Last Call (7 page)

While swigging scotch and fashioning the garden hose into a suicide apparatus he’d seen the fresh-faced and curvaceous Bobbie Anne in the adjacent backyard shaking out some rugs, her gorgeous hair that appeared reddish-gold in the sunlight hanging loose about her shoulders, and making for a striking contrast against her creamy complexion. In the neighborhood it was rather common knowledge that she saw men between ten and two. And so with his mind clouded by grief and whiskey he’d put down the hose, crossed the yard, and requested an appointment.

Bobbie Anne smiled pleasantly, as if Hayden was asking to borrow a cup of sugar. And in her friendly southern drawl she instructed him to arrive at eleven the following morning and confirmed that her fee was indeed two hundred dollars in cash.

Hayden immediately abandoned the hooch and hose and worked himself into a complete panic over the upcoming “date.” He picked up the phone to call and cancel a dozen times but was too nervous to even dial her number. And standing in front of the bank teller was the first time in his life that he wished he had accepted one of those plastic cards that enables a customer to enjoy the anonymity of an ATM. Hayden was convinced that the woman behind the bulletproof Plexiglas partition knew exactly what he wanted the money for, because in all his twenty years at that branch he’d never withdrawn more than a hundred dollars in cash during a single visit to the bank.

Having lived as a bachelor for a year Hayden was also afraid that his appearance had deteriorated, much like the backyard, which since the day of the funeral had been slowly overtaken by weeds and undergrowth. At work his secretary regularly arrived with Tupperware containers filled with food for Hayden to take home and instructed him to get more rest. She was suspicious that outside of work hours he’d abandoned himself to alcohol and disarray. And a visit to the town house would have proved her instincts to be correct.

To be on the safe side Hayden went to Gus the barber for a haircut.

“Big business deal?” joked Gus.

“No, it’s a personal, I mean a social—”

“Oh.” Gus nodded and gave him a big wink in the mirror. “Then you’ll want my Ladies’ Man Special. That’s thirty dollars and cheap at the price.”

“Thirty dollars!” His regular haircut was only ten. “What can I possibly get for thirty dollars—a little off the top and ten years off my age I would expect.”

“Trust me,” said Gus. After cutting Hayden’s hair he gave him a shave and trimmed his ears, neck, nose, and eyebrows. Yes, it was worth it. Except for the slightly unhealthy pallor of his skin, Hayden looked as if he’d been dry-cleaned.

He arrived at Bobbie Anne’s a full twenty minutes early, like a senior citizen attending a retirement party. Everything he wore was brand-new except for his khaki pants, and those had been professionally washed and pressed, just to be on the safe side.

“Hey there, Hayden,” Bobbie Anne said in her welcoming drawl. She was from Athens, Georgia, which was where she’d met her Brooklyn-born husband, Derek, while he was stationed at an army base there. According to Bobbie Anne, her father was the owner of a prosperous furniture store and a deacon at their church, and her mother was a long-standing member of the exclusive local garden club. Bobbie Anne and her sisters were all sent to an expensive girls school, spoke perfect English complete with proper usage of who and whom, and yet possessed no practical skills aside from those required to be good wives to wealthy men—interior decorating, flower arranging, table setting, and menu planning.

When Bobbie Anne became pregnant by a Yankee enlisted man, the son of a Polish-born electrician and his immigrant wife, and one of eight children, her parents were devastated. Her mother sobbed while her father banged his Bible on her dresser repeating, “Why’d you get on the train if you didn’t want to go to Atlanta?” Eventually her aunt Winifred arrived from Savannah to mediate, if one could call it that. The choice was being disowned or else a stay at the home for wayward girls and unwed mothers, following which the baby would be put up for adoption. Bobbie Anne didn’t score any points by asking why she’d never heard of homes for wayward boys.

And so now, at twenty-six, Bobbie Anne was a widow, still lovely, but with lines creasing the corners of her soft violet eyes, and a gentle slope to her breasts from having nursed twin girls who were now eight.

She led Hayden into the small square living room. It was furnished inexpensively; most decorative objects, such as calico wreaths and decoupage boxes, appeared to have been handmade by Bobbie Anne, or else were art projects created by her daughters. She acted as calmly and naturally as if she’d invited Hayden to brunch, or they were standing and talking while taking a break from cleaning up their yards, as they often did when Mary was still alive and he actually cared about keeping up the house and lawn.

Hayden placed the money on the coffee table, eager to get it out of his possession. Before leaving he’d counted and recounted it ten times. Exactly two hundred dollars in crisp new twenties. Though he wasn’t sure what to do about a gratuity. In business one didn’t normally tip the owner of an establishment. And when you did offer a gratuity for service it was usually afterward, not before.

“It’s so nice of you to drop by, Hayden.” She wore jeans that fit snugly and a short-sleeved hyacinth-colored cotton sweater that looked pretty against her long flowing copper hair.

“It’s kind of you to have me over.” He was careful not to say invite because she hadn’t exactly invited him.

Bobbie Anne offered him tea or coffee. He declined. She came over and lightly touched his elbow and her far-seeing violet eyes stared into his luminescent green ones. “How’ve you been, Hayden?” Her voice was smooth and comforting like warm honey. “You look slightly peaked.”

“Oh, I guess I’ve been a wee bit lonely, bangin’ around that big old town house all by myself.” The truth was that he’d been feeling tired, anxious, and without appetite for weeks. However, Hayden wasn’t about to go to any doctor just to hear that he was “suffering from depression.” At his insurance company practically everyone was taking pills or going to therapy as a way to try and get happy, from the president all the way down to the temp workers.

But Hayden was descended from a long line of hearty farmers who picked up their axes and guns when necessary and made do the rest of the time, not pill-poppers and crybabies. His was a vigorous soul that had always possessed joy, not sorrow. Anyway, Hayden despised doctors. They certainly hadn’t done much to help his poor Mary with her heart condition, telling her to get on a treadmill, following which she had a stroke right there in the doctor’s office. Yet they always managed to send out their bills, whether they saved a body or killed it.

“Of course you’re lonesome, darling.” Her eyes widened with understanding and continued to gaze into his, as if waiting for him to blink as some sort of a signal. “It’ll get easier as time goes by. Just keep telling yourself that, even though I know that right now it’s impossible to believe.”

He’d heard such sentiments before, but her gentle manner and languorous drawl made the words sound natural and comforting, and not as if she pitied him. For a moment Hayden considered using the argument that had become his favorite for the well-meaning but nonetheless annoying advice-mongers, which was that
no one
could comprehend the magnitude of his loss. But then he remembered that Bobbie Anne had also lost her spouse, and that she must have loved her husband very much to have broken with her family in order to marry him. Perhaps she did understand.

“After Derek died I used to pretend I was acting in a play to get through the long days and even longer nights,” she continued. “And then one morning life just suddenly became real again.”

What happened next was not at all what Hayden had intended. He started to sob. All the grief he’d kept inside since the day of Mary’s death suddenly exploded to the surface. Hayden wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeves but it was no use, his chest was shaking and he was sputtering. The storm was just beginning to brew. He wept all the tears that had been locked away in his heart since the previous spring.

Bobbie Anne took a step closer and put her arms around him and Hayden put his around her and was relieved that she couldn’t see his face, only feel him heave up against her. They stood like that for a long time while he wept. Then they sat on the couch and he explained how he still expected Mary to show up, to appear out of the shower with a white towel wrapped around her soft sheet of black hair. And how both his daughters had invited him to come and live with them. Only he didn’t want to leave the neighborhood and his friends of the past twenty years since they were all that he had left of Mary. They still included her in the old familiar stories that they recounted and the memories they held dear. One might say, “Ah, now this is a good pudding but Mary’s was a better one.” In that way the private language of old companions served to keep her spirit alive, and thus was a comfort to him.

Then as swiftly as the emotional tempest had arrived it moved on, a prairie swept by a tornado. Hayden took a deep breath and actually smiled at the thought of coming over to make love to a woman less than half his age and ending up crying and having her counsel him. Normally it was Hayden the insurance agent who was called upon to act as minister to distraught policyholders right after tragedy struck, or else to comfort one of his own daughters after Mary’s tenderness could perform no further healing.

However, Bobbie Anne spoke in a way that didn’t leave him feeling embarrassed. “You’d be surprised how many of my friends,” which was how she graciously referred to her customers, “get the intimacy over quickly and spend most of the time discussing their wives and jobs,” she’d assured him. “In fact, one psychiatrist talks the
entire
visit, and only stays for fifty minutes instead of the full hour. I don’t even have to tell him when it’s time to leave. He just automatically looks down at his watch at the exact right moment and says, ‘I think our time is almost up. Why don’t you make an appointment for next week with my secretary?’ ”

Hayden supposed that Bobbie Anne would have to mark him down with the talkers and rose to leave. He’d been there for slightly over an hour.

But she playfully tugged at his sleeve and he sat back down on the couch. Then Bobbie Anne pulled her sweater over her head and placed his right hand on her left breast. And she kept her hand there, upon his, for a moment, while she leaned in to kiss him on the lips.

Now, when Hayden fantasizes about the event, it is this part he always finds the most exciting, her hand on top of his, his hand on her breast. And then the kiss.

They made love until they tasted of each other. The great fire in Hayden’s nature magnified him as a lover, and when she climaxed he wanted to believe that it was real. Yet he had to face the fact that a woman in Bobbie Anne’s business either faked orgasm or didn’t bother at all. And so he didn’t ask.

“You’re awfully sensuous under that wry Scottish exterior,” she remarked while they were getting dressed. Bobbie Anne’s life had been hard and she was wise in many ways, an emotional clairvoyant of sorts who knew what was on his mind without being told.

“I . . . I like a woman.” He realized that this sounded rather silly. But it was true. He’d been with a fair number of women before falling in love with Mary. “I mean . . . I like their softness, their voices, their thoughts, the way they see the world so differently.”

The next morning when Diana appeared from Westchester for her weekly inspection, she took one look at Hayden’s gaunt face and sallow skin and trundled him off to the doctor. He was too tired to protest, which only served to alarm her even more. Tests followed. Hayden was not dismayed by the hepatitis diagnosis since it could be treated. The liver cancer could not, unless he wanted to be a guinea pig in some unproven drug trial with a mile-long list of side effects. Hayden’s first thought was not about himself but about Diana and Joey. Who would watch out for her when he was gone? And who would ensure that Joey would learn all the things about life that a mother cannot teach her son? This last issue particularly troubled him. With his life suddenly being wrenched from Hayden without his permission, suicide was out of the question for the time being and life had all of a sudden become very precious.

When Hayden’s insurance agency announced they were closing the Brooklyn office Diana insisted that he accept the early retirement package with full health benefits rather than try and commute into Manhattan every day. And much as he would have liked to continue working to the very end, he did not want his coworkers to witness his inevitable decline. Hayden was known throughout the entire company as the perpetually energetic and good-natured colleague who was quick with a joke and a smile, and that’s how he wanted to be remembered. Not as some washed-up salesman who everyone was humoring because of illness, who brought everyone down by serving as a constant reminder of their own mortality, that life could indeed turn on a dime, and there was no insurance policy on earth to stop it from doing exactly that.

Hayden never returned to Bobbie Anne for professional reasons, but they’d remained friends and often chatted in their adjoining backyards. Sometimes he baby-sits her apple-cheeked little girls on weekends while she shops and runs errands. And when she arrives home he’ll burst into a rousing chorus of “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean,” much to the delight of her daughters, since he changes Bonny to Bobbie, and the twins gleefully chime in
“Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bobbie to me.”

chapter eleven

H
ayden is aware that time should fly now that he’s officially dying, but the hours between leaving Rosamond and picking her up again three days later crawl by as if he’s a four-year-old anticipating Christmas.

When Friday morning finally arrives Hayden briefly worries that she’s forgotten about their hastily arranged date, or worse, she’s changed her mind. But ever the optimist, he takes the newspaper and spends almost two hours planning their afternoon.

They’d start with a couple of funerals, and then, since it promised to be a nice sunny day, they’d drive out to the crematorium near Bethpage on Long Island. Afterward he’d take Rosamond to his lawyer friend in Garden City to draw up a health-care proxy so they couldn’t keep her alive on machines for months after she should have been dead.

After Diana finally departs for work, Hayden and Joey quickly change out of their pajamas and get under way. A recent thunderstorm has swept the pale sky clean of everything but a single cloud. Roadside construction workers remove their yellow slickers while standing on asphalt that is shiny and iridescent with streaks of oil.

Hayden stops at the Sunoco station and shows Joey the proper way to pump gas into the car and check the oil. When Diana’s not around he’s been teaching the boy basic husband skills—how to mow the lawn, reignite the pilot light, and even take apart the pipes under the kitchen sink to retrieve lost rings. “You come from resourceful stock—the Scots invented the telephone, the TV, the steam engine, and even the electric light.”

“You forgot the bicycle,” adds Joey, who’s heard this list recited many times before, especially after his grandfather has had a few drinks.

“Ah, indeed I did. If you’re so smart then . . .” Hayden pauses with a twinkle in his eye, “what’s the only thing you should ever add to whiskey?”

“More whiskey!” Joey shouts as Hayden finishes the
y
.

“We’ll make a Highlander out of you yet, despite all these subways and skyscrapers.” He clamps his hand on Joey’s shoulder as the boy struggles to open the hood. It’s at moments like this, while watching Joey’s young hands fumble to find the hidden latch or use a heavy tool properly, yet slowly gaining skill and confidence, that Hayden profoundly regrets he will not see his grandson grow into a man.

On the drive over to the convent Hayden is relieved that Joey is preoccupied with a new video game. Otherwise the lad might notice his grandfather’s nervousness, his continual efforts to smooth down his damp hair with a pocket comb, and his repeatedly checking the rearview mirror for anything off-putting, such as a coffee ground stuck between his front teeth.

When Hayden rings the old-fashioned bell of the convent a small door of rotted wood creaks opens and inside it he finds a notepad and pencil, which suggests a primitive version of a bank’s drive-through window. He writes “Sister Rosamond” on the pad and pushes it back into the cavity. The message disappears into gloomy darkness and is met with ominous silence.

Hayden goes from heart-racing excitement to heart-pounding dread in a matter of five minutes. He finally returns to the car and is about to leave when an iron gate off to the side of the massive building cries out in protest and Rosamond appears from around the corner of a tall hedge.

She floats toward him, as if years of gliding through the silent corridors of the cloister have left her weightless. Her step is so light that not even the sparrows and cedar waxwings feeding along the path are disturbed by her passing. Upon seeing him leaning against the freshly washed station wagon, a smile plays across her lips that shapes her face into a shifting collage of hope and fear.

Once they’re all settled in the car Hayden brims with enthusiasm. “I found a woman about your age who died of esophagus cancer. I thought we’d start with her funeral in Park Slope and then hit an ovarian cancer memorial service just for the hell of it. I mean, you never know where cancer is going to spread to next. It’s like trying to track a jaguar through the jungle.”

Rosamond appears shocked by this pronouncement, or else his use of slang, or most likely both. “Did you know either of these women?”

“Of course not,” says Hayden. “I was trying to match up your disease, so you can start gatherin’ information, you know: when she was diagnosed, what kind of treatments they tried. I don’t want to influence you one way or another, but in my opinion those homeopathic patients go the fastest—the people who start ordering celery-eucalyptus pills and the like from Guadalajara. What a racket! In my next life I want to be a vitamin salesman.”

Rosamond doesn’t appear amused by this stab at humor. Or by Hayden’s plans for the day. With her time so limited she’d prefer doing and seeing all the things she’s missed, to live as fully as she can in whatever time is left. It was Hayden’s sheer exuberance that she’d been fascinated by in the first place. “It all sounds rather depressing,” she replies sadly.

“Oh, it’s
not
,” Hayden says passionately. “Tell her, Joey.”

“We have a good time at funerals,” Joey concurs, but not very convincingly. Though he doesn’t say it out loud, the fun is wearing off, despite Hayden’s constant reminder that the first three letters in the word
funeral
spell f-u-n. “And at the Jewish ones you get to wear a hat and then throw dirt onto the casket at the graveyard.”

“No funerals, please,” says Rosamond.

“Well then,” says Hayden, attempting to salvage the situation, “there’s not
only
funerals. I have a friend who works in a nursing home for the terminally ill and he can get us in there. Or there’s the Death and Dying section of the Barnes and Noble superstore.” He holds up a cassette. “And I have an audiotape version of
Final Exit
—it’s very detailed, about gettin’ your papers organized and then committing suicide.”

Rosamond blanches at the word
suicide
. Then she becomes a bit teary-eyed. “I don’t want to hear about that either.”

“Maybe the cemetery . . .” Hayden’s voice trails off, perplexed and disheartened that he can’t seem to make a sale.

“No cemeteries. No funerals. No death!” she announces. “I had such fun at the ball game. It made me realize that there are so many things I’ve never done. . . . I entered the convent when I was nineteen, after going to an all-girl Catholic school and working for a year as a kindergarten assistant.” She wipes the tears from her eyes. “I haven’t had fun in twenty years. Except for the hospital, I haven’t been anywhere in two decades!”

“Oh, you want to go to another
ball game
!” Hayden suddenly cheers up again. Okay, so she’s in denial and unwilling to face reality just yet. “Darn. The Mets are away this weekend.”

“It doesn’t have to be a ball game. I mean, I haven’t been
anywhere
.”

“Then . . . well, uh . . . Joey . . .”

But Joey understands right away. It’s as if Rosamond has been in school her entire adult life and this is the first day of summer vacation. She wants to feel the sunshine on her face and have a good time without worrying about scowling grown-ups, surprise quizzes, and homework assignments. And quite frankly, he wouldn’t exactly mind a break from his grandfather’s recent fascination with death either.

chapter twelve

L
et’s go to the Long Island Game Farm!” says Joey. “I saw an ad on television. It’s exit sixty-nine on the expressway.”

Hayden glances at Rosamond. She finally looks pleased.

“Long Island Game Farm or bust!” he announces and turns the station wagon around. In rotating the steering wheel Hayden has the odd sensation that what’s left of his life may be taking a turn as well.

“That sounds lovely, Mr. MacBride.”

“
Mr. MacBride?
Sounds as if I’m bein’ measured for a coffin! Please, call me Hayden.”

“All right, Hayden.” She glances shyly down at the floor mat. “Then please call me Rosamond.”

“I do’an’ know if I have that much breath in me lungs, you know, if we get to be regular mates. How about Rosie, like a Rosie by any other name couldn’t be as sweet.” Hayden laughs at his mangled reference to Shakespeare.

Rosamond blushes and says, “Oh, nobody’s called me that since . . . I guess nobody ever has! You’re the first, Mr. MacBr— I mean, Hayden.”

They speed eastward on the Long Island Expressway, none of the electronic signs overhead blinking with news of accidents, construction, or slowdowns. Hayden is amazed by the level of comfort the signs offer a driver—explaining why you’re being delayed and how long it’s likely to last. Whereas twenty years ago, before the signs, drivers sat and stewed, some anxious travelers climbing atop their cars to peer ahead or else leaning on their horns in frustration. But with the advent of the information age they’ve all calmed down and now yammer away on cell phones, repeating to anyone who will listen what exit they’re near, why there’s a backup, and how this will alter their estimated time of arrival.

In the absence of heavy traffic and delays they turn into the Game Farm parking lot in slightly over an hour. From the sideways glances of the other visitors, an observer would think that none of the patrons had ever set eyes on a nun before. Hayden and Joey nudge each other with amusement as children tug at their mother’s sleeves and point to the three of them. And when Rosamond sits in the petting zoo feeding a baby lamb from a bottle, after doing double takes practically the entire clientele turn their cameras and camcorders toward the sight. It amuses and charms Hayden that only Rosamond is oblivious to the fact that wearing a long black habit and surrounded by an array of barnyard animals she brings to mind a Christmas pageant.

The trio enjoys watching the lions laze in the buttery sunshine and the quietly contemplative zebras with their stocky striped bodies that stand out against the green and brown hues of the simulated jungle. In the primate section an ape beats his chest and then swings to the ground on a large black rubber tire attached to the end of a thick chain.

“Hey Grandpa, where does a gorilla play baseball?” asks Joey.

“I don’t know, Joey. Where
does
a gorilla play baseball?”

“In the
bush
leagues!” Joey laughs so hard he bends over and Hayden smiles approvingly at his grandson’s enjoyment of jokes.

“What do gorilla attorneys study?” Hayden shoots back.

“What do gorilla attorneys study?” Rosamond and Joey say in unison.

“The Law of the Jungle,” replies Hayden.

Joey jumps up and down with excitement and Rosamond covers her mouth with her hand but laughs a warmhearted laugh, the kind left over from a girlhood filled with close friendships.

“If you’re laughing at that joke then we’re in real trouble,” jokes Hayden.

But Rosamond points and Hayden turns around to see the gorilla imitating Joey by jumping up and down. When the big ape finally stops and sits down, a female drops from a tree branch above and begins to groom him, picking through his brown fur and eating anything that catches her fancy. While the male gorilla patiently waits, his glassy eyes look directly at Hayden, so full of expression that he seems almost human.

“It’s pretty easy to see where we come from, eh?” Hayden says to no one in particular.

“You can’t possibly mean that,” responds Rosamond.

“What? You think some Guy in the Sky with a white beard made us and he’s up there watching like Santy Claus to see if we’re bad or good?” Hayden laughs out loud at the very proposition. “Fact o’ the matter is that a week-old human baby is less developed than a week-old gorilla.”

“But the laws of evolution are made by God,” Rosamond says firmly.

For someone with such a gentle tone of voice, Hayden observes, she can be awfully bullheaded. First she doesn’t want to go to any of the places he’s picked out and now, barely an hour later, she’s trying to convert him. And to think that Diana is constantly accusing Hayden of being stubborn! Obviously his daughter doesn’t have any nun friends.

“Wait just a minute.” Hayden turns to her. “I thought you fired God after he gave you the death sentence.”

“I believe in God,” chimes in Joey as he beats his chest and watches with delight as one of the apes mimics him.

“Then why did God give you The Asthma and a mother who won’t let you play baseball or have a dog? And a father who do’an’ pay child support?”

“Maybe he’s testing me,” Joey replies.

“I should have never let you go to Mass in Westchester with Diana and that Catholic furniture-maker boyfriend of hers.” Hayden pronounces “furniture-maker” with distinct disdain.

“Hayden, you don’t
go
to Mass,” Rosamond corrects him in a stiff but amiable voice. “You
assist
at Mass. It’s one of the seven sacraments, not a spectator sport.”

“Oh, so now the two of you religious fanatics are ganging up on me? Just like Diana and the furniture-maker. Is this how it’s goin’ to be?” Hayden’s brogue strengthens to accentuate his mock outrage.

“And what’s wrong with crafting furniture?” Rosamond asks. “Jesus was a carpenter.”

“Well your Jesus probably didn’t owe so much in back taxes that his furniture was sold at public auction along with the car he owned jointly with his gullible girlfriend who never bothered to put her name on the title.”

“Let’s get cotton candy,” says Joey. He doesn’t feel like talking about God or his mother’s disastrous love life.

Eyeing the large cones of pastel pink, blue, and yellow hanging from the pushcart stand, Rosamond has to admit that they look magically enticing, especially after so many years of brown and white fare, such as rice and overcooked pot roast or meat loaf and mashed potatoes. She orders strawberry and Joey chooses lemon and they delightedly pull tufts off each other’s cones and hold them up to the light before letting the sparkling pink and yellow spun sugar dissolve on their tongues.

As they climb into the car to return home Joey invites Rosamond to sit in the backseat with him so he can show her his baseball cards and teach her how to use his Gameboy. When the station wagon pulls up to the convent it’s almost dinnertime even though the summer sun is still an hour away from the horizon. The evening is like velvet, soft and warm. A few faded apple blossoms drift onto the windshield through the sweet, perfumed air. Whereas the game farm was loud and vibrating with life, the convent is tomblike in its silence and makes one feel as if it’s possible to hear the seconds ticking in the air. The dark stone arches yawn gloomily in front of them. Rosamond is smiling and Hayden is feeling satisfied that he managed to please her after such a rocky start.