The View from Mount Joy (18 page)

She got a big charge out of my discomfort, laughing so much that the baby was jiggled and peered up at her mother with a look that said,
Ma, cool it—I’m trying to eat lunch here!

“Joe, I’m sorry,” she said, and her apology made me redden even more. “It’s just that…Well, you looked so startled.”

“I am startled,” I said. “And not just by your breast.” I made a swooping gesture with my hand. “By all of you.”

“I know. It was kind of mean of me, I guess. I should have warned you I was coming, and should have warned you I was coming with Flora.”

“When…when did this happen? When did you get back?”

Those were only two of the questions I fired at her, and Darva answered every one and more.

“I know I hadn’t written you lately,” she said as the baby nursed. She had covered herself with a cloth from her diaper bag so I didn’t have to concentrate so hard on not looking at her breast. “But I had a lot going on.”

I thought it redundant to say “obviously,” so I busied myself at the coffeemaker.

“I was so swamped last year. I had this project going—it’s basically an arborist explaining his love affair with trees, of all things, and not only did I illustrate the whole thing, I translated it! So when this opportunity for a holiday in Spain opened up, I jumped at it. It was going to be a long weekend of fun in the sun, and it was. But the fun included too much sangria and a very attentive Portuguese man and, well…” She looked down at the baby and smiled. “Well, that’s how Flora got here.”

The coffee machine clunked and made a hissing noise.

“Is the…is the father here too?”

“Oh, God, no. I hardly knew him. Don’t even know his last name, although I do remember his first: Raoul.”

“So your baby doesn’t have a father?”

Darva’s look held surprise and hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I said, ashamed. “I didn’t mean for that to sound so harsh. I just meant…” I shrugged helplessly.

“I know,” she said, lifting the baby onto her shoulder and patting her back. “It’s a lot to throw at you out of the blue.”

The baby burped with more robustness than I would have thought her capable of, and Darva laughed, praising her.

“Is that coffee ready?” she asked.

“Just about.”

“Well, then, here,” she said, standing up. “You hold Flora and I’ll get the coffee.”

Before I had time to protest, the baby was passed off to me in a move as smooth as a quarterback makes with a running back, but this was no football, and I sat down gingerly in my office chair, scared of fumbling.

The baby gazed up at me with curiosity. Her eyes were brown and shiny, fringed with black lashes that matched the black curls on her head.

“She’s so
pretty,
” I said.

“Thanks,” said Darva, tenderness making her word almost a plea. She set two cups of coffee on my desk.

“I drink it black.” I nodded toward the window that overlooked the store. “But I’ve got cream and sugar. And cookies if you’d like, or donuts—we just put in a bakery section—or—”

“I’m good,” said Darva, and looking at her, I could only agree.

She was still tall and thin, still sharp-featured, although there was a softness to her face and manner that I attributed to motherhood. From her ears dangled the elaborate, many-tiered earrings she liked to wear, and at least seven fingers were decorated with rings. But her long, straight hair was gone now, cut so short it looked like a black cap.

She sat in the chair on the other side of my desk, holding the coffee cup near her face, but not drinking from it.

“It is so good to see you, Joe,” she said. “You’re more handsome than ever.”

“Your mother flatters me,” I whispered to the baby, whose eyes were getting heavy. “Learn from her.”

“Oh yes, that’s big on my list of what to teach my daughter: how to use your feminine wiles to entrap and control men.”

We sat there quietly, me using my office chair for a purpose it had never before been used for—to rock a baby to sleep—and Darva drinking her coffee and watching us.

“How old is she?” I whispered, sort of floored by how nice a baby in my arms felt.

“She’ll be seven months tomorrow,” said Darva and as her eyes welled up, she used the pads of her fingers as tear blotters. “Sorry.”

As much as I enjoyed the weight of the baby in my arms, I realized then the real weight.

“It’s hard, huh?”

Darva looked at me for a moment and then laughed. “Oh, Joe, not hard. Wonderful’s more like it. I’m just…blown away by her.”

The baby slept for two hours, and I would have held her the whole time, but when my assistant manager couldn’t answer a question my meat supplier had, I had to surrender Flora to her mother for a few minutes to attend to business.

“Can I hold her again when I get back?” I asked.

“If you bring me back one of those donuts you were talking about.”

I brought her back a chocolate donut and a glazed cruller, and she handed me the baby again, which I thought was more than a fair trade.

The afternoon was like a hot bath, one I settled back in and said, “Ahhh.” It had been ten years since I shared a lunch or art table with Darva, yet it seemed only last week that I’d traded her my apple for her chocolate milk or asked if the nose I was drawing was shaded right. I was so comfortable, so relieved to be in the company of such a good old friend.

“So how long are you staying?” I asked, and her answer heartened me more than I could say.

“I don’t know. I gave up my apartment in Paris—that is, I told my roommates they could rent out my room if they wanted to. I don’t know; I just thought I’d see how it goes here for a while.”

“Here in Minneapolis?”

Darva shrugged. “My family’s not doing too well—I’d like them to get to know Flora while they can.”

In high school, Darva had described herself as a “P.S. in the letter of my parents’ marriage,” telling me that her mother had been forty-seven when she was born, her dad twelve years older. She had one brother twenty-three years older than her and a sister twenty years her senior. “The beauty part is that my parents are pretty tired and sort of let me do what I want.”

Now she told me her father was in a nursing home and when she went to see him, he thought Flora was Darva and Darva was his wife.

“And my poor mom’s so arthritic it actually hurts her to hold the baby,” said Darva, and for the second time she wiped tears from her eyes. “On top of that, my sister-in-law is dying of cancer and my nephew has got a drug habit that put him in his third treatment facility.”

“Wow,” I said. “If I were you, I think I’d go back to France.”

“I’d love to,” said Darva. “God, not only did I love living there—I mean, it’s
France
!—but family duty’s pretty easy when it’s confined to writing letters and making a monthly phone call.”

The baby stirred, and finally I relinquished her to Darva’s outstretched arms.

“But now,” she said, her voice wistful, “now it’s time to dig in and get my hands dirty. Right, Flora?”

The baby’s eyes were open now, and looking up at her mother, she smiled. I did the same.

Fourteen

Hey, Buddy,

Check out the attached. I
almost
wish I could have seen it with my own eyes, but Florida’s a big state, and fortunately I was down in Cocoa Beach while she was way up north. Good God—does she have to go by her real name? My old roommate lives up there and sent me the article. (Geez, I’ve got a lot of friends in this state—how many others are gonna make the connection that I’m related to her?) I’m choosing to find the whole thing funny, or else I’d be projectile vomiting, and since I’m going on a dive this weekend, that’d clog up my scuba mask….

Other than my frickin’ sister saving souls, things have been going well. Nance is a little bit nuts with all this wedding preparation crap, which I go out of my way to ignore. I mean, what answer can she possibly expect when she asks me stuff like, “Should we have the off-white chair covers at the reception or the eggshell?”

I’m glad you’re coming down. It’ll be great seeing you at a frickin’ wedding (even if it’s my own—ha!) instead of a funeral.

Nance is tapping her watch and giving me the fish eye—I gotta go get my tux fitted. Man, am I psyched!…Not.

Anyway, take some Pepto-Bismol before you read the article—believe me, you’ll need it.

Kirk

The letter had been attached to a news clipping, and I unfolded it with a mixture of curiosity and what I could only describe as trepidation.

From The
Ft. Frederick Chronicle,
May
20, 1983:

CAN I GET A WITNESS?

By T. M. Tomaczek

Hands were clapping and tambourines were shaking as Rev. George Darrel returned to his hometown, kicking off the beginning of his Hallelujah Revival traveling road show. A crowd of more than three hundred people gathered yesterday in the hot and dusty fairgrounds, cooling themselves with the complimentary fans (“Rev. George Luvs U!”) that were passed out by two beaming young girls in puff-sleeved dresses.

The Rev. George Gospel Choir sang “Jesus Loves Me” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” there were several testimonials, and Rev. George and his son, Ernie, both preached in fiery manners. In other words, the usual we’ve seen from the reverend, that is, until the audience was jolted in their seats by the loud bangs of a bass drum, a bass drum strapped to a comely young woman by the name of Kristi Casey, who proceeded to do a little preaching of her own.

Rev. George, in a homage to his hometown, claims Fort Frederick is known as “the town that God has smiled on,” and certainly God was smiling all the brighter with the addition of the young woman who brought the crowd to its feet with her words of redemption and excellent rhythm.

This reporter spoke all too briefly with Miss Casey after the revival.

“I wasn’t always on a righteous path,” she remarked as chairs were being folded up and programs picked off the ground. “But until we’ve found the Lord, we really never are, are we?”

Queries as to her background were met with the simple phrase, “I’m here now, with God.”

The Hallelujah Revival begins its five-state tour starting tomorrow,
and with its new addition, the Lord has blessed it.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered after I read it. I wasn’t trying to be funny, not even when the next words to fall out of my mouth were “Holy shit.” I put the letter and article on top of the rest of the mail, so Darva would see it as soon as she got home.

“Oh, it’s
beautiful,
” said Nance as her eyes teared up.

“Wow,” said Kirk, “I’m blown away. And what does it say down there?”

“Rapturia,” Darva said.

“She says she wanted a name that described how you feel together,” I put in.

“Oh my God,” said Nance, and a tear spilled down her cheek as she looked at the artwork. “It’s the best wedding present—no, the best
present
ever. Thank you so much.”

The bridal couple had picked us up at the airport and, seeing the flat wrapped package, begged to open it early.

“You won’t even be here when I open gifts at my parents’,” Nance had said.

“Lucky,” Kirk had muttered in an aside.

Darva had shrugged at me. “It’s okay with me.”

“Me too,” I’d said. “How about you come up to our hotel room and you can open it there?”

After the present opening, the four of us hit it off so well that after the rehearsal dinner, Kirk and his bride-to-be continued the party with Darva and me. We were into our second pitcher of margaritas, and if there had been pain to feel, we weren’t feeling it.

“So let me get this straight,” said Kirk. “You guys are living together but you’re not
together
?”

“Well, I couldn’t resist his offer,” said Darva. “He let me set up a studio in his attic—it’s got great southern light.”

“You should see the stuff she’s doing,” I said. “It’s phenomenal.”

“Thank you,” said Darva, and blowing a kiss at me, she added, “You inspire me.” She raised an eyebrow. “Anyone who changes diapers inspires me.”

“The baby’s,” I said. “Just in case there’s any confusion.”

Darva pressed a finger against the rim of her glass and then sucked the salt off. “We love each other, but we don’t
love
each other.”

“I hate it when she talks like that,” I said. Pretending to cry, I buried my head in my arms.

“So do you really wish it was something more?” asked Nance, putting her hand on my back.

“Yeah,” said Kirk, “do you? Or is it just that Darva won’t have you? And if that’s the case,” he said, raising his glass to Darva, “I commend you for your good taste.”

“Speaking of good taste,” I said, sitting up and looking pointedly at Nance, “did you abandon
all
of yours in the name of love?”

“Yup,” said Nance as she tucked a strand of Kirk’s bleached hair behind his ear. “There’s not an ounce of good taste between us.”

Kirk growled. “Now you’re talking, honeybunch.”

The couple, twelve hours away from legal matrimony, leaned toward each other and kissed. Darva and I, on the other hand, helped ourselves to more margaritas.

I thought Darva was beautiful, in her angular, pointy-featured way, and I appreciated her brain and her humor and her heart, but our relationship had never made that leap from the solid ground of friendship to the spongier marsh of love. At least that’s how Darva explained it now.

“Spongier marsh!” said Nance. “Is that what we’re jumping into?”

“Well, it
is
Florida,” reminded Kirk. “Probably lots of alligators in there too.”

Laughing, Darva shook her head, and her earrings jangled in accompaniment. “That’s just my point. When you fall in love,
because
you’re in love, you’re willing to sidestep the alligators, or sink in the muck a bit. Joe and I are best friends, but we don’t have that passion shield that protects us from all the other stuff.”

“Now, I’d think passion is less a shield than…” I thought for a moment. “Than a saber.”

“Shield or saber,” said Darva, “we don’t have it.”

I shrugged. “She’s right. Whereas you guys”—I doled out the remaining contents of the margarita pitcher into our glasses—“are both shielded and sabered.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Kirk, raising his glass. “To shields and sabers.”

“My
hero,
” said Nance, clinking his glass.

“
My
hero,” said Darva, clinking my glass.

“Who’s totally unarmed,” I answered, clinking hers.

It was a beautiful wedding, although the sun shone a little too brightly for someone whose liver was pickling in tequila. France had added an elegance to Darva’s style, so she looked now as if she was a cover girl for
French Hippie Gypsy
magazine. And the bride and groom—well, I have yet to see the bride and groom who’ve looked hung over at their wedding ceremony. Must be the excitement burns all traces of alcohol right out of them. Even behind my sunglasses, I could see Kirk and Nance were giving the sun a run for its money as far as dazzlement goes. They were both working on their master’s degrees in marine biology and had been part of a research team studying manatees, which not only sounded cool but also bleached their hair the same sun-streaked way and gave them killer tans. Grocery store lighting doesn’t do the same thing to a body.

Nance’s family had a lot of money, which explained why the yacht the ceremony took place on belonged to Nance’s father and why the reception was at the yacht club, whose Admirals’ Hallway featured a picture of the selfsame father and the dates of his service as club president. (Twice—1958–59 and 1969–1970.)

Wealth hung in the air like a cologne sold at a counter I’d never get service at. Waiters did slow rumbas through the room, offering from their trays bites of seafood and flutes of champagne; diamonds weighted the fingers and scalloped the necks of blond thin women of a certain age whose husbands whose preferred ascots over ties; and a jazz trio I had actually seen on the
Tonight Show
played in the background.

The people representing Kirk’s side of the guest list—mostly college and work friends—were without exception diamondless, at least honking-big-diamondless. One woman wore a wedding band with a stone that might have been a diamond, but it was so small I could hardly tell, and it was at this woman’s table Darva and I found our place cards.

“Hey, Mrs. Casey,” I said, sitting next to her, “pretty fancy party, huh?”

“I’d say
fancy
’s the word for it,” said the bridegroom’s mother after she’d exhaled a long plume of smoke. “Christ, how much do you think this whole shebang is setting them back?”

“Probably the gross national product of some small country,” said Darva, touching a petal of the orchid centerpiece.

“Like Trinidad or Tobago,” I said, reaching for the little box wrapped in silver paper on my plate. “Come on, guys,” I said, “what are you waiting for? Let’s open ’em up.”

The boxes held silver picture frames engraved with the names of the wedding couple and the date.

I whistled. “Make that Austria or Belgium.”

Mrs. Casey smiled and turned to Darva. “So how are you doing? Have you talked to Flora yet?”

“Oh, just once…today.”

“Our long-distance bill is going to be—” I held up the picture frame. “Well, at least as expensive as this.”

“It’s tough being away from your kids for the first time,” said Mrs. Casey. “I remember when Jack and I went up north to go fishing and we left the kids with my mother. It was a piece of cake for Kristi—hell, she’d been having sleepovers with my mother since she was a baby. But Kirk—we could still hear Kirk wailing not only when we got into the car but as we drove down the block.”

“She seems to be doing fine,” said Darva with a little catch in her throat. “Of course, she
loves
Joe’s mom. Carole’s like a grandmother to her.”

Another couple—of the diamond-drenched, ascotted variety—sat down, their tanned faces trying to hide their disappointment over having been exiled to our table. Introductions were made, and the fake smiles they wore blossomed into real ones when a couple of their kind joined us.

Fancy salads made with a dark lettuce that I, as a grocer, couldn’t identify were served, and I was suddenly lonesome for Flora, who had declared all green food “yucky.” She was a whirling dervish of a two-year-old for whom I was “Horsey” (while giving her a piggyback ride), “Monsto Man” (when I chased her around like Frankenstein), and simply “
mon
Joe,” when she wanted me to read to her, to play dollies with her, or to drink imaginary tea with her.

I snuck a look at Mrs. Casey, who was eating her salad with great care and occasionally checking, with her pinkie, the corner of her mouth to see if any bits of the dark and mysterious lettuce had landed there. Mr. Casey had died a couple of years ago, and the day after his funeral, according to Kirk, she’d joined AA. Kirk had asked me to check on her once, and that visit led to the occasional ones in which I’d bring along Darva and Flora. She wasn’t hard to visit—she had a wicked sense of humor and made good coffee—but she was lonely as hell and seemed to think a two-year-old tearing through her house was sort of a gift.