Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White Read Online Free Page A

enough to carry one of his straying sheep.
    What of my dad, the shepherd, Reverend Nicholas Aaron Parker Sr.? The man I’m named after. The man I can’t seem to do anything but disappoint with every choice I make that isn’t his choice. He’s supposed to be all about the Bible.
    “How shall I choose a career?” “Just go to the Holy Bible,” he’ll answer.
    “How do I choose what I’ll eat for lunch, Dad?” “The Holy Scriptures,” he’ll say, beaming.
    “Should I wear the red polo shirt, or the blue- and yellow-striped one?” “Search the Scriptures, my boy.”
    Okay, it isn’t that extreme, but man, it’s close. Didn’t he read the story of the good shepherd? He commissioned those awful windows for heaven’s sake! Why didn’t he know when I fled for California to pursue a degree in literature, which he found worthless, that I found life ? Why didn’t he know I waited, bleating and moaning in grief, the saddest sheep of all? Didn’t he know I needed him to come for me?
    I swing the door open and storm out, and nobody grabs my legs while I drag them across the steps of the vestibule. Nobody says, “Please, Nicky, don’t go.”
    Don’t go .
    A few minutes later, I’m sitting in my black Chevy pickup, reading my contraband NIV Men’s Devotional Bible , and I read, thinking of a Jesus who may actually want me enough to leave His ninety and nine to find me no matter where I stray to. I can’t even concentrate on the words, I feel so twisted inside.
    A tap at my window.
    It’s Rebecca. I roll the window down. “Hey.”
    “Hey, are you okay, Nicholas? I saw you walk out. Are you feeling all right?”
    I look at her, seeing what my mom and dad see: a good girl. Pretty. Perky. Blonde, blue-eyed. Jesus loving. A True Love Waits girl. Someone they can groom into a good pastor’s wife. Someone so much more malleable than myself.
    And I like her. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She’s the freakin’ bridge between me and my parents—the only thing I’ve done right since coming home to fix things with my father, like God told me to.
    God, what did You mean? How do I put things right with him? Do I have to marry her? I don’t want to marry her.
    “I’m okay, Rebecca.”
    She stands there. She wants me to open the door. I don’t want to open the door. I want her to go away, but she’ll stand there until Jesus returns if I don’t. I decide to stop acting like an animal, and actually get out of the car and go open the door for her. Get her seated in the truck. Close the door behind her. Get back in.
    I wonder if she’d leave with me. I don’t think she would.
    When we’re settled in, I risk asking her, “Do you ever wish you could run away?”
    “From church?”
    I don’t say all the expletives before the word yes that pop into my head. I don’t even say yes. I just watch her.
    “Sometimes I wouldn’t mind leaving home, but I love church. I love your dad and your mom. I love it here. I love this building. And the people. The old folks. The babies in the nursery. I’ve been here since I was eleven and your dad knocked on my door himself to see if me and my brother wanted to take the bus to Sunday school—the pastor !”
    She’s says pastor like it’s a big freakin’ deal. When she was eleven and he was knocking on her door evangelizing, I couldn’t get him to have a conversation with me. The pastor !
    She means it. That’s the worst part. Or maybe it’s the best part. I’m not even sure. She wants this life at Tabernacle. That’s why my parents love her so much, because she shows up at the potluck with her casserole. And she shows up for the antiabortion rally. And for the women’s breakfast, and basically every time the door opens.
    Rebecca doesn’t want to run away from church.
    “Did you enjoy the sermon?”
    Say no. Please say no.
    “I didn’t hear all of it, but it’s very good.”
    Rebecca is good about recycling. She’s a regular spiritual