Major Lulz from the Sheltered - Chapter 6

Continuing the dramatic, if highly unrealistic, tale of Leona, the soon-t0-be single mom (Chapter 5 below) is Chapter 6- Electric Bugaloo.

Leona has, of course, found god. (He was behind the curtains all along!)

Leona was saved that day by the lake, with Peter holding her hand and praying with her. She felt like a new person. She felt clean - almost the way she felt after taking a nice, long shower...except that the cleanliness was inside of her.

For some reason, every time I read this sort of description of god, jesus or the holy spirit, I can't help but see sexual innuendo. It's probably the implication that I must be dirty inside, and well, it's all downhill from there.

No one could understand this feeling, unless they, themselves, are saved.

Well, that has to be the most obvious author preach I've seen in a while. Miss Raquel isn't even trying to be subtle there. But how am I supposed to be saved if I don't understand? Eh, I guess I'll just stay dirty.

She was so excited and wanted to share her joy with her parents, but wasn’t sure if they’d be as happy. Yeah, they had claimed they were Christians, but that was a few years ago. They hadn’t attended church in a long time.

Whoever isn't with me is against me? I'm not sure why they'd care, really. What's hilarious is that Leona has to tell them that she converted to fundyism and that she's pregnant. She's worried that they'll be upset about her conversion.

“Peter,” Leona said, after she had stopped crying her joyful tears. “I need to go home.”

Crying her joyful tears? As opposed to crying someone else's joyful tears?

Then [Peter] did something that Leona didn’t expect. He reached out a hand and, hesitantly, touched Leona’s cheek. She didn’t move; just kept a steady gaze on his face.

Much like a deer or rabbit might in this situation. That's a really creepy picture of physical affection between two adults, one of whom we know has had sex.

“Bye,” he said, abruptly and turned and walked to his car.
Leona stood where she was for a minute. Her heart was fluttering with a joy that she couldn’t express. She had stopped herself from hurting her baby...she was now a child of God...and Peter had just made his first sign of affection to her. She didn’t doubt that she herself had been growing fond of him. She almost...loved him. She smiled to herself and got in her car. She and Peter honked to each other and started off in their own directions.”

First of all, [s]he had stopped herself from hurting her baby sounds like she was going to shake it quiet but didn't, aren't we all children of god and Peter's still creeping me out a bit. She didn’t doubt that she herself had been growing fond of him. Dear Phillip K. Dick, Miss Raquel needs to read something written in the last 50 years. That is so awkward. And weird. Leona didn't doubt her own emotions that she is currently feeling? Um, what? I would accept that perhaps Leona doesn't know how she feels, but that's an awkward way of putting it.

Also, I'm going to have to argue with the pacing of this "fictional". Leona's baby daddy dumped her the day she found out she was pregnant. As far as I can tell, it's been two weeks, at most, since then. This relationship with Peter seems sudden, too soon and a bit ill conceived.Really, let the corpse of your prior relationship cool a little before starting a new one.

Ooh, wait! Maybe this is a way better story than I think it is and Peter isn't the nice, Christian man led by God to love the damaged girl, maybe he's a scumbag who trawls the pregnancy center for frightened young women with no place to turn in order to fill the beds at his brothel outside of Vegas. This explains his awkward face touching. He's really just testing to see if Leona can remain calm while a strange man . . . well, this probably is not that story.

She wished she had more time to think of what she was going to tell her parents, but the drive home was short. She saw both her parents’ cars in the driveway and was surprised that her dad was off work so early. She shrugged, thinking nothing of it and parked next to the house.

well, no. she did think something of her father being home. also, don't bring up a detail like that unless it's going to be important later. As someone far wiser than me said, if you're going to introduce a flirtatious Jägermonster in Act 1, he'd better damn well be on his way to getting some by Act 3. Or something like that.

“Mom? Dad? Where are you guys?” she called out as she entered the house.
“In the den, honey!” she heard her mother call.
“Okay, God,” Leona breathed. “I need Your help right now.”
She entered the den and saw her mother watching TV and knitting and her dad, with his usual newspaper in his hands, but his attention was diverted to whatever his wife was watching. Leona walked over to the TV and hit the ‘power’ button.

No, he was not diverted by whatever "his wife" (who refers to their mother that way?) was watching, he was watching TV. plus, unless Leona's father is in the habit of carrying a newspaper around every waking moment, you can't refer to him holding a newspaper when he's at home instead of being at work where he should be as "usual". I'm also fairly certain Leona turned off the TV, rather than hitting the "power" button.

“We need to talk,” she said.
Her parents exchanged glances and her mother said, “All right, dear.”

Leona was a bit nervous, so remained standing and paced the room as she tried to find the right words to begin with. Her parents followed her movements - which made her even more nervous - but finally, she began:

“I know that we’ve...” she stopped. “I’ve never really been open with you two, but I need to tell you...a lot has been happening in my life these past few months. I haven’t told you about...something - that I’m going to tell you right now - because,” she took a deep breath. “Because I didn’t know how you guys would take it. You see - ”
Her dad interrupted her. “You’re pregnant.”

Go dad!

Leona’s head shot up and she looked at her dad, then her mom, and back to her dad.
“You know?” she asked, shocked beyond words.

She is not shocked beyond words if she is speaking!

Her parents only nodded.
“How?” she asked.
"Jerry,” her mother said.
“Jerry?” Leona asked, puzzled. “How...When did you talk to him? When did he call?”
“A couple weeks ago,” her dad said. “He wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t like the tone of his voice and the way he demanded that I hand the phone over to you. I knew something was wrong between you two. I asked him and he...spilled the beans.”

So, for two weeks you've been waiting around to see what would happen? Does that make any sense at all? Keep in mind, for all Miss Raquel keeps telling us Leona's parents don't care about her, up until now they've been asking her where she goes when she leaves and have been concerned about her continuing nausea. It's like these people had a personality transplant since Leona first threw up.

This does bring up another problem, as well, one that I'm guessing Miss Raquel will gloss over. That's Jerry's baby, too. He doesn't have to be in a relationship with Leona to assert his parental rights if he wants them. The courts in the US do lamentably give preference to women over men when it comes to custody, but he'll at least get partial custody of the baby if he wants it. I'm not sure how aware of all this Miss Raquel is.

So, anyway, Leona's parents are totally cool with Leona having a baby, let's see how they take her being a Christian.

“But, even though that is one of the best things I wanted to tell you...the greatest thing of all is...I’m a Christian now.”
“You what?” her mother asked, surprised.
“I’m saved...from my sin. God saved me today.” New tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
“Welcome to the family of God, my child,” her father said and got up from his chair and went to stand next to his daughter. He put his arm around her shoulders and she looked up into his face. She saw tears in his eyes, too.
Her mother came to her, also, and stood on the other side of her daughter. “Yes, dear, we’ve been praying for so long.”
“You have?” Leona asked.
“Yes.” They both nodded.
“I know...” her dad began. “That we might not have been very good Christians - not a very good testimony to you. I know we haven’t been going to church, but...we didn’t like going without you. We did a couple times, but were embarrassed when people asked where our daughter was.”
“I’m sorry.” Leona felt so ashamed to have put her parents in such a situation.
“Don’t be, dear,” her mother said, hugging her. “We should’ve cared more about your spiritual walk when you were younger, and not waited till you were a teenager to start ‘preaching’ to you.” She used the word ‘preaching’, because that was what Leona had called it when they had tried to get her to go to church with them. “We worship God here at home on Sundays.”
“But now,” her father said. “We’ll go to church- as a family.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Secretly they were fundys all along! Fundys who were totally cool that their daughter was having sex with her boyfriend! Fundys who knew she was pregnant but weren't the slightest bit concerned that she might have an abortion!

Wow. That's totally amazing! I'll have to say, I did not see that twist coming.

Which makes me wonder: will Jerry convert as well? Will there be a showdown for her affections between baby daddy Jerry and Christian DJ Peter?