Christy stood perfectly still, waiting for what the teacher would say, not for the toddlers' benefit but for hers.
From memory the teacher quoted part of the love chapter. "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous..."
Christy shut it all out. Not those verses again! She didn't need another reminder of Todd. Not now. Quietly humming the piano music from the movie the night before, she ignored the rest of the story.
Christy walked alone into the church service. None of her friends had showed up; they were probably all too tired from the prom. The loneliness she had felt for several days now throbbed within her. She found her parents and sat with them, which felt safe and comforting.
She tried to put a lot into the service, singing and following along with her Bible during the sermon. She even underlined a verse or two.
Oddly, the thought that kept pounding to the front of her mind was a line from the teacher's story to the toddlers. "God wanted David to be king, and Jonathan knew it." She didn't know what to make of this thought that refused to go away.
That afternoon, while everyone at her house took a nap, Christy reread a letter that came the day before from her friend Paula. Paula and Christy had been best friends since they were toddlers, but Paula still lived in their hometown in Wisconsin.
Paula's correspondence tended to be short and written with large curvy letters with tiny hearts instead of dots over the i's. She wrote about guys. Several guys. Guys Christy had never met. It all seemed so far away. Like another lifetime.
Paula wrote at least once a month, and in every letter she talked about how she was saving money to come see Christy that summer. At first she wanted nothing more than to have Paula come and be part of her new life in California. Yet as the year wore on, Paula seemed more and more like a stranger.
Christy knew she should write Paula back and tell her about the cheerleading victory and all. But after ten minutes of doodling on a piece of notebook paper, Christy gave up and called Katie instead.
She was actually a little mad at Katie for not calling her first and giving her all the details about prom. Christy punched in Katie's phone number and tried to coach herself to sound positive when Katie answered the phone.
"Well? Tell me everything. Did you have fun?"
Katie paused before saying, "I guess. It was all right."
"All right! That's all you can say? It was all right?"
"Yeah, it was all right. I don't think you missed much."
"Katie, what happened?"
"Nothing. That's just it. Here I had this big dream about what the prom would be like, but it wasn't like I thought it would be at all."
"You mean you didn't have fun being with Lance? He's usually the life of the party."
"Exactly! And that's why it turned out the way it did. Mr. Life of the Party took off and ignored me the whole time. We danced only once, for half a dance, and that was because I made him. The rest of the time I just sat there, watching everybody else."
Christy didn't know what to say. She searched for some possible positive points. "Well, did he give you flowers?"
"Yeah." Katie laughed, but it wasn't a happy remembrance kind of laugh. "He gave me a corsage. A huge corsage that didn't match my dress at all. I told him my dress was blue. He said he forgot. The flowers were green. Green, Christy! You know how they spray-paint white carnations? Well, these were painted green and looked like some leftover bargain from St. Patrick's Day."
Christy laughed and sympathized at the same time. "How awful!"
"Oh, that's not the worst of it," Katie said, warming up. "You know my dress? The one I borrowed from Janelle? Well, you never saw it, but there's no place to pin a corsage. Especially when my corsage was a head of lettuce."
They both laughed.
"I carried it around all night. In the box. I felt like I was carrying around a cafeteria tray! Oh, and the food-oh man, we're talking major mystery meat. They poured some creamy mushroom sauce over it, but nobody ate it. I ate some of my salad, and that's all. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and I was starving!"
"Sounds like you could have nibbled on your corsage if you got real hungry," Christy teased.
"I thought about it, believe me!"
"So what else happened? Did you go with Rick and his date?"
"No. Rick didn't go. I didn't see him there at all. Nobody said anything. I don't know what's going on with him."
"That's strange. I wonder why he didn't go," Christy said.
"Who knows. Oh, you want to hear more? After my mom got all excited about my going, she decided I had to be home by midnight. Can you believe it? We had this big fight about my curfew right before Lance came. Then he got there, and my mom took all these stupid pictures. I didn't smile in any of them."
"Katie!"
"I was so mad. It didn't help when Lance came in wearing, get this, a white tux with tails, a black top hat and-are you ready?-orange high tops!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"What a nerd!"
"Not Lance. He turned out to be the life of the party, like I said. He must have danced with half the girls there, and he had his picture taken with at least a dozen of them. They all wanted the nice formal picture with their dates, then a wild and crazy one with Lance."
"That's incredible. I can't believe this happened to you!" Christy tried to sound sympathetic, yet she couldn't help feeling relieved that she hadn't gone through the same embarrassing experience.
"I haven't even told you the worst part. When I told Lance I had to be home at midnight, I was totally humiliated. Then, when it was eleven-thirty, I had to interrupt him while he was dancing with Renee."
"Oh, of all people! She'll never let you forget it either."
"So, get this. Lance walks me to the limo and tells the driver to take me home and then come back for him."
"No!" Christy tried to muffle her scream so she wouldn't wake her napping family. "That's awful!"
"Tell me about it!"
"What did you do?"
"I ate half the food in the refrigerator and watched TV."
"You mean when you got home?"
"No, in the limo. They had a refrigerator and TV in the limo."
"You're kidding!"
"Nope. It was the only highlight of my pathetic evening, believe me."
"What a riot!" Christy said.
"I'm glad you think so. That was one evening I hope I never have to repeat. And since I asked him to the prom, I was the one who paid for the tickets! What a joke, huh? I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I don't think I can show my face around that crowd ever again."
"Oh Katie, it won't be that bad. Renee has been torturing me for a couple of weeks now, and I've survived. You'll bounce back. You always do."
"I don't know. I just wish you could have gone. You and I would have had fun together, even if both our dates turned out to be jerks."
Christy wondered if Rick would have turned out to be such a jerk, spending the whole time flirting with all the other girls. She told Katie about the note she got at tryouts.
"If you want my opinion, I think Rick has it set in his mind that one day he's going to marry you."
"Oh, come on, Katie! Why would you even say that?"
"His parents are pretty strict. Did you know that? I think he likes you because you're so young, sweet, innocent, and all that. He flirts with all the wild girls at church and school, but he probably figures that you're the kind of girl his parents would approve of."
As usual, Katie's comments gave Christy something to think about. After hanging up, she went outside and sat on the front step. It was a cool afternoon with thin clouds veiling the blue sky. The fragrance of the jasmine was faint under the trellis. The neighborhood was quiet except for the sound of a lawn mower in the distance.
For a while Christy hummed the piano music from the movie and thought about Katie, Lance, Rick, and Todd. For some strange reason, the time she spent sympathizing with Katie on the phone had helped to soften the hurts she'd been feeling. At least she had some good things to look forward to when she went back to school tomorrow. She would be identified as a cheerleader even though the announcement wasn't yet official. Still, everyone would know. And they would look at her differently.
Then all of a sudden the line from Sunday school pushed all the other thoughts aside and marched boldly before her: "God wanted David to be king, and Jonathan knew it." It was beginning to bug her. That one line was like a line from a commercial that kept coming back even when she tried hard to forget it.
"Was does that mean? Why do I keep thinking of that one line?" As she spoke the words, she realized she was talking to God the way she used to-openly and easily.
Christy knew the time had come to stop ignoring God and to get everything out in the open. She didn't like being cut off and isolated from Him the way she'd been. It was like a bumper sticker she once saw that said, "If you feel far from God, guess who moved?"
It wasn't hard to admit that she'd been the one who'd moved away from God. She was the one ignoring Him, and it had only made her feel lonely and miserable.
I'm sorry, Lord. I've been doing everything without You. I can tell, because even though I got what I wanted, the cheerleading and all, well, I feel so lonely. I know it's because I haven't spent any time with You. I'm sorry.
She felt relieved. Not as though all her burdens had been lifted or anything like that. All her problems were still there. But now she didn't feel that she was all alone in trying to figure things out.
What am I supposed to do with my relationship with Todd? There was no answer-only the calm afternoon breeze dancing through the jasmine, sending the flowers' perfume into the air.
Love is patient, Christy found herself thinking. She took it into her heart and held it a moment before telling herself, "You need to be more patient. The relationship isn't over yet. You're the one who tried to bury it, not Todd. You need to wait and see what happens, Christy."
Not exactly a settling conclusion, but one she could live with. She knew deep down that she needed to be fair with Todd and let go of the jealousy that had eaten a hole in her pride.
After all, I've been able to be friends with Rick, but it's not in the same way that I'm friends with Todd. So why can't Todd be good friends with Jasmine and still be close to me?
Then she thought about Rick. What am I supposed to do about him? No answer came on the wind. No clear thought paraded through her mind.
Something still nagged her. It wasn't Todd or Rick. Something else, but she couldn't figure out what.
Am I doing something wrong, God? I really want to do what's right. I want to make You happy.
The only thing she could think of was cheerleading. But what was wrong with that? She had made the squad, she had gotten past the point where Renee seriously bothered her, and she had made a good friend.
Teri. I wish she had made the squad. She's better than I am, and I know it. She's a stronger Christian too. And it's going to be her senior year next year. I wish there was some way Teri could be on the squad.
Christy pulled a flower from the trellis and plucked its petals. She still wasn't certain what was bothering her. She would try to get it out by writing in her diary.
Going back to her room and stretching out on her bed, Christy found a fresh page to write on. She opened up to her last entry from almost two weeks ago and read about her desire to become a cheerleader for God, but above all, to pursue her cheerleading dream in such a way that she would be a good example of a Christian.
"I didn't really do it for You, did I?" Christy whispered into the stillness. "I did it for myself, and it didn't make me a whole lot more like You. It kind of made me more like Renee and the others."
Now with devout determination, she penned: I'm going to do it for You now, Lord. I'm going to let all the girls on
the squad know that I'm a Christian. I'm going to be a good
example of You to them and the whole school.
Such a sincere vow should have eased Christy's heart considerably. It didn't. She still felt a strange nagging. It persisted all evening, so before she went to bed she knelt beside her bed. "I still feel as though something is wrong between us, God, but I don't know what it is." She paused.
"Will You please show me what it is and what I should do to make it right, whatever it is that's bugging me? Thanks, Father. Goodnight."
Christy wondered if she was trying to make things right with God the way she'd tried to make things right with her mom when she forgot to put the towels in the dryer. Even though she knew that wasn't the way God wanted her to approach her relationship with Him, it still seemed it would help smooth things over for the way she'd ignored Him for so long.
When she got up at seven, Christy felt as if she hadn't slept at all, which made her even more exhausted than she'd been the day before.
She bustled around her room, getting ready, and bumped into her dresser, giving herself a huge black and blue mark on her hip.
Katie said her morning had gone about the same when the girls met at their lockers. They decided to be miserable together all day.
That proved difficult for Christy. She kept receiving congratulations from people she didn't even know, and then at lunch Rick came looking for her. She could tell he was looking for her by the way he walked toward her with his eyes set in her direction.
"Killer!" he called while still a few yards away. A couple of people looked to see who Rick was talking to. Christy could almost hear their whispered answers: "Oh, look! That's the new cheerleader."
Christy stared at her half-eaten orange. This wasn't her. She didn't like the attention. She didn't want people watching her, breaking through her invisible wall of privacy.
"Hey, Killer," Rick said again, now standing right behind her, his hand on her shoulder. He squatted down to be more on eye level with her.
She turned around to look at him, fully aware that they had an audience.
"Come here," he said, motioning with his head. "I reserved a place for two over there."
Gathering her things, Christy followed him. She felt like a puppy on a leash. She knew people were talking about them. Rick led her over to "their" wall, where they had sat when he gave her the pep talk about hanging in there with the cheerleading tryouts. Rick planted himself on the wall. Christy remained standing, hugging her notebook in front of her like a shield. She had no reason to fear Rick; yet she felt insecure and timid.
"So, how's my favorite Rah-Rah? Didn't I tell you you would make it? You were perfect. Absolutely perfect. I looked for you afterward to tell you, but you had disappeared. Did you get my note?" He smiled at her, his deep brown eyes melting her.