She must have made a funny face when she said it, because Tashauna looked up at her and smiled.
“I think you made a friend,” Susan said with satisfaction. “You’re a natural, Holly Harrison. A natural.”
nine
“HOLLY, what’s the difference between limbo and purgatory?”
Raina’s question caught Holly off guard. Holly was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Raina’s room, painting her nails garish shades of blue and green. “Are you writing a paper?”
“Do you know? I figured you might because you’re religious.” Cold November rain fell outside, and Raina had wrapped herself in an old quilt. Raina used to go to Holly’s house; however, lately she felt awkward showing up there, even when she knew that Hunter wouldn’t be home.
“I’m not Roman Catholic.”
“Do you know?”
“Purgatory is a place where souls go after people die, to suffer and pay for their sins before getting into heaven. Limbo is where lost things end up.” She scrunched her forehead. “A long time ago, people believed that babies who died were put in limbo because they hadn’t had time to sin and qualify for purgatory. Why do you ask?”
Raina looked at her incredulously. “You actually know the difference?”
Holly reddened. “Why did you ask, if you didn’t want an answer?”
Raina hugged the quilt more tightly. “I was just trying to figure out which place I was stuck in, limbo or purgatory, that’s all. From the sound of it, I’m in both. Is that possible?”
“My brother still hasn’t made up with you?” Holly put the caps on the bottles of polish and blew on her nails.
“Not really. Oh, he’s polite to me, especially at school, but we haven’t had a date since—oh, since … you know.”
Holly frowned. “Don’t think I haven’t had words with him about it either. But he tells me to go away, it’s none of my business. As if! Mom tried to grill me about the two of you the other day.”
Raina straightened. “You didn’t—”
“Of course I didn’t. What kind of a friend do you think I am?”
Raina took a stuffed animal that Hunter had once given her and wrapped it inside the blanket with her. “I should hate him for the way he’s treating me. Except that I don’t. I wish I did. I wish I could.”
Holly hurt for her friend. “Maybe that’s what real love is. Not hating someone when you have every reason to.”
“Love stinks.”
“So let’s change the subject. How’s it going down in the nursery with all those babies?”
Thinking of the babies made Raina smile. “They’re really cute, but they sure can make a racket. Just hustling them back and forth to their mothers makes me realize how much work it must be to care for a baby. I mean, one end or the other is always going off—crying, spitting up, pooping.”
Holly laughed. She had told her friends about Tashauna throwing up on her the day it had happened, and she could only imagine what Raina’s days were like. “You still want to be a nurse?”
“I like the idea of helping people. Of making sick people better. How about you?”
“I like helping too, but I don’t know if I want to make a career out of it. If you could see those little kids on the cancer floor … That chemo stuff is pretty grim.”
“Well, it’s a safe bet that Kathleen won’t go into medicine. She turns green if you even say the word ‘blood’ or ‘vomit.’ ”
“We sure don’t see much of her since she hooked up with Carson.”
Raina agreed.
“I’m glad for her, though. She really likes the guy. I think everything would be perfect if that nasty Stephanie would fall off the face of the earth.”
“I used to think that about Tony too. But people like him and Stephanie don’t go away. They exist to cause trouble. It’s their purpose for living.”
The girls fell silent as Raina’s thoughts returned to her painful separation from Hunter and the memory of what had caused it. Rain splattered against the window and thunder rumbled from far away, reminding Raina of lost souls trapped in purgatory, waiting for blessed release.
On Friday night, Holly stood outside Hunter’s bedroom staring at the line of light coming from beneath his door, silently debating whether or not to knock. For once Hunter wasn’t at work—the restaurant was undergoing some renovations—and their parents had gone out for dinner and a movie, which meant she and Hunter were alone in the house.
She made up her mind and rapped on his door.
“I’m busy,” she heard him say.
She took a deep breath and barged inside. “Too busy for me?” She smiled brightly, hoping he wouldn’t say the obvious—“Yes.”
He was hunched over his desk and a short stack of papers, which he hastily turned facedown. “There’s a reason my door was closed. Is there a problem? Is the house on fire?”
“No problem. Except that we never talk anymore.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I think you know—Raina.”
He glanced away. “That’s private, Holly.”
“She’s hurting, Hunter.”
“And I’m not?”
“But you have control of the situation. You can fix things.”
“What am I supposed to fix?” He looked sad.
“She can’t change what happened back in eighth grade—”
He interrupted. “Do you really think that’s what it’s all about?”
“Well … isn’t it?”
“That was just the key that unlocked the door, little sister.”
“What door?” Now she was confused.
“The door of my life,” he said, as if speaking to a child. “I’m thinking about the rest of my life, not the past.”
“You’re eighteen; you’ve got a hundred years ahead of you.”
“I’ve got college in the fall. Then—well—I’m thinking very hard about going to seminary.”
“You’re serious about being a minister?”
“It’s no secret.” He sounded annoyed. “I’ve told the whole family this before. I actually like the Church and want to preach the Gospel.”
Holly bristled. “And I don’t? Is that your point?”
“It isn’t about you.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Raina doesn’t,” he said quietly. “I went and fell in love with a girl who doesn’t care a flip about religion, who doesn’t even believe in God. That wasn’t very smart of me, was it?”
His words sobered Holly, gave her pause. Raina had never made it a secret that she wasn’t into the “religion thing.” She was never unkind about it, but she really didn’t believe the way Hunter and the rest of their family did. Holly silently turned over Hunter’s dilemma and realized that there were no easy answers. “But if you love each other …”
“Love can’t solve this kind of problem.” Hunter tipped his desk chair onto its back legs, balancing his weight. “And don’t forget the problem of earning a living as a minister,” he added. “Not an occupation known for its high pay scale. How can I ask Raina to sacrifice the things she might want in life if we aren’t of like mind? I’ve talked this over with Pastor and he’s told me how he struggled to get through seminary and make do in his first jobs with a family. It was tough. But at least his wife believed in what he was doing. They were a team serving God.”
Holly thoughtfully considered what Hunter was saying. She didn’t want to make him angry, but she knew she had to help him see the situation through Raina’s eyes. “I don’t think you should worry so much about money. Raina wants to be a nurse, so that would help out. And I understand about the other part too. What I don’t understand is how you can do all this thinking and deciding and never once talk to Raina about it. I mean, you owe her a conversation about this, don’t you think? At the very least, you owe her that.”
Sometimes Raina’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving, sometimes on either side of it, but it always fell when schoo
l was out for the holiday. This year, her seventeenth birthday fell on the Friday after. She was glad to be free from school because she didn’t want people to make a big deal out of it. She didn’t feel like celebrating. She even told Kathleen and Holly that she and her mother were going to celebrate quietly together and asked them to please hold off on making a big fuss.
“What about our presents to you?” Kathleen had asked.
“Just you and Holly come over Sunday afternoon and we’ll go to a movie.”
Holly had complained, “You’re going to wait two extra days for presents?”
Even Vicki had urged her to do something fun on her special day, but Raina said she’d rather stay home, so Vicki baked a small cake and decorated with a few balloons tied to Raina’s dining chair. Raina and her mother were just sitting down to dinner at six o’clock when the doorbell rang.
“Probably the next-door neighbor,” Vicki said. “She’ll want to borrow something. Will you let her in?”
Raina went to the door, opened it and saw Holly, Kathleen and Carson standing on her doorstep. “Happy birthday!” they shouted in unison.
“I said Sunday—”
Holly grabbed one of Raina’s arms, Kathleen the other, and they began to drag her out the door. “This is a kidnapping,” Holly announced.
“Kidnapping is against the law,” Raina said, dragging her feet.
“Okay, then, it’s an intervention,” Kathleen said. “Either way, you’re coming with us.”
Raina tried to pull away. “I’m having supper with Mom.” She appealed to Carson. “Help me out.”
“I’m just the wheelman,” he said with a shrug.
Holly glanced over Raina’s head and waved with her free hand. “Hi, Mrs. St. James. We’re kidnapping Raina, but no harm will come to her unless she puts up a fight.”
“No problem,” Vicki said, throwing Raina’s coat over her daughter’s shoulders from the hall rack. “Just remember your curfews.”
The girls hustled Raina into Carson’s car, stuffing themselves into the backseat on either side of her, wedging her in. “I protest,” Raina said, but by now she was laughing because it was both silly and endearing.
“Drive!” Kathleen ordered.
Carson hit the gas.
Raina threw up her hands. “Okay, I give up.” She looked at Holly and Kathleen. “So where are you taking me?”
“To Party Central—my house,” Carson answered from the front seat. “Mom and Dad are out and we have the place to ourselves.”
Raina suddenly envisioned a surprise party. “No one else will be there, right? I really don’t want to see kids from school.”
“Just us,” Carson said.
“You’re going to love his house,” Kathleen said. “There’s an A/V room that will knock you out, and we picked out a stack of movies to watch.”
“And cake?”
“Baked it myself,” Holly said.
They talked all the way to Davis Island and by the time he had pulled into the driveway, Raina was feeling happier than she had in weeks. She loved her friends for ignoring her request and forcing her out of her self-imposed exile. It had been silly of her not to expect them to do something. They were walking up to the grand brick entrance when the front door opened and a figure stepped outside. “I thought Carson said we were going to be alone,” she said to Kathleen.
“We lied,” Kathleen said.
The figure stepped forward and pushed back the hood of his sweatshirt, and light from the foyer washed over him.
Hunter. Raina stopped dead.
“Happy birthday, Raina,” he said.
ten
HUNTER STOOD with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. His sweatshirt hugged his body and picked up the color of his eyes. A rawhide string bearing a small wooden cross encircled his neck. Seeing him sent a kaleidoscope of emotions tumbling through Raina—shock, anger, fear, desire. She hated him. She loved him.
He held out his hand. She stared at his palm, unable and maybe unwilling to take it. “Please,” he said.
She took his hand and it felt so familiar, so perfectly suited to hers that she almost started to cry. Instead she turned to her friends and said, “You set me up.”
Carson stood between Kathleen and Holly, his arms slung casually over their shoulders. “He asked if we could help him arrange something special for your birthday.”
“We crumbled,” Kathleen admitted.
“We’re freezing,” Holly said, shivering.
“We’re going down to the A/V room,” Carson said, ushering them all inside. “You two can have the run of the upstairs.” He steered Kathleen and Holly down the hall.
Raina had longed to be with him, but now that she was, she felt self-conscious and off balance. She tugged at her hand locked in his, but he wouldn’t let go.
“The living room’s this way,” Hunter said, leading her to the left of the foyer. “I’ve had some time to explore while I waited.”
“Your car …?”
“I parked around back.”
In the huge living room, a lone lamp glowed, casting a pattern of golden light across a long sofa swathed in a soft white fabric. “Nice house,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
He took her to the sofa but didn’t sit. He turned so that he was facing her. She didn’t meet his gaze but stared straight into his chest. The heat from his body touched her skin. He smelled of cinnamon and cool mint and fresh laundry. “Happy birthday,” he said again.
“You’ve already said that.” She glanced up at him then, made her heart hard. “Nothing’s changed, Hunter. I’m still guilty of having had sex with Tony three years ago.” She threw the words out like a shield.
“I want to apologize for the way I acted that night. I was mad. I’d just been in a fistfight and my blood was still boiling. And after we talked, I was hurt. No excuse, though. I shouldn’t have treated you like I did.”
“You could have said this before now. You’ve seen me every day at school.”
“I didn’t know how. It was like a snowball—the longer I waited to apologize, the bigger and harder the problem got.”
“You were polite to me at school in front of everyone.” Her tone was accusatory.
“I—um—I couldn’t stand for that creep to think he’d broken us up. That wasn’t very fair either.”
She agreed. He’d acted petty, but in truth, she hadn’t wanted Tony to think he’d broken them up either. “I heard that Tony’s dad’s been transferred again and that they’ll be moving over Christmas break. It doesn’t seem fair, you know? He came here long enough to ruin our lives and then he’s gone.”
“He didn’t ruin our lives,” Hunter said quietly. “I did.”
His admission twisted in her heart like a knife. Their relationship had been fractured, like a glass hitting concrete. The shards lay around their feet and she wasn’t sure what to do. “So now what?”
He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, and his touch made her heart soften. He still had the power to do that. “Let’s sit.” They settled onto the plush sofa without touching. She could tell he had something else he wanted to say. Her heart beat faster and her mouth went dry. “Stepping back these few weeks gave me time to think.”
“About what?” He was going to break up with her. She felt it in her soul. He had apologized and now he would sever them forever. Don’t cry! She lifted her chin.
“About what I want to do with my life.”
She said nothing, tried to concentrate on keeping her breathing slow and steady.
“I’ve been offered early acceptance to a small Bible college in Indiana. I’m taking it.”
His pronouncement stunned her.
“I’ve met all my high school requirements, except attendance—you know how they want us in the classroom for X number of days. My counselor, Mr. Dodds, got me a special waiver. I’m leaving right after Christmas.”
“Y-you’re not going to finish high
school?”
“Technically, no. The college has offered me a scholarship. By starting in January, I’ll get a head start on the fall freshmen.”
“What kind of scholarship?” Her lips could hardly form the words.
“Biblical studies, with a minor in psychology.” When she said nothing, he added, “It’s a new program for pastoral students.”
“You’re going to be a minister?”
“That’s what I’m trying to decide, Raina. I want to know if it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. I have to know.”
“And if it is?”
“Then I’ll go to seminary after college. It’s a long road.”
And it was a road that didn’t include her. “Holly never said a word to me.…”
“Holly doesn’t know. Only Mom and Dad and a few teachers at school know. I just got my acceptance letter a few days ago.”
“But you’ve been planning this.”
“Not for long. The pastor at my church recommended me to the college. It’s his alma mater and he hustled things through.”
“And what about you and me?” she asked quietly, steeling herself for his answer.
He was quiet, so quiet that she began to think he wasn’t going to answer. “Do you know how long I’ve loved you, Raina St. James? Ever since the first time I laid eyes on you, when you were thirteen.” He answered his own question. “Holly used to talk about her friends at the dinner table, but I was a year ahead of her and who cared about my sister’s little girlfriends? Then one day, you came over. You were wearing jeans and a tee with pink and blue flowers and your hair was in a ponytail, and you sat on the floor in Holly’s room playing Scrabble with Holly and Kathleen.”
Raina remembered vaguely. She hadn’t gone over there often because Vicki had kept her in after-school programs when Raina had argued that she was too old for babysitters. Vicki worked long hours, and she’d refused to allow Raina to go home to an empty house. Holly had always talked about her brother, Hunter, but Raina didn’t lay eyes on him until she was thirteen. “When I did get to come to your house, you were at basketball practice, or soccer or something.”