Death in the Choir (2 page)

She’d inherited her olive
complexion and molasses-brown hair and eyes from her parents, who had died when
she was in her twenties. Her father’s family had originated in Sicily, and her
mother’s in Naples. She had also inherited a longish, decidedly Italian-style
nose, the bane of her existence. Her husband, Dean, had thought her nose was
cute, but in her estimation it was too prominent, especially in a culture that
seemed to idolize women with smaller models.

Her stream of thoughts
suddenly ran dry as Randall sat down next to her. She gave him her best smile,
unconsciously running her tongue over her front teeth to give them an extra
shine.
 

“How are you tonight, Mrs.
Bibbo
?” His catlike eyes swept over her face in a slightly
seductive way.

“Oh, please, call me
Francesca.” She was horrified to feel blood coursing into her cheeks.
I can’t believe I’m blushing like a
teen-ager,
she groaned inwardly. “I’m a little tired from answering phones
at the rectory, but other than that...”

“How long has it been since
you left your job at
Krenshaw
State University?”

“Let’s see, it’s been two
years now.” She winced as an image of a gargoyle suddenly darted through her
mind.
My ex-boss,
she thought grimly.

“What did you do there?” He
sat down beside her and leaned in just a bit with a look of real attention on
his face.

“I worked in the
publications office for nearly ten years. At first, I really loved it,
especially my first boss.” He nodded in an encouraging way, so Francesca went
on.

“She was from Alabama and
used the most wonderfully picturesque expressions. She’d say, ‘It’s like
pushing a rope’ to describe how hard it was to get some people to finish
projects on time. And when deadlines were looming, she’d tell us ‘We’re getting
our tails in a crack.’”

Here she paused, delighted
to see that he was laughing. “I think I know what your boss meant,” he said.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m definitely pushing a rope with the sopranos.”

Now he glanced at her hand.
Is he looking for a wedding band?
She
wondered.

“So, Francesca, why did you
leave that job?”

“Well, my wonderful boss
retired, and the one who took her place was…well…let’s say she was impossible.
After that, it was easy to leave.”
  

He smiled again, as if he
really understood her.
What a nice smile
,
she thought,
I don’t think I’ve ever seen
whiter teeth – and so
straight. Which
reminds me, I wonder if he’s...

“And since then, how have
you kept busy?”

She reflected on her laundry
list of volunteer activities. She and Dean had lived frugally, and he had
invested their savings wisely, so now she didn’t have to work, as long as she
continued watching her pennies. Of course, she’d be willing to work in that
dreary office 24 hours a day if she could only have her darling husband back
again.

“Oh, this and that. My
husband died, and…” She was surprised at how shaky her voice sounded. He looked
at her with compassion in his eyes, and it took her a moment to compose
herself.

“I’m very sorry to hear
about your husband.”

“Yes, well, it was quite
sudden. An accident.” She had to change the subject or she would start crying.

“But to answer your
question, I do a little volunteer work at the rectory, lots of reading, some
gardening, you know...”

Randall moved closer to her
now. “Well, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

She could feel his body heat
radiating toward her and caught a whiff of heady and very masculine cologne. He
was so close she could see how cleanly he shaved and how carefully starched his
shirt was.
Do other women find men’s
Adam’s apples sensuous? Not those big bulbous ones, of course, but there’s
definitely some appeal in a well-formed apple like his.

“Yes?” She suddenly felt
very shy. At this close distance he was no doubt noticing every single flaw of
her complexion, and there were quite a few, the result of a lifelong battle with
acne.

“Would you be interested in
being my choir assistant?”

“Your what?” The words flew
out of her mouth before she had a chance to think.
I must sound
like a babbling
fool
, she thought.
He probably thinks
I don’t know the meaning of the word.

“I’m looking for someone to
buy sheet music, organize it, keep an updated list of phone numbers and e-mail
addresses for choir members, print programs for special concerts, send out
e-mails about rehearsals -- a lot of little tasks I’m handling myself now. And
you’d be paid, of course.”

A little extra money for Christmas certainly couldn’t hurt
, she thought.
And as his assistant I could work closely
with him and get to know him better.

“Well, what do you say?”

He has dimples. How strange that I didn’t notice them before.

“It sounds interesting – and
I could use some extra Christmas money.” She felt her cheeks growing warmer as
two completely unexpected images suddenly flashed through her mind out of
nowhere: the two of them, wrapped in a delicious embrace; the two of them,
standing before the altar to take their vows.

She began stuffing her sheet
music into her folder to avoid his eyes. “When do I start?”

“I’ll give you a call later
in the week and we can get together. I have your phone number on the choir list.”

Now Randall seemed very
officious as he stood up. “Unfortunately, the pay isn’t fabulous, but it’s
dictated by the pastor, as is everything else.”

He looked pained, but he
didn’t really have to go into the details with her. Everyone in the choir was
well aware of the long history of misunderstandings that existed between the
pastor and the last three choir directors. Father John Riley had been at the
helm for seven years, and he was well-loved by the congregation for his upbeat
sermons and dry wit. But he had a definite temper, and sometimes the people who
worked closely with him felt its sting.

The last choir director,
enraged by the pastor’s meddling in the day-to-day details of the choir, had
stormed out of the church one day during the early morning Mass, never
returning. He had gone on to become a world-renowned organist, and there were
still days when people in the choir would reminisce about the quality of the
musical selections he had chosen.

There had been a mad
scramble to replace him, and Randall had been hired. Although she knew most
people thought he didn’t have the same skill set as his predecessor, he was
known for working hard to select traditional music and for keeping the choir
motivated. Now history seemed to be repeating itself with the pastor.

“You probably know this
beastly thing is on its last legs.” Randall straightened up a stack of hymnals
while shooting the aged organ a dark look.

“One of these days it’s
going to die a foul death right during Mass. Of course, I’ve told Father John
innumerable times, but he doesn’t want to spend the money to buy a new one, so
we have to keep adding patches here and there. I swear I’m tempted to sneak
into church late one night and put the thing out of its misery by hacking it to
death with an axe.”

He gave her another of his
disarming smiles, dimples and all.
 

“Well, enough of my
problems. We’d better call it a night. I’ll get in touch with you soon.”

Picking up her music folder
and her purse, Francesca genuflected in the direction of the tabernacle. For
just a moment, her eyes glanced lovingly at the serene statue of St. Joseph,
her favorite saint. She loved the Blessed Virgin Mary dearly, but there was
something about St. Joseph that intrigued her.

She wished there were a
prayer like the “Hail Mary” to honor the man who surely had helped Mary give
birth to the Christ Child in that lonely stable in Bethlehem. She had always
pictured Joseph as being the first to hold the babe and look into His eyes.

Now, as she opened the back
door of the church vestibule to step outside, she saw a dark figure coming up
the steps. Although Decatur was relatively safe, there was always the chance of
a street person coming up to ask for money, and they made her nervous when she
was alone. Startled and suddenly fearful, she pulled her purse toward her and
drew back. Then she realized it was the pastor, and greeted him warmly.

“How are you tonight, Father
John?”
 

The priest’s dark hair was
in disarray, standing up in tufts around his ears. Once again, she thought of horns.
 

“Just fine, my dear, and
you?”
 

She smiled in response
. I wonder if he remembers my name
.
She’d been a parishioner for six years, but it was a very large congregation
and he wasn’t good with names. Now she watched as Father John Riley opened the door
to the church, genuflected, and went in. It was then that she realized she had
forgotten to light a votive candle for her husband, as she did every week after
rehearsal. She quietly returned to the front of the church, lit the candle, and
then kneeled down to pray. But as the conversation at the back of the church
started heating up, she had trouble concentrating.

“I’m concerned the organ is
going to break down during our Christmas Eve performance,” she heard Randall say.
“It’s really on its last legs.”

She heard the pastor’s
reply. “We have to be good stewards of the congregation’s money. I can’t see
spending thousands and thousands on an organ when there are so many other
needs.”

She completed her prayers
and stood up, hurrying quickly down the aisle and out the back door. The two
men were so engrossed in conversation that neither one seemed to notice her.

Randall’s voice was rising.
“Father, what do I have to do to make my point about this ungodly piece of
junk? Sacrifice myself by committing
Hari
Kari right
here on top of it?”

She was already out of the
church, so she didn’t hear Father John’s reply.

As Dean’s snoring reached a crescendo, Francesca awoke
with a start. She sleepily glanced over at the bedside clock – eight a.m. Then
she stretched her hand out to stroke Dean’s hair. He had the loveliest thick
hair, the color of semisweet chocolate, with little gray patches she loved to
tease him about.

She was just about to whisper, “Dean, stop snoring!”
as she had done a hundred times before, but as her hand touched the pillow, she
came to full consciousness. There was no one there. Dean had been dead two
years and still she could be tricked by memory into believing he was sleeping
beside her.

Rivulets of hot tears coursed down her cheeks and
turned cold as they trickled into her ears
.
I’m not going to start the day this way. I just can’t. The mourning period is
over. Dean would want me to get on with my life.
 
It was the familiar litany she’d recited ever
since receiving the phone call two years ago telling her that her husband had
been killed in a car accident on his way home from work. They had just
celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary.

She had met Dean at the University of Florida in
Gainesville, when she was majoring in philosophy and he was studying
mathematics. She had dated a series of men who were intent on avoiding
commitment, and had been extremely wary when this good-looking, intelligent man
had shown up in her life. He seemed too good to be true. On their first date,
they had talked for hours, and Francesca had found herself stunned by how much
they shared in common. Like her, he had been a fat child; like her, he had been
raised by a school-teacher mom. Best of all, he was eager to get married and
start a family.

After they married, he went on to get a graduate
degree in computer science and then landed a well-paying job. Francesca had
soon discovered that a philosophy degree wasn’t worth much in the marketplace,
so she had reluctantly entered the public relations field. He had been born in
Gainesville, and she had grown up in Miami, and they had yearned to live in
Florida after graduation, but Dean’s career had brought them to Georgia.

She had been raised a strict Catholic in a household
that traced its Italian Catholic roots for many generations back. Still, when
she went to college and majored in philosophy with a minor in psychology, she
suddenly found all her beliefs challenged and shaken. Before long, she had
become what the nuns had warned her about: a fallen-away Catholic. Dean had
been baptized in the Methodist church, but had little interest in religion, at
least in the early years of their marriage.

Then, one day, out of the blue, Francesca surprised
herself and everyone who knew her by returning to the Catholic Church. She told
her friends that something – someone? – had been tugging at her, and she had
given in to that strong, mysterious impulse.

Much to her delight, Dean had expressed interest in
learning about the Church, and had persevered through nearly a year of
instruction before being confirmed during an Easter vigil at St. Rita’s. It had
touched her deeply that he had taken Joseph as his confirmation name, since he
knew Joseph was her favorite saint.

Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and looked toward the
foot of the bed, where something warm and furry was pressed against her legs.
It was Tubs.
He was the one snoring
,
she thought. Pure white except for a tail with raccoon stripes and a black
patch on his back shaped like Africa, the old fellow had taken up residence in
her bed shortly after Dean’s death. And she had not had the heart to insist
that he sleep in his cat bed in the hall.

When she leaned down and petted Tubs tenderly on his
head, the slanted green eyes opened and the snoring transformed itself into a
deep, rumbling purr. She didn’t quite trust people who complained that cats
were aloof. It seemed to her that cats mirrored their owners’ emotions. She
cherished Tubs, and he lavishly returned her love by dissolving into ecstatic
fits of purring whenever he saw her.

“Hey, Tubs.” She scratched lightly behind the raggedy
ears. “It’s time to get up.”

Because Tubs’ arthritis was so bad, it was hard for
him to leap from the bed, so she picked him up and deposited him gently on the
floor. He made a beeline for the kitchen and stood expectantly by his food
bowl, meowing like a lost kitten. After she had quickly brushed her teeth and
washed her face, she poured a generous helping of dry food into his bowl. But
he just stood there, gazing at her hopefully, so she shrugged and opened a can
of wet food, his favorite smelly concoction. She mixed everything together and
placed the bowl back on the floor.

The phone rang precisely at 8:45. Heading into the
living room, she heard the faint sounds of gobbling emanating from the
kitchen.
 

“Hello?” she said cautiously. If she heard a
suspicious click and then a tentative “Mrs.
Bibbo
?”
she’d know it was a salesperson -- and she usually hung up at that point.

But it was a familiar voice. “Hey, I hope it’s not too
early to call,” Rebecca Goodman said.

“Not at all. I’ve been up for a while. You alright?”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine.” Rebecca dropped her
volume a bit. She was taking a break from the fifth-grade class she taught at
St. Rita’s school.

“I can’t talk long. The little darlings are watching a
film about retroviruses. I just wanted to check with you about our Choir
Chicks’ meeting. Are we still on for seven tonight?”

“Seven it is.”

A few months ago, Francesca had invited three other
women from the choir – Rebecca Goodman, Shirley Evans, and Molly Flowers – to
her home for drinks and snacks. The tenors had jokingly dubbed the gathering
the “Choir Chicks” -- and the title seemed to stick. Despite being a male, Tubs
had been designated the president, and he was the eager recipient of cheese
tidbits at the meetings.

“I’m going to try a new quiche recipe,” Rebecca
enthused. “It’s made with non-fat cheese and a non-fat milk substitute, so it
shouldn’t be too fattening.”

“Sounds good,” Francesca said automatically, although
she had an aversion to non-fat products. It was probably because her mom had
used them so liberally when she was growing up in a futile effort to help her
lose weight.

“So how did last night go?” Rebecca’s voice was
dripping with curiosity.

“Oh, you mean the talk with Randall? Well, nothing to
report yet. He just asked me to be his choir assistant.”

“His assistant.” Rebecca’s voice feigned a husky
sexiness. “Woo, girl! What are you going to assist him with?”

“Oh, you know, really sexy things like buying sheet
music and organizing it.”

Suddenly there was the sound of screaming and thuds at
the other end of the line.
 

“Oops, I have to go,” Rebecca interjected. “The natives
are getting restless. See you tonight!”

While Tubs began a long, involved process of washing
his face and ears, Francesca brewed a pot of coffee and sat at the dining room
table, gazing out the window. It was a truly smashing day in Chelsea Heights, the
very hilly area in Decatur where Francesca lived.

The oaks and maples were dressed festively in their
fall regalia of orange, yellow, and red. A robin was sipping water from the
birdbath out front, and a squirrel was dragging along a piece of stale biscuit
that she’d put outside yesterday.

It’s so beautiful,
she thought, just a little
sadly. No matter how much she tried to banish them from her mind, it seemed
every season brought memories of Dean flooding back in.

It had not been a perfect marriage, far from it. They
had definitely locked horns on a number of issues. But they had been good
friends, and she missed the comfortable intimacy they had shared. She could
tell him every fear, insecurity, doubt, and worry that plagued her. He had been
a really good listener and had a way of reassuring her, no matter how anxious
she had been: “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” Somehow, when he said it,
she believed it.

“Alright,” she announced to Tubs. “No blues for me today.”

Tubs paused from his whisker washing to stare at her
meaningfully. She noticed he had licked his bowl to a high gloss, and she knew
he was probably pining for seconds.
 

“You want more?”

He gave a little meow, and she obediently ladled more
food into his bowl. It was true that he was overweight, and some people might
put a cat like him on a diet. However, she felt that he deserved a few
pleasures, and the vet, who was overweight herself, had never suggested that
his eating habits were unhealthy.

Francesca poured herself a bowl of cereal and a second
cup of coffee, and then resumed her spot by the window, where she could do some
serious neighbor-watching. At that moment, the train gave a loud hoot as it
approached the crossing on Coventry Road three blocks away, and a chorus of
neighborhood dogs let loose with some mournful howls.

She saw the young mother across the street, dressed in
a trendy business suit and pointy heels, strapping her wailing three-month-old
baby in his car seat. She knew the little guy was being dropped off at a
daycare center while the mom went to work.
Even
tiny kids are on nine-to-five schedules these days. I know it’s not politically
correct, but I think daycare is a shame.
 
She’d been the child of a working mom and could still remember how she
had resented babysitters, especially a particularly grouchy one named Mrs.
Snapper.

Since she and Dean had not had children themselves,
his death had left her all alone in their three-bedroom house. Well-meaning
friends had advised her to sell it and had also encouraged her to keep her job
at the university. “Being busy will be good for you” was the usual advice.
  
But she loved their home, and the idea of
selling it was very unsettling. After all, Dean had left his imprint
everywhere, in the hardwood floors and ceiling fans he’d added, and in the
grape vines he had planted outside. And after so many years of being imprisoned
in an office, quitting her job had given her as much joy as she imagined
Lazarus surely experienced when he was called back from the grave.

Some mornings she volunteered to answer phones in St.
Rita’s rectory, and other days she visited elderly shut-ins. She also kept up
the vegetable garden in their front yard and tended roses in the side yard. She
didn’t miss the frantic pace of the workplace. She loved taking her time in the
mornings and not having to join the huge stream of cars heading to work on the
crowded highways.

The phone rang an hour later. This time she let the
answering machine pick up the call.

“Good morning, Francesca, it’s Randall. Are you
there?”

She nearly tripped over Tubs in her rush to pick up
the phone.

“Randall, how are you?” She was suddenly deeply
grateful that she wasn’t living in the future, when phones would no doubt come
equipped with video screens. She wouldn’t want Randall to see her in her baggy
pajamas patterned in a black-and-white Guernsey-cow print.

“Just fine. I’m a few miles from your house. I know
this is short notice, but would it be alright if I dropped by?”

“Give me fifteen minutes to get dressed. I’ll put some
more coffee on, too.”

“I’ll give you twenty. See you soon.”

While Tubs stared at her in what she thought of as
feline disbelief, she sprinted through the living room, gathering up magazines,
two apple cores, a pile of clean laundry, and three half-empty coffee cups.
Next she ran into the bathroom and stripped off her pajamas. Deodorant, bath
powder, bra, panties, jeans, and sweater. A little eye make-up and foundation,
a touch of lipstick. She quickly gathered her hair up into a pony tail. Five
minutes to go. Back into the kitchen she ran, nearly flattening Tubs, to
prepare a fresh pot of coffee.

When the doorbell rang, the scent of coffee was
filling the house. She’d had time to put on her little pearl earrings and the
slightest touch of cologne. She hoped he would think this was how she always
looked each morning. Opening the door, she was pleasantly surprised by how
dapper Randall seemed. Impeccably dressed and with every golden hair in place,
he was carrying his brief case in one hand and a bakery box in the other.

“Good morning! You look lovely.” Then he handed her
the box. “A few pastries from that new French bakery in the Square.”

Francesca thanked him and led him into the dining
room. She peered into the box of assorted croissants and muffins, noting with
approval the delicate buttery smudges on the waxed paper.

“There goes my diet,” she joked.
 

“You don’t need to diet. You’re fine as you are.” He
sat down at the dining room table, placing the briefcase near him on the floor.

Even if he’s lying, I’ll
take the compliment.
She put down placemats and napkins, poured them each a cup
of coffee, and arranged the croissants and muffins on a platter. Meanwhile,
Tubs had positioned himself beneath the table near Randall’s feet, and he was
gazing up at him.