The Arrangement (23 page)

Evie closed her eyes and tried to picture Ben’s face. For weeks she’d pushed that image out of her mind. His face sharpened from a dim memory into the expression he wore the day she confronted him. She clenched her fists and forced her eyes open again.

“It’s not fair,” she whimpered. “He’s still out there, dating and acting like nothing is wrong. And he’s living in a new apartment and driving a new truck. That’s my worth to him—unimportant stuff. He doesn’t know what real worth is.”

Brooke grasped Evie’s hand and squeezed it between both of hers. “Evie, the wonderful news is you have someone who loves you so much more than a truck or an apartment. He loves you with his life. That’s what Christianity is all about. God wants us to live to glorify him, but he gives us his undying, unconditional love. No one could offer him enough money to walk away from you.”

“I can’t believe I could have skipped all this heartbreak if I’d made this decision earlier,” Evie whispered.

“Girl, being human means having heartbreak.” Brooke laughed, then continued in a more serious tone, “But having God on your side means you won’t go through it alone.”

Evie cocked her head. “What about you, Brooke? I’ve focused so much on my own problems and my own selfishness, I haven’t even asked about you. You haven’t mentioned a boyfriend or what’s going on with you.” She stopped for a minute and watched Brooke turn her eyes away. “You have your own heartbreak, don’t you?”

“We all do,” she murmured as she gathered up her plate and cup to take them to the sink.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“You don’t want to be bored with the details of my life. We should be celebrating your adoption into God’s family.” Brooke’s smile wavered as she faced Evie again.

“But, Brooke, being friends, being family, means sharing the good and the bad, right? I’ve never been that kind of a friend to anyone. No one confides secrets or problems with me. I’m the good-time friend. But I’ve shared my heartache with you, so won’t you at least give me a chance to be that kind of friend to you?”

Tears now shone in Brooke’s brown eyes. “The doctors diagnosed my mom with terminal lung cancer this summer. My dad walked out on her my freshman year, and I haven’t heard from him. I’m not even sure where he lives now. When she’s gone, I’ll be all alone.”

Dear God,
Evie prayed for the second time in the last half hour,
I’m not ready to handle this. I’ve only been a Christian for a few minutes. I can’t help her.
Her heart panicked. Then, all of a sudden, peace descended and words were given to her.

“But you’re not alone.” Evie forced the air through her throat to make the sounds audible. “You just told me God is always with us, and he will never stop loving us.”

“I know,” Brooke whispered. “But believing it when times are good is easy. Relying on him to keep loving me and not leave me alone through this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Evie wrapped one arm around her new friend, her body shuddering from the force of Brooke’s sobs. “Dear Lord,” she began in a soft, slow voice, “I’ve only been a Christian for a short time. And I don’t really know how to pray. But you put Brooke into my life to be my friend when I needed one the most. She led me back to you. Please let me be a friend to her now. Show me what to do or say to help her. Heal her mother. Comfort her. Give her more time to spend with her mother and to let her know she’s not all alone.”

Only the sound of Brooke’s sobs broke the silence.

)

Evie’s eyes burned as she slid into the warm seats of her BMW hours later. She flipped down the visor to peer into the tiny makeup mirror on the other side. Red streaks replaced the makeup she’d applied earlier in the day.

Brooke talked about her life growing up with her parents and how her father never went to church with them or participated in the family Bible studies. He spent most of his free time out with friends and rarely attended any of her school events or helped her with homework. When he left, he told her mother he had agreed to stay until Brooke was grown. He had no obligation to either of them anymore.

The more Brooke talked, the more Evie saw hers and Ben’s faces replacing those of Brooke’s parents. How easily she could have found herself married to a man who cared little about God and who would care even less about her down the road.
Thank you, Lord, for saving me from that,
she breathed. She flipped the visor back into place and started her car.

She couldn’t help but think of her own parents. They might not be happily married, but they still supported each other and their children. Guilt bombarded her as she recalled her treatment of her parents over the last several weeks. The only time she had seen them since they told her about the money they gave to Ben was at Thanksgiving, and she only ate dinner with them and then retreated to her room again.

When she arrived back at the sorority house, she knew what she had to do. She slipped up to her room, avoiding the other girls in the house. One day soon her sisters there would find out she had a new family. She wanted them to know…and to be a part of her new family too. But tonight she had a more important task.

Fishing her cell out of her backpack, she perched on her bed and dialed her parents.

“Hello,” her father answered.

“Hey, you home alone tonight?” she said before she plunged into the real reason for her call.

“Yep, your mom’s out with her friends. What’s going on with you, Evie? You okay?” In the background the noise of the television faded until Evie could not even hear a low murmur.

“Yeah,” she hedged, “I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

“Are you talking to me again?” His voice hinted of a sarcastic smile.

“Yeah.” She twisted her tongue to one side of her mouth and back again. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have acted like I did. You were only trying to protect me.” She listened to the silence on the other end. “Dad?”

“Yes.” His voice bobbled.

“Just making sure you were still there.”

“I’m still here,” he confirmed.

“Do you remember Brooke? She and I were in the youth group together. We were pretty good friends in high school.”

“I think so. Isn’t she the one who always sang solos in the Christmas programs?”

“I think so.” She paused. “That’s kind of an odd thing to remember.”

Her father chuckled. “I guess so. I didn’t make it to your youth group stuff at church, but I remember her name being on the program a lot.”

“Oh.” Evie realized the conversation had drifted off course, so she jumped in with what she really wanted to say. “I had dinner with her tonight, and she told me about her parents. Did you know them?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Her father left her mother after Brooke graduated from high school. He never took part in Brooke’s life, and when she moved to college, he decided she didn’t need a father anymore. Evidently he only stayed for her.” Silence met her story on the other end. She rubbed her forehead for a minute. “He wasn’t like you, Dad. You were there. And you didn’t give us up just because we don’t live there anymore. I could really see Ben being like that. Actually, I don’t even know if he would have stayed until our children moved away once he realized life wasn’t going to be one party after another. So you were right.”

“What?” he asked. “Say that last part again?”

She wrinkled her eyebrows. “Which part?”

“That last one. About me.”

“You were right.” She groaned, a smile overtaking her tense face.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” he assured her. He waited a minute before speaking again. “I love you, Evie. And I know you think this all has to do with money. I could care less about the money. In fact, if I valued money much, I wouldn’t spend all weekend at the casino,” he confessed. “But we do have a lot of people looking at us. And I want you to be someone people trust. If you are married to someone like Ben, people wouldn’t trust you because they wouldn’t trust him. I sensed that side of him from the beginning, but I gave him a chance to prove it and he did. I didn’t want you to get hurt. But I know how much more it would have hurt later if you made the mistake of marrying him.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. I know you love me. I guess I didn’t understand exactly what you wanted from me,” she explained.

“I don’t want anything from you. I want everything
for
you,” he clarified.

“That’s funny. I’ve been going to church with Brooke, and that’s what she said about Jesus,” Evie confided in a low voice. Her heart gained momentum, switching from a rhythmic
thud, thud, thud
to a racing
thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump.
“I got saved tonight, Dad,” she told him.

“Saved from what?” he asked.

“Saved from hell.” She breathed deep, filling her lungs until her chest puffed outward and then releasing it in a slow stream of air through her lips. “I accepted Christ as my Lord. I wanted you to know.” Her breathing stopped as she waited for her father to speak again.

“That’s good to know, kiddo. You know I’ve always been proud of you.”

Huh? What does he mean by that?
“Thanks, Dad. Will you tell Mom when she gets home?” Evie had no idea what her mother would say, but she didn’t think her heart could handle another anxious moment.

“If I’m awake, I’ll try to remember,” he assured her. “Hey, how’s school going? You’ve got finals in the next few weeks, right? When will you be home for Christmas?”

She slumped her shoulders and fell backwards onto her bed as the conversation glided from her recent salvation to the subject of schoolwork. Another minute of random chit-chat and she ended the call.

She inspected the paint pattern on the ceiling as thoughts about the day swirled around her. She wanted to talk to Eli. He would be a lot more excited about this than her father appeared. But would he think she did it because he wanted her to do it? She could honestly tell herself, and him, that he had not entered her mind when she had prayed with Brooke.

“I can’t do this for anybody else,” she admitted to the ceiling and any other inanimate object in her room. “From what Brooke said tonight I have a lot of challenges ahead.”

She yawned and pushed herself from her bed. She heard slipper-clad footsteps scuffling down the hallway outside her room and cracked the door to see who was still socializing this late. The back of a pair of pink cotton pajamas disappeared behind a door at the end of the hallway. On the floor next to her door sat a cellophane-wrapped package with a bright yellow tag attached. She stooped to pick up the bag and closed the door again.

To Evie. From your secret pal,
a rounded cursive handwriting read. Evie smiled and untied three narrow strands of red and green ribbon. She pulled a hardback book out of the wrapping. The cover read,
Devotions for the College Student
.

A slow smile spread across Evie’s face. Did she and her secret pal share a new friend? How would someone at the house know about her decision? She had only told her father. Did one of her sisters go to the same church and see her there? She hugged the book close to her and closed her eyes. “Lord, I don’t know who she is, but thank you for letting me know I’m not alone as a Christian in this house.”

13

)

vie tapped her pen on the notebook in front of her. Without looking, she knew her watch had read only five minutes since the last time she checked. The words in front of her, written in her own handwriting, blurred the more she read them. She dropped her pen on top of the notebook and held her head in her hands.

“Why am I so anxious?” she whispered to herself. With only one final left before the Christmas holidays, she should be celebrating. All afternoon she’d listened to the faint sounds of Christmas carols floating down the hallway from the room of one of her sorority sisters who dared to break the “quiet hours” rule enforced only the week of finals. Her zippered suitcase held all the clothes and other supplies she would need for the four-week Christmas break. She’d packed it earlier in the day in another effort at procrastination.

The sink and small vanity in her room shined with cleanliness. Her shoes sat all reunited with their mates and at attention in the floor of her neatly arranged closet. When she could find no more spaces to clean, she flipped open the notebook for her newswriting class and allowed her eyes to roam over the pages of notes from the semester. She tapped her foot, her pen, and her fingers one at a time…then started the cycle all over again.

“Focus, Evie,” she commanded herself. Lifting her head, she trained her eyes on the pages in front of her.

A moment later she stopped again when she heard a muffled ring. Scooting her chair back, she leaned to retrieve her purse from the smooth covers of her bed. After reading the number on the caller ID, she was confused.

“Hello?” she answered on the fourth or fifth ring.

“Evelyn?” an unknown professional-sounding male voice asked from the other end of the line.

“This is Evie,” she answered with a question in her voice.

“Hi, Evie, I’m Michael Hudson, a friend of your parents. Your father suggested that I call you,” he started to explain.

Evie rolled her eyes. She and Eli had not spoken for over a month. Her parents must have given up on their first choice and moved on to someone else. She pursed her lips. “Mr. Hudson, I’m sure you’re a really nice guy and my parents have good intentions, but I’m really not interested. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” he whispered. She heard papers shuffling on the other end of the line. “Well, I guess that’s all I needed to know. It was nice talking to you.”

“You, too,” she murmured.

“Good-bye.”

Evie hung up without responding. She inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled again. “Lord, can they not leave me alone?” she asked, gazing upward while her fingers dialed her father’s cell number.

“How are finals going?” her father asked when he answered.

“Fine,” she grumbled.

“What’s wrong?” her father quizzed her.