by Hannah Luce
I certainly understood why things were going the way they were. I was one of those young Christian casualties. But this was our audience, our bread and butter, and though I didn’t agree with much of Papa’s message anymore, I didn’t want Teen Mania crippled or destroyed. I’d seen him commit his life to the ministry, and I knew his heart was right. And even if his methods hadn’t worked for me, I saw him change lives for the better with his deep religious convictions and lively delivery. I’d witnessed kids toss away cigarettes and lighters and swear off alcohol, drugs, and sexual promiscuity after seeing him onstage. How could that be wrong?
I worked my puny rear end off. To say my job was challenging is almost funny, except that I usually fell into bed exhausted and crying after long twelve-hour days. I hated office work, but I saw some of Papa in me in that I expected a lot from the people who reported to me—most of them girls who were not much younger than me. I didn’t accept mediocrity, and I was pretty demanding. The girls were expected to work hard, and their work had to be good. I gave some of them spelling and grammar tests I’d picked off the Internet before I’d allow them to start writing press releases for Papa’s events, and I was a strict enforcer of time and tasks. I sure wouldn’t have won any popularity contests. The girls who worked for me were always saying snarky things behind my back, which usually got back to me. In their eyes, I was a snob. I thought I was better and smarter than everyone else. I could boss them around just because I was Ron Luce’s daughter. They got nothing but calloused hands for all of their hard work, and I had manicured nails and got everything I wanted.
I wished I could have told them what I was making, which, given the hours I was putting in on my own time, was less than minimum wage.
18
Garrett’s Engagement
Pierre, who had done more than any human being to draw her out of the caves of her secret, folded life, now threw her down into deeper recesses of fear and doubt. The fall was greater than she had ever known, because she had ventured so far into emotion and had abandoned herself to it.
—ANAÏS NIN, DELTA OF VENUS
I had been back in Texas for three months when Austin told me that Garrett was engaged. I was stunned and angry. “Engaged?” I cried. “When did that happen? Why didn’t he tell me?” I’d been back to Tulsa five or six times since I left, and I usually saw both Garrett and Austin during those weekends. Garrett never said anything to me about getting engaged.
I knew he was dating, and there wasn’t anything I could say about that. We were in different places in our lives. He was twenty-nine, and he’d been saying for some time that he felt like he needed to get married. Austin called it an early midlife crisis. He said Garrett was worried that the life he’d been raised to see for himself, a life that included a wife and kids and a house with a yard, was slipping away. I was twenty-two, and that was the last thing I wanted at that point in my life. I had made it really clear to Garrett that I was unwilling to make a lifetime commitment to him or anyone else. The thought of marriage terrified me. I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t expect him to wait around forever while I was out catching my dreams. But we were so connected, and he had intentionally kept his big news from me. “He said not to tell you!” Austin said. “But you’re my friend, too, and I thought you should know.” I felt so betrayed.
Austin said he was worried about Garrett. He thought he was acting impulsively and that he would have married whoever came up to bat. He wondered if we should do an intervention, to try to get him to see the error of his ways, but we both agreed that was risky. We didn’t want Garrett to get angry and cut us out of his life.
My bimonthly Tulsa weekend was coming up, and I called Garrett, as usual, to tell him I’d be there. We made arrangements to meet that Saturday night near Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, a two-hour drive west of Tulsa, where he’d been teaching business classes. It would be just the two of us. I didn’t say anything about Austin’s telling me about the engagement, and he didn’t mention it. He said he couldn’t wait to see me.
My stomach hurt the whole way from Texas to Oklahoma. I arrived in Tulsa late Friday afternoon and settled in with my girlfriend Pam, whom I was staying with. I couldn’t get to sleep that night. “What am I going to say when I see him?” I asked myself as I pulled up the covers and threw them off again. Did I have the right to say anything? Did he have the right not to? Garrett and I had jumped from friendship to romance and back again more times than I could count over the two years we’d known each other. We dated, but it never really felt like a traditional relationship. We enjoyed each other’s company so much and we loved spending time together, but there hadn’t been guidelines or boundaries. If I took a stand now, would it look as if I wanted more? Did I want more? All I knew was I didn’t want to lose him. I knew Garrett and I knew he went into hiding when he was cornered or challenged. What if I confronted him and he walked out of my life? I couldn’t imagine my life without him.
But he’d lied to me. He’d say he didn’t lie because he hadn’t said anything. But it was a lie by omission. Sooner or later, something had to be said. But when, and what? I didn’t know what to do. All the next afternoon I tried to prepare myself for what might happen. The best-case scenario would be if he said something to me before I had to bring it up. “Hey, Hannah! I have good news!” Knowing Garrett the way I did, I couldn’t imagine he’d do that. He hated hurting people, and he knew I’d be hurt that he hadn’t let on how serious his dating relationship had become in a few short months.
It took longer than it should have to get to Stillwater; I dawdled, stopping every fifteen minutes for gas or for water or to use a public restroom. As I was stalling, Garrett was texting me, asking where I was. He was excited to see me. When did I think I’d be there? What was taking so long? The tone of his messages made me angry. What was a man who was engaged doing talking to another girl that way? I put myself in the other girl’s place. It felt bad.
My hair was brushed in long curls, and my makeup was perfect. We met at our favorite place near the college. He hugged me really tight, and we lingered in each other’s arms for a moment. I thought maybe he was holding on because he knew it would be our last time together this way. “How are you?” I said, pulling back and looking up at him. He looked so handsome in his Oxford button-down shirt and khakis, very professorial. I liked that. “You look great!” I said. “And,” he said, “you look beautiful.” What I didn’t say was that I had never seen him looking so dead tired.
Garrett was always telling me how pretty I was and how brilliant I was. I loved that about him. He seemed so proud of me. I wasn’t used to that. “I’ve missed you,” I said. “Me, too,” he said. We talked about many things over the next hour or so. Movies and books. His doctoral dissertation, his teaching job and how much he loved it. My Teen Mania experiences. We were having such a wonderful time together that I didn’t want anything to change. I wanted to pretend it was last week, before Austin broke the news to me, but I knew I couldn’t do that. “So what’s new with you?” I asked gently, hoping that would open the door for him to tell me he was engaged and, the next minute, hoping he wouldn’t and I could just forget for the night.
Garrett’s dad had been hospitalized a couple of weeks earlier, and he was in bad shape. He’d been working in an oil field when a piece of the machinery toppled, cracking him in the head and causing his brain to swell, and his prognosis wasn’t good. Garrett told me that, during the week, Papa had come to the hospital to pray over his dad. I knew Papa was going to be in town, and had asked him to visit the hospital, but I didn’t know he had. Garrett said he’d sat at his dad’s bedside for hours before Papa got there, and his father had been completely unresponsive, as he had since the accident. That same day, the doctors told the family he might never speak or think again. It was a terrible time for them.
The doctors had barely left the room, Garrett said, when Papa swept in with his powerful presence, laid his hands over his father, and prayed for his fu
ll recovery. Garrett, of course, loved Papa. He idolized him, I should say. The man crush, remember? He said the energy in the room was charged. He was watching the scene play out, and he’d been shocked to see his father’s eyes flutter open and widen, as he looked straight at Papa. His father closed his eyes again, but that had been the first and only time he’d reacted to anything since he was injured. I got chills when he told me the story.
When he finished talking, he leaned in to kiss me, but I pulled back. “What’s wrong?” he asked. I didn’t respond, and he seemed puzzled. He pulled me closer, and I turned my face away, wondering whether it was time to say something. I know what he was thinking. He thought I was toying with him again. He’d accused me of doing that in the past. “I know you want me, but you can never have me.” I saw that he was getting impatient with me. His face was flushed red, and he pursed his lips. “Hannah,” he said. “You know what I’m going through with my dad. Why are you . . .”
I touched his arm and looked him in the eyes. “Garrett,” I said, interrupting him. “I’m really sorry about what you’re going through. I’m not playing a game here. There’s nothing I would rather do than kiss you. You know how much I care about you. But you haven’t been honest with me.”
He looked sincerely taken aback. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean your engagement,” I said plaintively.
He leaned back. I knew his instinct was to run away. I desperately wanted to talk it through before he shut down, shut me out, but it was already too late. I could see it in his eyes. He turned away from me, dismissing me. I tried to engage him. “Garrett,” I said, pleading. “If this is the person for you, I support it. I want you to be happy. But why wouldn’t you have given me the respect of telling me? I had to find out from Austin. Do you understand how much that hurt me?”
I felt such a mix of emotions. I wanted to tell him to forget what had just happened. I wished I could have said we could go on being the way we were no matter what else happened. But I also wanted him to honor the commitment he made to someone else, and I wanted to respect his decision enough to hold him to that commitment, as least as it concerned me. I told him I refused to be that second girl people talked about. That girl who had to hide under the bed. I had too much integrity and self-respect to play that role in anyone’s life.
What I didn’t say was that I knew he couldn’t be my friend anymore. His wish had always been that some day I would be ready to share my life with him. He had been biding his time, being my friend, doing things my way, but now his dream of being with me was being replaced with someone else, and I had found out. I wasn’t about to feel responsible for his guilt, and I wasn’t going to play second to anyone. “I’m sorry, Garrett,” I said sadly.
He was hurt and wouldn’t speak. The silence was uncomfortable and then unbearable. I grabbed my bag and said I was leaving and driving back to Tulsa. He didn’t try to stop me. “I’m going to go now, and I’d like to continue this conversation when it’s not the middle of the night and we can be clear-headed,” I said. I searched his face for some sign that he was on the same page as me, that he was willing to talk it out, too. All I saw was sadness. “We’ll talk about this in the morning?” I asked. He shook his head yes, but I wasn’t at all sure he’d call.
While I was still in my car, he texted me. He said he really believed in me and he would be hoping for my dreams to come true and cheering my future from afar. It was a sweet and somber message. I feared it was good-bye and that he was cutting me out of his life. I read it again, and my heart sank. I questioned with regret our conversation but, at the same time, I was glad I had taken a stand. He had to make a choice. But what if he didn’t choose me? We would never have our late-night movies together, or our walks by the river, or our talks in the park. It would really be over. I began to realize just how much I valued him, how much he meant to me.
But I was afraid it was too late.
19
Back in Texas
Life calls the tune, we dance.
—JOHN GALSWORTHY, FIVE TALES
I was so lonely in Texas. Even when I did have free time, my friends were all four hours away in Tulsa. I hadn’t been back since my confrontation with Garrett two months earlier and, just as I’d feared, he hadn’t contacted me. When I needed a good pep talk, I’d call or Skype Austin. He’d update me on Garrett’s engagement (the wedding was planned for that December) and he’d pick me up by telling me funny stories about ORU.
By then, Austin was talking marriage with Elizabeth (he assured me that she didn’t care about designer handbags or drive a yellow Mustang). I liked her the first time I met her. She told me a funny story about how their romance began: “He told me I was going to give him his number when we met. I said, ‘Why would I do that?’ He said, ‘So we can communicate.’ ” I had to laugh. That was Austin.
Elizabeth was smart and down to earth and beautiful, of course, maybe even more so inside than outside. She had a strong Christian faith, as Austin did, but not that in-your-face kind of faith that I had learned to dislike. He was so in love with her. I’d never seen him so happy. His edge was gone. Being with Elizabeth had softened him. I noticed the residual anger he felt from his childhood and the war seemed to have melted away. She was no pushover, that’s for sure. She’d laid down the law right from the start. “If you’re ever unfaithful, I’m gone. No questions asked. No second chances.” She was independent and free-spirited, but she worshipped him, and even more important in my eyes, she endorsed our friendship. I wasn’t surprised when he told me he’d bought her a ring.
One day that spring, after a particularly challenging time at the ministry, I called Austin looking for moral support. He and Garrett and I had often talked together about our futures, and they always made everything sound exciting and not stressful. I had driven to one of my favorite spots in the countryside and rolled out a blanket in the middle of the field and pretended Austin was sitting next to me. “I made a mistake, coming back to Texas,” I said. I told Austin that the job wasn’t what I thought it would be. I wasn’t traveling, and I was stuck in an office all day. The place was a mess and the Internet was forever crashing and no one knew anything about computer maintenance. I missed my friends, and I was going out of my mind. If I never saw another Christian teenager in my life it would be fine by me.
Austin chuckled. “You knew what you were getting yourself into,” he said. “We talked about all of this before you left. This is a chance for you to get close to your family again and to save up some money so you can go to Europe like you want to. C’mon. It’s not forever. Buck up, Luce!”
The sun warmed my face, and hearing his happy voice seemed to diminish the troubles of the workday, and my complaints about gossipy teenagers and dusty files seemed suddenly small. “So what about you?” I asked.
Austin said he and Elizabeth had set a wedding date for the summer of the following year, in August. He was graduating in a month with a business degree and, even though he had been a stellar student, and he would have been a catch for any business, he was worried about getting a job. The job market was discouraging. He and Garrett had been tossing around ideas for their own business, and some of their prospects looked pretty promising, but nothing was concrete. He needed a steady income, especially now that he had found his future wife.
I was telling Austin about how I was worried for Papa’s ministry because of what all the studies about young evangelicals were showing. There were other problems, too. Two of his directors had recently resigned, and quality candidates weren’t exactly knocking down the door to apply for average-paying jobs in a rural fundamentalist Christian community. My long-term plan didn’t have Teen Mania in it, despite the fact that he and Austin always said I’d be a natural replacement for Papa when and if he ever decided to retire. I never understood why they thought that I could or would want to fill that role.
I’m not sure how the subject came up, but I told Austin that if he got really desperate and
couldn’t find a job, I could always get him one with me at Teen Mania. I was half joking. I never thought he’d consider something like that, after hearing about my experience there, but he jumped at it. “You’d do that, Hannah?” he bellowed. “Really?” He sounded so excited. I wondered if he was being sarcastic. But he began ticking off all of the things he could do to help make sure Teen Mania stayed afloat. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” I said. “I’m his daughter, and I’m working sixty hours a week.” Austin was unfazed. He had studied business and had an entrepreneur’s mind, he said. He could bring fresh ideas to it, and he wasn’t afraid of hard work.
I found myself wanting to jump up and down. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but the idea of working with Austin for the remainder of my time at Teen Mania, even if it was only for a few months, was thrilling. I truly believed he had a lot to offer Papa, and he’d grown up in rural Oklahoma, so he wouldn’t be in culture shock moving to the country. “If you send me your resume, I’ll talk to my dad,” I said.
He emailed me his resume that same day, and I passed it along to Papa, who happened to be in town. Papa knew something about Austin. I’d been talking him up for a long time, and he was excited about the possibility of bringing him on board. He was impressed with Austin’s patriotism and military credentials and his commitment to his schooling and, most of all, his faith. It didn’t hurt that I told him I thought Austin was like him in that both of them were idealists and visionaries. Papa liked that.