Too Close to the Falls (43 page)

When I walked through those French doors, the chandelier was going around in a circle, and the Falls were now only a dull roar. The band was the Duke Ellington type that my father played on his 78s by the pool. The musicians all wore white tuxedos, were black, and had straightened shiny hair. The dance floor was huge, painted pink, flanked by substantial Greek columns with large pots of ivy growing up around their bases.

I did know how to dance. I'd forgotten all those years I went to ballroom dance classes. I suddenly realized that people danced because they wanted to be near each other. It had nothing to do with the dance steps. The Rod's hand felt so strong on my back and I always knew which way he was going to move, which seemed miraculous to me. I danced with my back as stiff as I could. What if my breasts touched him? What did other girls, or women or whatever, do about that problem? He must have known I was nervous because he rubbed my back a little with his hand. At first I found it irritating, but then I liked it. I felt my muscles relax, as if my body should fit into his, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and my neck fell on his shoulder. He hadn't seemed so tall at school. One song drifted into another. They were playing “My Funny Valentine” and then “Chances Are.” I felt his breathing in my ear,
coming in short stabs. Suddenly all of the song lyrics I had heard and all of the talk about passion became clear to me. Suddenly I got it.
This
was enlightenment on the road to Damascus. He started to dance differently, with his legs in a funny position so we were sort of rubbing against one another. My body just seemed to follow his, effortlessly.

The music stopped, but we didn't. Faster music started and my knees felt weak. I clung to him, partly because I was drunk and partly because I didn't want this to be over. I knew I would never have this again when it ended. I felt us being ripped apart.

“Cathy, we have to sit down,” he whispered hoarsely.

Sit down.
Sit down.
I couldn't possibly sit down and talk about leaps of faith again. I was too far over the Falls for that. I had already been sacrificed.

I couldn't breathe. The chandelier was spinning. I had to get away. I ran past the band so fast they were only zebra stripes in my peripheral vision. Air, I needed air. I didn't know what drunk felt like and I wasn't sure what lust or passion felt like, but I
did
know that a lot of new sensations were hitting me at once. My body was a cauldron in which new chemicals were added to the brew and it had bubbled over. I forced open the French doors and flung myself out on an old wrought-iron balcony, filling my collapsed lungs with the cool mist. I looked down hundreds of feet, and saw Satan's descent into hell filled with rising mist.

Through the thicket I glimpsed a rickety staircase leading down the gorge that obviously hadn't been used in years. It was overgrown with plants; stubborn roots had splayed the timber steps and grown through the rotted wood. I didn't care. I descended into the mist and kept going. Seagulls flew up and
down, like helicopters in a war zone. Near the bottom of the gorge the stairway ended and I had to sidestep my way. As I descended and got closer to the rapids, the mist became heavier and turned into drizzle. Now I was so low the drizzle turned into pelting rain which lashed my already raw face. There were all kinds of angry spiky plants growing, vegetation that can only grow in constant rain. I began sliding and realized I was too drunk to stop myself. I was staggering. The Falls roared and the whirlpools made sucking noises, as though everything were being pulled under. Mist covered my eyes, and everything was melting and blurred. When I got near the edge, the gush of the Falls was deafening and I could see that the water in the river was travelling at a dizzying rate.

I leaned against a tree and held on, and even though I'd stopped moving I still felt pulled, mesmerized by the twirling water. I felt magnetically drawn toward the vortex of the spinning whirlpools. I remembered once, years ago, Miranda threw a pop can in a whirlpool and it spun around and was sucked into the centre in less than a second, looking like a flash of silver. I was too drunk to make it back up the hill. The water in my face was at least cooling and must have been sobering.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was The Rod. He smiled and pointed to an indentation in the rocks about fifty feet up. He took my arm and began hauling me up the gorge; his shoes had better grip and he made it up to a crevice in the gorge. I knocked a birds' nest off the ledge and crawled up. He pushed me the last foot, and when we were both safe, he turned his face into the wall of rock, lit two cigarettes, and handed me one. I leaned back against the rock and smoked. We couldn't talk because of the deafening
torrent. I had calmed down by the end of my cigarette, and looked up at him. He looked at me, and I couldn't help smiling at the absurdity of us, too close to the Falls, damp, crouching on a bird roost, having a cigarette. He smiled back the warmest and most accepting smile that I ever remember receiving. That was the best cigarette I ever had or ever would have. We huddled on that birds' perch for a long time until evicted seagulls began showing up in legions to reclaim their turf from the squatters. We watched the sunset from our roost and saw the rainbow break into a prism above us. Each foam peak took on a different glint of warm orange sunlight, and the mist above us fell in the brilliant colours of fireworks.

Finally, after sunset, sobered by the drizzle and the air, I pointed to my stomach and then to my mouth indicating I was hungry. Actually, when I thought about not having eaten since breakfast, I was ravenous. He pantomimed agreement. We made it up far more easily than we had slid down. When we sat down to dinner we were sobered up but still damp; however, with the heat it actually felt refreshing. My soggy knee socks gave off a wet woolly homey smell. He retained the essence of English Leather. I'd aged since cocktails.

We drove home in contented silence. I didn't want to talk about anything that had happened because then it would be just events: cocktails, dancing, sunset, dinner.
Big deal.

Finally, as we exited the thruway he said, “You were a little too close to the Falls.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm sorry I let you drink so much, I guess I wasn't paying
attention. I'm a little unused to girls of your age — or any age, I guess.”

“Miraculous sunset, huh? Now
that
could make anyone believe in . . . something,” I said.

“Sure does,” he agreed.

When I saw Miranda at school the next day I wanted to tell her, but I knew I couldn't. Anyway, what was I going to say? I was in another city with The Rod, got drunk, and almost fell into Niagara Falls. No one is quite
that
stupid. I knew I couldn't tell anyone about it. Still, I couldn't help mentioning his name.

As we walked along, kilts swinging, Capezios hitting the sidewalk in unison, I heard myself saying, “I saw The Rod on his way to basketball last night, not half-bad out of his cassock.” I kept walking, clutching my notebook across my chest.

“He's a jerk,” she said in a world-weary tone.

“No.” I was sounding too strident, so I cooled my voice a bit. “Ya know, I don't really think so.” I
never
went against Miranda in matters of character and I knew she wouldn't take kindly to it.

“Listen, Virgin Mother, if you must know, I've seen him out of his cassock as well
and
out of his basketball uniform — if you know what I mean . . . if you get the drift.”

I didn't and we kept walking.

“Mary Magdalene, I better tell you the truth about this messiah before you start washin' his feet.” She shook her head impatiently.

“I'm sick of you thinking you know the truth.” I was, arguing from form again because, as usual, she seemed to know the truth. I was scared now, really scared, and I didn't want to hear it.

Her Capezioed feet stopped ominously. “I've done it, the big
it
,
with him, night after night at the Sunset Motel on Niagara Falls Boulevard.”

“That's a lie.” I decided to keep it simple. I kept walking, assured when each shaky foot struck the sidewalk. I repeated tap-dancing steps I'd learned. Shuffle-ball-change. Then I started over. Shuffle-kick-ball-change. Shuffle-hop-ball-change.

She caught up, interrupting my rhythm, and said disgustedly, “I'm sick of both of you; neither of you knows your ass from Saran Wrap.”

“Liar.” I continued my dance steps, saying all the different patterns to myself. I heard my taps ricocheting off the pavement.

“Does our little scientist want proof?” she said, in that singsong voice which always spells retribution.

“Yes!” I'd thrown down the gauntlet. It was too late. She was going to rub my nose in it. Okay, go ahead. Make it hurt as much as you can.

“You are so naïve it's unbelievable. Do you have
any
idea what's been going on? Are you a musketeer or what? The entire class knows —
everyone
knows except you.”

“That you have done something with Father Rodwick is your first lie, and your second is that everyone but me knows about it.”

Miranda seemed nonplussed. “Fine. I'll bring proof for you tomorrow in the lavatory at three.”

“You think everyone knows about this? You actually think anyone believes you? This man is a priest!”

“Cathy, even Linda Low gets it — not all the details, of course, but she gets the
drift
. Anne Marie Vesture, who decorates the altar when we have geometry, is in on this one. You are the only one who hasn't followed this blow by blow. Haven't you noticed
everyone is quiet when you enter the room? Haven't you heard snickering when you and The Rod get into mental masturbation?”

Mental
masturbation
? I felt sick. My mouth felt like I had eaten aluminum foil. I thought they laughed because I was genuinely funny. Oh God . . . this was reminding me of my father's line “Make sure they're laughing with you and not at you.”

“No, Miranda, I haven't noticed those things because you've made them up.”

Fortunately our paths diverged at this point and I headed the rest of the way home alone. As I walked along I still harboured some hope that Miranda was just talking. After all, she was innately quite lazy. When I actually thought of it, what could she do to prove anything? This whole thing was a figment of our over-active imaginations. Rationally, what had transpired was a handsome man, who happened to be a priest, walked into our lives to teach us the passion of our Lord and we both mistook it for the earthly variety. We were a bunch of silly schoolgirls “getting hysterical.” That's what my father said when we thought there was a ghost in the recreation room at my slumber party. He sent us all straight back to bed and told us to use our heads for more than a hat rack. The ghost was honestly gone after that.

Maybe by confronting this whole thing head-on, I could make it go away. She didn't expect me to show up. What could she have done — taken a picture? I doubted it. Who would develop it? Bring a receipt from the hotel? Anyone could produce one of those. A signed confession from him? Unlikely. Witnesses? Who? Linda Low? In the past I'd been the only one stupid enough to get in on her shenanigans and I wasn't there.

Next, why would a man who had devoted years to being a
priest, taken vows of celibacy, have done it with a teenage girl? He would be taking the last 10 years of his life and throwing them away. He would burn in hell for eternity, which made life look like a drop in a bucket. Everyone in this town knew him. Who was going to let him into a motel?

If you reason out things logically, they are less scary. Just stare down the dragon — face Goliath. He never even
liked
Miranda. She never cared about one thing he cared about. Why would he have risked his life, career, and eternity for her?