by Tamara Leigh
Hooking my fingers in the chain-link fence, I stare at the swings that wait for children to jump on them… grip their chains… take to the air… fly… laugh… squeal… and yell, “Higher, Daddy.”
“Higher,” I breathe, remembering my father’s words to his rebellious teenage daughter: “It’s God you should be speaking those words to now, Harriet. All you have to do is ask, and He will take you higher.”
Throat tightening, I nod. I was meant to go higher, meant to try new things, meant to take chances. And it’s not too late. Unhooking my fingers, I push open the gate and cross the wood chips to the swings.
It starts off innocently enough, just a little back and forth, progresses to a lot of back and forth, and eventually goes full tilt. Face buffeted by the wind I create, hair flying back, I swing forward and up…up. Hair sweeping into my face and catching in my mouth and lashes, I swing back. And again, going higher with each pass. Practically flying. In fact, were I twenty years younger, I’d see how far I could launch myself. But that might hurt. Besides, it feels wonderful just the way it is. As does my heart that is alternately chanting, “By grace I am forgiven” and “I am a new creation.”
Forgiven. A new creation. Free of my past and all the wrong turns I took. Simply forgiven. And ready to go higher.
I smile, I shout, “I’m a new creation!” I laugh, I yell, “Higher, Daddy! Higher!” Then I do the stupidest thing I’ve done in a long time. I launch myself out of the swing. A moment before impact, I attempt to get my landing gear down—that would be my feet—but I’m no longer eight years old. As I rake up a mouthful of wood chips and register the sting of scratches across my chin and palms, someone shouts my name. Then that someone’s turning me over.
“Are you all right?”
Maddox.
“What were you doing?!”
I push my tongue forward to expel a wood chip.
“What do you think you are? A bird?”
I smile weakly and spit out another wood chip. “Felt like it for about a second.”
He raises an eyebrow, then looks me up and down. “Anything broken?”
I shake my head. My hair is going to be full of wood chips! But so what? “Not anymore.”
His face lightens. “Yeah?”
I push onto my elbows. “Thank you, Maddox.”
“For?”
“You know what for—the trade. It will put a lot of people’s minds at ease.”
His mouth jerks, foretelling the smile that appears. “I hoped you’d be pleased.”
“You have no idea—”
“Yes, I do.”
I nod. “Just like you know how much it means to me. I should have trusted you.”
His face slips back into seriousness. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about the café. I was just so afraid of messing up and everyone finding out and thinking I hadn’t changed at all.” I replenish my air supply. “And about the old Harri… After you left yesterday, I did a lot of thinking and praying and searching through my Bible. Then this morning, that song about being forgiven by grace…and the Scripture about being a new creation—the old has gone, the new has come—I knew the old Harri really was forgiven and that I need to get on with the new Harri’s life.”
The poor man couldn’t look more taken aback had you smacked him across the face. I swallow. “Are you following?”
His wide eyes ease and his mouth tilts. “Trying to. So what you’re saying is…”
“That this Harri is going to start living like she’s forgiven—because she is—that she’s going to”—I throw a hand up—“I’m going to start believing in myself, hanging out with others my age, having fun, taking chances.”
“Oh.”
Just “oh”? And why does he look doubtful? I finally get it, and he doesn’t appear the least inclined to give me a high-five.
Maddox cocks his head to the side. “Just like that, hmm?”
I open my mouth to protest, but after a quick replay of my running at the mouth, I nod sheepishly. “I guess not ‘just like that.’ After all, old habits are hard to break. I’ll just… take it a step at a time.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” He glances away momentarily. “What about us, Harri? Do you think we could start over?”
Oh dear. “What about what I said yesterday?”
He regards me with such intensity that I can hardly breathe. But then he takes my hand and pulls me to standing. “Though we’ve both made mistakes about each other’s character, that’s far from a relationship breaker. In fact, it’s normal. It’s how people figure each other out.”
“Then you still like me?”
The start of a smile. “I do.”
My heart lurches.
“In fact…” He skims a finger down my cheek. “… I more than like you.”
Double lurch. “I more than like you too.”
He looks at my mouth, and I know he’s thinking about kissing me, so I close my eyes and lift my face. He nearly kisses me, right here on the playground. His warm breath fans my lips, but then he steps back. “How about a ride?”
“A motorcycle ride?”
“What other kind of ride is there?”
Uh… it sounds so… and very… and extremely… and it is broad daylight…ultravisible. I mean, what would people think if they saw me—?
Calling this Harri, not that Harri! And correct me if I’m wrong, but you were going to allow him to kiss you a moment ago!
As Maddox’s smile starts to fade, I nod. “I’d like that, but I have to go home and get my helmet.”
His smile returns to its former glory, and an ultracurly curl shifts on his brow. “You didn’t throw it out?”
“Of course not. Pink helmets are hard to come by, you know.”
He chuckles. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” I reach up and pull the curl between thumb and forefinger. To my twisted delight, it springs right back. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”
“Are you telling me that you, who told me I should cut my ‘boyish curls,’ have a curl fetish?”
I nod. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all.”
Hand in hand, we walk back to the mobile home park, and while I’m retrieving the helmet, Maddox retrieves his motorcycle.
“So,” I say when he pulls up to my little mobile home, “is the offer for me to run the café still good?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is. It will allow me to save more money, and then…”
“Then?”
I tighten my chin strap, throw a leg over the seat, and meet his gaze as he looks back at me. “Then I’m going to open my own café. I don’t know where or when or exactly how, but I’m going to do it. Even if, in the end, I fail. I’m not going to be afraid anymore.”
Maddox grins. “That’s my Harri.”
His Harri… If that doesn’t warrant a heavy sigh, I don’t know what does.
And so, with my arm around his waist, we ride off into the sunset. Well, not exactly the sunset. The present. And the future—whatever that may be.
Discussion Questions
Harri was a rebellious preacher’s kid who crossed over to the “prodigal” side. What are your experiences with PKs? Do you think expectations are too high for them?
Splitting Harriet is set during a time of tremendous change at First Grace Church—change that makes Harri and some of the older members feel threatened. What changes have you experienced in your church that made you feel threatened or uncomfortable?
What are your feelings about the trend toward contemporary forms of worship? Does it keep members engaged and present a greater opportunity to reach the unsaved? Or does it shift the focus away from God and toward entertainment?
Fearful of being hurt as she was when a teenager, Harri avoids meaningful friendships with women her own age. How are your relationships with women affected by your early e
xperiences?
At the height of Harri’s rebellion, her brother suffered fallout from “guilt by association” when his girlfriend broke off their engagement. Have you ever been found guilty by association? How did it affect you?
Harri tends to “play it safe.” When have you played it safe? How do you think your life would be different had you taken a risk instead?
Harri reads the Bible daily, translation after translation. However, her actions and fears contradict the depth of her knowledge of God’s Word. What do you do to guard against a “surface” reading of the Bible? What helps you to internalize and apply Scripture to your life?
Though attracted to Maddox, Harri is put off by his appearance for fear he will be a bad influence. Do you tend to stereotype people? Have you ever been stereotyped?
Harri has a difficult time accepting the fullness of God’s forgiveness. What struggles have you faced in accepting God’s forgiveness?
Though Harri longs for the safe, predictable future she envisions she’ll have once she buys the café, she sacrifices her dream for her friends. What dreams have you had to sacrifice? Any regrets?
Enter into Kate’s world - As a successful San Francisco artist looking for a nice, solid Christian man, she is stunned when not one but two enter her orbit in rapid succession. The question now is, what kind of work will Kate do on herself … and who exactly is she trying to please?
SPLITTING HARRIET
PUBLISHED BY MULTNOMAH BOOKS
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A division of Random House Inc.
Scripture quotations or paraphrases are taken from the following versions: the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. God’s Word, a copyrighted work of God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations. All rights reserved.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56165-7
Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Schmanski
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
MULTNOMAH is a trademark of Multnomah Books and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The colophon is a trademark of Multnomah Books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leigh, Tamara.
Splitting Harriet : a novel / Tamara Leigh. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Single women—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.E3575S65 2007
813′.6—dc22
2007029768
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