Stand by Me (5 page)

Outside?
What . . . ?

Goodness. The stuff was being thrown out!

Kat tugged on Nick's jacket sleeve. “Meet me outside when you guys get done,” she hissed. “Out back.” She pointed in the direction of the swinging doors, then spun around and hurried past the checkout lanes, out the automatic doors, and scurried as fast as she could around to the back of the store.

Sure enough, the two employees were dumping the boxes, produce and all, into a Dumpster.

Kat blinked. A few minutes ago shoppers could have still bought that stuff and taken it home to eat. Now it was . . . what? Out of date? Gotten rid of to make room for fresher stuff? Doomed to go to the garbage dump?

This was outrageous! The stores ought to at least give it to a local homeless shelter or something.

Food
. Nothing got Kat's dander up like the thoughtless way people just bought “whatever” at the store, never thinking about the horrific way chickens were caged to maximize egg production, or the chemicals used to make those tomatoes red. And the waste! All that plastic packaging. And now this! Dumping good food!

As soon as the coast was clear, Kat lifted the lid of the closest Dumpster and peeked inside. At least six or seven boxes of produce were in there!

“Kat! What in the world are you doing?”

Kat jumped at the sound of Brygitta's voice, banging her head on the Dumpster lid she was holding. Brygitta and Olivia were staring at her openmouthed, and Nick was grinning with amusement.

“Look at this!” She poked her head back into the Dumpster. “Good food. C'mon, help me get this box out of here.”

“Oh, Kat! That's stealing!” Olivia sounded truly panicked.

“Is not. It's been thrown away.” Kat tugged at the closest box with her free hand. “Somebody help me here.”

“What do you think you're going to do with it?” Brygitta demanded.

“I don't know . . . take it to the church with us. They'll know what to do with it.”

Nick joined her at the Dumpster, lugging out the box of lettuce and broccoli. “Hold the lid open!” he called to Brygitta and Olivia. “I can reach that other one.”

Five minutes later Nick and Kat were crossing the street at a brisk pace, laughing, each carrying a box, heading for the Red Line El station one block up and one block over. “Ha!” Kat snickered, glancing over her shoulder at Olivia and Brygitta, walking ten paces behind them. “They're pretending they don't know us.”

Chapter 4

A
vis and Peter rode home in silence, and they might as well have had a bundling board between them in bed that night. She wet her pillow with silent tears in the darkness, knowing the evening had not ended with the hoped-for tenderness and sexual joy of other anniversaries.

Avis slipped out of bed early the next morning, while the sun seemed to be making up its mind whether to come up or not. Stuffing her feet into a pair of cozy slippers and wrapping an afghan around her shoulders, she curled up in a corner of their soft leather couch with her Bible. She needed some quiet time with God—desperately needed some time alone with God!—because she was scheduled to be the worship leader at SouledOut Community Church that morning, and she was no more prepared in her spirit to lead worship than to hand in her resignation at Bethune Elementary Monday morning.

Oh God!
she cried out from her heart.
I really bungled our
anniversary this time—

Avis stopped. What was she doing? Jumping right into her problems, crying on God's shoulder without even acknowledging His presence. Who was she to barge right into the throne room of God and demand that He fix the mess she'd made of things last night?

Oh God!
she started again. But the praise that usually began her prayers just wasn't there.

She stared at the well-worn Bible in her lap. If Nonyameko were in her shoes—and hadn't her friend been in shoes much more painful than Avis's right now?—she'd turn to the Psalms and let the psalmist's words be her prayer.

Avis opened her Bible to the Psalms. Many verses were already underlined, words of praise or comfort that had spoken to her spirit in times past. She turned to Psalm 8, a favorite, and began to whisper the words aloud, making them personal as Nony so often had done . . .

“ ‘O Lord, my Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!' ”
Yes, yes, this is what I need to do. Turn my eyes on almighty
God to put my worries in perspective
. “ ‘You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger!' ”

That verse was already underlined in heavy red. Avis remembered the first time those words had spoken to her, when her first husband had died of cancer, leaving her a widow too soon. If the simple praises of little children could silence the enemy, then her praises were that powerful too.
Take that,
Satan!
No way could the Prince of Darkness—the evil one who wanted to steal her joy, her peace, even her anniversary—do his nasty work in an atmosphere of praise to the Lord God of heaven.

She prayed the rest of the psalm and continued right on into Psalm 9, no longer whispering. “ ‘I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High!' ”

Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks as morning sunlight finally peeked into the windows of their third-floor apartment.
This
was what she needed to do when they gathered for worship at SouledOut that morning—to praise the Lord with all her heart, to simply rejoice
in God
. Yes, she
could
lead worship this morning, because it was about God, not about her. Maybe others were walking in similar shoes, coming to church after a ragged week, things undone, wrongful things said, worries clogging their hearts . . . but the praises of little children—
and
us big babies too
—could silence the lies of the enemy.

Avis was about to close her Bible when her eyes fell on Psalm 5. “ ‘Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing . . .' ”
Hm
. Not exactly a psalm of praise. But it seemed like an invitation to open her heart. Praying again with the psalmist, she murmured the words aloud: “ ‘Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice. In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation . . .' ”

She closed the Bible and held it tight to her chest, as if pressing the words into her heart. “Thank You, Lord!” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. “I needed this reassurance that I can lay my worries in Your lap—even a silly thing like my lost earrings—and I can wait in expectation, because I know You are working all things together for our good . . .” For the next few minutes she poured out her pain over the situation with Rochelle and Conny, regret over the way their anniversary had ended the night before, and not knowing what to do about Nony's outrageous request to come to South Africa for an “extended visit.”

“You on the phone, Avis?” Peter's sleepy voice startled her eyes open as he shuffled into the living room in his robe and slippers. “Oh. Sorry. Didn't know you were praying. Just heard you talking.” He turned to leave.

“Don't go. It's all right.” Avis patted the couch beside her. “Come sit down?”

Peter hesitated and then sank onto the other end of the couch. “Coffee ready by any chance?”

“No. Sorry. I needed some time to pray, wasn't thinking about coffee. But . . .” She reached out a slim brown hand and touched his. “I want to say I'm really sorry about last night.”

Peter frowned slightly. “Yeah, kind of a bum end to our evening. But . . . guess I overreacted, and I'm sorry about that.”

A strange peace settled into Avis's spirit, and suddenly she knew what she needed to do. “Peter, I don't want to throw cold water on your idea of looking forward, of maybe doing something new with our time—whether it's this invitation from Nony or something else. It took me off guard, I guess. So I'm willing to talk about it and pray about it together. We can trust God to show us what He wants us to do, can't we?”

She felt his fingers gently close around hers. She went on. “I'll send an e-mail to Nony, let her know we got their beautiful anniversary card and the amazing invitation, but we need some time to think and pray about all the implications. At the same time, I do have a request.”

Peter scooted over on the couch and put his arm around her, pulling her close. “What's that, baby?” he murmured into her hair.

She relaxed into his side, tucking her feet up on the couch. “I'm really concerned about Rochelle and Conny. I don't want it to be ‘either-or.' I need to find out where she is, if she's okay, how Conny is doing, resume some regular contact. Then . . . well, then it'll be easier to think about other things.” She twisted in his embrace so she could see his face. “Will you help me?”

Peter was quiet a long moment, then he stifled a yawn. “Sure, baby. Whatever you want . . . especially if I can get some coffee in the next ten minutes. I'm still asleep.”

“Oh, you!” Avis reared back and punched him in the shoulder. “If you're sleep-talking, maybe I should ask for a new car or that trip to Hawaii before you wake up!”

Chapter 5

I
t was a good thing the elevated commuter train wasn't crowded on a Sunday morning. Both Kat and Nick took up a double seat across from each other to accommodate the bulky cardboard boxes of lettuce and broccoli.

Brygitta leaned forward from the seat where she and Olivia sat just behind Kat. “I can't believe you guys are actually going to take those boxes into the church.”

Kat just grinned and waggled her fingers over her shoulder. It was no use trying to convince Brygitta. Her roomie was probably imagining a brick edifice with a pipe organ or something. Once they got there, she'd see that it wasn't a big deal.

Besides, Kat didn't really care what Brygitta thought. She felt kind of proud that she'd rescued this produce from oblivion. Hopefully several families were going to eat some fresh food who might not have otherwise.

Metallic brakes squealed as the train pulled into the Loyola station, sitting high above the street below. A young Latino couple with a baby got on and made their way to the back of the car.

“That's the fourth stop,” Brygitta piped up behind Kat. “How many more till we get to Howard Street?”

Honestly
. But humoring her friend, Kat grabbed a pole and swung out of her aisle seat to study the map posted above the windows. “Um . . . three more. It's the end of the Red Line, anyway. Everybody gets off.” She sat down again as the train jerked forward and turned sideways to talk to her two friends, though Olivia had her nose buried in a textbook. “Have you guys decided what you're going to do this summer?”

Brygitta groaned. “Oh, Kat, I don't know. I should just go home when the semester's over in a few weeks and get a jumpstart looking for a summer job. But I signed up for summer mini-term, thought it'd be a good way to get Christian Ethics out of the way so I can graduate next January, which means all the jobs will be taken by the first of June. Besides . . .” She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Can't really stand the thought of another summer in Detroit. Living at home with Mom, Dad, Grandma, three obnoxious younger brothers . . . need I elaborate?”

Kat laughed. “Nope.”

“At least you're graduating in a couple weeks . . . Hey, can I come home with you? I've never been to Phoenix. What's the summer job situation like?”

Kat shrugged. “Same as everywhere, I guess. Haven't had to deal with it. My father always finds something for me to do in his practice, but—”

Olivia's head jerked up from the book she was reading. “Practice? Is he a lawyer or something?”

“A doctor,” Brygitta hooted. “Cardiologist, right, Kat?”

Kat nodded. Not that she wanted to talk about it. Her father was still upset that she'd dropped premed and transferred to CCU. “I'm signed up for mini-term too. I—”

“Why? I thought you were graduating.” Olivia's pale blue eyes were uncomprehending.

So I don't have to go home yet
, was on the tip of Kat's tongue. But she said, “I need more Spanish so I can qualify for my ESL certificate. And I've been thinking . . .” Her eyes drifted to the back sides of the apartment buildings they were passing, mesmerized by the crosshatch of back porches with wooden railings and open stairs zigzagging from the top floor to the ground.
Had
she been thinking? Or was this a bubble of an idea that'd been floating in her subconscious and only now just popped?

“Thinking what?” Brygitta prompted.

“About staying here in Chicago for the summer.” There. Saying it aloud gave strength to the idea. “I mean, if I stay
here
, I could start looking for a job now, not wait till I get back to Phoenix. And . . . it'd be fun. More time to explore the city. I hear there are lots of ethnic festivals, stuff like that, all summer long.”