Part 6 (1/2)
”This can't be right,” I said, peering through the window at the numbers on the houses as Valerie slowed the car to a crawl.
She squinted down at the cla.s.s directory, open on her lap, then out at the dark street in the town of Aurora, a suburb forty-five minutes west of Pleasant Ridge. ”Three-ninety-six Larchmont. This is it.”
”But it's...” Val's headlights washed over the white sign stuck in the lawn in front of the two-story clapboard building. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: THANKS AND GIVING, SERVICES SUNDAY MORNING, 10 A.M., CHILD CARE AVAILABLE. ”It's a church.”
She cut the motor and unbuckled her seat belt. ”Maybe it's been converted into condos.”
I got out of the car and looked at the building, then studied the sign's small print, which advertised AA meetings Wednesday mornings at ten and read, at the very bottom, CHARLES MASON, PASTOR. ”Val,” I said. ”When you were talking to Chip Mason at the reunion, did you happen to notice a black s.h.i.+rt and a white collar? Priestly garments? Rosary beads? A big wooden cross?” My father was Jewish but not observant, my mother had grown up Lutheran, and Jon and I had been raised as nothing in particular-we'd light a menorah in December and bring in a tree that we'd decorate, and there would be dyed eggs and chocolate rabbits in the springtime, without much in the way of explanation about what any of it meant-so I was a little bit vague on how you could recognize a churchgoing (or church-running) man.
Val made a face. ”Oh, I'm sorry. Was I supposed to go to my high school reunion and listen to other people talk about themselves?”
”I guess not.”
”Bunch of breeders pa.s.sing around pictures of their kids,” she grumbled, helping herself to a cruller from the wax-paper bag full of doughnuts we'd bought. ”Like anybody cares.” She took a big bite. ”Like all babies don't look just like Ed Asner.”
”Not the black ones,” I pointed out.
”Funny,” said Val, who knew as well as I did that of our cla.s.s of 280 or so, fewer than a dozen had been black, bused in from Chicago as part of a program to give them more academic opportunities, then bused back home before they had a chance to join any teams or make any friends. The chance that one of them had felt connected enough to the cla.s.s to actually show up at a reunion was slim.
I pried the Cla.s.s of '92 guide out of Valerie's hands and found his name in the directory. ”Reverend Charles Mason,” I read. ”Reverend. As in, G.o.d.”
Val frowned. ”Huh. Now that you mention it, he was talking about working on his service. I figured he just meant tennis or something.”
”Jesus Christ,” I said. Together, we walked up the flagstone path that led from the street to the church and climbed the half-dozen steps to the front door. Val cupped her hands around the pane of gla.s.s and peered through the window. ”Pews,” she reported. ”Big cross up front.” She took a step sideways to the next windowpane. ”Um. Sign says Christmas organ concert on the seventeenth, but I don't see anybody there...”
”Excuse me!”
Val turned around. ”Duck!” she hissed. I hopped off the stairs and crouched in the shadow beside, invisible as I'd wished to be back in high school, as a man in striped pajamas and a bathrobe-the elusive and now holier-than-us Chip Mason, I presumed-came from behind the church. His hair was thinning, his belly strained the waistband of his pajama bottoms, and he looked weary... although, in his defense, it was very late. ”What are you doing here?” he demanded, then looked more closely. ”Valerie?”
Val raised her hand and managed a weak wave. ”Hi, Chip.” She lifted the wax-paper bag. ”Want a doughnut?”
”Is everything all right?” he asked, now sounding more puzzled than angry.
”I... came... for...”
Oh, s.h.i.+t, I thought, and leaned forward, ready to spring out of the shadows and defend us... or run.
”Salvation!” Val continued. ”Just lately I've been... you know... thinking about G.o.d and stuff.”
G.o.d and stuff. Kill me now. But Chip Mason actually seemed to be buying it as Val came tripping down the steps and onto the frost-crinkly lawn. ”There are things in my life... things I've done that I'm not proud of.” She stood close to him as she looked down, head bowed, then up, tossing her hair and angling her body even closer to Chip's paunch. ”And it's been years and years since my last confession.”
Chip frowned. ”You know this isn't a Catholic church.”
”Oh, of course.” She gave a shrill little giggle. ”Of course not. But I just thought, you know, with someone who knew me... and knew G.o.d... it'd be, like, a setup! Blind dates are always better when there's someone who knows both people.”
”Maybe we could talk about this on Sunday,” he said. ”Come to services. I'd be happy to speak with you after.”
”Okay, but... well, it's just that there's something that's really been on my mind. I had... I guess you'd call it an epiphany last night.” She led Chip to the car, and when they were directly beneath the streetlamp, she turned her head and mouthed the words Find Dan.
Great. I waited until she'd unlocked the car and somehow sweet-talked Chip Mason into the pa.s.senger's seat, where, presumably, they could arrange her night out with the Almighty. Then I bent over and hustled along the side of the building. The church was two stories, and behind it was a one-story brick addition that looked like living quarters-I could see a light through one of the windows, a stove with a kettle on it, a vase of red carnations on a cluttered kitchen table. I peeked through the window. No sign of Dan. Breathing deeply, I walked to the door of the rectory, or the parsonage, or whatever believers called the place where the priest lived. The door was closed but unlocked.
I turned the k.n.o.b and stepped inside to a short entry hall with a coatrack and a pair of winter boots and a snow shovel at the ready, leaning against the wall. The kitchen was empty: I saw a woodcut of praying hands affixed to the wall, underneath a noisily ticking plastic clock, and a box of Entenmann's cookies on the counter. The powder room was neat and vacant. The living room had stacks of church newsletters and different religious and self-help texts on the shelves. A leather-bound Bible sat open on the wood coffee table. There was n.o.body on the couch or in either of the armchairs that sat across from it. I hurried down the hallway to the bedroom. Unmade double bed, vacant; closet with s.h.i.+rts and pants on wire hangers, ditto; bathroom with a gla.s.sed-in shower stall with a Waterpik and a tube of Rogaine next to the sink.
I pulled back the shower curtain and peered under the bed. There was n.o.body there. No signs of anyone, either-no kicked-off pair of shoes, no jacket draped over a chair, no droplets of blood in the sinks.
I slipped through the front door, closed it behind me, and dashed around the building, ducking back behind the hedge, then creeping forward until I could see Valerie's Jaguar. The motor was running. Plumes of white smoke rose up from the exhaust pipe. The windows were fogged. I squatted down, s.h.i.+vering, figuring that any minute Father Chip would conclude his spiritual counsel. He'd go back to his house, I'd get back in the car, and Val and I could figure out where to go next. The minutes crawled by. The door stayed shut. My knees creaked as I adjusted my position and held it until my thighs were shaking. Finally I approached the car, thinking that maybe I could knock on the back window as a signal to Val that it was time to go... but as I got closer, I could see through the window that the driver's seat was empty. Pastor Charles Mason was sitting in the pa.s.senger's seat, and Valerie had climbed on top of him. His mouth was open on her neck, and one hand groped her breast through her black lace body suit.
”Oh, for the love of G.o.d,” I said, loud enough for them to hear if they'd been listening, which clearly they weren't. I waited until the car started rocking back and forth. Then I thumped twice on the window and turned my back. A minute later, the driver's-side door opened and Chip Mason climbed out into the night, smoothing the tented front of his bathrobe.
”Addie?” he said, peering at me. ”Is that Addie Downs? My goodness, you got thin!”
”And you got religion!” I said.
I could see the moonlight gleaming on his bald pate as he cleared his throat. ”I was hoping to see you tonight,” he said. ”I wanted to apologize for my role... in...” He cleared his throat again and looked at me. ”I've changed,” he said. ”I'm a different person now.”
”Good for you,” I said as Val came tumbling out of the driver's seat, patting her hair into place and looking like a vampire who'd just gotten a fresh infusion of blood. ”We need to be going.”
”Will I see you on Sunday?” asked Chip Mason.
Val gave him a silvery-sounding laugh as she slid behind the wheel. ”We'll see,” she said. I climbed into the car and we drove off, leaving Chip standing there in his bathrobe.
”No Dan?” asked Val, who didn't sound especially hopeful.
”No Dan,” I confirmed. ”Oh, and by the way, what was that all about?”
”I was creating a diversion,” she said, as if this was obvious. ”And it was hot. Very Thorn Birds.”
”Val,” I said, ”Presbyterian priests aren't celibate. They're allowed to get married.”
”Oh.” She seemed disappointed to hear it. ”Are you sure?”
”Positive.”
Val pulled over to the curb underneath a streetlamp and grabbed the cla.s.s directory from where it had gotten wedged between the seats. ”You know what? Maybe we should just go see if he's home.”
I felt my stomach clench, but I didn't say anything as Val pulled open the cla.s.s guide, located Dan's address, plugged it into her car's GPS, and started to drive.
THIRTEEN.
The New Year's Eve party was Valerie's idea, and I was surprised that my parents went for it. Maybe I shouldn't have been: Valerie, my mother used to say, could charm the bark off of trees, and she made the event sound like the most exciting thing that had ever hit Pleasant Ridge, or at least our cul-de-sac. ”A New Year's Eve celebration,” she'd decreed from my bedroom floor, where we'd a.s.sumed our customary positions, head to head, propped up on our elbows on the carpet, with our feet pointing toward opposite corners of the room. Val, in her usual jeans and boy's b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt, was flipping through a copy of Mademoiselle. She hadn't changed the way she dressed now that we were in high school, but she'd started reading about clothes, and she'd show up at the bus stop with her hair puffed up with mousse or gloss painted on her lips. I was in jeans of my own and an oversized sweats.h.i.+rt that fell past my hips, working through a bag of Cheez Doodles, holding each puff underneath my tongue until it dissolved. ”For the neighborhood.”
”Not for other kids?”
She shook her head. ”A grown-up party. A dress-up party.”