Deceived Page 9

  Rocky was about to be angry when, without warning, she burst again into tears. Ashamed, all she could do was turn her back.

  The woman came to her like an old friend and said, “Whoever he is, he isn’t worth it.”

  Which brought Rocky up as short as a sparrow flying into a sliding glass door.

  She said her name was Geena, and she loved whatever that song was. It turned out she had no idea who The Andrews Sisters were, and just talking about them took Rocky out of the dark clouds of Jeremy and into the sunshine of Geena Carter.

  The sunshine that was now, once more, comforting her in her time of need.

  9:58 a.m.

  “Arty was so special,” Liz was saying. “So very special.”

  The little church was packed, almost like they knew she would be there. Like they knew something important was going to be happening that morning. It was a little creepy. All those eyes on her. Those anxious, expectant eyes.

  But she felt she was in total control. Like the way some comedians are when they’re clicking on a Vegas stage. Or when some really good lawyer has a jury eating out of his hand. That’s what Liz knew she had going on. It took over all the other feelings, covered them up, just the way Mama said they could be.

  “You all knew him, you knew how special he was,” she said, then paused as several heads nodded. She heard sniffles and saw one older woman dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

  These are alien beings, Liz thought, though she recognized some of the faces. Arty had brought people over to the house, and she’d gone with him to a few church things. But mostly his church life was separate, which was the way she wanted it.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything today. I wasn’t going to come here. I’m still kind of in shock. But I’m here because I feel that Arty would want me to be here. That the Lord wants me to be here.”

  She paused and looked to the side. Pastor Jon and Mac were sitting next to each other, nodding encouragement. This was a big deal for them. God was moving, oh yes.

  Somebody said, “Amen.”

  “You all know about the accident.” She paused, turning her head to each side of the church. They could see the Band-Aid on her forehead that way. “I have so much grief in my heart right now. But I know what to do about it. I know because Arty told me, and Pastor Jon and Mac. You see, I came here this morning so I could be baptized and give my life totally to God, forever and ever. And — ”

  She was stopped by the applause and people shouting, “Amen!” and “Praise God!” Beatific expressions popped out all over.

  Liz closed her eyes. She made it look like she might weep in a moment. The applause died down. The two hundred or so people in the little A-frame church went silent again.

  “I want to give my life to the Lord Jesus,” Liz said. “I want to be made clean from the sins I’ve committed.”

  More Amens.

  “Pastor asked me if I wanted to say a few words. All I want to say is, you were Arty’s family, and I hope I can be part of that, too.”

  An older woman stood up in the middle of the congregation and said, “Yes, you can, girl! God be praised!”

  Several others echoed the sentiment. Liz smiled and looked to Pastor Jon. He came to her, put his arm around her shoulder, faced forward.

  “You know me,” he said. “I don’t always stick to the plans. I think we ought to stop right now and just have Liz here go into the waters of baptism and everybody celebrate. That’ll be our church ser vice for today. How’s that sound to you?”

  From the response, it sounded like everybody was as pleased as could be. Almost before she knew what was happening, Liz felt herself being led by a couple of the ladies toward a side door. They said something supportive, but she barely heard. She was overtaken by a sense of dread.

  Waters of baptism? What happened to a person who went in without really believing? It wasn’t that she thought God would reach down with a bolt of lightning. But what if the water burned like it did when holy water hit the Devil?

  She almost bolted. Thought about running, getting away. She could explain later. But then she was in a small cubicle with a robe, and they were waiting for her to put it on and go get wet.

  She could hear Pastor Jon talking to the congregation as she undressed.

  “. . . what we can do for her,” he was saying. “Be there, be ready with some meals, make sure she feels the support. And remember to give praise to God because we know Arty is with the Lord even now, and his wife, and all of us, will see him again.”

  See him again? Ice crystals formed on her spine. What if that was true? When she was little, she believed in ghosts for a while. It freaked her out that apparitions could be watching her in the shower. They haunted you.

  Would Arty do that to her? What if she did see him again in some afterlife? What if he haunted her dreams? Was a disembodied head floating above her at night?

  Ridiculous. You die, you become the stuff they sprinkle on gardens. You are one with the earth. Literally.

  She never believed in that afterlife stuff, because she couldn’t believe that the white-haired man who shouted at her in church as a kid was going anywhere after he died, let alone heaven.

  For some reason, that old pastor had singled her out. Hated her, she was sure. Mama wanted her to get some Sunday schooling and dropped her off at the nearest church. She didn’t want to go, but that was what Mama wanted for her daughter, and Mama had a way of getting people to do what she wanted.

  So off Liz went to the Sunday school in the hot, white building that had one window air conditioner. It didn’t much work, and everybody sweated. Even the teacher, a plump old woman whose name Liz couldn’t remember. The teacher whose face always looked like it carried three days of rain.

  Liz went twice to that Sunday school. The second time, the plump lady wasn’t there. A tall, skinny man in a suit stood in for her. Liz thought later he looked like Abraham Lincoln, if the president had a sour stomach and lived till he was seventy.

  He came to give the kiddies a lesson about being good. He said you had to be, because when you died all your sins were going to be announced all over the sky for everyone who ever lived to hear about them.

  She thought she heard him say it this way: “You’re gonna all have to give a count of yourself to God.”

  Liz wondered how a person could count herself.

  As he droned on about good and bad and sin, he kept looking at her. Making eye contact with her, even though there were fifteen, twenty kids in the room.

  It made her a little mad. Because she was bored and didn’t want to be there in the first place. She didn’t want to be sitting there in the heat getting the beady eye from a scarecrow with white straw for hair.

  When Sunday school was over, she was going to be the first out the door, but he stood there and told her to wait.

  She didn’t want to wait. She tried to get out the door, but he grabbed her by the front of her dress. The other kids laughed. The scarecrow shooed them out and slammed the door.

  It sounded like a gunshot.

  Liz writhed in his grip.

  “Stop it!” Scarecrow shouted.

  His voice went through her like a cold spear. It froze her in place, her heart beating hard to keep her breathing.

  Scarecrow’s grip was strong and he pulled her, then pushed her down onto a chair. He bent over her and said, “Now you listen to me, young lady. In this room and this church you will not bring your willful defiance.”

  She had no idea what that meant, only that it was bad. She remembered what her friend Emily said once, that dogs can’t understand your words but they sure can understand your tone. Emily looked at her own dog, Ruffles, and started saying, “Bad dog, yes, you’re a bad dog, yes, you are,” in a high, friendly voice, and the dog wagged its tail.

  Well, Scarecrow’s tone was the exact opposite, and Liz wasn’t wagging anything.

  “You need to get some things straight,” he went on. His voice wheezed a little when he
spoke, like there was a little pipe organ in his throat, and his words were the wind blowing across the pipes. “It does not matter how young you are or how old you are. By your fruit you will be known.”

  What was he talking about? She didn’t have any fruit. She and Mama didn’t have an orchard or even a berry plant.

  “I will tell you this,” Scarecrow said. “They that are not the elect will produce nothing but wickedness, but that is God’s decree for his glory. So, you see, you cannot fool God. And you cannot fool me.”

  He bent over her even further, looking now less like a Scarecrow and more like a fire-breathing snake. With fangs.

  Which is why she kicked him.

  It was fear, pure fear, she would tell Mama later. But she knew then that wasn’t the whole truth. She knew she kicked him because she hated him and wanted to hurt him.

  She ran all the way home. When Mama found out what happened, she told Liz to say put and got in their old Ford Escort and took off.

  When she came back, she told Liz she’d never have to go back to Sunday school again. Later, when Liz was walking in town with Mama, they saw the scarecrow coming out of Franklin’s Hardware. He turned his back at once and walked fast away from them.

  Much later, Liz learned that his name was Mr. Zeleny and that he had a daughter who had “fallen into sin” and had never come back.

  As Liz finished putting on the baptismal robe now, she wondered if people really could fall so far they never came back. She wondered if that was about to happen to her. She was going to be dunked in a big box of water. Maybe she’d just sink in and not come out.

  No. You can get through this. And quit thinking Arty can see you from beyond the grave. Don’t get all creeped out now.

  Just then she thought she really did have a choice. Right this second. She could come clean or go through with the phony baptism. Tell the truth about what happened or go down the line with the lie.

  Whatever she chose, though, there was one thing certain: There’d be no turning back.

  10:02 a.m.

  Here is a Geena bonus, Rocky thought. Geena made the finest cup of coffee in the city. You can have your Starbucks and your Coffee Bean, your store-bought Seattle’s Best or any brand of your choosing. Geena had a way of grinding organic beans just right and making her own blends that beat them all.

  Rocky sipped the warm comfort by Geena’s front window, which looked out over a back alley and up to the tops of the slender palms that made the LA skyline what it was. Something inspirational there, the doggedness of them. The way they stayed, swayed, shed but never broke.

  She knew she’d need to be the same in the weeks ahead.

  Was she being unfair to Liz? True, they’d never really liked each other. But how much of that animosity was Rocky’s feeling that Arty was being taken away from her? How much of it was pure selfishness?

  They had been so close, growing up. Arty had his friends, but he always made time for his little sister, especially after their mother died and Dad became a walking zombie. The loss of Mom hit Rocky hard. Mom was the affectionate one, the one with the smiles and touches.

  Her father was never one for hugs. Maybe at one time, before Mom was gone, he might have been. Not that he wasn’t a good provider, but he’d built a wall of cold stone, and any attempt to scale it was met with retreat and reinforcements. Anger could flare when she pushed for his attention.

  Rocky didn’t need therapy to know why she drifted toward men like Boyd Martin and stayed with them much too long.

  In those awful months after Mom’s death, it was Arty who made sure school lunches were prepared, clothes washed, the house taken care of. Yes, Aunt Cheryl was around a lot, too, but she didn’t live with them. And no one could get her father’s stone wall to come down. If anything, it got higher.

  Arty was her protector, all the way through high school. It was Arty who took her to museums and the beach. And the movies. Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park. He wouldn’t let her see Pulp Fiction, though. It was not as cool as everyone said, he told her, and even though she begged him, he wouldn’t budge.

  Later, when she finally saw it, she knew he was right.

  No one knew her or cared about her the way Arty did.

  Then came the day when he wanted her to meet the new girl in his life. The one he said he was sure he’d marry. He broke the news to her the way someone might announce a death in the family or the loss of a pet. And that’s the way it hit her, like bad news.

  She hated herself for that and told herself she would do everything she could to welcome her.

  Arty chose a high-end restaurant in Beverly Hills. Clearly wanting to impress both of the main women in his life. Clearly wanting to blow a week’s salary.

  Rocky had to admit she went in with a bad attitude. She really didn’t want to make friends with this intruder. And as much as she told herself that Arty deserved happiness, she could not get rid of the childish petulance fizzing inside her like Alka-Seltzer.

  Arty and Liz were already seated at a booth under a softly lit painting in the contemporary style.

  Rocky never forgot seeing Liz for the first time. Big, blue eyes with a gold nimbus around the pupils. Light blond hair that could have been dyed. There were no highlights.

  “This is Liz Summerville,” Arty said.

  Liz smiled and slid out of the booth so she could hug Rocky. “It’s so nice to meet you.” She had the faintest wisp of a southern accent. The kind of voice that could drive men wild.

  As could the rest of her. Rocky had to admit Arty had picked one good-looking package.

  In fact, in every way, Liz Summerville seemed right for Arty. He clearly was taken with her, in more than a superficial way. Arty was never one for dating a lot of women. He wanted stability. And deserved it.

  But could this woman give it to him? As hard as she tried not to, Rocky kept studying Liz all through the meal. Interpreting every gesture, analyzing every nuance of voice. Everything Liz did fell on the positive side of the ledger, at least objectively.

  But there was just something a little too perfect about Liz’s riffs. They flowed out in shy simplicity, but somehow seemed cunning.

  Rocky tried to tell herself to relax, but she was trained, after all, to ferret out deception, both subtle and overt. Still, she had almost convinced herself that Liz was what she appeared, until the talk turned to Liz’s background.

  Rocky brought it up quite innocently, though it might have sounded like a job interview question. “Tell us about your growing up,” she asked, using the word us without really thinking about it.

  It was then that something happened in Liz Summerville’s eyes. A slight shifting of the temperature, a delicate but discernable drop.

  The change signaled that this was an area Liz did not want explored. And that Rocky had breached some unspoken agreement in even suggesting it.

  Arty answered the question. “She had kind of a hard life back there, and that’s why she’s out here, to start all over again. Let’s talk about something else.”

  They tried. Liz’s voice and look returned to normal, but whenever her eyes met Rocky’s, from that moment to today, there was a flash of granite in them.

  Geena came to the window and sat with Rocky, holding her own cup of coffee. “You can stay here as long as you want,” she said.

  Rocky nodded.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Geena said. “Arrangements, anything like that?”

  “There’s one thing I have to do, and I’m dreading it.”

  “What’s that?”

  Rocky looked at the mountains. “I have to call my dad.”

  10:14 a.m.

  “Because of your good confession of faith,” Pastor Jon said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

  He gently guided her hand to her nose. She squeezed her nose and took a breath, and he lowered her into the water.

  For half a second, she wondered if he’d let her up. This was
their revenge. Death by baptism.

  No noise under the water. Panic. Not fear of being held under and of drowning. No, it was like she was being baptized into fate. Not faith, which she didn’t have. She had made the choice now, and it was irrevocable. Pastor Jon had called baptism a pledge, the pledge of a good conscience toward God.

  She was making another pledge, a pledge to herself. To see this whole thing through to the end.

  I can’t breathe.

  Someone was in the water with her.

  No.

  Yes.

  Not Pastor Jon’s hands. Some other set of hands.

  What was this?

  I have to scream!

  Then she was coming up out of the water. Rivulets streaming down her face and hair. She was alive. And she heard applause. The people in the church were clapping for her.

  All of them.

  She knew she was supposed to smile, so she did.

  “Praise the Lord, Sister,” Pastor Jon said.

  “Amen,” Liz said.

  10:20 p.m.

  “How you doing, Pop?”

  “Roxanne?”

  “One and only.”

  “What time is it?”

  “I wake you?”

  “I was dozing. Why you calling?”

  Is it that shocking to you, Father? Your only daughter calling you on the phone? How about a nice, “How’ve you been?” A little bit of, “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant over the years.”

  “Pop, I’ve got some bad — ”

  “You need money or something?”

  “No — ”

  “That guy you’re shacked up with have any money?”

  “Listen to me, will you?” For a change?

  “What is it?”

  “Arty . . .” The words stuck.

  “What about Arty?”

  “He was hiking . . .”

  “He’s hurt?”

  She swallowed once, hard. “He died, Pop. Arty died.”

  She heard a muffled gasp, like someone had punched him in the stomach.

  “Pop, are you — ?”

  “Don’t talk. Don’t say anything.”

  She waited. She kept waiting. She thought she heard a sob. “Pop, you need me to come down?”