Walk on Water (8 page)

We were singing the final hymn
finally
. Then everybody started in with their hellos and good-byes, and warm wishes for a good week. Since there was still no chance to check my cell without looking preoccupied or impatient, I settled for throwing myself into the community ritual with my own friendly hugs and chit-chat. This was the real
social
part of Christian worship anyway, the communion of saints, the thing that made St. James Baptist Church sacred. It wasn’t
political
with us.

For lunch today Mommy wanted to go to Red Lobster as usual. She loved seafood and she loved Red Lobster. The one we went to was noisy, busy, and crowded, particularly on Sunday afternoons when it was filled with lots of families with lots of children. Somehow in spite of a menu that mainly featured fish, in just about every single bite you could taste that there were way too many calories.

One Mother’s Day I had taken Mommy to Sand Castles, an upscale seafood restaurant on the north side of town near the more popular Galleria Mall. Having double-checked the menu online, I had been excited about taking her there to celebrate her special day. Unfortunately the pompish, sophisticated background of classical music, low lighting, water fountains, and bevy of waiters buzzing around had made Mommy too uncomfortable to enjoy the food, and even in her
Sunday best
she had fretted about the way she had been dressed compared to the other patrons.

“You come here a lot?” she had asked me after deciding on the grilled chicken breast with rice pilaf and steamed vegetables—the cheapest item on the red leather-bound menu.

“Not a whole lot,” I had assured her. “Just for special occasions. Mommy, please have the blackened mahi-mahi. It’s really good.”

“I’ve had it before.”

“They prepare it really well here.”

“Fish is fish. They cook it the same way everywhere.”

“Not exactly, Mommy,” I had said although I had chosen not to explain the meaning of
award-winning
chefs and
five-star
ratings.

This afternoon luckily our wait wasn’t too long at the Red Lobster, and we were even seated at a booth this time, which didn’t happen all the time because we were just a party-of-two and booths were generally reserved for parties of four or more. Now when I went out with Luke we never sat in a booth, and one of the chairs always had to be quickly removed.

As Mommy debated aloud whether or not to get the
Seaside Shrimp Trio
or the
Admiral’s Feast
, I silently selected the stuffed flounder and closed my menu. At a table near us, a busboy swept up a catastrophe of breadcrumbs, balled-up napkins, and spilled ice-cubes. At another table another busboy was hastily and so noisily throwing dirty plates, glasses, and flatware into a dirty plastic bin. The crashing sound the items made as they collided in the bin was barely audible over the din all around. A harried-looking waitress arrived at our table, setting down brown glasses of ice water. The word
glasses
was a euphemism in this case because they were the typical food-service plastic. The actual glassware was reserved for beverages ordered from the bar, which we wouldn’t be having today, since Mommy took the Baptist Covenant quite literally even if her daughter didn’t, and hadn’t for a long time.

By the time our entrees came, I had eaten my salad and two cheese biscuits, so I wasn’t very hungry. That was the thing about Red Lobster, you could almost always count on taking home a doggy-bag. When I went out with Luke and didn’t finish my meal I always forgot the box on the table. I didn’t do that with Mommy. She would remind me, and besides I usually ate more in the first place. As I started in on my third biscuit I told myself that I would work very hard at the gym the rest of the week to pay for it.

No matter how much I denied it, Corrine held fast to her theory about me getting ready to get naked in front of somebody—that somebody being Luke.

“I don’t know what you’re killing yourself for,” she had griped. “He’s the one with a body image problem.”

Maybe she was right, but I had found her comment insensitive and insulting.

“He’s disabled,” I had replied heatedly. “Not disfigured.”

“And you’re curvy,” she had shot back. “Not disgusting. And anyways, from what you shared with me he’s got the hots for you too just the way you are. As much as he can have the hots that is.”

“Disabled people are sexual beings just like the rest of us, Corrine.”

“I know that. They have their ways.” Then she had grinned almost wickedly. “So you really think you’re ready for a little versatility in your repertoire?”

“What part of ‘just friends’ don’t you understand?” I had snapped.

But I had already been online researching what the
that
with Luke might be like. Maybe he’d have to rely on his hands more than anything, making it kind of like my own basically unsatisfying attempts. I couldn’t picture him putting his mouth on me, not
down there.
Besides, when other men had, including Robert, I had never experienced what all the hype was about.

The main message from my research was that each spinal cord injury was different. The
incomplete
diagnosis had not left Luke enough function to walk but it was possible that it might have left him enough to feel and to perhaps even respond. Luke would have determined what he could do and mastered it. He had never been the celibate type.

In college, there had been an ample assortment of girls on the verge of womanhood preening and prancing around him like the princesses that they were. AIDS hadn’t happened yet, and herpes had been the problem of people who lived in New York and Los Angeles. Condoms had provided reliable protection against gonorrhea and girls too embarrassed or careless to take birth control, although Luke had confessed more than once to me that he had forgone them. As his
Mercutio
, I had adoringly listened to his contemplations regarding his relationships—instant, short and long; and from him I had learned about men, and I had learned about him.

Which was why it was my fault that I had lost him. Hungry for the
that
I had chased after the
other
and forfeited the
this
. But now I had him back in the way that mattered most, I thought smiling to myself, and on a juniper breeze.

“What’s so funny?” asked Mommy from across the table.

“Oh,” I shook my head. “Nothing. How’s your
Shrimp Trio
?”

How rude was that—fixating on sex while having Sunday dinner with your mother?

“Good,” she said. “Too much food though.”

Mommy could be as astute as Corrine, so I decided it was time to at least let off a little of the
steam
about Luke. If she began to figure it out on her own she could come up with the wrong narrative. Worse yet, sometimes Corrine got together with us for Sunday lunch and I certainly didn’t want her version of the story getting out ahead of mine.

“Remember we’re splitting a dessert,” I reminded Mommy. “So save room.”

“That Lava Cookie sounds good,” she replied. “But I certainly don’t need it.”

Good, I thought. I’d bring it up casually over a decadent treat with coffee sweetened with
Splenda
.

“We’ll split it fifty-fifty,” I smiled again. “And leave some on the plate too.”

“Dark chocolate is supposed to be good for you,” Mommy added and we laughed at that together.

The Red Lobster menu hadn’t lied about the Lava Cookie. It was really delicious. And in the words of Scarlett O’Hara I’d just have to think about it tomorrow…and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

“What did Betty Sterling think,” Mommy wanted to know as she tore open another package of
Splenda
to add to her coffee refill. “That you’d get involved with her beloved boy on the rebound? Humph.”

Mommy was now fuming.

“Four kids,” she fussed. “Child support
and
alimony. You realize that he has to leave them with the same lifestyle they had when they were married. That little Miss Christina is not the nine-to-five type from what I could see. He probably doesn’t have a dime to his name.”

At least Mommy wasn’t calling Luke a pervert, although she no longer seemed to think him kin to Midas.

“Unless mommy and daddy bailed him out,” she went on. “No wonder he moved back here. Probably can’t afford his own place.”

“He took another job,” I explained. “And he has his own place, Mommy. A house.”

“Have you seen it?” Mommy asked.

I shook my head.

“Well then how do you know? He wouldn’t tell you the poor man’s truth, Rae. He’s a Sterling. It’s not a good look.”

And Luke cared about having a
good look
. He was nobody’s
cause
he had informed me.

“Mommy, I think he’s doing fine. Besides, I’m not exactly a gold-digger.”

I scooped up a little more of the melted chocolate and stuck the spoon in my mouth. So Mommy was getting the story pretty much wrong anyway. Oh well. At least she hadn’t landed on Corrine’s line, and I was glad for that.

“Is that why she fixed you up with him?” Mommy’s next question surprised me. “Because you work for your living?”

“Mrs. Sterling did not fix us up,” I said. “She gave him my number and he called. We got together and had a nice time. So we did it again. That’s all. We meet for lunch, dinner sometimes. Maybe a coffee. No big deal. Like old times.”

“When you had a crush on him, you mean?”

Feeding the butterflies in my stomach I took another bite of the lava cookie.

“Mommy, I think I’ve outgrown that phase,” I said deceitfully dryly.

“There is such a thing as arrested development,” she countered. “Isn’t that what you call it?”

“That’s pretty good,” I complimented her, smiling. “But really we’re just friends. Like always. I’m not Luke’s type, Mommy, remember?”

And because it was true it was surprisingly easy to say.

“And I never have been,” I continued. “Not in that that way.”

“Well I just hope you don’t let yourself get mixed up with him that’s all,” said Mommy. “I always say you don’t date enough. Although for the life of me I don’t know why. You’re still a pretty girl. Why do you think poor Robert keeps calling you? As long as you aren’t seeing anybody special he thinks he might still have a chance. You can be confusing to a man, Rae, sometimes.”

“And boring,” I added.

“Robert didn’t really mean that. He was just hurt that’s all.”

Our waitress returned bearing a coffee pot and our check.

“No thank you,” I declined more coffee as I reached for the check.

“It’s my turn to pay,” Mommy said.

“My treat today,” I replied, pulling out my Visa and placing it on the little plastic check tray.

I had seen Luke pay more for a single entrée than the total price of our Red Lobster check. He was by no means broke. Just broken. I wondered why I didn’t tell Mommy this part, why I was saying nothing about the accident and the wheelchair. It wasn’t something to hide or to be embarrassed about, and yet I wasn’t telling her.

“Just don’t give Luke the wrong idea,” Mommy was warning me. “Like I always told you, boys are not toys. And grown men certainly aren’t. You’re not too old to get in trouble, Rachel. And I’ve seen those lab tests miss things. The last thing you need is a disabled child to raise by yourself.”

Or with a disabled father.

“Mommy, I’m celibate,” I reminded her.

“You don’t have to be,” she said coolly. “You just have to be careful.”

As I drove her home, Mommy chatted about a lot of things to which I barely listened. At least she seemed satisfied that I wasn’t about to do something silly about/for/with Luke. My life was like my Corolla, tootling along in the right hand lane, prudently, predictably. When we arrived at Mommy’s house, she was surprised that I didn’t shut off the engine and get out, but football season had started so
Sixty Minutes
would be delayed, and I was kind of tired.

“I want to wash my hair,” I offered as an excuse. “I’m gonna get home.”

“Your hair looks fine,” replied Mommy. “Come in. I’ll make us both a cup of cleansing tea. We need it after that Lava cookie thing.”

She swore by her teas, believing them to be as good as exercise for keeping you fit and trim. Mommy was in good shape, with a figure that could belong to a woman younger than her daughter. I guessed that I had inherited my frame from Peter.

“I don’t have a stomachache, Mommy,” I chuckled as I kissed her on the cheek. “I just feel like making it an early night that’s all.”

“Well, okay,” she conceded reluctantly. “Call me later.”

“Okay.”

I watched Mommy mount the three steps to the small porch, steps that Luke couldn’t climb anymore. She turned to wave to me before unlocking the front door and I waved back. The security alarm beeped loudly as she went inside.

Of all the boyfriends that I had had, including Robert and even after we were married, Luke was the only man that I had made love to under Mommy’s roof. With all the others it had always felt too disrespectful to have sex in Mommy’s house. With Luke, love was what I had felt, with enough disbelief thrown in to make it as magical as a fairytale. But fairytales were usually short stories. I supposed Mommy must have had sex—made love—in her own house, at least when I was away at school, and before she had gotten so serious about the church. I hoped it had been as wonderful for her as it had been for me. Because it had been wonderful.
That
nothing could take away from me.