It was past eight O clock. The evening breeze was moving the air, the dust and asphalt on the road hadn't yet started to cool. When Cassie brought the girl into the diner, everyone froze like a snapshot, with their knives and forks in their hands, or with their blueberry muffins, hand to mouth in mid-air, and they stared at her. Cassie said she'd picked the girl up hitchhiking into town on the North Road. So far she hadn't said a word, except she'd wanted to talk to Pastor John.
The girl was about twelve years old, slightly tall for her age but she was skinny-ribbed for her height. A welt on right bicep was mottling to a dark bruise, the color of an angry storm cloud. A gash on her forehead had almost healed. Her arms were sunburnt, and her hair dark hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her jeans and gray T were dusty and dirty. Her sneakers were scuffed and holed and she wore no socks. Everything hung off her; oversized or a bad fit. When she first sat down at the table, she stared into the middle-distance and gulped one glass of water down, and then another.
Pastor John ordered her a roast chicken breast and fries.
When the waitress put the plate on the table near her, she reached over and picked up a handful of chicken breast and pushed it into her mouth, and she carried on like eating like that.
The folks at the nearby tables were either stunned or suffering in polite silence. Some sniffed because the girl hadn't had a shower, perhaps in weeks. It was like a feral child that had been brought indoors for the first time. She was wild as a bobcat. When John coughed to get her attention, and he asked what her name was, she looked up at him with her green eyes and swallowed another mouthful of fries with a gulp before she spoke.
"Amber."
"Amber what?"
"Just Amber."
She took another bite out of a handful of chicken.
"Where are you from Amber?"
"No place you'd know. Can I have some more water please?"
John brought a pitcher over and placed it on the table in front of her. Ice cubes and a slice of fresh lemon bobbed top of the water, and the ice chimed and tinkled when it bumped the side of the glass. The girl picked the lemon out with her dirty fingers and chewed it. After about five seconds, she made a sour face, pulled the mashed-up segment out of her mouth and dropped it on her plate.
"Jeez, it tastes like battery acid! "
Pastor John took off his Jacket hung it on the back of the chair. He sat down in front of the girl and rolled up his shirt sleeves. She watched him with her green eyes. It was the first time he'd seen her look slightly afraid.
"You act like never tasted lemon before," said John.
The girl shook her head. "Never going to again, I swear. How do you even eat that stuff"? She made a weak, forced laugh and her cheeks flushed a little with embarrassment. A ripple of murmurs spread around the dining room, Pastor John eyed around the other diners until they went back to going through the motions of eating their evening meals. The girl's accent was hard to pinpoint. It could be West Coast, maybe LA.
"You been on the road long, Amber?"
"Seven days, seven nights. Kinda Biblical, isn't it."
The girl clasped both of her hands around her water glass and stared into it.
"Do you parents know you are out here?"
"My mom will; she'll be 'round here looking for me already. I'm going to be so much trouble when she finds me. She'll go full Judgement Day on me, I'm telling you. "
"What about your dad?"
Amber shrugged. A little smile crossed her face like she remembering a happy time or hoping for one.
"I came out here to find my dad; I want to meet him for real. Did you ever feel that you wanted to meet you father? Is your mother still alive Preacher John?"
The girl's manner was deliberate and overfamiliar. He'd seen it before in LA and every other place he'd worked. Most kids who'd had learned to hustle for their next meal acted like this; they second- guessed their marks. It was their way getting things they needed, desperately. When you're wearing rags and your belly aches with hunger as if a big hand is squeezing out your guts day and night, and you don't have a place of shelter, you don't have much time for morality. There had been places where girls younger than this were dragged around the streets by pimps. Preacher John sat back in his chair, took a long, hard look at her.
"What does your mom do Amber?"
"She works security."
"As what?
Amber sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "She works here and there. Say, do you have a room I can sleep in tonight, Pastor John?"
She tilted her head and screwed up her dirty face and became waif- like as if she was about to burst into tears. John had seen this trick a hundred times before. It's an act, and all some kids have between themselves and terrifying night on a pavement or a roadside. All you can do is understand and forgive, try to help.
John let out a sigh; Cassie was standing behind the girl shaking her head, mouthing the words "Call the cops." John Put his hands together and interlocked his fingers, and he stared at them for a while. It getting dark outside, the only bed the local police would have was in a cell. By midnight the cells would be full old whiskey-drunks and the few meth heads who had drifted in this town on their way someplace else.
"How old are you Amber?"
"Nearly thirteen. I swear, if you let me stay, I'll do some stuff in the morning like clean."
John swallowed. He'd made his decision.
"Chrissie, you think you make up the camp bed at the chapel-house living room for tonight?"
Behind the girl, Cassie gritted her teeth and shook her head. Every inch of her body said, don't do this."
John folded his arms and stared Cassie out. She held up her arms to say what the hell are you doing?
John smiled a deliberately wry smile and nodded.
"I'll take that as a yes then Chrissie. Amber, you can stay until tomorrow morning. One night, and I want you to promise, tomorrow, we are going to talk what you are going to do, and agree you'll do it, "said John.
"Okay."
The girl scooped the last fries from the edge of her plate, shoved them in her mouth and licked the grease off her finger ends. Then she stood up. She seemed to go dizzy, and John caught her before she collapsed headfirst into the table.
The bath was running upstairs. In about five minutes it was going to be a long hot soak for a filthy teenager. In one of the charity clothing bundles, John had found a pair of sports pants and a sports top that would fit her. He's put clean towels out for her. Chrissie held a mug of coffee in her hand and watched the girl through the crack in the kitchen door into the chapel-house living room.
"What's she doing now?" whispered John.
"She's picked up the photo of you mom off the mantelpiece, and she's looking at it real hard, studying it."
"Chrissie sat back down at the table and kept her voice low. John, I've worked with kids like this. She's looking for any weakness. Next thing it'll be you know, it'll be 'my grandma looked like that,' and try to she'll sucker you in. You know I haven't always…exactly…gone to church. Trust me; I know what she's doing."
"I haven't 'exactly always gone, to church either."
"You 're a twenty-six years old man John, what if tomorrow, the first thing she does is make allegations against you? She needs money; you're wide open to blackmail. "
"Would you believe her?"
"No, of course not but I'm not leaving you on your own with her. I'll go back and feed Bouncer and come right back here. I can get up early and let him out in the morning. "
John was about to ask, 'where are you going to sleep?', but there was the sound of a motorcycle coming up the dirt track to the chapel.
John went into the living room. The girl was sitting on the camp bed staring at the photograph. John pulled aside the curtain of the living room window. The headlight shone in through the glass. The rider killed the engine and dismounted. It was a woman, she took off her helmet and shook out her long dark hair. She was petite and pretty.
"Just let her in. No point in me running, it's my mom. I'm busted," sighed Amber.
Three bangs on the door echoed down the hallway.
"Just let her in, she'll break down the door if you don't."
John put out up his hand. "Wait a minute, this is the house of God, and nobody walks in here and starts anything with anyone. This is a place of safety and sanctuary. I'll talk to her. Amber, what's your surname?"
"Phillips."
Amber grabbed his arm looked up at him with her sparkling green eyes; she was crying this time. Little tear streaks were washing off the grime on her face.
"I'm so sorry about this. For what it's worth, I want you to know, I like you,"Amber said.
There were another three bangs at the door, booming as loud as field cannon fire. Jon rolled up sleeves again and straightened his shoulders.
"Right, Mrs. Phillips," John said under his breath.
"Don't, worry hon, Pastor John's good with difficult situations. I'll make some coffee," said Chrissie.
John opened the door. The woman was wearing a leather bike jacket and she carried two crash helmets, by the chin straps, in one hand. The bike was a black Suzuki Hayabusa. The engine plinked as it cooled in the night air.
Mrs. Phillips was much younger-looking than he'd expected. If Amber hadn't told him was her mother he would have said she was in her early twenties, she had brown eyes, soft, dark brown eyes. She wasn't smiling, more like scowling. She had the girl's features, except for the eye color. If pushed he'd, say it was her older sister. She looked him up and down from head to toe and then stared, hard, into his face. John leaned against the doorframe and scratched the stubble on his chin.
"Can I help you?" Asked John.
"My daughter is here, isn't she?"
It was a harsh voice for a delicate woman.
John shrugged. "Let's say she is, I don't know what game you are playing, but I don't believe you are her mother. You're not old enough to be 'Mrs. Phillips', her mother. Besides, this is the house of God, and nobody comes in here shouting the odds."
The woman glared at him, the grip of her hand increased on the helmet straps, and her arm shook. The spasm lasted a couple of seconds then she flash of a smile fought against the austere expression on her face, the corner of her mouth twitched, and then the smile lost the struggle. She held out her hand; she had a very firm grip. John was the first to let go.
"It's Miss Phillips; Cameron. That is my daughter. I have to take her home. I am very sorry for the disturbance she's caused you."
"Actually, she's no trouble."
"If that is the case then you won't mind if I talk to her."
Cameron held out the crash helmets. John half reacted as if he was going to take them off her. He realized what he was doing and stopped. But in that fraction of a second, she'd moved, and sidestepped him. It was like a powerful gust of wind had moved him out of the doorway, and he was now standing where she had been moments earlier. She put the crash helmets down on the chairs in the hallway. He boots echoed off the floorboards as she stomped towards the living room. The electric light in the living room was blinking on and off, casting wild, Frankenstein-freakish shadows down the hall.
Before he'd shut the front door and reached the living room John heard Cassie's voice. "Excuse me, but you can't come in storming in here like that, Mrs. Phillips."
"Mo-ho-m, this is so embarrassing," said Amber.
"I'm not letting this girl go anywhere with you; she's clearly terrified." He heard Cassie say.
By the time John reached the living room, Cassie held her arm protectively around Amber, and she was hugging her. Water dripped from the ceiling. The light bulb was fizzing and crackling, and spluttering out light. He'd forgotten to shut off Amber's Bath. John raced upstairs and turned off the tap. The bathroom floor was flooded, his socks were soaking. The argument was blazing downstairs in the living room. Amber was yelling "I don't care, I want to see my DAD!" When the bathroom floor was dry, John took a very deep breath, glanced up to heavens and made his way back downstairs.
The room smelled of a struck match, the plaster of wet ceiling, and the saturated wooden floor, a candle that was lit and burning over the mantelpiece. Water dripped. Cassie had moved her bed to a dry space near the window. Cassie and Cameron and Amber were standing in the kitchen with their arms folded. It seemed as if Amber and Cameron were practicing for the national staring-each-other-out completion from two sides of the kitchen table. Amber was still holding the framed picture of his mom.
Cassie caught his arm and whispered in his ear, "Told you she was trouble."
"Excuse me, do you mind if get to the other end of my kitchen?" John side-shuffled his past the staring contest and poured coffee. As he put the cup to his lips something cracked against the kitchen window, then the top of Cassie's head exploded into blood and fragments of bone splinters which splattered over the white tiles surrounding the sink.
A very powerful hand pushed John onto the floor. Amber was already down there. There were glass splinters, blood, and bits of skull bone on the floor. Cameron turned out the light and pulled a Glock pistol out of the back of her leather Jacket. Cassie was dead on the floor by the kitchen door. It was like someone had smashed the back of her skull out with a ball hammer.
Amber crawled up to John and grabbed hold of him with one hand by his shirt. She was staring hard into his eyes.
"Don't worry, mom will deal with this, I promise," Amber said.