God's Not Dead 2 (3 page)

THE CONFIDENT BRUNETTE
walking through the door looks at me, then looks away and scans the entrance to the restaurant. Her blue shirtdress is cinched around a tiny waist with a belt that matches black heels with straps around her ankles. I try not to gawk but realize she’s even more attractive than the photo my buddy texted me. Quite tall, too, with long legs I admire for one abrupt second.

She’s probably looking for something to admire on you.

There’s nobody else waiting around here, so she heads toward me with a friendly grin. “You must be Tom.”

I think of half a dozen self-deprecating comments but have to hold all of them back. “Yes. Megan. Right?”

I’ve suddenly resorted to caveman conversation with one-word
sentences. It doesn’t stop her from shaking my hand in a strangely formal sort of way.

“I just received a text from Shawn telling me to be nice,” Megan tells me.

Shawn is her cousin, a longtime friend of mine. It was his idea to set us up since both of us are single and “would make a perfect match.”

“That’s funny. He just texted me, saying, ‘I hope Megan is nice to you.’”

Her initial expression shows me that she believes my joke, so I grin and shake my head. I’m about to say something else, but the hostess, who looks about sixteen years old, asks us if we’re ready to be seated.

I’ve been on quite a few first dates before, and I’ve even been set up on a few of them, so this isn’t out of the ordinary. A few minutes after sitting down at a small table near the back of the restaurant and ordering our drinks, I am completely at ease with Megan. There’s nothing awkward or forced about this woman. I know she’s five years younger than I am and that her big three-oh is approaching. This was one of the reasons Shawn decided to fix us up.

“She broke up with a guy she thought she was going to marry,” Shawn told me a week ago.

“So I’m going to be the rebound date?”

“No, she already got that one out of the way,” he said. “Now she’s ready for Mr. Right.”

Shawn is one of those dreamers who is in his sixth job in the last seven years. He sees potential in things that often don’t actually have any. Of course, sometimes even Shawn realizes that there is indeed nothing to find after you look hard for a long time.

Megan hasn’t even opened her menu yet, so that means I haven’t either. This doesn’t stop my stomach from rumbling. I’ve been hungry ever since smelling the McDonald’s fries in Len’s office earlier. Thankfully, the music and the bar crowd in the trendy restaurant keep my hunger pains muffled.

“So, where do you see yourself in five years?”

Her question comes out of nowhere. We’ve been talking about the town of Hope Springs and this relatively new restaurant and a few other minor things like that, so this really comes out of the blue. She might as well have said, “I really enjoyed the lasagna last time I ate here, and how many children do you think you want to have?”

“What’s so funny?” Megan asks before I can start to mumble off the words to an answer I don’t even know.

“I generally don’t start talking about five-year plans until after the salad comes.”

“At least you talk about them,” she says with a focused look.

Somehow my sarcasm isn’t quite translating. “Well, yeah, sure, I’m fine talking about them.”

I’ll talk about pretty much anything, and I can usually do a good job at it. But I still barely know her name and not much else. Now we’re at future goals?

Megan seems more than comfortable telling me about hers. “I make a list every month
 
—not the beginning of the year like the stereotypical New Year’s resolutions people will inevitably break ten days after they create them.” She takes a sip of her wine and puts the glass down.

All of this happens in the time I need to take a breath.

“I look at each goal with a critical eye at the start of every month, just to see what my path looks like and how the trajectory seems.”

When I hear the word
trajectory
, I think of planets in space. I don’t think of myself and my future.

“The biggest thing I’m focusing on now is running in the Boston Marathon. That’s coming up in a few weeks.”

I act surprised, but she looks fit enough to be ready for a marathon. My body is ready to enlist in an Xbox competition.

For a while she talks about the training that goes into preparing for a marathon. She’s been in a bunch of half marathons and has been in two other full ones. She qualified for Boston on her first attempt. She finally gives me a chance to talk with an obligatory “Do you run?”

“No. But I do pay for a gym I don’t go to every month. It gives me confidence knowing I can go work out anytime I want to. Which is never.”

Her serious expression doesn’t lighten up. Not even a bit.

“There’s a quote that General Patton said that I always tell myself when I’m running. ‘Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up.’”

“Patton said that?” I ask. “There’s some motivation for you.”

And a little bit of terror for me.

From the marathon, Megan starts talking about the boutique clothing line and store she owns and runs. She created it during college as an online shop called Trimm
 
—“with two
m
’s,” she says. Business boomed and the brick-and-mortar store is a natural result of the business’s success, though most of her sales still come from online shoppers. Her goal is to sell the company in the next few years.

My goal is to order the next time our server comes to ask us what we’d like. She’s already done so twice.

“The problem with having these wonderful lists is that I tend
to focus on them too much and then easily monopolize a conversation since there’s so much to talk about,” she says. “So tell me about you and your hopes and dreams and future.”

Her jawline in the orange light of the restaurant looks as chiseled as the carvings on a jack-o’-lantern.

“Usually when I’m looking into the future, I’m trying to figure out the next chance I can get to make a burrito run.”

I’m the only one to laugh out loud. Actually, I’m the only one to even smile. I wouldn’t say that my burrito jokes are that clever or funny, but still. I’m just trying to lighten the mood. To lighten anything. Megan seems to have an anchor holding her down, and no amount of colorful little balloons that Pixar could create would get her two feet off the ground.

A Pixar movie might do her a little good.

After we get around to ordering and she does one of those “I’d like the lasagna without the cheese or the noodles and no sauce” things that takes five minutes to explain, she rolls her eyes in a knowing way. “Normally I’m not
that
bad when ordering chicken.”

She is self-aware. I’ll give her that. But it’s strange. The longer I’m with her, the less attractive this woman seems to be. And she really is quite beautiful when you look at her.

“Would you like more water?” another server asks us.

With a full glass, Megan lifts it up and studies it. “You know most of us take this for granted?” she says, looking over at me with bright eyes.

“Dining out?” I say, a little confused.

“Water.”

I nod.
Now we’re on water?

“I’m going on a service trip this summer with a team for Lifewater International. Ever hear of them? A few years back a
friend of mine got involved, and I was so inspired by them that I made 5 percent of all my sales at Trimm go toward efforts with Lifewater. This will be the third trip I go on with them. It really is an amazing organization trying to help all those affected by the global water and sanitation crisis. Something we take for granted in our nice little cushions of life.”

I nod and think about taking a sip of water, but then I think again.

The old me would’ve been able to keep up with this woman. Sure, I would have shifted topics, but at least I could have offered some insights into plans and dreams and vision. But now I’m feeling way out of my league.

Megan wants to change the world. I can’t even change the oil in my car.

“So tell me about your firm,” Ms. I’d-Like-the-Chicken-Hold-the-Poultry says as she nibbles her rice.

At first I want to say, “What firm?” but then I realize she’s talking about Roger and me.

Ah yes. Our law firm. Tagliano & Endler.

“Tagliano and Endler? That sounds like an auto repair place that launders money for the mob. Or a really bad wrestling duo.”

This was what my wonderful father said the first time he heard the name.

It certainly isn’t a Merrick & Roach.

“My ‘partner’ doesn’t quite fit the definition,” I tell Megan.

I realize I have this wonderful freedom of not having to impress her. She’s way down the line of being able to be impressed. She’s like some kind of long-distance runner in the Olympics who’s about to lap an inferior athlete.

“Why not?” she asks.

“Not long ago he got to a point of really not caring. He won a big insurance case that left him with a nice check. And also a lot of apathy.”

She nods. “I reach a point with those in my life who are takers, you know? Eventually I decide they can’t take anymore. So I cut the cord.”

I nod and smile and act like this is the first time I’ve ever heard such a thing. The reality is that Roger still gives. He pays more rent than I do. He’s not taking anything from me. Not really. I’d say he’s ruining my reputation, but I did far more of that myself than he ever could.

“Don’t hesitate to surround yourself with winners, Tom.”

Thank you for sharing your secrets for success. Will you bill me for them?

The night eventually ends with a cordial and pleasant good-bye in the parking lot of the restaurant. She gives me her business card and tells me to call her sometime. I can tell she’s being honest, but I can also feel the complete and utter lack of romance in the air. This might as well have been the first meeting with a client.

I’m reminded of my meeting earlier in the day with Len and the teacher I might end up representing. I check my phone. Sure enough, I have an e-mail from him.

Hope you’re finding love as I write this! Just wanted to give you the details on meeting with Grace Wesley. She’s available tomorrow at two. Are you able to meet with her at Evelyn’s Espresso on Wilmette Avenue? Thanks.

I quickly respond to let him know it works.

Tonight I met with a marathon runner who owns a successful
business and gives back to the world and obviously is interested in finding a match. The lawyer title surely caught her attention, but then she met the actual guy, who didn’t quite fit the bill.

I used to, Megan. But you wouldn’t have liked that guy at all.

I’m curious who this Grace Wesley will be. I already have her pictured in my mind.

It’s not a very flattering portrait.

But it’s work.

On the drive home, I think of that initial question that jarred me more than I realized.
“So, where do you see yourself in five years?”

I couldn’t be honest and tell her the truth.

I have a hard time picturing what next month is going to look like, much less five years from now.

As I drive down the road, I notice the shopping center with the Mexican restaurant named Habanero Grill. Even though I just left dinner, a slight urge to stop and get a burrito fills me. I decide to pass, for now. But tomorrow, the hope and the dream for the wonderful five-pound burrito awaits.

They say dream big, right?

THE HOUR SPENT
in the Goodwill store yielded two bags of items, most of them clothes. The final bill was thirty-five dollars. Amy knows she has about six different outfits to mix and match from everything she bought. It’s not like she has some high-pressure corporate job she has to look polished and professional for, but she still likes being fashionable for her full-time role as a journalist and her part-time job as an administrative assistant for a speech therapist.

Just as she tosses the bags in the back of her car, she hears the alert for an incoming text. She taps the screen and sees that it’s from her niece.

Hey, check it out: marlene0173.youtube.com

Amy slips into the driver’s seat, away from the glaring sun, in order to watch the video more clearly.

The link shows what appears to be footage shot by a cell phone, one probably belonging to Marlene. A girl is standing on the sidewalk, a strip of silver duct tape covering her mouth. She’s holding a sign that Amy has to squint to read.

I Have No Voice

There are several other students standing around, evidently supporting her. This must be Martin Luther King High, where Marlene goes.

The picture jerks as the phone is turned to show a figure in a dress suit approaching. Amy knows who this happens to be. Ruth Kinney, the principal of MLK High School
 
—a woman you do not want to mess with. Amy interviewed Principal Kinney on her former blog a couple of years ago. She knows the woman is proud to be a female principal, and she’s outspoken about what it takes to break down stereotypes in order to reach that position.

“Brooke, you need to stop this,” Kinney tells the girl with the duct tape and sign.

There is no reaction from the student. The principal doesn’t just look annoyed. An expression of disgust fills her face.

“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, Brooke. If you don’t stop this right now, there are going to be consequences.”

Kinney looks at the camera with an expression that seems to say,
And if you keep filming, there will be consequences for you, too.

“Actually, I don’t think there will.”

Amy instantly recognizes her niece talking.

What are you doing, Marlene?

“We’re on the sidewalk, which is public property,” the girl’s voice continues. “My dad’s a lawyer.”

Someone in the background starts chanting, “Oh, no; she won’t go.” Others, including Marlene, join in.

The principal scans the crowd and the camera directed at her with unblinking and careful eyes, then turns and heads back toward the school. The gathered students applaud and yell their support as the video stops with this moment of triumph.

Amy still can’t figure out what’s going on. She replays the video and looks for clues, especially on the protesting girl, apparently named Brooke. But there’s nothing more she can learn. So she calls Marlene, who answers her phone as if she’s been expecting the call.

“Hey, Aunt Amy.”

“Good morning, Marlene. That’s some video you sent me. So what’s going on?”

“You remember my friend Brooke?”

“I think so.” Amy recalls running into Marlene and her friend the last time she was at her sister’s house. The girls were like two bright flowers you could hold in each hand. Her niece is a daisy while Brooke is a rose. “That was her on the video?”

“Yeah. She got a teacher in trouble because she asked a question about Jesus in school and the teacher answered it. Now Brooke’s parents are suing the teacher and Brooke doesn’t even want them to but they are, and she’s not allowed to talk about it. We’re not even allowed to cover it for the school newspaper.”

Several words echo in Amy’s head.
Trouble. Question. Jesus. Not even allowed.
“Is there any chance I could meet her?” she asks.

“The teacher?”

“No. Brooke.”