Last Call (18 page)

Rosamond is about to demand to know why he’s so intent on killing himself. But even in his inebriated state Hayden anticipates her and slinks off to his room, quickly closing the door behind him.

chapter twenty-nine

I
n the morning Hayden lies in his new bed pretending to be asleep while waiting for Diana to finish in the kitchen and leave for work. His daughter, however, knows that he always fakes sleep on his side so he can keep an eye on the door and really only sleeps on his back or stomach. She noisily enters the room carrying a large glass of purplish-brown prune juice and the cordless phone.

“You look terrible!” She waves the telephone handset over his body like a laser pointer. “I’m calling the doctor.”

“Don’t you dare!” He makes a halfhearted attempt at grabbing the phone away from her. “It’s bad enough he already wants me as a free guinea pig.” His voice sounds throaty and nasal. “Besides, it’s just a cold.”

Diana examines the bedside table and finds a tumbler with an amber-hued stain on its bottom along with a spilled container of aspirin and glares down at him like an Old Testament prophet. “I think it’s more like a Highland Hangover.” She replaces the cocktail glass with the one containing the juice. “Dad, all this aspirin is ripping apart your stomach, and you
know
what the doctor said about drinking . . .”

“It’s possible that Paddy overserved me just slightly,” Hayden admits with a twinkle in his eye. “He has a heavy hand with the—”

“Please, I could hear you reciting ‘Lochinvar’ while I was loading the dishwasher.”

“Lovely poem.”

“All eight stanzas!”

“Now, Sir Walter Scott is a good example of a man who was devoted to his art and yet held a regular job,” says Hayden in an effort to turn her attention away from his liquor consumption. “He was a lawyer and the sheriff of Selkirk for thirty years. If you insist on marrying an artist, why can’t it be one with a salary?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Joey enters the sunroom in his pajamas and Hayden begins reciting:
“So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,”
and then points to Joey who raises his right arm as if brandishing a sword and finishes:
“There never was knight like the young Lochinvar!”

Hayden claps his hands and Joey beams with pride while Diana scowls at them both. Then Hayden leans his head against the pillow as if he could go back to sleep for another eight hours.

“You don’t look very good,” says Joey. “Are you going to die today, Grandpa?” Joey glances around the room to see if The Cancer Monster is lurking in a corner or else has a big, hairy green foot sticking out from under the bed.

“I do’an’ think so. But as long as I’m under the weather we should use the situation as a trial run. Now be a good lad and fetch the newspaper and then make your grandpa a bender-mender of black coffee and toast.”

Rosamond enters the room wearing a white low-cut silk robe, obviously borrowed from Diana, and sits down in a chair next to Hayden’s bed. Diana rolls her eyes before leaving as if to say, “I give up, he’s all yours today.”

“So, did you play the bagpipes last night?” Rosamond asks.

“No darlin’, I’ve given up me pipes until I can go grouse hunting back home in the Sidlaw Hills outside o’ Dundee. Takes too much lung power.” He explains this in an exaggerated brogue and then adds a cough for emphasis. Though Hayden uses the opportunity of moving his head up and down to take a surreptitious look at Rosamond in the flowing robe with a pink negligee peeking out from underneath and decides she’s quite fetching from head to foot.

Once Joey has dutifully delivered the paper and toast, but no coffee, and headed off to watch cartoons, Rosamond asks, “Hayden, I was wondering, would you do me a favor?”

“Oh whistle and I’ll come to ye, my lass, O whistle, and I’ll come to ye—”
but he starts coughing for real. After taking a sip of prune juice Hayden manages to croak out, “Robbie Burns.”

“I’ve invited a young man over this morning,” begins Rosamond.

Upon hearing the words
young man
Hayden’s brows float upward like two twigs in a storm, not unlike Diana’s when she’s preparing to deliver an impromptu sermon. Hayden is willing to admit that he’s been attracted to Rosamond from the first moment her heavy silver cross smacked him full in the face when she leapt up to do the wave. However, he’s also aware that he’s fourteen years her senior. Though what should age matter if they’re both going to die soon anyway? But more important, it’s obvious from the backyard disaster that she’s not thinking along those same lines. Still, that doesn’t mean he’ll allow someone else to threaten her honor!

Sensing that Hayden might be coming to the wrong conclusion, and very much not wanting him to, Rosamond adds, “Hank’s a priest. At least he’s training to become a priest, just a few more months to go. I met him in the hospital when he was doing rounds and then ran into him again last Sunday when I wandered over to the church at the end of your street. And . . . and I’d like you to speak with him.”

Hayden is relieved that Rosamond isn’t suddenly producing a beau so shortly after turning him down. Yet at the same time he’s annoyed by this attempt to pour religion down his throat. “Oh Rosie, I thought ye’d given up on all this God codswallop.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” she insists. “It’s simply that I don’t believe this young man has the calling, I mean, I’m afraid that he’s making a mistake.”

Hayden laughs with no small amount of relief. “Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”

“There’s something about you, Hayden . . . how can I say this so it doesn’t come out sounding all wrong? You have a way of making people feel either much better or much worse about their religion. And so I fibbed just a bit. I told him you have spiritual conflicts that need immediate attention. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Glad to know I’m still good for something.” Perhaps the way to Rosamond’s heart is through performing deeds of heroism and chivalry like a Scottish Don Quixote.

“Wonderful, because he’s going to stop by in a few minutes, on the way to Mass.” She moves toward the door. “Now I must go and put something on.”

Hayden shakes his head in an attempt to shrug off his hangover. “Does it have to be this morning?”

As if in answer to his question the doorbell rings.

chapter thirty

E
mbarrassed at being caught in her nightclothes, Rosamond pulls the robe tight around her before going to the door and directing the young man to Hayden’s bedside. Henry Flaherty is tall, broad, clean-shaven, and crowned with a lion’s mane of golden brown hair that makes him look like a schoolboy when it flops into his eyes, which is every time he wags his big head.

“Father Flaherty, I presume,” says Hayden. Americans rarely catch his reference to when the
New York Herald
correspondent Henry Stanley found the famous Scottish missionary Dr. David Livingstone in Africa.

But Hank shakes Hayden’s hand and actually acknowledges the reference. “I’m afraid my missionary work was in Guatemala, Mr. Stanley. And please just call me Hank.”

Rosamond leaves the two men alone while she goes upstairs to shower and change. As she passes the hall clock she can’t help but think what the mother superior would have to say about shuffling around in a carnation pink negligee covered by a silk bathrobe at half past eight in the morning. The nuns were out of their scratchy cotton oatmeal-colored nightdresses and into their habits by four
A.M
. And barely thirty minutes later they were kneeling on the cold marble floor of the chapel for morning prayers. Lauds was said at daybreak, thanking God for the first light, as at the beginning of creation, and for the light of Christ’s resurrection. Following that the nuns chanted the first interlude of the Divine Office.

Meanwhile, Hayden is not so easily won over by the young man at his bedside and gives him a cold stare that suggests he should state his business and get a move on.

But the priest-in-training only stands next to the bed and nervously fingers the Saint Christopher medal hanging from his key ring. And Hayden gives in to his natural instincts for breaking the ice and making potential clients comfortable.

“You’ve got the map of Ireland all over your name and face there,” says Hayden.

“Actually my mother’s people are Scottish—Moncreiffe.”

Hayden’s sparkling green eyes ignite with interest. But he quickly realizes that Rosamond must have tipped Hank off. After all, hadn’t Hayden confided in her that he used to snare his biggest customers by opening his sales pitches with a little Scottish lore? But Hayden can’t help himself. And he’s not about to fall for any sales pitch from God anyhow.

“That’s from the Gaelic
Monadh Craoibhe
, meanin’ ‘the hill of the sacred bough.’ ” Hayden begins talking clans and tartans and becomes very animated. “Joey,” Hayden calls into the living room, where the distinct high-pitched voices of cartoon characters can be heard coming from the television set. “Be a good lad and fetch my book o’ Scottish clans from the coffee table!”

But it’s Diana who comes through the archway and hands him the book. She’s stunning in a mint green suit with a purple scarf tied loosely around her neck, smoke-colored eyes and crushed cherry lips prettily accentuated with makeup. Her dream-dark hair streams down her back the way night spills across an open field. And in her wake rises the smooth but insistent scent of vanilla.

Rather than be curious as to why a stranger is talking to Hayden about Scottish history, Diana is more interested in who the very attractive stranger is. Hank is unquestionably handsome and looks professional in a black cotton shirt and neatly pressed pants that emphasize his athletic build. Hayden introduces the two as Diana proffers one of her more flirtatious hellos, where her wide-set eyes and broad smile serve to heighten the sharp arc of her cheekbones.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting company.” Diana smoothes her hair and straightens her skirt as if she’s been caught in an old housedress.

“He’s studying to be a priest.” Hayden quickly clarifies the situation.

Diana reexamines the visitor’s outfit.
“Oh.”
She withdraws her hand in a businesslike manner. “Yes, of course. Well, have a wonderful time discussing religion with Dad. I’m going to be late for work if I don’t leave right this minute.” She kisses Hayden good-bye on the cheek and sneaks another glance at Hank while she’s bending over, only to catch him staring at her figure, as she thought he might be. He looks away, but it’s too late, his face flushes and his expression is that of a man who accidentally walked into the ladies’ bathroom and wants to get out in a hurry. With a delicate wave of her fingers at the two men Diana exits the room.

Hayden coughs and takes a sip of juice. But this only makes him grimace now that he realizes it’s been spiked with one of her vitamin concoctions. “Oh God, I need Rosie to make me a cup o’ coffee.” It’s obvious that Joey’s attempt was thwarted by The Nutrition Department. He turns to Hank. “I’m sorry but I’m a bit under the weather from last night.”

“Party?” asks Hank.

“Oh, good heavens no,” Hayden replies with the utmost sincerity. “Lips that touch wine shall never touch mine. Late night prayer vigil.”

“Of course.” Hank nods his head in understanding, as if the exhausting rigors of the supremely devoted are all too familiar.

After the small talk seems to come to a natural close, the younger man clears his throat and begins his prepared remarks in a serious voice that occasionally croaks with postadolescent uncertainty. “Mr. MacBride, Sister Rosamond tells me that you’ve lost your faith in God.”

“She did now, did she?” Hayden’s business instincts tell him that Rosamond may be trying to trick him with this rubbish about “the poor father-to-be not having the call” and that she’s actually sent this Sky Pilot to convert him, her final good work before departing this world. Well, he hadn’t dealt with sheep rustlers as a teenager and then been on the casualty and property side of the insurance industry for twenty years just to be conned by some wet-behind-the-ears Holy Joe. Two can play at the conversion game.

“Since being declared a goner from The Cancer I can honestly say I no longer feel His blessing.” The truth of the matter is that Hayden stopped feeling the blessing of anyone he couldn’t see with his own two eyes after his brother, father, and sister died by the time he was sixteen, his mother praying up a storm all the while. Because it wasn’t God who eventually lent assistance to their plight, but the fact that after losing the farm he and his mother both worked long hard hours in order to get back on their feet. Hayden’s religion was simple: Get an education and find work. Or as he liked to tell the trainees when asked for the secret to his success: show up, buck up, suck it up, and don’t fuck it up.

And when your number is up, don’t moan about it, especially if you had a pretty good run—food on the table, healthy children and grandchildren, and of course the love of a good woman.

“Do you think it would help if we prayed together?” Hank asks in his earnest baritone.

“No, no. I have too many unanswered questions. Faith can be a sticky wicket. For instance, if I accidentally back over a pregnant woman with my station wagon do you think it’s God’s will? And if my grandson kills for his country will he go to hell?”

The priestling appears momentarily distressed. “Of course not!”

“Then let me ask you something else, do you think Adam and Eve had navels?”

“What?” Poor Padre Hank is still totally unaware he’s being strung along.

“You know, belly buttons, because that would imply birth, not divine creation.”

“No,” Hank muses. “No, they couldn’t possibly have.”

“But tha’ would mean they weren’t perfect human bein’s then!” Hayden declares triumphantly, his brogue swelling. “And what about war? How can we say God is on our side while the other side is sayin’ the exact same thing?”

Before Hank can attempt to answer, Rosamond reenters wearing a peach-colored sundress with white sandals, hands a glass of iced tea to Hank, and places a steaming mug on Hayden’s bedside. “It sounds as if you’re feeling better.”

Hayden looks at the hot liquid with suspicion and wrinkles his entire upper body as he inhales the lemony vapors.

“Diana said that you were to have this herbal tea instead of coffee because of your ulcer.”

“You realize that you’re forcing me to pour a shot o’ whiskey into this concoction?”

Rosamond ignores Hayden’s threat. “Are you two having a nice chat?”

“I don’t think there’s anything more to be said.” Hank looks down at the wedge of parquet flooring between his size thirteen shoes.

“Oh dear, I was afraid of that. Well, then, I have a proposal. Why don’t we all go to the Empire State Building today? We still haven’t gone there.”

“No New Yorker has
ever
been to the Empire State Building!” moans Hayden. “It’s a bloody rip-off for out-of-towners.”

“Come on. You promised to do all the things that we’ve never done before we . . . you know . . .”

“How about tomorrow?” Hayden bargains.

Rosamond holds up her charm bracelet with the silver Empire State Building dangling from it. For a woman who apparently didn’t want to act like a woman when it came to kissing, she’d certainly figured out how to run the guilt game. Then again, she was Catholic.

“Oh, all right,” a grumpy Hayden acquiesces.

Rosamond looks at the young priest. “Won’t you join us?”

“I have to do some marriage counseling. It’s part of my internship.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” says Hayden. “A single celibate twenty-year-old is counseling people on marriage!”

“I’m
thirty-one
,” the boyish-faced Hank remarks with visible irritation toward Hayden. Then he turns his pleasant smile on Rosamond. “But thank you for the invitation, Sister.”

“It’s just Rosamond now, Father,” she corrects him. Rosamond is somewhat shocked to hear the words as they come from her mouth, as if she’s considering taking them back.

“And it’s not Father . . . yet,” Hank tells her.

Hayden scowls at this overly polite ecclesiastical blather, turns to Hank and demands, “So when are you coming back? I hate to remind you but I do’an’ have all the time in the world.”

“But . . . but.” Hank is convinced that he has failed miserably in his mission to make Hayden a believer. “You want me to come
back
?”

Hayden also feels that he hasn’t succeeded in the challenge Rosie gave him of testing the young man’s resolve. But more than that, he’s taken a shine to the young man. “How do you expect to restore me faith if you do’an’ come back? Or am I that hopeless?” Hayden asks playfully.

But Hank regards his remarks with gravity. “How about Monday?”

“ ’Tis Monday then.”

“Go in peace,” Hank says as he walks toward the hallway.

“Not in pieces,” Hayden calls after him.

“Hayden!” says Rosamond.

He ignores her scolding. “Now why can’t Diana date a nice young man like that?”

“Because you’re too strong and her mother was too perfect,” Rosamond says as she hands him the tea and neatly arranges herself in the chair next to his bed. It is painfully obvious to Rosamond that Diana’s low self-esteem comes from idolizing her parents and being terrified that she can never live up to their example or expectations.

“
What!
What did you just say?”

“Hayden, I never knew your wife, but from all accounts she was beyond reproach.”

Hayden smiles, recalling Mary’s attributes. “She was a good woman, though she had a temper, indeed she did. Threw me out in the street one freezin’ winter night wearing only the clothes on my back, not even an overcoat.” He shakes his head at the memory, though without volunteering what he may have done to incur such wrath in the first place.

Rosamond doesn’t ask, but assumes it had something to do with whiskey and possibly the Greyfriars Gang. “I can tell that Diana greatly admired her mother. Believe it or not, many young women came to the convent in large part to escape their mothers.”

Aha, thinks Hayden, she never meant to be a nun in the first place. Her mother was probably trying to marry her off to someone she despised and fleeing to the convent offered the only escape. “Is that why you went in?” he asks hopefully. Hayden would love nothing more than for Rosamond to say that taking vows had all been a terrible mistake.

“My mother passed away a few hours after I was born. There were complications. And my father was a lobster boat captain up in Maine. When it was time for me to get an education he sent me to a convent school in western Massachusetts where his sister was a teacher.”

Hayden looks at Rosamond with a mixture of surprise and concern. “I’m sorry,” he finally manages to say, as if someone had just been declared dead.

“No, no. That’s just the point. It sounds much worse than it is. I’m sure it
was
difficult on my father, because he loved her ever so much. But he eventually remarried and I would spend vacations with him and my stepmother. And because I never knew my real mother, I can’t really miss her, except of course the idea of her. However, my aunt Kathy, my mother’s older sister, was perfectly lovely and I had a wonderful time at the school where she taught, even though it was strict.”

“So what you’re saying is that by trying to be everything to Diana we didn’t leave her room to be herself.”

Rosamond folds her hands in her lap and looks past him, out the window, where the sky is painted in Easter colors and birds poke in the grass for worms. “Not necessarily. I just think it might be a challenge to live up to the example that you and Mary set. And so it’s easier to go in the opposite direction, to not even try and come close in her work and relationships.”

“You know what you can do for me, Rosamond?” Hayden raises his voice and bangs the mug down on the bedside table so that the tea slops over the edge.

“What?” Rosamond is suddenly concerned that she’s offended him by speaking so boldly, but she knows no other way. They conversed very little at the convent, and when they did it was straightforward, constructive, and essential, such as when they reviewed their faults.

“Tell Joey to get dressed,” Hayden announces in his grouchiest voice, “so we can go to the blessed Empire State Building!”

chapter thirty-one

I
t’s a perfect summer day on the Isle of Manhattan, where the sun is an enormous gold disk glittering above the resplendent steel-and-glass skyline. The city appears to be a fortress of shiny windows with water towers placed high up on the rooftops, as if to prevent access by the enemy.