10. Res
10
Res
I ’m in my element as I direct volunteers on where to place donation boxes and food and set up lines and barriers for crowd control. If I didn’t have to work a job and pay bills, I could see myself coordinating community outreach events every day and never get tired of it.
As it is, I only get to do this six times a years. Once in spring and summer, twice during the holidays, and twice during the fall. Twice in the fall because a couple of the churches One Humanity partners with refuse to participate in anything to do with Halloween. It would be annoying if I also didn’t mind the chaos and challenge of having the excuse of putting on two events back to back. A fall festival in mid-October and a huge community Halloween party.
“Res,” my best friend Lyssa says running up to me, hat falling off her curly brown hair.
We’ve known each other since we were five, giggling at a comic strip I snuck into Sunday school that got us both in trouble. She’s also one of the few people who told the Loving Eden deacon board they could fuck themselves and still hung out with me when I decided to leave at seventeen .
Currently, she’s playing runner between me and most of Loving Eden, who refuse to talk to me even though they’re one of the churches working with us today. It would be awkward if I didn’t find it hilarious at the end of the day.
“What’s up?” I ask, not concerned about the panicked look on her face. Lyssa panics about everything.
“Deacon Mother Lashonda,” Lyssa says.
“What about her?”
“She brought food!”
Okay. Maybe Lyssa isn’t panicking over nothing. I start over to the big tent of tables where food is being arranged and kept on warmers.
“Who let her bring food?” I ask.
“She insisted, and the other church mothers couldn’t just tell her no.”
“They absolutely could have. Just because this is a free event doesn’t mean I’m giving people slop, no matter how hungry they are.”
“It’s not that bad,” Lyssa says.
“You remember that family night? Back in seventh grade? When half the congregation got sick?” I ask.
“Yeah…”
“It was her salad.”
“You’re not lying just because you don’t like her?”
“I knew she was responsible for that before I decided I hated her,” I say, spotting Deacon Mother Lashonda, a tall overbearing woman, putting an aluminum pan on the burner .
“Res,” she says over-enthusiastically when she sees me approaching. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“Hello, Deacon Mother,” I say, putting on a false smile.
“Now. None of that Deacon Mother stuff,” she says. “I’m Auntie.”
A long time ago, she was. Maybe. Before she convinced my parents to send me to a fucking reform and labor camp to exorcise me of sin under the guise of a girl’s spiritual healing retreat. Only the fact that I packed a bag and ran off to stay with Mara prevented me from being unknowingly ambushed in my own home and kidnapped with my parents’ consent. But I’m not here to cause a scene or argue. Just to make sure this event isn’t ruined with bad food.
“Ooo,” I say, pretending to be nosy. “What’s that?”
“Macaroni and cheese.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say. “We’ve got enough food. Trust me. I only asked the church mothers to bring dessert.”
“Well, you can’t have too much food. Now where is this supposed to go?” she asks.
“You can give it to me,” I say, taking the tray out her hands and putting it on the rolling tray Lyssa has brought over. “We’ve got so much food already. We’ll put your stuff out with the second round.”
“Okay. Do you need any help in the kitchen? I can—”
“Trust me. It’s chaos. You don’t want to be anywhere in there,” I say.
Translation: I don’t want her in there. She has a tendency to go places, take charge, and make more of a mess than was there before while bringing down morale with her superior attitude .
“Well, maybe I can put some order to it.”
“Deacon Lashonda,” another Loving Eden church mother, who completely ignores me, says, bounding over. “We could use your expertise and eye for décor over at our vending table.”
Deacon Lashonda immediately lets herself be directed far away from me and anything to do with food.
When she’s gone, I say to Lyssa, “Every time. Every. Fucking. Time.”
“You know you love it,” Lyssa says. “I’m going to take this to the kitchen and hide it somewhere.”
“No. Leave it out for the rats to find. In the dumpster,” I add.
Lyssa shakes her head but walks away, pushing the cart with the bad food ahead of her. I look to the coat drive station, only to see a huge truck backing toward the tent.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“We got a huge last minute donation,” says June, the director of One Humanity. “But when they said they wanted to bring more coats, I didn’t know they meant an entire truck full. We’re going to have enough coats to pass out all winter. Hell, with the huge check they sent, we might be able to list them for free and ship them to people who need them.”
“How big was the check?”
“A cool six figures… with a five at the front,” June adds as the back of the truck opens, revealing racks of coats. Not just donated coats. Brand new coats with the fucking tags still on them.
“Someone donated five hundred thousand dollars?” I ask as a bunch of men start to unload the racks .
“Trust me, I thought it was too good to be true too. But accounting tells me the check cleared the bank,” June says. “Did a little research. Turns out they do a lot of charity work across the country even though I’ve never heard of them before.”
“Who exactly--?”
“You must be Mrs. Halladay. We spoke over the phone a couple of days ago.”
I freeze in place, instantly recognizing that voice. The voice I’ve only listened to a thousand times over the last two weeks. Before I can convince myself that listening to that damn audio so many times has messed with my head, Jaxson Devine rounds the other side of the truck to shake June’s hand.
“Mr. Devine,” June says. “And this is our planning and event coordinator—”
“Lauressa,” Jaxson says, following June’s gaze. “We’ve met.”
“Oh!” June says. “Really?”
“I… Yes,” I finally say, not having expected Jaxson to be here, let alone admit that we’ve met before.
How did he… How did he find me? There’s no way for him to have found me. I’ve listened to the audio of our interview dozens of times. I didn’t give away any bit of identifying information. He didn’t have my full name. I didn’t give him my number. I routed our video conversation through an ironclad VPN network that would have taken way longer than the fifteen minutes we spoke to decrypt. I also go out of my way to edit out anything that can be identified in my podcasts. I never name Loving Eden. Never talk about specific incidents and experiences in detail. Never give names or descriptions. I talk about things in the broadest of circumstances.
So how? How?
Just thinking about it scares me. Because for him to have found me from nothing just shows how determined he was when told me that he would invade my entire life.
“Lauressa didn’t tell you?” Jaxson asks before June can say anything. “When we talked, she told me about her community outreach initiatives and the people she works with. They’re exactly the kind of people the Sovereignty likes to associate with. She’s the reason I had my people reach out to you.”
June turns to me. “You should have told me.”
I look between June and Jaxson, debating whether or not to call Jaxson out on his lies. Finally, I decide there’s no benefit to calling him out. Not right now. Not openly anyway.
“June,” I say, purposely turning my back to Jaxson. “Can I talk to you in private for a moment?”
“Why—”
I ignore June’s beginning protests and drag her over to a large tree with nice shade. The leaves falling everywhere made it a less than ideal place to set anything up.
“We can’t work with the Sovereignty,” I snap.
“The what?”
“The Sovereignty. The religious organization Jaxson is part of.”
“But you told him about…”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did he find out? ”
Because he stalked me through an interview I did for my podcast , I want to say. But there are a few problems with that. The first is that to tell her would be to out my podcast. The second is that there are too many other believable stories for why he’s here. Despite Jaxson’s threat, this is only my second time meeting him. He might have threatened to invade my entire life, but he hasn’t done anything toward that end until today. That hardly counts as stalking. Not to mention, despite the fact that I know him and his religion are full of shit, he didn’t lie when he said this is the type of thing the Sovereignty claims to be about, even if their track record leaves much to be desired.
“I mentioned it in passing. He must have done some research,” I finally say.
June frowns. “I’m not seeing the issue. You know how many people meet me, look me up, find One Humanity, and donate?”
“Maybe. But he’s part of the Sovereignty,” I insist
“So…”
“So, they’re a cult!”
June tilts her head. “Is this your religious trauma thing? Not to say you don’t have every right to that trauma, but you’re sure it’s not blinding you?”
“Yes, I’m sure!” I snap.
June sighs. “Look. We did a check on the Sovereignty. They’re squeaky clean except a few disgruntled members here or there. But no major sexual misconduct scandals since their new leader took over. No financial fraud. Nothing but a few failed initiatives here and there. ”
“That you know of,” I mutter. If there’s one thing cults are good at doing, it’s burying their scandals by forcing members to deal with them in-house and extorting silence from those who leave. The Sovereignty is especially good at it.
“They mean well,” June continues, ignoring my comment. “Unless you have evidence of something that we don’t know.”
I almost tell her everything, consequences be damned. But if I tell her, it’s only a matter of time before the truth of it gets out. I’ve maintained the few connections I have with childhood friends and my family by not stirring the proverbial pot. As far as they’re concerned, I had a disappointing experience that made me angry and I couldn’t "rise above my emotions." That’s something that they can tolerate because they think I’ll be back once I’m done throwing my tantrum. They would cut me off completely if they found out I have a podcast where I declare everything that I was raised to believe is bullshit and fairy tales.
So I settle on saying, “They just have some… strange beliefs.”
June shrugs. “No stranger than thinking a dead guy from two thousand years ago is going to come back or be reincarnated, and that doesn’t stop us from working with churches.”
“Yeah, but none of them told me that one day they were going to convert me,” I mutter.
“Your mother asks you every time you see her when you’re going back to Loving Eden. That’s what they all do.”
I want to be angry at June for being so dismissive. But I can’t. It’s hard to explain to someone like June—who grew up in a house where they couldn’t care less about religion—why Jaxson and the Sovereignty is so dangerous. How they hide and sweep their crimes under the rug and silence or exile anyone who might expose them. How they brainwash people to not only think their crimes aren’t crimes, but that they’re in the right and everyone else is wrong. But it’s hard to contextualize and put that harm into words. Only someone whose been through it before can really understand.
“Look,” June says. “If it makes you feel better, you don’t have to deal with him today. I’ll get someone else to be Devine’s keeper or something.”
If Jaxson were just an annoying pain in the ass like my older brother, I would agree to it. But Jaxson is more than annoying. He’s potentially dangerous, and the only one who would appreciate the danger that a man like him and his Sovereignty could be is me.
“No,” I grumble with my arms crossed, looking to where Jaxson is directing his men. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
June says slowly, “Okay, masochist. Torture yourself, then.”