Tiger Lillie Read Online Free PDF

besides, Mrs. Gillie baked the best cookies and scooped an extra half-cup of sugar into her Kool-Aid.
    Later that afternoon, Mrs. Gillie invited me over for dinner. She fried up ham steaks, and I sliced the fat from the edge so they wouldn’t think me improper.
    Mrs. Gillie smiled from her place there at the head of the kitchen table. “Why, hon, look at you, cutting the fat off. Aren’t you the proper girl?”
    Embarrassed, I said, “Well, actually, I like the fat. I just thought maybe it was the right thing to do.”
    “Eat however you like here, hon. Think of this as your second home. I mean, you and Teddy here have been best friends since kindergarten. Eat the fat if you like!”
    Ham grease had spattered her glasses.
    Teddy reached out and touched my hand. “Yeah, that’s right, Lillie.”
    After dinner we viewed a rerun of Match Game and laughed like crazy people. I remember thinking if they started making that show again, and I went on and got to the five-thousand-dollar round, I’d pick Richard Dawson as my partner. Yep, I would. Mrs. Gillie swore he was a mind reader.
    Tacy
    What a concert that was! The junior-high youth leaders, Jim and Amy, took us down to the Baltimore Blast game, and it was Youth Night. Lots of other church groups went, and they put Saint Stephen’s name right up on the scoreboard during one of the breaks. We all cheered. Mr. Jim cheered loudest. He had one of those Baptist voices that rang out in our little Episcopal sanctuary and livened things up.
    The local Christian radio station that sponsored the event was giving away free T-shirts so I went down to claim one. I waited in line, chatting with some of the gang when we made it to the table, and the guy giving away the T-shirts, a gorgeous guy, smiled at me. I’m telling you, that smile just went right down into my stomach. He was looking in my eyes and everything.
    “Hi, I’m Rawlins,” he said.
    “Tacy Bauer’s my name.” And then I giggled, which was so immature, but I couldn’t help myself. He was the kind of guy that did that sort of thing to me. Way too old, I knew, but I was just trying to get a free T-shirt. I can’t believe it, but I ended up giving him my phone number. I couldn’t believe he asked for it. I never did that kind of thing before, as I was only fourteen at the time. Mom always said I looked older than my age. He seemed so nice, like he hung onto every word I said from then on out. Every inane word. I never remembered being so tongue-tied.
    He called me the next day and asked me out. His full name was Rawlins McGovern, and I found out he was seven years older than me. Mom and Dad would have had a fit had they known I was talking to a college boy. But I decided they didn’t have to know. Besides, he said he went to church and everything, so in the long run they really wouldn’t have minded. I didn’t want to worry them if I didn’t have to. He was interning in the radio station’s advertising department, but he planned on assuming a good position at his dad’s advertising business someday. That sounded so exciting to me, especially since I wanted to work at a magazine.
    Barb and I went to the mall the next day and I bought a pair of lime-green Capri pants like Grace Kelly would have worn. My mother always did like Grace Kelly.
    Lillie
    I appreciate the physical body of human beings. Hence my fascination with skeletons and the like, I suppose. But it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? The way the muscles flow like mountain ranges, each bump and sway making utter sense, each mound anchored to a certain point on a bone creating a system of levers and pulleys. What magnificence of planning. And due to this love, this appreciation, I’ve come to respect Jesus in a way that may be unusual to some. See, He inhabited a body. A body just like mine, minus the female parts and the extra fifty pounds, and He chose to sacrifice it.
    If the Incarnation doesn’t wow you, nothing will.
    Imagine, that