Blind Spot (5 page)

JAMIE FELT THE JUICES
of competition stirring at church that night. Funny how they could just come up. Not
exactly
like when she was racing but pretty close.

She’d been blindfolded and spun around a few times, then had to balance a raw egg on a spoon, walk to the center of the room, and drop it into a pot of water. Her teammates behind her were shouting directions, telling her when to walk straight, left, or right. The only problem was, there was another team trying to do the same thing on the other side of the room.

“Keep going straight!”

“Turn left, Jamie!”

“Five yards right in front of you.”

“Which one?” Jamie said.

“Straight, Jamie!” It was Vanessa Moran, a new girl in town. “It’s right in front of you.”

“Stop!” someone yelled.

“Now! Drop it.”

She couldn’t tell if it was her group or someone else.

“Go, Jamie!” Trace Flattery yelled over the din. She could always tell his voice. It sounded like he had about a hundred marbles in his mouth when he talked.

Jamie bent a little and tipped the spoon. She heard a splat, then another, and groans rose from both sides of the room. She reached up and took off the blindfold. At her feet was a broken egg. Ahead of her stood Gary Edwards, a hulk of a guy who played defense on the football team and center on the basketball team. He stood over the pot of water, grinning from ear to ear, his egg on the floor.

“Why didn’t you listen to us?” Vanessa said. “What a klutz.”

“Okay, hold it down,” Pastor Gordon said. “Good job, Jamie and Gary. Take a seat.” The man was in his late 20s, newly married, and looked more like a model from one of those ads at the mall than a youth pastor. Theirs wasn’t the biggest youth group in town, but Pastor Gordon had a way of getting kids involved. When more kids heard about it, Jamie felt sure they’d come.

“All right, Jamie, tell me what happened out there,” Pastor Gordon said.

“Everybody was yelling so loud—I couldn’t tell which ones were on my team and which ones were yelling at Gary.”

“So you got mixed up by the voices?”

“Yeah. It’s like they were all jumbled up together, and I didn’t know which one to follow.”

“So when you dropped the egg . . . ?”

“I thought I heard my team tell me to.”

The kids around her groaned. First pick at the pizza was on the line.

“All right, how about you, Gary?”

“I listened for Jimmy’s directions because he has the biggest mouth.”

Laughter.

“I knew his voice would boom out over everyone else’s. And he’s on the basketball team, so I figured if he messed me up, I’d get him back during a game.”

“You’d actually do that?” Jimmy said, incredulous.

“Knew I wouldn’t have to.”

“You were closer than Jamie, but you still didn’t get the egg in the pot,” Vanessa said.

“Close counts, doesn’t it?” Gary said.

“We’ll sort that out in a minute,” Pastor Gordon said. “But this proves the point we were just talking about. See, in life, you’re going to hear a lot of voices telling you what to do and not do. Who are you supposed to believe? Advice from over here might sound
good, but it may be bad. And like this egg, your life might crash and break.

“Now suppose, since we’re right in the heart of NASCAR country, that you were out there on the track listening to your spotter, but somehow the wires got crossed and you were actually hearing someone else’s communication? Can you imagine what would happen if the voice on the other end of that microphone said to go low and there was a car there?”

Trace raised a hand. “You know what? I heard that happened once in an old Busch Series race at—”

Pastor Gordon smiled. “Let’s save that one for around the table. Trace, why don’t you read that verse printed on the handout.”

Trace held up the crumpled piece of paper. “‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.’”

“That’s right,” Pastor Gordon continued. “Jesus was talking to people about who he was. In fact, at the end of his answer to them, they actually picked up stones to kill him.”

“What for?” Vanessa said. “Just because he mentioned sheep? Talk about prejudice.”

A few people snickered.

“No, look at verse 30. Jesus says, ‘The Father and I are one.’ Those people knew that Jesus was saying
he was
equal
with God. Now, who are the sheep he’s talking about?”

Cassie Strower held up a hand. “Well, Jesus is known as the Good Shepherd, so I think that anybody who follows him is one of the sheep of his flock.”

“Excellent,” Pastor Gordon said.

“Good one, little miss sheepherder,” Vanessa mumbled.

“The question is, how do you hear the Shepherd’s voice over all the noise out there in the world?”

“You have to listen?” someone said.

“Spend time with the Shepherd so you really know his voice,” another said.

“We had a dog once who went deaf,” Trace said. “No, it’s true. And the only way you could get him back to the house was to bang a bunch of trash cans on the back deck. He only responded to the vibrations.”

“They should change the verse,” Vanessa said. “‘My dog hears me bang the trash cans.’”

When the laughter subsided, Pastor Gordon spoke again. “Those are all good answers . . . well, mostly . . . but the truth is, you have to be connected to the Shepherd to really hear his voice.”

“What do you mean?” Gary said. “I don’t get it.”

“Jamie, come back up here.”

Jamie stood and put on the blindfold again. Pastor Gordon turned her around a few times and let her get
her balance. She took a spoon and an egg and steadied it.

“In a minute, I want you all to yell at the top of your lungs. Give Jamie bad advice; tell her to go left or right or stop. It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not fair,” Trace said.

Pastor Gordon put something over Jamie’s head. Enclosed headphones. “Can you hear me?” he said through a microphone as the kids began yelling.

Jamie nodded.

“All right, I want you to turn to your left. . . . Good. . . . Now walk straight ahead about five steps. . . . Good. A little to your right. That’s it. You’re about a foot away from the pot, so take a half step forward and lean over. Excellent. Put your spoon out just a little. There. Now tip it over. . . .”

Applause and hoots broke out in the room as the egg plopped into the water. Jamie took off her blindfold. Vanessa sat with her arms folded.

Jamie sat with Cassie Strower. They were both pepperoni people—opposed to the sausage crowd on the other side. Jamie had told her all about the race in Alabama, especially what happened at the end.

“Your dad pretty busy?” Jamie said. Cassie’s father was an engineer with Upshaw, one of the best teams in town and known for building fast cars.

“They caught a design problem with the new engine right before Christmas, and they’ve been scrambling ever since. Don’t tell anybody I said that.”

“Your secret’s safe. Anyway, knowing your dad, the flaw will probably just make it faster in the end.”

Cassie nodded. “That’s what usually happens. Something bad leads to something good . . . if you let it.”

Jamie gave her
the look.
“You trying to tell me something?”

“Not really.”

“You’re thinking about the race with Chad.”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I swear, Cassie, it’s tough being around you sometimes. It’s like you’ve got some kinda halo around your head.”

“Are you sure it’s not my winsome personality?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Cassie took a huge bite of pizza and stared at Jamie.

“This is what I’m talking about!” Jamie said.

“I’m just eating,” Cassie mumbled, smiling and laughing until a piece of pepperoni nearly came out her nose.

When they’d both settled down, Jamie said, “Honestly, what should I do about Chad? And don’t ask me what Jesus would do.”

“What do you want to do about him? I mean, you’ve raced him at every level. You two mix it up at the summer shoot-out. It’s not like you can avoid him if you want to win.”

“No, avoiding is not an option.”

“Ever tried to talk to him?”

“Ever tried brushing an alligator’s teeth?”

Cassie took another bite of pizza. “Just listen to the voice. The Shepherd is pretty good about guiding; don’t you think?”

Suddenly Jamie got that old feeling. Like she was late to a party and had forgotten the present—and it wasn’t a costume affair and she was dressed as the Sugar Plum Fairy. The old hit to the pit of the stomach.

Had she
ever
heard the Shepherd’s voice? Was all this church stuff she’d been doing just an act?

WHEN LISA, THE SOCIAL WORKER
, found out Tim had hitched a ride with someone, she scolded him and shook her head. After lecturing him about the dangers of doing such a thing, her demeanor changed, and she asked what he had found at the storage place.

Tim told her, and she said, “What did you do after you opened all the boxes?”

Tim shrugged. “Just looked through them. Read some stuff my dad wrote down.”

“And you stayed in that storage place all night?”

“It was late. I didn’t have a way back home. And I guess the guy at the front forgot about me. It was dark anyway.” He looked up at her; the woman’s mouth was open. “There was a mattress in there. A lot firmer than the one back
at Tyson’s place. I think he pulled that thing out of the trash anyway. It smells funny.”

“How did Tyson find you?”

“He put two and two together. Saw that the key was gone. He showed up the next day.”

“What precipitated your leaving?”

“Ma’am?”

“Why did you leave in the first place?”

“We had a disagreement.”

“About what?”

“Tyson wanted me to apologize to his neighbors, and I said I wouldn’t.”

Lisa took a sip of her double-espresso caffe mocha. “Apologize for what?”

“I kinda rearranged their mailbox.”

“You have a reason?”

“Yeah. Not a real good one, but I had a reason.”

“What did they do, look at you wrong?”

“No, the kids over there took my hat. Threw it in the mud.”

“The one your dad gave you?”

Tim nodded.

Lisa sighed. “I thought you said it was going okay at Tyson’s.”

Tim pulled the top off his Big Gulp and took a drink of Mountain Dew. They were sitting at a picnic table in a park not far from his house. He crunched an
ice chip and looked away. “Tyson said the next place I’d go was some home for wayward youth. That not even foster parents would take a 15-year-old with troubles.”

“That’s not true,” Lisa said. “If it’s a bad situation, I want to get you out of there. I may have another option for you.”

“Somebody else who needs money on the side? Tyson sure doesn’t use the money he gets for food, because the fridge is pretty empty except for his favorite beer.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. “I want you to hang tough with Tyson and Vera. It won’t be much longer. Just try to stay out of his way. In the meantime, I want you to have these.”

She handed him the envelope. It had something written on the front in a fancy cursive, so curly and flowing he almost didn’t recognize his own name. “What’s this?”

“Open it.”

He took out four red and white tickets with
Daytona 500
written across the top. “You gotta be kidding me.” Tim stared at the tickets. Four passes to the infield at Daytona. He could see some of his old friends. Catch up on the latest with the crews. Maybe even see Charlie Hale if the guy had gotten a job. “How’d you get these?”

“The people at NASCAR have good memories. The lady I talked with said any race you want to see, you’re there.
If
you feel okay about going back into that world.”

Tim smiled. “Better than the one I’m in right now. You want to go? You and your husband and somebody else?”

“I wish I could. And I’m sure my husband would kill me for turning you down. But I’ve got a trip scheduled that weekend. You have any problem getting over there?”

“I know the road like the back of my hand. Just hop on 10, turn right on 95.”

“I meant, do you know who you’ll go with?”

“Tyson would probably want to adopt me if he saw four tickets to Daytona.” Tim laughed. “I don’t think I’ll let him know.”

“Is there anyone from your school who’d like to go?”

“You kidding? Only about a hundred people. I’ll be the most popular kid there.”