Falling Into Grace Read online

  “Camille, you have a beautiful voice.”

  She felt a “but” coming on.

  “But without a microphone, the audience can’t fully appreciate what you’re singing. So, unless the Holy Spirit says otherwise, please don’t distract the audience from the leader.” His words were genuinely kind, but his face held a stern expression.

  Flabbergasted, Camille put a hand on her heart. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I already said it.” He offered nothing to soften his position. Just stood there, watching her squirm under his hot glare. “And you might want to think about coming to practice in time for Bible study. It’s an integral part of our ministry.”

  All she could do was slant her eyes and huff, “I’ll see you later.”

  Camille stewed all the way home. How dare he accuse me of trying to steal the show? And who is he to insinuate that I’m missing Bible study on purpose? Maybe he was correct, but he couldn’t prove any of his allegations. For all he knew, she could have been making a mad dash across town after work, making it just in time for rehearsal. Or caring for a dying animal.

  Camille held a one-person conversation all the way back to her neighborhood. “He must think he’s some kind of mind reader! Oooh! I can’t stand him!”

  She calmed herself with a Slurpee from 7-Eleven. Feeling the icy liquid slip down her throat took her back to the elementary days. She and Courtney used to get two straws and share this wild-cherry-flavored drink once a week on the route home from school.

  Once, though, Camille got the notion that it didn’t make sense for them to get just one. They should get two. Courtney didn’t think it was a good idea. He told Camille they should ask Momma for more money instead.

  “I don’t think she’ll give it to us,” Camille had whined. “You know she says we gotta be grateful and stuff.”

  “Then be grateful we get to share one every Friday, all right?” Courtney advised in all his fifth grade wisdom.

  “What does it matter to 7-Eleven anyway?” Camille had practiced the fine art of rationalizing crime in her nine-year-old mind. “They already got a lot of money. Plus, one time when I dropped my Slurpee, they gave me another one free.”

  Determined to have her way, Camille had stood right next to Courtney and poured her own Slurpee. When Courtney went to the counter to pay for the drink in his possession, Camille slithered through the aisles and snuck out while the cashier wasn’t looking.

  She’d met up with him again down the street, twin slush in hand. “See, I told you I could get it.”

  Courtney shook his head in disapproval. “You stole it, Cami.”

  Insulted, she cried, “No, I didn’t! I only took it! We can pay for it next Friday if we want to.”

  “I’m telling Momma.”

  Horror snatched her breath away. Why didn’t he say this earlier?

  Courtney took off running and Camille chased him all the way to their front porch. She didn’t have the sense to ditch the evidence, so when Momma met Camille at the door, they strutted right back up to the 7-Eleven. Momma paid for the drink, made Camille apologize for stealing the Slurpee, then poured the remainder in the trash. As though wasting all that good money and wild-cherry flavoring wasn’t enough, Camille got a whippin’.

  On top of the whippin’, a lecture. “Don’t you know I pray for you every day, Camille?”

  Camille nodded, but wondered what this bit of information had to do with anything. She also wondered if she was going to get hit again with the belt. Momma was sitting awfully close on that bed, still breathing hard. Camille kept her ears open for words, eyes on her mother’s hands.

  “I can’t be everywhere, but God can. And I’ve asked Him to let me know ahead of time what you’re up to so I can step in and stop you myself before the devil has his way with you.”

  As a child, Camille couldn’t imagine the devil doling out anything worse than her momma’s whippin’. Except maybe Bobby Junior’s.

  “You listening to me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I want you to hear me and hear me good on this one thing. You might be able to get away with a little bit here and there, but you can’t fool God’s people too long, least of all your momma.”

  Camille might have actually heeded this warning were it not for the fact that this time, Momma got all her superspiritual information from none other than Courtney, who was by no stretch of the imagination God.

  Still, the part about not being able to fool God’s people made Camille leery of lying to bona fide church folk. Momma made it seem like they had some kind of sixth sense that whispered secrets into their hearts. Whether it was woman’s intuition or a gift from God, Camille wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, all Camille knew was she could hardly get away with anything growing up—especially not where her mother was concerned. Particularly not when Courtney was around. This girl did her fair share of lying and conniving, but when her plans got really outrageous, Momma always found out one way or another.

  Well, Courtney was gone from Camille’s life now. And so was her mother. Without the two of them watching her like a hawk, life should have been better. She could do what she wanted to do, go where she wanted to go, without dragging along a conscience full of guilt.

  Until now. She had big plans, huge plans, but Ronald was throwing obstacles in her path with his unfounded speculations.

  “Fine,” Camille announced to her empty living area as she entered the apartment. “If he wants me to be on time, I’ll be on time.” She resolved to play along with Ronald until she got what she wanted out of him.

  She cooled off enough to watch a My Strange Addiction marathon. These people are plain old crazy. She reveled in the fact that she wasn’t nearly as bad off as the man who was addicted to licking the backs of gummy bears and sticking them on walls.

  Buzz. Buzz. Her cell phone vibrated. “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Hey. Tell me somethin’ good.”

  “Ummm ... it’s the weekend.”

  He hinted, “I know somethin’ real good.”

  “What?”

  “Courtney’s wife is pregnant. With twins.”

  “That’s great for them,” Camille dampened the news. What good were twins she’d never get to see?

  “Look here, this is special. We haven’t had twins in the family since, shoot, I don’t know when.”

  Since Lenny? “I’m really happy for them. I hope the babies are healthy.”

  “Nicest thing you’ve said about your brother in years.”

  “I’m not heartless.”

  “When you and Courtney gonna stop this stupidness? It ain’t about y’all anymore. His kids deserve to know their only aunt. You know his wife ain’t got no sisters or brothers,” Bobby Junior fussed.

  “It takes two to get along, Daddy.”

  “I know that,” he harped. “Just so happen you the one need to do the most apologizin’, if you ask me. And both of you need to stop being so stubborn.”

  “It was business,” Camille attempted to re-explain to her father.

  “It was family before it was business.”

  No use in having this argument again. Bobby Junior would always be on Courtney’s side. “Can we change the subject, please?”

  “How’s your Lexus?”

  “Fine.”

  “Time for registration?”

  She considered for a second. “Yeah. Actually, it is.”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow and get it done.”

  “How much will it cost?”

  He moaned, “Mmm. You know they go up every year. Probably about sixty, maybe eighty or a hundred dollars.”

  A hundred dollars my foot. “I’ll give you sixty, Daddy, and that’s being generous because I’m sure it doesn’t even cost that much.”

  “What about my gas and time and energy?”

  “Daddy, this is the only thing you do for me all year.”

  He crossed her, “I changed your oil twice last year.”

  She relent
ed. “Yes, you did. At my expense, and then some. But I don’t have any extra money to give you for a service most fathers perform for their unmarried daughters out of the kindness of their hearts.”

  He sighed. “I’ll be by romorrow ’round six.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Fluffy took more turns for the worse than a teenager in driver’s ed. Camille kept Sheryl updated on the cat’s condition while requesting flex time in the same breath. The charade prompted Camille to download pictures of a brown spotted tabby from the Internet and transfer them to her phone, providing further proof that Fluffy existed.

  The charade was going fine and dandy until one of the pre-rehearsal Bible studies touched on deceitfulness. Ronald recited Luke 16:10, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

  Camille had heard that verse plenty of times in Sunday school. Made perfect sense to her. Dishonesty is bad; honesty is good. What else is new? Everybody tells a lie every now and then. She thought about the verse that said whoever said they hadn’t sinned was lying. The context escaped her, but just thinking about the fact that she wasn’t alone in her little white lies provided some comfort. We’re only human.

  But then Mercedes added a comment to the discussion. “I think the thing we don’t understand about lying is that it proves our character before God. I mean, I might lie to my father about something because I don’t want to get into a long, drawn-out discussion. But the consequence of that lie might show up on my job when my boss looks over me for a promotion. Not because my boss knows about the lie I told my father, but because God knows I’m not ready for greater responsibility on my job. He’s not going to set me up to fail. He’ll allow the promotion only when my character can handle it, not one day too soon.”

  “So true,” Ronald agreed.

  One of the tenors piped up, “That’s deep, Mercedes.”

  Camille’s thought exactly. She kept her mouth shut, though, for fear of exposing herself. Why hadn’t anyone told her this before? She knew that when you cheated on someone in a relationship, it was likely the next man would cheat on you. She’d also seen some really mean people get what they had coming to them by way of freak accidents or extended prison sentences. That was karma. But Mercedes and Ronald were talking about karma on steroids—karma that jumped categories.

  Wait a minute. Did the Bible really say that? And even if the Bible said so, was it really true even now? Sounded like one of those things her momma warned her about that turned out to be just one of those things parents told kids to keep them out of trouble. Right up there with sex, which, in Camille’s experience, seemed like a good thing. With the right person.

  By the end of Bible study, Camille had decided she should at least let Fluffy die so she could end that lie and maybe buy herself some good luck in her career. Besides, seeing Sheryl’s face go into contortions over an imaginary cat was starting to get on Camille’s nerves. And researching feline dialysis to come up with new twists on Fluffy’s condition took more energy at the Medgar Evers center than making the effort to get to work within a decent time window.

  Yep. Fluffy has to die.

  Ronald prayed and transitioned to practice mode seamlessly by rendering musical praise. Camille joined with the rest of the choir, secretly thanking God that she could stop this ongoing fiction at her job.

  After rehearsal, Mercedes approached Camille again in the parking lot. “Don’t forget about our dinner rain check.”

  “Oh,” Camille lowered her voice, trying to think of a reason to postpone further.

  Mercedes added, “Another thing. I don’t know if you’d be interested in this or not, but the youth ministry choir is having their retreat this weekend. They need more female chaperones. I thought about you, since most of the young ladies in the Youth Warrior choir will be going. They usually stay in the same cabin. You’ve got some experience singing outside of church. I think you’d really be able to minister to them about the music industry. Tell them how to break in, what to watch out for, you know?”

  Flattered, Camille agreed before she realized what she’d signed up for. A weekend with teenage girls. Hormonal, bad-attitude mini-divas. In a cabin, too. What have I gotten myself into?

  She figured the best thing about the trip would be the free meals. After having paid the first installment for her traffic ticket, Camille would take all the handouts she could get.

  The bus ride from Dallas to Mount Walloosha Encampment on the outskirts of Oklahoma City took four hours. Though they left the church Thursday morning before the sun rose, the kids talked and laughed the whole way.

  Camille sat next to Mercedes, the only person she knew. Mercedes had a tendency to be quite chatty, so Camille packed an MP3 player for the trip. Nothing against the girl. Camille wanted to keep her distance.

  That distance, however, faded fast Thursday night after Camille and Mercedes’s “team” got their cabin assignment.

  “We’re a team?” Camille asked.

  “Yeah, girl. We’ll play games tonight.” Mercedes raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to wipe the floor with these other teams.”

  The idea of competition sent a pleasurable spark through Camille. She and Mercedes had something in common after all.

  Mercedes moved her backpack to her left side, leaving her right hand to open the cabin door. Six giddy girls trailed them up the winding path of concrete cut through two-foot-tall leafy wilderness. As soon as Mercedes unlocked the door to their weekend living quarters, the teens nearly knocked Camille over as they sped into the main room to claim their beds.

  “I got this one!”

  “I’m sleeping here!”

  Camille sighed. “Okay.”

  “Oh, we’re sorry, miss,” one of the girls apologized for their rudeness.

  One look around the room raised the question of why anyone would be in a rush to stake a spot anywhere. The main area consisted of hard, gray floors and exactly eight beds. Four on either side of the room with an aisle down the middle. A window over each bed and a back window containing a single air-conditioning unit. That was it. No TV, no mirrors, no bathroom. Just a simple twenty-foot by thirty-foot rectangle.

  The last two beds, nearest the entrance, obviously belonged to Camille and Mercedes at this point. Great. Sacrifice the adults to the bears and coyotes.

  Mercedes dropped her backpack on her bed and promptly called a meeting of the minds. “Okay, everyone. You have three minutes to send your parents a text or call them and let them know you made it safely. After that, I’m collecting all electronic devices. Cell phones, MP3 players, tablets, video games. Anything with an on-off switch.

  “Your three minutes starts now.”

  A frenzy of texting and talking transpired, then Mercedes made good on her promise. “When we leave for lunch, I’ll take these devices to the front office for safekeeping.

  “Now, let’s make sure we all know each other.”

  The girls obediently sat on their beds and gave Mercedes their full attention.

  “I know you all know me, and you know each other, right?”

  “Yes.” They all smiled.

  Mercedes continued, “Well, this is Camille. She’s new at our church.”

  “Hi, Miss Camille,” from them all.

  Camille waved slightly.

  Mercedes directed the girls, “Go ahead and introduce yourselves.”

  The tallest one went first. She was model thin with long, straight, black hair and a round face that hinted at an Asian heritage. “My name is Miyoshaki Carter. Everybody calls me Shaki.”

  “I’m Sierra. Proud, graduating senior at the great James Madison High School,” she added with a flick of her sewn-in curly brown locks. Obviously the hairdresser of the group.

  “Anyway,” from the third girl. Though her innocent face portrayed a shy, reserved church girl, her feisty wardrobe—grungy shorts, a ripped white T-shirt with a hot pink tank top unde
rneath, and a glitzy mountain of necklaces—said otherwise. Her hair, a bushy, unpermed mass of waves, completed her flair. “My name is Brittney and I attend the Arts Magnet High School, where our concert choir has won state for the last three years in a row, thank you very much.”

  Already, Camille liked this Brittney’s style. Smart, sassy, self-defined.

  Camille suddenly realized two of the girls were twins. Not identical, but definitely from the same womb. One spoke for both of them. “I’m Mackenzie, this is my sister Michaela. We’re freshmen at Grace Chapel Academy.”

  That was news to Camille. She didn’t even know her church had a school.

  “Ooh,” Sierra inquired, “I heard it’s boring. Is it?”

  Michaela nodded while Mackenzie shook her head, which brought about laughs.

  “Which one is it?” Shaki asked.

  Michaela spoke up. “I think it’s boring. We have no sports, no extracurricular organizations. They keep the boys away from the girls mostly. And sometimes I feel like I’m going to church instead of school.”

  “But I like it because there’s not a whole lot of he-said, she-said,” Mackenzie explained. “It’s a small school. The teachers are kind of strict, too. And if you have a problem with someone, the first thing we have to do is pray.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Sierra contended, “I can’t go to school there. I gotta be somewhere where I can bust somebody in the face if I need to.”

  “And I gotsta have some boys in class,” Shaki insisted.

  The last teen stood and announced, “I’m Chrisandrea. Before you ask, yes, my daddy’s name is Chris and my momma’s name is Andrea. I’m a senior at Conrad High School, finishing a year early, attending Texas Christian University in the fall on a full academic scholarship.” She snapped her fingers and took a bow.

  Mercedes and Camille started the congratulatory applause for Chrisandrea, and the other girls followed suit.