Sparks

by S. J. Adams

  “So, you’re trespassing and doing it?”

  “Well, no,” said Angela. “We weren’t doing it, we were just fooling around. And we’re not trespassing, technically, because Josh is a member here.”

  Josh smiled sheepishly.

  “Did Norman have my backpack?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Angela. “He said he went by your house, but no one was home. I tried to call you, but your phone is in the bag.”

  “Do you have his number?”

  “No,” said Angela.

  “I have it,” said Josh. “Hang on.”

  He turned around and walked over to his pants—showing me his naked butt in the process. Angela giggled a bit. I tried not to. This wasn’t funny! I was in the middle of a crisis and I was being mooned! Plus, when he bent over to get the phone out of his pants, I saw way more than I wanted to.

  I turned away so that I was looking at Angela, who at least had the decency to stay covered, instead. I must have been making a really goofy face, because she giggled at me again, then shrugged, as if to say “Hey, what can I say?”

  “How did you find out we were here, anyway?” she asked.

  “I’m on a holy quest,” I said.

  “See?” said Angela. “I told you to let Emma talk!”

  “I still think she’s sort of nuts,” I said.

  “She’s completely insane,” said Angela. “But you’re obviously having a hell of a day.”

  “Okay,” said Josh, turning around. “It’s 236-6132.”

  “I don’t have a phone on me,” I said. “Can I use yours?”

  Josh dialed the number and handed me the phone.

  Norman picked up right away.

  “Hey, Josh,” he said.

  “Norman!” I said. “You have no idea how badly I need to talk to you. This is Debbie. Lisa’s friend. I’m on Josh’s phone.”

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I think you have my backpack,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said, simply and dumbly. “I came by your house, but no one was there. I didn’t want to just leave it in front of the door with the storm coming.”

  “Can I come meet you someplace and get it?” I asked.

  “We’re at the Burger Box,” said Norman. “Can you come out here?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be right there. Don’t leave! Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I hung up the phone. “You don’t suppose he’s the kind of guy who would dig through it, do you?” I asked.

  “Norman?” asked Josh. “Frankly, yeah.”

  That sick feeling started coming over me again just as Josh nonchalantly dropped the makeshift loincloth to put his pants on, which didn’t exactly help.

  I wondered if Bluists were into predestination. If they were, then Blue sure had a weird sense of humor.

  “I’ve got to get to the Burger Box while he’s still there,” I said. “There’s stuff in there about … you know … ”

  “Oh, God,” said Angela. “Go. Seriously. Fast!”

  “Thanks for the number and stuff,” I said. “And nice to meet you.”

  “Pleasure’s mine,” said Josh.

  “Go!” said Angela. “Quit staring and go!”

  I must have blushed all over again, but there was no way Angela or Josh could see, because I turned and ran like hell back to the Sunday School room where I’d come in, shoved a table against the wall, climbed up it, and shimmied back out the window.

  I ran around to the front of the church, where Emma and Tim were waiting at the front door.

  “Are you okay?”

  I was out of breath, but I nodded while I breathed.

  “It wasn’t there?” asked Tim.

  I got enough of my breath back to yell a little. “They’re at the Burger Box!” I shouted.

  “Say no more,” said Emma. “Tim, you can run better. Go get my car.”

  She threw her keys at him and he ran around the building. A few seconds later he drove up around to the front. We climbed in and got back on the road.

  Thirteen

  So, let me get this straight,” said Emma, as Tim drove us out of Clive, through Urbandale, and back home to Cornersville Trace. “Angela and Josh were naked in the coatroom of the church?”

  I nodded.

  “All right, Angela!” said Emma, raising her fist in the air. “Bonus points for doing it in a holy place.”

  “Is the whole building holy?” asked Tim. “Or just the sanctuary? The coatroom doesn’t sound like consecrated ground to me.”

  “It’s all good,” said Emma.

  “Even if it’s in Clive?” asked Tim. “That almost seems like cheating.”

  “Clive is not a dirtier town than any other, it just sounds like it is,” said Emma. She turned back to me as we pulled up to a stop sign. “Come on. How much did you see?”

  “Pretty much everything,” I said. “Both of them.”

  Emma laughed triumphantly. “Blue has provided!”

  Tim took the list of holy quest goals out of the glove compartment and crossed off the one about seeing people naked. I was sort of glad to have it out of the way. The encounter was pretty awkward, but I couldn’t really picture a way to cross off that goal that would have been any less awkward.

  “Think about it,” said Emma. “What are the sheer odds that you could have broken into any building, anywhere, seen something like that tonight, and still gotten Norman’s number? You know how many places Tim and I have broken into without ever seeing anybody else naked?”

  “Seriously,” said Tim. “Every time there’s a goal with nudity, we end up having to do it ourselves.”

  “So, dish!” said Emma. “How would you rate Josh?”

  I shrugged. “I can only compare it to diagrams, I guess,” I said. “I didn’t see anything unexpected. I guess it was hairier than I would have thought.”

  “Yeah,” said Emma. “Guys never trim their downth.”

  “Their what?”

  “Downth,” said Emma. “It’s called ‘downth hair’ because it’s ‘down there.’ Get it?”

  Tim groaned. “She just waits for the subject to come up so she can use that word,” he said. “I think a lot of guys shave these days, actually. I would have thought guys who do it in a church would.”

  Emma giggled. “Did he have so much that you couldn’t see his thingie?”

  “Come on, Emma,” said Tim. “She was probably more interested in Angela, right?”

  “I don’t think interested is quite the right word,” I said. “I suppose you could say I found her more … appealing … but I wasn’t really thinking about that stuff, I guess. I do like guys too, though.”

  “Noted,” said Emma.

  I wasn’t honestly sure about that, really. In fact, I think that seeing Josh naked might have chased away any lingering bit of hetero or bisexuality that I had in me. Seeing him had felt like I was satisfying intellectual curiosity, or checking off a piece of life experience. There was nothing stirring or arousing about it. More of a “well, there’s something you don’t see every day” sort of thing. The idea of touching one of them, or being touched by one, did nothing for me.

  I would have liked to just take the rest of the night off to think all that stuff through, but I had too much to do. I had a quest to complete that night, and it was going to need my full attention.

  What Emma, Tim, and I were doing was really starting to feel like a holy quest. Not like I was walking on a ray of light or blazing a trail of glory across the cloudy Iowa skies or whatever, but it felt like I was doing something important.

  And Emma and Tim were being totally nice to me—nicer, in a lot of ways, than most of Lisa’s friends had usually been. They had driven me all
over three or four towns and back and hadn’t come close to complaining. I felt like I’d known them for years.

  We took 86th street clear through Urbandale and back into Cornersville Trace, and soon we were rolling down Cedar Avenue, back among the old familiar strip malls.

  Emma’s phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket. “Text from Ramona,” she said. “Norman and company were just sighted at the Burger Box.”

  “Now she tells us,” I said.

  “Give her a break,” said Emma. “They weren’t there when we last talked to her. It’s cool that she’s staying involved. Especially considering we didn’t really pay her the way she wanted us to.”

  “I’m just glad the next part of the holy quest is a food place,” said Tim. “And that we still have the five bucks. I’m starving.”

  “Same here,” said Emma.

  “Me too,” I said.

  I was really hungry. I’d barely eaten any of my lunch. More of it ended up on my shirt than in my mouth.

  We pulled into the Burger Box and I ran inside. Emma and Tim lagged behind, but I didn’t wait for them to catch up or anything.

  Mr. Ward, the gym teacher, was sitting at one of the booths with some basketball players. He gave me a look like “Guess you were faking that headache, huh?” as I ran past them, but I didn’t stop to explain myself.

  I found Norman sitting with Aaron Riley—also in a tie—and a couple of guys in regular T-shirts that had sayings that looked like song lyrics ironed on to them. Norman gave me that half nod that guys always give people when he saw me, and I darted right up to him.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “Do you know Aaron?”

  I looked over at Aaron, who was smiling at me.

  “I think we’ve met,” I said as I sat down.

  Oh, God. He was planning to set me up. I hadn’t been expecting this. I tried to smile a little bit, but not a sexy smile or a suggestive smile. I wasn’t looking at Aaron at all; I was looking around trying to see where my backpack was.

  “Norman’s told me a lot about you,” said Aaron.

  “Like what?” I said back, a bit too quickly.

  They all looked a bit surprised. I could tell they weren’t expecting me to be so … curt, I guess is the word. Maybe they were expecting me to be all giggly and flirty or whatever.

  “Well, just that you’re one of Lisa’s friends,” said Norman. “And a good volleyball player, from what I hear.”

  “I guess so,” I said. I looked around the room and saw that Emma and Tim were standing in line at the counter, but looking over at me, watching.

  “My game is football,” said Aaron. “Do you go to the games?”

  “No,” I said. Then I turned to Norman. “Do you have my backpack?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Here.”

  And he pulled it up from under the table and handed it to me. I took it from him and let out a deep breath. If no one was watching me, I would have held it and rocked it like a baby in my arms.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I really need this for tonight.”

  “Lisa said you were having some trouble with chemistry,” said Norman. “Aaron’s a science whiz, you know.”

  “I was going to be a scientist when I grew up,” Aaron said. “Before I found out that they were all a bunch of secular hacks.”

  The rest of the people at the table nodded in agreement. I wanted very, very much to just get up and walk away from the table, but I knew I needed to keep talking to them for a bit to see if I could pick up any clues as to whether he’d seen the note.

  “Chemistry isn’t all that sacrilegious, is it?” I asked. “I mean, if God created everything, he made everything in the periodic table of elements.”

  “Good point,” said Norman.

  “That’s true,” said Aaron. “It’s not so much chemistry itself as the scientific community. They’re so locked into making people believe in evolution and global warming stuff. It’s all totally political.”

  “And it’s all about money,” Norman added.

  “No such thing as a croco-duck,” I said, just to play along. It seemed simpler than arguing that there were probably plenty of Christians in the scientific community or whatever.

  “Right!” Aaron smiled. “But I can still totally help you out if you need a better grade. I know how to play the game. I just chose not to play it for a living.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something weird going on for sure. Norman hadn’t asked me if I was okay after bursting out of lunch. He hadn’t said that I seemed like I was doing better or expressed any sort of concern. Not that he was obligated to, but it would have been nice, you know?

  “I think you really should let him tutor you,” said Norman. “Maybe you and Aaron can double date with Lisa and me some night soon. You down for that, bro?”

  “I’d be down for that,” said Aaron, smiling in my general direction, like I ought to be all grateful or whatever that he would be so gallant.

  1, 2, 3, 4 …

  Some people get into religion because they want to find peace, or hope, or whatever, but Norman and his friends were the sort who somehow found a way to use religion as an excuse to act like douchebags. I haven’t read the whole Bible or anything, but I think it’s mostly stuff like “Go forth and love thy neighbor, my brothers.” Not “Go out and douche it up, bro.”

  Then again, maybe Aaron was new to the whole scene and still kind of figuring it all out. They say there’s no zealot like a convert, and I ought to know—I’ve seen my mom get all zealous about new religions. But even if there was still a chance for Aaron to get it together, I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to guide him down the path of virtue.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “What’s to think about?” asked Norman with a laugh, like I shouldn’t have any say in who I went out with. “I think it might really help you out, you know.” And he nodded his head in the direction of my backpack.

  At first I thought he meant the Chemistry homework.

  But then another thought came to mind.

  He might have been saying that going out with Aaron would “straighten me out” or something like that.

  “What do you mean, help me out?” I asked.

  “Well … you know!” said Norman, not helping me out in the slightest.

  I felt a bump against my foot, and knew without even looking that it was Aaron trying to play footsy with me.

  I dug my phone out of my bag while I counted to twenty-five in my head.

  “Well, I’ll think about it and let you know,” I said. “But I have to go eat for now, okay?”

  “Cool,” said Norman. “We have to take off, too. I’m picking Lisa up at Jennifer’s house in a few, and I’ve gotta get into my normal clothes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for hanging onto my bag

  for me.”

  “No problem,” said Norman.

  And I walked over to the line as Norman, Aaron, and the other guys got up to leave. Aaron shot me a quick “You know you want me” glance.

  I had so much going through my head that I felt like the thoughts might turn into solid matter and leak out of my nose. I was scared that Norman had already taken the note out. Scared that my time as Lisa’s best friend was over. And, frankly, a part of me was furious at Lisa for having anything to do with guys like these.

  But I’d been mad at Lisa before. Like, whenever she casually said that my mom was going to hell, which she did from time to time. I’d be saying something about whatever religion my mom was getting into, and Lisa would say, “Well, I hope she has fun with it while she’s alive, cause … ” Then she’d inhale and sort of laugh. The first time she did tha
t, I’d been pissed the whole next day. But then I saw her again and she said something funny, and it all just melted away. I couldn’t stay mad at her.

  And maybe Norman just meant that going out with Aaron would help me with being lonely or something. He probably thought I’d stormed out of lunch because I was upset about being single, and being with Aaron would help. That made sense.

  Norman and his friends went out the door just as I joined Emma and Tim in the line to order at the counter.

  “You got it!” said Emma, pointing at my backpack.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Had he looked in it, do you think?” asked Tim.

  “I couldn’t tell,” I said. “I didn’t want to just ask him outright, since he had all those other creeps hanging around him. I think he might have hinted that he knew I like girls, but I’m probably just being paranoid.”

  “See if it’s still in there,” said Tim.

  I dug around the bag until I found it. It was buried at the bottom, undisturbed.

  “It’s still here!” I said. “And it doesn’t look like anyone touched it.”

  I’d never been so relieved in my life. I almost even forgot that I was just killing time until I let Lisa stomp all over my heart once and for all. At least I’d get to tell her on my own terms, not have her find out from Norman.

  “Hallelujah!” said Emma.

  “Mission accomplished,” said Tim. “Now let’s eat!”

  We made it to the front of the line. It was only then that I noticed that the guy taking orders was Hairy Nate Spoelstra.

  “Hi, Nate,” I said.

  “Hey, Deb,” he said.

  “You know Emma and Tim?” I asked, indicating the two of them.

  “I think I’ve seen ’em around,” said Nate.

  “Yeah,” said Emma.

  “What’s the best way to get a lot of food out of five bucks here, Nate?” Tim asked.

  “Actually,” said Nate, “anything you want is on me if you guys will kiss.” He pointed to me and Emma.

  “What?” I asked, rather indignant.

  “Oh, God!” said Emma. “I’ve heard of guys paying girls to kiss at bars and the bowling alley, but at the Burger Box? This is a new low.”