The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ. Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.
Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends. Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends. She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ. Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs.
June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.
The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present. The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018. After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart. However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart. They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.
In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith. Will these religious differences unite them? The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept. Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?
Chapter 16
December 16, 2017
Saturday afternoon Olivia and I had ridden bicycles to Aurora Lake and back. It was almost dark when we returned. We were exhausted. The bikes, although ten speeds, used old chain & gear technology. It had been a spur of the moment purchase decision at Walmart and halfway through the ride we both regretted not having gone to a movie instead.
At Aurora Lake, Olivia had asked me to join her at Warren and Tiffany’s tonight at 7:00. They were doing all they could to minister to Randi Radford and Judith Ericson. These two women were still reeling from the disappearance, and most likely, death, of their husbands. Randi’s Randall, and Judith’s John, had been missing for several months. All investigative efforts had concluded their disappearances were involuntary. According to Olivia and her earlier conversation with Warren, foul play was suspected since rumor was there had been a ransom demand made shortly after John’s disappearance. Warren and Tiffany had invited Olivia and me mainly because, I suspected, we were more contemporaries with Randi and Judith, the four of us having attended Boaz High School together in the early 70’s. I also suspected that Wade Tillman, Warren’s father, had something to do with this little gathering.
Olivia and I sat on the front porch for nearly an hour after returning from our bike ride. I still had no real furniture inside, although I had bought an Auburn and an Alabama beanbag chair at a local thrift store. I had wanted us to go inside but Olivia had requested the cool air and the gentle breeze, saying it would cool us off better, and, “dissipate the smell of sweat.” I hadn’t realized that I was beaming out body odor. Maybe she was afraid we might start something inside that we couldn’t finish before our little get-to-gather. I would have liked nothing better. I think she would have too. Maybe it was all in my imagination, but I thought I had sensed a little vibe rumbling when we had spread out a blanket I had carried with us to the Lake. Couple that with her unexpected reference to the night we had created John and Paul Cummins, my hopes for a passionate kiss were heightened, but not rewarded. After returning, I thought maybe the smoldering embers could be reignited now. Again, it didn’t happen. The swing, and being close to Olivia, were reward and satisfaction enough. For now.
At 6:00, Olivia left to return to Warren’s to shower and dress in time for the gathering. I stayed, showered, and walked the five blocks wishing, the closer I got to Warren’s, that I had driven. The night’s frigid air made me wish I had worn more than the light jacket I had on. Tiffany opened the front door just as I walked up the porch steps. “Hi Matt. Come in, I can’t believe this cold weather. Come in and warm-up.”
I didn’t know Judith Ericson, John’s wife, but I remembered Randi Radford. As teenagers, Randi Bonds and Olivia were the same age and both in the ninth grade when I was in the eleventh during my one year at Boaz High School. They were the best of friends. Randi’s sister, Rickie Bonds, was my age and was in my grade, along with Randall and the other four members of the Flaming Five. Olivia had told me the whole Boaz community had been surprised when Randall had married Randi. Rickie was Randall’s age, a varsity cheerleader, and rumors were, one of four cheerleaders who had hung out with Randall and the other four members of the Flaming Five throughout their high school years at a place call Club Eden. Again, rumor was, it was a secret place out in the woods, owned by the families of the Flaming Five, where Randall and his buddies spent time, with Rickie and three other sexually-active teenagers, when the guys were not playing basketball,
Tiffany led me into a large den where a roaring fire in the fireplace was like a magnet for my chill. “Why don’t you let that fire pull out the chill of the night air. I still can’t believe you walked. You’ll catch your death of cold.” Tiffany was, what I imagined, the typical Southern Belle. She was tall, slender, graceful, and had spent thirty-six or seven years developing the perfect cadence to mesmerize her audience with what, at first, might appear as gullibility. I figured she was anything but gullible, having come from a family of lawyers and judges in Atlanta. “Oh, by the way, Warren and the others are down in the basement. He’s showing off his man-cave. They’ll be right back.”
I stood by the fire thankful for its presence. I imagined the intensity of its heat as analogous to what my heart was beaming to my head. I was still amazed at how, after forty-six years, just the sight of Olivia Tillman had rekindled the love I had let almost die. In less than ten minutes Warren and Olivia appeared followed by three women, none of whom I recognized. Warren introduced me. I had expected Randi and Judith, but not Randi’s sister, Rickie Downs, my eleventh grade Boaz classmate. Warren had us all sit on an assortment of couches and chairs forming a semi-circle around the fireplace. I chose a lounging chair the furthest from the overly fed fire. In ten minutes I had almost set my pants on fire. I sat and listened. Warren seemed determined to keep the conversation light. He focused on college football and whether Alabama would be able to tame the Clemson Tigers this year if that’s how the National Championship Game shaped up in January. Olivia soon tamed Warren and moved the talk in another direction. She told Randi and Judith how sorry she was about Randall and John. Warren’s cell phone sang out a loud ‘Roll Tide’ and he dismissed himself towards what I suspected was the kitchen or dining room. Over the next several minutes or so I sensed a little coldness between Judith and Olivia. It wasn’t anything that had been said. I had always been, or at least I had always thought I was, an expert on reading and interpreting body language. Eyes, body posture, voice pitch and tone, all fit together, along with the motion or lack thereof, from the hands, seemed to be key indicators of relationships, or, the current feelings between two people. I may have been reading too much into it, but it was clear that Judith was an extra cog in a wheel carefully controlled by Olivia and Randi Radford and Rickie Downs.
Just now, I saw Olivia’s smile almost turn to a smirk, Tiffany walked in and politely requested a little help setting the table and pouring the drinks. Olivia and Randi jumped up immediately and almost galloped towards Tiffany. Rickie and Judith remained seated. Maybe it was Randi and Olivia’s youth, albeit, only two years younger than the rest of us, that had launched them from their comfy seats.
Judith’s countenance changed remarkably when Olivia and Randi left. I listened as she and Rickie reminisced. It seemed Rickie had moved away after high school, and Judith had moved to Boaz. It was after her and John had married during college at the University of Alabama. Judith had grown up in Birmingham and had met John at a Christian youth camp one summer during high school. The following summer the two again attended the same camp. In college, at Tuscaloosa, they had rekindled their friendship. I was surprised when Judith turned her attention to me. “Matt, I hear you’re not from Boaz but did spend one year here with these crazy people back in high school?”
“That’s right. This is the first time I have been back to Boaz since the end of the eleventh grade and when my Dad and I moved back home to Chicago in June 1971.” I said, standing up and removing my jacket. The way Judith was looking at me made me feel I was about to be cross-examined. I hoped that my intuition was wrong. There was no good reason to be thinking I was in a witness chair.
“Did you meet Olivia while you were here? I know she’s a lot younger than you.” Judith asked.
I didn’t know how to take her, especially the last statement. Did I look like Olivia’s father? Much, much older than Olivia?
Judith seemed to sense my confusion. “Oh, that didn’t come out right. What I meant was, two or three years difference in age during high school seems like an eternity. You said you were in the eleventh grade. That would put Olivia in, what, the eighth or ninth grade?”
“She was in the ninth grade, her first year of high school, during the year I was here.” I said, wondering the relevance of mine and Olivia’s ages.
Rickie seemed preoccupied with a magazine she had picked up off the coffee table. From my angle it looked like it was a copy of The Pastor, a journal I knew from my Dad, that was published by the Southwestern Theological Seminary in Dallas. “I can’t believe a Tillman is still the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. After what his grandfather and father have done.” I couldn’t believe Rickie had said this.
“Right now, nothing has been proven. Don’t be so quick to rush to judgment.” Judith responded.
“Maybe not in court but sure as hell, Wade and James Adams killed Gina.” That’s Warren’s mother.” Rickie said looking at me. “How could he still support his father, I’ll never figure.” Rickie seemed intent on getting some things off her chest.
“Rickie, you always seemed to buy into rumors. That’s all you know, just what you’ve heard. I hear you haven’t lived here in over forty years. Your opinion of Wade and James is based totally on how you remember them from high school. Like John Ericson, my dearly departed husband, Wade and James grew up and became honorable men. They volunteered countless hours to youth in this community, trying their best to lead them to a closer walk with Christ.” Judith eloquently made a good case.
Rickie didn’t back down. “Shit, I’d bet you an ounce of gold that every one of the Flaming Five have continued to have their sexual playmates on the side, even while they were playing their Jesus games. Their lust for female companionship started way before you came along. Not to disparage John but he and his four buddies, and me and three of my cheerleader friends, enjoyed many a roll in the hay.”
“Rickie, don’t talk like that. John is no doubt dead. Whatever he did as a teenager was forgiven by God. John told me everything. We had no secrets. He was ashamed of all that went on when he was in high school, all the times in the big tent at Club Eden. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. John changed. He became a faithful Christian man.” Judith said as I became more uncomfortable and wishing Tiffany would call us to dinner.
“I bet you John didn’t tell you about him and Olivia.” Rickie blurted out, covering her mouth just as the last syllable reeked out of a mouth that I wish was nowhere around Boaz right now.
Suddenly, I felt sick. At first, I thought I had misheard Rickie. It’s funny how your mind can play tricks on you. I had interpreted her statement to be a reference to the lives of two people, things that had happened independently of each other. Then, it dawned on me that Rickie was implying that Olivia and John had a relationship, a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship during high school.
“What are you talking about?” Judith’s voice now evidenced concern, maybe even a little anger.
“I admit this might just be a rumor. Olivia spent six months or so of her Sophomore year as a recluse, holed up here in this parsonage. Rumor was she was pregnant by John Ericson. Most people in the church and even in the community knew John was charged by Olivia’s father as her protector, at least one of them. Pastor Walter was so fooled by the Flaming Five that he trusted all of them, having made them promise to watch after his sweet, dear Olivia. Word was that Olivia liked John more than her brother Wade, and the other three. Everybody for the most part believed she was so zealous for Jesus that she was trying to save him, get him to confess, repent, and accept Jesus as his savior. But, somewhere along the line, John manipulated her into a sexual relationship. Judith, I shouldn’t have said any of this. I’m sorry.” Rickie’s apology was too little too late.
“Sorry is what you are. You had no right to throw this in my face. May you rot in hell for lying about my sweet and faithful husband.” Judith stood up, walked over to the front door, and walked out. Slamming the door enough for it to have good reason to jump off its hinges. Fortunately, it didn’t.
“Sweet and faithful my ass, surely she ain’t crazy enough to believe that shit. Rickey said just as Tiffany and Warren appeared in the archway from the kitchen. No doubt brought here because of the door’s thunder reverberating throughout the house. “What’s going on?” Warren asked.
“Judith got her panties in a wad and decided she had another appointment. I guess.” Rickie said standing up and moving towards the fireplace.
“What was she upset about?” Tiffany asked.
“I don’t like starting rumors, so I’ll just say she needed to express her response to some news about her late husband. Let’s leave it at that.”
“That’s too bad. None of us will ever know what she’s going through. It must be terrible not really knowing what happened to John.” Tiffany said.
“Whatever.” Warren didn’t seem too concerned. “Come on you two, the steaks are perfect if I do say so myself.”
During the next forty-five minutes I wished I had the courage to run out the door with Judith. I couldn’t enjoy the good meal before me, even though I was hungry. All I could think about as I sat silent and the five others talked non-stop about the good ole days was whether what Rickie said was true or whether it was simply a rumor. I decided it was just gossip. I believed Olivia. I certainly knew the truth about her teenage pregnancy. I was there. Even though it might be a rare thing, one sexual encounter and twin boys appear nine months later. It certainly was way more than possible. I had proof. John and Paul Cummins were my proof. They were my sons. They were Olivia’s sons. And, Olivia and John had been just friends.
By the time Rickie and Randi left and Warren and Tiffany were busy cleaning up the table and the kitchen, my mind was at peace. I would have liked to have stayed longer with Olivia, but she had a headache and we decided to call it a night.
She walked me out onto the front porch, kissed me quickly, and said goodnight.
The Pencil Driven Life 