COOL BEANS (14 page)

Based on everything Jen says, she and Travis make a perfect couple. So why can’t I see it?

I was so convinced I was supposed to marry him. Everything I read in my Bible, everything I felt when I prayed about our future marriage, everything I felt with him seemed so
right.

“Well, just be careful, Jenny,” I say, softly. “Sometimes things change when you least expect them.” I stand. “I’m going to bed. Good night.” I smile and walk to my room, leaving her
staring quizzically after me.

Once I get to my room, I quietly close the door and sit on the edge of my bed, holding my face in my hands.

My Bible and pad of sticky notes are right there on the nightstand. I frown at them but pick up the pad of pink squares.

Andrew Townsend walks through the door of Cool Beans at exactly eight thirty the following evening. It’s thirty minutes until Bible study starts, and I’m halfway done making a fresh pot of the dark roast for all of the caffeine-lacking twentysome-things about to invade the building.

“Good evening, Sister Maya,” he says, slapping his huge hands on the counter.

“And yet another reason to be thankful for my family the way they are,” I say sweetly. “You are providing me with lots of new ideas for what to say when we go around the table on Thanksgiving.”

He points a finger at me. “You are not very nice. But you do make an excellent cinnamon vanilla latte, and I’ll take one of those.”

“Decaf?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“Good grief, no. How would I ever make it through my lesson with the unleaded stuff?”

“I’ll be sure to tell the people who do order decaf that not even the pastor can make it through his sermon without the caffeine.”

He nods. “It’s a fair warning. I’ll bring a sign next time.”

I start on his latte. “You know, some pastors actually have a time limit that they stick to.”

“What’s the fun in that? Sometimes I go long; sometimes I go short.” He spreads his hands. “Variety is the spice of life, so they say.”

I shake my head. “I disagree with ‘They.’”

“Oh yeah?”

“Variety is confusing. What if everything changed all the time?”

He raises his eyebrows as he acknowledges the genius in my thinking. “I guess we’d have a lot of people with poor hygiene.”

“What?”

“If everything changed all the time. We’d never find bathrooms. Or showers or toothbrushes or — “

“Okay, sufficiently grossed out. You can stop now,” I say with a grin. Andrew is one of my all-time favorite people to banter with.

He grins back and plunks a wad of cash on the counter. “And no sunflower mug this time. I need a serious mug that says, ‘I’m preaching about serious matters of the heart, soul, and mind.’ Got it?”

I nod. “Got it.”

“Good. I’m going to start destroying the nice layout you have created.”

“Go forth and conquer.”

He starts moving the chairs and couches into a
U
-shape — multiple rows, theater style — leaving the two tables with customers alone. They look at their watches, though, and decide to leave.

“You have a way of scaring off customers,” I say, bringing his latte over to him.

“Well, I’m loud and large. Most people don’t appreciate those two spiritual gifts,” he says, grunting as he carries the couch over to the other chairs. And yes, he
carries
the couch up off the floor by himself. Andrew is a Viking.

“I thought spiritual gifts were like stewardship and hospitality and love and stuff,” I say, following him over.

“You’d better go back and read your Bible again, Maya. It says the body of Christ is made up of many parts. I claim the mouth and the bicep.”

He sets the sofa down and flexes. I roll my eyes and hand him the coffee mug. He just sighs at the big pink hearts all over the chocolate-colored mug.

“Maya …”

“What? You said you were teaching about the heart, soul, and mind. I picked hearts this week. Maybe you can have a mug with brains on it next week.” I smile cheekily and leave him to finish with the chairs.

Jack’s whistling as he sweeps the kitchen area. “Was that Andrew?” he asks.

“Yep,” I say, yawning, preparing for a long night of making fifty different lattes.

“Did you give him another girly cup?”

“I did.”

Jack grins. “You’re so predictable.”

“Well, we just decided that variety can be bad, so I guess that’s a good thing.” I smile.

Forty-five minutes later, there are thirty-nine people here. Andrew’s candid teaching style is apparently becoming popular. Almost everyone ordered our advertised caramel hot
chocolate or pumpkin cinnamon latte.

I’m running the cleaning cycle on the espresso machine. Jack and I are trying to clean as much as we can during the opening announcements, so we don’t have to stay until late, late, late cleaning.

Travis and Jen are sitting next to each other on the sofa. Jen’s cradling her tea, knees pulled to her chest. Travis has one arm around her, the other hand holding his straight black coffee.

Jack finishes wiping down the countertops. “Let’s find a seat,” he whispers right as Andrew finishes up with the announcements.

“So everyone try to be there Saturday night at the You-Can-Bowl, and we’ll bowl our way to a great time.”

Liz cracks up. No one else finds the joke that funny, probably because it wasn’t.

I catch the almost imperceptible glance from Andrew toward Liz. Apparently, that little love affair hasn’t been addressed yet.

I pull my apron over my head and go to the back to hang it up. Jack’s grabbing our Bibles.

“Thanks.” I smile at him.

“Welcome.”

We find seats in the back. I try really hard not to stare at the back of Travis’s and Jen’s heads. But gosh, it’s hard.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a fascinating study of Proverbs.” Andrew’s voice booms across the little shop. He looks around. “Jack, will you please read chapter 12, verses 17 to 19?”

Jack nods. “Sure. ‘He who speaks truth tells what is right, but a false witness, deceit. There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Truthful lips will be established forever, but a lying tongue is only for a moment.’”

“Thank you, Jack.” Andrew looks around. “Today we’re going
to focus on the word
but
— not like those hind cheeks — and how it is used in every sentence we’re looking at here. If you tell the truth, you’ll do well,
but
if you don’t, you’ll have a life of misery, pretty much.”

There are chuckles around the room, but I swallow.

Another lesson on being honest?

“Now here’s a question,” Andrew continues. “Is a half truth or just not disclosing the truth as bad as a lie?”

I squoosh further down in my chair.

“I think so,” Liz says. “I think if someone asks you a question flat-out and you avoid answering, it’s as bad as a lie. But I think there are also times when it’s better not to say anything.”

“Nice use of
but,
the word of the day,” Andrew says.

She beams.

“And I agree with you. For example” — he morphs into rabbit-trail story mode — “my mother once dyed her hair the exact color of Welch’s cranberry juice. Now,” he says, over the giggles, “did I tell her that her hair made me thirsty? No. But when she asked me a few days later if I liked it, did I tell her yes? No. I said, ‘Mom, your hair is the color of something that should be rich in antioxidants, and dead protein cells just aren’t.’”

I can’t help but laugh.

“Guys, here’s another question. Where do we find real truth?”

“The Bible,” everyone sing-songs like we’re two-year-olds in Sunday school class.

“Right,” Andrew nods. Now he’s in charismatic preacher mode. “If you’re not in the Word, breathing the Word, eating the Word, singing the Word, you will not be able to live according to the Word!”

I’m smiling but my stomach is pinching up in conviction.
Okay, God, I get it. I’ll tell the truth about Travis, and I’ll do my devotions.

Bible study is over, and Cool Beans is empty by 10:50 p.m. Andrew’s muscling the couches and chairs back into place, and Jack’s mopping the back area. I grab Hulk the Vacuum Cleaner and drag it out to the front.

“Oh, great. It’s the eardrum buster,” Andrew says, spying the vacuum.

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, Maya.”

I set the vacuum down, plug it into the wall, pop the handle back, then stop right before I flick the on switch. “Andrew,” I say, “I’ve got a question.”

“Go for it,” he says, sliding a chair under a table and turning to focus on me.

“Sometimes — not always, understand, but sometimes — I can do really well at having a daily devotional. But then other times, I have a really hard time focusing on what I’m reading,” I stutter.

“Okay. You’re human. And?”

“And how do I focus when it’s hard to, I guess?”

Andrew points to the couch, and I push the Hulk’s handle back into the locked position. I plop down on one end, and he takes the other end.

“Maya, focusing isn’t as much about what’s going on out here in our peripherals as what’s going on in here in our heads,” he says. “It’s the same no matter what you’re doing. I’ve seen people who can read with such intensity that they don’t look up when there’s a water-pipe explosion next door, but I’ve also
seen people who can read only two words before they remember something they forgot to do.”

I nod, not really getting where he’s going with all this.

“It’s the whole Mary and Martha thing, Maya,” he continues. “If you’re focused on what you need to get done that day or on something that’s bothering you, you’re not going to get anything out of your Bible reading. But if you focus on the words in front of you and pray for the ability to see beyond the page into how the words can make a difference in your life, you’ll be able to get a lot out of it.” He stops. “Make sense?”

“Um. Kind of.”

“Try that tonight and let me know how it goes, okay?”

“Okay.”

I go back to the Hulk and turn it on. The little pots with fresh-cut flowers on the tables are rattling as I drag the vacuum back and forth.

There’s a note on my bedroom door when I get home to our dark apartment.

Maya — I am going to bed early to prepare for Calvin’s 2:24 a.m. wake-up call. Please try to quiet him before I get up this time. Good night. — Jenny

“Surly,” I say to Calvin, who’s batting his tail on my comforter in greeting as opposed to getting up in a real nice-to-see-you effort. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

I change into a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Grabbing my Bible, I plop on the bed.

“Okay, focus, focus,” I say. Calvin noses my knee.

I open up to John 15. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you.”

Calvin sighs, and I look over at him. “What’s wrong, baby?”

He wags his tail, so I guess he just wanted some attention. Well, my philosophy is: You have to show affection to gain affection. At least it is if you’re a dog.

“In a minute,” I tell him, going back to the Bible.

“Roo!”

“Hush.”

He buries his nose in his paws and huffs his breath out.

I look back at the passage in John, but the words are not connecting with my brain.
Focus.

I read a few more words. “And that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”

Love one another.

Based on our conversation last night, I think Jen thinks she’s falling in love with Travis. She’s infatuated at least.

“Well, it’s not like it’s hard to fall into infatuation,” I tell Calvin.

He squints at me.

“Well, it’s not. Travis is a great guy. He’s sweet; he’s considerate; and he’s definitely good-looking.”

Calvin shares my sentiments. “Roo!”

I thoughtfully rub his ears. “I just wish I knew how to tell her, Cal. I mean, she should know about the past. I should tell her.”

Calvin wiggles closer to my hand.

I give him a good rubdown this time. “How about you stay quiet tonight, huh? No more Wednesday-night nightmares, okay?”

He licks my hand in apology, as if to say,
I don’t mean to.

“I know.”

I look at him and rub his ears one last time before I rake my
hand through my hair. “How about ice cream?”

“Roo! Roo!”

“Come on, then.”

I pad out to the kitchen and open the freezer. Calvin hops along behind me happily.

“Vanilla or mint chocolate-chip?”

Calvin plops on his rear end in front of me and cocks his head.

“You’re right. No contest.” I pull out the artificially colored green ice cream and find a bowl. When you think about it, mint chocolate-chip ice cream is kind of gross. They take perfectly good all-natural ice cream and inject it with this green dye just so you feel like you’re getting a genuine mint taste.

I know the mint plant is green, but is the extract? And if it isn’t, who decided that everything minty in nature should be green? The people who make Andes mints?

Wait a second.
I look closer. A spoonful has been stolen from this ice cream! I whip my head around, looking for the ice-cream thief. Jen wouldn’t have taken it — she’s head over heels into this whole natural thing. Who else has had access to my freezer?

Mrs. Mitchell!

I shake my head. Well, well.

I scoop a hefty bowl, squirt some chocolate syrup on top, and grab a spoon. We head back to my room, and I plop on the bed and look at my Bible.

Lord, I’m sorry. I can’t focus right now.

I spoon the ice cream into my mouth and reach for a sticky note.

“It’s a good thing, right?” I ask Calvin, who is salivating over my ice cream. I look at him for a minute and sigh. “What do you know? You’re a beagle.”

I just feel so … I don’t even know the words. Guilty? Confused? Trapped in this fake ignorance of Travis?

And the truth will make you free.

“And hurt a bunch of people,” I remind whatever part of my brain brought back that verse. “So, it’s not all fun and games.”

Jack keeps telling me just to sit Jen down and tell her. “Rip off the Band-Aid,” he said earlier today. “Tell her you’ve wanted her to know for a while, but it just seemed awkward, and then you didn’t know what to do.”

I think I know my roommate better than that. She’ll definitely get her feelings hurt. And then she’ll do the whole quietly-wander-about-the-house routine while I beg for forgiveness anytime she comes within a three-foot radius. It happened when I accidentally ate the pie she made the first time her mom visited us.