The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real Read Free Page B

up, grabbed a towel, and ran off again to pose with the youth group for some-body’s camera.
    â€œHere, Yo-Yo,” I said, handing her an extra beach towel as we rejoined the group of Yada Yada sisters and the ragtag assortment of husbands and younger kids. “Hey, Florida. Carl, it’s great to see you . . . and Carla!” I grabbed the eight-year-old and gave her a hug. “You guys coming to the Warm-Up Party at Uptown? Pastor Clark drove the church van here to give a ride to any-body who needs one.”
    Carla hopped up and down in her white pull-on snow boots, tugging on her daddy’s hand. “I want some hot chocolate!”
    I bent down to her level. “I’ve got some in the car. Yours will be the first cup when we get to the church.”
    â€œNo! I mean over there!” The little girl pointed and all heads turned. Sure enough, Stu—back in her sweats and felt helmet—was passing out Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate from a huge Igloo cooler to a cluster of grateful teens. Right on the beach.
    â€œSure, baby. Come on,” Carl murmured, as she pulled him away.
    I groaned inwardly. Upstaged again. God, why do I always feel like this around Stu? Then I scolded myself. Suck it up, Jodi Baxter.Who gave you a patent on bringing hot chocolate? I looked at Ben and Ruth. “You guys coming to the Warm-Up Party?”
    â€œDon’t look at me,” Ben Garfield groused. “Ask Ruth. I’m just the cabbie.”
    â€œOf course we come,” Ruth announced. “We didn’t drive all this way to just watch these young people catch their death. Though the purpose of such nonsense, I don’t see.” She looked this way and that. “Where’s Avis? Doesn’t she go to your church?”
    â€œHa!” I snorted. “You’re not going to get Avis out of the house to watch a bunch of crazies dip in the lake in midwinter—not unless it was a baptism or something.”
    â€œWell, now, see?” Florida grinned slyly. “I been prayin’ that this here Polar Bear thing be like a prophecy, an’ someday we gonna see all these kids come outta that water washed in the blood of Jesus.”
    Yo-Yo had one leg back in her overalls and one leg out. But she froze in midhop as if someone had yelled, “Red light!” in the kids’ party game. Her blue-gray eyes widened. “Whatcha talkin’ ’bout, Florida? Washed in what blood?”

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    I laughed aloud at the look on Yo-Yo’s face. Poor kid. She had barely stuck her toe into “this Jesus gig,” as she called it, since coming to the Yada Yada Prayer Group, and she was still trying to figure out what she’d gotten herself into. “Uh, baptism,” I said. “You know, to show we’ve died with Christ and . . .”
    I stopped. Her round eyes and mouth were obvious clues that I was talking gobbledegook. “Never mind.We can talk about it later.” Avis can explain it later is what I meant. Or Florida. Somehow my churchy clichés didn’t communicate to Yo-Yo, who wasn’t that long off the street and out of prison.
    By now, most of the Polar Bear Plungers had wiggled themselves back into their clothes and were making a beeline for cars in the beach parking lot. Seeing Josh in the driver’s seat of our Dodge Caravan, Yo-Yo’s brothers piled in along with José and Emerald Enriquez, so Denny and I hailed a ride with Pastor Clark and the Hickman family in the church van. Fourteen-year-old Chris muttered darkly about having to ride with the “old farts,” which got him a slap upside his head from Florida.
    The spicy smell of homemade chili greeted us as shivering bodies crowded through the door of Uptown Community’s storefront on Morse Avenue. I shanghaied a couple of teenagers to haul my picnic cooler of hot chocolate up the stairs to the large multipurpose room on the second floor, set it on the pass-through