[Footprints in the Sand-- Leona Lewis; 014. Logos]
David had, against his better judgment, gone through the drive-through window to order his strawberry milkshake. There was something markedly menacing about the people who worked at the McDonald’s drive-through, especially this late in the night, and normally he avoided them at all costs. But the last time he had left his car to order inside the restaurant, someone had picked the lock and gotten away with some cash from his glove-compartment. He’d rather hazard the monstrous bald guy at the window than risk losing the little money he had.
He sat in the parking lot with his headlights on, facing the road as he slurped. Even if there was nothing else remotely appealing about McDonald’s, he had to hand it to them; they made a mean strawberry milkshake.
He looked at his wrist, squinting. He hated analog watches. They made him feel stupid and slow, trying to tell which hand was the minute hand and taking ten seconds just to decipher the time. But this ancient Rolex had belonged to his dad, and he couldn’t bear to replace it for one of the distinctly more modern and efficient digital watches.
1:04. She was late.
He sighed and sat back in the truck, draining the last sip of the milkshake that he had intended to share with Bethany. The convent couldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes away from the McDonald’s, and she had told him she was leaving early this time. He wasn't going to face the Hulk at the drive-through window again, though; she would just have to survive on the lukewarm bottled water he had tossed on the floor under the passenger seat. As he turned to try and grope around for it, he heard the low purr of and engine and looked up to see two pinpricks of headlights. They were too close together to be on a regular car.
Great. Just what he needed. A biker hoodlum to arrive when his only companion was the 6’5’’ ogre at the drive-though.
He had just locked the doors and put the car into reverse when the vehicle came into view. It wasn’t a motorcycle, which, depending on how you look at it, should have been good news.
It wasn’t.
When the golf cart turned into the McDonald’s parking lot, it took every amount of David’s self-restraint not to bang his head into the steering wheel. He breathed slowly and put the car back into park, watching the golf cart maneuver into the parking lot. Bethany had obviously not quite gotten the hang of driving it yet, because it was a couple of minutes before she had managed to back it into the parking spot while keeping inside both yellow lines.
He unlocked the truck and watched in silence as she climbed out of the cart and into his passenger seat, her auburn hair in a tangled mess. She was still dressed in the traditional black habit, a silver cross hanging from her neck, but she had left her veil and coif at the convent.
“Really, Beth.” David was torn between amusement and irritation. “A golf cart?”
“Mother Bernadine keeps the keys to the Toyota in her nightstand. Do you expect me to go rummaging around in there without her permission? What if she woke up and caught me?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why not? Is that too sinful? Since you’re so undoubtedly holy all the time, with complete and total obedience to the good Mother in every instance.”
“David, don’t start on me,” she said sharply, closing her eyes. “I promised to come out here for you.”
“No, actually. As I recall, I promised to come out here for you at one in the morning in a desolate location and wait in my pick-up for you to surreptitiously escape your convent in a freaking golf cart.”
“I ‘surreptitiously escaped my convent’ because you told me that you wanted to talk to me!” she retorted, her voice cracking.
He looked at her, taking in the wild expression in her eyes and the way she clung to the armrest, leaning forwards towards him. Always forwards, always moving, always looking away and ahead. Never behind, never going slowly. Never trapped inside a neat set of rules and regulations and solitude, isolated from the world. Isolated from him.
“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, taking the bottle of water and throwing it into the back. “I just want to be with you, okay?”
It was, apparently, the right thing to say, because she sighed contentedly and leaned into his shoulder. For a while they just peered through the sunroof at the stars, pointing out constellations that they recognized every so often. The night was hot and muggy as the breath of the devil.
David shifted slightly. “Has anyone at the convent noticed your weekly excursions?”
“I think Sister Margaret knows.”
“Has she said anything to you?”
“No, but she found your notes under my mattress while changing the sheets. She looks at me funny, now. Like she thinks I’m possessed by an unclean spirit.” She chuckled at the end of this, as if being possessed was such an outrageous possibility that it was comical.
“Aren’t you?” he joked.
She raised an eyebrow and lifted her head from his shoulder, shaking her bangs out of her eyes. “That’s for you to judge, not me. But I need to know soon, because I figure that the Mother won’t let me take my vows if I’m not wholly clean of demons.”
My vows.
David despised those two words with all of his heart, hated the deadline that they stood for. Her vows were only a couple of days away. She was only a couple days away from being completely off limits, too holy to be a part of anything that didn’t involve the good Lord’s will being carried out. He clenched one fist around the steering wheel and rubbed is eyes tiredly with the other. “Bethany, why are you doing this?”
Her good humor deflated. “David, we’ve been through this.”
“This isn’t you. You can’t live there for the rest of your life. You don’t realize what you’re about to commit to.”
“I do realize!” she cried, grasping him desperately. “I do realize what I’m committing to. I’m committing to something I believe in, David, can’t you see that? Can’t you respect that? I’m committing to a life for the Lord, committing to making a difference—”
“There are other ways to make a difference, Bethany.” His voice was strained, as if with everything she did, she wrapped his emotions tighter and tighter around his words until they came out achy and frantic.
She bit her lip, raising a slender hand and running it through her hair.
“I know what I’m about to do. I’ve known since I was a little girl. I want to set an example, to do something for someone other than myself for once. That’s what Mother Bernadine says. I've prayed so much about this, David. I've asked her so many questions. This is what I want.”
He vaguely felt the vibration of a text message in his back pocket, but ignored it. “Is this what you want, Beth?” His voice was soft. “Because I thought you wanted me.”
There was a moment of tender silence, and then she leaned in gently, brushing his cheek with a kiss. It was a familiar gesture to him, but for some reason the movement sent goose bumps down his arms. It held a certain air of finality; the phrase, ‘kiss of death’ came to mind.
When she spoke, her voice was faraway and almost inaudible. “I’ve always wanted you, David. But over my lifetime I’ve wanted a lot of things I can’t have. I’m going to stand up for God in this way, and according to the Church, I have to do that without a man by my side. Can you accept that?”
“I don’t want to.” The words were raspy, choked.
She smiled, her eyes crinkling around the edges. “Neither do I, love. Neither do I.”
After she had gotten back out of his pick-up, climbed into her golf cart, and disappeared around the bend of the street, he went back around the drive-through to pick up another strawberry milkshake. His phone vibrated impatiently in his pocket-- another text that he would ignore, something else to be put off and procrastinated. When he tried to scrounge around the glove-compartment for a couple of dollar bills, the tattooed Hulk behind the window shook his head. His piercings jangled at the motion.
“Don’t bother, kid. Looks like you’ve had a rough night. This one’s on me.”
David looked up at the man in surprise, and noticed that he wore a crucifix around his neck.
Umm. So. I'd love any and all help on this, my wonderful shredders. As well as alternative title suggestions?
Okay, I'm really digging David and the drive-thru dude, but I don't really like Bethany that much. She just...doesn't really fit as a nun to me. She's not that well completed as a character. That's the way I feel, at least. And that paragraph before confuses me even more.
