Blessed

“How was practice?”
“We didn’t get a lot done. Too many questions.”
“Like how you survived against James?”
“That, and ‘who’s the new girl?’"
"Really?"
"It’s a small school. We take our news seriously.”
“Duly noted.”

I stood next to Ceci as she sat on the grass and when I say “sat” I mean she had her legs and arms in a weird position: she was balancing on her heels. It looked painful but she looked so peaceful that I didn’t have the heart to tell her that in a few weeks it would be so cold and wet that she would have to think twice about sitting on the ground.

“Got your homework done?”
“Yes. Just trying a few relax positions.”
“Yoga?”
“Yoga-ish”
“Ish?”
“Yoga is a combination of faith and body…I’m not faithful in Hinduism but the positions are pretty cool.”
“You don’t believe in re-incarnation?”
“Nope, nor in Karma.”
“What do you believe in?”
She looked up at me and then closed her eyes.
“I’m not really sure these days,” she replied as she planted her hands down and swung her legs out. “I mean; I know what I believe in…it’s just at times I don’t feel like I’ve lived up to the bargain.”
“Haven’t made your daily sacrifices?”
“Not the ones that matter. I need to find a live chicken, a weed-eater and some peach preserves.” She said as she stood up.
“Why?”
“I’m kidding. So, what can we do?”
“I’m up for a walk…even though it’s getting dark.”
“Sounds good to me. Hang on.”
Ceci ran into the house. I would have followed her, but I didn’t want to seem…weird…even though to the casual observer our current conversation was already going in that general direction.

The sun had already set when we left the house and the street lights were on, casting a dull glow even when we were near one due to the trees scattering the light.
“I’m thankful for the things I have…I’ve questioned the things that have happened but I feel like I don’t meet the standards.”
I simply nodded as it was too dark for her to see me.
“But it shouldn’t be that way…I know I can’t reach the plateau of ‘hey, look at me, I’m perfect.”
“No one should expect you to,” I replied after we stepped into the range of a street light.
“But I expect myself to…. it’s like a constant guilt trip. I need to be like, up there, and if I can’t do that…if I can’t…sorry…I don’t know why I’m going on like this.”
“There’s always room for one more in the “Nobody’s Perfect” club. I’m a card-carrying member myself.”
“I knew someone that used to say that: My old church youth director.”
“I stopped going to church, well my parents did, a long time ago, so unless I walked fifteen miles…”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why they stopped…but I was kind of glad they did. It was really fake to me.”
“Like in, everyone acts like ‘this’ on Sunday but like ‘that’ every other day of the week?”
“Yeah. The same guy who called me stupid on Tuesday during English expects me to hold his hand while praying on Sunday morning. I’m not saying he’s hypocritical, because I would be too…but it’s just kind of a burnout.”
We stood under the low light of the overhead lamp.
“I used to talk to God a lot…kind of like sending a note in class, just a small letter.”
“I’ve always wanted the conversation. I mean, Adam, Eve, Abraham, Moses, Elisha-" I replied as she leaned against the post.
“Someone knows his Biblical cast of characters.”
“VBS, every summer. I mean they got to have one-on-one’s. They asked a question, they got a verbal answer. Elijah gets personal valet treatment in a flaming chariot! I can’t even get a verbal ‘Yeah, that’s cool’!”
“So you’re waiting for answers too?”
“I don’t even know the questions.”
“Maybe Alex Trebek could help us?”
“I’ll take ‘God, Help Me’, for two-thousand, please.”
She laughed a little…which made me smile, something I hardly ever did.
“Maybe we can look together?” She asked as she held her hand out to me.
“Thank you,” I replied as I took her hand.
“We should get back.”
I nodded in reply and we walked back to her house in a kind of happy silence…I mean I was happy and how she held onto my hand, I assumed she felt the same way…but I didn’t want to move any further than the hands…because I wasn’t sure what she was reading form my face.
“Where can I meet you tomorrow morning?”
“I can meet you at the front of the school,” I would have volunteered to meet her in six feet of snow wearing Bermuda shorts if she asked.
“I’ll see then. Goodnight, Andrew.”
“Night, Cecelia.”
I left her house calmly, but as soon as I saw she had closed the door I took off like a madman back to the school.
You know that part of your brain that screams “this is not a good idea…your parents may think you were sold to a roving band of gypsies”? Well, mine had been tied up, gagged, thrown into a dark basement and subjected to a CD of Milli Vanilli on infinite repeat. But at that moment, he had broken out, screaming about “the lights!” In this case, the headlights to my mother’s Ford Explorer.
“Where were you? I waited in front of the school for over an hour!”
“I was at a friend’s house.”
I climbed into the passenger seat of the SVU, after my mother, reluctantly, unlocked the door. I climbed in and looked at the time, glowing in that burning-your-eyes green from the dashboard radio; it read 9:04.
“Mike had no idea where you were, I went over there after waiting at the school.”
It was kind of funny and depressing at the same time: that she assumed I went to Mike’s house when I said “friend” …as if I only had one. Actually…that was true up to that day, but it was depressing to hear her say it nevertheless.
“I lost track of the time, we were talking.”
“But you couldn’t call?”
“I forgot.”
“What’s her name?”
“What?”
“I said, what’s her name, Romeo?"
“Cecilia.” I probably should have made up a name…or better still, denied everything.
“What’s she like?”
“She’s fine.”
“Fine as is fine or—“
“Mom, please.”
“Is she cute?”
“You’re really asking me these questions?”
“I would like to think her mother would ask the same of her about you.”
“She already knows me.”
“And I don’t know her?”
“Mom…”
“Would you prefer this conversation or the one that starts with ‘why am I picking you up at nine o’clock?’
“Cute doesn’t begin to describe her.”