Magdalene (48 page)

“I don’t like you either. Frenemies?”

“Sure,” she said, her fragile voice carrying
a midwestern accent so broad it bordered on rural. “No pinky
swears, though.”

That did, in fact, make me laugh and I
looked up at Giselle Kenard, who had played her mere cuteness well:
well-worn boot-cut Levi’s, high-heeled western mules, and a
white-embroidered gauzy yellow hippie-style blouse that floated
down to her thighs. A matching length of embellished yellow gauze
held her honey curls away from her face. She wore a pair of wide
filigreed hoop earrings made from Mitch’s alloy that drew from the
colors of her blouse and hair to flash sunshine. Her makeup was
exotic and she had delicate henna tracings on the backs of her
hands.

I curled my lip. “How do you manage to be
simultaneously under and overdressed? Tragically, I might add.”

She smiled beatifically, her eyes calm. “I
must have missed the dress code part of your summons.”

This woman had dressed for me, to camouflage
her true nature, to allow me to feel secure in my superiority using
soft colors and fabrics, a mix of submissive female and country
bumpkin, to present herself as an innocent, cash-strapped tourist
in the company of a beneficent Wall Street barracuda. All the
better for me—for anyone—to underestimate her.

But I knew too much about her (and suspected
more) to make
that
mistake.

“What is it with the weird blue eyes? You,
Hilliard, Taight, Ashworth.”

“And three-quarters of my other forty-odd
cousins. It’s a Dunham trait.”

“It’s creepy as hell.”

“Thank you. We planned it that way.”

I snorted.

“Just so we’re clear: If I didn’t need new
shoes, I would’ve made you come to me.”

And I would’ve gone, which she knew. “You
don’t have shoe stores in Kansas City?”

“Yes, but you see, I can’t get a saleswoman
to show me what’s not on the floor.”

“Because you are one of the grandes dames of
Kansas City society, so you already get first pick of what comes in
before it gets put on the floor.”

“
The
grande dame. And I am
very
picky. You’d be shocked how small my wardrobe really
is.”

“I wouldn’t be shocked at how
yellow
it is.”

“Matches my sunny disposition.”

“And your husband doesn’t mind these little
junkets?”

“My husband,” she drawled, “doesn’t care
what I do as long as I keep coming up with new and exciting
activities that don’t involve a flogger or a third party.”

“So you answered my summons because you want
to pick my brain.”

She smirked. “Quid
professional
quo.”

“And you don’t mind.”

She opened her mouth to speak, stopped.
Pursed her lips. “We don’t want to see Mitch hurt,” she said low,
her lazy accent now precise in its threat. “None of us cares about
your prostitution, but it does make some of us think you could be
playing with him till you’re tired of him. Mitch has had so much
hardship and we love him dearly. He’s head over heels in love with
you,” she concluded. “Nobody likes to watch people they love get
their hearts broken. So, yes. We’re worried.”

Shit. There went my glow of satisfaction
from a productive morning’s work. “I’m not promising anything,” I
grumbled, not knowing why I felt a need to answer to this pack of
religious and political renegades, but unable to shut up. “Mitch is
a grown man and the year deadline was his idea, not mine. And it’s
not like you’re his real family, so none of it’s your business
anyway.”

She shrugged. “That’s debatable. However,
since my money is on you, it’s in my best interest to make sure you
get everything you need to prove me right.”

“Good ol’ self-interest. I can count on it
every time.”

Giselle and I stared at one another for a
long moment, two alpha wolves circling, assessing each other for
the possibility of attack.

“You wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t
have an interest in the long haul,” she murmured. “You wouldn’t
have rearranged your entire life on a moment’s notice to move in
with him, much less a hundred miles away from your family and
career, much less spend any time with him at church. You’d have
stayed in your brownstone and made him come to you on the weekends
to service you until his novelty wore off, at which time you’d have
changed the locks.”

Shit, when she put it that way...

“Well, I didn’t call you to talk about
church,” I said gruffly. “Not...exactly, I mean.” At her
questioning look, I said, “I’m hungry. Let’s go.”

Giselle garnered many looks—seconds, thirds,
and fourths—on our way to the lobby, then as we headed down the
Street to Nigel’s building, where one of his firm’s chefs awaited
our lunch wishes.

“Tons of meetings today,” I explained when I
caught her confused expression. “All my dining rooms and chefs are
occupied and I couldn’t bribe, threaten, or extort any of them for
a table or food on such short notice.”

“Ah.”

As we walked, I made sure to clarify to
Giselle that she was not to view my daughter as free childcare
while she lived under the Kenard roof. The look of utter disdain
Giselle slid me reassured me that no, these people didn’t work that
way.

“I,” she sniffed, “take care of my own
child. He goes with me everywhere, including to work. If I can’t
take him somewhere with me—like today—or if Bryce and I want to go
out on a date, I have a mother who is only too happy to spoil Dunc
silly. If she is not available, I have Sebastian and Eilis, or Knox
and Justice. If they aren’t available, I have seven aunts to choose
from. If none of them are available, I have twenty-odd other
cousins to call on. And if none of
them
are available, I
have a dozen young women at church who will kill for the chance to
A, earn some money, and B, sit my kid. Trust me, Clarissa would be
a last resort.”

Sebastian’s family is large and tight. It
doesn’t take much time with them to want to be part of them.

I was quite envious of a support system like
that. My siblings hadn’t spoken to me in years and I had never met
any of my aunts, uncles, or cousins.

“Where do you work?” I asked, just to be
polite.

“I’m the attorney for our charity—” I nodded
to indicate that I knew of the Kenard Burn Victim Foundation. “And
I teach martial arts.”

“What style?” I asked snidely. “Gun fu?”

A sly grin grew on her face, and I couldn’t
believe I’d missed such blatant sensuality. She was as primitive as
her husband, her sexuality guarded by some ephemeral razor wire few
men would dare attempt to navigate. I would never again be able to
see her as plain.

“You know about that, then,” she said.

“Everybody who had any interest in Knox
inheriting OKH knows about it.” That shocked the hell out of her,
and I preened. “You were not then and are not now low profile.”

“Oh. Huh.” She paused. Her curiosity was now
warring with her need to regain the upper hand. Her curiosity won.
“So if Fen had succeeded in killing me...?”

“Jack was prepared to splash what he knew
and suspected all over the
Journal
, take it to CNN and Fox.
Everyone was very relieved when you suddenly came up married.” Her
mouth dropped open, and I smirked. “You Dunhams seem to think you
operate in a vacuum.”

“Um... Hm. Wow.”

“But now that I’ve met you, I can see why
your uncle wanted you dead.”

She burst out laughing.

It wasn’t until we were ensconced in Nigel’s
private dining room, beverages poured, appetizers served, and our
orders taken that I got to the point.

“I’ve googled. Your church’s website is
practically worthless on the topic. Wikipedia threw terminology at
me I don’t really grasp and I couldn’t follow the link trail well
enough to get a decent picture of it. I’ve asked my new friend at
church, who is utterly brilliant, but she talks over my head,
theologically speaking. Also, she shies away from topics she thinks
are sensitive. Mitch is so vague about...everything...and I don’t
know enough to ask the right questions to really pin him down. I
even asked Ashworth, and he was as evasive as my husband and my
friend. I assumed Sebastian would be entirely unhelpful. So since
you offered...”

“Okay. Where do you want me to start?”

“Garments.”

She snickered into her glass and said, “The
old ‘magic underwear’ question.”

I huffed. “As if any person of average
intelligence would buy that. I just can’t get a straight answer
from anybody to save my life.”

“You’d be surprised how many people
want
to believe it.”

“Of course they do,” I said smartly.
“They’re weird. They’re ugly. Completely ridiculous.”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, they are. But I’ve
been around them my whole life, so to me they’re as natural as
breathing.” She took a drink, then said, “Okay. The basis of our
doctrine, other than just believing in Jesus Christ, is the family.
Generally, we don’t get married ‘till death do you part’ or at
least, that’s not the ideal circumstance. We get married for
eternity. Meaning, if we get married in the temple and if we’ve
done what we’re commanded, then when we die, we get to be reunited
with our spouse and our kids, so the family unit is restored upon
death. As far as I know, no other Christian faith promises that
explicitly or implicitly, although I suspect
most
people
assume that’s how it’ll be for them.”

“How does this happen?”

“At the temple, you make covenants with the
Lord. Kneel at an altar with your intended. Say ‘yes’ when asked,
and there you go. If you’re going on a mission, you make your
covenants—without the altar part—just before you go into
training.”

“What covenants?”

“Completely unremarkable ones. Don’t commit
adultery if you’re married. Don’t have sex before you get married
if you’re not. Contribute your time, talents, and money to the
Church. Observe the restrictions on the use of various substances.
Obey the Lord’s commandments. Stuff every person of faith commits
to do in one aspect or another. To us, they just become weighted a
lot more heavily.”

“And how do garments figure into this?”

“You wear them after you’ve made your
covenants. It’s just a reminder, nothing more, nothing less. Not
magic. No different than, say, a yarmulke or ear locks.”

“So... Sebastian was a missionary, right? He
made these covenants? Wore them?”

She nodded. “Yes. Before he left the
mission, left the Church. No matter how silly he thinks it all is,
he won’t mock that.”

“I could’ve called him, then,” I said, more
to myself than her.

“Yes, but... Mitch should have explained
this to you.”

“He only drew the same parallel you just
did. He doesn’t let me see them much. In fact, I didn’t even know
about them until we got back from our honeymoon. So when I asked
him what this means with, say, Mina, he didn’t want to talk about
it anymore.”

She stared at me for a second as if she
hadn’t seen that coming, and she was trying to formulate a
response. I half expected her to refuse to answer, the way Prissy
and Ashworth had.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Thanks, Mitch.”
She took a deep breath and then dove in. “Short answer: He married
Mina for eternity and you until death. He dies, he’s with Mina. If
you die without marrying him that way,
too
, you get to hang
out in the awesomeness that is heaven with whoever you make friends
with when you get there.”

I thought about that as our meals were
served. It didn’t sit well.

At all.

We ate in companionable silence while I
worked my way through it and all its implications.

Too.

Oh, God.

“So that’s it?” I finally asked, because it
was the only thing I could think to say. “What if you don’t want to
be with your eternal spouse eternally?”

She shrugged. “I believe in a just and
merciful God, and— Now, this is the gospel according to Giselle,”
she warned, and I nodded. By this time, I knew better than to think
of these people as monolithic. “I think that justice and mercy are
two sides of the same coin.” I glanced at her, confused. “My theory
is that, with perfect knowledge as to our hearts and minds, God
gives each person exactly what they deserve, which is exactly what
they’d be most happy with.

“Which is partially to say that if you don’t
want to be with your spouse eternally, I don’t think you have to
be. Why would you want to be with someone who doesn’t want you? Why
would God make you be?” She sat up and leaned forward. “If it makes
you feel any better, I’m not married to my husband for eternity,
either. Just death.”

“Um...oh. Okay?”

“He was sealed—that’s what we call it,
‘sealed’—to his first wife, but she was just evil. She was abusive,
to him and their children. She cheated on him prolifically and
indiscriminately, putting his health at risk—and it’s a miracle he
doesn’t have any diseases. She couldn’t have been using condoms or
birth control because she got pregnant and none of the four
children she had are actually his—not that
he
ever made that
distinction. I’m shocked she didn’t abort them all, though I
suspect there were one or two of those, too.” She pointed her fork
at me. “Now, you can’t tell me that woman deserves anything decent
in the hereafter, and Bryce sure as hell didn’t do anything to
deserve being stuck with her for eternity.”

“Four children? I thought you only had
one.”

“Our child—Bryce’s and mine—is his fifth.
You know all those burn scars on his face? The ones that got you as
hot and bothered as they get me?”

I rolled my eyes, but didn’t bother to deny
it.

“His children and wife died in the fire
where he got those burns.”

God, my mind blew all to bits. I couldn’t
imagine what I’d do if any one of my girls died, much less all at
once, to say nothing of dying such horrible deaths. The thought
left me breathless and bereft by proxy, and it took me a while to
fight my way out of that emotional quicksand so as to continue the
discussion I’d summoned her for.