Laurel looked around the coffee house on Wednesday night. She didn’t feel ready for this. Pastor Ron would be here any minute. She was so thankful that he’d agreed to come and help her out this first time. Suddenly she felt as if she’d bitten off more than she could chew with this project.
The coffee house looked good. It was inviting and there were more than enough mismatched tables and chairs sitting around for the kids to use. She still didn’t have all her licenses to open as a real business, but everyone in the city government had assured her that running a church-sponsored youth group event, where no money changed hands, wouldn’t be a problem.
Still, she was so nervous. What if nobody came aside from Pastor Ron and Jeremy? What if a bunch of kids came, and nobody had a good time? It was hard to entertain teenagers.
The bell over the front door jingled, and Laurel turned to see who was walking in. It was Jeremy, and he had both of his cousins with him.
“Guys, I’m thrilled to see you. Can I get you something from the coffee bar?”
“Not yet, Aunt Laurel.” Trent waved his hand. “And Mom said to make sure anything you gave the squirt was decaf.”
Kyle scowled up at him, and Laurel butted in before a fight could get started. “Don’t worry, that’s all I’m serving this late at night. I figured it wouldn’t be as cool for you older people, but the parents would probably thank me. Anybody else coming that you know of?” She tried to sound casual.
“Sure. Probably the whole youth group. And the girls always bring friends to anything so they have somebody to whisper secrets to.” Kyle rolled his eyes, letting his aunt know what he thought of that behavior.
“Great. So you didn’t have to twist their arms to get them here?” she asked Jeremy, indicating his cousins.
“Nah. They made sure I would come. It isn’t exactly tops on my list of places to be. I mean, not as many times as I’ve already scrubbed the floors and cleaned the blackboard.” He turned to Trent. “She keeps changing all the specials, and she’s nowhere near opening. I think what I’m doing breaks the child labor laws or something.”
Laurel’s exasperation rose. “Jeremy Samuel, you know that isn’t true. You haven’t been in here more than four hours altogether so far. And I promised you a trip to the skate store in St. Louis with a padded budget just for what you’ve done in that little bit of time.”
“Right. I know you mean it, but when are you going to be able to do that anytime soon? Besides, you know it’s not going to be nearly as cool as the stores at home.”
Laurel took note that California was still “at home” as far as Jeremy was concerned. Her lack of discussion regarding the house sale was coming back to haunt her.
Not that anything was happening there for sure. But now she’d waited so long to discuss a sore subject that Jeremy would be furious when she brought it up. None of this was working the way she’d planned.
Before she could say anything else, the bell over the door rang again. Pastor Ron came in, saying hello to everybody. And Ashleigh Jordan slipped in behind him.
“I thought you were grounded for life,” Laurel said. “What made your father change his mind?”
Ashleigh shrugged in a noncommittal fashion. “It’s a church thing, isn’t it? Even my dad isn’t that mean.”
Before she could say anything else to Ashleigh, or anyone else, Laurel was swamped with the sudden influx of noisy teenagers pouring into the coffee house. How could eight bodies make that much noise in this big a space? And how could each of them have a different question to ask or exotic coffee drink she’d never heard of to see if she could fix? She was the Coffee Queen, wasn’t she? Gina always said so. Nobody really made tangerine-flavored syrup for cappuccinos, did they? And if they did, why hadn’t she found it by now?
It took close to an hour to sort out all the drink requests and music discussions and put a CD on the player for more than two songs. By eight-fifteen Laurel was sitting on a wooden stool watching Pastor Ron work magic with the high-schoolers. The middle-schoolers had finished what little coffee drinking they were going to do and had settled down to the business of beating each other at board games or table versions of soccer and hockey. Laurel was glad someone had suggested she get things such as the battered foosball table in one corner. Kyle and one of the girls were having a blast, while their friends chose sides to root for. There was even some actual serious discussion going on amid the banter.
Sitting around with cups of cappuccino had made the high school group feel sophisticated, apparently. They were challenging Ron on points of scripture and asking for answers to questions Laurel didn’t remember being ready to ask at fifteen.
Ashleigh didn’t seem to be ready, either. She sat on a wooden stool identical to Laurel’s, at the edge of the high school group. She hadn’t said a word, and was using a spoon to chase around the foam in her cappuccino, letting it drop back into the cup with a soft, liquid plop. She didn’t look bored—more like she was wistful or ready to ask something, but just didn’t have the nerve yet.
Bless Pastor Ron, because he picked up on that somehow and turned slowly to her in the wide circle of kids around him.
“What do you think about this, Ashleigh? You’ve been awfully quiet and you seem like you have something to add.”
She shook her head and her dark hair cascaded over her face. “Uh-uh. Not a thing.”
“No opinion, or just don’t know these kids well enough to voice it?” Ron leaned forward in the captain’s chair he’d grabbed for his own during this discussion.
Ashleigh was nearly in tears when she dashed her hair out of her face. Laurel wanted to hug her. But she stayed right in her seat and didn’t move because there was something happening and she needed to let it happen.
“It’s not just the kids. They’re talking about all these things I don’t get. They’re using words I don’t understand. I always thought I was cool and knew a whole lot because I was from the city and they were from this little place where nothing happens.” The tears were coming in earnest now, and Laurel could see Jeremy nodding along with her.
This was touching him in ways she couldn’t hope to. Laurel held her breath.
“Nobody said you weren’t any of those things, Ashleigh.” The affirmation came from Heather, the quietest girl in the room.
It was the first full sentence Laurel had heard from the girl all night.
“Yeah, but don’t you get it?” said Ashleigh. “None of that matters! You are all talking about how long you’ve known Jesus. About walking with the Lord and doing this or that, or how you’ve been tested, or what you said to a friend when they were doubting something.” Ashleigh’s shoulders were shaking now. “I don’t even know if I know Jesus the way you do. I just want what you’ve got.”
Without another word, Heather got up from where she was sitting and put a slender arm around Ashleigh’s shoulder. Jeremy had risen when the girl did, and he was by Ashleigh’s side in a moment. There was quiet in the room for a bit, then the trio went over to a separate table together and started talking quietly. The rest of the high school group went on, in soft tones, with the discussion they’d been having before.
Laurel noticed that almost all the older kids looked at the trio at the table occasionally. They tried to catch Heather’s eye once in a while, without any luck. The three heads were bent together, and soon hands were joined while they discussed something softly.
Pastor Ron seemed to know before Heather looked up that he was being summoned. He held his hand up to Trent, who was expounding on something, and softly said, “Hold that thought.” Looking even more like a mountain man with a clergy collar than usual, he came over to the table and bent over the young girl.
Breathless and silent, no longer aware of anything else in the room, Laurel watched Ashleigh as she struggled with the simplicity of what Ron was telling her. She could hear bits of his words, repeating for Ashleigh a prayer that it seemed Laurel had known all her life, “And I ask you, Lord Jesus, to come into my heart…,” and heard Ashleigh’s soft repetition of those beautiful words.
Laurel herself was crying without realizing it, until a tear dropped onto one of her hands. Thank you, Father. Now I know why I’m doing this. If nothing else of worth ever happens in this place, it’s all worthwhile if one child knows you. And judging from the glow on Ashleigh’s face, one child did, in a way that she hadn’t until tonight.
Tripp fidgeted through another interminable explanation of one of the four or five thousand line-item entries in the city budget that the town council was going over in this work session. He was sure they would get to the police part of the budget sometime this century. After all, they had ninety-nine more years to go, didn’t they?
This was driving him insane. He wanted to ditch this meeting and go home to see if Ash was behaving herself. The quick call to the apartment just before the meeting started had been unhelpful. She was apparently following his instructions to the letter—but not until he had a telephone in his hand and was listening to her new message on the answering machine was Tripp aware of the flaw in his plan.
“Hi,” Ashleigh’s voice said. “You’ve reached the Jordan home, but no one can answer your call. My father can’t come to the phone right now, and I’m not allowed to talk because I’m grounded. So if this isn’t Dad checking up on me, please leave a message and he’ll call you back later. I won’t call you back because, like I said, I’m grounded, and it includes the phone. ’Bye.”
So, was Ashleigh sitting there listening to the message playing? Or was the message playing in an empty apartment? He had no way of knowing that, and no way, until this budget hearing was over, of finding out. He looked back at the documents in front of him. They were three line-items closer to parking meters. This could take a while.
Another hour passed before anybody wanted to talk to him. Then they asked three questions—two totally unnecessary and one that made sense. Then they thanked him for his time, and he was out. Tripp’s head was spinning. How on earth did Hank do this? And the man actually enjoyed it. There had to be a knack to this sheriff business that he just wasn’t getting.
Now, at least, he could get home and see what his darling daughter was up to. Maybe everything would be just perfect there, which would help erase the discomfort of the past two hours of boredom. Maybe he’d even let her off the leash far enough to get on the telephone with some of her friends in St. Louis, if she’d been good.
Raising a daughter wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. But then, right now, nothing in life seemed to be. He didn’t get it. He was a decent guy and he followed all the rules. He did just what he was supposed to virtually every minute of every day, but still nobody cut him a break. Could it be that Laurel was actually right about something? That he had to let loose of his feelings and emotions, instead of gripping the rule book so tightly?
There was so much about the woman that drew him in and intrigued him. But there was just as much that pushed him away—like the fact that she thought it was perfectly all right to let Ashleigh report to her. So what if it was a perfectly innocent trip to the library? It didn’t matter that he would have approved of the three-block walk and actually been happy she was spending her time there. What did matter was that he hadn’t been consulted.
He parked the SUV in the back lot. There were several cars behind the building, and he wondered what was going on. Laurel hadn’t gotten that coffee house open already, after all, had she? He seemed to remember Ashleigh mentioning something about a youth group thing down there that she was missing due to his “extreme cruelty,” but that didn’t mean people with cars, did it? Something was up, anyway. He could hear the music wafting out to the parking lot.
He mused on whether that was undoing part of Ash’s grounding. If she wasn’t supposed to enjoy her CDs while she was grounded, how did enjoying the neighbors’ music fit in? He went up the stairs and paused at the door. It was quiet in the apartment, but then, it was supposed to be. There wasn’t much that Ash was allowed to be doing to make noise.
He unlocked the door, and was treated to the sight of his daughter sitting on the couch, hands in her lap, obviously waiting for him to come home.
“Dad!”
She sprung up from where she sat, bouncing in a way that looked more like the Ash he knew and loved than the proper person sitting on the couch had.
She grabbed his hand and dragged him over to sit where she had been a moment before. Tripp felt misgivings even before her small hands pushed him down to land on the couch.
“Now don’t get mad…” she began with one of those phrases that every parent hates.
“Ash, never start a conversation like that with me.” He didn’t care if he sounded snappish. The kid had obviously done something he wouldn’t approve of, or she wouldn’t say that.
“Okay. I won’t again, ever, I promise. But I’ve got two things to tell you, and one of them is just so awesome, but first I have to tell you the other one…”
She was breathless with something, either excitement or fear; he couldn’t tell which. Tripp wanted to shout at her to get to the point, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear either thing that she had to tell him.
“Okay. Go ahead. What’s the first thing that isn’t so awesome?” He was using one of his best suspect-interviewing tones of voice, and it cut through her overexcitedness.
She sat down in the chair at right angles to the couch. “Okay. I know I’m supposed to be grounded.”
“No, you are grounded. There’s no ‘supposed to be’ about it.”
“When you came home for dinner, I asked if you meant church stuff, too, and you asked, ‘What did you think?’ And remember, I said I thought church stuff should be okay and you said, ‘Think again.”’
She stopped talking, and Tripp looked at her. She didn’t look as sure of herself, but she was still up to something. “I remember that part so far. What do you have to tell me, Ash?”
“Well, I thought again. And you hadn’t said I absolutely couldn’t go to church stuff—you just said, ‘Think again,’ and I knew you were in that meeting, so I went down to the youth group thing Laurel had downstairs.”
“You what?” Tripp’s first impulse was to raise his voice. But even a moderate tone of voice made her lean back into the safety of her chair. “Please tell me Laurel didn’t let you stay. She knew you were grounded.”
“She didn’t ask me to leave. And it was church stuff.”
“If the apartment wasn’t on fire, you didn’t need to leave it, Ashleigh Marie.” His jaw was clenched so hard, it was difficult to spit out the words.
“I know what I did was wrong. That was why I wanted to tell you that part first.”
“Good, because there isn’t going to be any second. This discussion is over. I’m so disappointed in you, I don’t know what to say. And I’m even more disappointed in Laurel Harrison for not kicking you out of there the moment you went down.”
Ashleigh opened her mouth again, and Tripp held up a hand. “Not one more word, Ash. Let me be perfectly clear. You are still grounded. And that means no talking on the phone unless you’re calling 911 or me. No leaving the apartment unless it’s on fire or I say you can go someplace. Which I won’t, for a very long time. Nod ‘yes’ if you understand that.”
She nodded, eyes filling with tears, and for a moment Tripp almost felt sorry for her. But this wasn’t a time to back down on anything. “Great. Now I’m going downstairs to read Laurel the riot act for letting you stay there. When I get back here, I expect you to be in bed. Lights out, no music, nothing. Understood?”
“Sure.” She didn’t look up from the floor-boards, and her agreement was more of a sigh than anything else.
He left her sitting in the chair and went quickly downstairs. Naturally, in the less than fifteen minutes he’d been upstairs with Ashleigh, all signs of life had disappeared from the coffee house. He rattled the front door, but for a change it really was locked.
He had to find Laurel Harrison while he was still this angry. They had plenty to settle, and this time it would be settled his way.
He headed toward Mr. Sam’s house, hoping Laurel was at home by now. The two of them were going to have a very interesting discussion, probably their last one ever. And right now that suited him just fine.