The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught (2 page)

The guy with the Mohawk looked up and frowned. He tipped his head at Chris's green Cornerstone T-shirt. “You a volunteer? They send you over to help? ”

“Uh, yeah. I'm a volunteer.”

“You got any experience? How old are you, anyway? ”

Chris thought of all the el underpasses he'd decorated. “Yeah. Lots of experience. A bit different, but I can do this.” He ignored the question about his age.

The Mohawk guy handed the girl her T-shirt and took her twenty-dollar bill. “I dunno. Can't afford to mess up any shirts.” He glanced up as a young guy,maybe twenty or so, bypassed the ready-made T-shirts and headed their way. “Need help, buddy? ”

“Hope so.” College kid. Clean-cut. “I'd like a T-shirt with a picture of Jesus walking on the water, you know, during the storm, and beckoning to Peter.With the words, ‘Come to Me.' ”

“Look, man, we don't really do—”

“I can do it.”

Mohawk guy and college kid both stared at Chris.

“I can do it. Let me try.” Chris licked his lips. Could he do it? He knew that story from Sunday school. Once he saw a picture in a Bible storybook. But the picture had been drawn from Peter's point of view looking at Jesus. Something about it didn't set right to Chris. He'd love to turn it around.

The college kid grinned. “Why not? Let him try.”

Mohawk guy shrugged. “It's your money. If he messes up a shirt, somebody's gotta pafor it.”

A white T-shirt was stretched on an easel. Chris tried out the airbrushes for a minute or two on some butcher paper, getting the feel for the colors, then set to work. A quiver of excitement expanded in his gut until his insides felt giddy. All he could think about was the picture taking shape on the material in front of him. The back of Jesus in the foreground, gnarly hair whipping in the wind, waves splashing about His feet, one hand reaching out toward a floundering boat in the background . . .

Chris glanced furtively at the college kid, who slouched easily in the chair the girl had vacated.The figure in the boat took shape, leaning out over the choppy water, hand outstretched, longing in his face.

A shadow fell over Chris's shoulder as he started in on the lettering:
Come to Me.
Mohawk guy sucked in his breath. “Well, I'll be damned.”

“What? ” The college kid got up. He came around and looked at the drawing on the shirt. “Why . . . that's me stepping out of the boat.” He swallowed. “Wow.”

“There you are!” Chris jumped when he heard the familiar voice. “We've been looking all over for you,Hickman.” Josh Baxter entered the tent, followed by José Enriques and Pete Spencer. All in Cornerstone green. The garbage crew from Uptown Community. “Come on, man.We've got work to do.”

“Just a minute.” Mohawk guy held up a hand. “I could use this kid.”

“On his own time, then.We've got a ton of garbage to pick up.
Now
, Hickman.”

“Wait up. You draw this,
amigo
? ” José Enriques, fifteen, peered at the T-shirt on the easel. “That's
good
, man—OK, OK, Baxter. We're comin'.”

Chris flushed at the praise as they climbed into the waiting service cart, piled high with plastic garbage bags. José was all right. Latinos were
the enemy
back on the bricks. But that was there.This was now. And he'd just tagged the best piece of his life.

3 A.M.—CHICAGO'S SOUTH SIDE

The toddler screamed on her hip, his nose running, but the young woman holding him with one arm didn't even try to soothe him as she hit the speed dial on her cordless.
Please, Mom, pick it up . . . please, please . . .

“Rochelle!” A male voice yelled from the bedroom. “Can't you make that kid shut up? I'm trying to get some sleep here.”

“Shh, shh,” she whispered to the little boy. Sure, her husband was trying to get some sleep—after coming in at two. With no explanation. He was the one who woke up the baby, turning on the lights, yelling at her, telling her not to mess in his business when she asked where he'd been.
Oh, please, Mama . . .

But the answering machine on the other end kicked in.
“Hello. We can't take your call right now—”

She clicked the Off button. She couldn't leave a message on their answering machine. They might return the call, and Dexter might answer the phone.
No, no. She'd just have to go up there. But what if her mom wasn't home? She couldn't just wait out on the street, not with the baby—not at night.Not in this heat.

“Who you callin' this time of night, woman? ” His voice was so close, so heavy with threat, that Rochelle jumped, dropping the phone. The toddler in her arms only screamed louder.

“I . . . I, uh—”

Her husband was wearing only his boxers, his body hard and lean from working out at the gym. They made a handsome couple, everybody said. And when he started putting on those muscles, her girlfriends really crowed.
“Oh, girl, that man is so fine” . . . “You better watch out, some ho gonna steal him” . . . “You ever don't want him, throw him to me!”

Slowly, deliberately, Dexter picked up the phone and punched a button, peering at the LED readout. “Your mother.” Sarcasm dripped off the words. “Now, girl, what you gonna go call your mother for this time of night? ”

He stepped closer. In her face. She felt his hand reach behind her and take hold of her hair—the long, thick fall of kinky curls every beauty shop in town envied—pulling her head back, back until her throat stretched upward and she was staring into his cold, narrow eyes. She could feel his strength. Pain shot up the back of her head from his tight grip on her hair. Fear dried out her mouth as one thought pulsed in her brain:
With one snap, he could break my neck.

The toddler stopped screaming, as if mesmerized by the tension between his parents. In the sudden silence, Rochelle, frozen in his grip, heard Dexter's voice next to her ear. Low. Menacing. “Don't you be thinking about leaving me, Rochelle. Or taking my baby. Or you gonna regret the day you step out of this house.”

1

I
'd been married to the guy for twenty years, and he still didn't get it. Crowds. I hated big crowds. He knew that. So why was he asking me again?

“You go,” I said, climbing up the short, wobbly stepladder and pouring birdseed into the feeder dangling from one corner of the garage roof. “Stuff yourself. Have a blast. Just” —I backed down the three steps on the miniladder— “take the cell phone and let me know when you're on the way home.” I stuck the stepladder into the garage and headed for the back porch of our two-flat.

“Aw, c'mon, Jodi.” Denny sounded like a teenager who'd just been told he couldn't have the car keys. “The Taste is no fun going alone. And there's only two more days. I'd take Amanda and Josh if they were here, but they're blasting their eardrums out at Cornerstone,” he grumbled. “They were gone last summer too. I haven't been to the Taste in two years!”

I glanced at him sharply. Yeah, the kids had been gone this time last summer—on that mission trip to Mexico. But that wasn't the reason Denny had missed the Taste of Chicago last year. I'd just gotten out of the hospital after getting banged up in a car accident and the Fourth of July slid right past us unnoticed, like the Energizer Bunny on Mute. But if Denny didn't remember, I sure wasn't going to bring it up.

“You don't have to go by yourself.” was doggedly cheerful.The prospect of a long, quiet summer evening at home alone was sounding more and more appealing by the second.No kids, no husband even, who, God love him, was still
male
and took up a large portion of the house and my psyche. A girl needed a break now and then. “Call one of your friends. Take Ben Garfield. He's probably driving Ruth crazy anyway. She'll kiss your feet for getting him out of the house.”

I flopped down on the porch swing and reclaimed my plastic tumbler of iced tea, sweating in a puddle where I'd set it near Willie Wonka's inert body. The rhythmic rise and fall of the chocolate haired rib cage assured me the old dog was still with us.

I raised the iced tea to my lips, vaguely thinking it'd been fuller than this when I set it down—and over the rim saw Denny still standing in front of me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched like one of Peter Pan's lost boys. “What? ”

“I don't want to go with Ben. I want to go with you.”

I rolled my eyes.
Cheater! Villain!
My visions of solitude, peace and quiet, that Ernest Gaines novel I was dying to read with only our dear deaf dog and a good fan for company evaporated as quickly as spit on a hot iron.

Denny Baxter knew exactly how to shoot his arrow into my Achilles heel.

“You really want me to go? ”

“Yes.”

I sighed. “All right. But, mister, you owe me one.”

The dimples on either side of Denny's mouth creased into irresistible parentheses. “Hey, it's going to be fun! We need some time together while the kids are gone—not talking about serious stuff or anything, you know, just having a good time. Pick your poison! Jerk chicken . . . ribs slathered in barbecue sauce . . . Italian ice . . . that Totally Turtle Cheesecake at Eli's . . .” My husband's eyes closed in anticipatory bliss of sampling the city's finest eateries, whose yearly ten-day culinary extravaganza on Chicago's lake front always culminated on July Fourth weekend. “And we can watch the fireworks tonight from Buckingham Fountain,” he added.

That was tempting. Chicago always did a big show on Independence Eve. I'd heard that the fireworks were coordinated with a fantastic light show at the city's signature fountain along with a live concert by the Grant Park Symphony. And Denny had a point about “just having fun.” The past two months had taken a huge toll on us—emotionally for sure, but physically and spiritually too. Some good things had happened, like Josh's graduation from high school and that awesome celebration we'd had last Sunday morning when our church and New Morning Christian met together in their new space in the Howard Street shopping center. But the recent hate group incidents on Northwestern University's campus, the so-called free speech rally that had just been a cover up for spewing hate and fear, and the cowardly attack that had left our friend Mark Smith in a coma for two weeks—
that
had been tough. Tough on and Mark's family, tough on the Baxter family, tough on the whole Yada Yada Prayer Group.

Though, I had to admit, we did learn a thing or two about “getting tough” spiritually. All of us had felt helpless and angry at the twisted attitudes and sheer evil behind that attack on Mark. But we discovered prayer was a spiritual weapon we could wield with abandon. Praise too. That was a new reality for me, but it made sense. As Avis pointed out at one of our Yada Yada prayer meetings, the devil can't do his rotten work too well in an atmosphere filled with praise and worship for his main Adversary.

I chugged the rest of my iced tea. “OK, so when do you want to leave? Parking's going to be a nightmare.” I'd heard the Taste drew thousands of hungry palates. I shuddered. Didn't want to think about it.Threading through waves of sweaty flesh. Trying to ignore all the bouncy boobs in skimpy tank tops. Dreading the inevitable visit to the rows of Porta-Potties . . .

Denny pulled open the back screen door, a droll grin still lurking on his face. “Soon as we can get ready. Don't have to worry about parking if we take CTA.” The screen door slammed behind him.

“What are you smirking about? ” I yelled after him.

The screen door cracked open, and he poked his head out. “Didn't want to tell you, but since you asked.” His dimples deepened wickedly. “Willie Wonka slurped up the top third of your iced tea while you were feeding the birds. In case you wondered.”

The screen door slammed again as I let the plastic tumbler fly.

I'D FINISHED REFILLING A COUPLE OF WATER BOTTLES and adding them to the sunscreen, sunglasses, and windbreaker in my backpack when I heard someone at the back screen door. “Hey, Jodi.”

I looked up. “Hi, Becky! And who's that cutie hiding behind you? Andy Wallace! I see you!”

Our upstairs neighbor—well, the long-term “guest” of our upstairs neighbor—stood at the back door, still sporting her new haircut and color, a rich brunette with auburn highlights swinging chin length in front of her ears and short and feathered in the back, courtesy of Adele's Hair and Nails. Behind her, a tousled head of dark curls peeked out from behind his mother's skin-tight jeans. Little Andy giggled.

“Come on in, you guys.” I held open the screen door. “Denny and I are leaving in a few minutes—kids away, parents play, know what I mean? But I didn't know Andy was coming to visit this weekend. Is he staying for the holiday? ” I felt like I was babbling, but I often felt like that around Becky, trying to fill in the gaps of awkward conversation.