Blood Orange (23 page)

Dana said dryly, “Maybe I should pay David a reward for just
sticking around.”

A few yards ahead of them Bailey had stopped running and
stood waiting for them to catch up. Her overalls were wet to the
knees and covered with sand. Dana sighed and seemed to sag.

“If you knew how tired I get…. All my life, Lexy, I’ve done
what I had to so I’d get what I wanted. I keep waiting for someone
to say, `Relax, you’ve made it; here’s your reward.’ 11

“You don’t really believe life works that way.”

“Then why have I tried so hard for so long? Why have I always
done the right thing? Always.” Dana paused, and in the silence
Lexy imagined she heard the murmur of another conversation, one
they would never have.

“You think I’m a monster?”

“Am I the Dalai Lama?”

“When I look ahead … “

“Well, there’s your first mistake. Focus on today, this day.” Lexy
took the leash from Dana, called Moby Doby to her, and hooked
the lead on his collar. “Take it from an old alcoholic, Dana. You can
move through the deepest ca-ca if you do it one step at a time.”

Lexy had appointments scheduled until midafternoon. At three
a couple brimming with good looks and hope came in for premarital counseling. Lexy said to them what she had wanted to tell Dana.
God, knowing that his children would be lonely without partners,
blessed and encouraged all loving unions: friendship, parents and
children, lover and lover, husband and wife.

She told the couple, “The thing you must never forget is that a
marriage is a fragile organism, and it takes more than love to keep it
alive. It requires forgiveness and trust and forbearance. Lots of forbearance.”

She wished she’d said that to Dana.

The monthly meeting of St. Tom’s vestry was held in the undercroft and was always a potluck to which Lexy was expected to contribute only her smiling, upbeat self. When everyone was seated and
their plastic plates were heavy with Konnie’s Mexican casserole and
Beth’s green salad, Lexy blessed the food, the vestry, and the work it
did, and the meeting began. There were the usual matters of money
and mission to discuss. Someone asked Lexy if she could schedule
noontime Masses during Advent, and she said she would, though
she had no idea how she’d manage. Beth reported on plans for
the upcoming Day of the Dead, All Saints’ Day celebration. The
building committee reported on the estimated cost of wheelchair ramps. By the time Lexy returned to her office it was after
nine, but she worked on a grant proposal until almost eleven,
when the figures on the spreadsheet became a blur. She made
herself a cup of drip coffee and dialed Micah’s number, barely
hoping he would pick up. When he did, she was momentarily
tongue-tied.

“You answered. Hi. It’s me.”

“Yo, Me. It’s eleven o’clock at night. Why aren’t you in bed with
someone? “

He laughed, and she guessed that he was stoned. Micah was not
a laugher by nature.

“How are you?” she asked.

“How are you?”

“Oh. Working. Same old.”

“You need to get a life.”

“That’s what Dana says.”

“How is Dana?”

“I think she’s hit one of those bumpy spots.”

He laughed again, and she wondered why.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked as she wondered Are you
stoned? Depressed? You sound depressed. Or: Are you taking your
meds? You must take your medicine, Micah.

I’m not depressed. Of course I’m taking them. Or: They make me
sleepy. Or: I’m too young to abandon my libido.

“I thought maybe the black dog had you,” she added.

“Actually I’m feeling pretty good,” he said.

“How ‘bout I come over tomorrow after work, take you to dinner? Sound good?”

“Thing is, I won’t be here. I’ve got this gallery in LA interested
in my Florentine scenes. I want to see you, but-“

“Cra ”
p•

“Reverend Mother!”

“You want me to believe you?”

“Hey, you’re not the only busy person in this family.”

“You’re selling?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Alexandra, it’s not about
selling.” He added with mocking pretentiousness, “It’s about the
art, darling.”

“I can’t help it if I’m my mother’s daughter.”

“Omigod, wash your mouth out with soap.”

Lexy’s grip on the phone relaxed. “So are you selling?”

“Enough.” Neither spoke for a moment. “How’s business with
you? Saving lots of souls?”

“I’d like to have a go at yours.”

“Yeah, well, you can pray at my funeral.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Lex, give it a break, will you? You know the way I am, up one
day, down the next. Tonight I’m cool.”

“You’re stoned.”

“Shit, what a nag.”

“I think about you all the time.”

“Well, now, that’s your first mistake.”

“Love’s never a waste of time, Micah.”

He snorted. “Oh, yeah? What about Mr. William Parker Trent
the Third?”

“I learned a lot from my time with Billy.”

“And I learned a lot from Edie Parkhurst in the back of her
grandmother’s Rambler.”

He was pushing her away. She was wise to all his tricks.

“Anyway,” he said, “you didn’t answer my question. Why aren’t
you in bed with someone? What happened to that guy you were
dating last year? What was his name?”

“Isaac.”

“And?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Why not? You liked him, you told me you did.”

For a few months Isaac Slotkin had made her laugh and feel desirable. He was fun to go to movies with and baseball games; from
the first they had talked like old friends. He wanted more than friendship, but she had neither time nor energy to complicate her
life with sex. That’s what she told herself and mostly believed. Dana
said the collar was protection. If so, the protection was not from the
world but from herself.

“Like all women, you’re a heartbreaker, Lexy.”

“I’m not. Why would you say that?”

“You married Billy and then you left him, and now there’s this
guy Isaac.”

“Billy’s getting along fine. He sent me an e-mail to tell me he’s
getting married again.” Why was her brother talking about love and
heartbreak?

“Micah, are you seeing someone?”

“No.”

She waited.

“I was, but it’s over.”

Her heart sank. She had been his protector forever. His truest
friend. “Tell me who she is. I’ll bust her chops.”

“That would be an interesting scene.”

“Does it help if I say it takes time to get over someone? But it’ll
happen, Micah. Time’ll pass and you’ll stop hurting so much.”

“No. I won’t. Love is for a lifetime. It’s old-fashioned, but that’s
what I believe.”

Love and marriage, it was all she’d talked and thought about
that day.

Micah said, “Go find yourself a nice man, Lexy. A guy who turns
you on and makes you laugh. And promise me you’ll be nice to him.
Cross your heart and hope to die.”

“Micah, I can’t stand it when you hurt. Tell me what’s going on
with you. Is it this woman?”

“I need to know someone loves you, Alexandra.”

aturday morning. Early Saturday morning. Bailey was pulling
the blankets off the bed and tickling Dana’s toes. She groaned
and turned her head to read the clock. Small hands on her ankles
tugged.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Dana sat up and, catching her
daughter in her arms, she turned her onto her back and blew into
the hollow of her neck. “What’s happening here? Is it Christmas? Is
it Easter?”

Bailey squirmed off the bed and pulled Dana to the window
overlooking the side yard and garage. Larry McFarland was lumbering up the stairs to the apartment with a long aluminum ladder
stuck under his arm, threatening to unbalance him. Three steps behind, Gracie carried a gallon paint can in each hand. Behind her
came Allison, looking like Santa, with a pair of huge plastic bags
from Home Depot hanging over her shoulders.

David called from downstairs, “Rise and shine, Number One.”
From the kitchen came the sound of the Wynton Marsalis CD Dana
had given him on his birthday.

This is lovely, she thought. This is how it’s meant to be.

Afterward she would remember what she wore that day-Levi’s
and a Miami University T-shirt that had faded to pink-the breakfast of eggs and sausage David made for the work crew, the sound of
Wynton’s willowy clarinet. Most of all she would remember how
much fun they all had fixing up the garage apartment so Marsha
Filmore could move into their lives.

The apartment was only one room and a bath, but the previous
owners of the house had partitioned off a section to create a kitchen
nook with a small refrigerator and microwave, a space comfortable
for one person temporarily. The paintwork was straightforward, no
crown moldings or eight-inch baseboards; and David and the team
had the holes puttied and everything painted twice by midafternoon. Geoff rented a carpet cleaner, and the job was done by the
time David put the steaks on the grill. Throughout the day Bailey
had watched and sometimes helped. Once, hearing her laugh,
David looked at Dana, his face alight with happiness, and she felt
the old lightness, the familiar carbonated lift his smile prompted in
her. They stepped toward each other and kissed, ignoring everyone
around them.

Afterward, she would remember the kiss.

Dana and Geoff set out plates and cutlery and kept an eye on
David’s filets while the crew cleaned up. The sun had dipped below
the eucalyptus in the canyon behind the house, and the deck was in
shade. Dana brought out a pile of sweaters and shawls. Across the
yard Bailey swept the stairs to the apartment.

“Be careful,” Dana said and then to Geoff, “I wish those stairs
had a banister.”

“Quit worrying so much.” Geoff opened a plastic container of
Greek olives and shot one into his mouth. “She seems way better.
What do the cops say?”

“About what?”

He stopped folding paper napkins and looked at her over the
top of his glasses.

“I don’t talk to them. She’s been through enough.” The muscles
of her jaw tightened as she prepared for Geoff’s response.

“I’m with you,” he said.

“You are?”

“Well, sure. The way I see it, she’s here, she’s healthy, and obviously she’s not depressed.” He tapped his temple where his red hair
had begun to turn gold and gray. “Believe me, I know from depressed.”

The meal was like old times with a gang of friends and plenty of
good food and beer. Dana and David shared the wicker love seat,
and she was conscious of their bodies touching at thigh and hip and
shoulder.

They talked about the hate mail that arrived at the office two or
three times a week. Some letters were typed, some printed out in
pencil, and some bore messages written in cutout letters stuck to
paper.

I have to tell him eventually. Why not now, in a crowd.

“I got a note the other day.” She did not look at David.

He asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’ve been so busy. I spoke to Gary.”

The team looked from Dana to David and back to Dana.