Greedy Little Eyes (28 page)

“You’re a beautiful soul, sweetheart. But part of being a Christian is learning to sacrifice. Let’s put this flame out before it burns the house down.”

I pictured her getting up from the bed, standing there in the shadows of his bedroom, turning to face him, naked, her curls gone Medusa, when she said, “You are no Christian—I won’t put the flame out because I hope you burn.”

“How could I say that to him?” she cried now and put her fingertips in her mouth, six years old again. She gazed at my bookshelf and said, “I left the fairies.” She spun back toward me. “The book.”

“
My
book?”

“I’m so stupid.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“What did you have
my
fairy book over at
his
place for anyway?”

“I’m sorry.” She grabbed my hand and held it to her face. “I’ll get it back.”

I wanted to say that no one really forgets anything at her lover’s house; it’s the oldest subconscious trick in the book. I wanted to accuse her of being just what he had said, impractical and foolish—but a mountain of
repudiation wasn’t going to wipe away the feel of Clint lingering between my thighs.

Alice showed up at the store the next afternoon, a jittery mess. Still no book. Clint wasn’t answering his phone. He wasn’t answering his door. She went down to Good News and a new secretary intercepted her as she headed toward the pastor’s study saying that Clint was busy with both a sermon and a proposal to Citytv for
The Rock That Never Rolls,
his idea for an urban youth music hour that would feature Christian bands, and himself, of course, as emcee. The stage show, the secretary said, would be filmed at Good News Hall to start with and then, as momentum grew, move downtown to the Commodore Ballroom.

The secretary herself was terribly excited—she sang in coffee houses, now and then, she told Alice. Clint thought he might be able to make room for her in the Up-and-Comers segment.

Every day for three days, Alice returned to both his apartment and his study but he was never there.

On Sunday morning we slipped into a row near the back of the sanctuary. Most of the crowd—and there didn’t seem to be many of them over forty—were clad in tight jeans and T-shirts or some variation on the
theme, and most remained on their feet, while on stage the worship band played earnest folk-rock tunes.

Clint stood near the stage chatting with an older man in a suit who I imagined to be the senior pastor.

There were no hymnals. The words of each song were projected onto a large screen that hung from the ceiling. Were it not for the capitalized
H
in
He
, the lyrics were indistinguishable from those of any other shmaltzy love song. I whispered questions to Alice, whose gaze had been glued on her lover since we’d come through the doors.

There were three or four worship bands that rotated each week, she said. In general they stuck to playing covers so that everyone could sing along.

“Covers of
what
?”

She didn’t dignify that with a response. Apparently these were all monster hits on the Christian pop charts. Not only that but we could expect the band to play on for at least another hour before the preacher got the show started. I wished I had just bombed Clint’s apartment and let it go at that.

All around us, people sang with hands cupped in front of them as if catching raindrops. A few chatted and laughed in small groups. Some embraced new arrivals, swaying together for several seconds before the newcomers went off to find space to spread out and sing.

Straight ahead, I spotted Helen from The Sandwich Project. In her prim blue dress and cream lace collar she was far from the norm at Good News.

I couldn’t put my finger on what was peculiar about it all (besides the obvious) until a raven-haired gym rat, wearing a second-skin black Lycra cycling shirt, planted himself next to me. He smiled at me and sang a few bars, then leaned forward to tap the shoulder of someone in the row ahead. They shared some mutual laughter before he straightened and grinned at me again, this time offering his hand.

“My name’s DW.”

I shook it and glanced at Alice, whose eyes were welling as she watched Clint move around the front of the sanctuary.

“Aren’t you going to tell me yours?” DW asked, his electric blues honing in.

I sighed and told him my name, then looked ahead to the big screen, attempting to worm those unctuous lyrics out of my mouth.
“‘You are my light. Even late at night
… ’ Oh for god’s sake,” I muttered.

“You don’t look familiar.” DW smirked.

“First time.”

Leave it to Alice to find the biggest Christian pickup joint in town.

Up at the stage Clint was fussing with sound equipment. A pretty band member knelt down to speak with him. Their smiles brought Alice’s tears over the edge, her fingers twisting hard together. Afraid she might break a bone, I put my keys in her hands as distraction.

“You’ll like it here. Everyone’s young, always buzzin’ upside. You got plans this afternoon?”

DW came on so strong, I was convinced he was a closet-case.

Suddenly there was Clint walking toward us down the centre aisle. My keys jangled in Alice’s hand. As he passed, his eyes skimmed over the crowd, seemingly carefree, but the tension in his mouth was a giveaway.

Helen jumped up and caught hold of Clint as he went by. She gave him an airless hug until Clint patted her back and moved on.

Alice switched the keys from hand to hand.

“We’re having a barbecue,” DW continued in my ear. “You’re invited.”

“Clint!” I shouted. The strange pitch of my voice echoed in my head.

Clint’s head didn’t turn.

Alice had turned into a patchwork of red blotches, manifesting prickles of embarrassed adrenalin.

I pushed past her out to the aisle, trotted after Clint and caught hold of his sleeve.

He turned to me with a brittle smile. “Hey! How are you?” He waved at someone behind me and then, settling his arm across my shoulders, said, “Can I talk to you a sec?”

He couriered me through the swinging doors and out to the foyer. I wasn’t prepared for the way he turned on me, the fury in his face, once the doors had closed behind us.

“What do you want?” he enunciated coolly. Pushing his face in close to mine, he gripped my elbow.

His quiet voice was far worse than if he’d screamed. Face hot, I found my hands trembling as I hunted for incisive words.

The doors to the sanctuary swung open again and without turning my head I could feel my sister.

Clint’s eyes didn’t waver. His fingers dug into my bone. He modulated his voice so that a few feet away Alice would be certain to hear each word. “Whatever crap you think you’re going to pull here, think twice, little girl, because you will know what public humiliation is when I’m done with you.”

“You have something of mine,
Clint
.” My sister’s voice was eerily bold.

He looked at Alice.

She was close now and she said it again. “You have something of mine and I want it back.”

In one swift motion, Alice’s fisted hand swung across his jaw. She seemed to miss, yet Clint gasped and clutched his face, then checked his own hand for blood. Two stripes ran along his jaw. The blanched scratches suddenly burbled pinpricks of red.

He glared and bit off his words. “God bless you, Alice.”

Alice examined the keys that protruded through the fingers of her right hand and then took my wrist and pulled me out the front doors. I didn’t see her face when she tossed back, “Likewise.”

I let Alice drive.

Back home, she seemed renewed. It was the only time I remember feeling dwarfed and ineffectual next to
her. She got up from my bed and shuffled through my junk drawer until she found matches.

Opening her beaded gypsy purse, she pulled out her Bible and sat down beside me on the edge of the bed, one thumb riffling the gilt-edged pages of Clint’s gift.

“There’s this story,” she said, “in the Book of Revelation. God tells his angels not to kill the people, just to torment them with scorpions for five months. The tormented ones will want to die, it says, but God won’t let them.” Alice folded the covers back like wings until they met, and hung the Good Book sideways from her fingertips, pages waving loose and parched. “I didn’t think angels would do that.”

She asked me to strike a match.

It was Alice who explained the situation to our father. She did not say she was pregnant, she said she was going to have a baby. She spoke as though it were information she had gleaned from the papers, news of a significant but not earth-shattering event.

My father paid a visit to the pragmatic Pastor Clint that night. Daddy not only got into Clint’s apartment, but he returned with my illustrated book of fairies. What was said or done was never spoken about, but our father did report that the pastor had decided he was homesick, besides which he had not been feeling his best—it seemed this relocation to the damp Vancouver climate had not suited his constitution.

Clint went back to California before the week’s end.

Alice knew Dusty’s name long before she was born. She developed cravings for music during her pregnancy like some women do for foods and the last trimester was night and day Dusty Springfield. She went so far as to request that I bring a boom box into the birthing room to ensure Springfield’s voice would be the first one little Dusty would hear. Her glistening purple head popped out just as Big Dusty’s husky drawl sounded “Son of a Preacher Man.”

I moved out of my father’s house shortly after the birth, getting an apartment close by that didn’t feel quite so crowded with maternity. Alice stayed with Daddy and he seemed to thrive on it, going to work every day, coming home to mother and child.

Alice rarely left the house except for daily walks with the stroller. She loved her new role as mother. She and Dusty shunned television and, instead, baked intricate desserts, Dusty reclining quietly in her baby seat on the counter, watching, or sifting flour when her hands got big enough that Alice could wrap them round the sifter’s handle and squeeze. Alice learned to sew, mastering complicated stitching on homemade jumpsuits and sleepers. Once Dusty could walk they learned to dance the cha-cha from instructional DVDs, Alice whisking Dusty in her arms around and round the living room.