Can I Get An Amen? (21 page)

When the service ended, I walked out with my parents. Stopping when they stopped, I greeted the Arnolds, said hello to Christopher Hapley, and waved at Parker, who was there alone this morning.

“What did you think?” I heard my mother ask my father as we made our way to the car.

“It was a good message,” he said solemnly.

“I thought it was just okay. It didn’t really speak to me today.” My mother sounded let down. She liked to leave church
feeling as if a divine hand had guided the sermon from the minister directly to her. “You know, I think John Blanchard sometimes gets stuck in a rut.”

My father didn’t comment; he just marched onward toward the car, his well-coiffed white hair, black overcoat, and serious expression making him look like a somber head of state, the type that knows too much to sleep well at night.

“Next weekend I think I’m just going over to Prince of Peace,” said my mother, lowering her voice and offering a friendly wave to a familiar-looking couple engaged in conversation by a potted spruce adorned with a burgundy velvet bow. “I’m telling you, that minister there is alive with the word. You know, when I was over at that family center again yesterday, he and I had a powerful conversation.” I was trailing behind them, feeling as I used to as a child, trying to pick up the nuances of their conversation, to read between the lines. “I had a chance to…
talk
to him,” she said, as if
talk
was a code word of some sort, “and he had such wisdom.” My father continued walking, the pace of his steps continuous and steady, like the beating of a heart.

When we got home, my father retired to his office, closing the door behind him. My mother began addressing Christmas cards. “I could really use your help with this,” she said, as she pushed her reading glasses up her nose and squinted into her address book. Her penmanship was childlike and illegible, one of the remaining vestiges of being a poor preacher’s daughter in the rural South. Unlike the southern belle she often pretended to be, she didn’t spend hours a day writing in cursive on monogrammed stationery. “Your handwriting is so much nicer.”

I pulled up a chair and picked up one of her fine-tip markers. “Where’s the list?” She handed me a sheet of loose-leaf paper
with about one hundred names scrawled down it in columns. She had crossed off the cards she had completed so far.

“I’ll stuff the envelopes,” she said, picking up a gold-trimmed card with a classic oil painting of a trumpeting angel. Inside was printed,

It was a card sent out of tradition, out of obligation, as a sign of life. It would be briefly read, the communication noted; then it would be quickly forgotten, serving only to keep my parents in an ever-extending and expanding circle of acquaintances. The cards they would receive in exchange would feature mannered grandchildren posed in front of trimmed trees with their hands folded neatly in their laps, doting parents and grandparents seated at their sides. Letters would be included with news on Ann and Stephen’s move to Paris, where the children would attend the American School. Or James’s promotion to vice president at the company that his grandfather had founded.

My mother looked down as she licked an envelope. “Have you talked to your sister?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said cautiously. “Kat and I have talked.”

“Is she planning on coming to see Aunt Kathy when she’s here?”

“She said she is,” I reported, relieved that I wouldn’t have to be in the position to either condemn or defend Kat if she hadn’t planned on seeing our aunt.

“Well,” said my mother, playing the gatekeeper, “I don’t know when she thinks she’s going to see her. Aunt Kathy has a whole bunch of things she wants to do when she’s here. We can’t just wait around for when Kat decides to show up.”

“I don’t think Kat expects you to wait around. I’m sure she’ll work around your plans.”

“Right,” scoffed my mother. “Your sister doesn’t care a thing about other people. That’s her problem right there.” She shook her head, as if reviewing the evidence against Kat. “She’s totally self-centered.”

“Mom,” I groaned. I hadn’t wanted to go down the Kat route. “Let’s drop it, okay?”

“Fine,” she replied indignantly. “I just think that you ought to tell Kat that if she wants to see her aunt, then she should at least call me to make some plans.”

. . .

The next day, I sat at my desk, willing the day to pass quickly so that I could see Mark, but the six hours that I still had to put in at the office seemed an impossible, interminable amount of time. So it should have been a given that Parker would call, to effectively halt time with a colonoscopy of a conversation.

“So, everything with the party is all set?” she asked.

I gave her a status update on her tedious, exaggerated little to-do list, the tasks of which I’d mostly accomplished.

“Oh, that’s great, because I am so busy that I
literally
don’t think I could do one more thing.”

I twisted the phone cord around my finger.
I would have
never been like you,
I thought.
If I had your life, I would have been so different.
“Yup, everything is basically done,” I said.

“You are such a gem, Ellen,” gushed Parker. Coming from anyone else, this remark may have sounded sincere, but Parker’s intent was to establish hierarchy, making sure I understood my subservience. As if to prove my theory, she added, “I just wish my housekeeper was as on top of things as you are.”

“All right, well, I’m sure I’ll talk to you soon,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

Philip walked into the office as I was replacing the receiver. “Was that Parker?” he asked as he hung his coat on the rack near my desk.

“Yup. She was just checking on the Christmas party details.”

He forced a smile that almost instantly vanished. “It sounds like you two have managed to become close again.”

I smiled and made a small noise that was intended to sound like pleasant agreement, while turning back to my computer. Philip took a few steps and hovered above my desk. Across the way, Brenda shifted in her seat. “I know this is awkward, but since you and Parker are… friends, I just want to reiterate the need for discretion. Privacy is very important to me and the firm, and of course I wouldn’t want to put Parker in the uncomfortable position of knowing something that she… shouldn’t.”

Instinctively, I knew that this conversation had to do with that strange phone call from the woman with the regal voice. “I understand,” I said, feeling uncomfortably complicit. Any voyeuristic enjoyment around my speculations and conjecture was instantly gone, because if it was real—if Philip’s affair passed out of the realm of the hypothetical—then Parker would deserve my sympathy. I didn’t want that moment to come, when I was compelled to shake my head and avert my eyes, joining with others in
their clichéd laments.
What a shame. The poor children.
I didn’t want to feel sorry for Parker. I wanted to hate her.

When Philip went back into his office, I looked over at Brenda, who was on her way to the ladies’ room. She walked quickly, her ankles wobbling a bit since she was unaccustomed to the heels she was wearing.

“What do you think?” she had asked that morning, turning proudly in front of me, angling her foot so that I could get a good look. “Beth talked me into them.” Beth was her daughter.

“They’re great,” I said. “Very sexy.”

I now heard the clack of those heels as they hit the hardwood floor. She brought her curved hand thoughtfully to her mouth as she rounded the corner and disappeared. I wondered if Philip had had the same conversation with her.

L
ater that day, Helen, the receptionist, rang my line. Helen had been with Kent & Wagner for decades, having been hired by Philip’s father when he started the firm. “Ellen, you have a visitor,” she growled. Though, from what I understood, she had never smoked a day in her life, her voice sounded like she had a pack-a-day habit.

I immediately panicked. “Oh, okay. I’ll be right down.” I hadn’t expected Mark to come in, thinking he would just call when he arrived.

I grabbed my bag and slid on my coat, logging off my computer before racing toward the stairs. Brenda had left at five p.m. sharp to go to her Pilates class. As I glanced into my bag to make sure that I had remembered my cell, I nearly bumped into Philip, who was leaving one of the associates’ offices.

“You heading out, Ellen?” he asked casually.

“Yup,” I answered, glancing down the mezzanine to see
Mark sitting on one of the long leather couches. His legs were wide and crossed, and he was leaning back, his arm draped over the seat back. Philip followed my gaze.

“Oh,” he said, registering Mark’s presence, “have fun.”

Mark smiled and stood when he saw me at the top of the steps, which I made my way quickly down. As he gently kissed my cheek, I felt the slight prickle of his stubble. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too.”

He looked around the office, appearing neither impressed nor unimpressed. “You all set?”

He put his arm protectively around my back and led me outside.

“Where are we going?” I asked, once we were in the car.

“Well, we are going to grab a bite to eat,” he began, his eyes on the road. “Then there is a group of Tibetan monks who do this amazing chanting. They are going to be performing at Lane College, so if you’re interested, I thought we could go check that out.”

“I’d love to,” I said earnestly.

“But next time,” he said, briefly resting his hand on my knee, “it’s your turn to pick what we do.”

I smiled, my heart soaring at the promise of a third date.

We pulled up to an Indian restaurant near the college. “It’s like a Himalayan theme night,” he joked.

Once we were inside, the service was brusque; the waitress seemed to have been abused by one too many college students. She rushed us to a table and dropped two menus in front of us. “I’ll be back for your order,” she said, before hurrying away. I began to peruse the plastic-covered menu, which, from the
dull, matte streaks, looked like it had just been wiped with sanitizer.

“Mutton?” I asked, more to myself than to Mark.

“It’s usually sheep, but here they use goat.” Seeing the look on my face, he let out a genuine and indulgent laugh. “It can actually be really good.” But we kept our order a little more conventional, requesting chicken curry, dal, and a generous basket of naan from our unimpressed waitress.

“Is that all?” she asked, without looking up from her order pad.

“Yes, thank you,” answered Mark.

I watched her hurry to the kitchen, then turned to Mark. “So, I have a confession,” I said. And for a moment, Mark looked like he was enjoying a private joke.

“Remember that condo where you dropped me off… that night?” I could tell that we both avoided any unnecessary reference to the very first night we met.

He nodded, though he looked unsure of where I was going.

Though I had rehearsed what I was going to say a hundred times, had convinced myself that my explanation was reasonable and rational, I was suddenly nervous.

“It was actually my sister’s place.” I forced myself to maintain eye contact. “I have been living with my parents since my divorce, but her place was so much closer and you had already been so nice, and I just didn’t want…”

“Shhh…,” said Mark, both amused and concerned by my anxiety. “I get it. Don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” he asked kindly.

I didn’t answer.

We finished up our meal and the waitress brought our check, which Mark refused to let me near. Though I appreciated the gesture, I knew that he probably didn’t make much at his nonprofit.

“All right, but next time,” I said as he handed his credit card to our waitress, “
everything
is my treat.”

. . .

We took our seats just before the show started, whispering our
excuse me’
s as we shimmied past the more timely audience members. The lights dimmed slightly as the monks took the stage, dressed in turmeric-colored robes, some carrying long horns. The audience of largely students and professors leaned forward, not from excitement so much as from preparation, the way you might settle in before an important lecture. The monks started their performance with little fanfare; they simply began emitting their deep, vibrating songs while standing below crisscrossing prayer flags that hung in the space above the stage.

“They’re saying prayers in their religion,” whispered Mark, referring to the chants. He turned to look at my face. I was absorbed. I wouldn’t call the sounds beautiful, exactly, but they were unique, exotic. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” he asked.

It was.

When the show was over, I thanked Mark. “Where did you hear about them?” I asked, gesturing to the now empty stage.

“I saw a similar group a while back,” he said. “I was a religion minor in college, so it was part of one of my courses.”

The doors opened and we made our way back outside. It was one of those beautiful clear winter nights when everything seems crisper, sharper, from the crystalline air. “Want to go for a walk?” Mark asked.

It was a nice enough campus, though the buildings were modern, not those quintessential old ivy-covered buildings that came to mind when I thought of universities.

“How has it been, living with your parents?” asked Mark.

“It’s been all right. Better than you might expect, actually.” As I said it, I realized that it was true. Despite exasperations large and small—maybe in part
due
to exasperations large and small—being in my parents’ home had provided the comfort of the familiar. “I’m starting to look for my own place, though.”

“Where are you looking?” I knew that Mark lived in his grandparents’ house, which had been left to him when his grandmother died a few years ago. His mother was originally from New Jersey and had lived most of her life here before moving to Africa.