Last Call (21 page)

She takes a deep breath using her entire body, and it appears that something monumental is about to happen, but she suddenly pulls back, and returns to swaying. The tourists glance around to see what could have caused the false start. The regulars, on the other hand, know that the atmosphere must be perfect for the spirit to come, and that such hesitations can occur another four or five times. But these only serve to increase the impact when it finally arrives, and after the next round of preparation, the moment is right. The woman seizes upon such a lungful of oxygen that she has to lean forward to catch it all and when she comes upright it’s only to bend so far back that she’s pointed way above their heads. When her mouth opens a stunning solo takes to the air that can make dreams come to life with its powerful message of praise, sacrifice, and hope. The final “Jesus” momentarily stops the pulse of every person in the sanctuary as the last
s
hovers in the air long past any remembrance of the middle
s
. The note goes straight up past the altar and directly to the gates of heaven. As the vocalist comes in for a landing the worshipers bow their heads in thanks for being blessed by experiencing such a moving encounter with the truly divine and otherwise inscrutable.

Following the service Hayden manages to shake hands with half the congregation and gets invited to a revival meeting along with the annual pancake ’n’ prayer breakfast. Then the trio clamber back into the sweltering car and head to the waterfront village of Red Hook, with its cobblestone streets and old-fashioned clam shacks. The neighborhood is cut off from the rest of South Brooklyn by the Gowanus Expressway, out on a peninsula that even the subways don’t reach. Hayden explains how during World War II it was a bustling center of shipbuilding, shipping, and warehousing.

Now the streets are quiet except for summer Sundays when a converted barge acts as a stage for vaudeville acts, jugglers, comedians, and sleight-of-hand artists. While Joey and Rosamond compete with each other to figure out how the magic tricks are accomplished Hayden becomes bored and wanders across the street to argue with some nicely dressed Jehovah’s Witnesses handing out copies of their spiritual newsletter
Awake!

On the way home they pull up in front of a ramshackle shop on Court Street in Carroll Gardens to pick up fresh mozzarella, as per Diana’s orders, so that she can make lasagna the next day. The local scene is reminiscent of the movie
Goodfellas
, where a good cannoli takes priority over most everything else. As they pass the bakery favored by both the Colombo and Gambino families, Joey begs Hayden, “Can we please get napoleons?”

They pause in front of the bakery where the windows are filled with cookies and chocolate éclairs and the luscious smell of fresh baked bread drifts out onto the street.

“What are napoleons?” asks Rosamond.

“Pastry with custard cream.” Hayden points to the flaky pieces of cake topped with a delicate coating of brown-and-white icing. “Best baked goods in the world! I sure wouldn’t mind a chocolate éclair.” And though it’s only forty-five minutes until dinner, they rush into the bakery.

Hayden orders Joey’s napoleon and the chocolate éclair for himself. After torturous indecision Rosamond finally settles on zabaglione, a foamy custard flavored with Grand Marnier poured over fresh raspberries.

While enjoying the forbidden treats they stroll through the old section of Carroll Gardens where the row houses are set back from the street behind lush gardens containing painted Madonnas, Saint Francis birdbaths, and plaster sheep. Old folks relax in folding chairs on the lawns and children romp in plastic bathing pools. There’s no traffic to break the serenity and it’s possible to hear the birds scuffling in the trees above while the crickets tune up for their nightly concert. The narrow sidewalks are canopied by foliage and beyond the treetops the evening star flickers like a lamp just lit. It’s a perfect summer evening.

Even Joey realizes that the moment is special, as if the unstoppable river of time has temporarily been brought to a standstill. He suddenly looks up at them and somehow articulates exactly what Hayden and Rosamond are both thinking. “I wish this—this right now—could be forever.” He stretches his lanky young arms out wide in an attempt to describe the indescribable.

“Just enjoy the moment, Joe-Joe,” says Hayden, contentment in his voice, though he takes his grandson’s hand as if to say that he, too, wishes the soft summer twilight would never turn to darkness. “It’s a gift. That’s why they call it The Present.”

Joey reaches over and takes Rosamond’s hand so that he’s strolling down the dead-end street safe between the two of them. Rosamond is surprised, not by his gesture, because they’d often held hands, but because she’d envisioned heaven so many times while praying. It was always a mansion in the sky bathed in golden light with an endless number of rooms where God and the angels lived among all the souls granted salvation.

Only now she has another version of paradise to contemplate, entirely different from the previous image. Heaven is a tranquil street in Brooklyn where one can eat fresh raspberry custard and walk hand in hand with a sweet young boy. And on the other side is the ever-confident Hayden, who possesses the miraculous ability to cure the sad and make them happy again. Rosamond is convinced that nothing bad could ever happen with Hayden around.

chapter thirty-four

I
n the morning Father Hank is expected to arrive at any moment to continue his work restoring Hayden’s faith. “And remind me just who is supposed to be converting whom here?” Hayden asks Rosamond.

“May the best man win.” She grins.

“And what do I get if I win?” Hayden demands to know in his best dealmaker’s voice.

“Eternal damnation,” Rosamond tells him with mock sweetness. Though she doesn’t accompany the remark with her usual good-natured smile.

“C’mon, I’ll bet you two dollars he throws in the collar.”

Rosamond automatically gasps at the idea of wagering. Look at what happened to poor Job when Satan made a bet with God over his ability to remain steadfast in the face of tremendous suffering.

But Diana isn’t swayed by Hayden’s bravado or Rosamond’s apprehension. She calmly sits at the kitchen table in her nightgown reading the newspaper and catching up on all the latest disasters. Her dark beauty is even more outstanding at moments like this, when she’s without any makeup, her raven hair is pulled back from her face, and she’s concentrating on something, completely unaware of her appearance.

Diana takes a sip of coffee and wipes her mouth with her arm like a sailor at the end of a bar. “You’re on!” she says, surprising them both. “Twenty bucks for converting Hank.”

Before Hayden can attempt to raise the wager, knowing that even though his daughter is in debt, she’s employed and therefore still considerably more flush than someone just out of a convent, the phone rings. Diana picks up the receiver and they can all hear Linda’s high-pitched voice squawking on the other end.

“A lawyer?” Diana says with surprise and waves Hayden and Rosamond away as if to indicate that she’ll deal with her meddling sister alone. But they stand in stunned silence and so she takes the phone along with her coffee mug and goes upstairs.

Hayden is very much aware of how upset Rosamond has been since their visit to Linda’s. Most of the time the two converse so easily that it feels as if they share each other’s dreams. But when it comes to Linda, she won’t be reassured.

Hayden attempts to convince Rosamond once more. “There’s no reason to let her bother you.”

“I don’t understand why she doesn’t like me,” says Rosamond, thoroughly perplexed. At the convent there were occasionally petty jealousies and even differences of opinion, but the objective was to quickly eliminate such nonsense because it interfered with the overarching commitment to contemplation, prayer, and of course God.

“She’s always been insecure,” says Hayden.

“Linda acts as if I’m trying to . . . to
be
with you, or something,” she tells him, her voice filling with dismay.

Hayden is startled to hear Rosamond bring up the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Maybe this is his chance to revisit the relationship issue—specifically that he wishes she
would
try to “be” with him, especially since he thinks about making love to her almost all the time. “Now, now, she’s just concerned about my health. Don’t be put out by her sourpuss behavior. It’s just that . . . never mind.”

“What? If I said or did something to offend her, then please tell me.”

“No, no.” Hayden sighs, which is unusual for him. “Diana has always had people remarkin’ on how attractive she is, even as a baby. While Linda was the straight-A student and perfectly behaved. We—Mary and I—we always told the girls that it doesn’t matter how you look so long as you’re a good person. And it doesn’t matter how smart you are as long as you try your best. And not ten minutes later some well-meaning friend or relative would say to the girls, ‘So you’re the smart one and you’re the pretty one!’ And soon they were marked, or scarred, for life—Diana thinking she’s stupid and Linda convinced that she’s ugly.”

“But Diana isn’t stupid, and Linda isn’t unattractive.”

“Of course not. But I don’t claim to understand you women.” With Diana upstairs he takes advantage of the opportunity to make another pot of coffee.

For a moment Rosamond feels guilty. As a nun she’s supposed to have sympathy for those who are unkind to others. She’s been taught that people behave in such ways in an effort to find the love that is missing in their lives, and oftentimes the faith that has been lost. For that reason alone it’s her duty to show compassion and pray for Linda to find whatever it is she seeks.

However, Rosamond quickly decides that she’s no longer a practicing nun and therefore she doesn’t have to like Linda and she’s not about to. No one has ever been so mean to her. The worst thing anyone had done to Rosamond at the convent was report that she’d pressed wildflowers in a hymnal during her first year and so she had to beg soup for her supper.

Rosamond exhales as if to agree with Hayden that the situation truly is hopeless. She takes her polishing cloth out of the drawer and heads off to work on the picture frames in the living room. Polishing silver always helped her to relax while she contemplated difficult matters.

chapter thirty-five

W
hen Hank’s car finally pulls up Hayden is out on the front stoop enjoying the exuberant morning sunshine and trying to come up with a fix for the Linda problem. Hank apologizes for being delayed. One of the altar boys had forgotten about an egg salad sandwich that he’d left behind a pile of hymnals in the vestry and Hank had been charged with tracking down and eliminating the noxious odor.

Hayden laughs over the story and then asks, “Are you sure it was an accident?”

“An accident of youth,” Hank offers generously.

The two men sip coffee ice cream floats concocted by Joey and eventually pick up their conversation from the previous week. For Hayden has discovered an additional incentive to succeed in bringing Hank around to his way of thinking about God, other than to satisfy his salesman’s ego.

Hayden genuinely likes Hank. And he would feel a lot better about leaving Diana with a guy like him around the house. Not to mention that Joey will probably grow up to become an expert on infectious diseases if there isn’t some rational being on the premises to offset his mother’s highly developed hypochondria. Hank had played sports in high school and rebuilt car engines, and except for those little stumbling blocks of celibacy and the priesthood, seemed like a pretty good catch.

“You know, Hank, some of the Apostles were married,” says Hayden.

“Yes, well, they’ve changed the rules a bit since then.”

Hayden tries another approach. “So tell me why women can’t be priests? Now that doesn’t seem very fair, does it?”

“Because they don’t share a physical likeness with Jesus.”

“If that’s the requirement then why don’t all priests wear beards? And why aren’t they all Jews?” Hayden slaps his hand on his thigh so hard that he almost knocks over his mug.

Hank scrunches his forehead, looking more like a college student contemplating a calculus exam for which he hasn’t studied than a seminarian trying to come up with answers to The Big Questions. Finally he says, “Let me tell you a story.”

Hayden closes his eyes so he can pretend to listen, since he assumes it’s going to be one of the parables his mother was always recounting, emphasizing Jesus’ love for us.

“There were about a dozen pigeons living in the bell tower at Saint Agnes,” Hank begins and points in the general direction of the church. “Every time we went to ring the bells they desecrated our robes. Father Ryan and I tried everything to get rid of them—clanging garbage cans together, playing loud music, even shooting off rounds from a BB gun.”

Hayden has never before heard the Parable of the Pigeons and he opens his eyes with interest. “So what happened?”

“Father Ryan baptized and confirmed them and they never came back.”

“Ha, ha!” laughs Hayden and slaps his knee. “That’s a new one for me. You’ll have to tell that joke to Joey.”

The screen door opens and both men turn expecting to see Joey. It’s Diana on her way to catch the subway. As she steps between the two men Hank is once again distracted by her shapely figure, accentuated by a dove gray pantsuit and accessorized with chunky silver jewelry. Out of the tips of her black high-heeled sandals peek shiny red toenails. Matching red lipstick glows against her pale Scottish skin and sleek black hair pools around her shoulders. Diana and Hank greet each other cordially as she sweeps by like an unexpected wind on an otherwise calm day, the scent of jasmine trailing in the air behind her and floating heavenward like a prayer.

“It’s a bonny day, isn’t it Diana?” says Hayden in an effort to slow her down for a minute.

She gazes critically at the hot sun and cloudless sky. “It’s the kind of weather where people catch flu by going in and out of air-conditioning.”