Last Call (17 page)

“Beltane is the fertility festival on April thirtieth, though the boys have figured out a way to make it last for an entire week. And haggis is minced heart and liver mixed with suet, onions, and oatmeal. It’s supposed to be boiled in the stomach of the slaughtered animal, but that’s where I draw the line.”

“Draw a line for me, too,” concurs Rosamond.

chapter twenty-seven

A
s the days dissolve into weeks, Rosamond’s thoughts often return to her old life, not the convent itself so much as the simplicity of her former existence. It’s not that God wasn’t a complicated partner in a relationship, He was. But she’s beginning to suspect that relationships between men and women are somehow equally as intricate.

Prior to her diagnosis, Rosamond had settled into a peaceful routine, though one could argue that she’d become almost like a sleepwalker. And from time to time she
was
concerned about the numbness creeping into her soul, but according to her Sisters, this was supposed to be a growing ecstasy as a result of her love for Him. Thus she would often pray to be overwhelmed by grace and filled with an awareness of divine presence in order to counteract what she feared was simply an increasing lack of sensation.

Then she met Hayden. And her interior exploded into a riot of feelings as if an overture had suddenly started playing in her barren soul, encompassing every emotion from fearfulness and trepidation to amazement and unbridled joy. They were the antithesis of the virtues she’d been trained to cultivate—piety, conformity, purity, duty, reverence, solitude, and compliance.

In an effort to bridge the gap between old life and new, Rosamond decides to start attending Mass at the Catholic church at the end of the street. It certainly wasn’t the same as going to chapel five times a day, but it helped her maintain a connection with the past.

And though Rosamond rarely mentions anything about what went before, it’s obvious to Diana that she’s wistful for something lost. She often comes upon her friend gazing at the Hummel figurines above the mantel, silently moving her lips and twisting her wedding ring, as if in prayer.

It soon becomes apparent to Diana that Rosamond has no other friends in the area, and though she would never be so bold as to inquire, it doesn’t seem possible for the former nun to go back and visit her old life.

“Why don’t you come along to my book group?” Diana asks her early one evening as Hayden and the Greyfriars Gang settle in to watch
Braveheart
. (He has recently increased their meetings from once a week to whenever possible.) “It’s with some old school friends in Larchmont, where we used to live. And driving along the water is so pretty this time of year.”

“If you don’t think they’ll mind,” says Rosamond.

“It’s really more to socialize,” says Diana. “We don’t know how to play bridge. Our grandmothers tried to teach us when we were growing up, but back then we thought it was totally
uncool
.”

Diana navigates the station wagon along the Bronx River Parkway and through a maze of overpasses and viaducts. Rosamond is fascinated at how the boarded-up buildings, billboards for discount mattresses, and auto junkyards suddenly metamorphose into tree-lined neighborhoods with soccer nets in the front yards. The sun is low in the sky as they drive down Chatsworth Avenue, giving a shiny cast to metal signs, store windows, and gutters along the edges of building roofs as they catch the sharp slanted rays of light. Diana turns right onto Boston Post Road and then makes a left onto Larchmont Avenue. After passing the firehouse and police station she points to a gorgeous stone church in Fountain Square. “That’s Saint John’s, where my grandparents went. And where my parents were married.” She pulls the car over for a quick look. “It’s Episcopalian.”

There’s been a wedding, and Rosamond stares at the dozen or so people in their Sunday best posing for pictures out front, especially the beautiful bride in her white silk dress with a train so long that a girlfriend needs to carry it across the threshold so that it doesn’t drag on the ground.

Looking at the bride and groom a tear comes to Diana’s eye. “They’re so lucky. I hope it works out.”

“You’ll meet someone,” Rosamond encourages her friend. “When I was a schoolgirl we had a very short prayer: Dear Saint Anne, please send a man.”

“Oh, there are plenty of men. I’m just afraid I’ll never meet the right one. And have what my parents had, or even what annoying Linda and boring old Ted have.”

“Of course you will. You’re intelligent and attractive—”

Diana nods her head at these words as if she’s been hearing them all her life, and nowadays only serve to convince her that they’re not true, that people say them just to make her feel better.

Rosamond is again struck by the fact that for some mysterious reason she has yet to comprehend, Diana truly lacks confidence in herself.

“So how come you stopped going to church?” asks Rosamond.

Diana assumes that by changing the subject her friend is acknowledging that it’s true, that she doesn’t have much chance of finding someone.

“Same reason everyone stops going, I guess. It was more my parents’ thing. And Joey’s father certainly didn’t have any interest in going.”

“Was there anything you liked about it?”

“Yes. It made my mother so happy. She would save up all her problems, bring them here, and leave feeling that it was a brand-new week and everything was going to be fine. I was always amazed by how such an intelligent woman could leave a crisis in the hands of God. . . . Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no.” Rosamond involuntarily smiles that secret smile, the way nuns always do at people “on the outside” who act as if the daily grind were more important than their spiritual lives. Onlookers rarely understood how nuns could have committed their entire lives, hearts, and spirits to something that can neither be seen nor touched.

“What’s so amusing?” asks Diana.

“Well, we get hit with that quite often,” says Rosamond. “I imagine it’s become a sort of refrain like men always saying how attractive you are.”

“Oh.” But Diana doesn’t really see the connection.

“Listen,” says Rosamond. “I’m not suggesting that you should start going to church again.” They both automatically glance out the window at the handsome old church and the happy wedding party. “But it may be worth considering where your mother got her confidence—her confidence that you and Linda wouldn’t be run over on the way home from school, that her husband wouldn’t stray, that the bills would eventually be paid. You have to believe in
something
, Diana, even if it’s not God. Even if it’s just yourself.”

“You mean like Dad? I
know
he doesn’t believe in God.”

“But it doesn’t mean that at one time or another he didn’t look fear right in the face and decide how to deal with it.”

Diana briefly considers Hayden’s difficult early life in comparison to her own relatively easy one. Rosamond was right, he did indeed possess the confidence of an evangelist.

A tremendous cheer goes up as the bride and groom dash through the crowd hand in hand under a shower of birdseed.

“The gardens are so beautiful,” says Rosamond.

“So are the cars,” says Diana. She gazes at the line of brand-new Mercedes and shiny BMWs out front, comparing them to Hayden’s ten-year-old Ford station wagon with the rust patches on the doors. Diana had been forced to sell her little Mazda Miata when the child support and alimony checks stopped coming, shortly before they moved to Brooklyn. Now she was dependent on the subway and borrowing her father’s car, just like when she was a teenager.

chapter twenty-eight

T
hey locate a parking spot on the side of the road two doors down from Selma Thackery’s sprawling brick ranch house, since the circular driveway is already filled with Audis and SUVs. A group of twelve women in their early to mid-thirties has gathered at the home of Diana’s closest childhood friend. Some wear linen business suits indicating that they’ve come directly from high-powered jobs in the city, and others are dressed as if they were recently finger painting with active toddlers.

The group has just finished reading the new Andrea Aniston novel called
All for Love
, which is being hailed by the critics as a “thinking woman’s romance.” Only it isn’t until they actually sit down for a discussion that it occurs to Diana the subject of the book might not be appropriate for one who has just fled a nunnery. On the other hand, maybe it will advance Diana’s hidden agenda of Hayden and Rosamond falling in love so that he’ll finally consent to try the treatment for his cancer.

Selma passes trays of dainty canapés and nori rolls that obviously came from a gourmet shop while Lynn Kohnstamm begins with a summary of the plot, just in case anyone didn’t finish the book. Then she declares the meeting open for comments and critique.

“I think it’s unrealistic that a married woman with two children would cheat on her husband to get back at him for having an affair,” insists Magda Waterston.

“Why not?” counters Geraldine Baxter. “If it were the opposite, if the man found out his wife was cheating, I’ll bet you’d believe it if he went off and had an affair.”

“I’m not so sure,” says another woman, sexier than most of the others in a black halter top and denim skirt. “Did anyone see that movie where the wife has an affair with that incredibly sexy French actor?” All the women except for Rosamond nod their heads to indicate that they’d indeed seen the movie and more than one face appears dreamy at the memory of their favorite male star. “Well, the deceived husband didn’t have his own affair, he went off and killed the lover.”

“That man is
so
sexy,” says one of the women.

“To die for,” says another.

“Is he
really
French?” asks another.

“He is,” a quiet woman in a frumpy oversized sweater interjects. “He’s a French citizen, born in Paris, France, January 12, 1966,” she reports like an obsessive fan.

“Well, he can put those used books that he deals in on my bedside table any time of the day or night,” says the halter top.

“He’s too short for you,” oversized sweater states authoritatively. “Five-foot-seven.”

Clearing her throat in the manner of a high school teacher whose class discussion has run away from her, Selma asks, “What’s your impression, Rosamond?” Like a good hostess she makes an effort to include their visitor, who appears slightly lost, and about whose background she is unaware. “Do you think Miranda should have had the affair?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Rosamond is startled to be called upon and is still wondering who this mysterious man is they’re all talking of and seem to know so much about. “I didn’t read the book. And it’s hard for me to even imagine such a situation, being that I just came from two decades in a convent and was recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.”

The women stare at her and then look to Diana, as if their guest’s life is a hundred times more interesting than anything they’ve
ever
read in a novel or seen portrayed on the screen. Meanwhile, at the mention of lung cancer, Selma grabs for the closest ashtray and immediately stubs out her cigarette. Before the discussion can go any further the phone rings.

A moment later their hostess returns from the kitchen and addresses Diana. “It’s your neighbor, Mrs. Trummel. The police are at your place again. It isn’t a Greyfriars night by any chance, is it?” She gives the group a wry smile. Having known Diana since elementary school, most of the women are familiar with her father’s tremendous enthusiasm for social occasions.

“These days any night can be a Greyfriars night.” Diana rises and gathers her things. “Especially since Dad splurged on the large-screen TV so that life-sized Scots and English can do battle every night thanks to DVD copies of
Rob Roy
and
Braveheart
.”

Diana turns to Rosamond. “We’d better go. The Scots spend most of their time fighting wars; only when there isn’t a war, they fight one another. Last week it was over who invented the jig—the Scots or the Irish.”

As they say good-bye to the group something about the previous discussion suddenly occurs to Rosamond. “You know, there’s a similar situation in the Book of John.”

“John Grisham?” asks Selma.

“No. The Bible. A woman cheated on her husband and they were about to stone her. But Jesus said that whoever is without sin should be the first to throw a stone at her. So she was saved. But he said she must leave her life of sin behind.”

The women nod at her, as if this is indeed an interesting take on
All for Love
, and all the more valuable coming directly from a convent.

When Diana and Rosamond open the front door
Braveheart
is nearing its end and all the men, along with Joey and Hugh’s teenage son Andrew, are shouting and raising their fists at the TV during the final battle scene. Diana’s eyes land on the bagpipes and snare drum on the floor next to the couch. By standing directly in front of the set she blocks most of the picture while muting the volume. The rowdy men boo her and angrily raise their glasses.

“Dad, were the police here again? And why is Joey still up?”

Hayden waves her off like an annoying mosquito. “Oh, Alisdair was playing along on the pipes while we were butchering the Brits. Old Mrs. Trummel trounced on us for making a ruckus.”

“Okay boys, that’s enough Gaelic culture for one evening.” Diana extends the channel clicker like a lightning rod and turns off the TV set. “You’ve seen this a million times.” The men continue to hiss and denounce her. Diana removes the two bottles of Lagavulin whiskey from the end tables only to find they’re empty. Next she turns to her son. “Joey, go to bed right now or else your growth will be permanently stunted from lack of sleep!”

Rosamond also finds herself highly unamused by Hayden gambling so recklessly with his health. After her initial fascination with the merry Greyfriars Gang, she’s come to agree with Diana. As well-intentioned as they may be in wanting to help take Hayden’s mind off his illness, they
are
a bad influence. And the mornings following their rambunctious gatherings he’s usually in terrible shape, barely capable of moving and unable to eat anything.