Uncross My Heart (26 page)

* * *

A young, obviously gay aide greeted me in the foyer and asked if I had an appointment. I told him I didn’t, but I was certain someone wanted to see me. He indicated he would let the bishop know I was here. I paced nervously, looking at the oil paintings in the corridor while I waited for my executioner. I hadn’t rehearsed anything, hadn’t even contemplated what the meeting might be like. I’d simply chosen to show up in good faith.

Moments later, the same aide led me into a huge, expensively decorated, extremely masculine study. One of the bishop’s vicars greeted me and said His Eminence was of course unavailable, but he would be happy to help me.

Short and trim, his red-and-white cassock finely fitted, he sat, offering me a chair at an angle beside him. His face was smooth, without the worry lines that come with having to determine where his next meal was coming from or how to feed his children. His demeanor unassuming, he asked what he could do for me. I told him who I was and that I’d received a phone message asking for a conversation at my earliest convenience.

His mind kicked into gear immediately and he thanked me for coming, saying my presence was entirely unnecessary since they simply wanted to chat briefly, which we could have done by phone. I assumed that wasn’t all they wanted to do, but it was a polite way of trying to put me at ease.

Then he asked how my life and studies were going at Claridge and if I enjoyed my work and the students and what I thought I had learned there, revealing he knew far more about the school than I imagined and had obviously boned up on my background. I chatted with him like an old friend and after a while ceased to wait for the other shoe to drop, since he appeared to be transparent in his thoughts. I could understand how his communications style had elevated him to a key position on the archbishop’s staff—kind of a mafia don with manners.

After nearly an hour, he whispered, “The archbishop personally supports you in your life’s mission, but we wonder if being so open about personal matters is good for the school and the church.”

“No one would have known who I love if the grandson of the interim chancellor hadn’t rifled my office and obtained personal items.

However, I always believe that when I become afraid about my life, God sees to it that I am forced into openly facing those fears. God has outed me. Therefore, I must believe I can be more effective if I am openly lesbian.”

“It is true that you have been relieved of your position at Claridge?”

“Word travels fast.”

He crossed and uncrossed his legs. “Since God made every essence of us, being true to ourselves is being true to God. It sounds as if you’re on the right path. Do not be discouraged, whatever happens. It is all an evolution.”

“You are personally very kind. But the Anglican church as a whole defends discriminatory acts against their homosexual clergy.”

“Sometimes we are harshest on our own family, and then that attitude spills over into punishing the rest of the world—although not all people within these walls ascribe to my views.”

“The church could split, and the irony is that we are so small already.”

“But God remains,” he said.

I took his hand and held it for a moment. “You’re a kind man. I hope you have someone who loves you, the way I have someone.” His eyes grew even kinder as I exited the room.

Sometimes even I forget that the church is just people,
I thought
.

* * *

That night I returned home to the warm glow of lamplight and Vivienne. She was the most calming drug I could ever imagine, creating peace in me where there had been little, and joy in me where there had been none. I could believe that Viv was a piece of God more than anyone else. She not only lit up the dark corners of the old farmhouse, allowing me to enter the light, but she lit up the darkness inside me.

“So the diocese is going to ignore the fact that you’re a gay priest?”

She stopped making the Waldorf salad and stood still for the answer.

“Unless I do something too outrageous,” I said, loving to be in the kitchen with her.

“Like?”

I pulled her in and kissed her. “I can’t think of anything outrageous.

In fact, the world doesn’t seem to contain too many outrageous acts for me if they’re all from the heart and born of love.”

Thursday, I was at home, having taken a day off to grade papers and write the letter I knew I had to turn over to Thurgood stating I wanted to resign. Unable to frame the words in a way I could find acceptable, I was irritable and fretful. Finally I grabbed the paper, crumpled it, and tossed it into the wastebasket.
Fire me. I’m not doing
it for you.

I jumped when the phone rang, as if in response.

“My God, he’s dead,” Dennis said the moment I answered.

My mind flew to my father. He couldn’t be dead. He’d gotten steadily better and was now in a private room awaiting a decision about his future care. He could converse and watch TV again. “Who are you talking about?” I asked, breathless.

“Thurgood. Dropped dead in the bathroom of his home from a stroke.”

“Oh, good Lord. Did he have heart trouble?”

“Apparently.”

“Who will run Claridge?”

“I don’t know. The big question is did he arrange for his family to continue to support the school, and who will replace him on the board.”

I was silent, thinking about the hand of fate and how occasionally it bends the road to change the path.

* * *

The funeral was held on a Sunday at the cathedral in Chicago with all the pomp and circumstance befitting the richest man on campus.

We were all in attendance and the archbishop himself conducted the mass.In the sermon that followed, Roger Thurgood was touted so extensively that I felt like he was someone else, someone I’d never met.

But then, maybe we are different personae for different people. Maybe the kind, intelligent, thoughtful, and generous man talked about as he lay dead had just never shown up for me, but only for others.

The bishop, a tall, silver-haired, distinguished man, concluded his sermon with, “And just at that moment when someone says, ‘He’s gone,’ there are others on a distant seashore, watching his coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here he comes.’”

I bowed my head and said a prayer, asking God to be good to Roger Thurgood Sr., for he was only trying to do his work in the way he knew how.

As I raised my head, Gladys’s waggling fingers caught my eye, letting me know she’d spotted me, and I realized that in a moment of anger, I’d kissed her, becoming a catalyst for more emotion than she’d most likely experienced in decades…perhaps in her entire life. That alone struck fear in me. I could attest to passions once unearthed being never again buried.

I stared up at the stained glass to avoid seeing Gladys and conducted my own private conversation with God about Vivienne.

There’s no question, Lord. I believe she is a gift from you.

* * *

The following Monday I was summoned again to the chancellor’s office, and this time I had no idea who I would meet. Eleonor was no longer at her post and a young female secretary, attractive in a military kind of way, held the chancellor’s door open for me. Nothing seemed to have changed inside the chancellor’s office other than the fact that the personal photos that had rested on Thurgood’s credenza were now gone.The backside of the tall, tufted executive chair faced me, so the person seated in it, apparently too short to be seen over its high back, was hidden from view. For a moment I envisioned Roger Thurgood III whirling around with a large aha and announcing he was in charge.

I cleared my throat slightly to let the person know I was in the room, and the chair swiveled slowly to face me. A trim, well-dressed woman in her late seventies, with wire-frame glasses propped down on her nose, glanced up at me and waved the secretary off. Her eyes piercing me, the elegant woman asked, “Are you a liberal, moderate, or fundamentalist Christian?”

Accustomed to being summarily grilled in this room, I found her skipping the introductions only slightly odd.

“There are days I think I’m post-Christian and perhaps even more spiritualist.”

“And if I asked you about adultery and what God thinks of it?”

“I don’t presume to know what God thinks. God is within all of us, so if we are quiet and listen to our hearts we will know what’s right.”

“And if I resort to abortion, what is my judgment?”

“We have to forgive ourselves and then God forgives us.”

She changed subjects, and for a split second I thought she was trying to avoid any emotional connection. “Tell me about the trinity—

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

“We, ourselves, are a trinity. Body, mind, and spirit—separate and yet one.” I was becoming annoyed, viewing this as a personal hazing, an attempt to needle me before she fired me. A change of regime is always an opportunity to sweep out the corners. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

She ignored me. “And if you were chancellor…?”

I fixed her with what I hoped was a penetrating stare. “The earth would split down the middle and men would fall screaming into its cavernous center, for I have a female lover.”

She smiled slightly. “Well, then the rumors are true in regard to that issue. I am commissioned by the Thurgood Trust to ascertain the caliber of the seminary staff and assure that another strong chancellor is named.”

“I’m sorry about the interim chancellor’s death.”

“I doubt that,” she said sharply, pinning my lie to my conscience like a butterfly to a sample board. “So, is she…the one?” Her voice was mocking and I knew she was referring to Vivienne.

“Is that a theological question or are you just an HR nightmare?”

My response seemed to infuriate her and her tone changed quickly.

“Dr. Westbrooke, the now-deceased chancellor didn’t really care for you.”

“I certainly didn’t want him to die. However, you’re right. I didn’t care for him. Nor do I care for his grandson. Are we through?”

She nodded and I left hurriedly to head back to my office and simply pack up.
Better to go of my own accord, before I’m thrown out.

Besides, enough is enough.

* * *

Dennis was waiting, as he always did when I went to the ivory tower. “How’d it go?”

“I’ve managed to offend the Trust Nazi and I’m done. I’m getting the hell out.”

“Don’t do that.”

“It’s best for everyone,” I said, and broke away from him.

It only took an hour for me to find a grocery store with some empty boxes and another two hours to put the majority of my belongings in them and lug them out to my car. Sally bumped into me on the third trip to the car and swept the box from my arms.

“Are you moving?”

“Just a little housecleaning,” I said, not wanting to upset her or any of the other students until things were final.

“You’re not quitting?” She grabbed me by the arm, which for a student was an extremely personal gesture.

“I wouldn’t say I’m quitting.”

“Good, because I want you to know that you’re my…my…role model. I mean, you speak up and you don’t buy into everything you’re told to buy into and you…well…I feel better about who I am because of you.”

“That’s very nice, Sally. Thank you.” I was afraid if I stood still a minute longer she might hug me or kiss me, so I quickly patted her hand, using the gesture to remove it from my arm, and hurried to finish the rest of my packing. I could feel her eyes bore into my back and sensed she was kicking herself for not saying what she’d really wanted to say, and I was grateful she hadn’t. I had enough trouble on my hands without a young woman confessing her crush.

* * *

“I told you she has a crush on you the first time I saw her.” Viv continued her exploration of my body with her soft lips as we lay nude together on the bed in the predawn light, a large down comforter scrunched up all around us. Periodically we pushed it to the floor as our body heat roared, and then retrieved it as we cooled momentarily to talk.

“I think she’s just discovering women. Maybe hasn’t even had one.”

“Well, she’s not having this one.” Viv kissed me sensually over and over, and I felt myself slipping back into that amorphous state in which the physical sensation was so radiant that I could no longer pinpoint the area from which it exuded. I was merely a ball of yearning, a tingling, buzzing sensation without form, an entity tied to her—
Perhaps tongue-tied
, I thought with a grin.

“I’m old enough to be her mother,” I managed to whisper.

“That’s not what
she’s
thinking.”

“You hungry?” I pushed away from her to look into her gorgeous eyes.

Viv made a sound as if I’d just offered up myself and she was pleased to accept.

I lifted her face and pulled her toward me. “I’m fixing breakfast before you kill us both.”

* * *

I wiped down the old antique table that sat in one corner of the back porch and put our breakfast on it. I’d made pancakes, which I placed on turquoise pottery, and poured her iced tea from a small pitcher. My turn to cook and serve the goddess, and I was delighted to do it. She stretched catlike and smiled a warm smile at my scurrying around.

“How can you start your morning with a cold drink?” I asked.

“Because I’m a hot-blooded woman.”

I kissed her and caught the syrup on the edge of her lip. “Sweet, but not nearly as sweet as other nectar I’ve tasted.”

The phone rang and a crisp young woman’s voice asked if I could attend the board meeting this afternoon. I was aware that the board meeting was held monthly, at best, and usually on the first Thursday of the month, so this was apparently a special session to officially let me go.

“Well, I think this is it, darling,” I said to Viv as I hung up. “I am about to get the proverbial axe.”

“More time for me to have you to myself. However, I can’t believe they would do that to you—the only intelligent life form in that ecclesiastical maze of morons.”

“You only began thinking that after you slept with me.”