Last Call (35 page)

Rosamond giggles. “You mean the Ouija board?”

“It’s just like that. The hands move on their own. You do’an’ have to think upon it. And there’s no need of a subway to make it work.”

Rosamond’s hands explore his legs, gradually absorbing the texture of his skin and the wiry hair on his calves as it springs to life around her fingertips. Hayden strokes every alcove of the slender womanly form he’s been admiring from afar for the past few weeks; the nape of her neck, the inside of her elbow, the soft underside of her ankle bone, and her delicate earlobes, lingering at each sumptuous curve with a kiss. The tremulous candlelight casts their silhouettes onto the walls like windmills along a moonlit Dutch countryside.

And when their lips finally meet again they become lost in an infinite kiss, the kind known only to lovers who have no objective other than love itself, tender as the dawn, yet insistent as a tide. The radio pauses between songs and it seems as if their hearts are ticking in synch with the clock on the bedside table, beating to the music of time. They silently remove the last articles of clothing that remain between them and finally experience the simultaneous thrill of knowing each other as one and thereby defying death.

Outside a summer rain has begun to fall and the air in the room becomes heavy with humidity and secret urgencies as their bodies melt together like two flames. Tenuous moods of firelight and shadow pass between them as the ceiling fan overhead rotates and casts pinwheels on their intertwined forms.

A feeling of deep satisfaction burns within Hayden’s flesh, in the way that only happens during those rare moments when what one most longs for is finally realized.

Streams of tears run down Rosamond’s cheeks as she tries to concentrate on evening out her breathing in an effort to calm her heart, which is still racing like the desperate beating of birds’ wings.

Hayden encircles her with his outstretched arm and runs his fingers through her soft hair, a sinking drowsiness descending upon him. They slip away from each other slightly, into a loose knot. And Rosamond’s heartfelt weeping slowly fades as she ponders this ache of tenderness and everything that has happened leading up to it. She savors the feeling of his warm breath against her cheek while her consciousness lazily drifts between dreams and reality.

The cloudburst passes and the steady drip of rain finding its way back to the earth is joined by the dying song of crickets. And Rosamond, floating off to sleep, feels as if she has finally been visited by love, a sudden awakening of the spirit and a stirring of the flesh that makes a difference where previously there was no difference.

chapter fifty-seven

W
hen they return to Brooklyn Rosamond feels relaxed and renewed. The street is quiet and with the end of a long, hot summer, the houses appear slightly faded. Though the MacBride residence sports a fresh coat of paint, inside and out. Anthony and his friends had gone to work while they were away, apparently eager not to run into Hayden. What seems to be a permanent haze has settled over the dry lawns and wilted shrubbery. Diana and Hank immediately notice that Hayden and Rosamond have “gone public” with their affection, smiling at each other and occasionally kissing after short absences.

Rosamond and Hayden also become aware that things with Diana and Hank have progressed while in their absence. Hank has moved a few personal items into the upstairs bathroom and Diana glows with the radiance of new romance, exuding the quiet assurance of a woman who knows that she’s loved unconditionally.

Joey has made some friends on his baseball team, despite the fact they’ve lost all their games so far. Ginger is finally completely housebroken and the dishwasher has mercifully melted the top of Diana’s juicing machine. It’s only Hayden who appears subdued, as if he expended the last of his vitality on making the trip.

“Did you find the alkahest?” Joey eagerly asks.

“Yes, we most certainly did.” Hayden pulls Joey close and whispers into his ear, “But it’s the most secret and ancient science and has to do with kissing girls. And so you’ll have to find it for yourself.”

“Yuck,” says Joey and wriggles free. Though while Hayden was away, Joey and Giovanni, the boy his age who’d moved in next door, discovered a hole in the men’s locker room at the Y through which they can watch the girls take showers.

On the way into the kitchen Hayden steadies himself against the wall, suggesting that it’s an effort just to balance. His face is the color of ashes, as if the light and warmth is slowly draining out starting from the top of his forehead.

“You should stop drinking once and for all,” Diana reproves him.

“I prefer the term
self-medicating
,” replies Hayden. “Tell them to read from
The Wrath of Grapes
at my funeral.”

The Cancer has left him thirsty all the time, so Hayden takes a beer and shuffles toward the front porch. But Diana’s attuned ears pick up the sound of the can opening from the dining room and she chases after him with Rosamond in tow.

“Diana’s right that you shouldn’t drink anymore,” says Rosamond.

“Harping all the time will not make you an angel,” replies Hayden.

“Dad, do whatever else you like but I’m putting my foot down when it comes to—”

Bobbie Anne’s car pulling into the next-door driveway momentarily distracts her. Out of the back pop her two daughters along with the light-brown-skinned boy who’d recently been playing with Joey. Normally the women just exchange tight smiles or forced waves, but today Bobbie Anne saunters across the small patch of grass dividing the two driveways and says a friendly hello in her smoky alto voice. She’s dressed in a smart lavender-colored suit with matching spectator pumps.

“Where
were
you?” she asks Hayden.

“Rum country!” he declares and nods toward Rosamond, who is standing next to Diana, waiting for her to continue leading the charge on the alcohol ban.

“That’s terrific!” says Bobbie Anne, pretending she hadn’t already heard about the proposed trip from Rosamond two weeks earlier. “I was afraid you’d moved back to Edinburgh. You know what they say about Scots always going home to die,” she tells him with a laugh.

Rosamond and Diana visibly blanche at the death reference, but Hayden appreciates those brave enough to be frank about his fate, and better yet, have the courage to joke about it, like his beloved Greyfriars Gang.

“Nope, just a little R and R—rest and resurrection,” says Hayden.

“Listen, I . . . I just wanted to tell you all that I got a job—a real job,” Bobbie Anne announces, although she looks directly at Diana and Rosamond, who couldn’t be more surprised if Bobbie Anne declared that she’s running for borough president.

“Congratulations!” Hayden is the first to speak. He toasts her with his beer can and takes a big swallow, much to the chagrin of Diana and Rosamond. Then he turns and smiles at them, too, knowing full well that his daughter won’t start a row about his drinking in front of their neighbor.

Bobbie Anne checks the yard to make sure that all the children are out of earshot. “I’m working as a sex counselor.”

The way Rosamond and Diana glance at each other suggests that they’re not sure whether this is better or worse than running a midday brothel out of one’s home.

Bobbie Anne immediately senses their doubtfulness. “It really
is
a job.” She smiles proudly. “Remember that psychiatrist who used to talk for his entire hour?” She directs this question to Hayden.

“Yeah, sure, the guy who after fifty minutes always said, ‘Our time is almost up,’ ” Hayden says, causing Diana’s eyes to widen at how intimately her father seems to know the details of Bobbie Anne’s business.

“Right,” Bobbie Anne continues. “Now I work in his office and talk with people about their problems. It’s totally legit because he has a license and oversees everything, it pays well and has benefits, and I don’t have to . . . to, you know . . .”

The women nod vigorously as if they’d rather not have her say it either.

“I mean, it’s just like my old job . . .”

When they all appear startled she amends that statement, “. . . in that I can make my own hours, even on Saturdays. For instance, today I’ll go in between ten and two. But the clients, I mean the
patients
, they’re not even allowed to ask me out on a date, you know, because it’s a professional relationship. And the best part is, get this, I’m paid more for talking about sex than actually having it.” She throws her head back with laughter. “Can you believe it?”

“There’s capitalism for you,” Hayden says with approval and toasts her with his beer can.

An attractive woman with mocha-colored skin and long disheveled coppery curls wearing a tank top and shorts appears on Bobbie Anne’s front stoop and calls for the children to come in and have their snack.

“Did you hire a live-in baby-sitter?” asks Hayden.

“No, that’s Gabriella, my girlfriend. She moved in while you were away, after I was sure that I had the job. I’m just so burned out on men right now. No offense,” she says, more to Hayden than the women and then chuckles.

“None taken,” says Hayden with a meaningful smile.

“Anyway, her son Giovanni will be in the same grade as Joey.” Bobbie Anne points to the dark-haired boy talking to Joey in the narrow space between the two houses. “Gabriella’s going to stay with the kids while I work during the day. She has a waitress job on Sundays and evenings, when I’m off, and so I’ll watch the kids then. That way we won’t have to pay baby-sitters.”

They all congratulate Bobbie Anne on her success and by the time she’s headed back to her house Hayden is enjoying the last sip of his beer.

chapter fifty-eight

B
y the end of the third week in August Hayden has finally given up on false displays of energy and accepts the fact that he needs assistance to do everything but raise a glass to his lips. He passes the hours in his bed on the sunporch, accompanied by Rosamond, and occasionally Joey, when his grandson isn’t out playing baseball or running around the neighborhood with Giovanni. After dinner Joey sits at Hayden’s bedside and recounts the plays from his ball games—though more often than not they are unsuccessful ones. “No matter how hard I try I’m just not very good,” Joey shamefully admits.

Hayden knows he should lecture him about practice and teamwork, but he’d raised Joey not to depend on tired advice. “Well, Joe-Joe, the way in which we’re all cursed, and we all are in one way or another, is also our blessing—just ask Rosie about her friend Jesus. Anyway, maybe you’ll find a career other than as a catcher and it will turn out to be even better.”

Joey saves up the jokes he hears from the other boys and Hayden has to admit that his material and presentation is improving by the day. He’s mastered the twinkle in the eye that lets you know you’re supposed to chuckle even though he’s not acknowledging it was a setup. Hayden actually chokes with laughter when Joey saunters in saying, “So these two fleas leave the movie theater and the one says to other, do you want to walk or catch a dog?”

Joey also reports back to Hayden any observations on the state of the American female. If Rosamond or Diana are present then Joey describes in code language any good sets of “twins” that he managed to see during his wanderings, and the two delight in sharing an inside joke.

Hayden constantly struggles with the urge to try and pass on to his grandson all the wisdom he’s collected over the years. Even when Joey reads aloud to him from Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
, Hayden’s urge to philosophize is sparked.

“You see, Joe-Joe, Stevenson is saying that a man can have a hidden nature, and you have to understand what it is if you want to do business with him. Such duality in men is also a good reason to wear a clip-on tie, in case a bloke takes issue with you and attempts the Glasgow Kiss by pulling you up by the necktie and bopping you in the face.”

“Mom says that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
while taking mind-altering drugs.”

“Well, yes. Mr. Stevenson enjoyed the occasional hallucinogenic the way your grandpa enjoys his single malt Glen Grant. However, he was of sound mind when he said to disregard most things taught to you by your parents.”

While Joey is off playing with Giovanni, Hayden and Rosamond sit and hold hands like two people grown old together, no longer needing more than a glance to communicate their feelings. Through the glass they watch nature’s summer dance play out around them—a mother robin teaches her young to fly, brown and white rabbits scamper past to raid Mrs. Trummel’s lettuce patch, and squirrels dart across electrical wires overhead.

Hank usually sits with Hayden for an hour in the evening while Rosamond helps Diana in the kitchen. He shares the plans for a new office building his firm is constructing along the East River and brings old maps of Brooklyn from his company’s archives, which Hayden devours with great interest.

With Hayden’s blessing Hank has started taking Joey to see the Mets play when they’re at home. He’s wise not to try too hard in winning the boy’s affection, and thus they’re building an easy friendship.

“You and Hank make such an attractive couple,” Rosamond says to Diana one evening as they watch Joey and Hank play catch in the street out front.

“You’re not upset that he left the Church?”

“Oh heavens no. In retrospect I think he was more attracted by ecclesiastical architecture than anything else. And he does still go to Mass with me on Sundays.”

“Yes, he’s invited me to go, too,” says Diana. “I don’t know. I suppose it can’t hurt. Though I’m not sure if I can believe in a God that, well . . .” she nods toward Hayden’s room. “You know . . .”

“Of course. It’s not for everyone. And you seem happy, different almost, since we came back.”

Diana gives Rosamond a knowing smile. “I remember what you said about confidence. And when I realized how much Hank believes in me, I guess it finally gave me some confidence in myself. Not to mention the strength to let Joey go out and make his own mistakes. Heaven knows, I’ve made enough for the both of us.”