Downers Grove (9 page)

“Dan will give us a lift,” she called out. “We can call a tow truck from the church!” Mom smiled and waved again.

I leaned against the door with all my weight and knocked it open, then made my way over to the other one, a little wobbly in heels. Mom opened her door, scooted over, and patted the seat.

“Isn't this the most amazing coincidence?” she asked.

“Divine intervention,” Dan said. “The work of the Lord.” And I almost think he believed it. I slammed the door, looked into the side mirror, and watched the Ford getting smaller and smaller, realizing I was saying good-bye to my old life and hello to my new one.

Mom seemed to absorb the incident like a horoscope that comes true. Dan had a wide slippery grin leaking all over his face like he'd just won the trifecta and all his years of gambling had finally paid off.

We veered into the church driveway and the astronaut dropped Mom and I at the door, then circled around the big crowded lot and parked the car. I followed Mom, hesitantly,
into the church. We hung up our coats in the community closet, then Mom went to the pay phone and made arrangements with AAA. I made a visit to the ladies' room. One good thing about Lutherans is they're tidy, a side effect of that watered-down Germanic heritage: Cleanliness is next to godliness and all that crap. The toilet paper was crisp as sandpaper, as if God wanted you to suffer even in here. I slapped on a fresh layer of lip gloss and blended back into the crowd.

A shiny transparency clung to every surface, the stained-glass windows burst to life in the morning sunlight. The music started pumping up the crowd. Trying to remain inconspicuous, I browsed the literature. The organ fund-raiser thermometer was halfway to the top, the bulletin board had the softball schedule with the home games highlighted. In the lobby there was a painting of Jesus with blond hair and blue eyes, as if he were Swedish or something.

The astronaut came in and greeted all the regulars. The church was full of women marked with studied makeup and slouching men in ill-fitting suits. He took my mother's arm and led us toward our seats. Walking up the center aisle I got the feeling this was a test drive, that Mom was tumbling forward into marriage with the velocity of a bowling ball rolling toward the pins. We sat in the fourth row and I immediately broke into a cold sweat, got conscious of my body odor, felt a million eyeballs burning into the back of my head. It seemed like the whole world was whispering and I was on the wrong end of the story.

I wondered if the mechanic was dreaming of me, whether he'd call me this afternoon, whether or not our lives would
come crashing together. Finally I had a reason to pray. I bowed my head and tried to focus, but had the feeling the line was busy.

A wooden crucifix hung above the altar, the arms fully extended, the feet nailed into the wood. It seemed so hardcore. The first hymn started and the crowd rose to its feet as a procession marched up the center aisle: first an altar boy carrying a large ornate cross; followed by the second in command wearing a long red silk scarf, then the big guy in a white and gold motif, singing slightly off-key, a blue hymnal resting in the palms of his hands, a large silver cross dangling over the slope of his belly. I looked over at Mom. One hand was holding a hymnal, the other clutching the pew in front of us. That's when I noticed she was wearing her new ring. The diamond looked even bigger than yesterday, as if it had mushroomed overnight.

The organist whipped through chorus after chorus, the congregation moaned through the words. Afterward the pastor stood and motioned us all to sit down, which was good because my feet were killing me. He burned through the first dose of liturgy. There was another song, a few more prayers, some chanting, and then everyone settled in for the sermon. A few sporadic coughs echoed from the back of the room, people shifted in their seats, trying to find a comfortable position in the wood pews. And then a dopey silence minced the room as the old man flipped on the reading light of his pulpit.

“My friends,” he started. “We are in a time of unparalleled change. A time when tomorrow looks nothing like yesterday. But, my friends, one thing never changes! The love of Jesus. Amen.”

The minister's message was a classic doom-and-gloom end-of-the-world paranoia speech. He used the petrochemical fire as a stage for all his wigged-out ideas. I looked over at Mom. The words washed over her like frosting. She was gazing high above the altar. Her thoughts were far beyond this room.

I wondered if heaven—being the opposite of hell—was a cold place, a golden city aloft in frosty clouds complete with idyllic suburbs and snow piled along the driveways? If heaven were a perfect place then would there be snow? Is snow good or evil?

When the sermon ended the minister turned off the spotlight on his pulpit. The congregation flipped open their hymnals and shuffled through the pages. The organist stumbled through the melody once so everyone could get their shit together. It was another somber monotone number, something about lambs and shepherds and whatever.

The tax collectors came by, holding large gold dishes filled with discreet white envelopes and folded dollar bills, then came the body and blood thing, which just totally gives me the creeps. Everyone paraded down the center aisle like zombies. People knelt at the altar twelve at a time eating the body of Christ, then drinking his blood! It was so satanic. If I were in a heavy metal band this would be my video. Jesus could've been an awesome rock star.

The ceremony finally ended with one last rousing number about marching off to war, then everyone began to file out. I was totally relieved. After the service I was called into duty and shook hands with the minister and a few trustees, then got my coat and went outside. The morning sky was full of tears, a steady baptism that cleansed my soul of that pornography of
suffering. How anybody could think that God had any connection to some compound off Route 53 in Lisle is beyond me, but what worried me more was how many more there were just like it. Sometimes I worry that God was like an essence that's been all used up. Mom and I stood under an umbrella while Dan brought the car around.

“The last time I was in church I got married,” Mom said.

“Well one for two isn't bad,” I said.

Dan drove us to the gas station. The windshield wipers flapped back and forth, re-creating the same monotonous feeling rambling through my heart. Black clouds muddied the sky a feverish black and blue. It looked like tornado weather. Mr. Astronaut turned on his headlights as a precaution. I flashed back through all my Sunday school stories: the woman who turned into salt, Noah's ark, Adam and Eve, the burning bush, the star in the East. There was a lot of weird shit going down back then.

Rain began to fall as we pulled into the gas station. Dan parked the car, and we all got out. I felt myself retracing steps from the night before: the Coke machine; the cigarette butts on the floor. I could tell by the sad look in the eyes of the tow truck driver that our beater was dead.

“You could fix it,” he said, “but the investment would probably cost more than what you paid for it.” The astronaut peeked under the hood. “Needs a ring job.”

I ran my hand over the Ford's cold dented fender. The chipped paint was rusting in the corners, the milky windshield cracked, the tires bald, the upholstery was ripped and shedding its yellow foam. The car was a suitcase of childhood memories. The interior smelled as familiar as my bedroom. I opened the
back door and lifted the seat for loose change, found a button off my army jacket, remembered struggling out of it one particularly frustrating night when my boyfriend of the moment, Tommy Mulligan, came so fast his love lasted the duration of a drive-thru. I checked under the floor mats, grabbed the maps and the windshield scraper out of the glove box. Mom popped the trunk, but all she salvaged was a tire iron and a half empty bottle of windshield washer fluid.

“Is Bobby working tonight?” I asked the attendant.

“Sheriff just came by asking the same question,” he said, rubbing his chin.

“What do you mean?”

“Someone saw the tow truck lifting a car out of the Meadowbrook Mall last night.” His right eye kept flinching. “Only one person drives that truck. I don't know what he would've done with it.” He looked at me sorta suspicious, as if maybe it was stashed over at my house.

“You a friend of his?” he asked.

“Not really.” I looked away from his nosy eyes, turned and walked back toward the astronaut's car. The old man knew I was lying. I could feel him watching my every step.

On the way home the car's silence held the weight of a funeral. Mom had lost her car and I had probably lost my mechanic. Bobby lied to me. He told me he was going to clear the highway when actually he went to sweep a parking lot.

“Who's Bobby?” Mom asked.

“Just some guy,” I said.

Mom was too distracted by her current affairs to risk falling into mine, especially in front of the astronaut. She slipped into one of her spacey interludes, locking into another conversation
tuned in from the spiritual world of her fuzzy mind. “How will I buy groceries and get to work?” she asked out loud.

Dan cleared his throat, seized the opportunity, and offered up his ex-wife's car. “It's just getting dusty in the garage,” he insisted. “Go on, take it. Please?”

Mom hesitated for about a second, looking over at me for reassurance. “Really?” her voice dropped an octave, like she was drunk or insincere. Maybe she was in shock. I really don't know. Dan was beaming like a victorious politician on election night.

It was definitely the moment she threw her life into his. Suddenly tangled by insurance forms and mutual signatures, her life would now be supported, assisted, and watched over by a man. She knew the car was more than a gesture. It was the beginning. First the ring, now the car, how much more did she need to realize that her life would be much easier in marriage, that she'd have the things she needed, that she wouldn't have to worry anymore? I could see her tired eyes smiling with a mixture of hope and relief: hope that it will turn out all right and relief that the ambulance came so soon.

W
HEN
I opened the door the phone was ringing. It was Tracy, drooling for details about last night. Who kissed who? How many times? Dadadadadada. Finally, she just hung up, got in her car, and rushed over.

Tracy wanted to check out some nose hardware at the mall. Mom wanted to come too, but I eighty-sixed her. I changed into some baggy jeans and my Cat in the Hat T-shirt, then laced up my Romper Stompers. Tracy showed up in a sheer white nightgown layered over a vintage white slip, dark purple lipstick, and matching eye shadow, à la
Night of the Living Dead.
Tracy was going through a mild Goth phase. She wanted to be an artist, even if it just meant decorating herself.

Tracy and I have become social outcasts at school. We distanced ourselves from the normals, tried to make a new scene, but didn't necessarily acquire any followers. I guess you could say we're stuck up, but for obvious reasons.

The mall was our own private biosphere. We spent hours combing magazines at Barnes & Noble—analyzing fashion trends, pouring over horoscopes, and drooling over rock stars. Tracy and I could sit in Starbuck's for hours going over every detail of our latest encounters or infatuations, scrutinizing the possibilities down to the most minuscule proportions.

“So how did he do it?” Tracy reached in her bag for a cigarette with one hand, balanced the wheel of the car with the other.

“Do what?” I turned the other way.

“Make the first move,” she asked. And then before I could answer, “Did you go all the way?”

“My mom's getting married.”

“Don't change the subject.”

“I'm serious! She's gonna marry the astronaut.”

“So what? She's been married before.”

“That was before I was born. I'm being inherited by a stranger.”

“Your mom trusts him, why shouldn't you?”

“I'm not as desperate.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me what happened last night. I deserve chronological order.”

“Well.” I hesitated a few seconds, watched Tracy lean forward with anticipation. “The coolest thing is that he races a car at Santa Fe Speedway.”

“No way.”

“Can you believe it? I saw the car, it's orange and black. He told me his grandfather was a bootlegger and that his father died in the Vietnam War.”

“What happened to his mother?” Tracy asked.

“I didn't get that far.”

“How far did you get?”

“I'm trying to tell a story.”

“Well, hurry up and get to the good part.”

“We couldn't get a parking spot near the fire, so Bobby drove out to the woods near the quarry instead. We walked through the trees to a clearing overlooking the canal. He spread out a blanket and we started talking.”

“Yeah, yeah …” She turned her hand over, motioning me to fast-forward.

“Then he made me close my eyes and fed me wild raspberries.”

“He what?”

“It kind of grossed me out at first. I thought it was an eyeball or something.”

“So then what happened?”

“Major horizontal action.” I smiled.

“Oh my God!” Tracy overdramatized each word. “You made out with him on the first date?”

“You always make out on the first date!”

“I would have put up a little struggle,” Tracy said, looking the other way, “at least tried to tag him out sliding into second or something. I thought this was going to be a long-term relationship?”

“I was all worked up. He smelled like dirty motor oil. My hormones were under full-scale attack.”

“Earth to Chrissie!” Tracy yelled. “Hello!”

“I tried slowing things down. I even told him I was having my period.” I tried to sound convincing.

“What did he say?”