Last Call (13 page)

“Then how about something from the Old Testament?” says Rosamond. “Psalm Twenty-seven—The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked—”

“I think Cyrus got enough religiosity from Hannah.”

“We learned the dreidel song in school,” offers Joey.

“Wrong holiday,” replies Hayden. But the word
holiday
sparks the solution. “I’ve got it! ‘This Land Is Your Land’! Woody Guthrie was one of Cyrus’s favorite customers and he was always playing Guthrie’s albums in the back of the store.” Hayden professes to be a Guthrie fan as well, though for an entirely different reason. The musician who so famously chronicled America was of Scottish descent.

Hayden leans over to set off the first rocket but his short match runs out before the fuse catches. “Bloody hell. I forgot to bring a lighter.”

Circumstances being what they are Rosamond chooses to ignore his bad language. She pulls a votive candle out from the folds of her habit like a magician producing a dove. “Here. Use this.” Her ingenuity produces nods of approval from her co-conspirators.

Once the fuses are lit Hayden and Joey and Rosamond stand a few feet back and begin softly singing
“This land is your land, this land is my land, from California . . .”

As the rockets hiss and shoot up into the inky black sky they hear an enormous ruckus off to the side as the group of interlopers has apparently decided to run for their lives. Ghosts are one thing. But it would seem that Armageddon put to folk music is quite another. The sound of scrambling through hedges is followed by a moment of illumination from the explosives, during which a half dozen lithe young bodies hurl themselves up and over the fence as if their very existence depended upon it. The rusty metal fence squeaks and vibrates until they’ve all made it safely to the other side. The last rocket makes a low arc and explodes just a few yards above Cyrus’s grave, showering it in sparkling blue lights.

“Now that’s a Fourth of July those kids will remember,” laughs Hayden. “And one that will make ’em take out lots of insurance when they’re older.”

“Believe me, I’ll always remember it!” Rosamond is so caught up in the excitement she’s forgotten that there’s no reason to be storing up memories for old age.

Joey will never forget the night either. Though not so much due to all the action in the cemetery as for the close call when they get home.

Hayden has miscalculated Diana’s return and instead of preceding her by a comfortable margin he finds her pacing the living room, anxiously awaiting their arrival and on the brink of calling the police.

“Dad, where on earth have you been? I called Alisdair and Paddy and Hugh and
nobody
has seen you, sober or otherwise.” She pauses to take a breath and only then absorbs their appearance—Joey’s torn T-shirt, black soot covering Hayden’s hands, brambles stuck to Rosamond’s habit, which she hadn’t worn since the day she arrived. “
What
is going on?” Her voice rises a full octave and her eyebrows meet overhead to form a dark, angry
V
.

Unprepared for this surprise encounter, Hayden and Joey are briefly stumped as they both work furiously to concoct a story that Diana is likely to believe. However, all Hayden can think of is to say that they were out in the golf course searching for golf balls, and he instinctively knows that she’ll never buy it, at least not at this time of night. His eyes dart from Diana to Joey like a runner about to steal second base.

“We were praying.” Rosamond comes to the rescue.

“Yes,” Hayden quickly and enthusiastically agrees. It passes through his mind that she could have had a tremendous career in sales. He hadn’t realized how fast she is on her feet. “Rosie took us on a vigil.”

“You’re trying to make me believe that you were off
praying
!” Diana scowls at Hayden and straightens up to her full height of five-foot-nine so that she’s almost staring him in the eye. She further expands her domination over the available space by placing her hands firmly on her hips.

But it’s Joey who ultimately acquits them. “Praying.” Clasping his hands together he gazes up toward the overhead light fixture as if it’s the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. And with a beatific smile on his youthful face he begins to chant, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” His wide-set eyes and fresh pink skin give him an expression of angelic innocence.

Diana’s caught off guard and her face goes momentarily blank. For the first time ever in dealing with her father she’s been completely trumped rather than fobbed off or cleverly evaded. Not only that, she’s aghast at having sounded so offensive in front of Rosamond, especially when her friend is wearing her ecclesiastical uniform, on duty for God.

“I’m
so
sorry,” Diana apologizes. “It’s just that I didn’t know where you’d gone and of course got myself all worried and so I . . . I . . .”

Rosamond lightly touches Diana’s shoulder as if to confirm that she’s absolved of all sin and says good night, though her own conscience gives her a prick on the way out of the room. Well, they
had
been praying. She puts it down as a sin of omission and assigns herself twenty Hail Marys and a handful of Our Fathers before going to bed. Stopping for a moment in the kitchen she fills a glass of water to calm the coughing spells that often wake her during the night. Through the window over the sink it’s possible to see the iridescent red and green flashes of neighborhood fireworks cascading back to earth like falling stars.

“Perhaps they have it right,” muses Rosamond. “It’s best to go out in a blaze of glory.” And though she could not see it, her eyes reflected the flickering lights, and something awoke deep inside of her.

chapter twenty

A
lthough she’s only been an honorary member of the MacBride clan for two weeks, Rosamond’s insistence that they focus on living, not dying, has taken effect, and the household settles into a new rhythm. To the delight of Diana and Joey, a peculiarly submissive Hayden is no longer constantly indulging his morbid obsessions, and he and Joey aren’t sneaking off to funerals every morning.

Instead, the three friends pass the warm summer days attending baseball games and fishing for striped bass and mackerel in Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic. Or else roaming the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, admiring the voluptuous magnolias and sweet-smelling crabapple blossoms. It’s inevitable that at some point while gazing around at all the beautiful blooms Rosamond will recall the power of the creation story, sigh and say, “Life began in a garden.”

“Actually, life began in the sea,” Hayden contradicts her.

“Flowers need water,” says Joey, diplomatically suggesting that they might both be right. And this, combined with the glorious color and fragrance of the Cranford Rose Garden, is enough to make them leave the age-old debate for another time, giving Joey the opportunity to go and hunt for Godzilla, the monstrous ancient turtle.

When it rains they head for museums in any of the five boroughs, making the selection by blindfolding Joey and having him randomly drop his pencil point onto the list. The only rule is that they must visit everyplace once before starting to repeat.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, Rosamond and Hayden relax by the fountain with the bronze Pan figure in the center located at the end of the statue gallery. They admire the large Tiffany stained-glass panel and Hayden splashes Rosamond with a handful of water whenever she turns away. Of course, the one time Rosamond splashes Hayden back the guard comes running over and Rosamond, who has never been publicly reprimanded for anything in her entire life, practically faints with embarrassment.

“I told her to stop it,” Hayden soberly informs the guard. “It’s not as if we’re in a playground.”

Joey darts in and out of the reconstructed ancient Egyptian tomb with other mummy-obsessed young boys. Hayden notices how his grandson’s arms and legs are beginning to seem too long and gangly for his still soft boyish body, and wonders if he’ll grow to be tall and wiry like the men on Mary’s side of the family. Her brothers had all distinguished themselves as long-distance runners and college track stars. Or perhaps he’d develop the strong back, shoulders, and hands of the MacBride farmers and become a wrestler or a football player.

When Joey finishes with the Temple of Dendur they walk past a display of Chinese pottery and musical instruments on the way to the European wing. Wandering among the nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings Rosamond is soothed by the luminous impressionist landscapes and cathedrals of Renoir and Monet. She’s fascinated by the way small brushstrokes are used to simulate reflected light and how the broken colors manage to achieve such brilliance. And when they arrive in the rooms holding paintings from the Renaissance she’s captivated by the sumptuous
Madonna and Child with Two Angels
by Botticelli, and Filippo Lippi’s dramatic
The Annunciation
.

Without thinking Rosamond reaches out her hand and touches Hayden’s arm, but she’s so startled by the sensual power of their contact that it causes her to draw away just as quickly. Hayden’s equally stunned by the electricity of their connection, but because she jerks her hand away he assumes Rosamond must have touched him by accident, or without thinking. There’s no way of asking, but he secretly hopes it was the latter.

Hayden is also captivated by the paintings, though he admires the works for their sensuousness, vigorous style, and delicate coloration. He stands for a long while in front of enchanting mythological scenes such as Ameto’s
Discovery of the Nymphs
and Titian’s
Venus and the Lute Player
that allude to the triumph of love and reason over brutish instinct.

Following close behind Hayden and Rosamond, Joey is mesmerized with the paintings for an entirely different reason. He’s counting and mentally cataloging all of the naked women, and constantly reshuffling his Top Ten List of Breasts, which he’d started the week before when they attended the Salvador Dalí show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

On the way to see the weapons and armaments, Joey’s favorite exhibit, they pass through the gallery of large thirteenth-century paintings and triptychs depicting gory battle scenes, the birth of Jesus, and Christ dying on the cross. Joey reads the description below one of the paintings and asks Rosamond, “Did Jesus Christ want kids to call him Mr. Christ, or just Jesus?”

“I believe everyone addressed him as Jesus,” says Rosamond, trying not to smile. “Christ wasn’t his last name. It means ‘messiah.’ So it didn’t mean that Jesus was born to Joseph and Mary Christ, but Jesus the Messiah.”

“Oh, like Robert the Bruce,” says Joey.

“Who?” Rosamond appears confused.

Hayden nods to indicate that Joey should explain.

“Robert the first, the king of Scotland who won Scottish independence from England in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314.”

Hayden interjects, “He may have been a messiah to the Scots but I doubt the English viewed him that way.” He chuckles. “Anyway, Bruce is from the French
de brus
, and it was the name of the clan, the way I’m descended from the MacBride Clan.”

“So it should really be Jesus the Christ,” says Joey. “Like Winnie the Pooh.”

Rosamond and Hayden both laugh at the comparison, especially in front of such dramatic works of self-sacrifice. But Joey doesn’t understand what’s so funny and feels sheepish whenever Rosamond shares in a joke at his expense.

chapter twenty-one

T
he one time that Hayden and Rosamond leave Joey to spend the afternoon with children his own age at the municipal pool they feel awkward in being alone together. It’s as if their de facto guardian is missing, instead of vice versa.

For Rosamond the situation is particularly uncomfortable since cloistered nuns almost never do anything in pairs, due to a rule intended to discourage any special friendships from forming. The order warned that such friendships could diminish the community as a whole, and more important, interfere with their individual commitments to God. The sisters normally worked in threes instead of twos within the walls of the convent, and likewise three went if a nun had to be escorted to an appointment on the outside.

If she were to be honest with herself, Rosamond’s major concern at the moment is that exactly what the mother superior had warned against is indeed happening, that she feels a special friendship between herself and Hayden, and that it’s wrong for so many reasons. Yet he fascinates her. Never before had Rosamond encountered anyone whose enjoyment of life, even in the face of death, was so boundless and sure that he had the ability to call up a surge of gladness in the heart of almost everyone he met. She is awed by his faith, not his faith in any particular thing so much as in himself, and his view that life itself is a garden of pleasure to be enjoyed, not a trial to be endured. Whereas her sisters treated most earthly delights as a test of one’s will, and therefore most urges and desires were obstacles to be suppressed or surmounted.

For his part, Hayden is excited about this chance to be together, just the two of them, and is determined to make the most of the opportunity by finding out if Rosamond might be attracted to him the way he is to her. His anxiety stems solely from the fear that he may not get the answer he’s hoping for.

In order to set the mood Hayden puts on his favorite CD of Jean Redpath singing Robert Burns songs and places the speakers on the windowsill so the sweet Scottish melodies can be heard out in the backyard. Next he mixes Rosamond a glass of electric orange–colored Mango Madness Snapple with seltzer water and bubblegum ice cream, a concoction she discovered while experimenting with Joey. Its appeal, they’ve explained to him, is not so much in the taste but the way the combination fizzes and sputters in the glass like Alka-Seltzer and decorates the mouth and tongue with a hallucinogenic rainbow of colors.

Hayden pours a scotch for himself and together they sit side by side in lawn chairs out in the backyard and enjoy watching the neighbor, Mrs. Trummel, periodically hurl lemons out her window at the sleek little rabbits diligently turning her garden into a salad bar. Only between her bad eyesight and even worse aim, the rabbits don’t bother to glance up from enjoying the rows of carrots, cabbage, and Bibb lettuce long enough to defiantly wriggle their noses at her.

When they’re finally settled Hayden is unsure of exactly how to make his move. It’s been so long since he approached a woman. Should he ask her out on a formal date? That seemed rather silly since they’d been spending every day together for the past two weeks. They sit in silence for a long while as a pleasant soprano version of “Amang the Trees” with a Scottish lilt floats out across the lawn.

“Would you care for some cookies?” Hayden asks, well aware that he sounds considerably more formal than he’d intended.

But before Rosamond can reply a hair-raising holler of
“damn critters”
is heard from next door and a hard round lemon hits Hayden squarely on the shin.

“Or perhaps a wedge of lemon,” he ad-libs and picks the fruit up off the ground.

Rosamond laughs and looks over at the agitated Mrs. Trummel, leaning out the back door and threatening the intruders with poison. “No, thank you. But let me know if she starts throwing strawberries.”

“I wish she’d play for the Yankees,” says Hayden, and tosses the lemon up and down like a baseball.

Rosamond nods and smiles.

Hayden continues to search for a smooth transition to the topic of dating. “It sure is a pleasure to have some company,” he begins haltingly. “Not that Joey isn’t great company.”

“No, of course not,” Rosamond agrees almost too quickly. “He’s a wonderful boy. I’ve enjoyed getting to know him. And it’s been such a long time since I’ve been around a young person. It’s very refreshing.” As she takes another sip from her effervescing ice cream soda Hayden can see that her tongue has turned a dark shade of purple with a bright green patch at the back.

Realizing that to find the right words is a futile pursuit, he decides to move on to Plan B. He places Mrs. Trummel’s lemon on the small white table and casually stretches his arms above his head and lowers one so that it rests on Rosamond’s back with his hand atop her shoulder. Only she jumps up and lets out a surprised cry as if a wasp has stung her. The ice cream soda flies up in the air and lands squarely in Hayden’s lap, the cold liquid causing him to also let out a holler and leap to his feet.

“Oh no!” says Rosamond and covers her face with her hands.

Hayden scoops a glob of ice cream off the front of his trousers and Rosamond tries to help by plucking at the small red, pink, and orange squares of sticky bubble gum that now cover his midsection. Mrs. Trummel, however, has chosen this exact moment to rush the rabbits in her garden with a broom.

Seeing Hayden standing there with Rosamond down on her knees profusely apologizing and preoccupied with his crotch, Mrs. Trummel looks as if she’s witnessing an indiscretion that requires turning her broom on the two of them. And perhaps the only thing that stops her is that they’re all interrupted by the arrival of Joey, sobbing and holding a blood-soaked towel up to his face.

Mrs. Trummel, having raised four boys and three girls, is considerably less shocked by the sight of a bleeding boy than she is by whatever Hayden and Rosamond appeared to be doing. “Fight,” she proclaims while removing the blood-soaked towel and expertly tilts Joey’s head back to get a good look at his injuries. “One fat lip and that’ll be a black eye tomorrow,” she says. “Put some ice on it. And protect your face next time, Joseph. Even my
girls
know that.”

Sitting at the kitchen table Rosamond listens to Joey recount the story of the scuffle down at the pool while Hayden wraps ice in a washcloth and covers it with a plastic bag. Just as the boy is starting to calm down Diana arrives home from work. Dropping her packages onto the floor she sprints to embrace her son. “We have to get him to the emergency room right away!”

“Jayzus, it’s just a shiner and a fat lip, Diana,” says Hayden. “Do’an’ make things any worse than they are. You should have let me take the lad to boxing lessons over at the Y like I told you in the first place.”

“I just don’t understand why boys have to be so mean. Who would do something like this to an innocent child? Are you sure you didn’t say something to make them angry?” she demands while pressing the icepack to Joey’s face.

“
I told you,
every time I put my towel down another one would come over and say it was
his
spot,” Joey mumbles through her hand. “And then they wanted a five-dollar ‘parking fee.’ ” His voice begins to quaver in a conditioned response to the tears welling up in the corners of his mother’s eyes. Sometimes he hates her for overreacting to every cut and scrape, as if a black eye is equivalent to the plague. If only he’d grown up playing ball with other boys and going to camp in the summer. But now it’s too late. The bullies sniff him out right away, like sharks heading for blood in the water.

“Okay, that’s enough boo-hooing,” announces Hayden and pulls Diana away from her excessive ministrations. “Wet sheep don’t shrink. They shake off the water.” He hustles his grandson past both women. “Let’s go and get some ice cream.”

But the mention of “ice cream” suddenly brings Hayden and Rosamond back to the terrible moment when all the chaos began. Hayden can’t tell if he’s angry or just plain disappointed by Rosamond’s reaction to his overture. Bloody hell, she didn’t have to screech and jump up like that. Was the thought of him as her boyfriend
that
terrifying? How about a polite removal of the offending arm and one of those ridiculous lines that women are so great at: “I really like you, but only as a friend.” Or in their case she could have just as easily said, “With us both dying I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”