“When you think about it,” I said, “any book can remind you of that poem. That’s the beauty of a book—through its characters, you can imagine your life outside your life.”
“But I mean this book in particular,” said Slip impatiently. “This is a hit-you-over-the-head-look-how-different-our-world-is-from-yours kind of book.”
“I agree,” whispered Kari, so as to not wake the slumbering baby in her arms. “With both of you. I always love reading about people with lives unlike mine because I get to live in their world for a while. But the funny thing about reading On the Road is that I didn’t feel their world was so alien . . . probably because I’m an outlaw too.”
“If you’re an outlaw,” said Faith, “then I’m Granny Clampett.”
We all laughed, but then Slip said, “I’m with Kari. I feel like an outlaw too.”
“Well, you are,” said Merit earnestly. “You get arrested on picket lines.”
“Actually, I’ve never been arrested,” said Slip, and I thought I heard regret in her voice. “But what I mean is that there are outlaws inside all of us—ready to break rules that need to be broken.”
“Right,” I said. “But society doesn’t want its wives and mothers and PTA presidents to be outlaws, so most of the time we repress that voice that tells us to break rules, to—”
“Be who we really are,” said Slip, almost shouting. Slip was like the Aimee Semple McPherson of feminism, getting all excited when she thought one of her congregants was seeing the light.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Kari, interrupting our fervor. “I think I know what you mean, but I really am an outlaw because I have, as the clerk in Three Sisters told me today, committed a crime: the crime of interracial breeding.”
Slip was the first to recover her voice. “She didn’t. Tell me she didn’t say that.”
Kari nodded, biting her lip.
“I hope you decked her,” I said.
Kari laid the baby on the couch next to her, as if she didn’t want the child to feel her rage.
“I would have liked to,” she said, blinking her summer-blue eyes, “but I was holding Julia. So instead I said, ‘If you believe in God, then you should know He’s ashamed of you,’ and then I said, ‘I’d like to see your manager, please.’ ”
“What’d she say?” Faith asked.
“She said with this sneer, ‘I am the manager,’ and I said, ‘Oh, in that case be advised that you’ve just lost a customer, because I don’t shop in such an ignorant atmosphere.’ ”
“Oh, Kari,” breathed Merit, “you said that? That was so . . . brave.”
Kari shook her head. “It’s nothing you wouldn’t do—what any mother wouldn’t do.” She dabbed at her nose with the crook of her finger. “I was shopping for a dress to wear to Julia’s baptism—it was our first shopping outing together—and then this awful woman had to—” Her words were broken with a little gasp followed by a surprising lusty sob, which woke up her baby and Merit’s, sleeping in a little carryall on the floor, and so while mothers comforted babies, I got up to bring out the sandwiches, which in deference to the book were wrapped up in bandannas attached to sticks, like hobo packs.
USING ONE OF THOSE LITTLE PENCILS that hung on the back of the pew next to the pledge cards, I scratched the back of my leg, hoping I wouldn’t snag my nylons.
Along with the minister, Kari and Slip, holding Julia, stood at the baptismal font, while the congregation sang “Children of the Heavenly Father.” It was a beautiful song that brought tears to my eyes, even as I didn’t believe any of the words:
Children of the Heavenly Father
Safely in his bosom gather . . .
Were that we could gather in anyone’s bosom safely!
I guess I didn’t notice when I lost my faith—I don’t know that you can lose something you’re not sure you ever had. My grandfather had a tremendous faith, which, unlike my mother’s, wasn’t tied up with any particular church.
“I believe God can be found just as easily in a bowling alley as in a pew,” he said once during a family dinner.
“Really?” I asked, delighted as a picture of Jesus ready to roll a strike came into my head.
“Audrey, your grandfather’s just trying to be funny,” said my mother, and if looks could kill, he would have slumped forward into his soup bowl.
Grandpa winked at me, and I understood his decision not to get into an argument with my mother. She always won, and if she didn’t, she’d make sure you were miserable in your victory.
Still, knowing that the person I loved most in the world believed in God didn’t help my own belief, not even after He paid me a particular visit.
I guess even with the most enthusiastic letter of recommendation, faith won’t come to you if you’re not ready to meet faith.
I stole a look at my pewmate. What would it be like having the same name as something so valued by so many?
I’d known a girl named Joy in high school; her prevailing mood was morose bordering on suicidal, so I guess she didn’t feel compelled to live up to her name. If Faith was an atheist, would she change her name because it so totally misrepresented her? Maybe Joy had changed her name to something more appropriate, like Angst or Depressa.
When the song ended and Faith closed her hymnal with a little thump, I looked toward the front of the church, scolding myself to stop daydreaming and start paying attention.
Kari’s relatives, the majority of them towheaded, sat in the front row. Knowing how close she was to them, I wondered why she hadn’t chosen one of them to be Julia’s godmother.
But if anything ever happened to Kari, Slip would do a great job bringing Julia up; she was as fierce in motherhood as she was in everything else. My brother, Lewis, was my oldest son’s godfather, and God forbid he should ever be called upon to fulfill that role. Lewis keeps a sign on his apartment door that says Le Bachelor Pad—Open All Night, and he has a black book the size of an unabridged dictionary. Paul’s sister is Bryan’s godmother—she’s a nice woman, but she’s already got four kids of her own. I hadn’t given much thought to whom the new baby’s godparent will be; maybe it’s good to pick ones you wouldn’t want raising your child, because it makes you more determined not to kick the bucket till they’re fully grown.
Julia expressed her outrage when she felt water on her head, and you could just feel the congregation smiling. I found I was smiling too, and that irritated me—I didn’t want to be carried along in the emotion of a rite I didn’t even believe in.
I was planning to clear out right after the ceremony, but then Kari came up to us and told us there was cake and coffee in the undercroft (whatever an undercroft is). I’m not one to turn down free sugar and caffeine, so I followed the rest of the opiated masses downstairs. I was right behind Merit when she suddenly lost her footing and tumbled. She managed to grab on to the coatrack, breaking her fall, but not before she bashed her shoulder against the wall.
“Merit, are you all right?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. “Just clumsy is all.”
“You are not,” said Faith, and it was true—you could tell by the way Merit moved that she probably knew how to cut up a dance floor.
As we stood in line waiting for our white-frosted cake and church-basement coffee, I half listened to Faith and Merit talk with the woman in the brown velvet hat about the weather and what were the chances of this nice Indian summer lasting. What occupied my thoughts more than their polite conversation was the picture of Merit tripping. It was the oddest thing; it had looked like a staged fall, the kind an old comic makes to get a laugh. And another funny thing was, she had given Reni to Faith. Two seconds after her baby was safe in Faith’s arms, Merit tripped.
Digging my fingernails into the small of my back and vowing to forevermore let sheep keep their damn itchy wool on their own backs, I shook my head at my silliness. But that’s a mystery reader for you—always hoping to fall into a real one.
Octo
ber 1968
HOSTESS: FAITH
BOOK: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
REASON CHOSEN: “I thought it might help me to understand Minnesota more.”
Bonnie wasn’t even two yet and had already potty-trained herself.
“Ina big girl,” she reminded her mother as she sat on the toilet, her feet dangling a foot off the ground, pigeon-toed.
“Yes, you are,” Faith agreed, calling Beau in, as she always did, so that he might catch on that there was another receptacle, other than his diapers, to do his business in.
Beau stood by the sink, thumb in his mouth, watching his sister, but when his mama asked if he wanted to try going in the toilet like a big boy, he widened his eyes and shook his head, as if declining a spanking.
“Don’t worry,” said Wade’s mother, coming in to stand in the bathroom’s threshold. “Wade wasn’t trained until he was nearly three. It’s somethin’ about little boys, I think.”
Wade’s parents had taken advantage of the airlines’ family-flies-free policy and had come up for a short visit before they flew to Idaho to attend the retirement party of Dex’s brother, Lex (twins ran in Wade’s family).
“If you’re sure we’ll be no imposition,” Wade’s mother Patsy had asked over the phone.
“None at all,” Faith had said, even as her heart sped up. “We’d love to see you, and the kids’ll be over the moon.”
“Oh, I’ll bet they don’t even remember their grammy,” said Patsy with a little pout in her voice.
“They were just asking about you yesterday,” Faith had answered, and immediately grimaced at her lie. Twenty-one-month-olds don’t remember grandparents they haven’t seen for almost a year. “See, we keep your and Dex’s picture on the mantel, and yesterday Bonnie pointed at it and said, ‘There’s Grammy and Grandpa!’ ” Oh, great, thought Faith, now I’ll have to remember to put their picture on the mantel before they come.
“We sure wished y’all lived down the block like Carleen,” Patsy had said. “We hate missing out on the babies growing up.”
“Well, we’ll make sure you spend lots of time with them while you’re here,” Faith had said soothingly, she who had always felt Patsy blamed her and not Wade’s job for taking her precious son away from the bosom of his family.
After hanging up the phone, she’d gone straight to the broom closet to get the mop. Her in-laws weren’t due for another week, by which time Faith would have mopped the floor a dozen times.
“Okay,” said Patsy now, bending over, hands on knees, to better talk to her grandson. “If you’re not gonna go pee-pee in the potty for us, let’s go get our jackets on and get some air.”
Beau burst into tears; he wasn’t used to this lady with the swirly blond hair and tanned face who always spoke to him in such a loud bossy voice.
“Go ’side!” said Bonnie. “Me wanna go ’side!”
“See,” said Patsy with a big encouraging grin, “your sissie thinks it’ll be fun!”
Not caring what his sister thought might be fun, Beau wailed and rushed to his mother, grabbing her legs as if they were guardrails separating him from a thousand-foot drop.
“THIS IS A PRETTY TOWN,” said Patsy as they walked along the creek, on a tarred pathway littered with red, maroon, gold, and yellow leaves. “I really had no idea a northern city could be so pretty. Beau, honey, don’t put that in your mouth.”
Beau took the twig out of his mouth, waited for a moment, and put it back in again.
“Bonnie, honey, don’t run so far ahead of us! My land,” said Patsy, “that girl’s gonna be a track star, mark my words. Now, is this typical weather for October or should it be snowing by now?”
“Well, this is my first October here too,” Faith reminded her. “But I think it’s a little early for snow, even here.” She smiled and watched as Beau threw down his teething twig and galloped after his sister.
Wade and his father, fishing partners from way back, had decided to try their luck on the Mississippi (“The Mississippi?” Patsy had said. “I had no idea the Mississippi came up this far!”), and as they headed out the door, Wade whispered a guilty apology to Faith for leaving her alone with his mother.
“Go on now, Wade,” said Faith, giving him a gentle elbow in the side. “I like your mother. We’ll have a good time.”
“Yeah, but she’ll talk your ear off.”
She did, but Faith didn’t mind; rather, it lightened her own load. In a conversation with Patsy Owens, all Faith had to do was listen.
“Do you think Bonnie’s gonna stay taller than Beau?” asked the twins’ grandmother as they stood looking up at a huge black crow nagging its neighbors from its perch in an elm tree. “And I do wish they could change hair—Beau’s got the prettiest curls I have ever seen and there’s poor Bonnie, her hair straight as a stick. Isn’t it funny how they came out the same time and yet are so different?”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Faith said.
Sensing she might have been critical of her grandchildren, Patsy added hastily, “ ‘Course, you can’t find two cuter kids, so I suppose it doesn’t matter what their hair looks like.” She stopped and looked at the creek. “Say, listen to this. It’s coming back to me: ‘By the shores of Gitchee Gumee / by the shining big sea waters / stood the wigwam of Nokomis / daughter of the moon, Nokomis.’ ” Patsy’s coral-pink lips split into a smile. “That’s about this place, isn’t it? That lake we had our little picnic by yesterday, that was Nokomis, wasn’t it?”
Faith nodded.
“My goodness, I don’t know the last time I saw a place that had a poem written about it. ‘Course, Dex and I visit the Alamo about once a year, and there’ve been movies about that . . . but still, a poem means more, don’t you think? And imagine me remembering that all those years. I can still see myself in my little blue sailor dress, reciting it to the entire assembly. Who wrote it again? Walter Whitman or William Wordsmith or—”
“Longfellow,” said Faith. “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In fact, there’s a library here named after him—it’s built to look like his house back east. Would you like to go there?”
Patsy shrugged. “Where I’d really like to go is a bakery. I have a hankerin’ for a chocolate-covered doughnut like all get-out.”
“That does sound good,” agreed Faith. “There’s one just a couple of blocks away. We could walk . . . only we might wind up carrying the twins.”
“I could use the exercise,” said Patsy, who did have a nice trim figure. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she hollered, “Bonnie, Beau—guess who’s gonna buy your sweet selves a doughnut!” She laughed as the twins ran toward them, shouting about doughnuts, and then, looking thoughtful, said, “Longfellow. I reckon he must have had some pretty tall ancestors to get that as the family name.”
Sitting in a booth in the bakery, the air warmed and softened by the smells of baking bread and cinnamon and the frosted Danishes that had just been placed in the display case on a white-papered tray, Faith felt a calm like a liniment work its way into her body. She didn’t realize how tense she usually held her body until it was relaxed, and the sensation always surprised her; she felt like a prison guard who had successfully completed her watch and, at least for the time being, no convict had escaped.
The twins were sitting next to each other, their little legs tucked under them, trying to get whatever chocolate that wasn’t smeared on their faces into their mouths. Patsy, with crooked fingers, tore off little pieces of her glazed doughnut, and just as she brought it to her mouth, she issued a satisfied “mmm, mmm, mmm.”
“Mmm, mmm, mmm,” mimicked Beau, pulling apart a piece of his doughnut.
“Why, you little dickens!” laughed his grandmother. “Are you copying your old grandma?”
“Mmm, mmm, mmm!” said Bonnie, joining in on the game.
“You too?” said Patsy, as if wounded.
“Mmm, mmm, mmm!” answered the twins.
Smiling, Faith got up and poured herself a cup of coffee from t
he urn on a stand by the cash register. One thing the Yankees got right was coffee: pay for a cup and the following thirty refills were free.
“Oh, my gosh,” said Faith.
“Beg your pardon?” said a young man with long curly hair.
“Your . . . your newspaper,” said Faith, nodding to the folded rectangle tucked in the crook of his arm. “That’s Jack Kerouac’s picture. In the obituary section. We just read his book in our book club.” Faith felt herself flush. Why was she raving on, and what could this young man possibly care?
But he did. Nodding, he bunched up his mouth and then said, “We lost a good one.” He held out the newspaper. “You want to take it home?”
“Oh, no, thanks. I’ve got it at home. I just haven’t had a chance to read it.”
Looking over at the twins, the man smiled and said, “I guess you’re pretty busy.”
“Who was that?” asked Patsy as Faith sat down, wincing as the coffee sloshed over the edge of the cup. “Or should I say, what was that?”
“Huh?” said Faith, pressing a napkin onto the spilled coffee on the tabletop.
“Well, is that a boy or a girl? Look at that hair—and those shoes. My goodness, I don’t believe I have ever seen an uglier pair of shoes in my life.”
“It’s a boy,” said Faith. “And those are Earth Shoes. They’re supposed to be really good for your feet.”
“They better be, ’cause they sure ain’t good for your eyes! Why would anyone want to wear shoes that look like big turds? Excuse my French. And why would a grown man wear a necklace? Halloween ain’t here for another week!”
“Shh, he’ll hear you,” said Faith, leaning over the table to wipe a chocolate mustache off Beau’s face.
“Well, honestly,” said Patsy in a stage whisper, “I just don’t know why boys don’t dress like boys and girls don’t dress like girls. I mean, what’s the point?”