Robin Talley - Our Own Private Universe

“Listen, there was something I wanted to talk to you about,” Dad said. “You remember that our first Holy Life national conference is coming up?”

I nodded. Jake, the guy from Harpers Ferry, had said something about that at the party last night.

Some of my friends at school thought our church was weird, but it wasn’t, really. Holy Life started out in Maryland after a couple of nondenominational churches decided to start doing some activities together. Then some churches in other states joined in and even a few in other countries, like this one here in Mexico. Holy Life churches aren’t the kind where preachers talk constantly about how abortion is evil and how we should all vote Republican or anything, though. I mean, some people at my church probably do vote Republican, but mostly we don’t talk about that stuff. Instead we get together for picnics and ice-cream socials, and on Sunday mornings we sing hymns and listen to sermons about whatever Jesus did that week.

But now the different churches were trying to get more officially organized. Everyone had been talking about the conference since Christmas, but I’d sort of tuned it out. Usually, if I paid attention to church stuff, it was because I’d done something wrong that week and knew I should pray about it so I wouldn’t feel guilty.

“Well, the delegates who’ll be at the conference are very interested in this trip,” Dad said. “It’s the first time we’ve brought multiple churches together for an overseas mission project.”

“We didn’t come over the sea to get here,” I said. “It’s more of an overland project.”

Dad ignored me. “I’ll be giving a presentation about this trip at the conference, and one of the things the delegates want to hear will be how we worked with the local congregation. Since you volunteered at that clinic last summer, I thought you and some of your friends might want to take on a side project here with the local kids.”

A side project? Dad wanted me to do more work? “What kind of project?”

Dad shrugged. “Whatever you think they might enjoy. Could you teach them a praise dance or a worship song?”

“Dad.” I side-eyed him. After a moment he gave up and looked away.

My parents knew very well that I’d stopped all that. I didn’t sing in the church choir or the school chorus anymore, and I’d dropped out of the dance class I’d enrolled in the summer before.

I was done with music. After what had happened with MHSA, there was no way I could ever go back. Mom and Dad may have thought they were dropping subtle hints when they asked me to lead a worship song or left a brochure for my old music camp on the kitchen table, but I knew exactly what they were trying to do, and it wasn’t going to work. I’d made up my mind.

No more spending hours with my stupid guitar. I played lacrosse now, and I’d joined the math team, too.

No more music camp, either. I’d signed up to come on this trip the same day our church’s lead pastor announced it was happening. Mainly so my parents would stop bugging me about music camp.

“Well, maybe you could all do a presentation together at the end of the summer,” Dad said.

“Ugh, do we have to?” That would be even worse than doing a song. I hated standing up in front of people and just talking. In class, whenever we got assigned to do a presentation, I begged the teacher to let me do a separate extra credit project instead. In church I always kept my head down when they asked for volunteers to read Bible verses.

I didn’t want to present. I wanted to perform. But I wasn’t good enough for that, apparently.

“Well, it could be anything to keep the kids engaged,” Dad said. “What did you do at the clinic?”

“Crafts, mostly.” Last summer, after I’d dropped out of music camp at the last minute, I’d wound up volunteering at a health center in downtown Silver Spring for people who didn’t have insurance. I’d thought I was going to learn how to bandage people’s cuts and test them for viruses and stuff—I’d signed up to work there because I was into math and science, after all—but instead I was a glorified babysitter for the little kids in the waiting room. On my second day I brought in craft supplies from home and the next thing I knew, I was the most popular volunteer in the place. All the kids wanted me to show them how to make my special paper airplanes that were guaranteed to fly in loop-di-loops. “But I don’t have any craft supplies here, except for the jewelry materials Lori and I brought. Those are for us, though.”

Lori and I had been making jewelry since middle school. I’d found some bead patterns online and gotten obsessed with them. I loved anything that involved neat, orderly rows and following a bunch of steps to get it right. Lori and I started wearing our jewelry to school, and soon people were asking if they could buy it. We wanted to sell it online but our parents were afraid people would try to take advantage of us. Parents had no idea how the internet actually worked.

“Well, we could reimburse you for the materials,” Dad said. “I guess it’s my fault for not mentioning this before we left home. I thought you could do a dance or something that didn’t need supplies.”

“Dad.” I groaned.

Dad rubbed his neck again. “For the jewelry, do you think you could have them make Christian-themed pieces? You know, cross necklaces, that sort of thing?”

“Sure.” I didn’t know if we had any cross-necklace supplies, but Dad would probably forget he’d asked me that anyway.

“Good. Well, this is an excellent plan. You can start today after lunch. I’ll talk to Carlos about rounding up some of the girls and I’ll swing by to take photos of you for my presentation.”

“Today? Wow, okay.” It was a good thing we’d brought the jewelry stuff in Lori’s suitcase and not mine.

I went straight back in to tell Lori while Dad stayed outside to help with the fence work. I was trying to figure out how many supplies we’d brought with us and how we were going to teach jewelry making to a bunch of kids whose language we didn’t speak when I saw that a girl in a bright pink hat had taken my spot by the wall. She and Lori had their backs to me, and they were talking and laughing as they painted.

It was Christa. I recognized her by the pink streak in her hair. Which clashed horribly (and, somehow, adorably) with her hat.

I stopped walking. Suddenly I was...what? Afraid? Nervous? Jealous?

What was I supposed to do, exactly? What should I say? The night before everything between us had just sort of fallen into place, like magic.

But that night had been special. That night, I was special. Today I was regular old Aki, with too-short track pants and smears of white paint on my hands.

Lori bent to dip her brush into the pan and saw me. She waved. “Aki! Look who came to help!”

Christa’s face broke into a grin as she turned around. Her heart-shaped sunglasses dangled from a string around her neck. “Sorry! Did I steal your brush?”

She reached up to adjust her hat. There was a speck of white paint on the side.

That’s when I realized it wasn’t a hat. It was a beret.

A raspberry beret.

Wow.

Not only did Christa own a raspberry beret, she’d brought it with her to Mexico.

I didn’t know a single fellow Prince fan who was younger than my mother. It was as if Christa had been custom-made for me.

Just like that, things were easy again.

“Yeah.” I grinned. “But I guess I’m willing to share.”

“Okay.” Christa held out the brush to me. “I’m a big fan of sharing, myself.”

I took the brush from her and smiled when my fingers met hers on the handle. It was the first time we’d touched.

And I was certain it wouldn’t be the last.