Margaret's Ark (15 page)

The interview went much like the other two she'd given over the past days. Margaret had to endure them. Seven days into construction and only half a crew. She needed the publicity. Twenty minutes later, with the news van packed up and out of site down Cambridge Street, events took a turn for the worse.

The steady bleat of a car horn, then, “Carl! Hey, Carl!” More beeping.

At the edge of the square, a black, rusted SUV had parked across from the fire station. A young man in a high school varsity baseball uniform stood outside it, leaning in through the driver's door and pressing the horn.

Carl poked his head over the top of the hull and muttered to himself.

The new arrival shielded his eyes from the early afternoon sun and shouted, “What the hell are you doing up there, man?” Without looking at Margaret, Carl climbed down the ladder and headed for the SUV. Margaret busied herself with picking up scattered debris and putting what scraps she thought salvageable in one pile, tossing the rest into one of the large, green plastic trash cans. She did her best to listen to the conversation.

The visitor’s voice rose in volume, then dropped in response to Carl's hushed reply. Obviously, Carl’s call to the coach about not being well enough to play yesterday had worked as well as it could have. His teammate seemed genuinely shocked to see him here.

Carl's voice became louder as the conversation progressed. At length, it ended with the owner of the SUV yelling obscenities and Carl reciprocating with his own.

The car roared away, oblivious to the police station next door. The lone policeman on common duty followed its progress down the road, waiting with one hand on his radio while the car turned onto Cambridge Street. It did so slowly, without the expected squeal of tires.

The policeman took his hand from the radio and looked at Margaret, shrugging his shoulders in a defeatist gesture.

Carl stormed back to the ark and climbed up the ladder without speaking. Margaret didn't push for an explanation. She looked at her watch. Three-thirty. He had time to cool off before heading home and not telling his parents about school.

By four forty-five, Andy had returned with a new pair of pants and people were making end-of-day motions. The sun was curving behind the fire house as Carl climbed down the ladder. He brushed away a thick layer of sawdust from his jeans, being meticulous to get all around himself. Still, the smell of it permeated his clothes, and his tee-shirt clung to his muscular chest. Every other day, he had left an hour early to run his clothes through the laundromat down the road. He'd then take the cleaned clothes, crumple them up and toss them into the hamper at home.

A great plan. Margaret could tell he hated doing it.

“That was Max who came by earlier,” he said. “The dude in the car.” He gestured toward the road.

Margaret nodded.

Carl's half-hearted arm gesture was frozen in place. He continued staring across the grass.

“Carl?” Margaret followed his gaze.

A woman sat in a Honda and stared through the open driver's window. If such a thing were possible, Margaret would swear she saw the air ripple between her and the teenager.

“Oh, no,” Carl said, barely whispering.

The woman in the car looked on the verge of tears. She began to say something, stopped, then pulled from the curb without looking. Fortunately, there hadn’t been another car coming. Margaret watched the Honda’s window slide soundlessly up as it pulled away, and turned on to Cambridge without slowing amid the blare of car horns and the squeal of brakes.

Margaret looked quickly at the policeman, who was talking into his walkie-talkie. He caught Margaret's gaze. She shook her head. The man looked up the road, back at her, then sighed and said something else into his radio.

Carl stared off into space.

“That was your mother, wasn't it?” Margaret said.

“Max. Max must have told her.”

“He has her work number?”

Carl's forehead wrinkled in confusion. “No. Aw, no!” He shouted and turned to grab his stuff. “No,” he said, “but the coach does. “

He stormed across the grass to his car parked at the furthermost corner from the ship. Margaret ran after him.

“Carl, wait!” When he didn’t respond, she grabbed his shoulder and shouted, “Wait!”

Carl stopped. He was breathing hard, panicked. Margaret knew she had only a few seconds to say what she needed to. “Carl, don't talk, just listen; then you can leave.” She lowered her voice, “And leave
slowly
. The cop back there is itching to give
someone
a ticket.” She moved between him and his car.

“When you get home, they're going to ask you why you're here. You know that as well as anyone. Before they ask, you need to know what your answer will be.”

He looked at her, disbelief mixed with rage. “You want me to lie?”

“On the contrary. You need to tell them the truth. The question is, do you know what the truth is?”

He started to reply, hesitated, the meaning of her question slowly sinking in. She pressed, “Carl, you've been such a help to me, to everyone. You've come here every day and haven’t complained about anything I’ve asked you to do. The outside of the ark is only a few days from completion, and a lot of that is because of you. But listen!” She raised a hand to stifle any objection he might offer.

“Not since you arrived have you spoken about why you're here. When you face your parents, you know what they'll say. And when they say it, it might be with all the force - and love - they've ever mustered. Do you believe God wants us to build this boat?”

His expression went flat, as if the words had a physical impact against his face. “I.... I mean....”

“
I.. I mean...
isn’t going to answer your parents' question. I don’t know them, but I have a feeling they're good people. Are you willing to stand before them and explain that there
will
be a flood in forty-seven days and the Lord
does
want to save us and that you want them to join us? Or are you going to back down?”

“I don’t understand why - “

“Please, Carl, believe me. You've been avoiding this long enough. Before you get home tonight, even if it means taking the long way and grabbing a Big Mac first, you have to know where you stand. Not where
I
stand. Not Andy. Not even your friend Max.” The mention of that name sent a new wave of emotion through the boy's face. “What
you
believe, Carl. God loves you. He loves your parents. He loves the world and wants to save as many people as possible, believers and non-believers alike. Whether He’s causing the flood or not, He is in control and you have to be on the ark when it happens. I haven’t preached to you before and I won't tomorrow, but I will now. Believe or don't! But do it before you face the very people who love you the most, or you'll fall under
their
faith instead of your own.”

Margaret forced herself to stop. She moved a step sideways, and without speaking gave her student a clear path to his car.

Faith
.

Carl seemed to be mulling the word over, though probably not for the first time. This was the moment he must have known was coming. It was time to decide what faith
was
, what he really believed.

He only nodded and walked across the common, fumbling in his jeans’ pockets for his car keys.

*     *     *

Connor bit down joyfully on the teething ring, never taking his eyes off his mother. Holly knelt before the baby’s walker, watching his toes bounce up and down, barely reaching the carpet. She could tell he was aching to walk. From the steady stream of drool down his chin it wouldn't be long before the first signs of teeth emerged, too. Then what, she wondered? She would have to wean him off breast milk and onto the bottle. Clay would be the first to agree with that. For some reason, the sight of her nursing irritated him. He'd made her buy infant formula last week, but she hadn’t used it. He didn’t press the point, but it was only a matter of time.

Connor was always, it seemed, a sore spot between them. Clay was distant with the baby, never taking much more than a passing interest in him. Connor often reached up for him as he passed, only to lower his arms in disappointment. Though he had never said as much, Clay assumed the baby wasn't his. Whenever someone commented that Connor looked like his father, Clay grunted a half-hearted acknowledgement and changed the subject. He assumed, as she did, that the child was Brad's. Brad versus Clay, a decision Holly had been forced to make when she learned she was pregnant. At the time, Brad was moving to the Midwest for six months of basic training in the Air Force, and she was afraid to leave Clay, let alone for having gotten pregnant off a one-night fling with a football jock.

She wondered what would have happened if she
had
confronted Brad with her pregnancy, if he'd have taken her to Oklahoma with him. She wondered that often. She’d never know. Besides, Connor
might
be Clay's son. Anything was possible. But she didn't believe it, and neither did he, though he never mentioned the other man. Denial was one of the few things Clayton Griffin was good at. So Holly stayed. She had a home, and a boyfriend. Not a husband. It seemed likely that Clay would drag his feet on that matter until the end of time. As long as some doubt remained, he was satisfied with their common-law arrangement. After all, he'd argue, in California you didn't need to make anything “official”. Wait long enough and it happened automatically.

Wait long enough, and you can see if your son looks like you or that guy who used to work at the Ready Gas.

“Play time's over.” Clay was standing behind the walker at the entrance to the kitchen. “The least that baby sitter of yours can do is get supper going before she leaves, since all you ever do when we get home is play googly-eyes with him.”

Holly offered her son a quick smile, as if to say
it's okay; Mommy and Daddy are just talking
. She looked up. “We pay Dot half of what a day care charges and she doesn't complain. The last thing I'd ask a friend to do is cook for me.”

“Well, then, get moving.” Having said his piece, Clay turned towards the kitchen. Then he paused. His eyes scanned back and forth along the floor as if trying to remember something. Holly’s mouth went dry, but she forced herself to swallow. There was more he was going to say, and when he hesitated like that, it meant the subject was one he'd been thinking about for a while. Holly didn't like it when Clay thought too much.

“What?” she asked quietly, wanting to get it over with. “What's wrong?”

He looked at her sideways, and she was grateful that she was currently out of swinging distance. “You've been talking to the Jesus freaks again.”

She shrugged, hoping to let forced nonchalance mask her apprehension. “Well,” she said, “I guess so.” Then added quickly, “But just for taking orders and stuff. Nothing personal.”

He turned back to face her, filling the entrance to the kitchen. “You trying to tell me they're not asking you to join them?”

“No, just buying stuff.” As soon as she'd said it, she felt heat flush along her neck and saw the change in his expression. She'd blown it.

He took a step towards her. “Lizzie said she heard you talking with that guy from Soledad, the one who's too chicken to use the store in his own town. Said you were asking
him
questions, not the other way around.”

Holly fought the urge to stand, move away from Connor in case Clay got rough. She stayed put, not wanting to look defiant. “Well, I don't know. It's all kind of weird. I might have asked him some stuff, but I always talk to the customers.”

Two more steps. He loomed over the two of them. His face was red. When he spoke, it was with control that looked out of place on him. Maybe the baby-walker in his path was the cause. She instinctively put a hand to its food tray. The baby reached for her fingers.

“You,” Clay began, “will not talk to those people. You will not talk to them.”

Slowly, carefully, Holly stood up and moved sideways a half step away from Connor. She heard his teething ring fall to the tray with a thud but kept her eyes on the man in front of her.

“Do you believe any of what they're saying?” she asked softly, the voice she used in pre-explosion moments like this. “Isn't it kind of weird there's so many people saying it? Maybe they're not crazy. Maybe -”

“Maybe they're not crazy,” he repeated in a child's taunting manner.
Bad sign
, she thought. “Maybe, maybe, maybe. You telling me you've had dreams like them, too?”

She shook her head. “Oh, God, no. Not at all.”

“Oh, God no,” again in that voice. “
Maybe they're not crazy, but God no, not me. I'm not crazy!
”

“Clay, don't - “

He stepped forward until there was only an inch between their faces. “It's a fake. It's all a fake. I know one hundred percent that it is, and you just listen to what I say and
do
what I say.”

Holly could tell Clay was clenching and unclenching his fists. She felt her muscles tighten, preparing for the inevitable. The baby bobbed up and down in the walker, trying to navigate closer to his mother.

He continued, “Don't be thinking too much about all this, and don't be asking stupid questions. I'll know. I'll know and
you
know what will happen then, especially if you think you can just saunter over to some psycho town like Greenfield or Lavish and shave your head and chant at the airport selling flowers!”

He wasn't making sense, but neither was he calming down. “I won't, Clay. I promise.”

“Because if you try to leave now, leave me with this kid, or even take him with you, I'll find you and - “

He stopped. Eyes darting back and forth. His words,
if you try to leave now
, played over in her head. It was a strange way to say it.

“I won't. I promise. I was just curious.”

“Yeah, well, curiosity... well, and all that. Don’t forget I’m your boss, too. If I have to fire you, I will.”