The Girl Who Slept with God: A Novel (22 page)

“You know—” Grip nodded his head. “That’s so weird that we’re talking about this ’cause just last week I read this article in some magazine—
Psychology Today
, maybe—and it said that when you’re really praying, it’s like you’re in an alpha mind state.” Grip picked out a piece of lettuce from the salad bowl and popped it in his mouth. “That praying or chanting can produce a state of optimal creativity or something. There was a photo of this old black woman who makes crazy quilts like spiders on acid after she prays—all these wild purple and blue and red stars and comets and stuff all stitched together.” Grip shook his head. “It was incredible.”

Grace resettled her napkin on her lap. “That’s quite fascinating. Although I’m not really sure that making strange quilts is what prayer is all about.”

“Oh, well, sure.” Grip lifted a slice of cucumber out of the bowl and began crunching loudly. “Just goes to show you the power of prayer, is all.” He smiled.

Jory reached for a piece of bread.

“Although,” Grace said, “there seems to be less and less point in saying grace now.”

Jory let the piece of bread drop back onto the plate. “Sorry,” she said.

“Me too,” said Grip. “Hey—” He reached out for Jory’s hand and then Grace’s. “C’mon, you go right ahead and pray.”

“Well,” said Grace, “all right.” She looked down at the table, at their newly linked hands, and Jory could see Grace’s cheeks flushing a light shade of pink, the way they did when she was mad or embarrassed or suddenly pleased. Grace closed her eyes and then cleared her throat.
“We thank thee, Lord, for this our food, for life and health and all things good. May manna to our souls be given: the bread of life sent down from heaven. These favors we ask in Christ’s name. Amen.”

“Amen,” said Grip loudly. He smiled at Jory and gave her hand a squeeze before letting it go. “That’s a sweet prayer—is that what you folks pray at every meal?”

“Yes,” said Grace. “It’s the prayer we learned when we were little.” She blushed again, turning her birthmark an even redder shade. “I don’t know why I keep repeating it. It’s childish.”

“Nah. Things like that can be comforting.” Grip spooned some salad onto Jory’s plate. “You have to at least try it now—I worked hard on this.” He scooped up some more. “Grace?”

“Okay. All right.”

Grip arranged the salad on Grace’s plate. “Is that enough? How about just a little more?”

“Oh, no—that’s plenty.”

“C’mon—don’t tell me you didn’t have stranger stuff than this in Mexico.”

Grace didn’t bother looking at her plate; instead, she turned to Jory. “You know, I thought you said you were babysitting this summer.”

“I was,” Jory said, stirring the food on her plate.

“But in between times, she was a big help with my sales and my deliveries.” Grip nodded. “She’s highly efficient.” He gave Jory a wink.

“Your sales? What do you sell?”

Grip drank down the last of his iced tea. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Oh, you know, the essentials—frozen dairy treats and such.”

Grace lifted a forkful of salad toward her mouth. She chewed for a
moment and then swallowed. “You’re the ice cream man,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yup.” Grip smiled. “Guilty as charged. Although I’m trying to remain open to other, less glamorous career possibilities.”

A sound came from the living room—a soft knocking quickly followed by the front door opening and shutting. “Hello,” a female voice called faintly.

“Who’s that?” Grace turned around in her chair.

“Oh,” said Jory, her fork in midair. “That’s Hilda.”

“Who?” said Grace.

Mrs. Kleinfelter now stood hesitantly in the kitchen doorway, peeping at the three of them. “I’m sorry to be interrupting your suppertime,” she said. “I was just hoping Jory might come help me fix my television set. My show’s on and I feel strange if I can’t see it.” She twisted her hands together as she spoke.

“You know how to fix TVs?” Grace sounded more than surprised by this new information.

“Well,” Jory said, “no.”

“How about your young man here?” Mrs. Kleinfelter turned toward Grip. “Do you know anything about old RCAs?”

Grip put his napkin on the table and pushed his chair back and stood up. “Is it the sound or the picture?”

“The picture. I don’t give a hoot about the sound. I just want to see Art Fleming and the questions.” She had already started back toward the living room and Grip was following her. “Is that your truck out front in the drive?” she was saying. “It’s parked a little close to my mums.” The front door shut with a bang.

Grace scooted her chair back and then stood up from the table and walked toward the cupboards. She took out a glass and then turned around. “Just how old
is
he, Jory? Twenty-five?
Thirty?
I can’t believe Mom and Dad actually let you work for him.”

“Well, they did,” Jory lied bravely.

“And why is he bringing you presents? What do you think Dad would say if he knew that man was coming out here to see you?”

“His name is Grip, remember?” Jory stared down at her plate, at the
strange half-eaten salad. “And he’s my friend. And now that I have to go to Schism, he’s my only friend. So I guess I’m not supposed to have friends anymore? Or birthday presents?”

“Oh, Jory.”

“Grip is the only person that really cares about me.”

“That is so not true.”

“Yes, it is,” said Jory. “He understands me.”

“He doesn’t even know you.”

“That’s what you think.”

With a ringing sound, Grace set the drinking glass on the counter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Grace sat back down in her chair. “Jory. Have you done something?”

“Have
I
done something?” Jory looked at Grace.

Each of them sat silently, as if contemplating the feasibility of continuing the track of this conversation.

The front door opened and shut again. Grip walked through the living room and kitchen doorway and then stood next to the table. “Blown tube,” he said, frowning. “Too bad, too. I think she’ll have to go to a repair shop to get one. Those old cathode tubes are nearly impossible to come by now.” He scratched at his head. “I was thinking maybe we could entertain her for a little bit. She seems kinda lost without her show. So I hope it’s okay—I invited her back here.”

“Well, of course,” Grace said, only her eyes registering her feelings about this entire turn of events. “The more the merrier.”

Mrs. Kleinfelter sat at the table looking faintly shamed and childlike. She kept rearranging her silverware.

“Grip is a vegetarian,” Grace told her. “Which explains our slightly unusual dinner menu.”

“Oh, I’m hardly ever hungry this time of night anyway.” Mrs. Kleinfelter moved her fork slightly to the left. “I’ll just try some of this good-looking bread, if you don’t mind.”

Grace passed Mrs. Kleinfelter the bread and then handed her the
butter dish. “Right before you got here, Grip was talking to us about the power of prayer.”

“Really?” Mrs. Kleinfelter continued to examine her plate. “Well, what do you know.”

“Do you attend church?” Grace poured some iced tea into Mrs. Kleinfelter’s glass.

“Oh, Dix and I used to go over to First Congregational every once in a while, but I’m pretty much out of the habit now.”

“At Garden of Gethsemane we have early morning and evening services on Sundays, and midweek services on Wednesday nights too.”

“Well, that’s certainly a lot of services. Is that where you girls go? This Garden of . . . Gethsemene?”

“We haven’t gotten to go as much as we would like to lately.” Grace set the iced tea pitcher down. She took a shallow breath. “I’ve been having my own sort of personal services here at home, and, you know, if you’d like to join me, I’d be very happy to have you come.” She turned to Grip. “Oh, and you too, of course.”

Mrs. Kleinfelter straightened her silverware again. “That’s a very lovely invitation,” she said.

“Sunday morning, hm?” Grip stopped eating. “What time are we talking?”

Grace turned toward Grip with a certain amount of amazement. “Nine thirty,” she said. “But maybe that’s too early for you.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I may not look like it, but I’m an early riser.” He grinned at Jory and Mrs. Kleinfelter in turn. “How about some dessert, ladies? Anybody here like ice cream?”

They sat in the living room and ate their ice cream bars. “This is very nice,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, with a hint of surprise in her voice. “I haven’t sat in Henry’s house like this for quite some time.”

Grip was kneeling down next to an old wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. He opened a drawer and pulled out a record album. “These are old seventy-eights,” he said. “
Really
old ones.”

“That’s a victrola of sorts,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, licking at her butterscotch Push Up. “Although I don’t know if it still works.”

Grip stood up and lifted the top lid on the wooden cabinet and gave a low whistle. “Would you look at that.”

Jory came over and peered inside. She had seen something like it once in the Boise Historical Museum, along with a Teletype machine, several Indian scalps, and a stuffed two-headed calf.

Grip was blowing dust off the record and placing it carefully on the victrola’s spindle.

“You have to wind it up first,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter.

Grip flipped a small switch, wound the victrola’s crank quite a few times, and then placed the needle carefully down on the record. A soft hush of staticky popping and hissing issued forth. Jory turned and grinned at Grace and Mrs. Kleinfelter. Suddenly a sound like an old-timey carnival filled the room. Grip opened both of the cabinet drawers down below and the strange dance hall music got even louder.

“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. She placed her ice cream bar down on its wrapper on the coffee table. “Oh, my. That’s—oh, who is that—what is her name? . . . Annette Hanshaw! Henry’s favorite singer. I think he had a little crush on her.”

The tinkly sweet-sad music sounded like it was coming from far away or deep down in a well somewhere. Or maybe as if the woman singing down in the well was holding a coffee can over her mouth. She was saying that her blackbirds were bluebirds now, while kazoos or ukuleles or fiddles or something played along at a superfast tempo. As if love could only be expressed in double time. “I’ve never heard anything like it,” said Jory.

“It’s the thirties,” said Grip, turning another record over in his hands. “Or maybe the forties?”

Mrs. Kleinfelter stood up and walked over to the victrola. “Henry loved this music,” she said. She shook her head as if to clear away this thought. “He was a little sappy that way.”

“Oh, come on.” Grip took hold of both Mrs. Kleinfelter’s hands and made her sway slightly back and forth with him in time to the music.

Jory grinned shyly and then glanced at Grace, who was sitting stock-still on the couch.

Grip and Mrs. Kleinfelter were now slowly circling the living room, doing some kind of improvised dance steps that they both seemed to
mysteriously know. Mrs. Kleinfelter was smiling but still shaking her head, even as she moved her feet in their brown work shoes with ease.

On the record, the whip-poor-will on the hill was telling the girl in the well that it was true, her blackbirds were bluebirds now. Days of gladness had come, days of sadness were done, and yes, her blackbirds were
bluuuue-
birds now.

Grip was saying something in Mrs. Kleinfelter’s ear. He dipped her down toward the floor and she gasped and said, “Oh, my,” then reached her hand back to keep her hair in place. Grip pulled her gently upright and they both laughed as if sharing a joke only the two of them understood.

“Okay, Grace,” Grip said breathlessly after setting Mrs. Kleinfelter on her feet, “your turn.”

Grace gave Grip a strange, lopsided smile. “No, thank you,” she said. “Dancing is a sin.”

“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, still rearranging her hair.

The record crackled to an end and then hummed silently, still turning on the spindle.

“Jory?” Grip turned and held out his hand.

Jory did not look in Grace’s direction. “That’s okay,” she said. “I guess not.”