Reinventing Rachel

by Alison Strobel

  She didn’t want to talk to her high school girls about it all—she was there to minister to them, not the other way around, and she didn’t feel comfortable being so vulnerable with them. All her other friends were Christians and would come at her with the same clichés Patrick had used and that she had always relied on, but she didn’t want to hear them. She didn’t want to forgive. She didn’t want to trust it would all work out for good for those who love the Lord. She did love God and had devoted her life to him. And yet things were most definitely not working out for good.

  Rachel put the bowl in the sink and finished her coffee preparations, then curled up on the couch with her favorite mug. She took a deep breath and focused her thoughts as she blew gently over the top of the brew. Her mind drifted to Daphne’s proposal. Regardless of their differing views, Daphne was the only person left in Rachel’s life that she could imagine talking with honestly. There was no pretense or posturing with Daphne. They were practically sisters. Daphne may have taken a path in life that Rachel disagreed with, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still love her dearly or value her friendship. And for once, Rachel was interested in hearing her friend’s suggestions on how to cope. Las Vegas was the last place she felt like visiting, but getting away for a weekend with Daphne could prove to be beneficial.

  She took a tentative taste and smiled as the heat moved down her throat. She took sip after sip, savoring the flavor, and let herself contemplate a weekend in Sin City. Considering the week she’d had so far, the word “sin” seemed to fit. Barbara, her mom, her dad—they’d apparently been living in their own versions of Sin City for some time now.

  By the time the mug was empty, she felt more prepared to face the day. And she was actually getting excited at the idea of the trip to Vegas. She resolved to shower and dress and give Daphne a call to hash out the details.

  What could it hurt?

  Rachel was halfway through her walk to Espress-Oh! when her cell vibrated in her pocket. “Don’t bother coming in,” said her boss when she answered. “The kitchen and stock room are flooded.”

  “Oh no!” She stepped into the shade beneath a storefront’s awning and leaned against the brick façade. “What about tomorrow?”

  “Plumbers are already here and working. They think they’ll have it fixed by seven or eight tonight. I’ll need you here tomorrow morning to help clean and get things back in order. Hopefully we’ll be open by lunchtime.”

  “All right then. See you in the morning.” After hanging up, she couldn’t help but smile. It was a gorgeous day, and she didn’t have to work. She tried calling Daphne but got her voice-mail. After leaving a message, she stepped back into the sunshine and crossed the street at the corner, making her way toward the used bookshop where she knew the staff by name. She deserved some serious pampering after the day she’d had yesterday.

  She left the overstuffed bookstore with a bag of literary treasures and made one more stop at a corner market for a bottle of water. From there she meandered to a park she always passed on the way to church, where a giant oak stood guard in the center surrounded by benches. She snagged the last empty bench, broke open her water, and pulled Jane Austen’s Emma from the paper bag.

  A few hours later a rumble in her stomach plucked Rachel from the fictional world. She stretched and tossed the book back into the bag before heading home. The beauty of the day, Austen’s eloquent English, and the giddy feeling of having started a good new book worked together to buoy her spirits. As she walked home she found herself feeling optimistic and content for the first time in two days.

  Patrick’s car was in the parking lot when she crossed through from the street. She did a double take, thinking it must simply be the same make and model, but there was the scratch on the fender and the Sports Chalet license plate frame around the familiar numbers and letters.

  But it’s the middle of the week. Her steps quickened as she smiled—this day was getting even better. Surprising me for lunch, maybe? How does he know I’m off work? She thanked God for the small blessing and headed up the stairs. Seeing her fiancé would be icing on today’s cake.

  When she arrived at her apartment, she was surprised to hear arguing inside. But when she opened the door, the voices suddenly stopped. The ensuing silence was broken by a single surprising epithet from inside Trisha’s room, spoken by Patrick and barely loud enough for her to hear.

  Rachel stood in the doorway of the apartment feeling like she was in an alternate universe. After she stood silent for a moment, the voices began again to argue, this time in whispers, though they soon evolved into sniffles and consoling murmurs.

  Rachel set down her bag of books, walked to Trisha’s door, and knocked. “Patrick? Trisha? What’s going on?”

  The voices stopped again. Then, after a final exchange of harsh whispers, the door opened. Patrick stepped out, and before he shut the door Rachel could see Trisha wipe tears from her cheeks. Patrick took Rachel’s hand and led her to the living room. “We need to talk.”

  A black hole opened in the pit of her stomach.

  “I have to confess something.” Patrick’s gaze hovered somewhere around her chin. “I know I told you that Trisha and I have known each other for a long time. But I never told you that we dated.”

  “Oh.” The hole grew. “When?”

  “In college. We broke up but … I’ve always had feelings for her.” He stopped, swallowed, took a deep breath. “I found out recently that she still had feelings for me too.”

  Rachel felt dizzy. “Patrick—are you breaking up with me?”

  “No, I just need to be honest with you … but—”

  Trisha emerged from the bedroom. Her face was red, her cheeks still wet. “You are such a coward. Just spit it out already!”

  Rachel saw panic slip across Patrick’s face. “Just let me do this, Trisha.”

  “You won’t—you can’t. You don’t have the guts. You didn’t back then and you still don’t. I thought six years would have changed you, but you’re still pathetic.”

  “Trisha, don’t—”

  “He’s been cheating on you.” Trisha stared Rachel down. “With me.”

  Chapter 5

  The apartment was silent. The echoes of Rachel’s shouts and sobs existed only in her head. She sat on the sofa, black TV screen ahead of her, spinning the diamond ring on her finger.

  Patrick hadn’t tried to deny it or even soften the accusation. “How long?” had been met with “four months.” “Do you love her?” elicited a reluctant “yes”—though the answer had been the same when Rachel asked if he loved her as well. Not that it mattered. There was no forgiving this. The wedding was off, and they were done.

  Patrick and Trisha had slunk out together after Rachel refused Patrick’s attempts at consolation. And now she was alone.

  She’d left the apartment shortly after they had, unwilling to stay where Patrick’s betrayal had taken place, but she returned half an hour later when she realized she had nowhere else to go. She’d poured all her relational energy into Patrick over the last year. There were no other friendships in her life with depth or intimacy—except for her relationships with her mother and Barbara. But she couldn’t go to Barbara, for obvious reasons, and there was no comfort to be found at her childhood home right now. She had a hard time even considering it home. Just like her childhood, her relationship with Patrick now felt like a lie, which made the apartment not feel like home, either. She’d never felt so isolated.

  Daylight faded and night settled in around her. Her body was leaden, her muscles no match for the weight of grief that enveloped her. Her mouth wanted a steaming café mocha with extra whip—she supposed a situation this desperate required not only coffee but chocolate as well—but she didn’t have the energy to make one. When her cell phone jangled in her purse, the shock of sound sent an arrow of adrenaline through her gut. Patrick? Heart racing, she fumbled for the phone, her hands clumsy from idleness. The caller ID showed Daphne’s number.

 
; “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back sooner,” Daphne said when Rachel finally flipped open the phone and managed a weak greeting. “It was totally one of those super-sucky days that just would not end! So what’s the story—you in for Vegas?”

  “Patrick’s been cheating on me.” The statement renewed the tears, and she began to cry.

  “What?” Daphne fell silent as Rachel struggled to get her tears under control, then let out a stream of insults broken up with words of empathy and condolence. “I’m in shock,” she said at the end. “And if I’m in shock, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

  Rachel sucked in giant gulps of air, trying to get a hold of herself. “I just don’t understand,” she said between hiccups. “I don’t understand why God is doing this to me. I don’t understand what I did wrong.”

  “It’s not you, it’s not God—it’s life. C’est la vie. Things are great sometimes, and other times they’re awful. It’s just … the balance of the universe. A little hell here, a little heaven there, you know? I doubt it’s a matter of God doing anything to you—why would he? What did you ever do to deserve it?”

  They were the very questions Rachel had been asking herself in the back of her frazzled mind. What happened to “I’ll hold you in the palm of My hand?” There was no hand there now, no safety net, and she was in free fall. The God she’d grown up serving didn’t do this to the people who loved and obeyed him like she did. At least, she never thought he did.

  But if he did—how dare he?

  “Listen, Rachel—I’ll totally understand if you don’t want to come to Vegas, given everything that’s going on. But I think it would be good for you to get away from there for a couple days. You need space to breathe and recover. What do you think?”

  Think? Rachel couldn’t think. Her decision-making ability was shot. “If you think I should …”

  “I do.”

  “All right then.” She sniffed. “See you in Vegas.”

  Rachel dragged herself to bed after hanging up the phone, and tumbled fully clothed onto the mattress. In her despair she forgot to set her alarm before finally falling asleep, and when the phone rang at six-thirty the next morning she was so groggy she almost didn’t answer. Her boss’s voice on the other line brought her fully awake, however, and after they hung up she scrambled to get dressed and out the door.

  Idiot, idiot, idiot. In her haste she’d left her makeup bag on the kitchen table, so she had no way to fix the bags beneath her puffy eyes. Her embarrassment over her appearance compounded the embarrassment over being so late to work. Good luck getting that time off for Vegas now.

  “Sorry,” she said as she jogged into the coffee shop and threw her cardigan into the closet. “Put me to work. What should I do?”

  Roy pointed to the stock room. “Help Cora with inventory. We need to figure out what needs to be replaced.”

  She nodded to her boss but groaned inside. Cora was a fellow Beach Cities Church attendee and the last employee Rachel wanted to work with today. She headed to the stock room and noticed the floor was still slick in some areas, and the bottom three inches of everything was soggy and warped.

  “This is so icky,” Cora said when Rachel knelt beside her to wrestle a waterlogged box from beneath the counter. Then she got a good look at Rachel’s face and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “I look that bad, huh?”

  “Sorry, but yes, you do.” They unpacked the box of napkins and began inspecting the individually-wrapped packs for damage. “Bad night?”

  “Well … yes. But I forgot to set my alarm before I fell asleep. Roy woke me up when he called.”

  “Oh no. You poor thing. Why the bad night? Did something happen?”

  Rachel couldn’t stop the bitter snort that escaped her nose. “A few somethings, yeah.”

  “Do you need to talk about it?”

  “No.” She sighed. “Actually, yes, I do, but I can’t guarantee I won’t fall apart.”

  Cora nodded to the counter full of napkins. “Plenty of tissues here if you need them.”

  Rachel managed a smile. “True.” She took a deep breath and quickly listed the events of the nightmarish week she’d had so far, eyes focused on the inventory list she was marking. She didn’t have to see Cora’s face to know what it looked like—the sounds of surprise she made were plenty descriptive. “Rachel, I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

  Rachel shrugged and began to stack the napkin packs into a dry box. The less she talked the better grip she was able to keep on her emotions.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Rachel gave a mirthless chuckle. “I don’t think so, but thanks.”

  “Can I pray for you? Here—” Cora nudged the stock-room door shut. “Let’s pray together.”

  Rachel gripped the pack in her hand. “You know, normally I’d jump at that, but I’m a little angry at God right now. I’m not really sure I want to talk to him.”

  Cora was silent for a moment, then said, “I understand. I’d be mad too.”

  The dangerous thoughts she’d been having for the last few days began to form on her tongue. She knew she should keep her mouth shut, but Cora was as good a sounding board as anyone else, and if she didn’t start hashing these thoughts out now, they were going to eat her up inside. “You know, it’s not just that I’m mad at God. It’s like … why bother praying, even? I just wonder if it’s like talking to a wall. Maybe it always has been. I’ve been pretty disciplined, pretty devout, since I was a little kid. And you’d think all these years of it would add up to some kind of … I don’t know … immunity. Maybe one of these things should have happened—no one’s life is perfect, right? But all three, in less than a week? What did I do wrong?”

  Cora was frozen in the path of Rachel’s rant, and when she spoke, Rachel could tell she was searching for just the right words to say. Her caution grated on Rachel a little. “I totally see where you’re coming from,” Cora said. “But … I don’t think it works that way with God.”

  Rachel threw the napkins into the box harder than she meant to. “Well why not? What kind of God says, ‘Hey, thanks for the love. You did really good for the last twenty years, but I’m going to ruin your life anyway’? What kind of father does that, especially one who’s supposed to be perfect?”

  Cora shook her head slowly. “I—I don’t know, Rachel. I know you’re hurting—”

  “No, this isn’t just about hurting. Hurting has just made things start to seem obvious. I mean, honestly—what’s the point? If you don’t get protection, if you don’t get some kind of divine insight that shows you the lessons to be learned or the way this situation can be used for good, then what’s the point of all the obedience and the sacrifice and the dying to flesh and all that crap? What does it get me?”

  Cora’s face was flushed, and for a brief moment, Rachel felt bad for dumping on her. But then Cora said, “But … God is good, Rachel,” and Rachel lost all sense of guilt.

  “I’m not so sure. In my estimation, He’s either an insensitive, promise-breaking jerk, or maybe … maybe He’s not there at all, and we’ve just made him up.” Rachel couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. But somehow, they felt really good to say. “Either way,” she continued, “why should I bother? If He’s a jerk, then He’s not the God we’re taught to believe in, which means the whole belief system is suspect. And if it’s all just make-believe, then …” She shrugged. “Maybe we should just pack in the whole thing and give it up. Either way, right now He’s not doing what He’s supposed to be doing, and it’s not making me real eager to keep working my butt off to be acceptable to him.”

  “Wow.” Cora was the one avoiding eyes now. She crushed the ruined box with careful steps. “So … that’s it, then? You’re done with God?”

  Rachel ran her hands over her face and sighed as the energy of her anger drained away and left her exhausted. “I don’t know, Cora. I don’t know what I think. Maybe my anger is clouding my
thinking and once I get over it everything will make sense. Or maybe it’s making everything clearer and I’ve struck upon an epiphany. Who knows.”

  Cora grew silent, and they finished their inventory job without any more peripheral discussion, though Rachel’s mind continued to dwell on the things she’d said to Cora. She kept coming back to Cora’s question—You’re done with God?—and running from it, afraid to consider the possibility. Because part of her felt like the answer was yes, and it scared her.

  But not as much as she might have thought it would.

  o

  Rachel didn’t want to spend any more time in her apartment than necessary, so after work she retreated to another coffee shop where she claimed an armchair by the window and sipped her long-awaited mocha. A movie she’d seen during college came to mind as she licked whipped cream from her lips—The Truman Show. Jim Carrey’s character discovers his entire life is the ultimate reality show—a scripted sham lived out on television for the whole world to see. His hometown is a soundstage, the horizon a backdrop. Nothing he thought to be real actually was.

  Rachel could suddenly identify. Nothing was secure. There was nowhere stable to plant her feet. Things she never would have doubted had turned out to be questionable at best, and she was afraid of what would turn on her next.

  And what about God? He had promised to be unchanging, but now she couldn’t believe it. How could she? All she had was his word, and the last few days had been proof enough that words meant much less than she originally thought. After all, doesn’t Scripture say that God is like a father, who provides what his children need? That if they ask for bread, he won’t give them a stone? Hard to believe that promise now when all Rachel had done was asked for bread, worked hard for it, and received not just one stone but a whole avalanche of them.