Authors: Christina Dudley
He was nothing if not sensitive to others, however, and for the remainder of the meal he reverted to the muted, proper version of himself that he thought (rightfully) better pleased my uncle and me. By the time Jennifer cashed us out and said to him, “Here’s hoping I see
you
again,” it had already been settled that Eric Grant would make an appointment to meet with Pastor Donald. Pastor Donald would know what a new Christian should do.
“I’ve gone about a lot of things in my life the wrong way,” Eric Grant said. He was looking at my aunt and uncle but speaking, I sensed, for my ears. “This is one thing I want to get right.”
“I chalk it up to you, Frannie. Eric has been completely overwhelmed by your holiness.”
Caroline dumped the colander full of rinsed tomatoes on the counter next to me and handed me a knife. The two of us stood in the apartment’s tiny kitchen, making preparations for dinner in the sunlight that filtered through the dusty square of a window. I had never before seen where she and Jonathan lived. Since I had no car of my own, Caroline always came to meet me, but when she invited me out of the blue for dinner, my eagerness to accept motivated me to beg Aunt Terri for the use of her new Corolla, long lecture on road safety or no. I white-knuckled it across the Dumbarton Bridge one Friday afternoon, cringing as I merged into the stop-and-go traffic on 101. All the dinners in the world would not have been worth facing my aunt if I got in a fender-bender.
Jonathan and Caroline lived in a newish complex off Shoreline, equidistant from the Core-Pro campus in Cupertino and Caroline’s various musical doings on the Peninsula. Inside, I recognized the well-used furniture from my cousin’s college days, but his old dorm-room décor was nowhere to be seen, the multi-colored “Names of God” and Michelangelo’s
Creation
posters replaced by vintage French advertisements. Nor did I see any sign of Jonathan’s shelves and shelves of books. Instead there were pictures of the two of them scattered about; Caroline’s sheet music; and, anchoring an entire corner of the compact living room, her precious harp.
I bent my head and began coring the tomatoes. “I don’t know what you mean, Caroline.”
“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes at me before turning to retrieve a bottle of olive oil from the cabinet. “My brother, going to church! Joining a Bible study! Meeting with the pastor! Forget the Resurrection—we’re talking bona fide miracles here. But something tells me he doesn’t just go for the haloes and hymnals.”
I disliked talking religion with her under most circumstances and enduring her mockery, but adding Eric Grant to the mix made it unbearable. I would
not
indulge her. “What are we making here?”
“
Bruschetta
alla
Romana
. Jon gave me an Italian cooking class for my birthday, and you are all the beneficiaries. Don’t change the subject. Eric tells me he sits with you and your aunt and uncle nearly every Sunday. My mother- and father-in-law are charming people but I can’t imagine they’re the draw.”
“Eric really likes talking to Uncle Paul about manufacturing, and Uncle Paul gives him all sorts of advice about design.”
“No need to go to church for that.”
Slinging the tomato slime in the sink, I muttered, “Maybe he really does believe in God, now.”
She nibbled thoughtfully on a basil leaf. “Maybe. With God ‘all things are possible,’ as the Good Book tells us. But far more
probable
is that something or someone else inspires feelings of worship. Some lovely little creature with golden hair and a quiet spirit.”
I didn’t answer.
“Are you going to your prom?” was her next question.
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because I have necklaces you could borrow if you are. If I weren’t such a midget I would lend you a dress.”
“I’m not going.”
“Don’t give up hope yet—your prince may come.”
“Okay,” I said. It was no use arguing with her. Better just to let her say whatever she wanted. She went on for another few minutes about the two girls who came to blows over Eric Grant their senior year of high school, to which I made listening sounds while I finished chopping. Then I made another attempt to change the subject, and this time she let me.
“Too bad you have to move before you start law school,” I said. “This place is nice.”
“You think?” She shrugged and checked on the baguette slices in the oven, poking one with her finger to see if it was crisp enough. “I’m dying to live in the City.”
“The museums would be fun,” I agreed. “And I love the houses and Golden Gate Park and the views. Not that I’ve been there so many times.” Actually, most of my visits to San Francisco came on school field trips, but I was not going to admit that to her.
“Jon thinks it’ll be too far for him to get to work,” she sighed. “I’m trying to convince him he can get lots done riding the train.”
“So could you,” I pointed out.
Caroline’s social antennae being every bit as sensitive as her twin’s, she detected the note of indignation in my voice. “You’re absolutely right,” she conceded, “although Jon doesn’t like the idea of me taking the train or driving by myself late at night, and who knows what classes or study groups I’ll have. I may be on campus till all hours.”
Which meant, I supposed, that they would move to San Francisco. The old give and take Jonathan told me about.
“Or I might carpool some days,” she added, her tone elaborately casual. “There are some other students I’ve met who live down this way. You’ll meet one tonight. Super ambitious. I bet one day he’ll be governor.”
There would be some total stranger, icky lawyer type at the dinner? In my disappointment I hardly heard the rest of her comment.
It wasn’t till months later that I realized that was the first time Caroline ever mentioned Rob Newman.
When Jonathan came home he greeted me before wrapping his arms around his wife, but Caroline only offered her cheek and then pushed him away. “Good, you’re here. You entertain Frannie and put some music on while I go beautify.”
“Beautify? You mean it gets even better than this?”
I made a big deal of washing my hands at the sink when Caroline left the room, to avoid that awkward moment when Jonathan might or—more likely—might not hug me, and when I dried them off I found he was over at the stereo choosing CDs. “What do you vote, Frannie?
Rattle and Hum
? Something more background, like Kenny G? I know—” The tray slid open and he put in 10,000 Maniacs.
“That’s great about Caroline getting into Hastings,” I said.
“Isn’t it? Hence the celebration.” He gestured at the table we had set and the bottles of wine on the counter, but I thought he looked anything but festive. His jaw was set and he tossed the empty CD case onto the coffee table with a clatter.
“Did you—was it a bad day at work?” I ventured.
He gave me a sharp look, and his lips parted as if he might say something, but he didn’t. “It was fine.” He began whistling, completely at odds with the song playing. “How about yours?”
Maybe I’d grown used to conversations with Eric Grant after all. It might be an act, but when Eric Grant asked me questions, he hung on every word. Jonathan didn’t care. He was using conversation to distract, to divert attention. Caroline knew how to capture his interest, how to draw his thoughts back from their faraway places, but I didn’t. He wasn’t interested in me, and every other topic was fraught with peril: church, work, Eric Grant—Caroline herself?
“Aunt Terri says Rachel’s baby will come any day,” I said at last, not bothering to answer his question. “She’s going out to New York next week no matter what.”
His face darkened. Stricken, I realized maybe babies were taboo as well. Of course Caroline wouldn’t want a baby—not when she was going to start law school—but maybe Jonathan did. They’d been married nearly three years now. But they were young. There was plenty of time to have a baby.
He rallied. “That’s awesome. I hope she and Greg come out when they’re able. Otherwise who knows when I’ll meet my first niece or nephew.” Running fingers through his golden-brown hair he gave himself a perceptible shake and then smiled at me, seeing me, I guessed, for the first time since he came in the door. “That’s that. Look at you, Frannie—you look great. I like this color on you.” His words flooded me with an almost painful delight which I was instantly ashamed of, but thankfully he couldn’t read my mind. He only laughed at me. “Seriously, when will you learn to take a compliment without going purple? You’d think you’d be getting some practice with Eric hanging around.”
“He’s not hanging around,” I choked.
Reaching out, Jonathan tweaked one of my curls like he would my ponytail when I was younger. “When the miller’s daughter spun straw into gold, it must have come out this color. Eric goes on about it. Well—he goes on about everything about you. Sickening, really.”
Anger began to override my embarrassed joy, and I jerked away from him. “I don’t want to know what he goes on about.”
An expression passed over Jonathan’s face which did not escape me, despite my tumult, and I was reminded of the time when I was six and Tom made fun of my coloring, calling me “Caspar” and “White-Out” and “Albino,” only to have Jonathan smack him on the back of the head. “Leave her alone,” he growled. And to me he added, “You look just fine, Frannie. I think you look very nice.” Tom made a scoffing noise and turned his ridicule on his brother, and if I
remember right, the two of them got in a wrestling match, but after that my oldest cousin was careful to mouth his epithets at me if Jonathan was in earshot.
“I’m sorry,” said my erstwhile defender now. “I shouldn’t have teased you. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be around someone who takes things so much to heart.”
“Jon?” came Caroline’s voice down the hall. “Can you sweep off the balcony and make sure the chairs aren’t dusty? I bet people will want to sit outside.”
“I’m on it,” he called back.
Armed with a dampened dishcloth, I followed him out. The balcony radiated warmth, although the May sun had ducked behind the nearby trees. Petunias burst from the box on the railing, while pale impatiens crouched in the shade where the wall met the deck railing. The furniture was fairly clean; I gave it a perfunctory swipe with the cloth and then curled on the lounge to watch Jonathan sweep.
It wasn’t long before he joined me, throwing himself in one of the chairs and tilting back to put his feet up. “We haven’t talked in forever, have we, Frannie.”
“No.”
Not since our big fight on my birthday, months ago.
“I really appreciate—no—I” he broke off, biting his lip. “I really
admire
what you’ve done since then. That came out wrong. I don’t mean to sound patronizing. What I mean to say is that—exactly what I said inside—you take things to heart, Frannie. When I said you were being unfair to Caroline, you took it to heart, and since then you’ve been absolutely…golden. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to think of you two being friends. Being more like sisters. And I don’t think you’re the only one to gain by it, by any means. Not at all.”
The monster Guilt took hold of my gut and gave it a good wringing. I didn’t deserve Jonathan’s praise. Not when, after all this time, I didn’t like Caroline any better than I had. I could go through the motions of befriending her and loving her, but just. Even my prayers for her were as rote as the alphabet.
Lord-bless-Caroline-and-help-her-know-you-and-love-you-and-become-all-you-created-her-to-be-in-Jesus’-name-Amen.
Top speed. Box checked.
“So, thank you.” He watched me crumple the dishcloth and smooth it out again, folding it in a square. “And I want you to know, Frannie, that I’ve been trying, too.”
I looked at him then, confused. Did he mean he was trying to like her, too?
“I’ve gone back to church.”
“Oh!” My indrawn breath gave way to a genuine smile. “Oh, Jonathan, I’m glad.” Though the next moment the pronoun struck me:
I’ve
gone back to church. I fumbled with the implication. “I’m glad. I’m glad you have.”
“What you said struck me,” he went on in a low voice. “That somewhere along the way I stopped asking the question, What does God want for my life? Maybe because I didn’t want to hear the answer, in case it conflicted with what I wanted.”
I listened, hugging my knees to my chest and saying nothing. Natalie Merchant’s lilt carried out the open sliding door—
such a long time since my better days…I say my prayers nightly this will pass away.
“What do you think, Frannie—is it possible to get so far off track that you go off the edge of God’s map?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not possible. Psalm 139.”
He chuckled, bringing all four legs of his chair back to the deck and prodding me with his foot. “That’s right, Bible Girl. Remind me how that one goes.”
He knew it better than I did, I was sure, Aunt Terri having ground it into all of us as one of our childhood memory verses. “
‘
Where shall I go from your Spirit?’” I whispered, “
‘
Or where shall I flee from you?/ If I ascend to heaven, you are there./ If I make my bed in
Sheol
, you are there./ If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,/ even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.’” By the end he had joined me and we were reciting it together. We smiled at each other.