Small Town Sinners (3 page)

Dad turns around, grinning. “I’m sorry, Maryanne,” he says. “These are just blanks—I promise. But I think your tears prove that this little lady is effective.” He eyes the gun admiringly and places it back under the pulpit.

Suddenly, I hear a voice above the mutters. It’s coming from the back of the sanctuary.

“Pastor Byer,” says the low voice, and though it’s soft, it echoes with a quiet confidence. I turn to see the golden boy from the DMV slowly walking down the center aisle. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a sunny yellow polo shirt, and he hasn’t taken off his sunglasses, even though he’s inside. I wonder if he always wears them. He’s closer to the front now, almost to my row, and he lowers his voice to continue.

“Excuse me, but isn’t that a little …,” he pauses, glancing over at our row. His eyes move in my direction, but I can’t tell if he’s looking at me—the lenses are too dark. “Extreme?”

A hush has fallen over absolutely everyone. You could hear the Holy Ghost breathe it’s so quiet.

Then my dad’s familiar voice answers, and it’s tinged with the fervor he gets when he feels really passionate about something.

“Son,” says my dad, staring back at the preppy newcomer with determined eyes. “You gotta shake ’em to wake ’em.”

The new guy’s lips turn up in a half smile, and he nods his head, finally lifting up his sunglasses. He joins our row, sitting down next to Dean. “Yes, sir,” he says.

Chapter Three

When I get home that night, all I want to do is talk to Starla Joy and Dean about what happened today at church. My parents whisked me away after the Hell House meeting, so aside from a few “OMW!” texts (for “Oh my word!”), the discussion about the new guy hasn’t started yet. I didn’t even get to say hello to him after the meeting, which wasn’t very neighborly.

I’m sure Dean and Starla Joy are messaging up a storm, but our only computer is in the living room, and Dad’s using it while Mom makes dinner.

I sit down on a stool in the kitchen and take a pretzel stick from the jar on the counter. Mom looks up.

“I won’t ruin my dinner,” I say. “I’m just really hungry.”

“Good,” says Mom, smiling at me, “because I made a lot.”

She pauses for a moment like she’s thinking about something. “Honey, do you think Dean will get involved with the craft auction again this year?” she asks.

“Probably,” I say, shrugging and crunching on my pretzel.

“It’s going to be great,” she says. “Leslie Davis and I just started planning it. Laura Bergen can bead some more of her gorgeous earrings and I’ll see if Dean can build some of his miniature houses. People just love those for Christmas decorations.”

I nod. Mom can get very excited about charity auctions.

“I’ll ask him about it at dinner tomorrow,” she says, smiling at the thought.

Dean’s coming over to help my dad with a project he’s working on in the garage. Dad likes tiny little scale models of towns, and I just don’t see what’s cool about them. Dean does, though. He and my dad have been building this one together for months.

Mom turns back to the stove, and I watch her stir the sauce for spaghetti. She starts humming—the sign of a good mood—and I see my opening.

“Mom,” I say, “if you’re not going out tonight, maybe I can take the car and pick up Starla Joy and Dean so we can get ice cream or something after dinner.” It’s not a lie—we will get ice cream. And we’ll talk about the new guy! I’m almost giddy with anticipation, but I’m trying to act normal. It doesn’t help.

“I don’t think so, honey,” says Mom, her hands covered in blue flowered mitts as she pours the water from the pot of spaghetti over the strainer in the sink.

“Maybe tomorrow night, kiddo,” says Dad, when I turn to the living room with plaintive eyes to get his take on this obviously unfair negging of my completely reasonable request. “We need to go over some rules for the car now that you’ll be taking it out on your own.”

I frown but I don’t say anything. I’ve never been able to push the issue when it comes to my parents. I’m their only child, and I guess they just want to watch out for me. But I feel a tightness in my chest, like there’s something constricting it, and I have to take a deep breath to get the air flowing again.

“Dinner’s ready!” says my mother brightly, ignoring my sigh and taking off her purple polka-dotted apron. She starts shredding some fresh Parmesan as a final touch.

When Mom sits down, we all bow our heads automatically. Every night Dad says the same prayer, but he tweaks it a little so that I’m grateful for something specific in my day. He’s been doing that since as far back as I can remember. Tonight Dad says, “Lord, thank you for bringing this food to our table so we may enjoy time as a family and the sustenance of you, our God. Thank you for this year of Lacey’s official Hell House debut, which she will use to turn hearts your way. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”

“Amen,” we echo.

I decide to go for a walk after dinner. My parents may still control the car, but it feels good to just say, “Going for a walk,” and then head out the door without waiting for permission. Baby steps.

I take my iPod and put it on shuffle so it can set my mood for me. It cycles to an old Abandon song. I turn left and walk down the street, taking in all the different mailboxes—the Carters have a painting of cardinals on theirs, the Gregorys went for solid black with a simple red flag, and the Shipmans’ is shaped like a boat. Ha-ha.

Suddenly I hear a loud car coming down the road behind me. Our street is a known cut-through in town, so people drive too fast sometimes. One of Mom’s pet projects is trying to get speed bumps put in, but she hasn’t been successful. Maybe because the mayor uses this route to get home from city hall.

I step onto the Shipmans’ lawn and look over my shoulder at the approaching car. It’s loud. Really loud. Like someone took off the muffler. It’s also red. I half expect it to be some vintage hot rod like Starla Joy’s father used to work on in their driveway when he was still around, but when it speeds past me I see that it’s an ancient eighties BMW with rust on the trunk. And I see a flash of the person in the driver’s seat. It’s him.

My heart speeds up.
Please see me and stop, please see me and stop.
But the rusty red BMW just speeds past, and I’m left to continue my normal, everyday neighborhood walk. See, this is the difference between real life and the movies—in a movie, he would have stopped. Or at least waved or something. He probably didn’t even see me. I’m transparent.

I’ve never had a boyfriend. Last year my dad gave me a True Love Waits ring as a symbol of how I’ve promised to remain a virgin until I get married. It’s silver and shiny, with a cross in the middle and two hearts on the sides, but I feel like it’s unnecessary. I don’t need a ring to remind me to stay pure—I haven’t even kissed a guy, let alone gotten close to anything beyond that. Maybe because I’ve known everyone who lives here my whole life, and they’ve known me—and I’ve always been a good girl. I don’t think the boys in this town see me that way at all.

Starla Joy has kissed people. Two, in fact, but both of us know we won’t go any further until we’re married. I don’t want some throwaway boyfriend; I’m waiting for something that lasts, like in that movie
The Notebook
, which Starla Joy and I have watched together about thirty times. Even though Dean makes fun of me for believing in fairy tales, I want a love like that one day, one that spans decades and withstands hardships and even disease. It’s just hard to see the guys you’ve been with since kindergarten as anything more than paste eaters sometimes. The thought of something different is … exciting. He doesn’t know who I am or what I’m like or how I’m supposed to be. I could be brand new. If he’d just talk to me.

I’m heading back to my house after half an hour of meandering around the road I’ve walked all my life when the loud sound of a missing muffler rises over the strains of Taylor Swift’s best love song. And I turn to face the car.

He aims right for me as he slows down, leaning the hood a little to the left so I’ll be dead center in his headlights. I’m too astonished to be scared.
Something is happening.

The car stops a foot in front of the curb and his blond-with-sunglasses-on-top head pops out of the driver’s side window. “I’m Ty,” he says, smiling a smile that lights up the street. “Wanna go for a drive?”

Chapter Four

I stare back at him blankly. I have never even met this guy. Well, I guess I saw him at the DMV, and then he sat near me in church … and he did just tell me his name and technically that could be considered “meeting,” but really? I would
never
get in that loud red BMW.

But why not?
Maybe that’s why nothing happens to me—good or bad. I don’t take risks.

I’m actually considering getting in the car, but he breaks first.

“Okay, fine, you won’t get in, I’ll get out,” he says, turning off his engine.

He steps out of the car and into the night. When he slams his door shut, I jump, wondering if anyone heard.

“Are you really leaving the car in the street like that?” I ask, staring at the way it’s diagonally angled at the Shipmans’ lawn.

“Who’s gonna care?” he asks, smiling confidently.

Everyone.

He gestures to the curb. “Sit with me?” he asks.

My heart is pounding and I feel the need to stabilize my balance a little, so I don’t say no. I actually sit down next to him.

“Your dad’s a pastor at the House of Enlightenment,” he says, nodding like he already knows this for sure.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m Lacey Byer.”

He nods. Then it’s quiet again, and he doesn’t ask another question, just stares at the dark pavement by our feet. My head is down too, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye, and I have the urge to get a better look at his face, which is just inches away. I slowly raise my glance, but as I do, his head pops up.

“Where are you from?” I hear myself ask. The words just tumble out of my mouth; I want to distract him from the fact that I was looking at him just now.

He stares at me with these blue eyes, squinting a little, like he’s trying to figure something out without speaking. I start to blush because he hasn’t answered my question, and I realize I’m looking at him like he’s an alien or something, like I expect him to say he’s from Mars or the Planet of the Apes.

“I lived just on the other side of the state,” he says. “A few hours east of here in a small town. Have you been out that way?”

He’s staring at me again, and as I shake my head no—I’ve never been anywhere—I start to think about what I look like, how he’s seeing me. My hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, and a few strands are falling in my eyes, which I can tell are wide with surprise at this moment, here with new-in-town Ty. I’m wearing my favorite blue tank top, and I have on a jean skirt that goes down to my knees. I wish it were shorter, like the ones Starla Joy wears. My bony arms are by my sides and my legs are pulled into my chest protectively. I must look like a scared little bird.

But I don’t want to be fragile right now. Ty probably spends his summers swimming at country clubs where girls watch the sun glint off his golden hair as beads of water drip down his tan skin. I feel myself flush, but luckily it’s ninety degrees out so that’s not out of the ordinary. I straighten my spine, trying to seem older, more confident. More like a girl that Ty would want to sit out on the curb with after dinner.

He reaches his hand toward my face, and I jump up, standing so fast I nearly topple over.
Nice work, you silly, frightened starling.
There goes my cool-and-confident vibe. I put my hands in the back pockets of my jean skirt.

Ty laughs softly. “Your hair was …,” he starts.

“I know,” I say quickly. “It’s always in my face.” And I wish I’d stayed still so he could have brushed it back. That would have been nice. But now I’m standing here awkwardly and there’s this silence again.

“I’m sorry if I startled you with the car,” says Ty. “I just wanted to, um, meet you, I guess.”

I hear a dog barking in the distance—probably Mrs. Pearson’s beagle—and I have the urge to bolt.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Okay,” he says, standing up to brush off his jeans. “I’ll see you in church then, Lacey.”

“Okay,” I say. And then, because I want to make something more happen, I add, “You know, Hell House auditions are next week.”

Ty just stares at me through the shadow of night. I can hear the crickets chirping on the carefully kept lawns of my neighborhood. Usually it’s comforting, but right now it sounds empty.

“So how does Hell House work, anyway?” Ty asks, mercifully breaking the silence. “Does each sin get progressively more sinful?”

He’s looking at me in a way that makes me wonder if he’s messing with me.

“A sin’s a sin,” I say.

“I’ve heard about Hell Houses,” says Ty. “I’ve read about what kind of scenes they include.” He smiles, and then asks, “Do you think murder and using drugs are the same level of offense in God’s eyes?”

“Well, they’re both sins,” I say. “And I’d avoid either at any cost to have hope of getting into heaven.”