ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 7

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

FOR I KNOW THE THOUGHTS THAT I THINK TOWARD YOU, SAYS THE LORD, THOUGHTS OF PEACE AND NOT EVIL, TO GIVE YOU A FUTURE AND A HOPE. (Jeremiah 29:11)

            “I don’t know what you’ve got cooking, Querida, but it’s weird,” Vermillion said.

            It’s not often I agree with a fallen angel, but I concurred. “It is.”

            It also isn’t often when I cause a serious problem for someone. The evil angels do plenty of that without us chipping in. But I needed to do something desperate to keep Jimmy from fornicating with Lexi. I needed to do something to bring Jimmy and Jenny together again as soon as possible. So my adversary and I were in agreement as we watched Jimmy, Jenny, and Lexi riding together in the backseat of a Chevy Impala. Awkward was an understatement.

            How did that happen you might ask? I’ll back up twenty or thirty minutes.

            Lexi had shown up at Jimmy’s place dressed rather immodestly. She had invited him to a pool party. He had accepted not realizing Lexi’s two friends were waiting in a car owned by one of her friend’s parents. He knew he would feel out of place riding with three eighteen years old girls to a party. But as his eyes watched Lexi’s jean shorts and the tanned legs that came out of them, he thought ‘oh well, sometimes you have to sacrifice to get what you want.’

            A half hour before Lexi showed up, Jenny had been at Jimmy’s place informing him of her pregnancy. It hadn’t gone very smoothly. After she left, she went to a close friend’s house to cry on her shoulder. After she left there, that’s where I felt it necessary to cause her to have a serious problem with a material object that is rather important to human beings.

            On the other hand, it was actually Jenny’s own neglect that caused her problem. I just manipulated the timing of when her car broke down. But her unfortunate circumstances would give Jimmy an opportunity for generosity. This was my gamble. Would Jimmy’s lust for Lexi prevail? Or would the inkling of compassion that lurked in his soul come forth?

            Jimmy recognized the rusty yellow Ford Pinto just ahead of them on the side of the road. It was clearly a mechanical issue since there was no more likely reason to be pulled over there. Jimmy instructed the driver, who answered to the name of Amy, “Pull over in front of this car.”

            “What for?” Amy replied, as she ignored the request.

            “I said pull over, Amy!”

            With the more authoritative command, Amy hit the brakes hard and the three passengers lurched forward as she came to a stop parallel with Jenny’s automobile. Jimmy saw her sitting trance like and gripping the steering wheel. Her head turned to look at the stopped car and Jimmy saw the tears streaking down her face.

            “Pull in front,” Jimmy ordered.

            “What for?” Amy whined.

            “Just do it.”

            “Do you know her?” Lexi frowned.

            “Yeah, she was a classmate of mine.”

            Jimmy noticed Jenny quickly wiping at her eyes as the two met in front of her car. She forced a smile as though nothing were wrong.

            “Looks like you have a little problem, Jen.”

            “Yeah,” she said, trying to appear matter of fact. But Jimmy had already seen the tears and the white knuckles on the steering wheel. “It just made an awful noise and died.”

            Jimmy lifted the hood and pulled the dipstick. “There’s no oil.”

            “So it just needs some oil?” she asked hopefully.

            He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her engine was probably blown. The three female eighteen year olds flanked Jimmy, eyeing Jenny scornfully. Vermillion was impressing Lexi to say something contemptuous. For now I convinced her to keep her lips pursed.

            “Take me back home,” Jimmy ordered. “I need to get my truck and pick up my brother’s trailer.”

            “You mean you’re blowing off the party?” Lexi asked with part disdain and part disappointment.

            “No, it won’t even take me an hour. Then I’ll come join you.”

            “Whatever,” Lexi replied, keeping the same negative tone.

            And so, Jimmy found himself in the middle of the back seat of Amy’s parent’s sedan. Lexi to his left and Jenny on his right. Lexi’s two friends were in the front; Vermillion and I were watching in the invisible realm.

            It was clear all three were uncomfortable, but not due to the close, cramped conditions. Jenny suffered the most as Vermillion kept the mantra replaying in her head of ‘I’m such a loser.’

            Then there was Jimmy as he thought about the woman on his right being pregnant with the possibility of it being his. And the girl on his left, who was destined to be bed partners with him before the sun came up.

            Lexi was just plain jealous and she didn’t understand why. Jenny wasn’t stunning like herself. No, she was nerdy and plain. Yet there was something about the way Jimmy looked at her and behaved around her. There was a respect and gentlemanliness with how he acted around Jenny. But with Lexi there was an animalistic lustfulness he didn’t try to hide.

            But Lexi didn’t understand these thoughts and feelings which only added to her confusion. She kicked off her flip flops and hooked the calf of a bronzed leg over Jimmy’s shin as if to claim him. Jenny on the other hand self-consciously tugged the hem of her gingham dress back down toward her knees after it had hiked uncomfortably high from sitting.

            When the sedan pulled into Jimmy’s driveway, Jenny breathed a sigh of relief as she flung the door open. Yet even in her haste, she managed a thank you that seemingly fell on deaf ears. But her ears were open as she heard Lexi tell Jimmy with a sultry tone, “Don’t be long.”

            Five minutes later, as Jenny and Jimmy headed away from his mobile home in his fifteen year old Ford pickup he said, “It’s old but reliable.”

            “Unlike my car,” Jenny tried joking.

            Jimmy thought, ‘your car might have been more reliable if you checked your oil regularly.’

            A quick diagnosis by Jimmy’s brother predicted devastating news. “Your engine’s shot.”

            As the couple drove away, Jenny fought back tears. She had cried so much lately she wondered if she might get dehydrated. She mumbled a concern to herself, but Jimmy overheard. “I guess I’ll have to take the bus to work.”

            “Would you be okay driving this next week?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The forecast is supposed to be good all next week so I can ride my motorcycle to work.”

            “Are you sure?” Although Jenny appreciated his generosity, she loathed the thought of owing somebody.

            Vermillion wanted Jimmy to get her home ASAP so he could resume his evening with Lexi, so he lamented as they were about to pass the road Jenny lived on. “Turn Jimmy, turn.”

            “Make sure you’re not imposing, Jenny,” I insisted, keeping her distracted.

            “I hate to impose.”

            “It’s no imposition.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Sure, I’m sure,” Jimmy laughed. “Relax Jen, I want to help you… And don’t worry, we’ll get you another car.”

            “I can’t afford a different car right now.”

            “I can.”

            “I can’t let you buy me a car.”

            “Jenny, you might be having my baby. I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a dead beat. If he or she turns out to be mine, I promise I will support you and our child.”

            Although Jenny was touched by his kindness, her heart also sank. The part of his statement that echoed in her head was ‘turns out to be mine.’ For she knew the tiny child growing in her womb was likely fathered by Devin.

            How ironic! Of the two potential fathers, she would have predicted Devin being more supportive than Jimmy. Although she knew Jimmy from high school, they had hooked up at a bar and had a one night stand. That was something she never, ever, thought she could do, let alone would do. She had met Devin at church, and they had dated numerous times before becoming intimate.

            Yet when confronted with fatherhood, Devin attempted to not only pay her off but encouraged her to have the embryo terminated. Jimmy, on the other hand, had just offered to get her a car. It would surely be nothing brand new, and probably on the order of the one that seemed to have died. But nonetheless, he proved he was willing to do what he could to support her.

            “Keep going, Jimmy,” Vermillion now urged. They were getting close to something I wanted him to see, and my counterpart knew it.

            “Jenny, tell him he missed the turn,” I countered. “Now!”

            “Oh, Jimmy,” Jenny said. “You were supposed to turn a couple blocks ago. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

            “No problem, I’ll turn around.”

            “Sorry, I thought you knew where I lived.”

            “I was only there once, Jenny,” he said and then flashed a mischievous smile at her. “And we were rather preoccupied on the taxi ride from the bar to your apartment.”

            Jenny felt herself blush. She recalled her and Jimmy’s faces connected as well as his roaming hands in the back seat of the cab. Inebriation making them unashamed and seemingly unaware of the show the driver watched from his review mirror. Funny, the memory made her ashamed rather than in the moment.

            “Turn right,” Vermillion coaxed Jimmy.

            “Turn left,” I countered.

            “Now why would you make left turns when you could make rights?” Vermillion asked, exasperated after Jimmy turned left.

            I couldn’t help my reply. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three do. When it comes to turns, that is.”

            When they were getting turned around, during the second left, Kennedy High school auditorium loomed on the right. I tried to get Jimmy to recall the brochure he had seen in his sister’s home. The one with the beast of Revelation and the image from King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream from the book of Daniel. But as I did this, Vermillion’s counter won out.

            There was plenty of room in the cab of Jimmy’s pickup truck, especially with the big bench seat. Jenny leaned a little toward him and crossed one leg over the other. As she did do so, Jimmy took in her shapely leg that was pale and ended with a tennis shoe with a girly ankle sock. Why did he find this even more appealing than Lexi’s tan leg that ended with cherry red painted toenails?

            Jimmy marveled. Although he had been preoccupied with Lexi ever since seeing his sister’s neighbor at the mall, something more profound stirred within him looking at Jenny. He knew that  if Jenny and Lexi were walking down opposite sides of the street, nine out of ten guys were gonna watch Lexi. Yet it occurred to him that he would have been with the one out of ten that watched Jenny.

            What was it about her? Lexi looked like she walked out of the pages of a men’s magazine, while Jenny was in a cooking magazine. But Jimmy knew women. Lexi tried to be sexy, and although it did in fact work, Jenny didn’t try with the affect being even more powerful. Plus, there was a side of him that had had his fill of high maintenance, vanity filled females.

            “Jimmy, what will you do if my child isn’t yours?” Jenny asked suddenly, surprising herself.

            He frowned. “What do you expect me to do?”

            “Well… Nothing.”

            “Well, there you go,” he replied, but then regretted how cold he sounded. “But I intend to help you out with your vehicle situation regardless, as a friend. But surely you don’t expect child support or whatever if I’m not the father?”

            “No, of course not.”

            They were back on the main drag when Jimmy wanted his curiosity satisfied. “Jenny, can I ask you what may seem to be, I don’t know, a rude question, or a tacky question?”

            “Sure,” she said, trying to sound skeptical. “I’m an open book.”

            “I don’t mean this to sound judgmental because I’m certainly no saint. But you seemed so religious in high school. How is it a few years later you end up pregnant, but unmarried and not knowing who the father is?”

            “I’m afraid I don’t know myself. I guess the simple answer is I’m not as devout as I thought I was, or as I seemed.”

            “I don’t believe that.”

            “Why, the proof is in the pudding. At twenty I lost my virginity with a guy I had only known a few weeks and proceeded to have regular premarital sex with him over the next two years. To be fair, I did think he was the one. He was charming and thoughtful.

            “But then once we became intimate, instead of falling deeply in love, he became gradually more and more aloof and distant. Then he left me for someone else, not once, but twice. Not long after that I got drunk and had my first one night stand.”

            “First or last?”

            “Last,” she said with a bashful smile.

            “Shoot, going to your apartment was giving me ideas.”

            Thanks to human nature, Vermillion was getting the upper hand. He was taking advantage of Jenny’s desperation, loneliness, and desire. He was putting a harness on Jimmy’s attraction and a bit in his mouth guiding his lust. Jimmy almost whinnied when Jenny bit her lip looking wide eyed.

            But then I got the bit to drop from Jimmy’s mouth when Jenny said, “What about that girl you’re supposed see after you dropped me off?”

            He put his truck into park after he stopped in front of Jenny’s apartment. He ran a hand through his blonde locks and sighed. First Lexi took his mind off Jenny. Now Jenny had taken his mind off of Lexi. Lust, love, love, lust. What was life all about?

            “Oh no, don’t go there, Jimmy,” Vermillion looked concerned.

            “Come on Jimmy,” I pleaded. “Do you want to spend your life like a dog chasing the tail of lust?”

            “Do you want to be trapped, become yoked up with a woman carrying another man’s child?” Vermillion interjected.

            “Doesn’t it feel good to protect a woman instead of love em and leave em?” I urged. “And I do use love loosely in that context.”

            Jimmy’s thoughts, that Vermillion and I were doing our best to affect, continued, making  it a spiritual tug of war.

            Remember, Lexi will make it worth your while after the party. You helped Jenny, now enjoy a reward with a pretty female who is eager to see you. She will be wearing that bikini you saw displayed in her back yard. Instead of sitting on a lawn chair, she will sit on your lap.

            You did get Jenny home safely. On the way you passed Kennedy’s auditorium. Oh that’s right, the seminar starts tonight at 7pm. Remember the brochure at your sister’s house? It offered to answer spiritual questions you’ve always had. Why does God allow suffering? Is the Bible reliable? Is the devil in charge of hell? Does the Bible talk of an end time? Is Jesus coming soon?

            “Jenny, what are you doing tonight?”

            She thought, ‘cry myself to sleep.’ But she said with a shrug, “I don’t have any plans.”

            He told her about the brochure and the seminar. He looked at his watch. It was 6:45. Kennedy High school wasn’t even ten minutes away. “Will you go with me?”

            “What about your pool party?”

            “I’d rather go to this seminar with you,” he said with a gentle smile.

            For the first time in weeks Jenny saw a glimmer of light in the dark tunnel she had been navigating. For the first time in weeks, a smile wasn’t forced. “Okay, sure.”