her that fake grimace again as though he thought that was going to be the end of it. Joanie made no move to leave. She could tell he didn’t want her to. Not really.
“I guess…” he began hesitantly. “I mean... would it be ok if we left the rehearsal there for the night? It’s just... I’ve got to figure some things out with my mom. I’m not sure what we’re going to do yet and-”
“Of course,” she said cutting him off gently. “We don’t have to finish.”
He nodded but made no move to stand up or even to put his phone away in his pocket. Joanie stayed on the step with him, shivering in the cold night air but afraid even to shift her weight. Afraid it would break this tense frost that now hung over them.
“How do you do it?” he asked her suddenly without turning towards her.
She turned to him and saw that he was staring up at the sky. She wondered for a moment if the question was for her or someone else. Taking a chance, she decided to answer.
“Do what?” she asked.
“I mean... how do you keep on believing. In God, Jesus... all the rest of it? How can you never question it when everything around you goes to hell?”
Finally, he turned to her. There was a sort of accusation in his eyes. As though she were on trial and he was an attorney cross-examining her. But, there was something else there too. Something that seemed half gentle and half desperate.
“I do question it sometimes,” she admitted. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes wonder if it was all real.”
“But you keep coming back,” he said. “Why?”
“I guess…” she began gently. “I guess it’s because if I didn’t come back, if I didn’t keep believing, there would be no point. There would be no point to the pain, suffering, any of it. I’d just be a bunch of molecules floating around without a purpose. But, if there is a God, and he does love us, and he did send his son to die for us, then... I’ve got a purpose. We all have a purpose. There’s... meaning to it all. Something greater than us.”
She looked back at him and found that he was watching her intently. His blue eyes narrowed and focused. Joanie had seen him wear that look before. He always looked that way when he was concentrating on a particularly difficult piece of music. Now, he was looking at her like that. Like she was an immeasurably complex masterpiece he was trying to figure out.
Her heart thumping inside her chest, she took a bold chance and put another hand on his arm. He looked over at her wide-eyed, with a kind of intense expression. As though he was seeing her for the first time.
That was when Joanie realized how very close they were. So close that she could feel the heat from his legs touching hers on the step, even through the thick coat she wore to combat the cold.
Her heart began to beat a wild, fierce rhythm inside her chest as he lifted his hand to her chin and brought her forward. She barely had time to close her eyes before his lips met hers.
The sound of her pulse pounding in her ears accelerated as he wrapped one hand around her waist and deepened the kiss; clinging to her as though she were a life raft in a raging sea.
A moment later, he pushed away from her and stood quickly as though he were running away from a bug. Or someone contagious. He shook his head as though trying to wake himself up from a very deep sleep. She looked up at him, confused, hoping the next words he spoke would give her some kind of explanation for this strange behavior.
“I should get my stuff and go,” he said. “I promised mom I’d call her back once I got to the dorm.”
Joanie’s mouth nearly dropped as she felt her hand hit against the hard, cold concrete step. She wanted to yell at him, to scream at him, to ask why he wasn’t going to say anything about what had just happened.
She tried to think of some cutting or pleading remark to give him. Something that would make him stay and talk to her.
“I-I guess I should pack up too,” was all that came out. She was ashamed to hear how weak and small her voice sounded. Still, she did not try to hide her disappointment as she made to stand. He was already making his way to the church door. When he got there, he turned back to her.
“Listen, it’s ok if I don’t walk you back tonight, isn’t it?” he asked. “I just feel like I need to get to my room in a hurry. And, I doubt anyone will be out in this weather.”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Sure,” she said, “I understand.”
“Thanks,” he said before rushing into the church.
She stood there on the church steps motionless for several minutes. She couldn’t tell how long exactly. She only knew that when she opened the doors and moved into the church, Noah was gone along with his music.
The walk back to her dorm passed in a much too quick haze. Her only company the biting wind and tiny, icy drops of rain that began to fall on her bare head.
When she finally made it back to her dormitory, she flopped down on her bed in a heap and curled under the covers without even changing. The events of the evening rushing past her mind in a cold, confused, horrible circle. Noah’s face as he took that phone call, his questions about faith and God, and worst of all, the repulsed shock he’d expressed when she touched him. All of these danced in her mind lulling her into a fitful sleep.
It was several hours before she woke again. Not to her alarm clock’s blare but to the beep of a text message on her phone. Wearily, she rubbed her eyes before grasping for the device on her bedside table.
The text was from Noah.
I’m sorry. I can’t be your accompanist anymore. I’m dropping out for the rest of the year and moving back home with my mom.
Joanie read it through several times before fully comprehending it. Once the idea had sunk in, she made no attempt to hide the tears that fell onto the wide screen of her phone, blurring Noah’s words beyond recognition.
*****
Noah
Noah was aware, very aware of the date on the calendar.
The relentless ticking of the wind-up alarm clock his mom had given him also continually reminded him of the time as he packed the last of his clothes into a large suitcase. This was the day he was supposed to play for Joanie’s audition. Instead, he was packing his entire dorm room and heading home for the semester.
Sunlight and Shadows Page 43