Several minutes later, when Rick and Christy pulled up in front of her house, Christy wondered what time it was and if her parents were still up. Rick carried her luggage and extra shopping bags to the front door, while all Christy carried was her purse, her bouquet, and her new vase.
The minute they stepped on the porch, the front door swung open, and Christy’s dad stood behind the screen door looking like a grizzly bear. He didn’t say a word, only opened the screen door and grabbed Christy’s suitcase out of Rick’s hand.
“Well, good night, Christy,” Rick said quickly. “Good night, Mr. Miller.” Then he vanished, leaving Christy to face her parents alone.
She stepped inside, her bouquet cradled in one arm, the ceramic vase in the other. “I’ll put these in water,” she said, feeling her mother’s glare following her into the kitchen.
11:47 blazed out from the digital clock on the microwave.
It can’t be that late! No wonder my parents are in a nuclear meltdown! I’m supposed to be home by ten o’clock except for special occasions. If I explain carefully, maybe they’ll consider this a special occasion. Then again, maybe I’m in big trouble.
Haphazardly cramming the roses into the vase, Christy decided to leave them on the kitchen counter. Plopping them in the middle of the kitchen table would not add a festive touch.
With cautious steps, she returned to the living room and sat on the couch at the opposite end from her mother. This was not Bob and Marti’s, where she could excuse herself and retreat to her room. She was about to receive the lecture of her life.
Mom went into the kitchen; Christy could hear her making coffee. Apparently, this was going to be a long night.
Alone in the living room with her dad, Christy broke the ice by asking, “Did Uncle Bob call to tell you Rick was bringing me home?”
“No. I called him several times.” Dad’s voice had a low growl to it that caused Christy’s heart to beat faster. “I finally reached him at ten o’clock. He said you’d been out to dinner and that you left his house around nine-thirty. It is now almost midnight. Where have you been?”
“We stopped for a while and talked. Then Rick brought me home. We didn’t stop for long.”
“Just talked?” Dad’s face was beginning to turn a shade of red that clashed with his red hair.
Mom stepped in just then and delivered a steaming cup of coffee to Dad. With a concerned look, Mom said, “Christina, we had absolutely no idea where you were. I had dinner prepared here for Bob and Marti, and when you didn’t show up, and no one called us, and no one answered the phone there …” Mom choked up. “We thought the worst. Do you have any idea what you put your father and me through tonight?”
Christy lowered her head. “No. I’m sorry. I thought Bob called you.”
“You should have called us,” Dad said. “Just because you’re old enough to date doesn’t mean you can take off anytime you want with anybody you want! You still have to ask us before you go out or make arrangements to do things. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
Dad drew in a deep, steamy sip of coffee before coming down hard. “You want freedom. You want to drive the car whenever you want. You want to date whomever you want, and you want to wear whatever you want. If you want freedom, then you have to show your mother and me that you are responsible.”
Christy glanced at her round-faced mother, who gave her a stern look and quietly went back to drinking her coffee.
“First, you drove the car to your babysitting job three days last week, and when your mother went to the grocery store today, she nearly ran out of gas. When you drive the car, you are responsible to fill it with gas.”
“But that job ended last week,” Christy reasoned. “I’ve already spent the little I made, and when school starts next week, I won’t have any money for gas.”
“Yes, you will. You’re going to find a job. Your mother and I talked about it, and if you want to drive the car, you need to find a job that will provide you with at least enough for gas money each week.
“Second,” he continued without leaving any space for Christy to protest, “you will have to have approval from your mother or me before you go on any more dates. You’ll have to tell us where you are going; you must be home by ten o’clock, even on weekends; and we must approve of the boy you’re going out with. Understand?”
“Yes,” Christy answered, relieved that he hadn’t taken away her privilege to date. She and Rick could be home by ten if they started out early enough. It really wouldn’t change a thing.
“Next, where did you get that outfit? Those are not the kind of jeans I want my daughter wearing.”
“But they’re brand new. Marti just bought them for me today. They’re in style, Dad.”
“Fine. If everyone is wearing them, you’ll have no trouble giving away yours. You are not wearing them. Is that clear?”
Christy nodded and looked down at her jeans, thinking of how a few hours earlier she had felt like a model in this trendy outfit. Now she felt ridiculous. It was one thing for Rick to notice her outfits and another for her dad to.
“Final point is, you’re grounded for two weeks for your irresponsibility tonight.”
“Norm?” Mom said softly. “I thought we decided on one week.”
He tilted his coffee mug up for one last swig. “Any girl who comes home dressed like that needs two weeks’ restriction.”
Mom looked down at her coffee mug, which Christy knew meant her mom wouldn’t press the issue anymore.
“We love you, Christy,” Dad concluded. “You know that. But we can’t say we’re real happy with the choices you seem to be making lately. We care about you too much to let you toss away your virtue so easily.”
His last line, “toss away your virtue,” haunted Christy through her long and fitful night of sleep.
What does he mean by virtue? Does he think I’m doing something wrong with Rick? Or that my clothes aren’t modest enough? I’m totally conservative compared to my friends. He’d die if he saw some of their outfits! Just what is virtue, and how am I tossing it away?
The next day when Christy’s family arrived home from church, Rick called to apologize for not meeting her at the service. He said his family had taken him out to brunch as a farewell before college. Christy quickly explained she was on restriction and needed to get off the phone.
“That stinks! What am I supposed to do for the next two weekends?” Rick grumbled. “I’m coming over. I’m going to talk your dad out of it.”
“No, Rick, don’t. You don’t know my dad. You’ll only make it worse.”
“Christy?” Mom called from the kitchen. “I need your help with lunch.”
“I have to go, Rick. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you later.”
“When? If I can’t call you or see you, how am I going to talk to you?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I need to hang up. We’ll figure out something. It’ll work out. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, I’ll work it out. Don’t you worry about anything, Christy. I’ll work it out.”
About ten minutes later, as they were sitting down to a lunch of tuna melts and coleslaw, Rick showed up at the front door. Since it was so hot, the front door was open, and they could all see him standing by the screen door.
“We’re eating, Rick,” Christy’s dad said without getting up from the table. “Christy is on restriction, so she won’t be able to see you for two weeks.”
Christy felt like a five-year-old whose best friend had come over to play and was shooed away.
“That’s what I’d like to talk to you about, sir. You see, I’m leaving for college on Tuesday, and I wondered if you’d reconsider and allow me to take Christy out tonight.”
“Well, not ‘out’ exactly. I thought we’d spend the evening with my parents at my house. Would that be okay?”
“No.”
Rick didn’t know Christy’s dad the way she did, or else he would have given up after the first no. The poor guy stood outside the screen door and tried at least five different approaches before saying with a sad puppy face, “Bye, Christy. Have a good first week of school.”
She felt crushed, and furious with her dad. Sometimes he didn’t seem to give a rip about anybody else’s feelings. What had her mother ever seen in him, anyway?
Christy picked at her lunch, eating only the cheese and a tiny pinch of coleslaw. She was about to excuse herself when another car pulled up in front of the house, and a girl with short blond hair bounded up to the door.
Oh no! It’s Alissa. I completely forgot she was coming today.
“Mom, it’s Alissa. I invited her to come before I knew I was on restriction, and she drove all the way from Newport Beach. She’s leaving for Boston this week, and this is the only chance I’ll have to see her probably ever again!”
“Hello.” Alissa tapped on the wooden frame of the screen door. “Is anyone home?”
“All right,” Christy’s dad said. “Let her in. But you’re staying here. You’re not going out anywhere.”
Even though he sounded gruff, Christy could tell he really didn’t mind Alissa coming to see her.
“Come in, come in,” Dad said, getting up to open the screen door. “You must be the one who moved to Boston.”
“Yes, I’m Alissa. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Miller.” She looked pretty as usual, and she was losing some of the pudginess around her middle that had come with the pregnancy.
Christy stood up and introduced Alissa to Mom and Christy’s little brother, David. Up to this point, David had been quiet, taking in all the afternoon’s events.
Now he piped up. “How come Christy gets to have her girlfriends come over even though she’s on restriction? That’s not fair!”
Alissa looked sheepishly at Christy. “Did I come at a bad time?”
“No,” Mom spoke up, “it’s fine, really. You girls can go on back to Christy’s room.”
Christy automatically began to clear the table.
“That’s okay. I’ll get these,” Mom said.
“That’s not fair either!” David whined. “When it’s my turn, I always have to do the dishes.”
The girls retreated into Christy’s room and closed the door. Christy flopped face first onto her bed. With her arms spread out, she hollered into the patchwork bedspread, “Aughhhhhhh!”
“Bad day?” Alissa ventured, gracefully alighting on the edge of the bed.
Christy talked nonstop for twenty minutes while Alissa patiently listened to her complicated dilemma with Todd and Rick and her parents and the restriction and having to find a job.
When Christy finally paused to catch her breath, Alissa smiled. “You don’t know how blessed you are.”
“Blessed?” It reminded her of Todd’s “blessing,” and right now that didn’t help.
“Yes, you are blessed,” Alissa said. “When my father died about a year and a half ago, I had no boundaries. I could do whatever I wanted. And I did. Who was going to stop me? My alcoholic mother? No one ever said, ‘No, I won’t let you do that. I care about you too much to let you hurt your future like that.’ I wish I had then what you have now.”
Christy instantly sobered. “I never thought of it that way.”
“What are you going to do about Rick?”
“What do you mean?” Christy was more concerned about how she could get off restriction and how she was going to find a job. Rick seemed like the least of her worries. In two weeks, they could pick up where they had left off, and Christy had already imagined that they’d only appreciate each other more for the separation.
“Are you going to break up with him?” Alissa asked.
“Why would I want to break up with him?”
“Why are you going out with him?”
“Well, because we’ve been friends for a long time, and now that I can date, this is the next step in our relationship. Besides, this is what I’ve always wanted—a boyfriend. And Rick is a great guy. He really cares about me. I’d be crazy to break it off and give up all that for nothing.”
“Christy,” Alissa said gently, “I know exactly what you’re saying about how good it feels to have a boyfriend and to be adored and desired and everything. But listen to me. It’s not going to fill your heart.”
“I’m not trying to fill my heart. I’m having a normal teenage dating relationship with a really great guy. That’s all.”
“Okay.” Alissa readjusted her posture. “Then can I ask you to promise me something?”
“What?” Christy thought Alissa looked almost comical. She was so intense as she reached over and grasped Christy’s right hand.
“Promise me you won’t do any more than kissing—and I mean light kissing—with Rick or any other guy you go out with. Promise me that.”
“Alissa, that’s not even an issue. I don’t plan to ever get really physical with any guy until I’m married.”
“And last Friday afternoon you didn’t plan on going steady with Rick, did you?”
“Well, no,” Christy said.
“But you let Rick talk you into something you weren’t ready for, and it sounds as though you felt pressured to say yes.”
“Maybe a little pressure, but Alissa, going steady isn’t the same as getting physically involved.”
“It’s the first step. And if you said yes to going steady when it was completely Rick’s idea, you could give in to Rick’s ideas on how far you guys go physically. You have to draw a line, Christy.
“I have good reason to feel so strongly about all this, and you know it,” Alissa said. “My biggest concern for you is that you’re looking for a guy to fill your heart—first Todd and now Rick. A guy will never be able to meet all your needs. You have to want God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. As long as there’s somebody else there to fill your heart or mind, you won’t really fall in love with Jesus the way you would if He was all you wanted.”
Now Christy felt angry. Why are you, of all people, lecturing me like this? Wasn’t I the one who led you to the Lord only a month ago? How come you’re instantly so spiritually mature?
Instead of voicing her feelings, Christy forced a smile. “I can see you’ve sure been doing some soul-searching this past month.”
“Actually, I’ve been reading. I finished the New Testament, and I’m starting on the Old Testament.”
“You read the whole New Testament?”
“Sure, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, well, I mean, parts of it. And parts of the Old Testament too.”
When Alissa left two hours later, Christy hugged her and said, “Thanks for all the advice.”
She meant it. Even though Alissa’s directness was hard to take, Christy knew she spoke from her heart. But as Christy tried to make sense of the whole jumbled weekend, all she got for her efforts was a headache. When she slipped into bed that night, she hoped for a calm week to work through all her thoughts and feelings. Of course it would be calm, she reminded herself. She was on restriction.