Beyond the Farthest Star Page 5

  Adam began rummaging through a moving box marked ADAM’S OFFICE. She turned for a moment to see him pull out a burgundy hymnal and a file labeled PRESS CLIPPINGS.

  So Adam’s glory days had resurfaced to remind him what a wonderful, amazing kid he had been—quite a contrast to his daughter. An incredible comparison as Anne’s music drove the neighbors indoors and made their dogs howl.

  Maurene hated the ever-present memory of what Adam had been: Miracle Preacher Boy. How she despised the truth that Adam blamed Anne for what he had become. His disappointment in his mediocre life translated into disappointment with his daughter … and with his wife. Did he really think Anne didn’t notice the way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her? As the hindrance to achieving his dreams? Just as Maurene herself had been … all those years ago?

  Maurene swallowed her bitterness and turned away just as Adam’s eyes fell on the computer screen. It still read CONNECTED. She hurried from the room before she could see his anger—or hear his question—and into the relative sanctity of her kitchen.

  Even separated from the wailing by the thickness of the garage wall, the kitchen seemed to vibrate. The pounding drumbeat of Anne’s music was almost drowned out by the electric guitars. Anne’s voice belted lyrics of amplified misery.

  Anne’s choice of music was another cause of disappointment to her father. Such a beautiful voice, wasted. Wasted on angry lyrics.

  And Maurene knew the anger in Anne’s music fed the anger in Adam’s soul.

  Maurene stood at the kitchen sink. At last the music stopped. The doorknob into the garage rattled as the final bass guitar notes sustained, then fell away.

  Suddenly the door burst open and three sixteen-year-old boys, dressed in snap-button country shirts, marched into the kitchen. Maurene clutched her robe tighter around her and stood among the packing crates.

  “Morning, Missus Wells.” The tallest of the trio, Stephen, addressed her politely. His blue eyes were warm, almost amused at the mess. Hair lay curly brown over his ears. The sleeves of his plaid shirt were rolled up as though he was ready for work.

  “He’s easy to like,” Maurene thought. She was grateful Anne had found three wholesome kids to hang out with, even if their preference in music would irritate Adam. But then everything irritated Adam.

  Anne entered the kitchen last. She carried a large canvas and headed straight toward the back door.

  Maurene called, “Anne. Anne, honey!”

  Anne halted reluctantly. Her expression conveyed resentment as Maurene opened a prescription bottle and gave her a pill, followed by juice. Maurene was used to the way Anne rolled her eyes and grimaced, but she accepted the medication without other protest.

  “How’d your practice go?”

  Anne held her pill. “Didn’t you hear us?”

  “Of course we …” Maurene looked at the back of Anne’s canvas and changed the subject. “What’s this, Anne? Is this …”

  “Homework.” Glancing at Stephen, Anne popped the tablet and swigged the juice.

  Maurene said, too cheerfully, “Really … you did your … May I see?”

  Anne flipped the canvas over, revealing a black painted surface with gray streaks and arcs through it, like an inky star frozen in sable-colored ice.

  Maurene blinked at it a moment, then caught herself. “Oh … a … a painting.”

  Stephen’s pleasant Texas twang interjected, “It’s called ‘Sunny Days,’ ma’am.”

  Behind them Adam’s stern voice interrupted. “And yet I don’t see the sun, Anne.” Hymnal in hand, he stood framed in the kitchen doorway, his brows knit in disapproval.

  Stephen, amused and unintimidated by the pastor’s grim tone, defended, “Think that’s the genius of it, sir. The ‘no sun’ part.”

  Maurene said to Adam, “You know Stephen, of course? Well, these are the Leonard Bullriders.” She was thankful for Stephen’s cheerful presence. A good kid. Polite. He had defused a confrontation. Clifford wore a goofy grin. Kyle remained aloof, reserved.

  Stephen added, “Formerly the Leonard Bullriders, ma’am. As of this morning we’ll be goin’ by the name of Inger Lorre’s Magic Pillow.”

  Kyle muttered, “Even though we have no idea who Inger Lorre is.”

  Clifford said, “I do!”

  Adam’s face hardened. “She’s a vampire. Our daughter’s favorite vampire.” His tone was flat, and he spoke as though Anne was not in the room.

  “Which she’s not!” Anne returned belligerently.

  Clifford laughed. “She ate a teacup of maggots in a music video once.”

  Adam’s lip curled in a sardonic smile as he turned to Maurene. “Since you’re not spending the day with Lord Nathan, Mo, maybe you can do a little unpacking today as well.” Adam gestured to the stacks of unopened moving boxes. “Three addresses behind on some of these.”

  Maurene saw confusion play across Stephen’s face. The boy was clearly sensitive enough to grasp the conflict, the tension in the room, even without understanding the references.

  Without acknowledging the three boys, Adam stalked out of the kitchen.

  Maurene knew her face was flushed as the boys’ gazes moved to her. She swallowed hard, then lifted her chin as though nothing had happened. “Have you boys had your breakfast?”

  Anne climbed onto the hood of Stephen’s rusted Ford pickup. Spitting the prescription pill into her hand, she tossed it away in the bushes. Glancing across the street at the inflated Santa lawn ornament swaying in the breeze, she lit a cigarette and lay back on the hood. Clouds scudded across the sky above her head.

  Inhaling deeply, Anne remembered a story she had heard somewhere about Inger Lorre’s agent. How he was cooking swordfish steaks in his backyard when he showed Inger the exact spot where a UFO landed and Jesus Christ Himself got out and told him to sign Axl Rose. And just because the guy was her agent and he happened to have signed Guns N’ Roses, Inger had to just sit there and listen and say, “Wow, really,” the whole time the guy was talking.

  Anne thought that life was like that, wasn’t it? People were always listening to crazy, stupid stuff other people said and, so as not to offend, nodding and saying, “Wow, really.”

  Anne didn’t want to live that way. She didn’t want to agree with stuff because it was easier than asking hard questions, finding true answers. She didn’t want to say, “Wow, really,” to other people’s stupid stuff just because she was intimidated or afraid.

  Suddenly the burgundy hymnal slammed down on the hood of the pickup, jarring her from her reverie. Startled, she sat up and slid off the hood of the pickup.

  Adam stood glowering in front of her.

  “What?! What is that?”

  He fumed, “That, Anne, is a hymnal. Hymns in that book have comforted the saints through war, plague, famine, and earthquake.”

  Anne’s eyes narrowed. Her words dripped with sarcasm. “Wow. Really.”

  “So I thought it’d be an excellent idea if you and your Magic Pillow would update one …”

  Anne shook her head slightly in disbelief. “You mean cover a Baptist hymn? Yeah. Right.”

  Adam was in her face. Angry. “Let me rephrase it, then, Anne.” He gestured toward her backpack. Reluctantly she unzipped it. Adam forced the hymnal into it. “If you wish to keep playing your vampire music—”

  “Which it’s not!”

  “If you wish to keep playing your music, Anne, in the garage of the church’s parsonage, I’d suggest Hymn 567. A Christmas favorite of mine and—” He ripped Anne’s cigarette from her hand and tossed it into the street. “—don’t let me catch you smoking again!”

  Her eyes were fierce as they faced off. “Okay, Adam. You won’t.”

  He gestured for the pack. “No more smoking, Anne. And it’s Dad. Not Adam. I’m your father. Not one of your little friends. All right?”

  She did not respond. Not even with a “Wow, really.”

  Through gritted teeth, he snapped, “All right, Anne?”

>   Defying with a surly look, she surrendered the pack. He took it and turned to go. But it wasn’t over. “What?” she cried. “What now?”

  He labored in a too-late attempt to “connect.” “Do you remember what Dr. Cruz said about happy thoughts, Anne?”

  “Yes.” Oh no, here it was. The same lame, trite, stupid, useless clichés she’d heard a hundred—make that a million—times before.

  “That happy thoughts are just as easy as sad ones.”

  “Yes.”

  “The hymn, Anne. The lyrics of the hymn would make an excellent happy thought. It’s all about a new and glorious morning. Wouldn’t that make you happy, Anne? A new and glorious—”

  “Here in Leonard, Adam?”

  “All right, Anne. I’ll leave you alone.” He took a long last look at Anne. His face told her that he needed a “new and glorious morning” himself.

  Turning sharply, Adam marched to his car, got in, and sped off.

  Watching him drive away, Anne angrily dumped the hymnal into the trashcan. Then she pulled a cigarette out of a box of crayons, lit up, and took a long drag.

  Starting back down the driveway, she saw Stephen holding the pickup’s door open.

  “What?” she demanded. Was this the morning for everyone to act lame and stupid?

  Stephen smiled at the rebuke, closed the door, and backed off.

  Anne opened the truck door for herself and climbed in onto the threadbare and ripped blanket that had replaced the long-vanished upholstery.

  Clifford jumped into the pickup bed. “Gotta stop fetchin’ doors fer her, Stephen. She doesn’t like that.”

  There was a crazy thought. Could it be that Clifford … brainless Clifford … was the only one who had any spark of understanding?

  Stephen picked up Anne’s painting and handed it to Clifford. “Yeah, I know, Cliff.”

  Kyle sauntered toward them. “They got a word fer the kind of man she’s turning you into, boy.”

  Clifford laughed. “Yeah. Dracula.” He made a creepy motion with his hand, mimicking vampire teeth.

  Kyle snarled, “Shut up, Cliff.”

  Clifford would not be quiet. “She is turnin’ him into Dracula, Kyle. Her father even said.”

  “What’d I say, puke?” Kyle threatened. “Didn’t I just say ‘shut up’?”

  “Get in the truck, Kyle,” Stephen ordered. “Gonna be late as it is, and I ain’t waitin’.”

  Kyle grudgingly joined Clifford in the pickup bed as Stephen slid behind the wheel.

  Anne challenged, “There a problem, Sticks-boy?”

  Stephen shook his head. “Just wonderin’—Lord Nathan? Is that your dog, Annie?”

  Chapter Seven

  PASTOR ADAM WELLS WAS FUMING. The sight in his rearview mirror as he drove away from home revealed Anne tossing the hymnal into the trashcan. What’s more, while he was not entirely sure, he thought he saw her put another cigarette between her lips.

  The wording of the promise he had exacted from her struck him: “Don’t let me catch you smoking again …” “All right. You won’t.”

  He almost slammed on his brakes. The image of racing back to confront Anne—maybe even shake some sense into her—was powerful. “Control,” he told himself. “Anne and Maurene don’t deliberately set out to frustrate and antagonize me, it just feels that way.” Through clenched teeth he muttered aloud, “Happy thoughts.”

  But the “happy thoughts” seemed to do as much good for him right now as all their family counseling had after Anne’s latest fiasco.

  The resentment still had not left him when he wheeled the beige family sedan into the center of town. Before the hour Adam had allotted to work on this week’s sermon, there was time for a cup of coffee with Sheriff Burns and the mayor. Neither were members of First Church, but it was good politics to cultivate civic leaders, especially in a town like Leonard, where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

  There was a line of cars three deep from the only four-way stop in town. What was holding things up? Adam craned his neck. Sometimes ag equipment, like cotton harvesters and hay balers, crawled across the center of town. Nothing like that was in sight.

  Maybe it was Mrs. Sterling. The ninety-three-year-old widow still piloted her giant boat of a ‘58 Cadillac, though she had to sit hunched forward over the steering wheel to see out and never drove more than fifteen miles an hour.

  Adam’s hand hovered over the horn button. Sometimes it would be such a relief to not be a pastor, not to have to maintain a supernatural standard of behavior seven days a week. If only he could express what he was really feeling.

  The thought vanished at the sight of the Leonard Fire Department’s pumper truck and a Leonard police patrol car blocking the street. Ahead and on his left Adam caught sight of a band of yellow ribbon that television programs had taught him meant “crime scene.” It was at the town square, not far from the nativity scene.

  Adam wheeled his car into a vacant parking space. “Can’t be a murder. Not in Leonard. What’s this about?” The pastor corrected his earlier thought. The amber banner was around the crèche … or what was left of it. The box frame representing the roof of the holy stable was still upright, as was the nativity star on its peak. But below that point all was … ashes.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder amid a small crowd of onlookers were Adam’s expected breakfast companions, the sheriff and the mayor. Adam walked directly toward them but was intercepted by his church secretary, Margaret Collier.

  “They’re all ashes, Pastor Wells,” Margaret shrieked.

  Margaret always conveyed information, good or bad, with great gusto. Even this confusing circumstance was no exception for the animated black woman.

  “Ashes? Who? What’re you saying?”

  “The Lord, fer starters. And Mary and Joseph. ‘Long with the shepherds and all three kings, includin’ that African-American Ethiopian brother.”

  By now Adam had reached the remains of the display, still smoldering feebly.

  Margaret grabbed Adam’s arm and pointed upward. “Just the magi’s star is still standin’. Praise Jesus, it’s a miracle.”

  Overhearing Margaret’s commentary, Sheriff Burns detached himself from the mayor and approached Adam. “Mornin’, Pastor. Seems John Cutter got a little carried away last night.”

  “Little ain’t the word for it, and you know it, Sheriff,” Margaret corrected.

  “All right, Maggie,” Burns said patiently. “Just let me—”

  “And I don’t care if the former sen-a-tor is s’posed to re-store Main Street. Huh! S-I-N, sinator, is what he is! Burned up the Lord on high and prob’ly blasphemed the Holy Ghost at the same—”

  Margaret’s screeching attracted a crowd interested in the gossip.

  Sheriff Burns rebuked her. “All right, now, Maggie! Just calm down, will ya? Give me a chance to talk.”

  But Margaret was still not ready to give up her stage. “Even got hisself an attorney so he can get the law to finish the job his gasoline and matches could not, Pastor.”

  “Attorney?” Adam said dully, feeling the familiar throbbing pain beginning at the back of his neck and shooting upward.

  “Go on, Gene,” Margaret demanded of the sheriff. “Tell him.”

  The sheriff looked around and in a lower tone said forcibly, “Which I will if you give me the chance, Maggie. But not out here.” Turning to Adam, he suggested, “Let’s go to my office, Pastor. I’ll explain there.”

  Dark-blue roofs and upper walls capped the red-brick lower battlements of Leonard High School, home to 278 Fighting Tigers. Football season was over, but wrestling and basketball were well underway. Excitement at the approach of Christmas vacation was growing, and the air was full of good cheer.

  Mrs. Harper, the Supreme Head of the English department, did her best to squelch any such unliterary, boisterous behavior. She ran a tight ship. There was no nonsense to the serious business of learning semicolons and dangling participles.

  Mrs. H
arper, who also taught one class of World Literature, resented not being the department chairperson over both English and Social Studies. She resented having thirty students in her classroom when she had insisted that real learning was not possible with more than twenty-five, and she resented the addition to her well-ordered domain of the black-clad form of Anne Wells.

  The glare Mrs. Harper bestowed on Anne every time their eyes met underscored the animosity.

  From her seat two-thirds of the way back and on the left side of the room, Anne studied Mrs. Harper. The best single word to describe the instructor, Anne decided, was tight. Every part of the middle-aged teacher shouted it. Mrs. Harper’s gray hair was pressed to her skull in tight curls. Her mouth clamped shut with tight, disapproving lips. Her eyes had a tight narrowness to them, and she spoke in clipped, tight phrases.

  “Now I know everyone did their English assignment and can’t wait to share it in front of the class. To give us all the privilege of your poetic vision. So who’d like to go first?”

  Mrs. Harper also disapproved of letting students write poetry. Wasted effort, in her opinion. Let them read the great masters, but let their writing be confined to proper prose in short, tightly written sentences. Anne thought that having Mrs. Harper ask you to read your own poetry aloud was like feeding a chicken carcass to an alligator. With a little luck only the chicken would be devoured … and not your arm.

  A chorus of groans rose from the classroom. Anne noticed with amusement that everyone tried to look anywhere else other than at Mrs. Harper. If the alligator doesn’t see you, it won’t leap.

  But this was silly and could go on forever. Anne raised her arm.

  Now it was Mrs. Harper’s turn to stare at the ceiling and out the windows. When no one else volunteered, she said with evident resignation: “Miss Wells … wonderful.”

  What’s the complete opposite of enthusiasm? Anne wondered. Apathy isn’t strong enough because Mrs. Harper is really hostile.