What Would Emma Do? (15 page)

“So now Colin is Mr. Relationship Expert?” I gave a snort.

“Well, don’t be all mad at me, you asked.” Joann stretched her neck, trying to see what the lunch ladies were serving. “Can you tell what they’re having? I’m starving.”

“You must be feeling better if you’re hungry for anything they make here.”

Joann stopped in line and looked me straight in the eye, her chin thrust up like a challenge.

“I went home yesterday and had the doctor check me out. I’m feeling fine now.”

“Good.” We stared each other down for a beat and then started shuffling forward again. So much for clearing the air on the passing-out issue. No wonder I have no social life, I can’t even make it through a lunch period without ticking off my best friend. I tried changing the conversation.

“I heard you and Colin were nominated for the king and queen thing for the dance. That’s cool.”

“I know! I couldn’t believe it. It never even occurred to me that we’d be nominated. Of course anyone can be nominated, it doesn’t mean we’ll make the court or anything.”

“Well, you’ll get my vote.”

“Were you ticked?”

“About what?”

Joann’s face went blank, her eyes wide. I’ve known her for far too long. There’s no way she is even capable of keeping a secret.

“What would I be ticked about?” I asked again.

“It’s nothing.”

“Joann.”

“I heard someone nominated you and Todd.”

“Nice.”

“I’m sure it was just a joke.”

“Ha ha. The humor in this place kills me.”

“Mr. Karp took your names off the list,” Joann said.

“That hardly seems fair. What if we sweep the elections?”

“Todd can’t win, he’s suspended.”

“Right. I’m sure that’s all that is keeping me from the sash and crown.”

The lunch lady dropped a glop of mystery casserole onto my tray. It was gray. I could think of no food product that was gray. The second lady put a spoonful of canned peaches in another section of the tray, topped it off with a slice of buttered Wonder bread, and passed it back to me. Ah, the lunch of champions.

I sat down at our table, but Joann was still standing, holding her tray.

“What’s up?”

“Why don’t we go over there?” Joann motioned toward a table near the window. Darci and her posse were sitting there, waving madly at Joann, as if this was wartime and Joann was their long-lost relative. I had my suspicions about who had nominated Todd and me.

“You go on ahead. I think I’m going to just grab a candy bar out of the vending machine or something.”

“You sure?” Joann was already walking in their direction. She paused briefly to look back at me. I wanted her to sit with me without me having to ask her. I tried sending mental best friend psychic waves.

“Yeah. I’m not really hungry.”

“Okay then—catch you later.”

I watched her walk away. Darci and her friends all moved to the side to make room for her at the table and then closed ranks around her. No one else had gotten sick since Joann, or since Todd was suspended. Of course, no one was left to pass out anymore either. Well, no one except us losers.

I walked over to the garbage cans and dumped the tray over, watching my lunch slide into the trash.

23

God, people have been talking about the end of the world forever. There are tons of theories about when you’re going to bring about the “big finish.” Everything could be taken as a sign you’re right around the corner and getting ready to kick ass and take names…but nothing happens. Times like now I almost wish you would come. Senior year isn’t exactly panning out the way I had in mind, and it’s possible the apocalypse might actually pick things up for me. I know that doesn’t say much for my life.

It was only the third afternoon I had spent helping Reverend Evers and yet it felt like it had been, give or take, a thousand years. Todd hadn’t called me, and since my mother had declared a fatwa on any social connection to Todd and was monitoring my every move, I couldn’t reach him. Maybe Todd was mad that I’d run out after our kiss, without any explanation. I wanted to explain, but I wasn’t sure how. Then again it’s possible that Todd wasn’t thinking about me at all, and that’s why he didn’t call. I wasn’t sure which was worse; that it didn’t matter to him or that he was pissed.

Spending afternoons at the church was like a time black hole where nothing changed and nothing moved forward. One afternoon I swear I saw the clocks running ever so slightly backward. Figures, the first real miracle in my life, and it’s one that makes my life worse. The sad thing was that being at the church was the only real social interaction I was getting these days. Colin and I were back to acting like we hardly knew each other, and he was pulling the silent treatment on the whole Todd issue. He was the only one being silent; everyone else in school couldn’t stop talking about Todd. Despite Officer Ryan’s promise to Todd’s family to keep the whole thing under wraps, everyone seemed to know every detail of his suspension and the details they didn’t know they just made up. Never let truth get in the way of a really good story.

The tasks I had been given to do at church that, in theory, were going to make me a better person included all of the following: picking gum off the church steps, polishing the church pews, making copies of the song sheets for service, and weeding the front flower beds. It was not made clear how menial labor was supposed to shape my character. I could almost bear it except for the fact that Reverend Evers loved to sit in the church and discuss scripture while I did my chores. Actually, “discuss” is going too far. It implies he wanted any input from me. “Lecture” might be closer to what was happening. Although I have no proof, I strongly suspect that Reverend Evers makes Bible flash cards. He appears to have memorized the complete text. He could pull out a relevant quote for any subject, even subjects I’m pretty sure aren’t covered in the Bible.

Today I was assembling baskets for the food bank in Van Wert. If poverty wasn’t bad enough, I was noticing another problem. The baskets were full of crappy food: plain oatmeal, brown rice, cans of no-name tuna, and generic-brand bran flakes. The no-name tuna looked particularly shifty, like it might be made from regular-brand tuna leftovers, fins, scales, and eyeballs. Way too much fiber, way too little food with flavor. I would not have been shocked to see industrial-size containers of gruel.

“Maybe we should put some cookies or something in here,” I said.

“These baskets are for the poor, Emma. They don’t need dessert, they need sustenance. ‘Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.’ First Corinthians. This isn’t about doing things that would make you feel better, this is about doing what needs to be done.”

“Cookies are sustenance, and they aren’t puffed up. I mean, I get that we shouldn’t make up baskets full of junk food, but there isn’t anything tasty in here.”

I picked up another can of lima beans and put it in the basket. Lima beans? Does anyone actually eat those things? Maybe I could write it up: the canned lima bean poverty diet.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves. If we give people cookies, then they have no reason to work for them. It might seem as if it is nice, but remember the Lord wants us to teach people to fish, not give them fish.”

“Giving the poor lima beans will inspire them to work harder?” This seemed like a dodgy theory to me. I have to think if it was that easy to wipe out poverty, someone else would have thought of it. Don’t they have entire think tanks in Washington focused on solving these kinds of problems?

“In a way, yes. By giving people lima beans it inspires them to want for more and then to work for it. People need to learn values. Now, it’s not a one-way street. We learn from the poor too. The poor provide us a chance to show charity.”

“So you’re saying God made some people poor so that those of us who aren’t poor will learn to be kind?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sort of a rotten deal for the people born poor, isn’t it?”

“The Lord works in very mysterious ways.”

I was considering telling him there was mysterious and then there was downright twisted, when the phone rang.

Reverend Evers leaned back with a sigh. He likes his wife to answer the phone, and she was out for the day. I have the sense he feels the church should pay for a secretary. Answering the phone is beneath him. Unfortunately for him, Trinity Evangelical is not one of those giant churches seating a few thousand, with giant collection plates to match. There is no money in the church budget for a support staff. Perhaps the Lord was using this as an opportunity for those who had clerical support to learn charity, but I was pretty sure that Reverend Evers wouldn’t appreciate this insight. I continued to pack the baskets, but pretty quickly it was becoming clear that something exciting was going on.

Reverend Evers had been seated behind his desk. It was huge, at least six feet long with carved legs and a million drawers. Entire rain forests may have been slaughtered to create this desk. If you ask me, no one needs a desk that big unless they have something to prove. The chair was just as fancy, burgundy leather, like a wingback chair on casters. I heard Reverend Evers make a surprised noise and I looked over to see him stand up as if he was at attention. He wasn’t saluting, but he looked like he was ready to give it a try.

“Well, sir, I am very pleased to hear from you,” Reverend Evers said.

He didn’t look pleased, he looked ecstatic. He looked like how I imagine I would look if Prince William gave me a quick ring to see how I was doing and ask if I was interested in a trip to England. His one hand was holding the receiver and the other was fluttering at his side as if he might lift off, a giant six-foot hummingbird with a comb-over. I stopped even making a pretense of packing the baskets and listened.

“Indeed, it was disturbing. These children are our future.” He nodded madly at whatever the person was saying on the line. “Why, I hadn’t considered that…. No, I see the benefits, of course…. We would be most humbled, sir…. Why, when the ladies at the church council hear about this, they’ll be just as pleased as punch. Tickled pink…Of course, Trinity Evangelical is my flock, not that I would want to glorify myself, of course, but I would want…really?” His face broke into a huge smile, as if the Publishers Clearing House folks had just pulled up and were hauling a giant cardboard check with his name on it up the front stoop. “And you have a name for the event?…Faith Forward? Why, I think that is lovely. The governor? Well…You know what the Bible says, ‘And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother.’ We’ll begin preparations right away. My wife and I would of course welcome you to stay in our home…. No, of course I understand. We’ll talk to you soon.”

Reverend Evers placed the receiver down carefully as if it might explode. He stood still for a second and then began to pace back and forth behind his desk. He wrung his hands together.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

Reverend Evers turned to face me. His face had this wide smile, as if he had just had a religious vision. He threw his arms wide, and I feared for a second that he might fall to his knees.

This is how I came to be the second person in Wheaton to know that
Born-Again Today
, the TV show, was coming to town.

24

God, who am I to cast stones? But if you want a piece of advice, you might want to take a look down here and see who’s talking about you. You’ve got quite a few people, in pretty much every far corner of the world, who proclaim they are tight friends with you and have the okay to speak on your behalf. Then they say some pretty foul things, and some of the things they do would curl that giant white beard you’ve got going. Trust me on this—when your own so-called friends start talking about you, you really develop a reputation.

Born-Again Today
is hosted by Reverend Maxwell Teaks, also known as Miracle Max. My grandmother loves this show. I fully expect that when she dies we’ll discover that she’s signed over the family farm to him. Reverend Teaks is from the fire-and-brimstone revival style of preaching. The kind you see on cable channels early on Sunday mornings, with choirs singing away behind him and hordes of people swaying back and forth. He works himself up into a lather and cries out “Jee-zus.” Heavy on the
z
sound. Then various people wander down the aisle to be healed. He places his hand on their heads and then sort of shoves them back. They either get better, in which case it’s due to the good reverend (with help from the Lord, of course), or they don’t, in which case the afflicted person’s faith is found wanting. The world according to Reverend Teaks is pretty black and white. He doesn’t view many issues as falling into a morally gray zone. The way he sees it, either it is right (thus sanctioned by God and the good reverend) or wrong (thus dooming the person in question to an eternity of twisting and burning like a kebob on a Weber grill).

Teaks has gotten himself into trouble here and there. His views aren’t always popular. When there was a hurricane a few years ago, Reverend Teaks gave his opinion that the cities that took the hardest hit had to pay a price because of their loose morals. He said the cities wouldn’t have been harmed if they hadn’t condoned abortion, gays, and premarital sex. You would think if God wanted to take out some nudie bars and a pride parade he could be a bit more pointed in his destruction and not have to take out the whole city.

Now
Born-Again Today
was going to do a live show from right here in Wheaton. It was going to be a special called “Faith Forward” and would highlight how, with the help of faith, we were fighting “terror in the heartland.” How exactly faith would stop the reign of terror wasn’t exactly clear to me, but the details didn’t appear to matter to anyone else. The cable channel was running ads that flashed shots of the Columbine killers, then Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the twin towers, and then a picture of the good reverend in front of a waving American flag. The event was growing too big to fit in the church, and it quickly became clear that it wouldn’t work in the school gym, either. People from all over the state were signing up to come. A giant white tent was shipped up from Indianapolis, and the Hansen family donated one of their fields for the site. There were rumors that news agencies were going to come to town to cover the event. The governor of Indiana had already indicated that he was coming, and one of the ladies at Sheer Beauty told everyone that she had it on good authority that Larry King might show up.