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“What high school did you go to?”
“I was home schooled,” she replied quietly. Celia bit her pump lower lip and it made my blood feel warm. That was it. The secret—the apprehension. Lou called them the Holy Rollers. The Joplin Sect, the Christian Brothers and Sisters—there were a million euphemisms for the cult that had captured a good part of Burgundy and the surrounding Easterbrook County in the late eighties. They swept in and set up camp and a lot of the local families got hooked into the weirdness. ‘Homeschooling’ was kind of a dead giveaway for this particular tribe. The members had all pulled their children out of school. There was intermarriage, what seemed like arranged marriages and lots of regular freedoms for the members curbed by the sect. They also had a lot of kids, reproduced like rabbits and people speculated as to how voluntary the child bearing was among the younger members.
Personally, I was averse to religion, avoided it like it was contagious. My Nana went to church, but respected my choice to stay home and worship the morning cartoons instead of the pulpit. I had a feeling that Celia’s family had not been quite as freewheeling as my old Nana.
"Trust me, Celia, it will be fine. I give you my word on that."
"I can't have anyone see me."
“Are you a Joplin expat? Escapee? Whatever they call you guys?”
Her eyes widened and her color deepened and she grabbed onto my forearm. Her grip was dead firm as she willed with her eyes, pleaded with me not say those words aloud.
“I thought they’d picked up and left Little Burgundy as headquarters years ago?” I whispered to her.
She gritted her teeth and blinked back tears. I knew I had to drop the subject or else get her the hell out of here. I’d planned for us to eat amazing tacos, not dredge up old traumas for some sort of exposure therapy.
I wanted to know who or what exactly she was hiding from, but I also know I couldn't push her. Would they try to recapture defected members? I had no idea. Was she in danger just dining in a friendly restaurant here?
"I'm going to call Miguel right now and see if he’ll give us a private room in the back. Nobody needs to know you’re here and we don’t ever have to come here again.”
She tilted her head up, and her gaze caught my eyes. "Okay," she whispered softly.
It was only one word, but the meaning was clear. Celia trusted me. I wouldn’t betray that precious commodity for anything.
Chapter 4
CELIA
"I forgot how good the food was here," I said, putting the last bite of churro in melted chocolate into my mouth. "No one makes a churros like Miguel. It’s been years since I’ve eaten his food."
"It's his grandmother's recipe. I keep begging him to tell me what the secret is, and he refuses. Told me he'd slip it to me. The way things are going, I'll be meeting the grim reaper before he gives it up."
"I would think that being good at physics would make you an inherently good cook. Any truth to that assumption?"
“Maybe cooking in the microwave. No, I can find my way around the kitchen all right. I think it’s the chemists who’ve got us beat in the cooking arena though.”
“I’d like you to cook for me sometime. I’m a great eater. So how long have you and Miguel known each other?”
"Since we were kids. We grew up in the same shitty subsidized city housing complex. Along with about eight other families. I had my grams and his mom on her own with five little ones to look after. We had another cohort, too, a kid who also lived in the building, but I don't talk to him much anymore after we had a falling out. He went off to join Joplin and I never really heard from him again. I'm not sure if Miguel still keeps in touch."
I stiffened when he mentioned the mysterious third friend, and it had me irritatingly intrigued. I likely knew the guy, because unfortunately, I knew everyone in the Joplin ministries, I’d spent over half of my life wrapped up in their suffocating blanket of protection and indoctrination. For a while after I left, I didn’t even know which beliefs I held were my own and which were brainwashed into my mind from years of their preaching.
Emery was sly with how he sprung dinner on me, dragged me to the one place I never wanted to be again and then still talked me into having dinner with him.
Despite all of his bravado, he was guarded about what he let slip and what he held in when it came to his own life. I know it was hypocritical of me to want to know all of his secrets since I kept so many of my own, but I didn't care. Emery Lawson was an anomaly, and everything about him fascinated me. Boxer, Biker, Professor, Physicist. What the actual hell, was this man some sort of undercover agent or spy?
