Scolding the Winds. Joel Kelly

looked down as fast as she could. She knew it wasn’t fast enough.

      His green eyes had met hers.

      She wondered if she should quit.

      Chapter 5

      She made it the rest of the day without looking at him, or without him noticing, at least. She spent the bus ride home trying to wish the day away. Trying to turn the nauseating churning in her stomach into her more familiar and welcome pain. Something to distract her.

      Of course, it wasn’t a big deal. Of course. Of course. Of course.

      Keep reminding yourself of that. Keep saying, “This isn’t a big deal.” It was just a look. He doesn’t know why you were looking at him. He doesn’t think you were looking at him like that.

      Her bus stop was about ten minutes away from her apartment. It was a gentle walk, flat in a city of many hills. She liked it, usually. It helped her organize her thoughts, figure out what she wanted to eat, and listen to a little bit more of whatever audiobook she had on the go.

      Today, it was David Sedaris. He was telling a story about his boyfriend Hugh walking too quickly when they were on vacation together and losing him in the crowd. It made her wish she had someone to lose.

      She didn’t miss Matt, but she did miss having someone to look after, someone who might, on a good day, want to look after her.

      She didn’t miss her parents. But she knew she missed out on having parents.

      She missed out on what families are supposed to be. That feeling of I’ve got your back no matter what. What was that like?

      Did she really have a crush on Logan at work, or did she just want to have someone look at her like they were worried about her? Did she just want someone to get home from work, see her passed out on the couch, and carry her to bed?

      Did she just want someone to wake her up at night, to free her from another nightmare?

      She wondered if maybe that’s all a crush really is.

      ***

      The old family minivan was navy blue, the paint on its hood mostly chipped off, though her dad had often tried to spray-paint it all back together.

      Riley was ten years old and going door to door with her father and two others from their congregation, trying to teach people about the Bible and leave them with literature. The other two were an elderly couple who had been in the congregation since well before Riley was born. She had known them her entire life, but she didn’t like them. They always seemed to correct her whenever she said anything, even if she was just asking a simple question.

      She had gone door to door for as long as she could remember, ringing doorbells as soon as she could reach them.

      They approached a long, faded yellow building alongside a busy road that headed toward the city’s oil refinery. The elderly couple had walked around to the front of the building where there were two apartment units. Through a side door Riley and her father entered a long hallway filled with cigarette smoke and leading to four or five doors to other apartments.

      They walked to the end of the hallway so they could work their way back. Riley was wearing an ankle-length tan skirt and dark brown flats. Her loose green blouse was tucked in messily and several stray hairs stood out from her butterfly hairpin.

      Her father put his hand on her shoulder, and she knocked lightly on the door. She waited, part of her hoping no one was home. She was excited to give people the magazines she held in her hands, but worried they would be mean. Sometimes people would slam the door or laugh at her. Or raise their voices at her father, or at whoever she had come to the door with.

      These people were “goats,” she knew. Nice people were called “sheep.” Jesus was interested in sheep, not goats, for his flock.

      Her father whispered, “Louder,” and so she knocked harder, her small knuckles hurting, slightly, from the impact with the red metal door. She heard footsteps and her stomach seized.

      She heard the deadbolt click, and the door opened a crack. A woman about Riley’s mother’s age with yellowing hair looked out at them.

      “What is it?” she asked, looking at Riley, then her father, then back and forth. “What would you like?”

      Riley smiled at her and raised her head and tightened her fists around her magazines. “My name is Riley,” she said, “and I’m asking you and your neighbors today if they know what God has said about His coming paradise.”

      The woman began to smile as she opened the door wider and the source of the cigarette smoke became clear. Riley tried not to cough.

      “No, I don’t know,” she said, smiling up at Riley’s father. “What does He say?”

      Riley excitedly unrolled the magazines that were now wrinkled and creased and showed the cover of the first one to the woman. “This magazine will tell you what God has promised for the future in the Bible. That one day sickness will be gone and everyone will be happy. I would like to leave them with you,” she said.

      “Oh, sure,” the woman said, holding out her hand.

      Riley held out the magazines, and her father said, “You know, we’d like to come back, maybe in a few weeks, to see how you found those.”

      “I’m not sure,” the woman said, her smile fading. “That’s okay.”

      “Well, if we’re in the neighborhood, maybe,” Riley’s father said.

      “You have a good day,” the woman said to Riley, and then she closed the door, pushing more smoke into the hallway.

      Riley and her father walked toward the next door. “Don’t forget to ask them if you can come back,” he said. Riley nodded.

      Her father made a note in the book he kept in the pocket of his suit jacket.

      Riley could hear people talking in the apartment before she knocked on the door. She rapped loudly, but quickly realized she didn’t have any new magazines out. Before she could fish them out of the bag slung over her shoulder, the door had opened wide.