Immaculate Reception (11 page)

I
t was close to four in the morning and Arlo felt like talking. I had to take a shower. Arlo joined me in the bathroom and took up a post sitting on the toilet with the lid down.

“So am I being paranoid?” Arlo shouted.

The hot water rushed over my head, sprinkling down my tired shoulders and back.

“Honey, with you that's a given,” I called out under the spray.

“So there's nothing going on with you and Mr. LAPD Blue?”

“Well, I'm getting on his nerves. Does that count?”

“Don't kid. That's not too far from love,” Arlo pouted.

“Honey, we have enough problems. I don't think we need to imagine any extra ones, okay.” I turned off the hot water and let the spray run cold.

“Yeah. Okay,” Arlo agreed. “But what's with you and Wes lately?”

“What?” I turned off the cold water, shivering slightly.

“Like what do you guys do together until all hours of the night?”

I pulled back the shower curtain and stared at Arlo. “What?” Was Arlo spooking on me? Was he seriously suggesting that Wesley and I…

“Okay. Okay. That's crazy. I know Wesley's…”

“Arlo!” This was beneath all of us. “He's my best friend for God's sake.”

I stepped out of the clawfoot tub and onto a white rug, reaching for a fresh towel. Arlo handed one to me. Standing there naked, I didn't feel Arlo's eyes on me with half the intensity I'd felt Lieutenant Honnett's. And he'd been staring at me fully clothed. I wondered if that was a reflection of the feelings of the beholders or the beheld.

What was with this night?

“And Brother Xavier,” Arlo picked at another fraying thread in our relationship.

I wrapped the towel very tightly around my dripping body and looked for my wide-tooth comb.

“What about Xavier?” I believed we might have arrived at the real issue at last.

“Back in San Francisco. What happened? Did you guys sleep together or what?”

“Look, Arlo,” I said, stopping my tugging on the comb to look at him. “This was years and years ago. Long before there was an Arlo and Maddie.”

“Long before the guy decided to
lay off chicks
?” he asked.

“Honey, this is way past your bedtime. What's really bugging you?”

“I care about you, Mad,” Arlo said. “I care about you, damn it.” Even under extreme emotional duress, Arlo never even veered near the “L” word. “And then I meet your old boyfriend. Is he a jerk? Is he a loser? No! He's too good to be true. He's great. I mean, I think I have a crush on him myself,” Arlo said, turning back into the old Arlo and going for the laugh.

“And your point would be…?”

“So why would you be going with an asshole like me? I mean, I work in goddamned television.” Kidding, but serious, he yelled at me, “You're slumming!”

It was almost sweet. Arlo, the hot young sitcom millionaire, with his fucking Emmy and his need for space. Arlo, the funniest guy at any party. Arlo, the king of noncommitment. Arlo was having self-doubts.

“You know, you're right,” I agreed, trying to get him
back to the Arlo who was so self-absorbed he'd rather spit than analyze a relationship. “You're gutter trash.”

“Okay, so I'm having a problem here. How do you think I should feel? You were going to marry a guy who was perfect.”

I took Arlo's hand and dragged him back into the bedroom where I could find some leggings and a T-shirt. “Xavier Jones was so perfect, Arlo, he left me.”

“But I mean,” continued the king of angst, “he was the better man. I may be shallow but even I can see that.” Arlo looked at me. “I'm waiting for you to jump to my defense, here.”

I laughed.

“No, I mean it, Mad. Xavier got to me. And nobody gets to me.” Arlo was joking, but as usual, it held a core of truth.

“I think he probably made the right choice,” I said. “It was best for him, and best for his family, and best for your sitcom, and best for all of humanity, for all I know.”

“Because he's so good,” Arlo agreed.

“Yes. He's very, very good,” I said, pinning up my hair.

“Don't you even hate him a little bit for dumping you?” Arlo asked, with a twinkle.

I climbed into bed and held the quilt open for Arlo.

“Oh, yes. I believe I do.”

Arlo turned out the light and joined me in bed. Having come to the understanding that he was for me and Xavier was for all of mankind, he rolled on his side, more or less content. And while I believe he was reassured that I could never fall for a cop and I would always hate the priest and my best friend was out of the question, I found I could not go to sleep.

I raised up on one elbow and said, “Hey.”

Arlo kept his eyes closed and, chuckling, said, “Too bad I'm already sleeping.”

Taking advantage of a sleeping man sounded like fun. I lay on top of him, put my hand inside his shorts and said, “Arlo, wake up.”

In the complete darkness of my bedroom, Arlo squinted at my bedside clock. The lit numerals read 4:24. He said, “All right! Morning already!” in a voice that sounded more alert than I'd heard him sound all night.

W
ith the spins and twists of the last twenty hours I felt the loom of unknown demons flying close. Questions begged answers. I could barely close my eyes let alone fall asleep. In the dark, the faceless anxiety of death and love and my own messed-up needs poked my conscious mind like a sharp stick. It required a tremendous effort just to fend them off unexamined. What to do.

Mindless albeit satisfying sex was not thrill enough to blot it all out. And now, the suffocating regularity of Arlo's rhythmic breathing made me want to bolt. Overhot and claustrophobic in the warm bed, I crawled out and headed downstairs.

In the kitchen, I turned on the bright working lights and set the kettle on the range. As I waited to make tea, I noticed the stack of recipes gathered from Xavier's research. He had been on my mind and I was curious about some of the documents. Slowly, I flipped through the notes Xavier had made. I stopped to look at a page taken from the Custom Book of the American Assistancy of the Society of Jesus. It appeared to be an official book of procedures for the operation of Jesuit residences. Reading it, I began to realize what life had been like for Xavier these past years.

I looked at the wall clock and noticed the time. In five minutes a caller would be coming to wake up Xavier.

I rubbed my temples with both hands. What a life he had chosen. How different it would have been had we married. He might have slept through all the five o'clocks he chose, without another soul's permission. I sighed. It might have been our bed out of which I was crawling now.

I flipped though the Jesuit Custom Book and began to suspect how little I had really known the heart of the man I had loved.

Among the old recipes were several which Xavier and I had been planning to try out for the cookbook project. I paged through, mentally checking them against the ingredients I had on hand. In times of stress there was nothing that soothed me like baking did. I read through a nice traditional brioche recipe that had been sent to Xavier from the Jesuit community at Rue de Grenelle in France. A tall round loaf of brioche—dense, egg-rich, and crusty. It would be perfect with strong coffee. Yes, this was just what I needed.

Making bread in your own hands is a humble and sensuous experience, but no one does it anymore. It's popular these days to bypass all the work and simply use an electric breadmaker. People are afraid of the work involved in baking, the time commitment, the risk of failure after such an investment.

For me, the work is where I find peace.

I paid attention to what I was doing and checked the
brioche recipe. Quickly, I pulled together all the ingredients that were needed, measuring them out into a variety of clear glass bowls. It's the way I begin all new recipes. This allows me to concentrate on the techniques and timing instead of searching for measuring cups at a critical point.

Each time I bake bread, I am reminded that by the combination of simple ingredients one can produce a thing of beauty, delight, and nourishment. The first step is always the same: start the yeast.

I used the fresh kind, fawn-colored and crumbly, which I mixed with warm water in a small creamware bowl. Yeast is a living plant that has needs like any of us. It needs warmth, moisture, food, dare I say love? I enjoyed a nice tragic sigh. Perhaps I was turning a tad melancholy?

Fresh yeast can be a pain. It needs to stay well wrapped in the refrigerator and will only last around three weeks. I tell my friends to use the active dry variety, which is quite good.

Touching the yeast gently, pushing it with the tips of my fingers, I always feel like I am coaxing the cells awake. In the small bowl, the yeast began to fizz and release its pleasant sour odor and I moved the bowl aside to rest for five minutes in a nice warm spot.

Without any sleep, my mind was wont to do as it would, and so without bidding pingponged back to Xavier and the day we baked bread together. It had been the first day we met after our long separation. Things had gone well at first, small talk, catching up, jokes, but then we grew quiet.

To avoid the obvious subjects neither of us wanted to mention, we decided to bake. I said baking bread reminded me of our days back in cooking school. Xavier said that's funny, because it reminded him of his religion.

As we worked side by side, he told me a little about his training. At the novitiate he was taught about St. Ignatius. This founding father of the Society of Jesus believed that the authentic search for God must pass through one's ordinary life. He prescribed for Jesuits a daily spiritual exercise called the Examen of Conscience.

Xavier had never spoken with me about his religious practice before. I listened closely, as perhaps any former girlfriend listens to a man describe the rival he chose to spend his life with. I was trying to imagine how his Jesuit life could be better than the one he left behind. What had persuaded him to abandon me? I was always on alert for the overlooked clue that would unlock that mystery. Hesitantly, I asked him to tell me more.

Xavier said he found that he was happiest when he performed the Examen of Conscience while he did simple chores, like baking bread from scratch.

First, he would think of all the good things that had come into his life and thank God for them. He would examine his recent actions, and thoughts, and desires. He would ask himself questions. Had he spent any time doing something generous for another? Had he prayed for another's needs? Had he been kind? Had he remembered that God is lovingly watching over us all?

Who wouldn't be drawn to Xavier's innocent desire to serve God? How petty I was to think only of myself, my old wounds. How selfish.

This was becoming painful to remember. But in the middle of the night, alone, I couldn't stop these thoughts.

I shook my head. With the sky still black outside the multipaned windows in my kitchen, I pulled myself out of my ego death spiral and got my mind on the work before me. The process was calming. I creamed the butter and added sugar, salt, eggs, and an extra egg yolk in my favorite blue and white pottery bowl. Following the old Jesuit brioche recipe closely, I mixed in warm milk along with the yeast, which was foaming to life.

While I beat the dough I added the flour slowly. As I worked, I tentatively took a shot at finding my own spiritual side. I began to perform an Examen of Conscience. I thought about all that I had to be thankful for: my friends, my health, my energy, and enthusiasm. I asked myself, had I been kind? Had I spent enough time doing something for another?

Ten minutes of beating thick dough by hand and I began to feel the burn, but I must admit this is my kind of exercise. Between the physical exhaustion and the spiritual cleansing, some of the tension that had been building all night began to pass. I dusted my old marble countertop with flour. The dough had begun pulling away from the sides of the blue and white bowl and now I carefully turned it out onto the floured marble in order to knead it properly.

With my thoughts now gently focused, I really needed to stop moping about what might have been and get on with the work that had to be. We had the pope and guests to feed. There were questions about Brother Frank's death. And I was not going to sit by and let the odd coincidences between that death and Monsignor Picca's go. If the police weren't connecting the two, maybe I could come up with something new that would open their eyes.

Before dawn, I figured to have a pretty good shot at getting through on AOL. My notebook PC was already plugged into the phone line and it sat where I'd left it, on a wooden kitchen chair. I scooched the chair closer to me, flipped open the notebook, and turned it on, waiting as it began its startup routine.

The trick would be punching the proper commands into my computer at the same time I was working the dough. My hands were out of commission. And then I struck upon a plan to leave one small finger out of the kneading. This one clean finger was all I needed to operate in the twenty-first century, while I devoted the other nine to practicing an art that went back to a time before Christ.

Kneading by hand is both meditation and physical exertion. I inhaled deeply, loving the smell of the yeast while squishing my hands, minus one finger, through the dense slippery mound. The world may be pushing me in incomprehensible directions, towards lessons I'd sooner not learn, but right now in this hour just before dawn, all I knew was the weight and bulk growing smooth and elastic in the warmth of my hands. I guess this was the only peace I really knew.

The computer beeped as my network connection came through. I was pleased to hear the little guy tell me, “You've got mail.” But for the moment it would have to wait. I pleaded with the machine to let me stay connected to AOL until I could get back to it in a minute, as I swirled a touch of oil into the big bowl. Then, I turned my brioche dough in the bowl quickly to coat it on all sides.

It was now time to let it rise. I covered the bowl with plastic and moved it to stay warm next to my oven where all it needed was to be left alone for an hour. Baking is fair. It demands hard work and then rewards you with a break.

I wiped my hands and then ten-fingered my way through to my e-mail.

That was odd. Who was epressman? I clicked on the message and my screen became filled with an electronic letter from Edward Pressman, of St. Bede's the Venerable Catholic Church.

And as I read the e-mail, a chill traveled down my spine.

It was a polite note from the church secretary inviting me to meet Monsignor Picca at the home of his sister at ten o'clock this morning.

Is there anything eerier than receiving e-mail from a dead man?