Last Call (22 page)

Hayden only smiles and looks down at the second hand on his watch. One of his favorite games is to make a positive statement about anything that comes to mind and then time how fast his daughter can translate the remark into a health risk.

Hank’s eyes follow Diana’s steps down the front walk until Hayden mischievously remarks, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

When she turns and lifts her arm to wave good-bye her breasts majestically swell just below the neckline of her silk camisole.

Hank finds himself in the awkward position of being caught by Hayden as he stares wide-eyed at the man’s daughter. He feels the need to confess, or rather explain. “She’s just so . . . so sophisticated.”

But Hayden’s thinking of that other
s
word—sexy. The men, they all went crazy for her, and after things fell apart he practically had to call in the National Guard—the raging phone calls, the drunken scenes in the driveway. Good God, he often wondered what she did to them. Cast spells? Even her high school boyfriend had to be put on suicide watch after Diana left him for a student art teacher. Diana is what the boys on the street corner call “hot.” And this brings Hayden to another question he’s been saving for Hank.

“If heat rises, then shouldn’t heaven be hotter than hell?”

Hank is relieved to change the subject. “Hell as a pit in the center of the Earth is a more recent idea from Dante’s
The Divine Comedy
rather than anything truly biblical,” replies Hank. “The Book of Revelation describes hell as a lake that burns with fire and brimstone where the wicked will be eternally punished.”

“Sounds like the Gowanus Canal during the 1980s,” jokes Hayden. “So Father Hank, tell me how you got into priesting. Is it the family business?”

“Hardly. My dad was a dockworker in the Brooklyn shipyard. There are five of us boys, and my mother had the typical upwardly mobile Catholic plan—a doctor, a lawyer, a politician, a black sheep, and of course a priest.”

“I see. So you became a priest to please your dear mother?”

“Oh, no. She just always hoped that one of us would become a priest. But no one did. I majored in architecture.”

“You’re losing me here, Hank.”

“She passed away when I was a junior in college. Though at the time I was more the candidate for black sheep than a bachelor’s degree.”

Hayden recalls being a boy about Joey’s age and sitting at his own father’s deathbed. As the soon-to-be “man” of the family, he was instructed to sell the land and move them to the city so his mother could have a few years of rest, Hayden could get an education, and his little sister could eventually find a husband. Only his father hadn’t known about the debts incurred during his long illness, and had likewise underestimated the value of the moribund farm.

“Ah, so it was a deathbed pledge.”

“Not exactly. A month after she was buried I visited her grave at Parkside—”

“I go there all the time,” interjects Hayden. “Lovely cemet’ry.”

“Yes, it is,” Hank agrees. “Anyway, I . . . I had an experience. I received the call.”

“Cell phone?” asks a roguish Hayden.

“No, I mean to the priesthood.”

“Lightning struck or you heard a voice?”

“I was kneeling by Mother’s grave and about twenty feet away was a little garden with a lilac bush in the center. In front of it was a lovely Madonna.”

“Yes, yes, I know the exact spot, wonderfully restful.”

“And when I looked up from praying, the Madonna . . . the Madonna . . . she was weeping.”

Hayden sets down his drink and put his head in his hands. “Oh my, my, my . . .”

“What’s wrong?” Hank asks defensively. “You think I’m crazy. Or that I’m making it up? Like people who insist they saw Jesus in a potato chip?”

“Oh
no
,” replies Hayden slowly, “I can say without a doubt that you’re not fabricatin’.”

Hank isn’t sure whether to be puzzled or angry.

“I think we’d better take a ride over to the cemetery,” says Hayden. “Just the two of us.” He goes inside to get the keys and asks Rosamond to keep an eye on Joey.

Joey jumps at the chance to spend time alone with Rosamond. He loves playing Go Fish and Old Maid with her. Especially if he gets cranky over losing and she tickles him, or else brushes his hair from his eyes when he’s trying to peer at her hand through his overgrown bangs, which he refuses to let Diana trim until school starts.

Joey’s well aware that he loves Rosamond differently from the way he loves his mother. Why couldn’t he and Rosamond have grown up at the same time? And instead of going into the convent she would have married him and they would have lived in the woods and trained bears for the circus and she would have never caught cancer in the first place.

At the large stone archway that is the front entrance to the cemetery Hayden has a few words with the attendant while Hank waits in the car. They drive past the iron gate and park as close as possible to the rock garden and surrounding gravesites, and then walk the remainder of the way.

“Okay, go kneel in front o’ your mother’s grave,” instructs Hayden. Meanwhile, he walks to a tiny shed behind a small mausoleum about ten feet from the garden.

Just when Hank is about to rise in order to look for Hayden, he hears the Scottish voice vibrantly shout, “Thar she blows!” The garden and surrounding statues are immediately covered in a torrent of sprinkler mist. After a few moments Hayden manages to adjust the spray so that the jet is hidden by statues and just barely rises above the Madonna’s head causing tearlike drops to trickle down her face.

Hayden walks over and joins Hank, who is now aghast. “A sprinkler!” he finally says.

“On a timer.”

Then Hank falls back down to his knees in front of the grave and cups his head in his hands. “Oh no, what am I going to do?”

Hayden squats down next to him and jokes, “I suppose you could sue God. Though he wouldn’t be able to get counsel since there probably aren’t any lawyers in heaven.”

Hank looks grimly at Hayden.

Hayden tries again. “I hear there’s a big demand for architects right now.”

Hank checks to see if Hayden is still joking but it’s obvious he’s not.

“And Diana may be in the market for a new boyfriend, if I were willing to give my approval and put in the good word, o’ course.”

chapter thirty-six

T
he following Sunday evening Rosamond and Diana are vacuuming and putting trays of fancy hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table in preparation for a meeting of the book club. Meanwhile Hayden readies himself for a Greyfriars Gang session, which has been shifted to Alisdair’s, due to the female invasion. He stands in front of the refrigerator with the door open drinking directly out of the milk carton, coating his stomach before a night of alcoholic revelry.

“
Dad,
will you please use a glass!”

“What for? I’m finishing it.” He shakes the now-empty carton as proof and wipes the milk mustache from his face with the back of his wrist.

“It doesn’t matter. You should still use a glass. There could be germs on the carton.”

Hayden changes the subject in order to work on his latest sales scheme: love insurance. “I thought you might like to know that young Father Hank is gettin’ out o’ the Gospel business and going back to makin’ buildings, where he belongs.”

Diana quickly looks up to see if he’s pulling her leg, as he is wont to do. “I don’t believe you.”

“But I’m serious as cancer.” Hayden chortles.

Diana scowls unappreciatively at his gallows humor.

“ ’Tis true,” Rosamond confirms as she gathers up the toothpicks and napkins, then chuckles at the realization that anyone who spends enough time around Hayden eventually starts saying
’tis
instead of
it is
. “Round one goes to Hayden.”

“And you owe me twenty dollars on our wager!” says Hayden. “I knew I’d start to turn a profit on you kids if I waited long enough.”

Unwilling to give Hayden the satisfaction of knowing that she might be interested in a man who meets with his approval, Diana warns him, “Don’t go and get into any trouble tonight. And you’re
not
taking the car.” Thank goodness she’d thought to hide his keys earlier in the day. Taking Joey home from a ball game after a beer is one thing, but getting behind the wheel following a meeting of the Greyfriars Gang is just asking for an accident.

This is a familiar routine and Hayden has hidden a spare set of keys in the back of the liquor cabinet. Only he decides it’s not worth aggravating Diana since the subway is just as convenient.

Joey enters the room carrying his box of baseball cards. “I want to go with Grandpa.”

Diana takes a deep breath in preparation for the long version of her lecture on why no such thing will happen in her lifetime, but Hayden merrily preempts her. “Ha! Good luck!” he says. “I possess naked baby pictures of her and I can barely get through security.”

“Joseph, I need you here to serve the punch and put the sliced fruit and sherbet into it,” Diana firmly tells her son. “It’s so warm out that if we do it now everything will spoil. And we’ll all get botulism.”

Joey grudgingly agrees only because he has his own idea for excitement. When Hayden saw how sweet Diana’s punch was going to be, he gave his grandson a pint of vodka to spike it. Joey imagines that some of the more attractive women will get drunk and start to feel the heat, since Hayden is too cheap to have air-conditioning, and hopefully remove their blouses. And then, if all goes well, he’ll be able to see
real live
breasts, maybe even some for his Top Ten list.

Hayden departs singing “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye” in full voice:
“If a bod-y meet a bod-y, Co-min’ thro’ the rye, If a bod-y kiss a bod-y, Need a bod-y cry? Every lassie has her laddie, None they say ha’e I; Yet all the lads smile to me, When com-in’ thro’ the rye.”

Rosamond is certain that he winks at her as he walks out the door on the words
need a body cry
. Why does she feel so terribly guilty at the prospect of being intimate with Hayden? She isn’t a nun anymore. Well, she hasn’t officially resigned, but what does it matter since in her heart she is no longer a nun. In her twenty years Rosamond had known two sisters who had quietly disappeared, no explanation, no good-bye. The paperwork from the archbishop relieving her of her vows might take months to come through. With her cancer there was no point in even filing it.

The doorbell rings and returns Rosamond’s attention to the many tasks at hand. The members of the book group begin to arrive, full of gossip and good cheer. As Joey passes out large glasses of punch they cluck over how adorable he is and pat his shoulder while remarking on what a “good little helper” he is to oversee the punchbowl for them. Joey takes full advantage of this perceived cuteness and smiles and continually offers to refill their glasses, all the while silently guessing what size bra cup each woman wears. He’s encouraged by the way they sit with their legs slightly apart and fan their faces with their paperbacks in an effort to combat the heat. A few even kick off their sandals and pumps in an effort to get more comfortable. Joey determines that this is a good omen, and that the rest of their outfits can’t be far behind.

In honor of their newest member the book group has chosen
A Nun’s Glory
. But the story of a feisty nun who works at a homeless shelter in South Central Los Angeles only serves to make Rosamond realize that all she’s done over the past month is think about herself. Suddenly she feels horribly guilty. What business does she have wearing a knee-length pink skirt with a white lace blouse, laughing and sipping punch with a group of secular women who wear gold jewelry, nail polish, and makeup? Perhaps this is why ever since leaving the convent she’s been having a recurring nightmare of angry-looking men in red jumpsuits dive-bombing her while she sleeps. If she’s lucky the terrifying images produce a coughing fit that yanks her to consciousness. Otherwise she awakens standing next to the bed, having leapt up to avoid their nonstop attacks.

Completely unaware of Rosamond’s internal conflict, Joey is quite certain about his frame of mind at this moment: severe disappointment. When a cool evening breeze begins wafting through the town house the women are no longer perspiring. Diana even dispatches him to get a wrap for Selma, who is in a sleeveless dress, and then orders him off to bed. His life is so unfair. Whenever anything good is about to happen—an R-rated movie, a grown-up fight, naked people—he’s always marched off to bed.

After the discussion about the book has concluded, Selma turns to Rosamond and asks, “If it’s not being too personal, do you mind my asking why you left the convent?”

Diana quickly appears in the archway, as if this is the million-dollar question she’s been dying to ask Rosamond ever since the night of her arrival, or whenever the right moment arose. But until now, it never has.

“I began to break the rules.” Rosamond looks tentatively from one woman to the next. “I . . . I said I was going to the doctor when I was . . . I was actually going to the . . . the circus.”

Three more women who’d come in from smoking in the backyard gather in the small corridor between the rooms, staring at Rosamond as if they’re trying desperately hard to understand.

“It’s . . . it’s like a marriage,” Rosamond struggles to explain. “If you break the rules—your vows—it’s the same as being unfaithful to your spouse.” And the women, almost all with diamond rings of varying sizes on their fingers, nod their heads empathetically.

No one asks anything more and so the conversation naturally turns to whether their beloved French actor is making any new movies. And would they rather be trapped on a deserted island with him or their favorite Latino heartthrob.

After the book party, Rosamond and Diana straighten up the downstairs and chat about the evening. Finally Diana asks the specific question that’s been on her mind since Rosamond arrived. “So then, you didn’t really leave the convent because you have cancer and suddenly decided to see the world before dying?”

After a long moment Rosamond softly says, “No.”