Chapter 15
Robert Meets Janie
Although Robert’s journey from Kansas to Desert Flats was longer than Janie’s, it was not nearly as traumatic. However, when he was honest with himself he knew that for claiming that he was just some “holy roller” who always lived for God and just decided one day to spend the summer in church camp hundreds of miles from home because God led him there would be a lie. He knew that his parents were sending him to camp for much the same reasons as he later found out Janie’s parents had. There was not an unwanted pregnancy as the catalyst, but the things that led up to that outcome in Janie’s situation were quite similar to Robert’s. Only he was the jock, not the victimized teenage girl. For him it was more about his mother’s belief that he was turning into his father’s son and that was not a good thing in her eyes.
Jessie had been just a girl when she met Bobby Baxter, Robert’s father. He was a senior football star and she was a freshman “stoner.” Unlike Janie’s jock, however, hers had already lost his ticket out of poverty and obscurity to a career ending knee injury. His family was very poor and the only chance he had of getting away from his broken home was football.
And then in his last game one unfortunate hit had taken that away. His knee was shredded and his dreams died with his football career. At this lowest point in his life he met Jessie and he took advantage of her just like Eldon did with Janie. Jessie chose to keep the baby. Robert never knew his biological father. He died before Robert was born, the victim of an unfortunate construction accident. Fortunately, a couple of years after graduating high school she met Max and they got married, and he was the only real dad Robert had ever known.
Robert started playing football at the beginning of his freshman year in his first position as tailback when the coaches saw how big, strong, and fast he was. He began partying with his teammates, the cheerleaders, and other hangers-on. He came home late. He even came home drunk one night. Simply put, Jesse saw her son falling into the same star athlete patterns his biological father had succumbed to. He also didn’t seem to care much for church or even his own family. Jessie knew she had to act before things got out of hand. She told him that the only way he could continue to play football and baseball was if he helped out at a church youth camp in Colorado that their pastor had told them about. It was a sabbatical that she thought would help him get his priorities straight.
They borrowed a well-used, blue Chevy passenger van from the church for the drive to camp. They needed the extra space in back and the roof rack to bring supplies that the camp needed with them. Along with the supplies, the van held Robert, three teenage boys and one girl, and two adult chaperones who shared the driving from Stonelee to the camp more than 800 miles away. It was a long drive broken up by with several potty breaks, mostly to accommodate what the boys called “the girls’ bladders, which must be about the size of a chipmunk’s.” They arrived at the camp just before dinner.
Robert expected mountains. It was Colorado, after all. In the distance they could see mountains, but they were really distant. The camp itself was flat and barren. There were several heads of cattle that he could see, but the terrain was very much a desert. Most of what the cattle ate had was hay brought in from more fertile places, or so Robert thought. As he stepped out of the van any excitement he had before about the prospect of this mini-adventure disappeared. It was dry and hot even in the jeans shorts he had on, and even the breeze that lapped against his bare legs brought with it more heat and dread than any relief from the oppressive and inhospitable climate. He looked back at his friends, who got out of the van after him, and saw the same look on their faces as he knew they saw on his. The look on the chaperones’ faces wasn’t much better, but at least they would be driving back to Stonelee the very next day.
“This is different,” the girl who had come with them said. Her name was Julia. She didn’t exactly look like the kind of girl who enjoyed roughing it. She was small and dainty, a pretty blond with hazel eyes and small facial features, and even though they had been on the road for hours, she had spent much time putting on makeup and doing her hair to make herself look prettier than she already did. She also wore shorts, but they were khakis and did not look particularly rugged. While the boys wore more appropriate T-shirts and hiking boots, she wore a pink-collared shirt and sandals that exposed most of the flesh on her feet to the rocks and dust that were everywhere. Julia wouldn’t last very long as a missionary, Robert reflected.
One of the boys’ frowns turned happy all of a sudden. He pointed toward a corral a hundred feet away and said, “Look! Horses!” He almost ran toward them.
The other boys ran behind him. Robert shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t run, but he did walk swiftly in the direction the other boys went. It was either that or stand around long enough for the adults to ask him to help unload the van.
The camp was set up like a dude ranch. The camp counselors and workers arrived a few days before the kids to help them acclimate to the environment and give them time to attend various orientation and training sessions. They were introduced to the directors and the livestock, which included a hundred or so head of cattle, much more than Robert had originally thought, and two-dozen horses and ponies. There was also an assortment of other less popular farm animals like chickens and goats.
One group that consisted of ten teenagers from Janie’s church had arrived before Robert’s. They lived less than a hundred miles from the camp, which was the shortest distance of all the other workers. All these early arrivals were standing around the corral as one of the directors, a woman probably in her mid-thirties, held an impromptu exhibition of barrel riding for her audience.
Robert walked up to the right side of a pretty girl watching the director’s demonstration and rested his elbows on the railing, slowing down as he approached the last five yards so he wouldn’t appear un-cool to the other kids. He avoided a direct, staring glance at the girl. That would be too obvious.
Neither said a word for at least two or three turns in the race. Then the girl turned toward him and said, “Hi. I’m Janie.” She smiled.
Robert barely glanced to the side, still relying on his peripheral vision to see who was talking to him. ““Hi,” he muttered. “I’m Robert.”
Both kept most of their attention directed to the horse and rider, though he was a little curious as to what the girl who owned the sweet and friendly voice that just greeted him looked like. He asked, “Where are you all from?”
“ Rock Flats.”
“Kansas?”
“Colorado.”
“Cool.”
They didn’t say much else that first time they talked. They did steal a few casual glances at each other. Both liked what they saw. Janie saw a guy who was built a lot like Eldon, but he was much more clean cut. He looked like a nice jock, not the kind she had let herself get involved with. Robert had similar thoughts. Janie looked a lot like the cheerleaders he had been tempted by in school as soon as he got moved up to varsity. Those girls were more like groupies than cheerleaders, though. This girl seemed somehow different, deeper and much more intelligent.
Over the next two months Robert and Janie had lots of time to talk and get to know one another. Neither spared the other from what led them to camp. Janie told Robert about the pregnancy and adoption. Robert told Janie about the drunken parties he had attended, as well as the inappropriate encounters he had with a few girls. By the end of the summer they were inseparable.
Some might say long distance relationships are a bad thing. For Janie and Robert the distance was a very good thing. Instead of getting physically involved with each other or anyone else, the distance meant that they had many long talks on the telephone and got to know each other in a much deeper way than physical contact would have allowed. Robert practiced and played in his games and then he rushed home so he could either call Janie or wait for her call. Those phone calls became the high points of their days. Then Robert applied himself to the advanced
classes he took and Janie worked through her home school curriculum. They both had more time to study than they would have if they had lived in the same town, and the result was that they each achieved high marks.
The next summer Janie flew to Wichita and spent two weeks at Robert’s grandparents’ house and the two went out on a few movie dates. By the time of their graduation from high school everyone knew where their relationship was headed. It was just a matter of time.
What happens now? It was the predominant question that kept running though Janie’s mind. She almost felt guilty that she didn’t feel more elated that Robert was awake. As she pondered what she might have lost, she prayed silently, “God, please get us through this. Please help Robert remember how much I care for him and he cares for me. Amen.”