Conceived Without Sin (9 page)

He was shaking with excitement and nerves.

"Ellen, I–"

"Don't say anything," she said, and kissed him again, for about the same duration. The air around them was crisp, cold; her lips were pliant, warm.

"Why, you're shaking," she said after she stopped, alarmed, looking directly into his eyes. "Are you cold?"

"No, not cold,"
he told her honestly. "I've never kissed a girl like you before. Never like that. I'm nervous."

I can tell,
she thought, charmed by his innocence.
What have I found here?

The concept of marriage came to her mind now.

Is he the one?

She was surprised, and a bit afraid. This evening had begun with a heavy ordinariness; it had taken an unexpected turn.

Don't scare him away. When was the last time
you liked a guy who was taller than you?

He wasn't handsome. But he reminded her of Bucky. Yes, he
felt
like Bucky, but with a twist–there was a quality in Sam that her father lacked.

Selflessness?
She had had enough of selfish men. Sam was different from the prep boys and college sharpshooters and the go-go lawyers at the nightclubs down in the Flats. Or so she thought.

"Drive me home, Sam. I
really do wish to show you where I live. I hope I wasn't too forward. I never kiss on the first date. Or the second or third, for that matter. You're the first."

She must be a serious Catholic,
he thought.

It keeps me in the driver's seat,
she thought.

"As my friend Buzz might say, Ellen, neither do I," he replied, surprising himself with his glibness.

"You can call me Ellie," she told him.

Later,
she showed Sam her father's beautiful, expansive home on one of the long boulevards of Beachwood. Buzz had guessed correctly about her living at home, but for the wrong reasons. Bucky was all Ellie had, and Ellie held on tight. She had no mother. Divorced and gone.

After a quick nightcap with Bucky, Sam and Ellie paused on the front porch. She kissed him again, this time on the cheek.

On the drive
home, Sam was driving too fast. He didn't care. He lucked out, and avoided the speed traps. He remembered the kiss on his cheek, and rubbed his fingers over the spot, smiling to himself. He tuned the radio to an alternative rock station, and turned the volume up. It was a haunting tune,
Under the Milky Way,
by a group called The Church.

He replayed the events of the evening over and over in his
mind. It was a dream. Beautiful woman, chance meeting. Great dad.

The only sour note came when the words of Donna Beck swam into his dreaminess.
Who do you thank, Sam?

3

Donna cried herself to sleep that night.

4

"Sure, Buzz, I'll wind up early today. I'm dragging after last night," Sam told his surprised friend over the phone. He looked at the neat but large stack of work in the in-box and shook
his head. The list of action steps on his computer screen was even bigger. "I want to tell you about Ellie. She's something."

"Great," Buzz said. "I want to hear all about her."

"Where are we going, anyway? Why won't you tell me?"

"Because you might not go otherwise. Remember, I'm a highly manipulative person, Sam. But I'm up front about it. A Machiavelli you can hug."

"I appreciate that. But
there's another way. You could trust me. Or treat me like an adult."

"That's a novel concept. I'll give it some consideration. Did you read that in a self-help book?"

"Yeah," Sam replied. "It's a book called Hug Me, by Dr. Gwynne Woodward."

"I'll have to read it. Pick you up in a half hour."

5

Sam pulled open the door to Buzz's car and asked, "Where's Donna?"

"She had to go to some family-thing.
She's taking the bus later," Buzz replied. He saw Sam make a face.

"That girl needs a car."

"You know, Sam, not everybody can afford one. Besides, Donna's from a non-car culture–the big city."

Sam frowned.
She still needs a car.

Buzz pulled out of the parking lot of the building where Sam's office was located and lit a cigarette. Sam rolled his window down.

"So, where are we going, Buzz–or should
I put a blindfold on?"

"You'll see when we get there. Tell me what happened with you and Ellen."

Out of the corner of his eye, Buzz noted a rare smile come to Sam's face.
Too bad for Donna,
Buzz thought.

"She's great, man," Sam started.

"Very descriptive."

"She likes me," he continued.

"Better…"

"Mostly, I talked with her dad. They're members at the Garden Club…"

"Very nice." Buzz whistled in
admiration as he took the entrance onto I-90.

"What should I do next? Do you have any experience with women?"

"Mostly bad experiences, Sammy. But experience? Yes. The best advice I can give you for women is to assume that they won't feel or react or think like a man does."

"Huh?"

"Look Sam, I read this article in Reader's Digest once, and it made a lot of sense. I was in high school, and was going
on my fifth girlfriend. The article confirmed everything I ever knew about women. It's like playing pick-up basketball–there's all sorts of unwritten rules, and if you follow them, you get to play the game.

"Anyway, the article was by this love doctor, and it was about how long it takes men and women to fall in love. Did you know that women fall in love after an average of fourteen meetings and
men fall in love after an average of four?"

"No. Makes sense, though."

"Sure does," Buzz continued. "Women have different internal clocks and thermostats, that's what I think. They think it's cold when we think it's warm. My wife used to turn the temperature up all the time on me; drove me crazy. Their clocks are even more off kilter–"

"Clocks?" Sam asked. Talking about women was like discussing
creatures from another planet. "What clocks?"

"Women have their own internal clocks, and the hands are set on emotions, not thoughts. Pay attention to the emotional time, and you get to play the game."

"Is this leading to another proof of God's existence?" Sam asked, curious and kidding.

"No. Listen to me, do you like Ellen? Do you want to see her again? Have you given any thought to when you're
going to call her up–"

"One question at a time, Buzz…but, yes, I like her. Yes, I want to see her again–though we didn't make any plans; and no, I haven't thought about when I'm going to call her up. I just got up and went to work. I was walking on air, until you started talking."

"You're going to mess up, then, Sam."

"I am?"

"Look, if Ellen's a normal woman, she's sitting at home and enjoying
how she feels
right now. She's treasuring last night 'in her heart,' like Mary did when she found Jesus in the temple as a boy. She's looking forward to your phone call. If you call her too quickly, you'll ruin her enjoyment, and ruin her anticipation of hearing from you again. If you wait too long, her good feelings will turn bad, to anger. She'll start resenting that you haven't called her. Calling
her late will confirm her resentment. Mark my words."

"I'm completely baffled. So when
should
I call her?"

"In about two or three days." Buzz squinted, looking up as if there was a chart on the sun shade of his Festiva. "Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday is too late. Today and tomorrow is definitely too early."

"It sounds so mechanical, Buzz. Isn't this the eighties? Don't women call men
up?"

"Have you been reading Cosmo again? All that 'eighties woman' stuff is a bunch of crapola. Pure manure. Emotional clock stuff is genetic. Goes back before recorded history, and getting the right to vote and equal pay for equal work has nothing to do with it. It's the way they're wired. Men and women are like two different operating systems in computers. Women are Macs, men are DOS."

"Not
very complimentary to men, even if most of my work involves IBM clones…"

"But it fits," Buzz said. "Think women, think emotions. Think men, think heartless jerks. And send flowers."

"I like flowers."

"Sure you do, Sam. You're a sensitive guy. But when somebody gives you a rose, you chop the bottom off and stick it in a vase. When a woman gets a rose, she smells it, and looks at it, and feels a
bunch of emotions that we can only describe, as men, in a theoretical way."

Sam pondered Buzz's words.

"How do you know all this stuff?" he finally asked Buzz.

"Because I pay attention. I watch people. I study human nature. Maybe it's the way God made me. More likely, it's a coping mechanism. I study people so I can control them. So nobody can hurt me. Being a drunk son of a drunk and all that
pyschobabble stuff.

"And because I love women. Name something more beautiful than a beautiful woman? Compare Ellen to the finest piece of art you know. Which is more beautiful?"

Sam paused. "Ellie."

"No mountain landscape is more beautiful than a beautiful woman. You can't say that about men. Oh. Here's your proof of God's existence! Ready?"

"Lay it on me," Sam said affably. He was getting used
to Buzz after all these months.

"Did a slimy bunch of amino acids
evolve
into an Ellen James, or was she
designed
by someone, namely, God?"

"Slime."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I am. I don't know where Ellie came from, except from Bucky and his ex-wife."

"So it's
Bucky,
now, is it?" Buzz asked. "And he's divorced?"

"Yes, and yes."

"And no comment, Sam?"

"What's there to say? Lots of people
are divorced. You're divorced." There wasn't any accusation in Sam's voice. He was only stating a fact.

"It will mean a lot if you ever get serious with Ellie. Divorced children fear commitment," Buzz said with a remote sadness in his voice.

"Now you're the one who sounds like he was reading Cosmo," Sam joked.

"Just take her slowly, my friend. Show her she can rely on you, and don't assume she
trusts you. She may think she does, but trust is more emotional than logical."

"How do I do that? How do I build trust?"

"Wait," Buzz said quickly, "one second. Look over there. That's where they're going to build the new baseball stadium for the Indians."

"I heard about that on the Internet," Sam added.

"The Internet?"

"Yeah, the Internet. It's a computer network that's been around since the
sixties. It's going to be a big deal in a few years. I got an electronic message from one of my clients who's involved with an engineering company that's working on the new stadium."

Buzz slowed as he negotiated Dead Man's Curve, then suddenly remembered Sam's question.

"You can build trust by being yourself, Sam. You always do what you say you're going to do. You're always honest."

Sam had nothing
to say to that.
How am I going to put off calling Ellie for two whole days?

"You're thinking about how you're going to survive without calling Ellen James, aren't you?"

"Are you a mind reader?" Sam asked.

"Just a student of human nature. Besides, I can read your face like a book. Think of hunters, Sam. Hunters sitting in the woods, waiting for the right moment. Hunters play by the rules of the
prey. They wait. They picture what they're going to do when the prey shows up."

"Listen to you, Buzz. When do I shoot Ellie?"

Buzz chuckled, then shook his head.

"Me Sam. Big wampum hunter," Sam said with a deep voice. "Me grab Ellie by hair. Take to teepee. Buck-ee give Sam many cattles. Sam not like golf with Buck-ee."

"You know, Sam, your sense of humor is getting better."

"It's a coping mechanism
for hanging out with you," Sam replied.

"See, that proves it. Soon, you'll actually
be
funny, as opposed to
almost
being funny."

"How come you always get in the last word, Buzz?"

"It's the way the world is. Accept it, Grasshopper, and you will be truly at peace."

Sam gave up and gave in.

"So what should I say when I call her up?" he asked Buzz after a minute.

"Not much. The shorter the better.
Keep it simple. Ask her out for coffee, or a drink. Get a commitment. Then the whole thing starts over again, as she emotionally looks forward to whatever it is. After the date is set, start firing flower salvos. Again: keep it simple. A rose. A simple arrangement. Send it to where she works so she can talk with the other chicks in the office about you."

"Wow."

"Yes, wow. Think wow, Sam. Women
are wow. Drop the w and wow becomes woe."

"Huh?"

"Forget it. It's a bad pun, or word play, or whatever. Ah, here's our exit. We'll be at the Lourdes Shrine in a few minutes."

"Huh?"

"Hey, McFly? I'm talking to you. You need to expand your vocabulary. 'Huh' is limiting. It alienates me. I don't feel like hugging you. Expand your grunts, Tarzan. Use more than one word per sentence–"

"Why so nasty,
Buzz?"

"I'm nervous, that's all. The Lourdes Shrine is just that: a religious shrine. It's not big, but it's beautiful and peaceful."

"So why would you think I wouldn't want to go there?"

"Dunno. Maybe because you don't believe in God. Just guessing…"

"You're right. I would have stayed at work if you told me. But now that we're here…besides, your advice for Ellie seems pretty sound. Thanks. I
really like her."

"Maybe you could pray for her here," Buzz suggested, purposely testing and pushing, as was his nature.

"You know I don't pray. But I'll look around. You can pray for me, if you want."

Buzz just nodded at his friend.
I sure will, Sammy. Better luck next time.

Buzz parked. They walked into the little shrine. Sam was impressed by the grounds, which were simply immaculate. There
was a reproduction of the grotto at Lourdes, France, where Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette in 1858. Buzz knelt and began to pray. Sam sat on a bench behind him.