Avra's God (21 page)

Tad rubbed the scar on his jaw absently.
“Yeah, I do.”

He cocked his head at Tad, curious.

“The point is, you’re twenty-one; you could
fall in love six, maybe eight more times before you meet
the
one.
”

“Ain’t gonna happen. Do you think I can get
her back?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Square one is asking her
forgiveness.”

“I’ve been too yellow-bellied to even call
her. Classes start soon. I’ll have to face her then.”

“Square two is rebuilding her trust.”

“How?”

“Focus on God, on becoming the man He planned
for you to be. Avra will eventually see the changes in you.”

Right. He’d be lucky if she would even look
at him between classes. “I wanna marry that girl.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

The streetlight blinked to life, illuminating
Tad’s pale five-o’clock shadow. “Then, let’s talk marriage—money,
job, college, apartment, babies.”

A half hour later, Cisco dropped his face in
his hands.

“A lot to think about?”

“You’ve done this marriage talk before,
haven’t you?”

Tad grinned. “A time or two.”

“Well, if you’re trying to scare the
bejeebers out of me, you’re doing a good job.”

“Come on.” Tad smacked Cisco in the chest.
“Let’s chew on some pizza. I’ll buy.”

But marrying Avra didn’t ruffle him. Reading
her engagement in the
Home Town News
, running into her
pushing a stroller in Winn Dixie—scared him spitless.

Jesse snapped shut the latches on his guitar
case. Behind him, he heard kids getting into their cars, doors
slamming, and engines revving to life in Beachin’ Willie’s parking
lot.

Cisco stacked the snare on the bass drum,
Willie’s neon sign lighting his skin red.

Billy wrestled the keyboard into its
case.

Jesse snagged the high hat. “Last concert of
the summer. I’m going to miss it.”

Cisco stopped and looked up at him. “I keep
forgetting to tell you I scored a paying internship for senior
year. I’ll be working full-time and going to school. Lotta drummers
around. I’ll hook you up.”

Billy rolled the keyboard case up to them.
“Count me out, too. I made officer in ROTC.”

Jesse’s jaw clenched. He looked back and
forth between his friends. “Like I can find new guys for
Beach
Rats
just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

Billy pulled the case upright and leaned on
it. “The Daytona State rag has ads for musicians all the time.”

“Musicians I’ve known all my life?
Friends?”

Cisco wiped the sweat from his face with the
crook of his arm. “Sorry, man. We’ll ask around.”

“Whatever.” Jesse stashed the high hat in
Billy’s van and headed for the Neon.
I feel like I’ve been run
through with a Samurai sword.
Great, now he sounded like
Kallie. He had to get her out of his head. He loved Tía.

He slammed the trunk.

Avra stepped off the bus, not bothering to
look to see if Cisco waited for her on the first day of their
senior year. Only three months since he cheated on her, but it felt
like years. Thankfully, God was piecing her heart back together
like a million-piece jigsaw puzzle. She slung her backpack over one
shoulder and rounded the corner of the Student Center.

A hand on her arm stopped her. She glanced at
the thick oil-stained fingers, and her gaze flew to Cisco’s. Shock
coursed through her body. She had braced herself to see Cisco with
Isabel. But Isabel was MIA. What did Cisco say? She was drowning in
the soft chocolate of his eyes.

Cisco’s hand still gripped her. “Avra, we
gotta talk.”

I never want you to touch me again.
She yanked her arm away.

His hand dropped to his side. “I’ve got
things to say that you need to hear. Will you listen?” His eyes
begged her to say yes. “Riverfront Park? Six fifteen?”

I don’t owe you anything, Cisco
Carter.
She stared back at him. “No—”

“Please.”

What was so important he had to tell her?

“Riverside Park. Six fifteen.”

“I’ll see.” Tremors ran the length of her
body as she walked away.

Kallie tossed the empty Skecher’s box onto
the shed step and dropped down beside it. She’d heard Jesse
traveled every weekend with his new band, so he wouldn’t show up
here on a Saturday. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. Jesse
handed her his kiss-off song yesterday between classes. It staked
through her heart, and she needed to exorcize it. And Jesse.

Why had she thought friendship with Tía would
preserve some link with Jesse? She and Jesse had delved too deep to
swim back to the surface. A mosquito landed on her thigh. She
smacked it and rubbed the red and guts off on her shorts.

Even after the fight in her attic, Jesse kept
giving her songs to critique. The trail of songs threaded all the
way back to
You’re Callin’ My Name
exactly a year ago. There
was even an occasional e-mail asking what she thought of a song
he’d heard on the radio, a quote from Ethics in Communications
class, and did she see the funny article in the
Hometown
News?

She’d sent him a Web page for vocalists, a
plea for him to talk some sense into Cisco, Van Gogh’s
Field of
Poppies
that touched her soul.

Of course, actual conversation ceased after
the attic, except for the saccharine exchange at the Fourth of July
celebration. When their eyes met by accident, Jesse looked away
without speaking. She’d hurt him, and she didn’t have a clue how to
make it better. Now, Tía. A cooling breeze smelling like salt and
fish fanned her face.

“Neon Green
,” Jesse’s kiss-off song,
played in her head.

She’s the doctor’s daughter decked in

Orange, neon green. When she glides by,

We all turn to stare. Girl’s got

Sass. She’s smooth as glass—neon green.

Thinks she can read my mind. Thinks she

Knows my soul. Deluded, blinder

Than blind, imagination on

Overdrive; she’s out of her mind.

Never gonna be there for ya.

Never gonna bond. She’s comin’

Down the hall like a vapor—Neon

Green—she’ll disappear.

The sun inched lower in the sky, now
backlighting the clouds. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the
song’s automatic replay in her head. Air ruffled the trees; birds
talked to each other—life went on as normal—while she bled to
death. Her dad’s rejection mystically welded to Jesse’s bayonet
blows. Even falling for Tía had been less a betrayal than “
Neon
Green
.”

Kallie pulled the song from her back pocket
and unfolded it. She rubbed her fingers over the sheet, not
reading. The words and the music already branded her soul. Her eyes
slid over Jesse’s familiar script, tracing the letters. She held
the page to her nose, inhaling the smell of ink and nothing. Her
hands poised to tear up the song and bury it in the Skechers
casket.
But she couldn’t even destroy a song she hated. She
folded it and laid it in the bottom of the box.

“Good-bye, Jesse,” she said to no one. On
impulse, she scooped a handful of dirt into the shoebox, the
ashes
of their friendship.

She went inside in search of a shovel and
wandered up to the attic. No items had been added or subtracted
from the attic since the day she and Jesse shared a rainstorm. Good
memories spun through her like the multicolored aluminum top from
her childhood. The floor of the attic didn’t reach all the way to
the eaves. She crawled to the edge of the flooring, set the
sketcher’s box between two supporting two-by-fours, and slid it
under the flooring. It was as good as buried.

Outside, clouds slid across the sky, exposing
the sun as she turned toward the shed one last time. The tin glowed
orange. She stared at it till the orange faded to dirty amber.

Stay dead.

Avra saw Cisco sitting on the seawall the
second she rounded the corner from Canal Street onto Riverside
Drive. Her heart lurched. He hunched over his folded hands as
though he prayed. The cotton of his T-shirt stretched taut across
his shoulders. White-brown curls had been tamed into a
ponytail.

She wanted to turn around and never see him
again. But what did he have to say to her? She swallowed.
God,
give me the strength to get through this.
She took a deep
breath and walked toward him.

Her Converse scraped the dirt behind him, and
he twisted to look up at her. “You came.” Relief sounded in his
voice.

She sat down and plunked her backpack between
them. Folding her arms across her stomach, she stared at the sweep
of the South Causeway Bridge—anywhere but his eyes.

Cisco’s bare feet dangled over the water.
Dark hair curled on his toes, feet, and legs. He was so male, so
other.
She had never quite gotten over the awe of him. The
familiar attraction tugged at her.

Memories flooded the silence—his arms
engulfing her, his lips on hers, the passion they stirred, his
quick exits to honor his promise to her father. But there had been
no such departures from Isabel.

“I asked you to meet me here because your
family is ticked at me.”

“So am I.”

“Yeah, I know.” Cisco bent over his steepled
hands. Finally, he looked up at her. “After I talked to you on the
Fourth of July, I made two decisions.” A muscle worked in his jaw.
“I broke up with Isabel. Permanently.”

His eyes searched hers but she refused to
give him a reaction. “You’re telling me this because—”

“Because I want you to know.” He cleared his
throat.

A breeze off the river lifted the hair from
around her face and cooled her neck. “And the other decision?” She
sat motionless, expressionless, hardly breathing.

“How do you
do
that—stay so calm? This
is drama here.” He waved his arms in the air between them.

“I don’t owe you a reaction, Francisco
Carter.”

“You sound like Mamá when I’m in for it.
You’re right, you don’t have to tell me how you feel. Actually,
that’s one of the things I usually like about you. You’re not
loco
like my sisters.”

Don’t try to charm me. I’m not listening. I’m
not listening—

He wrung his hands between his knees. “So,
anyway, the other decision ...”

I’m listening.

“The Fourth of July after you laid me out—not
that I didn’t deserve it—I came home to my Dad—the one waiting on
the porch for me. He forgave the whole butt-load of my crap—some of
which you know too well. I’ve been hanging out at Jesse’s church. I
didn’t have the
cojones
to face you and your family.” He
wound down like a deflating balloon that finally ran out of air.
His hands stilled.

A surge of joy bloomed in her chest before
cynicism mashed it down. “We’ll see if it takes better than
abstinence did.”

“Ouch. I deserved that.” Cars crawled over
the bridge, their exhaust puffing into the sky. The smell of dead
fish hung in the air. “You said you wanted me to hurt as badly as I
hurt you.” He looked her in the eye. “Trust me. You’re getting your
digs in.”

She hugged her stomach and watched two ducks
squabble on the river.

“Jesse’s church—they’re the suits. Even Jesse
does the suit thing.” Some of the tenseness went out of his voice.
“They been treating me real fine. The old ladies pinch my cheeks
and feed me. They all think it’s way cool I hooked up with God.” He
gave her a lopsided smile.

Her lips stretched into a smile almost
without her permission.

“Uh, while you’re smiling ... will you
forgive me for cheating on you, for—” He clamped his lips shut and
started again. “I regret it to my bones. I wish I’d never done it.
Please—please forgive me.”

Her chin dropped to her chest, and she fought
to hold back tears that squeezed out the corners of her eyes and
ran down her face. The shadow of Cisco’s arm reached for her, but
it disappeared without his touching her. She dashed the tears away
with her hands, irritated that she’d lost control.

Forgiveness is a choice I’m not ready to
make right now, Lord.
She sucked in a deep breath and let it
out, lifted her chin to look at him. “I can’t—yet.”

Disappointment knifed through his eyes. He
squared his shoulders. “I like those pretty pink toenails.”

“You lost your right to say things like that
to me.”

He turned his body to face her, pushing her
backpack into the grass with his foot. “I’d like to earn back the
right.” He draped his hands limply over his bent knees in front of
him, the color seeping out of his face.

“I need time.”

His gaze fell; his breath released. “I got
time.” He stood. “While you’re thinking about it, would it be okay
if I came back to your church? I dig Tad and those drums, and
there’s no way I’m buying a suit. I don’t know how much longer I
can hang at Jesse’s before the dress code police get me.”

“I guess.”

“Thanks.”

She accepted the hand-up Cisco offered. His
grip was firm and too unsettling. As soon as she stood, she yanked
away her hand from his.

“Uh, could you call off your brothers and
tell your folks what I told you today?”

“Call off my brothers?” They headed toward
Riverside Drive.

“Yeah, they’re just waiting for a chance to
bust my ... uh ... Anyway, I’ve been watching my back all
summer.”

She shook her head, incredulous. “Kurt and
Drew haven’t gotten into fights since junior high.”

“Nobody ever messed with their sister.”

A smile crept across her face. She had to
love those guys.