Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2) Page 17

  “I’m set,” I assure both of them, sliding my hands in the back pocket of my jeans and taking a quick look around.

  By all appearances, this looks like a standard party. An adult party. Sure, there is contemporary pop music playing, and the crowd is all under twenty-five, but with rich kids, there’s always the appearance of maturity. Anyone popping pills, blowing lines, or smoking pot is relegated to a room or two upstairs, and there are no beer cans here. There is a tapped keg in the kitchen, some helpful passerby assures me, and wine and liquor are on the bar.

  No one is running around half-naked hooting and hollering, there is no puking into the bushes, and, likely, the cops won’t be called. It is the unspoken responsibility of everyone in attendance to keep up the appearance of having their shit together. Even when it might be the furthest thing from the truth.

  Whitewashed tombs.

  “Where’s Trent?” I blurt out to cover up the scriptures running through my brain.

  Tara winks. “Probably in a dark corner, waiting to corrupt the daughter of a preacher.”

  Winking again, she’s just acknowledged for the first time her knowledge of my paternity. One nice thing about keeping up appearances is the facade of social grace. It’s not likely that anyone will race up to me and play a game of twenty-questions regarding my new role as the daughter of the Evangelical King of Camelot, but their stares say enough. They want to ask. Because, despite the “fame” that I’ve now fallen into, it’s worlds away from anything these kids have ever known, or will ever know.

  “Heard about that, huh?” I nod, slowly, moving toward a wall and away from the center of the room.

  Tara follows, while Mollie spots some of our other friends, and they twitter away down the hall.

  “What the fuck is that shit?” Tara whispers when we’re as away from anyone as we’re likely to get all night.

  I shrug. “I know, right?”

  “You knew he was your dad the whole time?”

  “Well, since I was eight. He didn’t become a pastor till a few years ago and, I mean, how am I supposed to know what big is.”

  Tara waves her hand. “I know, like, everyone has their own damn TV or Internet shows these days.”

  “Right?”

  “Is he like super famous? I mean, I know you were on the Today Show, but, Christ, they interview those people who have like thirty kids at a time. They’re not so selective anymore—no offense.”

  I hold up my hand. “None taken, promise. You know how Trent’s dad is in, like, the hair world?”

  Tara nods, gesturing to the expansive house in which we’re standing.

  “Well,” I sigh, “Roland is like that … but with … Bible thumpers.” I wince internally at my use of Bible thumpers. Where I come from, it’s a perfectly acceptable and understood term, but I think about my good friends at CU and my stomach twists at the derogatory nature of it.

  Still, Tara understands my analogy. “Fuck, dude.”

  “Yep. Fuck.”

  “You supposed to talk like that?” She teases with a smile.

  I role my eyes just as another high school friend—Melanie, now attending Juilliard for dance—approaches.

  “Hey Mel.” I pull her into a side hug and offer a soft kiss on each of her cheeks.

  “Darling,” she draws out dramatically, “it’s been such a tough semester for you. Are you holding up okay?” She kisses my cheeks as she pretends to fuss over me like a worried grandmother.

  Of all of us in our circle of friends, Melanie Dwyer most embraces her privileged upbringing. She was legitimately born to be part of the aristocracy. Her giraffe-like neck and lanky limbs to match allowed her to dive into her passion for ballet. Her mother is an American-born “diplobrat” who spent most of her life traveling the globe as her mother worked in international relations. Melanie’s father comes from a long line of money, though his nationality is suspiciously unclear. All of that aside, Melanie is extremely kind and caring—despite spending less time in reality than the rest of us do.

  “It’s hardly a crisis, but thank you for checking in,” I attempt to reassure her to stop all the fussing.

  She places a bony hand on her slightly protruding collarbone. “Hardly a crisis? Darling, you must still be in shock from the cultural downgrade you’re experiencing. Come.” She grips my hand and leads me to the bar, pouring me a glass of impossibly expensive champagne.

  Where are Trent’s parents, anyway?

  Taking a quick survey of my surroundings, I decide to leave the glass on the bar while I talk with Melanie. I don’t know if anyone here has the gall to take pictures of me and post them on Facebook, but, with how closely Dean Baker claims he’ll be watching me, even being seen in the background of these pictures at all would be enough to cause me migraines for the remainder of the semester, year, or my entire time at CU.

  “Now,” Melanie starts after her sip. Tara has slipped upstairs to do God-knows-what. “Tell me everything.”

  Spanish.

  Her dad must be Spanish, I’ve decided after ten years of knowing her. Her skin is always several shades darker than is natural for inhabitants of New England, and she’s far too conscious of her skin to be seen within fifty-feet of a tanning booth.

  I shake my head. “There’s not really much to tell yet, Mel. Just … trying to get through, you know?”

  She shakes her head as if watching a story about rural poverty. “You poor thing,” she whispers. “Having to play nice with a man who didn’t want you.”

  I know she means well. I think. But, still, it stings.

  “That’s pretty complicated.” I defend Roland, thinking passively that we didn’t communicate with each other yesterday.

  Was he waiting for my cue? Crap. Did I screw up?

  “I’m sure it is. I can’t even imagine. That would be, like, finding out that my father was, I don’t know, a Count, of all things.” She delicately leans her head forward, covering her mouth in a repressed, snotty giggle.

  I laugh, too, even though I haven’t the damnedest idea what she’s talking about. While Melanie laughs at her own “joke”, I survey my surroundings and realize with a startling jolt that I’ve never really belonged anywhere.

  Look at these people.

  Cable-knit sweaters, four-hundred-dollar boots, real diamonds and pearls dangling from buffed and polished necks … Was it always like this? Closing my eyes, I try to recall the smaller, alcohol-free parties in high school. To my horror, I see a very similar scene. How could I have gone all this time—my whole life—without seeing this?

  Sure, my time away at CU has made me realize a lot of things about myself, and how I grew up, but I never expected to come home and feel like this is all … wrong. No one talking about mission trips or prayer circles. Not a single person having a conversation about anything deeper than their wallets. Yes, there are some decent people around me who will undoubtedly grow up to do some amazing humanitarian work, but, really? Is this where I came from? Do I, or did I, come off this way—or worse—to my CU friends? No wonder they looked at me the way they did. And some, honestly, still do.

  I was never an outsider in high school. I was in the in crowd, for God’s sake. I dated the guy who is heir to a bagillion-dollar hair empire. My whole first semester at CU I felt like I was an outsider. Jesus, was I right? I wasn’t an outsider because of my pierced lip or liberal stance on issues that we haven’t even discussed in classes yet. I was—am—an outsider just like they are to me. I claimed I knew where they all came from and what they believed. And, politics aside, certainly a quick Google search shows the median income of my town, along with some of the “notable” people who call my community home for at least part of the year.

  Shit.

  Curling my lip in disgust, I scan the room one more time.

  They think I’m one of these people.

  I am one of these people.

  “I Googled your guidelines when I saw you on the news. That fucking blows, man.”
<
br />   Snapping back into a reality of which I no longer want a part, I see one of my guy friends—Steve, the guy with the sorority girls in his Facebook profile picture—standing in Melanie’s place. She’s off to the side asking questions of some girl while touching the hemline of her dress and making her spin around.

  “You watched my interview?” My nose crinkles in horror.

  He smacks my shoulder. “Of course I did. You’re like a whole new brand of famous. You’re, like, reigning Princess of the Jesus Freaks!”

  I throw my head back and laugh hysterically. I don’t particularly find Steve funny. No one finds Steve as funny as he does, but I’m at some sort of emotional breaking point. Jesus Freaks is a term I’ve used mainly in my head, very little in conversation, and never in high school. Two-thirds of the kids I graduated with were non-practicing Jews, and the other third were comprised of strict, stereotypical Catholics and a few Episcopalians, like myself. Leaving out the Jesuit and other private primary and secondary schools, there isn’t a Jesus Freak in a hundred-mile radius of here.

  Except for now, maybe.

  “I recognize that laugh.” Trent’s milky-smooth voice rounds the corner just before the rest of him does.

  Frick.

  Fuck.

  Keeping half an eye out for Mollie, and praying she returns to my side shortly, I smile sweetly at Trent. “Hey you.”

  He tilts his head to the side, the tight curls of his hair begging my fingers to take a stroll down memory lane. “Hey you? That’s all I get?”

  Rising on my tiptoes, I give him a quick hug. “Better?” I ask, lowering back on my heels.

  “For now,” he winks.

  For ever, douchebag.

  “How you been?” he asks, leaning against the bar, effectively dismissing Steve from the conversation.

  “Busy. Work, School, you know.”

  And church. So. Much. Church.

  “I saw your interview,” he says with a smile that causes me to clear my throat.

  Normally, I’d wonder why it’s all the jerks, like him, that are so handsome. But, thanks to my time at CU, I know that’s not necessarily true. There are plenty of handsome, kind men who have no plan to get into a girl’s panties any time soon. They might want to, sure, because they’re human, but they’re not planning it.

  A plan always runs through Trent’s eyes, and now is no exception.

  “You did?” I ask, kicking myself for even engaging in his particular conversation.

  He nods. “You looked great. Sounded great. Those public speaking classes in high school paid off, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “You look a lot like your dad.”

  “Not really,” I spit out, huffing.

  Trent puts his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I mean, you’ve got your mom’s hair and stuff, but your face is a lot like his. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, Kennedy. You know I think you’re gorgeous.” He extends his hand and runs a few of his fingertips down my face.

  And I feel completely violated.

  Six months ago, a touch like that would have been commonplace. Both from me to guy friends or boyfriends, and from them to me. Now, though, after several months in Jesus Bootcamp, and lecture after lecture on respecting the opposite sex and myself, I find his physical advance horrifyingly invasive. The worst of it? I can’t say anything. I can’t say anything because I’m in “Rome”, as it were, and this is how they behave. It’s how I behaved before going to Carter University. I didn’t see anything wrong with it then, so why should I now? What’s changed?

  Everything.

  Taking a breath to try to regain some sort of equilibrium, I place my hand over Trent’s as it sits, warm, on my face. I give it a small squeeze, closing my eyes to fully feel it, before drawing his hand away from me, and back down to his side.

  “Trent,” I whisper, clearing my throat again.

  “What?” he whispers back.

  “What?” I ask indignantly with a chuckle. “What? Trent, we broke up almost two years ago and have hardly talked since. What’s with all the gorgeous and hand touching the face and … all of that?”

  He licks his lips and puts his hands in his pockets.

  Where they better stay.

  “When I saw you on the news …”

  Here we go.

  “I realized something.”

  “Yeah?” I cross my arms in front of me. “What was that? That you had a renewed drive to conquer my virginity, perhaps?”

  I arch my eyebrow and wait for whatever he’s surely prepared as a response. I still find it necessary to remind him of the main reason we broke up. He was a disrespectful ass.

  Trent chuckles the cocky chuckle he’s had forever. The dismissive, snotty chuckle of someone who throws money around like a fix-all. “Wow. For a good Christian girl, you are awfully judgmental, don’t you think? Guess that means you fit right in with the rest of them, after all.”

  I ignore the truth in his statement because I know he didn’t craft it that way. He just pieced together buzzwords in an effort to get to me.

  “What happened to you? You used to be such a nice Jewish boy.” I grin, throwing a minor stereotype right back at him. “You didn’t respect me, so I broke up with you. And, your little Christian girl quip does little to show me you’ve changed.”

  “You’re right,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry.”

  Say what?

  “What?” I stare at him, intentionally contorting my face to look extra-confused.

  Trent reaches for my hand, and I let him take it. He leads me to the stairs that go to the second floor.

  “Ha! I’m not going upstairs with you.” I anchor my feet to the floor.

  And, by the way, where is Mollie?

  “I just want to talk to you in private for a minute.”

  I shake my head. “Not upstairs you don’t. Trent, I’m not going up there.” I move my hand to tug it away from his, but he only tightens it around mine. My heart races and I shoot my eyes toward him, trying not to let the fear show.

  “Come outside, then.” His voice and face show nothing dangerous, but being led through the house with his hand tightly around my wrist does little to calm my nerves.

  I know this is just how he is, how everyone around me is. Less words, more physical communication, but tonight, here, fresh off a few months at CU, it scares me.

  And that pisses me off.

  Three-quarters of a semester on The Hill has made me scared of the social normalcies of my former life. My normal life. But, which feeling is right? I’m smart enough to know that just because someone grows up one way, doesn’t mean that way is okay or acceptable.

  On our way through the kitchen, we pass by Mollie, who is in an intense conversation with a guy wearing a Harvard sweatshirt.

  “Bet you Harvard wouldn’t suck so bad,” the guy says, gesturing to her t-shirt, “if you’d have gotten in.”

  Mollie chuckles. “I did get in, but all the money stuffed in the pockets of the admissions board turned me off.” She spots me out of the corner of her eye and whips around. “Where are you going?” she asks, eyeing Trent suspiciously.

  “To talk in private.” I use my free hand to put air quotes around the last word.

  “Stay near a window,” she says, arching her eyebrow before turning back to her academic rival.

  Crossing into the chilly wind on the back patio, Trent shuts the door behind us and makes a motion with his hand toward a couple of kids, who look like they’re still in high school, who are smoking near the door. Magically, they comply with his unspoken request and move further back in to the shadows near the garage.

  “What?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself, rubbing my hands over myself for warmth.

  Wordlessly, Trent takes off his coat and drapes it around my shoulders. It’s big, and warm, and that’s enough for me to ignore that it smells the way his pillows do. Like his shampoo. After we broke up, I had to stop buying his dad’s company’s p
roducts because they always smelled like the last time I was in his bedroom. The time he almost didn’t take no for an answer.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, bouncing a little on his toes as the breeze grazes his skin.

  “For?” I shake my head, looking around for an answer.

  “For how I treated you when we broke up.”

  “When I dumped you,” I add quickly.

  He sighs. “Yes, when you dumped me. For being an asshole.”

  “Trent, you already apologized. Like ten thousand times.” A chill runs down my spine, causing me to shiver involuntarily.

  Taking one step toward me, Trent rubs his hands over my arms in an attempt to warm me. “Let this be the ten-thousand-and-first apology then. I’m sorry Kennedy. You were always too good for me, and how we ended things just proved that.”

  Looking up at him, I twist my lips. “I was too good for you?”

  He nods, and his eyes are as serious as I’ve ever seen them. “You’re a good girl. Smart, kind, funny as hell. You deserved better than I gave you. I was just a stupid kid.”

  “We’re all stupid kids,” I say in more of a whisper than I intended.

  Get out of this.

  I take one step back, but Trent pulls me in closer, still unable to take no for an answer. When his lips press against my forehead, my heart races more. I’m scared. Fears of this going too far, of the rules I’m breaking, and of ignoring how I feel overtake me.

  “Please stop,” I ask soft but firm in my delivery.

  Immediately, his hands leave my body and he takes three steps back.

  “Thank you,” I say, handing him his coat and tightening my sweater around me.

  “I’ve changed, Kennedy.” Trent stuffs his hands in his pockets again, and lowers his head.

  So have I, Trent.

  So have I.

  I offer him a smile. “I can see that,” I try, encouragingly. “You’re going to make some girl real happy someday.” Turning on my heels, I reach for the door where, thankfully, I can see Mollie has been watching our interaction from ten feet away. For quite some time, given the stern look on her face as she eyes Trent.

  Trent follows me, placing his hand on my lower back.