The Prince Charming List (25 page)

T
ony Gillespie wasn’t at all what I expected. He looked like a surfer, with sun-bleached hair, vivid green eyes and a brush of golden freckles across his nose. For some reason I’d expected someone older but Tony was close to my age. And he was in a wheelchair.

I took a seat in the back of the church while the teenagers squirmed in the pews, whispering. I looked around but there was no sign of Dex anywhere.

Stephen introduced Tony, who wheeled himself as close as he could to the audience. When he said hello, I understood why. Even with a microphone, his voice was low-pitched and husky. Then he leaned forward. “You should see the other guy.”

There was a faint, nervous ripple of laughter but in that moment, everyone in the room fell in love with Tony Gillespie. Including me.

“Churches ask me to come and give my testimony,” Tony said. “I never quite get that. My testimony is the same as it was five years ago, when the car I was driving rolled over and hit a tree. I got to know Jesus in Sunday school when I was eight. When I was thirteen, I decided He was telling the truth about who He was. When I was sixteen, I went to a youth rally and committed myself to God—and to full-time ministry. That’s my testimony.” Tony let a silence fill the room. We knew there was more. And so did he. “My love for God didn’t change, even though my plans for the future did.”

“My senior year, I started a Bible study that met after school on Fridays. The study happened to end the same time as detention, so every Friday a guy walked out the door with me and gave me a hard time about God. It was a big school but I’d heard about him. That he was a troublemaker. Was on his way to a serious alcohol problem. We started to talk. I’d tell him about God and he’d make fun of me. One Friday night, close to graduation, I was on my way home from the video store when an on-coming car crossed the centerline. I didn’t have time to react. It hit me pretty much head-on.” Tony paused and I could hear the silence stretching across the room. “Now I don’t have to worry about wearing out my shoes.”

Silence.

“Come on now. Even if a joke’s bad, if a preacher’s telling it, you have to laugh.”

The laughter was soft. Hesitant.

“People ask me why God would allow something like this to happen. I’d committed myself to Him. To full-time ministry. Now I can’t walk. But I want you to hear something. I
am
in full-time ministry. It doesn’t look the way I thought it would, but there was a reason God allowed the accident to happen. Maybe it was because the first person I saw when I opened my eyes was my friend from detention. He was the first person I saw because he was the one who hit me.” Tony broke off suddenly and smiled. “The best part of my story isn’t what happened before the accident, it was what happened
after
it. My friend—the one who said he’d never seen evidence of God—is going into full-time ministry. God can take the worst day of our life and make it better. He loves to multiply things. Instead of one missionary, He got two. And those two are going to multiply again. To fifty. Or a hundred. Or a thousand.”

I noticed Dex standing in the shadows in the back of the church. I motioned to the empty seat beside me, but he moved away in the opposite direction. Typical.

The youth group surrounded Tony after his message, so I went into the kitchen to get the snacks out. Stephen had ordered pizzas and I put them all out on a long table, skipping the silverware because these were teenagers, so what was the point? They swarmed into the kitchen like one of Pharaoh’s plagues and ate everything in their path. Since it was smart not to be too close when that occurred, I loaded up the cardboard boxes and took them outside to the Dumpster.

Dex was leaning against the wall, staring up at the sky. I had the feeling he was wishing he were in his plane.

“Hey. There’s pizza inside.”

He didn’t look at me. Strike one. I claimed the spot on the wall beside him.

“Tony has a powerful message, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Annie said he’s a good friend of yours.”

Dex didn’t answer. A tear suddenly rolled down his cheek. What shocked me the most wasn’t that he was crying but that he didn’t bother to try to hide it. Mr. Unemotional?
Crying?
Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a little shake to get his attention. “I’m sorry, Dex. Did you know him before the accident?”

Dex looked down at me. “Yes. I knew him
before
the accident.”

There was something in his voice now that didn’t belong there. I tried to sort through it. Not just pain. It was deeper than that. The instant I realized what it was, Dex nodded.

“Yeah. I was the guy who hit him.”

He eased his hand out of mine and walked away.

I didn’t see Dex the rest of the evening but Tony waved me over, as I was about to leave.

“You’re Heather, aren’t you?” He had an infectious smile that made you want to smile back. So I did.

“Yes, I am.”

“So…did you decide to stay in Prichett?”

That surprised me. Annie must have said something to him.

“I’m not sure yet. Still praying about it.”

“God has a way of turning things upside down. But later on, we find out they’re really right side up. The way they were meant to be. It was
us
who had them upside down.”

“You’re going to have to write that down for me.”

Tony laughed. “He said I’d like you.”

I bent down and gave him an impulsive, holy kiss on the cheek. “Who’s been talking about me? Stephen?”

He tilted his head and looked at me, his eyes clear and lively. “Dex.”

“Why would Dex talk about me?”

Tony laughed again and shook his head. “Why wouldn’t he?”

The kitchen crew finished cleaning up just before eleven and I turned down several offers for a ride home. I needed time to process so I wandered down the middle of Main Street, guided by the streetlights.

I tried to imagine how Dex felt every time he relived his past in Tony’s testimony. A troublemaker. Skeptical about God. Turning to alcohol to cope. Then I added the few things Dex had told me about himself. That he’d been raising his siblings. That he was going into the mission field to take someone’s place.
Tony
’s place. Did that mean even though Tony accepted the way his life had changed, Dex still felt guilty because he’d been the one who’d forced Tony’s life down another road? And those tears…the accident had happened five years ago, but the pain in Dex’s eyes told me that he relived it every day.

I tried to put the Ian Dexter I knew back into the little box I’d created for him when we’d met, but he didn’t fit anymore.

God, whatever Dex is going through right now, show him that You’re there.

That’s when I remembered something Dex had said in the plane. About bearing each other’s burdens and having to be close enough to touch them in order to do that. I knew where Pastor Charles lived so I changed directions and sprinted down a few side streets until I found the house. The lights were still on but I didn’t question my impulsive decision until I was standing at the front door. And
after
I rang the bell.

Dex answered the door. Too easy. I pulled him outside. “Come on.”

I’d taken him by surprise, but now he dug his stubborn heels in the dirt and wouldn’t budge. “I’m going to bed.”

“No, you aren’t. If you were wearing your
Star Wars
pajamas, I’d believe you. Let’s go.” One more tug and he was moving. Except now that I had him, I wasn’t sure what to do with him.

“You can let go of me.”

I let go of his hand but kept a close eye on him. Those television magicians couldn’t compare to Dex when he decided to pull one of his disappearing acts.

“Where are we going?”

“I have no idea.” I hated to admit that. I should have had a destination in mind. “Just work with me, all right? I’m making this up as I go along.”

“Why?”

The question hovered in the air between us. I didn’t know the answer to that one, either, but I could tell he was waiting for an answer. “Maybe I thought you’d want to be alone. Like you thought I wanted to be alone that day Mrs. Darnell came into the salon.”

We turned the corner at Main Street. Now that we were out of the shadows, I tried to read his expression. There was a faint smile on his face. “You aren’t going to take me up in Lester’s plane, are you?”

“Don’t dare me or I’ll have to try. I hate to admit it, but I’m that kind of person.” I suddenly knew where I was going to take him. I snagged his elbow and steered him across the street toward the park. When we reached the swings, I pushed one toward him and sat down in the one next to it.

“I suppose you want to hear every miserable detail?” Dex asked.

“Yup.” I knew he’d manage to condense the story in ten words or less.

Dex was silent and I thought he’d done the turtle-thing again. He pushed back with his heels, setting the swing in motion.

“It was like Tony said. My mom—who happens to be Pastor Charles’s half sister—was an alcoholic. She worked nights for a cleaning service and slept all day. She drank to forget that Dad left her for his secretary. That left me taking care of things at home. Grocery shopping. Feeding my brothers and sisters. Making sure they got their homework done. I got sick of it—and decided if alcohol helped Mom forget her troubles, maybe it would work for me, too. And it did, for a while. I got in trouble and ended up with three months of after-school detention. That’s how I met Tony. I couldn’t stand him. The guy was seriously deranged. I mean, he was happy
all the time
.”

I heard the warmth in Dex’s voice and waited.

“I hadn’t been drinking when I hit his car. I fell asleep at the wheel for about five seconds.
Five seconds.
One of my sisters was sick and I was up with her all night. I walked away without a scratch, but Tony…Tony was driving one of those little matchbox cars. It spun around and hit the ditch. I thought he was dead and I was so ticked off at him. If anyone should have been dead, it should have been
me
. I started yelling at him, telling him that. He opened his eyes and told me that
I
wasn’t ready to die and to shut up because I was giving him a headache.” Dex smiled at the memory.

“When I finally scraped up the courage to visit him in the hospital, he took advantage of my guilty conscience. Every day it was,
Dex, can you read John chapter one to me? Dex, can you read Romans 8:28? Can you look in the notes in the back of my Bible and remind me what it means to be saved by grace?
The day I became a Christian was the day he told me that my soul was worth more than his legs. Hatred, anger, resentment—those were things I’d seen all my life. Forgiveness and second chances were all new to me.”

I looked down, hoping he wouldn’t notice I was about to cry like a baby. Tony’s testimony had been powerful but, for some reason, Dex’s affected me even more. “Why don’t you and Tony travel together? Give
your
testimony?”

Dex shook his head. “Because of my background, I need a lot of space around me. God’s still working on that part of my life. Tony’s always been outgoing. He’s like you. He connects with people. I fly planes.”

“You connect with people better than you think you do. Kaylie. The residents at the Golden Oaks. You just proved you can talk when you want to.” I was teasing him but Dex didn’t look at me. He tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.

“It’s hard to talk when the person you’re with takes your breath away.”

It took a few seconds for his words to register and when they did, I was the one who couldn’t breathe.

He stood up. “I’ll walk you back.”

Just like that.

“I think I’ll stay here a little longer. I need to think.”
About what you just said. And what it meant.

Dex was already walking away, blending into the shadows of the trees. Suddenly he turned around and started walking backward. I could see the moonlight flash across his face. “I think you should stay here.”

“I
am
staying here.”

“Not in the park. In Prichett.”

“You were the one who said cutting hair wasn’t going to impact the world!”

“It won’t. But
you
can.” I heard the laughter in his voice. “If you’ve got a pair of scissors in your hand at the time, it’ll just be more fun for you.”

I stayed in the park for another hour, thinking about Tony. Praying for Dex. And for myself. Remembering the conversations I’d had with Marissa. And Jared. All the thoughts racing through my head should have muddled things up even more, but it was just the opposite.

I’m not sure that God isn’t more interested in what we let Him do in us than in what we do.

Cutting hair won’t impact the world…but you can.