Unexpected Dismounts (9 page)

Chief elbowed me from the arm of the red chair. “She can’t stay here.”

Before I could open my mouth, he said, “Do the words
Vickie Rodriguez
mean anything to you?”

I nodded. He was, indeed, still speaking to me, even after the lecture I’d received outside the police station. I didn’t want to push him.

“I don’t see us putting her back in the house with the other Sisters,” Hank said. “You know what my suggestion is.” She popped a Greek olive into her mouth and waited while she chewed. Nobody could wait like Hank.

“You talking about the house on San Luis?” India hitched her silk turtleneck up under the matching rods of jet dangling from her lobes. “That would be perfect if it wasn’t going to take us a month to get it through escrow and probably another two to make it livable. We don’t even know if it’s for sale.”

We all looked at Bonner, who was already making a note in his iPhone.

“Funds?” Chief said.

India’s face brightened. “Allison didn’t tell you about Ms. Willa having a change of heart?”

I had, in fact, completely forgotten about that. Too much head banging, maybe?

“How much change?” Bonner said.

“We don’t know yet. One of the things I wanted to talk about at this meeting is the fund-raiser.” India looked at me. “I’m getting RSVPs by the boatload, so keeping the format mysterious just might be the ticket. But you
are
gon’ have to tell
me
eventually.”

As soon as God tells me, I thought grimly.

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask the owner what he plans to do with the place, would it?” Hank said.

India smiled at Bonner. I often wondered, with a smile like that, what in the world was wrong with her ex-husband, a man she coldly referred to as Michael Morehead. You’d practically have to be a granite countertop to resist her. “Maybe he’ll just want to donate it like you did the first one, Bonner,” she said.

He actually blushed.

“Yeah, well, if you’re going there,” I said. “Take India with you. I’m obviously a liability in those conversations.”

Chief looked up from the spreadsheet lying across his thighs like a lap blanket. “Getting back to Zelda … We can’t afford to post bond for her.” He lowered a look at me that clearly said,
And don’t even think about taking it out of your own pocket.

“Somehow she managed to come up with the bucks for cocaine and heroin,” I said. “Where are those resources when it’s time to get her out of jail?”

“Have you asked the Sisters who might have supplied her?” Bonner said.

I shook my head.

Hank looked at me, this time with a slice of prosciutto between her thumb and index finger, the way only a true foodie can hold an hors d’oeuvre. “Maybe the judge will order rehab, which gives us a little more time.”

“Rehab is a joke for somebody like Zelda,” I said.

“But it’ll keep her from killing herself with another overdose.”

I shivered, but I nodded.

“I’ll stay on it and keep you posted,” Chief said. “What else do we have on the agenda?”

“Brain food,” Hank said. She tapped the edge of the tray. “Anchovies are proven to be good for thought processing.”

“That must be why I am clueless about half the time,” India said. “But do let me taste that cheese. Now that looks like it could put a few more dimples on my thighs.” She smiled again. “Which means it is absolutely scrumptious.”

Chief was looking at me.

“I got nothin’,” I said.

Actually, that wasn’t true. I had plenty of God-work to keep me busy over the next several days. There was the usual counseling of Sister meltdowns and backslides, as well as the chauffeuring of everybody to NA meetings and the never-ending dental appointments to repair meth damage. Plus the hauling of Desmond to the Harley store for yet another pair of boots.

Still, Zelda crammed herself into my thoughts. I was talking up C.A.R.S. to HOG friend Rex, whose Toyota needed a paint job, and suddenly there she was in my head, ramming somebody’s vehicle into a utility pole. Who did it belong to? The same guy who gave her a cocktail she couldn’t handle?

Anything could trigger the questions. I walked past the front door on Palm Row where she had first come to me and found myself aching. What happened? Why was she so anxious then to do anything to change, and so angry now at the God who tried to change her into herself? I spit in the sink while brushing my teeth and felt the pain all over again, the pain that asked, Why did she so easily take drugs from Satan, when we were offering her Jesus?

I tried to see her, despite Chief’s protest. I say protest. It was actually just a look that said,
You’ll regret it. Just sayin’.

And of course, I did. Evidently Chief’s being hot was no match for Detective Kylie’s new edict that only attorneys were allowed to see their clients during anything but visiting hours. Those were held on Sunday, which by that time I’d already missed. I told myself that maybe that was a God thing. Maybe I needed that time to figure out how to get Zelda back to God. Because if she wasn’t willing to do that … Yeah, maybe I needed time.

Meanwhile, there were the Sisters’ baptisms to prepare them for. And Desmond’s. With the women, it was a delicate dance, trying to balance their enthusiasm for denying themselves everything and their deeper need to go within. Desmond just wanted to give up homework for Lent.

We had a rousing discussion in the living room at Sacrament House the Wednesday after Ash Wednesday. Jasmine and Mercedes and Sherry and Hank and Desmond set about discussing their respective “stuff.” If left to their own devices, the Sisters would have referred to their struggles as their—well—some form of excrement. Stuff, though somewhat euphemistic, served us well. At least the three Sisters, and even Hank, were able to put words to their confusion and begin to untangle it. Desmond was less forthcoming, although he did begrudgingly admit that he still had a snack-hoarding habit—shocking—but he was working on it.

“I’ll get that beat ’fore I get baptized,” he told us.

As for me, I played moderator. Fortunately nobody called me on my lack of transparency about my own where-is-God-what-am-I-doing “stuff.” But I couldn’t avoid it in the silence we observed before the communion.

As we stood around the table in the dining alcove, chins to our chests, eyes fluttered closed, Sacrament House settled into a quiet so still I was afraid the rumblings in my head would rattle the Sisters out of their private conversations with God. All conditions were right for hearing the Divine Voice—the just-cleaned smell of Mercedes’s relentless scrubbing discipline, the singe of the candle curling heavenward, the peace so thick it even settled over the furniture and made it seem less shabby. It should have been easy to hear God, detect a Nudge. And in fact, I almost felt one.

Almost.

“Almost,” my father used to say, “is just another word for not good enough.” The veins in his neck would bulge when my ninety-two average was almost an A, or the tennis ball I hit nearly cleared the net, or the job I took came close to what a Chamberlain ought to earn. It infuriated him so much that by age fifteen, I deliberately did almost enough in everything, just to see his jaw muscles twitch. In my mind, if he didn’t like it, it must be good.
Almost
became a habit for me.

It never bothered me before God started forcing me to reach past almost. But now, being so close to whatever was niggling at the edge of my brain was like Chinese water torture. Hearing
wash their feet
yet again, without knowing what it meant, was palpably painful.

Wasn’t I doing that already? Hadn’t I washed enough blood and vomit and sweat from these women to show I got it?

Y
ou’ve got it, Allison. But do they?

I opened my eyes. The rest of the heads were still bowed. Desmond’s was wagging back and forth like an imitation of Stevie Wonder, but he clearly hadn’t heard what I’d heard. I closed myself into darkness again. All right. If this was where we were going …

Who? Who doesn’t have it?
I cried out in my head.

Wash their feet. All of you—wash their feet.

It came like an unwelcome emotion this time, like anger you can’t express without committing a Class B felony, like frustration you can’t take out—on anybody.

“Dang it—
whose
feet?”

My eyes came open. Jasmine stopped moaning, and Mercedes scowled like she was about to belt somebody before she realized I was the one who had broken the silence.

“It ain’t my feet smellin’,” Desmond said.

Mercedes did start to whack him, but I put my hand up and turned to Hank.

“Let me say this before I talk myself out of it,” I said.

“Go for it,” she said.

I closed my eyes. “We need to tell India that the fund-raiser is going to be at my house—on Palm Row. And we’re not going to bring in caterers and servers and all that. We’ll prepare the meal ourselves, like the kind of feasts Jesus used to go to. All of us are going to prepare it, and we’re going to serve the people we’re asking to serve us. That’s all I know.”

I let my eyes come open. They didn’t look convinced, necessarily, or inspired, but nobody was looking at me as if medication were the next logical step.

“I don’t mean to be dense,” Sherry said, “but I don’t see what this has to do with feet.”

“Forget that,” I said. “It’s just an image that—never mind, that part’s complicated.”

“I trust you want me to head up the cooking end of this,” Hank said, mouth twitching.

“Oh, Lawd, don’t you let Miss Angel do it,” Mercedes said. “Nothin’ against you, Miss A, but girl, you the only person I know can ruin a baked potato.”

“I don’t want to do no cookin’,” Desmond said.

“That’s good news too,” Hank said.

“But I could be like the Mother D.”

“Mother D?” Jasmine said. “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, boy?”

I tried to keep the chortle out of my voice. “Do you mean maître d’? Like the head waiter?”

“The one gets dressed up real sharp and lead the ladies to their table,” Desmond said. “I seen it in a movie.”

“That would be so you, Desmond,” Hank said. “But I don’t know if that’s what your mother has in mind.”

I didn’t really know what God had in my mind. We were clearly talking metaphor here, and I didn’t have the whole meaning yet.

But at least it was closer than almost.

Chief’s Road King was still in its parking place on Palm Row when Desmond and I got home.

“Mr. Chief gonna spend the night?” Desmond said as we hung our helmets in the garage.

“
No!”
I said.

“You don’t need to get all up in my dental work, Big Al,” he said. “I was jus’ wonderin’.”

I didn’t even know what to say to that. Maybe I could put Chief on it. I did manage, “Okay, no hanging out with Mr. Chief tonight. You need to finish your history homework before bed. You remember what he said about if you try to bring your grade up, he’ll take you riding
on
the beach.”

Desmond danced backward in front of me as we crossed the lane. “Try? Ain’t no tryin’ about it. Imma get a A-plus on my next test. Mr. Chief gonna have to take me all the way to Daytona.”

“You can never tell,” I said.

He stopped at the bottom of the side porch steps. “You serious?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Chief looked understandably surprised when he opened the kitchen door and Desmond swept past him with a perfunctory, “Hey, Mr. Chief. I gotta study.”

“Did you check his pulse?” Chief said when Desmond had disappeared into his room.

“That’s your doing,” I said. “He thinks if he aces the test you’re taking him on a road trip.”

I waited for at least a half smile from Chief, but he barely seemed to have heard me. He glanced at Desmond’s closed door and nodded me toward the living room. My heart began a slow descent.

“What?” I said.

But he waited until I was perched on the edge of the chair-and-a-half. He sat on the ottoman facing me.

“This can’t be good,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you this after the board meeting.”