CHAPTER 4
1201 Words
CHAPTER 4
“Greet one another on the way out,” the pastor calls to us, and I’m glad Jake and I are in the back row. No time for overzealous church ladies to make meaningless chitchat or impose their uninvited hugs on either of us. I clutch my phone, wondering if we should call Patricia to let her know we’re on our way. If we don’t, she’ll politely complain that she had no way to know when lunch should be ready. If we do, she’ll pitch a very understated fit about how we shouldn’t expect her to rearrange her schedule to cook for us, because don’t we know she has a sick grandchild to look after?
Trust me, Patricia. We know.
I’m ready to leave, but Jake hasn’t moved. Neither has anyone else, I realize. Nobody except that old lady sitting next to the pastor’s wife. She’s standing up now, leaning forward, asking the preacher something. What does she think this is? A question and answer session? Who ever heard of a church service going past noon? We’ve got places to go. Diapers to change. Casseroles to choke down.
I’m about to nudge Jake, but the pastor’s holding out the wireless mic. Not a good sign. “Real quick before we dismiss,” he begins. I know better than to trust a preacher who begins any sentence with real quick. “Grandma Lucy has asked for the opportunity to close us in prayer today. Grandma Lucy.” He hands her the mic, and I roll my eyes. This lady is way too white to be the pastor’s grandma, which means she must be related to his wife. What kind of sap calls an in-law Grandma? There’s no way you’d catch me acting that familiar with Patricia. I can barely claim her as my mother-in-law without wanting to puke.
Grandma Lucy is a petite little thing, not quite as wispy as the pastor’s wife, but now that she’s standing I can detect a hint of similarity. She’s wearing this gaudy blouse, salmon-colored, the kind of nylon that’s got that old-school sheen to it. The collar alone is the same size as some of the cuter tees I used to wear before I got pregnant. There’s something familiar about her, but I can’t place exactly what.
All right, I think to myself. Let the old lady pray, and then we’re out of here. I’ve already decided it would be stupid to ask Jake out for lunch. Not only would it start World War III with Patricia, I don’t even want to be with him. I mean, I know he’s trying to be a better person and everything. We both are after what we went through. But come on. Church was two hours if you count the drive. We could have gone to the movies. We could have walked the mall. We could have thrown in some Christmas shopping, at least if we had any money to spend. It’s our first time alone together in months, and he wastes it all on a boring sermon.
Sometimes I wonder if this is the same man I met at the convenience store. Could he have changed that much in a year? Things were so carefree back then. Carefree if you don’t count everything that led up to me quitting my job, at least. But good came from that too, I suppose, just like the pastor was talking about. It was when I was dead broke and unemployed and had no chance to make rent that Jake showed up.
We’d hung around each other a couple times before. Every so often it worked out where I relieved him at shift change, and he’d stick around for a little while afterward. Especially at night. Cracked a few jokes about making sure I didn’t let any creeps into the store. It was kind of touching really, the way he wanted to keep me safe.
Too bad it didn’t work. But that’s another irony for you. If I hadn’t been working alone that night, I wouldn’t have been forced to quit my job. And that’s what got me so broke I had to move in with Jake when he asked. I didn’t have any other options. It makes me sound desperate when I put it that way, but that’s not how it was. Jake was fun. Cute. Sort of quiet in an endearing way. I liked him.
If it weren’t for the attack, I might have never ended up with Jake. Or maybe we’d still be a couple, but we would have taken things slower. Wouldn’t have so much baggage now.
You can never know for sure, can you?
I find myself wondering what the pastor would think, what he’d say if he knew the half of it. Why did you let someone in after closing? I can almost hear the disapproval in his voice. He’d probably want to know what I was wearing that night too. Well, it was summer. I was hot. The store didn’t have any AC, and the air from the fan never reached behind the register.
Did you drink with him? That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Because obviously, if I drank with a dimpled stranger in the store that I was supposed to have locked up fifteen minutes earlier, that automatically means I was asking for it. Right?
I couldn’t work there afterward. I didn’t even give my two weeks. Didn’t try to go back. Sent Roberto a text, and that was it. I didn’t think I’d see Jake again. But then he popped up, right when I needed him.
He doesn’t even know about the attack. I mean, he knows, but we’ve never talked about it. When he asked me why I quit, I just told him some guy had been bothering me and Roberto wouldn’t let me switch my shift to days. Jake didn’t press for any more information than that, and I didn’t offer it. I honestly didn’t expect the two of us to get serious at all. I wasn’t looking for anything long-term. From everything I understood, he wasn’t either.
And then Natalie came. Man, I was so sick at the beginning. Even before I missed my period, I knew it either had to be pregnancy or the flu. I lost so much weight. I wish I could go back to that size now. Fit into that little backless tee.
Just a fling. A few weeks, a month or two at most. That’s all either of us expected. But Natalie changed all that, just like she changed everything else. Some pee on a stick, a teary-eyed conversation at two o’clock in the morning, his promise that I could do whatever I wanted and he’d support me all the way.
It’s funny. I thought he’d want to get rid of her. That’s what I would do if I were him. Even with the positive test, neither of us expected to stay a couple for the long haul. Jake was young. Working a nine-dollar-an-hour job. But there he was, telling me I could do whatever I thought was best. We didn’t talk about money, not early on, but I knew I’d get child support out of him if I asked.
And then it came out that I couldn’t make rent, so he suggested I move in with him. I was sick from the beginning, puking all the time. And Jake was there to make me some peppermint tea, pass me the paper towels so I could clean up after myself.
Man, he’s changed so much. Now I can’t even get him to clean up after himself when he leaks all over the toilet seat.
Good thing Mama’s there to do it for him.
- Writer
