The next time we go to dinner, she excuses herself to the bathroom before the check comes, then returns looking like the cat who ate the canary and informs me it’s been taken care of. I try to tell her that she shouldn’t, that I like doing this and giving her things and feeling useful, but she puts her hand on my mouth and kisses my temple and says let me take care of you for once.
It’s hard to argue with her then and impossible to argue with her later, in my bedroom, when she pulls her mouth off me just in time for me to come all over her chest, something else I probably shouldn’t like but do. I must say that out loud because she rolls her eyes and says just not the hair or face, and I can’t argue with the heavy peace that’s settled in my bones or the taste of her still on my lips.
“I can’t believe you made fun of Jesus,” I say, and across the table Andi makes a face.
“I didn’t make fun of Jesus. It was just a joke,” she says.
“About Jesus.”
“It was a water into wine joke! Come on, that’s not even blasphemy. People must make that joke all the time at church stuff, right?”
I don’t know anyone but Andi who could wind up at a women’s bible study by accident when she thought she was joining a book club. Apparently when the flyer on the library bulletin board said the book club was inspirational and uplifting, Andi thought they meant Tuesdays with Morrie or Man’s Search for Meaning.
“Wasn’t my experience,” I say, taking a sip of my coffee. “Tell me you didn’t also make a ‘spent forty days in the desert because men don’t ask for directions’ joke.”
“Of course not. That’s a terrible joke,” Andi says, perfectly straight-faced, and I can’t help the grin that takes over my face.
Andi’s got her chin in one hand, her other wrapped around some confection that technically contains coffee but cannot, in any meaningful way, be called coffee. We’re sitting at a two-person table by the wall of The Mountain Grind, Sprucevale’s premier and only coffee shop, the other patrons buzzing around us. It’s late morning on a Sunday, so the church crowd is starting to filter in. Several of them are eyeing our table.
I lean back, take another sip of my own coffee, and remain comfortable.
“You going back next week?”
“I’m not sure I have anything useful to contribute.”
“You could always try a regular book club.”
Andi snorts and takes a sip of her confection. “I thought this was a regular book club,” she points out. “I kept waiting for someone to talk about a different book. I stayed for the whole hour.”
I start laughing, because I can’t help myself.
“Shut up,” she mutters, but she’s grinning. “I felt guilty just leaving!”
“That’s how they get you,” I say.
“I didn’t want to be an asshole at bible study,” she goes on. “I didn’t even have a bible, someone had to lend me their spare. Besides, they seemed really nice. Just confused about why I was there.”
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Andi has been away long enough that she doesn’t immediately realize inspirational is usually code for Christian. I’m not sure why anyone around here ever uses a code for that, but it happens sometimes. Maybe it’s so unsuspecting women join their bible study groups.
“Also, I got the distinct feeling that they wanted to gossip but couldn’t because I was there,” she goes on. “So, really, I’m doing them a favor by not going back.”
“I’m sure there’s at least one secular book club in town,” I say. “Lucia’s not in one?”
“I don’t think Lucia wants me tagging along to everything she does,” Andi says. “I’ve gotta give her space to vent about me sometimes. Anyway, I signed up for a bike path cleanup project next month, so that should be fun.”
I narrow my eyes at her and think for a moment, because I saw something about that project the other day, and—
“The one organized by Friends of the Chillacouth?” I ask.
Andi drinks her coffee and glances away.
“Chloe Barnes left you chained to a tree and had the nerve to ask for help again?” I ask, leaning forward, lowering my voice. I swallow down and you said yes because I don’t police what Andi does, it’s not my job, but—I want her to be okay and not chained to a tree.
“It’s a group thing, it’s right downtown,” Andi says. “I promise to use the buddy system.”
“When is it?”
“You hate these things, you don’t have to go.”
“I don’t hate them,” I grumble, and Andi reaches out to pat my arm. “These big group things are fine.”
Andi, it turns out, has been enthusiastically throwing herself into new groups of people since she came back about six months ago. I never realized because I’m not in any of those groups of people; I have my friends and I have my family, but I can’t say I go meet strangers for the sheer hell of it the way she does.
I should go with her more, though, if only to see the way it makes her light up. Andi’s good at people in a way I’ll never be, charming and engaging in a way I’ll never be. I’m sure the bible study group she crashed would love to have her back.
“When you came with me last weekend it took you two whole days to get back to normal,” she says, and she’s leaning in, her eyes laughing, her hand still on my arm.
“You shouldn’t encourage Chloe,” I say instead of arguing that point. What I really want to say is I want Chloe to never speak to you again after what she did, but Andi will tell me I’m being unreasonable.
“She apologized,” Andi shrugs. The apology wasn’t nearly enough, but that’s not my call to make. “And it’s not like I’m not going anywhere alone with her ever again.”
Chloe didn’t see the way Andi was shaking in my truck that night, something I can’t quite get out of my head when her name comes up.
“Promise?” I ask, as Andi drains the rest of her coffee confection.
“Of course,” she says, and stands. “Be right back.”
She tosses her cup on the way to the bathroom, and I set about finishing my own drink while definitely not plotting reasons why Chloe Barnes could, theoretically, be arrested for forest crimes.
I’m mid-plot when Mrs. Buckley seats herself in Andi’s empty chair, puts her purse on the table, and smiles at me. It’s a bad sign.
“Sure is a cold one out there today,” she says by way of greeting. “Listen, sweetheart, I’m so glad I ran into you. How’re you doing?”
I know an ambush when I see one, and only wish I knew what kind of ambush this was. Mr. and Mrs. Buckley are longtime friends of my parents’. I have no idea what their first names are. For all I know, it’s Mr. and Mrs.
“Well, and yourself?” I ask.
“Thank you for asking,” she says, and puts a hand on my arm. I liked it better when Andi did it. “I was just at the most wonderful worship service with your parents, and I have to tell you, they put in a prayer request for you.”
“Ah,” I say, because I have to say something. I wish this were news.