The Ninth Wife (13 page)

“Let’s park here,” she says as they approach the winding road around the property.

The cathedral is lit up gloriously against a black sky. It’s a commanding structure of limestone blocks and spires; the center tower rises thirty stories high, one of the tallest points in the city. The Bishop’s Garden just next to the cathedral is rumored to be one of the best make-out locales in the district. Couples ignore the “Closed After Dark” sign and slip through the arched wooden doorway.

Rory cuts the engine. “You’re taking me to church? That’s not a good sign.”

“No, I’m taking you here.”

He follows her into the garden. Without lamplight, it’s eerily dark for a city spot. Bess has been through the garden enough to know which way the stone pathways curve.

She hears the crickets and water trickling from a spigot and if she listens closely she can hear the heavy breathing of other couples around the bends of stone walls and on benches behind long branches.

The prime real estate for groping before God is the stone gazebo in the center of the garden and as luck would have it, Bess and Rory find it empty.

“This is amazing,” Rory whispers, looking up at the cathedral from inside the gazebo.

“Isn’t it?” Bess whispers back. They have to stand close to each other to make their whispering as quiet as they can. “What I love about the cathedral is its gargoyles. It has over one hundred, including one of Darth Vader.”

“Really,” whispers Rory. A sigh that sounds female escapes from the darkness to their left and Bess and Rory chuckle quietly. Rory takes Bess’s hands; she looks down at his hands cupping hers. Did he notice she was a nail-biter?

“I love your knuckles,” she whispers. When he laughs a quick laugh, Bess realizes how ridiculous that sounds. “I always notice a guy’s knuckles, I don’t know why. I like masculine knuckles, I guess.”

“I can honestly say I never heard that before.”

“Well,” whispers Bess, somewhat embarrassed, “what did you notice about me?”

“Your tits.”

Bess’s laugh is another snort.

“See, there it is . . . that smile of yours. I love when it’s so wide it makes your eyes all squinched. It’s adorable. It makes me want to be funny all the time so I can see it. Unless . . .” and here he pauses, waiting for her to look back at him. “Unless I can get your lips to do something else?”

And then he kisses her.

They caress and kiss and add to the collective heavy breathing of the garden and when they disengage Bess whispers
wow
with her eyes shut, because though the entry into the kiss may have been corny and contrived, the kiss itself—long, luscious, addiction-sweet—
the kiss
is to die for.

And because the kiss is to die for and their hands are exploring with increasing urgency the curves of their bodies, now pressed together, and their breathing is spilling over into the realm of gasping, they don’t hear the patrolman approach until his flashlight is shining directly at them. “The gardens are closed,” he says, sounding like Eeyore. He doesn’t bother to whisper. “You’ll move on now.”

Bess and Rory collect themselves and try to focus once the flashlight is pointed down at their shoes. Where did this guy come from? It’s as if the cathedral itself, sensing sin from its flying buttresses, sent out one of its openmouthed gargoyles to eradicate the enemy by motioning with his light the path to salvation. “This way, if you please,” he says, and Bess and Rory follow his light like kids caught stealing candy.

In the parking lot they see other disheveled couples walking to their cars.

“Sorry about that,” says Bess, getting into Rory’s car.

“But that was great. It’s a good first date story for you.”

With all those couples there, though, were the gardens just another first date cliché? Is there anything that wouldn’t feel cliché short of getting mugged by Nepalese drag queens and dragged to Wichita on the back of a camel?

Rory leans over and kisses her neck. “What should we do now?”

Bess can’t think straight, so she stares straight ahead and tries to think straight;
Think straight
, she says to herself. “Well, it
is
a work night. And it’s late. I should really head home.” She comments on the way about the parking problems near her apartment, thankful that she won’t have to deal with the dilemma of inviting him up. “Thanks for the ride,” she says as the car idles in her alleyway. “I had a great time.”

“Me, too. And thanks for the pie. May I have another piece sometime?” She nods and he kisses her again.

When she is inside the lobby of her building, she stage-whispers, “
YES!
” and smiles all the way down the hall. There she sees Stella guarding Cricket’s door like a gargoyle.

“Stella, what are you doing here?” She leans down to pet Stella’s head and knocks. “Cricket!” she calls out. “Cricket, are you in there?” She puts her ear to the door. “That’s the oddest thing, you here like this.” Stella looks sad, but then she always looks sad with her droopy eyes. “C’mon, then.”

Bess leads Stella up to her place and pours a bowl of water. She finds the number for the kennel, but gets an answering machine. She calls Cricket’s cell and gets his voice mail, too. “I found Stella in front of your place, so now I’m worried. Call me first thing when you get this message. I’ll keep her with me until you do.”

She lies down on the floor and rubs Stella’s belly. “I hope Cricket’s okay.” Stella lies down next to Bess and drapes her head over her front paws. “You’re right, he’s probably fine. He’ll call soon.” She takes off her sweater and bunches it under her head. “You know what, Stella? I had a great date tonight. It was only a first date, but I feel like I know him somehow, you know? He’s a nice, straightforward kind of guy. A
nice
boy.” Bess touches her nose to Stella’s nose and whispers, “Do you think he’s the one, Stella?” Stella backs away and sneezes. Bess rolls to her back. “You’re right again,” she says. “Absolutely right. It’s been such an emotional week, but Stella . . . I think things are looking up,” and within minutes the two of them are sound asleep.

Chapter Ten

Y
ou’d think that as grand a mistake as I’d made with Fawn, I’d have gotten myself cleaned up and straightened out, but it wasn’t easy. I tried. The first thing I did was leave Vegas. I knew a guy who’d moved to Denver and said he had an extra room and could use the help on rent, so that’s where I headed. He fixed me up with a job at a music store, just to tide me over. I didn’t have experience in retail, but the owner heard me play fiddle and I think I impressed him, so he gave me a chance. I played for cash some evenings at a local pub, and managed to get computer consulting work on the side from my roommate’s father.

In other words, I was getting by. I weaned myself off gambling, which wasn’t too difficult seeing as I was never really a gambler deep down. What I should have done is wean myself off hard liquor, too, but moving cities didn’t get rid of the self-hatred, it only buried it for a bit and old habits die hard, right?

Anyway, I wasn’t out of control or anything like I was in Vegas, just keeping it all at a minimum and functioning as best I could when I met Cici. It was at a Laundromat around the corner from my apartment. She liked to hang around there rather than at home with her mom, she said, where it was cold and not all that quiet because her mom liked to sing at the top of her lungs to Tammy Wynette records.

I’d see her sitting in the corner with a book—this knock-kneed girl of about nine, hiding under the hood of her gray sweatshirt. She said she liked the quiet of the Laundromat and the fresh smell of the detergent and especially the heat, which felt good rising out of the dryer. She didn’t tell me all this at first, though. In fact, she didn’t say much of anything at first because her mom told her not to talk to strangers and she didn’t know to trust someone like me until she saw me breaking up a fight over some accusation of stolen quarters and I figure she thought I was a good guy after that. And then when she did talk I could hardly understand her on account of her stutter, and I knew that was the real reason she didn’t say much. Poor girl, I’m telling you my heart ached for her. I could tell people would give up trying to listen to what she had to say and she was as lonely as I was and could really use a friend.

So once or twice a week we’d meet at the Laundromat and she’d tell me about school, and we played checkers, lots of checkers.
You l-l-l-l-lose
, she’d yell out with such delight—not malice mind you, just pure delight and abandon, which you didn’t see in Cici often—and it so cheered me that I’d lose on purpose. I caught on to her way of speaking before long, meaning I was always patient with Cici, and in return she made me feel . . . well, like I belonged. Here was someone who gave me a tissue when I sneezed, you know?

But I was leery of what our friendship might look like on the outside and so it wasn’t long before I was encouraging Cici to bring her mom around just so she would know I was an okay guy, too, and nothing to worry about. I could tell Cici wanted to keep her mom out of our friendship, but I insisted and so one day she brought her to the Laundromat and I just about dropped my jaw to the floor she was so pretty. I mean, like a model from bottom to top: long legs, small waist, almond eyes, long, thick dark hair like Maggie’s, and beautifully shaped . . . you get the idea.
So you’re Rory
, she said.
You like to pick up little girls in Laundromats?
That’s the first thing she said to me. I couldn’t answer. She was chewing gum and all I could focus on was her lovely jaw moving up and down. Well anyway, Cici came to my defense and I did my share of fumbling an introduction until she softened and invited me back to their place for afternoon tea.

I soon found out that “afternoon tea” was Olive Ann’s euphemism for the evening’s first vodka and cranberry. She was an artist, an abstract painter, and her work was all throughout the apartment: on large canvases, but also on every wall and stairwell, sometimes on the ceiling and on appliances. I could understand why Cici described her place and her mom the way she did. They had hardly enough money to pay the heating bills, so yeah, it was cold. And with all those swirling colors around, it seemed loud, too. But most of all it was Olive Ann who drew me in. She was a presence, the way she occupied space and made you watch her all the time. Or I watched her . . . I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The first time she sang out like Tammy Wynette, standing on her couch, I fell in love.

And that’s how it went. Olive Ann, alive and crazy in everything she did, grabbed my attention and never let go. She’d cook spaghetti and you never knew whether you were going to eat it or wear it or hang it from the lamps or draw with it on the walls. I lusted after her, I
craved
her. I started spending all my time at Olive Ann’s place just to be near her, and after a while she let me stay.

Now, I’m not forgetting about Cici. I’ll admit I got wrapped up in my desire for Olive Ann, but something told me Cici was used to that with the men her mom dated. I guess I snapped out of it when one time Olive Ann returned from a shopping spree with kimonos for us to wear that evening. Where she got the money for these sprees, I don’t know. She had us put them on and paint our faces and she and I were laughing and drinking our vodka cranberries and getting into the spirit, but not Cici. Cici didn’t want any part of it.
C’mon, sweetie
, said her mother,
geishas don’t have to speak, isn’t that perfect?

At the moment her mother said that, poor Cici started to hyperventilate and I knew she was on her way to one of her panic attacks. She’d been getting them more frequently and I got good at talking her down from them, but I couldn’t this time. She ran out of the apartment. I took everything off as best I could and ran after her, knowing I’d find her at the Laundromat.
I’m so sorry
, I said. She wasn’t panicking anymore, but she looked pretty sad. I got her to talk after a while until we were laughing at the lipstick I still had on my cheeks. I hugged her and then I walked her home.

I so loved Cici, you know? Maybe it was the first time I felt the feelings a father might feel, that kind of love. (Cici’s own father was up in Alaska and pretty much out of the picture.) I think back on it now and I’m not sure I’d say the same about my feelings for Olive Ann. I was enraptured with Olive Ann, lustful. But is that love? At the time I thought it was. But there was something else . . . I wanted to protect them both. I thought maybe I had finally matured in the love department.

I say all this as an introduction to what happened next, which is to say Cici and I returned home and found Olive Ann in the bedroom with the door locked. We cleaned up and I fell asleep on the couch. In fact, I slept on the couch for the next three nights because Olive Ann wouldn’t come out of the bedroom and when she finally did, she looked awful and had terrible body odor. I coaxed her into a bath and made her some dinner. She got herself up and around after that, but still . . . she wasn’t the same. She was lethargic and depressed. Cici and I spent a lot of time together, at the local diner or bowling alley, and Olive Ann would get jealous and storm into her bedroom and I’d be sleeping on the couch again. I’d try to find out what was the matter, but Olive Ann wouldn’t say.

One night, though, when she let me back in her bed, she told me that it was time Cici had a father again.
What are you saying
, I said.
I’m saying I think we should be a family
, she said.
But we are a family
, I said.
No,
she said
, a
real
family.
You’re the one
, she said,
the right one
. Well, I sat up and rubbed my head. I told her all about being married before and I wasn’t about to do that again, and she told me she didn’t care about my past mistakes. That’s the word she used,
mistakes
instead of
marriages
. She said we all had our pasts to contend with, but we’re in the here and now. By now I had stood up and was pacing the room, saying,
Olive Ann, I’m sorry but I can’t
, to which she delivered this blow, slow and succinct, so it would sink in:
Rory, I’m pregnant
.