As Todd taught, holding his Bible open and standing before the group, Christy glanced at the teens. A few of them really were listening. Mostly the girls.
These guys don’t know what a gift Todd is to them. He really cares about them. He’ll be their friend for the rest of their lives, if they’ll let him. And what he’s telling them right now is the truth. They do need to trust God in every area of their lives. Why aren’t they soaking up his words? It could mean the difference between life and death for some of these guys!
Christy decided to pray. She had been doing that a lot lately. Ever since that first Sunday morning when Gus broke down on the way to church, she realized they were fighting a battle with invisible enemies for these teens’ souls. As she felt the sun pouring over her right shoulder and burning her forearm, Christy adjusted her position so the sun was to her back and kept on praying for Todd.
“Let me leave you with this thought,” Todd said in conclusion. “None of us knows when his life will come to an end, and he will stand before Almighty God. The Bible says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Each of us will stand before God one day. Not Saint Peter at a golden gate. Not in front of a clerk at a desk like you see on TV. We will stand before the Lord.”
Christy began to look around the circle and prayed for each student, even though she didn’t remember all their names.
“The Lord Jesus Christ will hold out His hands to you, and you will see the scars that are still there two thousand years after He died in your place. He will say to you, ‘Come on in. I’ve been waiting for you, my friend. The relationship we started when you were on earth can now be made complete here in my home.’ Or He will say, ‘I invited you to come to me, but your whole life you pushed me away. Now it’s too late. You didn’t want me so now you will spend eternity separated from me.’ ”
Christy noticed how quiet the group had become. All eyes were on Todd.
“What’s it going to take for you to come to Him? Don’t wait. Nobody knows when he will die. And once it’s over, it’s just begun. Either you’ll spend eternity with Christ in heaven or eternity without Him in the place He made for the demons, those fallen angels who turned from Him.”
Todd paused a moment, then added, “What’s it going to be for you? Heaven is a very real place. And so is hell.”
The two troublemaking guys snickered, but everyone else sat still. Todd closed the time in prayer. Instead of saying “Let it be so” at the end, he concluded the prayer in a way Christy had never heard before. “As you wish,” Todd said. The group wasn’t sure the prayer was over yet.
Once they figured out that they were done, the teens took off for the recreation vehicles and spent the rest of the day doing what Katie called “frolicking.” They took turns going out into the desert flatness in the various vehicles Todd had arranged for the trip.
Christy stayed at the camp, and close to noon, she talked two of the girls who were there into helping her to make peanut butter sandwiches so the food would be ready for whoever wanted them after the runs in the sand.
The dry heat dried the sandwiches so quickly that all the bread was as stiff as toast within minutes after the peanut butter and grape jelly were spread on them. Christy tried stuffing the sandwiches back into the plastic bags as soon as they were made, and that seemed to help. The good thing was that Todd had bought so much bread and so much peanut butter that even if they had to toss out the entire first batch of sandwiches, Christy knew no one in the group would go hungry this day.
Around four o’clock, when the wind was returning and the blazing heat had subsided, Todd drove into camp in one of the vehicles, saying he needed to take the can of gas out to Katie, who was stranded in Baby Hummer. “Do you want to go with me?”
“Sure,” Christy said. For a moment, she was reminded of when she and Todd had taken Aunt Marti for a boat ride, and they had run out of gas. A darling girl on a Jet Ski had come to their rescue. Christy had always wished she were the girl on the Jet Ski instead of being the one who was stuck in the stalled boat with her aggravated aunt.
Christy wondered what was happening with Bob and Marti. She had mentally pushed away their situation, but as soon as she thought about it again, she felt a sickening heaviness. If she couldn’t talk to anyone else about Marti’s decision, then Christy needed to talk to her aunt, and the sooner the better. She decided she would call her aunt right after the camping trip. What Christy would say was another matter, but at least she would open up the subject again.
Todd fastened the gas can with bungee cords to the back of the two-seater dune buggy and told Christy to buckle up. Then with a jerk and a roar, they took off across the sand. Christy held on tight to the side of the roll bar and clenched her teeth to keep from biting her tongue. Every bone in her body felt as if it was being jolted and jarred beyond anything any of them had experienced before. She turned to Todd and smiled, her teeth still clenched.
He shifted gears and roared on.
Talking to him was impossible. It was far too noisy. Understanding him might be another impossibility.
What does he see in this? It’s kind of fun, but it’s mostly uncomfortable.
They arrived at the spot where Katie was waiting with two of the girls in Baby Hummer. They were laughing about something when Todd cut the engine and it became quiet enough to hear.
Katie came over and gave Christy a friendly punch in the arm. “Isn’t this fun? I love it.” Katie’s face was red from sunburn or windburn or both. Her long-sleeved T-shirt was streaked with dirt. Only a few flyaway wisps of her short hair had dared to peek out from under her baseball cap.
“Have you driven this thing yet?” Katie asked.
Christy shook her head.
“You want to drive Baby Hummer?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“You’re good to go,” Todd said, strapping the empty can to the back of the dune buggy.
“Great,” Katie said. “Thanks for bringing the gas to us.” She turned to settle back into Baby Hummer’s front seat but then turned to Todd and said, “Make sure Christy drives that buggy.”
“You want to drive?” Todd asked Christy.
“No, that’s okay.”
“You sure?” His expression was classic Todd as he stood there, eyebrows slightly raised, dimple showing on the right side of his cheek. Christy was flooded with memories of other times he had given her that look, and she always had tried whatever he was willing to teach her, from surfing on a body board to water-skiing. The only time he had given her that look and she had turned him down was when he had asked her to go “to the ends of the earth” last summer to the Arctic Circle. Todd had gone on the train alone while Christy and Katie traveled to Copenhagen. More than once she had regretted missing the experience of seeing a polar bear with Todd.
“You know what?” Christy said. “Why not? Tell me what to do.” She didn’t know why her heart was beating so fast. She trusted Todd enough to take this chance with him, and she felt as if she was ready for anything.
11 Todd hustled around to the passenger side of the dune buggy and belted himself in while Christy settled into the driver’s seat. He gave her a quick run-through of the gears and the way the clutch tended to stick. Katie had taken off in Baby Hummer, so the desert was silent when Christy turned the key to start the deep, rumbling engine. She stalled it three times. Todd patiently explained what to do, and on the fourth try, they took off, jostling their way back toward camp.
“Okay, now!” Todd yelled. “Next gear.”
Christy shifted, gave it gas, and shifted again. A bubbling sense of delight started in her gut as she pressed her foot to the gas. The delight surfaced in a burst of laughter as they bounced over the ruts in the sand and plowed across the Mojave Desert. She hadn’t driven with Todd beside her since the bridge in Hana.
“This is fun!” she yelled, giving the vehicle more gas and becoming braver with her steering. She glanced at Todd. His smile spread from
one side of his face to the other. It looked like he was laughing, but she couldn’t hear him.
With a variety of twists and turns, Christy invented her own trail back to camp. A guy from their group roared past them in a one-person vehicle, with Matt following him in another one-seater. Christy tried to wave. When she took her hand off the steering wheel, she hit a rut and stalled the engine. Suddenly silence prevailed. Christy turned to Todd, who was still grinning, and then she burst out laughing, throwing her head back and bumping it on the roll bar.
“Ouch!” she hollered, rubbing her head and trying to blink back the tears that sprang to her eyes.
“You okay?” Todd asked. He sounded so compassionate.
“I bumped my head.” Christy laughed at her klutziness.
Todd reached over and rubbed the tender spot.
“Ow!”
“Do you want to keep driving?” he asked.
“Maybe you better in case I have a delayed concussion,” Christy said.
Todd looked at her skeptically.
She laughed again and said, “I’m only kidding!” She grinned at him, and when she did, she met his screaming, silver-blue-eyed gaze. He was looking at her “that way” again.
In one lightning-bolt second, a life-changing thought seared into Christy’s thoughts. He’s the one!
Christy could barely breathe. Todd, you are the one for me.
She felt as if the whole world had stopped twirling, and she and Todd were the only two people on the face of the earth. You are the one for me. And I’m the one for you, aren’t I? This is it! My grandma was right. I know! I really, truly know!
Todd climbed out of the vehicle to change places with her. Christy felt as if everything was in slow motion as she got out. They met at the back of the dune buggy, where Todd grabbed her by the shoulders and brushed her cheek with a kiss before dashing around to take his place in the driver’s seat.
Christy stood still. She knew something strange and wonderful had happened in her heart. She never would have expected it to happen now, in a place like this. But she knew this was the mysterious “it” she had waited for. She had to tell Todd she was in love with him.
No, she needed to tell Todd that she was more than in love with him. She had to tell him that she loved him. Truly loved him. And she gladly would commit to loving him for the rest of her life. No matter where they lived, or what they did, or how their lives turned out, Christy knew—absolutely knew, without a shadow of a doubt—that she wanted to be Todd’s companion, friend, wife, and the mother of his children for as long as they both shall live.
Christy felt her heart pounding up to her throat as she watched him fasten his seat belt. His back was to her, but Christy knew she couldn’t wait another minute to make her declaration, her commitment known. “Todd!” she called out.
He had just turned the key in the ignition, and the rumbling engine’s noise drowned out Christy’s voice.
“I love you!” she yelled.
Todd couldn’t hear her.
Christy smiled to herself. This is so ironic. She went around to the passenger’s seat, settled in, and buckled her seat belt. Todd punched the engine into gear.
It’s enough that I know for sure right now. I’ll wait until a more romantic time and place to tell him. And when I tell him, he will hear me all the way to the very core of his heart.
With a lion-sized roar, they took off across the desert.
Christy watched for a second opportunity to make her declaration known to Todd. As she was fixing the evening meal, she let her giddy imagination examine every possible way she could communicate with him. One crazy idea was to write the words on paper towels with the mustard bottle and hang the message inside Gus from the plastic hangers. But someone else might see it, and this was just between her and Todd.
More important, Christy decided as she lay awake in her tent that night, when she told Todd she loved him, she needed to tell him with her voice. He needed to hear the words, not just to read them.
Sunday morning was cooler than Saturday because a thin layer of clouds had drawn themselves over the sky like a sheer mosquito netting gathered over a bed in the tropics. And like a weary safari assistant tucked safely under that mosquito netting, Christy didn’t want to get up. She ached, was tired, and dearly wished she could stand under a warm shower to revive herself slowly.
A shower came, but it wasn’t warm. Great drops of rain splashed on the group gathered for morning worship. The sprinkling lasted only a moment. Then the sun shone through and instantly dried everything. Christy looked at her arm. It was as if the rain’s objective was to turn the dirt on her skin into mud and then to send the sun to bake the mud on permanently.
None of them had to be coaxed to tear down the tents and clean up. Matt joined Christy as she tried to yank two tent poles apart.
“Let me try,” he said. With a twist, he had them separated.
“Thanks,” Christy said. “It’s as if the dirt turned to glue when the rain hit it. Can you give that pole over there a try?”
Matt succeeded to divide that pole, as well. He came back over to Christy, looking as if he was checking to see if anyone was close enough to hear them. “Can I talk to you a minute?”
“Sure.” Christy kept working on tearing down the tent.
“Over here.” Matt motioned for her to follow him to the back of his truck. “I know this may sound like we’re back in elementary school, but I have to ask you something.” He kept his voice low. “Do you think Katie is, you know, interested in me?”
Christy felt funny talking to Matt about this. “I think you should talk to her about that,” Christy answered. “I mean, I thought you and Katie were getting pretty close. You two have been together a lot.” The truth was, she didn’t know. But she didn’t want to tell Matt that.
Matt looked hard at Christy. As he did, his eyebrows pushed inward. “Does it look like we’re together? Because I didn’t mean to give that impression to her or anyone else.”
Christy felt sorry for her best friend. Had Matt been leading Katie on? Was Katie expecting the relationship to be more than it was?
“You and Katie just need to find a time and place to talk privately about all this.” Christy lightly touched Matt’s arm.
Just then one of the high school girls stepped over toward them, oblivious to the privacy of their conversation. She asked Matt if he could come help her with the tent.
Christy looked over her shoulder toward the main camping area and saw that Katie was watching them.
“Thanks for the advice.” Matt placed his hand on Christy’s shoulder and gave her a big smile. “I appreciate you, Christy.”
That evening, after the group returned to the church and began to unpack the gear, Katie asked Christy, “So what were you and Matt talking about this afternoon?”
Christy knew anyone could easily overhear their conversation, so she said, “I’ll tell you later.”
* * *
They didn’t reach their dorm room until almost eleven-thirty, and Christy was exhausted. She gathered her shampoo and soap to indulge in the long-awaited shower. But before she could leave the room, Katie said, “Oh, Chester, you poor little thing. Look, Christy, Chester went belly up, too.”
“Did you feed him too much?”
“I don’t think I fed him enough. Or maybe the bowl got too much direct sun from the window. The water feels pretty warm.” Katie scooped up the lifeless creature and followed Christy to the rest room to conduct what she called “burial at sea.”
“I’ll buy two goldfish tomorrow,” Katie said. “I think Chester died of loneliness since we were gone all weekend.”
“Katie, you’re going to end up spending so much money on goldfish. If you’re buying more than two, you’re better off with an aquarium instead of that small bowl.”
“Now you tell me all this.” Katie placed her hand over her heart and had a personal moment of silence before sending Chester to the “Great Goldfish Pond Beyo
nd the Sewer.”
Christy shook her head and entered the shower, where the warm water felt heavenly.
Katie stood outside the shower stall and said, “So are you going to tell me what Matt said to you this afternoon? Or do I have to figure it out for myself by trial and error, as well?
Christy had hoped for five minutes of privacy and silence under the shower. She had dreams of Todd to tend to. However, she knew Katie wouldn’t leave her in peace until Christy answered her every question.
“I think I’ll take a shower while I’m here, too.” Katie’s voice was now coming from the shower stall next to Christy’s. Katie raised her voice over the rush of water from both showers. “Let me borrow your shampoo. And do you have any soap over there?”
Christy handed Katie her soap and shampoo and finished her shower in much shorter time than she had planned. “I’m going back to the room,” she said.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Katie warned. “I’ll be right there.”
Changing into her favorite pajamas, Christy brushed and dried her hair. Katie returned and got ready for bed, as well, but the dryer’s noise made it impossible for them to talk. So Christy was tucked in her bed before she divulged her information to Katie.
“Matt and I talked about you,” Christy said.
“Me? What did he say?”
“I told him he needed to talk to you.”
“And what did he say to that?”
Christy paused. “Katie, do you like Matt a lot?”
Katie’s expression became pinched. “No,” she said slowly. “I know you probably can’t believe this, after the way I made such a dramatic scene out of seeing him again this year. But now that I’ve had a chance to get to know him, I don’t think there’s anything between us.”
“You don’t?” Christy hadn’t expected that response.
“I know, I know. I was so flipped out about him, but I was never so wrong about anything in my life. I think Matt is a great guy and a good friend. I just don’t feel anything more for him.” Katie roughed up her short hair with a bath towel and let the feathery ends fall where they may.