Avra's God (3 page)

She looked up, surprised. “What’s this?”

“A song I wrote.” He darted for the door.
“Tell me what you think of it,” he flung over his shoulder. He
wanted an objective opinion. Kallie knew music. She’d tell him if
he was any good.

Nausea settled in the pit of his stomach as
he dodged between students. The girl could annihilate him. If he
wouldn’t look like a freak, he’d run after her and take the song
back.

Jesse slammed his books down on the snack bar
table, jarring Cisco. “What’s with you? You’ve got a silly grin on
your face and you’re off in la-la land.”

Cisco frowned. “Not anymore.”

“What gives?”

“Thinking about chocolate chip cookies.”

He sat next to Cisco. “Having them for
lunch?”

“Naw. Just dreaming. Your mom or sister bake
cookies?”

“Yeah, snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin,
Christmas cookies—”

Cisco gave him a wistful look. “Must be
heaven.”

“Yeah, right. My old man can suck the
sweetness right out of the air.”

Pain sliced through Cisco’s expression.
“You’ve got issues with your old man, but at least the Rev didn’t
ditch his family.” Cisco pulled him out of his chair in a headlock.
“Come on. Let’s do lunch.”

Billy cut in line between them. He hummed the
latest Modest Mouse song, oblivious to the dirty looks from the
students behind them. Cisco jumped in with the lyrics. In a
heartbeat all three of them were belting it out, full voice, in the
lunch line.

Jesse grinned at Cisco and Billy, lapping up
the attention like a drug. People in a fifty-foot radius turned
toward them. Some sang along. Cisco drummed out the beat on Billy’s
tray, bongo style. Even the sourest of the counter help smiled.

“Hey, guys,” Jesse said a few minutes later.
“It could work—our band was born in the student union at Daytona
State College. It’ll be in the papers years from now.” His
untouched burger and Jell-O jiggled when he hit the table with his
fist. “Cisco on drums.”

Cisco beat out a quick rhythm on the
table.

“I’ve got guitar, vocals.” Enthusiasm
snowballed inside him. “Billy, how many years of piano did your ma
make you take?”

Billy looked around self-consciously.
“Six.”

“Bingo, we’ve got keyboard!”

Billy looked unconvinced.

Cisco jumped up. “We’re in, man!” He
high-fived Jesse and the less-enthusiastic Billy.

“Hey, Billy, didn’t you get into the snack
bar grooving on our tune?” Cisco said.

A corner of Billy’s mouth turned up. “Yeah,
that was cool. The girls—”

“Yeah, man,” Jesse said. “The girls. Hang on
to that thought.”

Kallie struggled through the chords to
Jesse’s song for the fifth time, her fingers stilling on the piano
keys. A cooling breeze blew in through the French doors behind
her.

Aly’s pixie, the exact shade of Kallie’s
hair, popped around the corner from the hall. “What are you
doing?”

Kallie twisted her hair and held it up off
her neck to catch the breeze. “Quit reading over my shoulder. You
know I hate that. You can’t read music anyway.”

“I can read the words,” Aly said with
fourteen-year-old logic. “I bet a guy gave you that.”

“Go away. Scat. Leave me alone.”

Aly bit her lip. “You don’t have to yell at
me.”

As usual, Aly’s hint of tears triggered
Kallie’s guilt. Aly would be more stable if she had a dad. They’d
both have a father if Kallie hadn’t screwed it up for them.

Kallie dropped her hair. “Okay, okay. Give me
a half hour of peace and quiet, and I’ll let you use my iPod.”

Aly gave her a weak smile. “Deal.”

Kallie clenched her teeth and forced herself
to focus on Jesse’s
You’re Callin’ My Name.
She mastered the
chords and added the lyrics.

Something draws me to you, girl.

You’re callin’ my name

And I’m hearin’ your voice deep inside.

Kallie smoothed the song sheet with her
palms. Warmth stole through her. Was she the girl in the song? She
sang the next verse.

But you’re that mysterious pond in the
woods.

Nobody knows how deep.

Nobody knows you’re even there.

The mood of the song lingered in the air. The
day she met Jesse in the storage barn behind a church she’d taken a
piece of him home without his knowing. This time, Jesse chose to
give her a slice of himself.

In her mind, she saw him standing over her
desk—his lean medium frame looking taller from that angle than the
five nine she estimated him to be. Flyaway brown hair, kissed with
gold, poked in every direction, as if he scrubbed his fingers
through wet hair on the way to the car every morning. They’d never
swum in the shallows and now they were fifty feet deep. She would
have to swim for her life. The guy had talent and more than a
little ego. No way would she go down.

“Avra!”

She heard her name yelled up the stairs as
she stepped out of the shower.

“Dinnertime!”

She slipped into sweats, her legs wobbly from
a grueling soccer practice. She ran a brush through her hair and
jogged down the stairs, a towel still draped around her neck. She
breezed into the dining room. She stopped short. “Cisco! Who let
you in?” She hated surprises.

“I was sitting on the couch when you flew by
after soccer.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Great. Why
hadn’t she looked in the mirror before coming down? Irritation and
warmth blended inside her like well-shaken salad dressing. She slid
into her seat. Her calf brushed against Cisco’s and she jerked
away.

Drew blew out a noisy breath. “Mom invited
Cisco to stay for dinner. Is that okay with Your Royal Highness?
Now, can we pray? I’m starving.” He bowed his gelled head. Eyes
slid shut around the table. Cisco’s gaze darted around the room and
stopped on Avra—the first time she’d ever seen him uncomfortable.
He ducked his head.

The words of her father’s grace hummed around
her, usually as familiar and comforting as the flop, flop of her
mother’s slippers against the kitchen floor every morning. What did
Cisco feel? Tossed into a Norman Rockwell painting?

Talk swirled around her. Being this close to
Cisco made her feel she was running at ten thousand feet and
couldn’t quite catch her breath.
Get over it, already
. He
was a family friend. Lester sat behind Cisco’s chair, his curly
head cocked to one side as if he waited for his master to finish
eating.

She listened to the timbre of Cisco’s voice,
not paying attention to what he was saying until she heard her
name.

“Kurt goes, ‘Avra’s no fun; she’s a techno
nerd.’ So, I say, ‘What kind?’ Drew says, ‘Sound tech.’ And I say,
‘Hello! My band,
Beach Rats
, needs a sound tech.’“ He
snapped his fingers. His arm grazed Avra’s.

She set down her water glass with a thud.
Cisco glanced at her, gave her another millisecond look. “So, Avra
says, ‘Stick it in your ear, dweeb boy.’ Or something like that—she
meant Kurt, not me. Anyway—” He faced Avra. “—what’s it gonna be?
You going to tech for us?”

Her face heated under Cisco’s full attention.
Kurt lifted a newly barbell-pierced eyebrow at her reaction.

Cisco waited for her answer.

Look somewhere else—anywhere else.
“Whatever.” Was there any chance Cisco wouldn’t notice she was
blushing from two feet away?

Cisco drilled her with his eyes. “Not
‘whatever.’ Are you going to do it—yes or no? I gotta tell
Jesse.”

She bent over her plate, willing everyone to
look away. Fine. “Yes.”

Avra gathered the calculus worksheets
scattered across her desk into a pile and slipped them in a
folder.

“Uh, Avra ...” Kallie stood beside her desk,
chewing on her bottom lip. “Did you get this stuff today?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I was hoping you might help me figure it
out. That is, if you have time.” Gossamer hair spilled over
Kallie’s perfect skin, making her look like Legolas’, from
The
Lord of the Rings,
twin sister. “I’m in way over my head. I had
this feeling you might tutor me.”

Avra puckered her forehead as though she were
sorry. “I’m kind of busy this weekend.”

Kallie’s eyes flashed surprise and flitted to
the whiteboard. “Maybe another time.” She rushed out of the
classroom.

Jealousy tasted like three-day-old coffee in
Avra’s mouth. She knew why Kallie thought she’d help. An invisible
cord stretched between them, woven by Avra’s prayers.
I’m such a
jerk. Forgive me.
She
so
thought she was over the
jealousy. Obviously not. She’d make it right.

Avra’s feet moved in slow motion across
campus. She spotted Kallie sitting in the Student Union in a group
of girls. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich oozed onto a brown
paper sack in front of her. Avra swallowed, took a deep breath.

Kallie’s chin lifted toward her when she
sensed Avra’s presence. A girl with blonde curls licked mustard off
her finger, cast a curious glance at Avra, and refocused on Maddie
Shoewalter, whose blood red fingernails clicked on the lunch table
as she talked.

Avra hooked her hair behind her ears. “Do you
still need help with calc?”

“Yeah.”

“Would eleven tomorrow work for you?”

Kallie’s puzzled green eyes peered up at her.
“Eleven’s good.”

Avra scrawled her address across a page from
her notebook and handed it to Kallie. “See you tomorrow.”

She strode away, hearing Kallie’s faint
“thanks” behind her.

She’d bet Kallie didn’t miss all four proms
in high school, didn’t have a geek like Morgan as her only
admirer.

Avra sat at the dining room table, her books
fanned around her. She twisted a pencil in a plastic sharpener.
Shavings dropped onto the rough draft of her report. Her gaze
drifted out the window where Cisco threw the football to Kurt. His
muscles flexed and relaxed in fluid motion. The pencil tip snapped
inside the sharpener.

The screen door smacked shut, and the guys’
footsteps scuffed across the kitchen floor. Cisco followed her
brother into the dining room. Kurt sailed through the room and
flopped onto the living room couch. Cisco pulled out a dining room
chair and straddled it backwards. He lifted his eyebrows at her.
“Hey kid, what’s with the shy girl thing? Red face, looking down,
the whole bit.”

He’d shoved her out of her comfort zone by
walking into the room. She scraped the shavings into a pile and
glared at him. “I’m sharpening a pencil.” She knocked the sharpener
against the table, trying to dislodge the lead.

“I meant at dinner the other night.”

“I embarrass easily, okay?”

“Hey—” He held up his hands. “I’m not dissing
you. I’m all about being embarrassed.” He reached across the table
and took the pencil sharpener from her. He pried the lead out with
the paper clip from her report and handed it back. “Homework?” He
jutted his chin toward her papers.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
They were
just having conversation. She relaxed her shoulders, softened her
tone. “Report on Y2K.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “You
wanna hear embarrassing? My pop holed up with some dude in an
underground house—stockpiled food, water—then Y2K was a bust.”

“Everybody’s dad has idiosyncrasies.” She
shrugged. “Mine alphabetizes cans in the pantry.”

“My dad ditched his family.”

“My dad counts things.”

“My dad lives on a sailboat behind the
boatyard.”

“When I was a baby, Dad counted all the hairs
on my head. He said God does it, and he wanted to see if he could
do it.”

He stretched across the table and fingered
her hair. “Sounds reasonable. I could get into that.” He tugged and
released the tendril as he stood.

Her scalp tingled. She didn’t want him to
leave. “Lots of people are left by their fathers.”

He flipped his chair around to push it under
the table. “Easy for you to say. Things function at your house. At
mine, they dysfunction.”

“You do have a perfect Dad.” Her voice was
quiet.

Cisco grunted. “You’ve never met him.”

“I’m talking about God.”

“Man, Avra, you’re hitting me out of left
field. What’s God got to do with this conversation?”

Make him understand
. She bit her lip,
staring into the deep brown of his eyes. “God will never ditch
us.”

“Listen, I know you’re sincere, but it just
sounds so out there. Not where I live.”

“Check out church sometime.”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Your dad invited
me.” He moved toward the door. “I think he likes me.”

“What’s not to like?”

Cisco’s eyes swerved to hers. He lifted his
brows.

Her face heated under his gaze. “That’s not
what I meant—”

“See ya, Avra.” He pushed through the
swinging door into the kitchen. The screen door squeaked open, then
shut.

Jesse’s gut clenched as he slid into his seat
one second before Professor Marquez cleared her throat to begin
class.

In the flurry of notebooks popping and paper
shuffling, Kallie dropped a folded sheet of paper on his desk. He
covered it with his Lit book and grinned when she returned from the
waste basket. Her face gave nothing away. What did Kallie think
about
You’re Callin’ My Name?
Did she guess he’d written it
for her?

He scanned the paper.
Promise ... delves
below the superficial ... melody brings out the pathos—
what the
heck was pathos? He thumbed to the glossary of his Lit book.
Pathos—expression of strong or deep feeling.

He rubbed his thumb across his chin, reading
the rest of her comments. She liked the song. His jaw relaxed.