Unlovely (41 page)

And yes, we do have a lot to catch up
on!

Claudia

Claudia read and reread her note before
sending it off. Taking her lead from Mark, she'd tried for a casually friendly
tone. The important thing was that they see each other again. That was all that
mattered. Once their eyes met, nature would take its course and there would be
no more of this cat and mouse stuff.

Claudia went into the bathroom to
freshen up, slipped on her sneakers and grabbed her purse and keys. She had
promised God she would visit a church this afternoon, and she intended to make
good on her word.

An hour later, Father
Drulaski
was walking through the sanctuary at St. Timothy's, his footsteps echoing in
the stillness. He thought he was alone, until he caught sight of an unfamiliar
woman sitting on a pew toward the back of the church. She was bundled in a
sweater despite the warm summer day, and was sitting with her arms crossed in
front of her as if she were still chilly. Even from a distance he could tell
she was ill – perhaps recently released from the hospital. Her face was
painfully thin and drawn. She was the saddest-looking person he had seen in a
long time.

What should he do? Father hated to
interrupt a parishioner at his prayers, but this woman looked like she might
need some physical or spiritual help. He decided to look at the visitor
deliberately when he neared her. If she met his eyes, he would take it as an
invitation to speak. If she continued to sit like that, staring at the
crucifix, he would just walk by.

Father
Drulaski
strode slowly up the center aisle, looking from side to side as if checking the
pews for some missing item. As he drew near to the woman, he could make out
that she was muttering something. Was she saying a Rosary? No, that wasn't it:
as he got closer he could tell that she wasn't repeating a prayer. She seemed
to be having a conversation of some sort; from her intonations it would seem
she would ask a question, then wait for a response, and then start talking
again. Father was quite nearby now and he took the opportunity to search her
face; she gave no indication of even noticing he was there.

Father
Drulaski
walked past her and out the double doors into the church lobby. He had a
meeting with the director of St. Tim's elementary school that couldn't be
postponed. It should only take an hour. If the woman were still there when he
returned, he would interrupt her conversation with the Lord to make sure she
was all right. His closer inspection of her – albeit brief – had shown her to
be clean and neatly dressed. Aside from the muttering she didn't seem too odd,
nor did she appear to be someone who would present a danger to herself or others.
Perhaps she was having a mystical experience. Who could say? People meet God in
all sorts of ways.

Father
Drulaski
crossed the grounds to the school, then returned to the church forty-five
minutes later, after a surprisingly swift and productive meeting. The muttering
lady was gone. Every votive candle in front of the statue of the Blessed Mother
was lit.

Claudia spent this night like the one before, tossing
and turning. Earlier in the evening Mark had sent her another message with the
address of the coffee shop. She'd gotten directions online, finished her
packing and climbed into bed early to get her beauty sleep. Sleep was elusive,
though. Now that plans to meet Mark had been firmly laid, Claudia felt as tense
as a cord. She had had restless nights before: on the eve of her SAT's and
GRE's, the night before she'd flown to Europe, but this was in a whole other
category. This was the night before the biggest event of her life. She thought
about taking another Benadryl, but decided against it. She wanted to face the
morning with a clear head and a body untainted by chemicals.

Her trip to the church had been
productive. She'd planned to go to her familiar Presbyterian church, but her
mother's mention of Melanie's conversion popped into her head while she was
driving into town. She'd ultimately chosen to go to St. Timothy's because she'd
heard that Catholics thought Jesus was actually there in the tabernacle.
Physically there. It was a spooky and improbable idea, but kind of an
interesting one, and Claudia decided that if the point of a church visit was to
thank God, she should do her best to be where He was.

The church had been empty when she
walked in. It was dim, cool and still. The red sanctuary lamp was lit next to
the gold box behind the altar; Claudia had considered sitting close to the
tabernacle, but all of a sudden she'd felt shy and scared, so she'd sat in the
back.

After just a few minutes sitting back
there, breathing in the sharp smell of wood polish and the dusty smell of old
missals, Claudia began to be annoyed that she didn't feel God reaching out to
her at all. She had anticipated a reception from the Lord similar to the one
the prodigal son had received from his father – if not a ring and fatted calf,
at least a rush to the gate. After all, she had strayed and been gone a very
long time, if not physically, then certainly mentally and emotionally. Claudia
thought that even if the voice of God didn't come to her as a whisper in the
wind, she would experience an overwhelming sense of His Presence and an
interior locution. Instead she heard nothing, she felt nothing.

Claudia decided, finally, that if God
wasn't going to reach out to her, it must mean that He expected her to make the
first effort. So she began to talk. She told God almost everything about Mark
and her love for him. She explained to Him that although she understood the
sanctity of marriage, it was obvious that her case was unique. In every respect
but the legal one, Mark and Claudia were as good as husband and wife. Susan was
an invalid wife, a usurper. Surely God must understand that, or He wouldn't
have arranged things the way He had. He wouldn't have made Claudia wander the
desert of loneliness all those years, preserving her heart for the one she was
meant for. He wouldn't have prompted Claudia to look up Mark, or allowed Mark
to signal his interest in Claudia. God had had a hand in all of this. And for
that help from God, Claudia wanted to say thank you, and to promise that she
would not let this opportunity go to waste.

She'd left the church feeling very light
and happy and affirmed. She hadn't heard the voice of God, but she felt she'd
covered her bases spiritually. Everything was straight with the Lord. And as a
back-up, she'd lit a few candles.

Claudia arrived home to find a message
from Mark with the name and address of the coffee shop. It was dinnertime, but
there were butterflies in her stomach whenever she thought that in twenty-four
hours she could very possibly be back in Mark's arms, so she was afraid to eat
anything too heavy. She had a glass of ginger ale and a few crackers, watched a
reality TV show until shortly after nine o'clock, and then headed off to bed.

Saturday mornings at the Jameson School were chaotic in
the summertime: old campers moved out of their rooms and into the queued cars
of impatient parents, the cleaning staff swarmed into the building to prepare
for the next week's lodgers. At about ten o'clock Claudia joined the chaos and
appeared in the lobby, wearing her blue polo dress and a pair of huaraches,
carrying her suitcase and purse. As she wove among the clusters of people, she
looked closely at the walls, carpeting and chairs, the portraits of alumnae,
the refuse bins near the door. She was trying to notice all the little details
about this room as if it were an old friend she might never see again. She knew
that the next time she saw it, it would be changed. She would be seeing it with
entirely different eyes. She was going to return to Jameson an entirely
different person.

She'd brought along music for the ride:
Tchaikovsky, because it was Russian and romantic and seemed appropriate. The
highways were not busy at this time of the day, so Claudia's trip progressed
quickly, especially when she allowed herself to slip into a reverie about Mark.
Then she'd really fly, and several times she glanced at her speedometer to
discover she was going close to eighty miles an hour. Claudia had made such
rapid progress toward her goal, in fact, that she decided to stop half an hour outside
of town to use the bathroom, drink half of a cup of tea at a lunch counter, and
buy a box of
Altoids
.

Those tasks completed, she got back
behind the wheel of the car, popped a mint into her mouth, and said a quick
prayer.

"Thank you, God, for getting me to
this place. Please help me make it to the coffee shop safely. Please make him
love me."

Then she turned the key in the ignition
and headed back onto the highway, hurtling toward her fate at a careful
fifty-five miles an hour.

Claudia arrived at the coffee shop ten minutes early.
She didn't want Mark to walk in and find her waiting – it would seem
over-anxious – so she decided to hang out for a few minutes in the car. Giving
her hands a quick once-over, she noticed a hangnail on her right index finger.
She dug around in her purse and found a small pair of scissors and carefully
trimmed the nail. She examined the rest of her fingernails, neatened them a
bit, and regretted she'd not brought along an emery board. Reasonably
satisfied, she turned over her hands to look at her palms; the cuts were
healing with just one or two tiny scabs left to betray the events of that
horrible night with the broken glass. How far she'd come! Life sure was full of
surprises. Things could turn on a dime. She reached back into her purse and
pulled out the coral lipstick for a touch-up. As she was applying it, Claudia
felt butterflies again; she didn't want to have a nervous stomach, not now, so
she turned off the music and closed her eyes to center herself. A quiet moment
before entering the shop would soothe her nerves and prepare her to meet her
fate.

Because Claudia had chosen that precise
moment to close her eyes, she didn't see a man in khaki pants and a plaid
sports shirt, a newspaper tucked under his arm, climb the two stairs to the
porch of the coffee shop. If she had, her heart would have pounded, her face
would have paled. She would have leaped from the car and dashed across the
street, calling the man's name, forgetting her dignity. It would have been a
scene. It would have been a painful, emotional, public display. Thankfully,
this did not happen, because she was leaning back in the driver's seat with her
eyes closed.

Mark walked into the coffee shop to the
accompaniment of jingling bells and glanced around. Not seeing anyone who could
be Claudia among the patrons at the dozen or so bistro tables, he located a
spot at the side of the room and seated himself facing the door.

Mark liked this shop very much. It used
to be a private home and it had a cozy, familial atmosphere. The front parlor
and dining room were used for general seating; the kitchen had been renovated
and was now a top-notch bakery. The owner and his mother were local celebrities
on account of their fruit pies; Mark had been pleased to see a whole peach tart
left in the display window.

He spread the front section of his
newspaper on the table. To all appearances, he was engrossed in a story about a
proposed bypass, but very little of it was registering in his brain. Mark
hadn't thought he'd ever correspond with Claudia again after all these years,
let alone actually see her. A figure from his distant past, reemerging. He
wondered what she looked like now. The photograph he'd seen next to her message
wasn't particularly helpful. It looked like it had been scanned in, grainy and
indistinct.

He glanced at his watch. It was almost
exactly one o'clock. She could be coming in at any moment. His palms were a
little damp, so he reached over to the table next to him to grab a napkin. Mark
was curious to see Claudia again, but nervous. They had had an unusual
relationship, and he wasn't sure what kind of reunion to expect. It was a
little weird that she'd suddenly make an effort to see him after all these
years. It wasn't like they'd been great friends.

A couple of minutes past one Claudia
opened her eyes and knew it was time. She sat up and smoothed her hair. Her gut
was leaping, so she grabbed her
Altoids
out of her
purse, popped one in her mouth and chewed on it. She got out of the car, tucked
her keys in her pocket, and crossed the street. Taking a deep breath and
lifting her chin slightly as she reached for the door handle, she mustered all
the poise and confidence at her disposal as she entered the coffee shop.

Just as Claudia was making her way across the street,
Mark was peering at his watch. It was a few minutes past one already. She was a
little late. Could she have had trouble finding the place? Of course he
couldn't expect her to arrive at one on the dot. She was driving from some
distance. She would call if she had trouble, wouldn't she? Wait – had he given
her his cell phone number? No, he hadn't. That was stupid. How could they have
forgotten to exchange cell numbers?

Well, no matter. He would wait here for
a while if he needed to. He had a paper. Maybe he should get some coffee now
instead of holding off until she arrived.

Mark was getting up to go to the counter
when he heard the tinkle of bells. He looked to the doorway as a woman was
crossing the threshold, but was disappointed to see it wasn't Claudia. It was a
woman with a curious way of moving, a woman far too old and frail to be
Claudia, clutching a purse to her abdomen. A brief glance was all he needed to
know she must be very sick. She was so thin she was a human hanger, no body
discernible beneath the cloth of her dark dress. Her hair was pulled back
severely and her pinched face was so pale as to appear almost featureless. The
one exception was her mouth: she had a thickly painted, bright orange mouth. She
wasn't someone you wanted to look at very long. It was too sad. You felt
embarrassed for her.