Excerpt from CRYSTAL WAVES

Here's a little taste of my newest Christian novel, CRYSTAL WAVES:

On the walk home from church, Lee seemed a bit distracted. He wasn’t talking much, staring down at the sidewalk or ahead of him pensively. At first, Katie tried to engage him in conversation—asking how he liked the pastor’s message, and wasn’t the Stiles’ new baby cute? Sensing he wasn’t feeling talkative, she respected that and walked quietly beside him.

The Crystal Waves Diner was open on Sundays only until one in the afternoon, but her bosses had given her alternate Sundays off. Sundays were quiet, anyway, with locals mostly eating in, and Catholics traditionally not eating until after Mass anyway.

On Sundays when she had to work, which some people had to do, she would come home afterwards and have her devotional. On Sundays like that one, when she was able to attend church, she would come home afterwards and help Jessica fix a Sunday Special Lunch.

That was what they called it, the roommates: The Sunday Special. It wasn’t a lot, really, and it wasn’t fancy, because no one had much money for extravagance. On the other hand, it was fun. The girls had tried their hand at making chicken with broccoli and fried rice one Sunday; on another, they whipped up some tacos. That particular day they were fixing macaroni salad, coleslaw and cheesy steak sandwiches on hard rolls. The boys always appreciated the girls’ efforts, and sometimes they’d taken the kitchen over themselves to try their own hand at creating the Sunday Special.

“Katie, you mind telling me who that guy was back there?”

She had been chopping celery for the macaroni salad when Lee returned to the kitchen. Jessi was at work frying the steaks on the stove, two that she’d gotten at a good price at the A & P and would be slicing up for the sandwiches. Lee had changed back into his denim shorts and Seaside Heights T-shirt. He was quenching his thirst with a bottled cream soda.

“That guy back in church?” she asked, suddenly careful with her words.

“Hmmm. A guy in church?” Jessi tossed a sly glance at Lee. “Jealous?”

“Jealous? No. Just wanna know who he was.” Lee faced Katie. “And why you were arguing with him behind the church?”

Gabe walked in on the conversation. He helped himself to a potato chip from the bowl on the table. “Katie was arguing with somebody? I don’t believe it. He’s gotta be some bad dude to give you a hard time, babe.”

“Yeah, I’d say he’s a bad dude. That’s accurate.” Katie sighed. “He was nobody, Lee. Just a very rude guy who wandered in.”

“Wandered in?” Lee chuckled. “Not too many people ‘wander’ around in suits. I heard what he said about Pastor DePalma. Guy’s got some gutter mouth.”

Jessica gasped. “He cursed out the pastor?”

“Not to his face,” Katie said, though anxious to change the subject. “He’s too much of a coward for that.”

“Yeah, he’s a coward, all right. He was backing up, trying to get away…from you,” Lee pointed out.

“Well, he should. I’m a lot stronger than he is. See?” Playfully, she raised her arm and bent it at the elbow, flexing a nonexistent muscle.

“Yes, I saw that. Don’t go doing that, Katie. He was a lot bigger than you. I thought I was gonna have to deck him.”

“Oh, how sweet!” Jessi giggled, telling Katie, “You see? Chivalry is alive and well, and living at the Jersey shore!”

Lee didn’t appear in the mood for jesting. He drew closer to Katie. “He was…weird.”

“Among other things, yes. He’s evil.”

“Now, now, Katie. Nobody’s really evil. That’s a hard word,” Gabe corrected her. “Some people are just misunderstood.”

“Not him. Believe me. He’s malevolent.”
Katie hoped to leave it at that, but Gabe was amused.

“Ahhhh. Malevolent,” he repeated. “Now there’s a million-dollar word!”

About the only one taking her seriously was Lee, who stared at her. “He was evil, you’re right. He gave me the creeps. He was like…like a…”

“Like a demon?”

Katie paused from chopping the celery to watch Jessi, who’d made the suggestion.

“I guess. I’ve never really seen a demon before,” Lee admitted. “Thank God.”

“Demons can’t go to church. Can they?”
Gabe was being serious now. “Don’t they disintegrate into dust if they so much as step through the church door?”

“Maybe they can go into a church. It’s just a building. A manmade building. What’s inside—that’s what’s holy.” That answer had come from Lee. “I would think they could go in.”

Jessi shrugged. “But why would they want to go into a church?”

“To cause trouble.” Lee looked from her to Katie. “This one tried to. He was really ticked off at Pastor. At what the man was saying. And he didn’t like me too much, either.”

Katie knew that Lee was waiting for her reaction. For her to say something. Anything. She was grateful for the mild interlude, when Gabe grabbed another chip and Jessica moved the bowl.

“You are not filling up on those before lunch,” she admonished, “with how hard me and Katie are working on this meal.”

“Aw, babe, I can eat the whole bag and still eat what you girls are making,” Gabe assured her.

Lee pressed in closer. “So…you’re not going to tell me what happened?”

“You saw what happened, Lee. He just—I got into it with him.” Katie was struggling, wishing he would drop it. “I shouldn’t have, but I did. He was just—not a nice person.”

“What did the minister say that got the guy so hot under the collar?” Gabe asked.
Lee replied, “He was talking about the things that have been happening here. How this old pastor—the man who was there before Pastor DePalma—had prayed for God to do a work here.”

Jessica’s eyes opened wide. “Really? How long ago was that?”

“Like during World War I.”

“Really?” Gabe also sounded intrigued. “Why would that guy have gotten upset over that?”

“Beats me.” Lee looked like he was about to say something else.

Instead, he scowled at Katie and headed out of the bungalow, mumbling something about grabbing a smoke before lunch.

“He’s mad at you,” Jessi whispered.

“Yes. I don’t know why.”

“Don’t take it to heart. Guys are weird sometimes.”

“Yeah, and you girls are so easy to figure out.” Gabe was being sarcastic, laughing when Jessi gave his arm a pinch.

“I’ll be right back,” Katie said, excusing herself.

People could be so confusing sometimes. Male and females, Katie had found. She was mildly distressed because she cared for Lee. She’d always cared for him, and now there he was, upset with her.

Outside, she found him seated on one of those rickety, fold-up chairs, slapping at the bottom of his cigarette pack. She didn’t know what that was for, but she’d seen both Lee and Gabe do that.

“Don’t be mad at me, Lee,” she said, not masking her hurt.

He gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m not mad at you, Katie.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not. I’m just—I really care about you. I feel sometimes like I know you forever.”

She took the seat beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I feel like that, too. It would hurt me so much if one day you didn’t like me anymore.”

He must have liked the way she said that, because he finally chuckled. Then he draped an arm around her.

“You don’t have to worry about that. That’s not going to happen.” He didn’t feel as tense or upset now. “Sometimes I just get frustrated. “I feel like you don’t trust me—”

“Oh, Lee. I trust you to the ends of the earth.” She tossed her hand in the air with theatric flair. “I would trust you with my very life!”

He laughed again. “And I trust you. It’s just—every now and then, I get the feeling that you’re hiding something. Like you have some secret that you’re keeping from me. It’s okay, you know. It’s okay if you have something that you’d rather not tell anybody. Everybody has something that maybe they’re embarrassed about or that they want to keep to themselves. I respect that.

“But I want to feel like you can trust me. Like you would tell me if you decided you wanted to. Because, if you are hiding something, Katie, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change who you are in my eyes. You would still be my—our Katie. To me.”

She licked her lips and looked up at him.
“If I was to reveal a secret, it would be to you,” she said. “No one else. Just you. But I—I’d better get inside and help Jessi.”

He was going to kiss her. She could feel it, though she’d never been kissed before. She was afraid of the kiss, afraid even more of hurting him.

“Katie, wait—one second.”

She’d only made it as far as the door. “Uh-huh?”

“If I was to tell anybody my secrets—not that I have any, really; my life’s an open book—but I’d tell you. You’re the only one I’d tell.”

Then he blew her a kiss. From that spot in his chair, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, a sweet but sad smile on his face. Katie pretended to catch the kiss, smiling as she pretended to hold it to her own lips.

“Come on in when you’re done,” she told him. “Lunch is going to be great.”

“Can’t wait.”

Back to normal. Things were back to normal.

Sort of.