The Vanishings Read Free Page B

standing there with her eyes closed, silently moving her lips. Could she be praying?
    And her father! Usually something like this would make him nervous and fidgety. It wouldn’t have surprised her if he had tried to shout down the speaker or cause some other disturbance. But there he stood, staring at the preacher, not moving. “Daddy?” she whispered.
    He held up a hand to shush her. What was so interesting? What was keeping all these party people quiet? The preacher asked his listeners to bow their heads and close their eyes. Now there was something they would never do. If there was anything Vicki’s dad and his friends hated more than being told what to do, she didn’t know what it was.
    When she looked around, however, almost everyone was doing it! Some just stared atthe ground, but most had their eyes closed. The preacher told them how they could receive Christ. “Tell God you realize you’re a sinner,” he said. “Thank him for sending Jesus to die for you, and accept his offer of forgiveness.”
    Vicki still didn’t understand. The whole thing made her uneasy, but something was happening here. She looked to her dad and was stunned to see he had fallen to his knees and was crying. Her mother crouched next to him, hugging him and praying with him.
    Vicki was embarrassed. As soon as the preacher finished and the music started again, she slipped away with her friends. “What was that all about?” she asked them.
    â€œWho knows?” a boy said, pulling cans of beer from a paper bag and passing them around. “You ought to ask your old man. He really seemed into it. Your mom too.”
    Vicki shrugged. Her girlfriend added, “They left the dance, you know.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Vicki asked.
    â€œYour mom was leading your dad back to the trailer, and your little sister was tagging along behind them. They must’ve got religion or something.”
    â€œWhatever that means,” Vicki said, hoping to change the subject. “I need a cigarette.”
    Vicki didn’t really need a cigarette. It wasjust something to say that made her feel older. She smoked, yes, but she didn’t carry a pack with her. She just bummed smokes off her friends once in a while.
    At the end of the evening, when she and her friends had had enough beer and cigarettes to make her feel wasted, she filled her mouth with gum to try to hide the smell and made her way back home. She walked through the parking lot where the music and the dancing were still going on.
    Some of the people she had seen with their eyes closed and seeming to pray were now drinking and carrying on as usual, but there didn’t seem to be any fights or any reason for anyone to call the police.
    Vicki was half an hour past her curfew, but her parents had never been home this early from a weekend dance before. She expected a loud chewing out, the usual threats of grounding (which were rarely followed through), and charges that she had been involved in all kinds of awful things. All she and her friends had done was to put firecrackers in a few mailboxes and run away, and they tipped over a few garbage cans. Her father always accused her of much worse than that, but his promised punishments were nearly always forgotten.
    This night was strange. Her little sister,Jeanni, was already in bed, but her parents were as awake as she had ever seen them. Her mother sat at the tiny kitchen table, her dusty old Bible in front of her. Vicki’s father was excited, beaming, smiling, pacing. “I want to quit smoking and drinking, Dawn,” he said, as Vicki came in. “I want to clean up my whole act.”
    â€œNow, Tom,” Vicki’s mother cautioned, “nobody says you can’t be a Christian if you smoke and drink. Let’s find a good church and start living for God and let him do the work in our lives.”
    Vicki shook her head and started for her bedroom, but her father called