Last Call (27 page)

“Got it. Have a plan. Like putting up a building. No random fondling.”

Once again she puts her hands on his waist. “I have to be honest with you, Hank.”

“Yes?” He’s clearly worried.

“I can tell that you’ll be a magnificent lover. But I wonder, do you want to continue? I mean, you paid for it, and I’m more than willing.”

“Oh, yes. I mean, thank you. I mean, no . . . no, I don’t think I’d better.”

“I didn’t think so. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he admits shyly.

Bobbie Anne slides her hands off his waist. “That’s sweet,” she says sincerely. Then she points down the corridor. “The bathroom is down that hall.”

An hour later Hayden leaps out from behind the side of the house the moment Hank emerges.

“Darn Hayden, you scared me!” says Hank. “Have you been here the entire time?”

“She’s incredible, right?” Hayden winks at him.

“She’s very nice,” Hank says matter-of-factly. “And knowledgeable.”

“Did she . . . you know, did you give her a climax?” Hayden is still curious if Bobbie Anne really experienced an orgasm with him or just faked it to be polite.

“She showed me what I needed to know.”

“And what was that, exactly?”

“That’s for me to know and Diana to find out.”

He gives it one last try. “Bobbie Anne’s a very stimulating woman, if you know what I mean.” His brogue strengthens.

“
You
made love to her?” Hank looks astonished.

Hayden gives him a smug smile in return. “Let’s just say the very thought of it brings a tear to me eye . . .”

chapter forty-four

O
n the way out of the house in the morning, Diana finds Hayden busy at the dining room table, one hand on the phone, the other flipping through the Yellow Pages and scribbling what Diana sees are the names and numbers of doctors onto a notepad.

Hoping against hope that Rosamond has indeed changed Hayden’s mind about trying the experimental cancer therapy, Diana attempts to sound nonchalant. “Is that list for Rosamond?”

She’s even more pleased when Hayden, annoyed by the distraction adds, “ ’Tis for the both of us. What did you think, it’s a hit list for your friend Anthony?”

“Oh, Dad!” Diana gives him a big kiss on the forehead before she leaves. “Rosamond’s been such a good influence on you.”

“Me influence your father?” Rosamond says as she comes through the archway from the kitchen carrying two cups of coffee. “That’ll be the day.”

Diana is in a hurry to get to work early and doesn’t have time to talk. She simply kisses Rosamond on the cheek and says under her breath, “Call me at the office if there’s any news.”

As she watches Diana leave the house, Rosamond wonders what kind of news Diana is after. Sitting down at the table she takes a sip of hot coffee in an effort to fully wake up and only then gets a look at Hayden’s latest research project.

“We have to start seeing doctors today,” Hayden announces as he rips his list in half and hands the top portion to Rosamond. “You call and make appointments with these four.”

She takes the paper from him and looks skeptical.

“Don’t worry, yours are all women,” he assures her. “I thought you might feel funny about men, you know . . .”

“Hayden, I don’t understand . . . I thought we’d decided to go out naturally—no chemotherapy, ginseng cures, or experimental drugs.”

“Exactly! And I just realized that we do’an’ have any pills for you. Cyrus only gave me enough for one person.”

“What pills?”

“For our suicides, o’ course.”

Rosamond looks at him with horror. Hayden has often discussed how he refuses to put himself in the hands of life-extending physicians, but she wasn’t aware that he is actually planning to kill himself. She drops the list onto the table as if it’s poison.

“But Hayden,” she stammers, “that’s a sin.”

“A sin! ’Tis a sin to be charged five thousand dollars a day to be kept alive by machines in a hospital. ’Tis a sin to lose all your dignity and have the family change your diapers and wipe the drool from your chin.” Hayden slams the phone book closed and marches into the kitchen.

As Rosamond hears the clink of the whiskey bottle and a glass tumbler being removed from the cabinet she begins to weep. Her tears make round stains on the Yellow Pages and she doesn’t know if they’re for death, God, man himself, or for a particular man. Her life was so much less confusing when there were rules for everything—how to wake, think, walk, communicate, and even how to eat your soup. There were of course rules on how to die, but suicide was definitely not among them. Only she doesn’t know what or whom to believe anymore, or what to decide, not about how to live, and certainly not about how to die.

Hearing her sobs Hayden returns to the dining room but anxiously paces back and forth while searching for words. He was a natural joker and thus at his worst and most impatient when confronted with other people’s grief. “Listen Rosie, I know we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum on the religion thing, but there just isn’t time. I’m not feelin’ all that well these days and I’m probably goin’ to strike bedrock first. Do you want them to hook you up to a machine for three weeks, or worse, three months? I mean, I respect your beliefs, honest I do, but will you try to have an open mind? You’ve got to stop worrying about the hereafter and start concentrating on the here and now.”

Rosamond wipes away her tears with a napkin. “How do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, can you show me any proof that this God of yours exists?”

“Of course I can, Hayden—there are miracles all around us. Just look at the grass and the trees and all the babies being born . . .” In her fervor to persuade him, she’s stopped crying.

“Okay, if I promise to go out and take a good look at the vegetation and whatever else you want then will you come and look at
my
proof?”

“As long as you’re not going to try and take me to the morgue again.” She visibly shudders at the memory of that particular educational adventure.

“No, no. I just want to show you that people make up all these gods and fables as a way of explainin’ what they do’an’ understand. It’s a damn business is what it is. And people like the idea of all that hocus-pocus. That way they do’an’ have to think for themselves.”

“Fine,” she agrees. “And I’ll prove to you the power of faith.”

The two shake hands as if concluding a business deal.

Hayden mysteriously claims that he can’t divulge his proof for another two days and so she should go first. Rosamond takes him to the nearby church where Hank had his internship. It’s an imposing sandstone edifice with a barrel-vaulted ceiling and copper dome-shaped roof resting on a circular drum that is surrounded by stained-glass windows. There’s a Latin cross at the top and twenty-four saints carved onto the outside walls.

Hayden and Rosamond enter through richly decorated double doors and pass ornamental panels depicting popular sacred stories such as the angel appearing to Mary, the birth of Jesus, and the Last Supper. Glass-and-wrought-iron light fixtures are strung from the ceiling with long black chains. On the back wall is a large tapestry depicting Jesus being crucified at Calvary and shaking his head “no” at the offer of an opiate to dull the pain.

Several people kneel in the darkened sanctuary and pray. A few more sit in quiet contemplation and one or two nap, escaping the hot, humid summer air outside. Midway down the side aisles is a mahogany shrine containing burned-down votive candles and vases of wilted flowers. Above them is a mural depicting Saint Teresa of Avila’s recurring visions. In the center an angel lifts her habit and thrusts a golden spear toward her heart as Teresa appears to swoon, both powerless and welcoming.

Rosamond’s gaze easily rests on the crucifix above the altar, with its suffering, bleeding, life-sized Christ. She contemplates how her illness has taken her so far from Him, rather than so much closer, as suffering should, and how in many ways it’s a relief. And yet she misses the daily marathon of striving for perfection, the joy of always reaching but never realizing such a lofty goal.

Meanwhile, Hayden stares up at the elaborate panels of stained-glass windows, fascinated by their ability to filter one ray of pure light from the sun into so many different colors, all splashed across the marble floor as if it were the work of a kaleidoscope. He’s not overwhelmed by the religious splendor of it all so much as the architectural majesty, the phenomenal fight human beings appear willing to wage against the unpleasant notion of being temporary. And that they’ll go to such incredible lengths to create an afterlife for themselves, complete with expensive monuments and paid clergymen.

There are certainly many reasons Hayden doesn’t want to die—the exhilaration of being with his family and friends, especially the uproarious fun he has with the Greyfriars; the chance to see Joey graduate from high school, and hopefully college; Diana settling down with a decent bloke like Hank.

And Hayden is curious about the future of the world as well, what his beloved Brooklyn will be like in fifty years, and if there will be a woman president by then. And if so, he prays that she will have beaten out his son-in-law to win the election. No, he doesn’t wish to die. At the same time, he can’t accept the idea that a free trip to heaven awaits him and that the Church has the tickets, that there is anything other than eternal nothingness. He’s resigned himself to the belief that the best a person can do is to make one’s life worth dying for. And of course support the spirits industry in accordance with one’s means. On those two counts, he’s satisfied that he’s done both to the best of his ability.

While Rosamond and Hayden stand in front of the life-sized depiction of the crucifixion she takes his hand, leans over, and whispers to him, “ ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ John, the Apostle.”

Hayden whispers back, “ ‘I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.’ Baruch Spinoza, the
Scientist
.”

But Rosamond only turns and starts to walk away.

And she is right, in her own way, thinks Hayden. Because the Church will stand tall longer than all the philosophers. It will stand much longer than the two of them. Hayden looks up at the forlorn Jesus. “Tell me about it,” he says to the figure nailed to the cross. “I believe I’m in love with her.”

From a few feet away Rosamond hears Hayden’s distinctive voice but when she turns she’s surprised because it appears that Hayden’s talking not to her but to Jesus. And she’s encouraged that perhaps he’s finally coming ’round to her way of thinking after all.

chapter forty-five

F
or Joey’s twelfth birthday a celebratory lunch has been planned. Hayden and Diana try to make the day as festive as possible in an effort to gloss over the fact that Joey doesn’t have any friends in the neighborhood and that his father broke his promise about fishing. Diana had tried to round up some boys from their old neighborhood but they were all away at summer camp.

Undaunted, Diana runs blue, white, and orange streamers in honor of the Mets from the chandelier in the dining room and makes Joey’s favorite foods: fried chicken, french fries, and chocolate ice cream cake. She presents him with a new computer to replace the one that Tony never brought back, and a gift certificate to buy some games for it. Rosamond puts a big red bow around Ginger’s neck and she and Hayden give Joey a brand-new aluminum bat and a baseball autographed by the famous Cincinnati Reds catcher Johnny Bench, one of his idols.

They sing “Happy Birthday” and Joey blows out all the candles. Rosamond adds a verse of “May the Good Lord Bless You” for good measure. Hayden disappears into the kitchen for a moment and when he returns it’s with a goblet of white wine in his hand.

“Dad,” says Diana, “it’s not even one o’clock yet.”

Rosamond looks at him as if she agrees with Diana.

“It’s only water,” Hayden casually lies.

Diana leans over and sniffs at the top of the glass. “It’s white wine!”

Hayden pretends to look utterly taken aback. “Good Lord, He’s done it again!”

They can’t help but laugh at Hayden’s dramatic double take.

Diana worries about Joey using such a large knife to cut the ice cream cake. Since it’s still partially frozen one slip would be enough to take off his entire hand. However, Hayden is pleased to observe that the lad uses a tall glass of hot water to warm the knife before cutting and manages to put his mother’s fears to rest with aplomb.

After lunch Hayden sits on the living room couch fingering his nametag for the yearly convention of the Metro Mutual Insurance group while Joey oils his mitt. Though Hayden is still a member, as a retiree the color of his badge has been switched from gold to green. He feels old and worn, like the faded brown couch on which he sits, the first piece of furniture he and Mary had so excitedly purchased after moving out of her parents’ home all those years ago.

“Are you still worrying about the color of your nametag?” asks Diana as she passes through with a basket of clean laundry. “It’s just a color, for goodness sake. Green is the color of money and so it’s in honor of how successful you’ve been.”

“Green is for grass, as in being put out to pasture.”

“And you still won’t accept the Lifetime Achievement award?” asks Diana.

“Lifetime Achievement award!” exclaims Hayden. “Ha! They should just call it what it is: the You’re the Next to Die award.”

“It’s an honor.”

“I don’t need honors. When Edward VII of England offered Andrew Carnegie a title he refused it.” Hayden turns to Joey. “Isn’t that right, Joey? What did the great Scotsman Andrew Carnegie build throughout the land?”

“Libraries!” says Joey.

Hayden pulls his grandson close and hugs him. “That’s right,” he says with great pride. “
Free
libraries!”

“Please take me with you to the conference, Grandpa,” begs Joey. “I want to go fire walking.” Joey’s been searching for ways to appear heroic in front of Rosamond, and often fantasizes that he rescues her from some great danger, such as an avalanche where he throws his body over hers, or else fends off an escaped zoo lion that has climbed into her bedroom.