Part 17 (2/2)
What might they be? In the Goldfarb home, artisa.n.a.l food was kugel, brisket, pastrami and rye bread-imported from Winnipeg or Min neapolis-and the occasional Sara Lee coffee cake. Here, who knew?
Lutefisk? Jell-O martinis? Perhaps she'd drop in at the bar and check out the R&B band. Or the poetry reading. Really, her stay was going to be better than Disney World, and all for $144 a night.
The telephone rang. She hoped it was Misty, canceling.
”Maggie?” asked a nervous, high-pitched voice.
It couldn't be.
”I read about your speech tomorrow in the Forun,” he said. ”Welcome home.”
”Tyler! Or do I have to call you Pastor Peterson now?”
”You heard I got ordained?”
”Did you have a choice?”
”Ya, it's kind of a family business.” When they grew up, Tyler's dad herded the flock of Fargo's largest Lutheran church, of which there were as many as Forest Gump had shrimp dishes. All of his older brothers had become ministers. ”So, anyway, I was wonder ing . . .”
”Yes, Tyler?”
”If you could meet me? I'm in the bar downstairs.”
Would Tyler wear a minister's collar? Carry a bible? Say grace? Magnolia threaded her way through the dark, crowded hotel lounge, searching for the dirty-blond hair that used to hang over her high school boyfriend's eyes. Next to several men in orange, deer-hunting clothing, a group of shrill college girls dominated one end of the smoky bar, their male counterparts circling them like the chorus of a Bollywood movie. Magnolia turned in the opposite direction, where a few couples were sipping margaritas and chomping tortilla chips.
No Tyler.
Maybe he wasn't going to show. Worse, maybe it had been a joke instigated by Bucky, who would roar through the door, slapping his beefy thigh and shouting, ”Got ya, Goldfarb. Still got the hots for Tyler Peterson, huh?” She sat at a table and waited, crossing her arms against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Even with a layer of silk long johns under her jeans and a thick cashmere turtleneck, Magnolia wondered how she had ever survived here in Iglooville.
She felt a tap on her shoulder. In place of the Tyler she remem bered stood a serious man with wire-rimmed gla.s.ses and a blue knit ski hat. She could easily picture him at a desk in a bank, granting a loan to a customer in a John Deere cap. He stared at her and didn't seem able to speak. Nor could she.
”Maggie,” he said, after what felt like minutes. ”I like your hair long.” He brushed away her bangs, and as his hand grazed her cheek, she s.h.i.+vered-this time not from the cold-and pulled him close, breathing in the clean scent of skin she'd know anywhere.
”Aw, heck, I didn't mean to make you cry,” he said, as they sat down together. He pulled off his hat; his hair had turned brown. Magnolia blinked away her tears.
”It's just so great to be home.” She lied. The truth was, if she wanted to go to a Starbucks or a Gap, she could find dozens at home in Manhattan, with the same caramel macchiatos and boot-cut jeans.
Nothing about Fargo felt remotely like the sweetly unadorned town of her memory. Nothing except Tyler Peterson. As he settled into his chair, she could picture him on the bench in his football uniform, turning shyly to look for her in the bleachers.
”I don't suppose you want the local specialty, a prairie fire-tequila and Tabasco?” Tyler said, as he smiled for the first time and ordered them a pitcher of beer. ”Tell me about your life in New York.”
”Magazine editor. Two wheaten terriers. Good friends. Not a lot to tell,” she said. Not a lot she wanted to tell. She didn't know how to edit the caption for her life in a way that wouldn't give Tyler the opportu nity to denounce her as an urban sinner. Divorcee, workaholic, child less woman, big spender. ”You?”
”Church in a town where the tallest building is the grain elevator,” he said, looking at his hands. ”Wife, two kids, small house, big mortgage.”
”Circle back to that wife part.”
”Jody's the sunniest girl I ever met.”
”Sounds perfect,” Magnolia said, thinking no one was ever going to call her sunny. ”Tell me everything.”
”She's a preacher's kid, too; knows the drill; makes a mean ham burger hot dish, teaches bible camp, can sew a Halloween costume that fits over a parka,” he said, looking Magnolia straight in the eye for the first time. ”But nothing's perfect.”
The hue and cry of married men on the make, she thought, then squashed the idea. Don't flatter yourself, Magnolia. Tyler is probably here to save your soul. ”I guess it's the not-perfect part that keeps your business alive,” she said.
”Secret of my success-people don't show up on Sunday for my sermons.”
”Pictures?” Magnolia asked.
Tyler reached into the pocket of his corduroys, pulled out a canvas wallet, and opened it to a shot of two young teenagers-a pudgy, sunburned girl and a boy who looked remarkably like the Tyler who had sat next to her in geometry cla.s.s twenty years earlier. They were standing in front of an RV. ”We took this last summer at Yellowstone,” he said proudly.
”They're so old,” Magnolia stammered. She had prepared herself for babies.
”We sort of had to get married,” he said and laughed again, this time nervously, absentmindedly rubbing his bare ring finger. ”Tyler Peterson, are you blus.h.i.+ng? It's not like you were a virgin.”
As soon as Magnolia said it she wondered if she shouldn't take down the smart-a.s.s tone a notch. When she last knew this man, he did not have an ironic bone in his d.a.m.n good body.
”My wife reads your magazine,” he said. ”She's been following your career.”
”My brilliant career?” Magnolia said, bristling at the ”wife” word. ”So I guess you know that Bebe Blake runs the show now.”
”Jody figured that out. Watches Bebe every day,” he said. ”I don't get that woman. Can you explain her to me?”
”I doubt it,” Magnolia said. But the look on Tyler's face showed he expected an answer.
”Hot-and-cold-running ego. But just when you really start hating her, she does something decent. Then, when you let yourself like her, she ignores you completely.”
”Why do you submit yourself to that?” he asked.
”Well . . .” Magnolia said. It was an utterly reasonable question, but she wasn't quite ready for pastoral counseling. Because even a not great job is better than men, who never fail to disappoint? Because she was afraid that living in a place as regular as Fargo would be an e-ticket to h.e.l.l?
”Maggie Goldfarb, are you blus.h.i.+ng?” Tyler asked. He filled their gla.s.ses for the second time, put his hand on top of hers and slowly moved his palm toward her wrist. She felt warm everywhere, as if they'd both stripped and were breathing heavily under the universe's most luxurious duvet. ”Soft,” he said, as he moved his fingers toward her arm.
Soft, she repeated to herself. She time-traveled to their first date, when they'd French-kissed for hours in the back of the Fargo Theatre and she confirmed firsthand the definition of the term ”o.r.g.a.s.m.”
Tyler continued to stroke her wrist until he reached her watch.
Magnolia jolted back to reality. ”Jesus, Tyler,” she said. ”Oh, Christ, sorry I said 'Jesus.' What time is it?” She yanked her arm away and quickly stood. ”Bucky is picking me up in five minutes.” ”That fool who hawks cars on Channel Four?” he asked, not sound ing one bit like the Reverend-anything.
”Don't act like you don't remember Bucky,” she said. ”You were on the same football team.” Is he jealous, she wondered? And are they both insane? ”It's not a date-it's supper. Misty Knight is the one who invited me to speak tomorrow.” Why was she explaining this to Tyler?
”But when will I see you?” he said as he stood up to help her into her coat.
”Tyler, get a grip . . .” she said, but this time she didn't finish her sentence because he leaped forward and kissed her. His tongue tasted like slow dancing, like high-octane teenage hormones, like midnight skinny-dipping at Pelican Lake.
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