Page 76 of Bless This Hot Mess
Rebekkah inhaled, her smile blooming. And as naturally as a shift in the weather, she began to sing. The ark became a stage; the backyard, a chapel; the sunset, a spotlight.
“David had Jonathan and Adam had Eve,” Rebekkah sang, her voice sugared and sure.
“Cain had Abel before he made him bleed,” Japheth added, mellow and amused.
“Alexander had Hephaestion way back in the day,” Ronald crooned, eyebrows dancing.
“They’re not in the Bible and they’re actually gay!” Japheth tossed in, delighted with his own footnote.
All three together, fists drumming the two-by-four railing, feet knocking time on the planks crooned,
“Hey! You! You gotta have friends.
God got lonely so He made a Holy Ghost!
Hey! You! You gotta have friends.
Throwing a party? Jesus is a bitchin’ host.
Hey! You! You gotta have friends.
Three’s a magic number. It’s the most!”
Their harmonies skated the fence line, hopped the alley, and startled a cat into sudden dignity. The last chord floated up, a kite cut loose, and the backyard settled again into the evening song of birds high in the trees echoing the final refrain.
“Trinity had its first fight,” Ronald said softly and then with some relief, “but we set it right.”
“I love you guys,” Rebekkah murmured.
“We love you, too,” Japheth said, and for a moment they were exactly what they wanted to be–a band, a chosen family, and cheer leaders for the Big Guy in the sky.
From the alley came the distant thrum of a car idling–low, expensive, feline. Headlights slashed across the fence slats, slow and deliberate, like eyes blinking through a confessional. The engine purred, lingered, and then roared with excitement. Tires grated against the back-alley gravel.
On the ark, Trinity exchanged a wary look. Was that salvation circling the block, or the storm they’d been building this boat for?
“Oh! Thrown from a great height!” Rebecca clapped her hands. “I knew it would come to me.”
LISTEN to You Gotta Have Friends Reprise
Chapter 11
The Big Fudge Cake
If birthdays were cakes, Rebekkah imagined hers collapsing in the middle, with too many candles weighing it down.
Today would prove that cake solves nothing and everything, sometimes in the same mouthful. The WWJD radio station lobby had the hushed, over-waxed gleam of a church basement before bingo. The white tile floor, shot through with pink confetti flecks, as if a Teletubby had exploded, clicked under heels and squeaked under sneakers. Its beige walls dressed in framed verses with curly-cue fonts in gold foil:Blessed are the callers, for the request line is open.A cork board sagged under the weight of bake-sale and youth group carwash flyers and a notice for ‘Lost: one pink mitten (left)’.
The air had the morning fragrance of recently mopped lemon cleaner and freshly brewed hazelnut coffee. Carrington’s desk looked like command central; neatly aligned paperclips spelling out their name, stacks of bills wrapped in elastic bands lined up like soldiers, and a glossy cake box determined to distract anyone from paying them.
With adingthe elevator doors sighed open and produced Emma-Lou and Suwarna like a magic trick. Emma-Lou wore a storm-blue skirt suit, pearl studs, and the famous new bangs Carrington had given her a few months earlier, a glossy golden fringe she fretted over whenever her thoughts outran her composure. Beside her, Suwarna strode in a structured blouse the colour of cranberry juice, dark slacks, and sensible heels; a key card for the elevator hung from a lanyard around her neck and a pencil lived permanently behind her ear like a spare wand. Where Emma-Lou’s nerves poked out in fussed hems and straightened folders, Suwarna’s announced themselves in checkboxes checked, protocols prioritized, and binders impeccably labeled. She was a woman who could restructure your career path and your chakras before lunch.
“We’re all here?” Emma-Lou asked, voice light with the excitement of breaking the structure of a typical Tuesday morning as her shoes clicked across the tile toward the reception desk. “Suwarna and I have the confetti. Carrington, do you have candles for the cake?”
“Of course,” Carrington answered, chin high, voice a practiced velvet. “All of them.” They looked like a downtown window display that had been asked to answer phones–a starched white shirt tucked into a full, black crinoline hoop skirt that made its own weather patterns, a narrow satin tie with tiny gold crosses, and lipstick the shade of scandal.
“Is it fudge cake? That’s Rebekkah’s favourite,” Japheth asked, already vibrating at frosting frequency in anticipation. His hands fluttered when he was excited; right now, they were practically hummingbirds.
“Yes, Japheth,” Carrington said, not looking up from aligning a book of matches with military precision. “I received all six of your reminders. You left Post-it notes strewn across my desk.”
