"Daddy pays," she told me. "And I don't go out to bars."
She wasn't just sweet, she was saccharine, and for the life of me I didn't see why Reid was blind to the fact that Liddy was too good to be true. No one was that pure and sweet; no one actually read the Bible from cover to cover or burst into tears when Peter Jennings reported on starving children in Ethiopia. I figured she was hiding something, like that she used to be a biker chick or that she had ten kids stashed away in Arkansas, but Reid just laughed at me. "Sometimes, Max," he said, "a cigar really is just a cigar."
Liddy had grown up as the only spoiled child of an evangelical minister, and because she was making a major life change by moving north of the Mason-Dixon Line, her father insisted she give it a trial run. So she and her cousin Martine moved to Providence, in a tiny apartment on College Hill that Reid had found for her. Martine was eighteen and thrilled to be away from home. She started wearing short skirts and heels and spent a lot of time flirting with Brown students on Thayer Street. Liddy, on the other hand, began volunteering at the soup kitchen at Amos House. "I'm telling you, she's an angel," Reid would say.
But I didn't answer. And because he knew I didn't like his fiancee--and he didn't want that kind of strain in his family--he decided that the best way for me to get to like her more was to spend more time with her. He started making excuses, working late, and asked me to drive Liddy each day from downtown Providence to Newport, where he'd then take her out to dinner or a movie.
I'd get her in my pickup, and she'd immediately change the radio station to a classical one. Liddy was the one who told me that composers used to always end their pieces in a major chord--even when the piece was mostly written in a minor one--because ending with a minor chord had some connotation of the Devil. It turned out that she was a flutist who'd played with all-state symphonies and had been first chair at her Bible college.
I'd swear a blue streak at a driver who cut into my lane, and she would flinch as if I'd hit her.
When she asked me questions, I tried to shock her. I told her I sometimes surfed in the darkness just to see if I could make it through riding a curl without smashing my head against the rocks. I told her my last girlfriend had been a stripper (which was true, but it didn't involve a pole--just wallpaper. Yet I didn't mention this to Liddy).
One freezing cold day, when we were stuck in traffic, she asked me to turn up the heat in the truck. I did, and three seconds later she complained because it was too hot. "For God's sake," I said, "make up your mind!"
I figured she'd lay into me for taking the Lord's name in vain, but instead Liddy turned to me. "How come you don't like me?"
"You're marrying my brother," I replied. "I think it matters more if he likes you."
"You didn't answer my question."
I rolled my eyes. "We're just different, is all."
She pursed her lips. "Well, I don't think so."
"Oh really," I said. "Have you ever gotten drunk?"
Liddy shook her head.
"Ever bummed a cigarette?"
She hadn't.
"Have you ever stolen a pack of gum?"
Not even once.
"Ever cheated on a guy?"
No.
"I bet you've never even gotten to third base," I muttered, and she blushed so bright that I felt like my own face was on fire.
"Waiting for marriage isn't a crime," Liddy said. "It's the best gift you can give someone you love. Besides, I'm not the first girl to do it."
But you may be the first one to actually carry through with it, I thought. "Have you ever lied?"
"Well. Yes. But only so I could keep Daddy's birthday surprise party a secret."
"Have you ever done anything you regretted later?"
"No," she said, just like I expected.
I rested my wrist on the steering wheel and glanced at her profile. "Have you ever wanted to?"
We were stopped at a red light. Liddy looked at me, and, maybe for the first time, I really, really looked at her. Those blue eyes, which I'd thought were so empty and glassy, like those of a toy doll, were full of hunger. "Of course," she whispered.
Behind us, a driver honked; the light had turned. I looked out the windshield and realized that it had started snowing; that meant my chauffeur services would take even longer. "Hold your horses," I said to the driver under my breath, at the same time that Liddy realized the weather had turned.
"Oh my," she cried (who in this millennium says Oh my?), and before I could stop her she jumped out of the truck. She ran into the middle of the intersection, her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, as the snowflakes landed on her hair and her face.
I honked, but she didn't respond. She was going to cause a massive pileup. Cursing under my breath, I got out of the pickup. "Liddy," I yelled. "Get into the fucking car!"
She was still spinning. "I've never seen snow before!" she said. "This never happens in Mississippi! It's so pretty!"
It wasn't pretty. Not on a grimy Providence street where a guy was doing a drug deal on the corner. But cynics always assume the worst, and I guess I was the biggest cynic of them all. Because, at that moment, I realized why I distrusted Liddy on principle. I was afraid that maybe someone like Liddy had to exist in the universe in order to balance someone like me. A woman who couldn't do anything wrong surely canceled out a guy who never did anything right.
Together, we were two halves of a whole.
I knew then why Reid had fallen for her. Not in spite of the fact that she was so sheltered but because of it. He would be there for all these firsts--her first bank account, her first sexual encounter, her first job. I'd never been someone's first anything, unless you counted mistake.
By now, other cars had started honking. Liddy grabbed my hand and twirled me around while she laughed.
I managed to get her back into the car, but I sort of wished I hadn't. I wished we'd just stayed in the middle of that street.
When we started driving again, her cheeks were pink and she was out of breath.
Reid might have everything else, I remember thinking, but that first snow? That was mine.
One sip, when you measure it, is practically nothing. A teaspoonful. A taste. Certainly not enough to really help you quench a thirst, which is why that first sip leads to just a tiny second one, and then really just enough to wet my lips. And then I start thinking about Zoe's voice and Liddy's and they blend together and I take another swallow because I think that may split them apart again.
I really haven't drunk very much. It's just that it's been so long, the buzz starts fast and spreads through me. There is a rush like a tide in my head every time my foot hits the brake, which manages to wash away whatever I was thinking at that moment.
Which feels awfully good.
I reach for the bottle again, and, to my surprise, there's nothing in it.
It must have spilled, because there's no way I drank a fifth of whiskey.
I mean, I couldn't have, right?
In my rearview mirror is a lit Christmas tree. It takes me by surprise when I happen to glance at it, and then I can't stop staring, even though I know my eyes should be on the road. Then the tree lets out a siren.
It's May; there are no Christmas tree lights. The cop raps against my window.
I have to unroll it, because if I don't he'll arrest me. I tell myself to get a grip, to be polite and charming. I can convince him I haven't been drinking. I did that for years, with the rest of the world.
I think I recognize him. I think he may even go to my church. "Don't tell me," I say, offering up a gummy, sheepish grin. "I was going forty in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone?"
"Sorry, Max, but I'm gonna have to ask you to step out of the--"
"Max!" We both turn at the sound of another voice, followed by the slam of a car door.
The cop falls back as Liddy leans into my open window. "What were you thinking, driving yourself to the emergency room?" She turns to the policeman. "Oh, Grant, thank goodness you fo
und him--"
"But I didn't--"
"He fell off a ladder while he was cleaning out the gutters, and conked his head, and I go off to get an ice pack and by the time I get back I see him zooming off in his truck." She frowns at me. "You could have killed yourself! Or worse--you could have killed someone else! Didn't you just tell me you were seeing double?"
I honestly don't know what to say. I'm wondering if she conked her head.
Liddy opens the driver's side door. "Move over, Max," she says, and I unbuckle and slide across the bench into the truck's passenger seat. "Grant, I just cannot thank you enough. We are so blessed to have you as a public safety officer, not to mention as a member of our congregation." She looks up at him and smiles. "Will you be a darling and make sure my car gets back home?"
She gives a little wave as she drives off.
"I didn't bang my head--"
"Don't you think I know that?" Liddy snaps. "I was out looking for you. Reid told me you left him at the dock to go help Pastor Clive."
"I did."
She glances at me. "That's funny. Because I was with Pastor Clive all afternoon, and I never saw you."
"Did you tell Reid?"
Liddy sighs. "No."
"I can explain--"
She holds up one small hand. "Don't, Max. Just . . . don't." Wrinkling her nose, she says, "Whiskey."
I close my eyes. Stupid idiot I am, believing I can pull a fast one. I look drunk. I smell drunk. "How would you know, if you've never had it?"
"Because my daddy did, every day of my childhood," Liddy says.
There is something about the way she says it that makes me wonder if her father, the preacher, was trying to drown his own demons, too.
She drives past the turn that would have led to our house. "Lord knows I can't take you home in this state."
"You could hit me over the head and take me to the hospital," I mutter.
Liddy purses her lips. "Don't think I haven't considered it," she says.
The biggest knock-down fight I ever had with Zoe was after Christmas Eve at Reid and Liddy's house. We'd been married about five years by then and had already had our share of fertility nightmares. Anyway, it's not a secret that Zoe wasn't a big fan of my brother and his wife. She had been watching the Weather Channel all day, hoping to convince me that the snow we were going to be getting that night was enough to keep us from driving from our place to theirs.
Liddy loved Christmas. She decorated--not in a cheesy inflatable Santa way but with real garlands wrapped around the banister and mistletoe hanging from the chandeliers. She had a collection of antique wooden St. Nicholas dolls, which were propped up on windowsills and tables. She switched out her everyday dishes for a set with holly around the edges. Reid told me it took her an entire day to prepare the house for the holidays, and looking around, I totally believed it.
"Wow," Zoe murmured, as we waited in the foyer for Liddy to take our coats and hang them up in the closet. "It's like we've fallen into a Thomas Kinkade painting."
That's when Reid appeared, holding mugs of hot cider. He never drank when I was around. "Merry Christmas," he said, clapping me on the back and kissing Zoe on the cheek. "How are the roads?"
"Nasty," I told him. "Getting worse."
"We may not be able to stay long," Zoe added.
"We saw a car slide off the road on the way back from church," Reid said. "Luckily, no one got hurt."
Every Christmas Eve, Liddy directed the children's Nativity play. "So how did it go?" I asked her. "You guys taking it to Broadway?"
"It was pretty unforgettable," Reid said, and Liddy swatted him.
"We had an animal control issue," she said. "One of the little girls in Sunday School has an uncle who runs a petting zoo, and he loaned us a donkey."
"A donkey," I repeated. "A real one?"
"He was very tame. He didn't even move when the girl playing Mary climbed onto his back. But then"--she shuddered--"he stopped halfway down the aisle and . . . did his business."
I burst out laughing. "He took a dump?"
"In front of Pastor Clive's wife," Liddy said.
"What did you do?"
"I had a shepherd clean it up, and the mother of one of the angels ran out to get carpet cleaner. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I never officially got approval from the school to bring in livestock."
"Wouldn't be the first time an ass went to church," Zoe said, straight-faced.
I grabbed her elbow. "Zoe, come help me in the kitchen." I dragged her through the swinging door. It smelled delicious, like gingerbread and vanilla. "No politics. You promised me."
"I'm not going to sit back while he--"
"While he does what?" I argued. "He hasn't done anything. You're the one who made the snide comment!"
She looked away from me, petulant. Her gaze landed on the refrigerator, on a magnet printed with a fetus sucking its thumb. I'M A CHILD, said the caption. NOT A CHOICE.
I put my hands on her arms. "Reid is my only family. He may be conservative, but he's still my brother, and it's Christmas. All I'm asking is that, for an hour, you smile and nod your head and you don't bring up current events."
"What if he brings them up first?"
"Zoe," I begged, "please."
And for about an hour, it seemed as if we might get through dinner without a major incident. Liddy served ham and roasted potatoes and a green bean casserole. She told us about the ornaments on her Christmas tree, a collection of antique ones that had come from her grandma. She asked Zoe if she liked to bake, and Zoe talked about some lemon refrigerator pie that her mother used to make when she was a kid. Reid and I talked college football.
When "Angels We Have Heard on High" played on the CD in the background, Liddy hummed along. "I taught this one to the kids this year for the pageant. Some of them had never heard it before."
"The Christmas concert at the elementary school is apparently the holiday concert now," Reid said. "A bunch of parents got together and complained, and now they won't sing anything that has even faintly religious overtones."
"That's because it's a public school," Zoe said.
Reid cut a neat little triangle of his ham. "Freedom of worship. It's right there in the Constitution."
"So's freedom of religion," Zoe replied.
Reid grinned. "You try all you want, but you can't take Christ out of Christmas, honey."
"Zoe--" I interrupted.
"He brought it up," Zoe replied.
"Maybe it's time for the next course." Liddy, always the peacemaker, jumped up and cleared the dinner plates, then disappeared into the kitchen.
"Let me apologize for my wife," I said to Reid, but before I could finish the sentence, Zoe turned, furious.
"First of all, I'm perfectly capable of speaking for myself. Second of all, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I don't have an opinion about--"
"You came here spoiling for a fight--" I argued.
"Then I'll happily call a truce," Reid interrupted, smiling uncomfortably. "It's Christmas, Zoe. Let's just agree to disagree. Stick to topics like the weather."
"Who's ready for dessert?" The swinging door to the kitchen opened, and Liddy stepped through, carrying a homemade cake. Written across the top in white icing it read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS.
"My God," Zoe murmured.
Liddy smiled. "Mine, too!"
"I give up." Zoe backed away from the table. "Liddy, Reid, thank you for a lovely dinner. I hope you have a great Christmas. Max? There's no need for you to leave if you don't want to. I'll just meet you at home." She smiled politely and headed toward the foyer to get her boots and her coat.
"What are you going to do, walk?" I called after her. Excusing myself quickly, I thanked Reid and kissed Liddy good-bye.
By the time I got outside, Zoe was already trudging down the street. The snow, unplowed, reached up to her knees. My truck barreled through it easily and stopped beside her. I leaned over and opened the passenger door. "Get in," I snap
ped.
She thought twice, but she climbed into the cab of the truck.
For a few miles, I didn't speak to her. I couldn't. I was afraid I might actually explode. Then, when we hit the highway--which had been plowed--I turned to Zoe. "Did you ever think how humiliating that was for me? Is it really too much to ask for you to make it through one meal with my brother and his wife without being a sarcastic bitch?"
"Oh, that's really nice, Max. So now I'm a bitch, because I don't feel like being brainwashed by the Christian right."
"It was a fucking family dinner, Zo. Not a revival meeting!"
She twisted toward me, the seat belt cutting against her throat. "I'm sorry I'm not more like Liddy," Zoe said. "Maybe Santa could slip a lobotomy into my stocking tonight. That would help."
"Why don't you just shut the hell up? What has she ever done to you?"
"Nothing, because she doesn't have a mind of her own," Zoe said.
I'd had plenty of discussions with Liddy about whether people like Jack Nicholson and Jonathan Demme owed their success to B movies; about Psycho's impact on film censorship. "You don't know anything about her," I argued. "She's a . . . a . . ."
I swung the truck into our driveway, letting my voice trail off.
Zoe jumped out of the truck. It was snowing so hard now that there was a curtain of white behind her. "A saint?" she said. "Is that the word you're looking for? Well, I can't be one, Max. I'm just a flesh and blood woman, and apparently I even suck at that."
She slammed the passenger door and stomped to the house. Furious, I spun the wheels in reverse and tore down the street, skidding.
Between the fact that it was Christmas Eve and the heavy storm, it seemed like I was the only one on the roads. Nothing was open, not even McDonald's. It was easy to imagine I was the last person left in this universe, because that's sure as hell how it felt.
Other men were busy building bicycles and jungle gyms so that their kids could wake up on Christmas morning and get the surprise of a lifetime, but I couldn't even manage to produce a kid.
I pulled into an empty shopping center lot and watched a plow go by. I remembered the first time Liddy had seen snow.
I reached for my cell phone and dialed my brother's house, because I knew she would answer. I was just going to hear her say hello, and then hang up.