Saying Grace

by Beth Gutcheon

  Oliver and Sondra Sale were the first to arrive. Oliver was wearing his usual gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. Sondra was in a forest green form-fitting cocktail dress, and her blond hair was violently coiffed. They found Chandler in his Savile Row tweeds, wearing a red Christmas vest printed with tiny green holly wreaths, applying sandpaper to the ornate iron handrail that had recently been installed to aid the infirm in ascending the front steps. Chandler’s mother, though not old, was infirm and had arrived to spend Christmas and most of January.

  “Merry Christmas,” announced Oliver as he preceded his wife up the stone walkway from the four-car garage. The walkway was lined with paper bags half-filled with sand and lit from within by votive candles. Each bag had been stenciled with Christmas motifs by Missy. At least Chandler believed that Missy had done it, as he had paid her a quarter a bag for the job. Actually Bobbi had found that Missy was getting spray paint all over the green marble kitchen counters, and she refused to move out to the garage because there was no TV out there, so Bobbi had done the bags for her. In doing so, Bobbi had gotten red spray paint on her fingers, and when she removed it, the mineral spirits also removed most of her nail polish, so she had to have her manicure redone this morning at a cost of $32, including tip. Chandler, who vetted his Visa bill minutely with a calendar at his side, would need to know why she had had two manicures in one week. But by then it would be January, and Bobbi would have thought of some excuse. Missy, meanwhile, had made $2.75 on the deal.

  “Bobbi let the damn contractor put the wrong kind of paint on this thing, and it’s started to blister,” Chandler told the Sales. He gave the railing a last fierce swipe, put the sandpaper in his pocket, and gave Sondra a kiss on the cheek.

  “You have a lovely home,” said Sondra.

  “Are we early?” Oliver asked.

  “Right on time. Bobbi’s in the kitchen trying to make eggnog,” said Chandler.

  “I’ll go help her out,” said Sondra, with relief. She handed Chandler the white beribboned poinsettia she was carrying and started off in the wrong direction.

  “No the kitchen is that way,” Chandler called after her. Flustered, she turned and looked at Chandler, who was pointing. She nodded once and went off again, walking stiffly on high heels.

  “Come in, have a drink, how are you?” said Chandler, shepherding Oliver in through the front door. Oliver seemed to tower over him, as if he would have to duck to fit through the door. The candles fluttered wildly on the tree as the door opened.

  “Come say hello to Mr. Sale,” said Chandler to Missy. Missy put down her Christmas red fire extinguisher and arabesqued her way across the stone floor to Mr. Sale, for whom she performed a deep curtsey. Oliver bowed in return, and the skeletal little girl in a silver tutu and pink tights pirouetted back to her place beside the tree. Chandler hoped she wasn’t going to keep that up all evening; if she did, she would soon be knocking into waiters with drink trays and waitresses with platters of canapes. He led Oliver into the den, where the bartender was setting up.

  They both ordered spritzers. “How’s Lucky Lyndie?” Chandler asked.

  “They kept her overnight to be sure she didn’t slip into a coma,” Oliver said. “Sondra spent the night with her and brought her home this morning. She’s got a hell of a goose egg on the back of her head.”

  “That must smart.”

  “I’m getting rid of those rollerblades—I think they’re dangerous as hell. She just got out of a cast, you know.”

  “Have you ever tried them?”

  “No, have you?”

  “They’re a lot of fun,” said Chandler. “I was going to get a pair, but my orthopod had a fit.” Chandler’s son, Randy, had introduced him to rollerblading. It hadn’t been easy, the last few years, for them to find things they could do together or interests to share. Randy fought savagely with Bobbi if he was allowed in the house. Bobbi thought he’d taken his father rollerblading in the hope he’d break both his arms. But Chandler didn’t see it that way.

  The doorbell rang, and Chandler went to answer it. It was Pat Moredock, the art teacher. She was wearing a candy-cane bracelet and a Rudolph Reindeer pin with a tiny electric bulb for a nose, blinking on and off. When Missy saw her, she flew across the room and leaped into Pat’s arms, crying “Mrs. Moooooredock!” Art was Missy’s favorite subject. “Daddy, can I show Mrs. Moredock my room?”

  Chandler closed the door so carefully that the candles on the tree barely flickered at all. Missy took Mrs. Moredock by the hand and dragged her toward the stairs.

  “Why don’t you let Mrs. Moredock get a drink first?” said Chandler. To Missy’s disgust, Mrs. Moredock seemed to think this was a good idea. But once she had given her coat to a butler and let the bartender pour her a hefty scotch on the rocks, she consented to be led.

  Next came Janet TerWilliams and her husband, Carl. They had brought Helen Yeats and Charla Percy with them, and all exclaimed over the originality of real candles on the tree. Helen went to very few parties where butlers waited on her, and to her especially, the warm, twinkling house smelling of pine and fragrant wood smoke seemed like a wonderland.

  Rue came to the party determined to be on her best behavior. She and Henry arrived rather late, on purpose, not much liking cocktail parties, which Henry called bun fights. They brought Emily Goldsborough with them. The driveway was already full of cars, and they had to park far out on the road and walk in. The pathway, lit with lumieres, reminded Rue of Christmas in Maine, and she thought again how odd it was to feel a warm evening wind in the early darkness that meant December, and to pass along a rock garden of cactus on her way into a house full of evergreens and Christmas music.

  The party had spread throughout the downstairs of the house by this time. It had not been announced as a dinner, but the buffet in the dining room was so lavish, with roast beef, turkey, and ham, huge bowls of boiled shrimp, crudités, cheese puffs, platters of cheese and fruit, and salvers of hot chicken livers wrapped in bacon, that most of the guests were making a meal of it.

  Rue soon found herself trapped by a trustee who believed that her son was being picked on by one of the most beloved teachers in the school. Rue urged her to call for an appointment, so that she and Mrs. Percy and the McCanns could sit down together. Carson McCann agreed that that was the way to handle it, then went right on regaling her with tales of Mrs. Percy’s bizarre and unjust behavior to little Ashby.

  Blessedly, Henry cut in.

  “Do you want some dinner?” he asked Rue. “I’m going to eat as much meat as I can, before Georgia gets home.” They made their escape.

  “I’m going to find a place to sit down.”

  “Try the library,” said Henry. “I’ll bring you a plate.”

  “Chandler—what a beautiful party,” said Rue. They had all come together in the hall.

  “Have you met my mother?” Chandler indicated the tiny woman at his elbow who was peering up at her through very thick pink-tinted glasses. She was looking anxious, and she was wearing a velvet dress covered with cabbage roses in which she must have been half-cooked.

  “How nice to meet you, Mrs. Kip. I’m Rue Shaw. Have you come to visit for the holidays?”

  Rue had bent over nearly at the waist so as to be heard in the din echoing from the stone floor.

  “I’m not supposed to stand up so long. I have varicose veins,” Mrs. Kip replied, as if it was callous of Rue not to know this.

  “Come with me, I’m determined to sit. Come into the library.” And Rue led Mrs. Kip away, hoping that Chandler would be grateful to her. In the library, they found Pat Moredock sucking on a glass of scotch and talking about her childhood to Lloyd Merton, who taught fourth grade. There was room for Rue and Mrs. Kip on a couch near the fire, but Mrs. Kip found this to be too warm. Finally, Rue got her settled in a ladder-backed rocking chair in the corner, beside which someone had artfully arranged a basket full of soft balls of yarn and a selection of knitting needles, and another basket of colorfu
l seed catalogues. All along the tables and window-sills there were pots of forced paperwhites, the bulbs in white gravel. The perfume was enough to put you to sleep.

  Rue sat down by Mrs. Kip in a soft chair closer to the fire, and almost at once they were joined by Cynda Goldring and a date, a good-looking man named Doug with a large mustache. These two were both feeling merry. Rue introduced them to Chandler’s mother.

  “We were just trying to decide whether Jesus knew in the cradle that he was the Messiah,” said Cynda. “I’m sure he did, because of all those Renaissance pictures where he sits on his mother’s lap but looks about thirty.”

  “I don’t think he could have,” said Doug. “If he knew from birth, why don’t we have a record of his miraculous childhood? We know nothing of his childhood, except that he and Joseph walked to England, being carpenters.”

  “He did not go to England,” said Cynda. “I’ve been to England.”

  “He did.”

  “Do you have proof?”

  Doug began to sing:

  “And did those feet

  In Ancient Times

  Walk upon England’s Moun—tains Green…”

  Henry came in, carrying plates of food.

  “And was the hoo—ooly Lamb of God

  On England’s pleasant pas—tures seen?”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” said Cynda. “Those are questions, not answers.” Doug, who sang well and knew it, boomed on:

  “And did the Coun—tenance Divine

  Shine forth upon our clou—ded hills?

  And was Jeru—uu—salem builded here

  Among these dark Sa—tan—ic Mills?”

  “Oh, darling, you’re just in time,” said Rue to Henry. “We’re having a very Christmassy conversation.” He handed her a plate full of shrimp and cocktail sauce, some cheese, and some grapes. He sat down himself on the edge of her chair.

  “This is perfect. Thank you,” said Rue, admiring her plate of food.

  “Blake wrote that,” said Doug proudly.

  “I know Blake wrote it, I’m an English teacher,” said Cynda.

  “Are you?” Doug asked.

  Henry asked, “How long have you two known each other?”

  Rue turned to Chandler’s mother. “Mrs. Kip, please have some of these shrimp.”

  “I don’t eat shellfish, I’m allergic,” she said darkly. “Bobbi knows it.”

  “She’s very kind, isn’t she,” Rue said. “Your daughter-in-law,” hoping that Mrs. Kip was not going to begin abusing her hostess. “She’s done such a pretty job with this room. With the whole house.”

  Mrs. Kip looked as if Rue were a half-wit.

  “My son was a straight-A student,” she said pointedly. “He went to Grinnell, he had a full scholarship.” This seemed not to follow, but Rue was afraid that it did. She was fairly sure that Mrs. Kip was complaining of her daughter-in-law’s mental capacity.

  This suddenly reminded Doug of another of his points about Jesus. “And what about those rather rude things he says to his mother?” he resumed. ‘Woman, what have I to do with you?’ He said that in public. At a wedding. If I did that, my mother would tear my ears off.”

  “Suggesting that he did know he was divine. He knew he could get away with being smart, because he was the Messiah,” said Cynda.

  “It only proves His mother thought so. But it wasn’t very Christ-like of him,” said Doug.

  “Why shouldn’t it be that your spiritual nature accrues throughout your life?” Rue asked. “An embryo, in utero, starts out so undifferentiated that it could conceivably become a fish. Or a dog. It has gills for a while. But its humanity accrues throughout gestation. Why shouldn’t it be the same with your spiritual life? That once born, you make choices, or follow your path, and gradually as you pass your tests or fail them, as you choose your fights and learn from them or don’t, your spiritual nature evolves?”

  “Building up layer by layer, like lacquer?” Cynda asked, interested, and looking at her amazing fingernails.

  Suddenly Mrs. Kip wriggled out of her chair and stumped out of the room.

  “So that he had the potential to become the Christ in the cradle, but he didn’t achieve it until decades later,” said Doug.

  “And would that mean that there are others born with the same potential?” Cynda wondered.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Rue. “I don’t know how else you explain the Buddha, or the Hindu holy men, or the Prophet Mohammed.”

  “Or Emanuel Swedenborg, or Joseph Smith, or Mary Baker Eddy,” said Henry enthusiastically.

  “Henry, go do something useful. Go see if Emily needs to be rescued from Bud Ransom.”

  Henry rose and went, smiling.

  “So at what point did Our Lord know he was the Messiah?” asked Doug. “You know, the gospels don’t ever say there were wise men and a star, let alone a stable. Matthew says there was a table in a room, and later a couple of astrologers from Iran. Luke says there was a manger and shepherds, but he also says there was a poll tax in the reign of Herod, and there wasn’t, so why would Mary and Joseph be on the road at all and have to stay at an inn? Why wouldn’t they stay in Nazareth?”

  “Rue,” said Cynda, “if humanity accrues throughout gestation, and birth is the culmination, and life is a spiritual gestation, then is death the next birth?”

  “If you were in the womb, and you somehow had intimations of what birth was going to be like, wouldn’t it sound horrible?” Rue asked.

  “It would. It would indeed.”

  “All those lights and noise. The air on your skin. Learning to breathe.”

  Just then Chandler hurried into the room. He came over to where Rue, Doug, and Cynda were sitting and stood over them.

  “Excuse me,” he said crossly. “But can any of you tell me what happened to my mother?”

  They all looked at each other.

  “She left us. I thought she was going to get food.”

  “I tried to make her share my food, but she didn’t like shrimp.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “She’s gone upstairs to bed,” said Chandler, furious. “All she would say was, she didn’t think she liked my fancy friends.”

  The three looked at each other. Rue stood up.

  “Chandler…I’m sorry. I don’t know how we offended her but I’m awfully sorry we did. Would you take me to her?”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I would like to say good night to her and tell her how sorry I am. I’d like to tell her I look forward to seeing her another time.”

  “I don’t think so, Rue. I don’t think that would strike her as a good idea.”

  Fortunately, that was the moment that the Christmas tree finally caught on fire.

  We were being clever,” said Rue in the car, miserable. “We assumed that we all agreed that was a clever conversation to have.” Emily, from the back seat, watched the exchange.

  “Excuse me,” said Henry, “but I happen to know you were talking about your most deeply held beliefs.”

  “But I was talking about them lightly. She misunderstood. She thought we were being facetious.”

  “Rue…you’re not perfect. You can’t get it right all the time. Chandler will get over it.”

  “I’m not worried about consequences. I’m sorry I offended my host’s mother. My employer’s mother. I’m sorry I gave pain when I didn’t mean to.”

  “Chandler’s a jerk and so is his mother,” said Henry. “Don’t worry about it.” He happened to look in the rearview mirror and found that his eyes met Emily’s.

  The next day was Monday, the last half-week before Christmas break, and on Wednesday, Georgia would be home.

  The day began with Corinne Lowen, Kenny Lowen’s mother, on the phone yelling bloody murder at Lynn Ketchum because Kenny had gotten a B in history. The Lowens had already had an hysterical hour-long meeting with Rue the week before because Kenny’s B- in PE was keeping him off the honor roll.

&
nbsp; “PE should not count toward the honor roll,” Bradley Lowen kept intoning. “It is not an academic subject.”

  “I understand that,” Rue kept responding. “But these children are very grade-oriented, and the teachers say that if the grade doesn’t count, they won’t make an effort. I can’t keep good art or music or PE teachers if the students don’t take their classes seriously.”

  “You call Blair Kunzelman a good teacher?” Bradley demanded.

  “Yes, I do,” said Rue, hoping her nose wouldn’t start to grow. Blair was much loved by the boys who cared about team sports, but he fancied himself quite the jock, and his judgment in handling the less athletic boys was not always the best. In her experience it was hard to find a good PE teacher with perfect social skills.

  “Kenny’s a fine athlete. He just isn’t interested in PE,” said Corinne Lowen. “He’s too smart for it. He gets bored.”

  “I understand that. But we believe that the whole program counts. We feel it’s a good thing to learn to do your best at the task at hand.”