by Cathy Lamb
‘You’ve hung him,’ I said. ‘Let him hang himself.’
‘The oesophagus is crushed when a person’s hanged, it—’ Janie started.
‘Please, Janie,’ I said. ‘Don’t add to my nightmares.’
Needless to say, we slept at Cecilia’s.
Thank heavens for Velvet.
‘I can barely see, I’m so tired. I think my eyeballs are still in bed,’ Janie said as we left the house and I drove Janie’s Porsche through the darkened streets of Trillium River to the bakery at 4:30 the next morning. I reminded myself to go and get my own Porsche in Portland. We’d hobbled out of Cecilia’s house, gone home, showered, changed, and headed out.
‘I feel like squished oatmeal has taken the place of my brains,’ Janie whispered. ‘And I didn’t get to embroider last night…’
‘I feel like death has a seat in my head,’ I said. ‘And he’s kicking my cranium.’
When we got to the corner, Janie looked imploringly at me.
‘No,’ I told her.
She made a little squeaking sound in her throat.
‘You have got to get a grip.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘Not trying hard enough. Say yes to drugs.’
‘I won’t be able to concentrate,’ she whined. ‘All day, I’ll be unfocused. I’ll probably burn the orange-lemon muffins and the chocolate roll-up crepes with the skinny shavings and cream.’
‘For God and hell’s sakes,’ I spat out. I did a U-turn in the middle of the street. I had to give in. This would go on all day.
Janie sighed with relief.
We drove back up the hill to Grandma’s house. I parked in the driveway. Janie scampered out, her skirt flying behind her. She checked the door. She had locked it.
‘Eureka! What a surprise!’ I sang out to myself. She opened the door, ran into the house. I knew she was rechecking the stove and oven, the upstairs iron (which no one had turned on). I know she would tap the iron four times – on the side that could get hot, to make sure it wasn’t hot. She would tap the dials on the stove and oven, too, four times, to assure herself the house would not burn down.
I saw her dart out the front door. I saw her lock it.
She ran to the car.
‘You exhaust me,’ I told her.
She leant her head back. ‘I exhaust myself. Give me a hug, Is.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sakes.’ I gave her a hug and we breathed together, head to head. In and out. Quiet. Peaceful. The wind outside windy-ing around. ‘We’re pathetic.’
Problems can be so overwhelming. So huge. So unfixable. I believe that the human mind is a labyrinth of guilt and regrets and pleasure and passion and memories. But if you have someone to put your head together with, temple to temple, their heat sharing your heat, their pulse beating in time with yours, their warmth your warmth, life is better. Not perfect, it can’t ever be. But it’s better.
The next day a small Asian man limped into the bakery.
He was about five feet, three inches tall but hunched, as if he’d lived his life with pain in his back and the pain had permanently pushed him partway over.
Hard grooves were carved on both sides of his face, but what stood out to me was his neck. Curling over the perfectly clean, buttoned-up collar of his shirt was a scar, thick and wide and pink and shiny, scrawling halfway around his neck.
His eyes were black and gentle, but I felt like I was staring into two tunnels of pain.
‘Hello, welcome to Bommarito’s. Can I help you?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, his voice quiet, accent heavy. ‘Please, sandwich bread.’
‘Alrighty, I’ll get it for you.’ I smiled, packaging up his bread. Janie had made garlic cheese bread this morning because she ‘felt like garlic. Ominous and hard and breakable.’
I eyed him again. I figured he was in his sixties. At least. He was staring at the cookies.
He was boney thin. Like a sad skeleton with a face.
I added two cookies in the shapes of seahorses in a separate little bag. I’d painted one seahorse pink with green dots and the other green with pink dots.
‘Oh no. I no order cookies,’ he said. ‘Bread. Thank you, I thank you.’
I handed him the bread and the cookies. ‘It’s a treat for you. A gift.’
‘A gift?’ His eyebrows shot up.
‘Yes.’
‘A gift,’ he said, so quietly. His face showed surprise, then a flush of pleasure. He bowed to me. I bowed to him. ‘Thank you,’ he said, his tone serious.
‘You’re welcome.’ I put an arm out to direct him to a window seat. I could tell he needed a rest. He reminded me of so many of the bedraggled, desperate people I’d met in war zones. ‘Please sit down.’
He didn’t move for long seconds. Hesitating. Unsure.
I smiled. ‘Please rest.’
‘Yes. I like that. I rest.’
He moved slowly, that limp making his right hip rise several inches each time he took a step. Settling into his seat took some time even though I helped him. I heard him sigh when he got settled.
‘I thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I handed him the cookies. He took them gently, with his right hand, his left hand still.
When he was settled, I went back to work. I was going to make a super-tall three-layer cake. Each layer would resemble a wrapped present. The bottom layer would be pink-and-white striped, the middle purple with simple flowers, and the top a beautiful blue box with a huge white ribbon on top.
I surreptitiously watched my customer while I worked. He was staring out the window, nibbling at the cookie. After each bite, he closed his eyes, as if in ecstasy. I smiled to myself. Well, our cookies were darn good!
He was so thin, fragile thin.
I learnt later that his name was Bao. He had immigrated from Vietnam.
I learnt that he lived a life of almost complete solitude, but not by choice.
And I learnt that hunched-over, gentle Bao lived with the haunting memories that snaked a scar around his throat, caused him to limp, and snuffed the light of life right out of his eyes.
Henry and I baked sixty cupcakes for church on Wednesday night. He insisted we use blue icing and each one had to have a white cross, ‘for Jesus.’
I didn’t want to go into the church, but packing sixty cupcakes up the steps without help would have been impossible, so there I was in jeans and a T-shirt with blue icing on it, trudging up the steps.
God must have been busy, for he did not send a smack of lightning into my kidneys when I entered the doors of the church, nor did the roof become engulfed with flames.
A priest stood in the doorway of the vestibule. He smiled when he saw me, then as recognition dawned, he spread his arms out wide like a black eagle, his hair whiter than white.
I could hardly move. It was Father Mike.
I got all choked up. The man had practically saved my life.
‘Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle! You dear girl!’ he said, hobbling over to me, his hip in bad shape from where he’d taken shrapnel in the Korean War. ‘I’ve missed you!’
I put the cupcakes down and gave him a hug, and it was like hugging safety and comfort and friendship all in one, but dear God, if this man only knew the multitude of sins I had engaged in since I left Trillium River, I didn’t think he’d be hugging me now.
What would Father Mike think of my bra burning and the events that led up to it? What would he think of the men? The selfishness?
He wiped the tears off his cheeks with both hands, then boomed, ‘Dear girl, I need you in the choir immediately.’
Now that was Father Mike. Hey, how you doin’, come on in to the church and help me. All within two seconds. ‘Hello! I need someone to lead Sunday school for the fourth graders and I hear you’re a former teacher! How about starting next week?’ Or ‘I hear you moved to Trillium River! What instrument do you play? The trumpet! Wonderful! Well, go and get it, you’re playing solo today between communion and t
he offering!’
Funny thing was, I could tell you at least thirty families who were still here after that initial invitation from Father Mike.
‘Oh, no, Father Mike. I don’t sing anymore.’
‘Isabelle Bommarito! Raise the melody of your voice to God once again and say Hallelujah! You were such an addition to our choir when you lived here! Such! An! Addition!’
I had sung in the choir because Father Mike made me. He told Momma I could ‘sing like a nightingale, fifty nightingales,’ and she made me, too. Ironic, but the Wednesday night’s church choir had been led by a gal (moi) who was an Expert Sinner.
‘It’s only for thirty minutes,’ Father Mike said. ‘Thirty minutes! The kids all sing together. Rock songs. Christian rock. We get the drums going.’ He imitated playing the drums, his age-spotted hands surprisingly limber. ‘The electric and acoustic guitars rolling.’ He imitated playing the guitars, rocking his hips back and forth. ‘I need you! Janice! Janice!’ He waved over a plump, smiling, grey-haired woman who appeared harried and rushed. ‘Here’s a blessed lady for your choir. She sings! Like a nightingale, like fifty nightingales!’
‘But I can’t—’
Janice fell all over me, she was so relieved. ‘Perfect. Outstanding. So outstanding! We definitely need someone who can sing.’ She patted her hair and spoke with no pauses. ‘The kids will be coming in seconds they sound like a herd of charging buffalo so watch out dear now most of the band is made up of the high schoolers but our guitarist got sick and the two girls who sing well…’ She fluttered and flustered as she shoved me up towards the altar, where teenagers were milling around with their instruments.
‘Let’s say they’re beginning singers and leave it at that. There’s a little stage here where you’ll be with the others dear, come along.’
‘But I don’t—’
‘We’ll give you the sheet music. Joshua, here’s your new singer.’
Josh was a young boy with a pierced nose and a pierced ear. ‘Cool. Hey, how are ya?’ He stuck out one hand for me to shake and handed me sheet music with the other. ‘Let’s rock.’
‘Rock and roll,’ I told him.
‘Dig the braids,’ he told me, nodding in approval.
‘Thank you.’ I flipped them back. ‘Dig the pierced nose.’
He gave me a three fingers up, two down sign.
‘God in heaven, calm my nerves and thank you for this singer,’ Janice said, still fluttering, flittering.
Father Mike grinned at me, mimicked playing the guitar, and wiggled his eyebrows. This wasn’t going to happen. No way. No. I got off the stage.
‘Oh, dear, dear,’ Janice said, following me, tut-tutting. ‘We have only minutes, minutes, honey, don’t you want to study the music?’
‘Father Mike,’ I said, trying not to pant. ‘Father Mike!’
‘What is it, Isabelle? Are you troubled?’ He smiled at me. So dear, so innocent. But he knew what he was up to. He was a sneaky priest, I thought. Sneaky. Trying to get me up there to sing Christian rock.
‘Father Mike.’ How to put this into words? How could I? I choked. Janice patted my arm.
‘You can do it, love, Father Mike has faith in your voice and so do I,’ she cheered, her face flushed.
I pulled the two of them to a quieter corner as the teenagers rushed in like a herd of charging buffalo in heat.
‘I’m not fit,’ I whispered.
They were both utterly baffled.
I tried again. ‘I’m not fit.’
Janice eyed my body. ‘Well, dear. You could have fooled me! You’re thin.’ She squeezed my upper arms. ‘And you have muscles but don’t worry about that at all you don’t have to be in shape to sing here at church!’ She yanked my arm. She was surprisingly strong.
‘No, no.’ I stood still, dug my heels in. Getting up on that stage in high school to sing was one thing. I was a kid. I was messing around, but I was a kid. The sins had grown deeper and wider since then and the sins had been deliberately made by a fully responsible and turbo-charged, whacked-out adult.
‘I mean, I’m not fit… I’m not fit to be up there.’
Understanding dawned in Father Mike’s eyes.
‘What? Ooo…ah…ohhhh…’ Understanding dawned in Janice’s eyes.
‘I can’t. I’m not a practising Catholic. I don’t even go to church anymore. I can’t imagine God wants to see me here. If I went to confession, Father Mike, we would be there for hours. I mean hours. I’d be saying Hail Marys ’til I was eighty, and that would only cover what I’ve done in the last few years. I can’t—’
Father Mike smiled, spread his arms. ‘Jesus loves all of us, Isabelle. We’re all sinners. Who am I to judge you or anyone else?’
I felt this tiny warmth in my heart. I always felt that way when I was around Father Mike.
‘Oh, he’s faithfully right!’ Janice flutter-flittered. ‘There’s no judging going on here please, dear, I don’t care what you’ve done I personally used to be a drug addict before God came and got me I even sold drugs to get drugs it was a terrible life and terrible deeds!’ I felt my mouth drop open to my ankles. Janice was a drug dealer?
Father Mike beamed at Janice, his hands outstretched upward. ‘Praise God! You see! Janice is here now in the church! God loved her so much he pulled her out of her own hell and brought her here! She runs the music program! She handles the seniors’ choir, kids’ choir, teenagers’ choir. She organises the choir for Sunday, too, and we have eighty people! An eighty-person choir, all because of Janice! She knows how to reach people’s hearts through music. God gave her a difficult path to follow so she could later use her own experience to help lead people away from the sins of drugs and alcohol, bless his name! Bless his name!’
‘Oh!’ Janice squeaked, pulling a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and swishing it about. ‘Oh! When I hear you say those words, Father Mike, I…’ She sniffled. ‘I have to cry!’
‘Tears of joy!’ Father Mike thundered. ‘Tears of joy! Utter joy for God’s great works! We walk through the fires of hell and come out on the other side with a bucket full of holy water to pour on others who are sinning to make them new again and join all of us in our love for our Father!’
Janice sniffled in her handkerchief, waving a hand in the air. ‘Praise God,’ she squeaked, blew her nose. ‘Praise God!’
‘Janice opens the door with her music so the words of Christ that I speak on Sunday can fall into people’s hearts!’
‘God saves the worst of us, Isabelle,’ Janice said, fanning herself with her handkerchief. ‘I’m living proof of that. Now, up you go heavens! The teenagers are coming in!’ She caught her breath. The tears gone, purpose behind those eyes. She got behind me and – I am not kidding you – she pushed me until I was up on that stage in a not-so-Christian way.
And that’s how I started singing Christian rock again. I was rough at first, but by the end of it, well, I was rockin’.
At the end of the worship music, the kids were cheering and we had not been struck by lightning, swarms of locusts, or flooding, and there were no reports of the Red Sea parting again.
‘You sing good, Is,’ Henry told me, rocking back and forth. ‘Jesus loves you!’
I rolled my eyes.
Father Mike clapped.
He’s a sneaky priest.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Momma had come down with an infection and was staying at the hospital.
Janie and I baked like fiends; Cecilia taught school, then baked, while often swearing. Kayla and Riley helped. Kayla wore a toga (studying Greek religion) and Riley lectured all of us on recent scientific discoveries.
But we could not have functioned without Velvet. She kept an eye on Grandma and Henry while we worked and visited The Viper in the hospital.
Late one night, after drinking her homemade lemonade, lemonade so tart it could have made a bull drop his balls, we got on the subject of men.
‘Isabelle, darlin’,’ Velvet drawled ho
ney-thick while she rocked on the wicker rocker on the porch, ‘I was so sick of fakin’ orgasms I could not bring myself to marry again for the fourth time. It astonishes the heck out of me how old, fat, white men can believe they’re so good in bed they can actually get a woman to scream.’
Her voice was so soft, so melodious, and clashed so dramatically with what she was saying, I blew ball-dropping lemonade straight out of my nose.
‘How can they think they’re so suave? So skilled? Beer bellies are not sexy. Sweating men are not a turn-on, darlin’, you know this. The only man who could ever turn my ticker and rev me up was Robert Redford, and he has consistently ignored my letters and calls.’
‘You faked all of them?’ I asked.
‘For years I did, sugar. Menopause hit me hard. Like a desert sandstorm come to settle in my nether regions. Before that, I was a she-devil.’ She fanned herself.
‘Once those hot flushes and night sweats came they carried off my sex drive. I sweated out all my desires. I was reduced to fakin’ it then. Pantin’, moanin’, gnashin’ of my teeth, a tremble here and there, my head way back in supposed ecstasy, holdin’ onto their backs as if I thought my head would explode, the pleasure so, so intense.’ She clucked. ‘Honey, I sure as a hanging possum should have been given an award for my efforts!’
‘You should have. I’ll give you the I Faked More Orgasms Than Anyone Award.’ I tilted my head. If I was still a photographer, I could shoot her. Her face was craggy and mysterious…but I’m not a photographer anymore, so I won’t. I smashed down the feelings of utter loss that assailed me.
‘I have earned it, darlin’, I have. But now I’ve got myself a huge house by the prettiest river in the west, a Cadillac, and a trust fund over two million dollars thanks to Jonathon, Earl, Mack. I call it the JEM Fund. Do you get that, love? Each husband’s name is a letter.’ She laughed.
‘You are so clever, Velvet.’
‘All of us southern women are clever, we have to be. But here’s what I learnt from my mother: if you give a man a couple of drinks before you start up, his engine is softened and he’ll get done in the time it would take to pull a skunk’s tail. Quick as a wink you can go about your business.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Quick as a wink!’