The Book of Essie

by Meghan MacLean Weir

  She holds this look until I flinch and turn away, then lies back on the grass and runs her fingers over the tips of the narrow blades. She’s right. Her plan might work and, what’s more, it’s strangely beginning to make sense.

  “If I say yes, then we’re in this together. We’re partners. We make all decisions together from this point on.”

  Essie sits up and nods. I can tell that she’s trying hard not to smile.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I think you just defined marriage almost perfectly. As for the rest of it…” And here she leans forward and kisses me gently on the lips, then pulls away and says appraisingly, “I can work with that.”

  Esther

  I give Margot’s number to Roarke in case he needs to reach me, tell him to text first and that I will call back as soon as I can get away. We walk together as far as Locust Street and then stop on the corner. There is a swish of curtains from behind Mary Bettencourt’s kitchen window. Roarke does not notice, but I am fairly certain that Mother is getting a phone call as we speak.

  “I don’t want you to be alarmed, but we have an audience,” I tell him. “If it doesn’t make you too uncomfortable, it might help if you kiss me on the cheek before you go.”

  Roarke looks around and sees nothing because there is nothing to see. No one out with his dog or walking to the mailbox anywhere on the street. The Bettencourts’ curtains hang undisturbed, but I know that Mary is still able to see us through the slit between them. There is no way that she is not watching. Lissa once said that ninety percent of the gossip in this town originates with her. Walking home from school, there are two ways Roarke and I could have come, two paths we could have chosen, but only one of them led us past this house. He followed me left without asking when it would have been just as easy for us to go straight up to Elm. Already he is proving to be an excellent partner.

  He clears his throat before he speaks. “I haven’t said yes yet. But I’ll call the lawyer. I’ll go to the meeting. I want to see it all spelled out before I sign.”

  “I understand. And I agree. There’s no sense in going into this blind.”

  “After all,” he continues, “you know my secret.”

  “So you should know all of mine? I’m an open book. You can watch my entire life on reruns if you want, relive the braces phase. Or the day Daddy took me bra shopping in order to make him seem more relatable, to show his congregants that he is just like them, that he gets as uncomfortable about female undergarments as the next guy.”

  “I think I missed that episode.”

  “You’re lucky. I’m told it was painful to watch. Just imagine how painful it was for me to live through. The disgusting thing is that his likability rating did spike right after that and it stayed high for about a year. From that point on, they decided to just work in one truly embarrassing thing for Daddy to do each season to keep him down-to-earth.”

  “And he’s okay with that?”

  “He does what Mother says. She is the ‘keeper of the house.’ I guess that means the show falls under her purview. He would never interfere, just as she would never dare contradict him at church or out in public.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s not how I want things to be for us. I told you. Joint decision making in all things. If that’s what you want.”

  “If I say yes.”

  “If you say yes,” I reassure him.

  “So I just go ahead and kiss you now?” he asks.

  “On the cheek. That’s what Mother would say is allowed. If we announce our engagement, there will probably have to be some kissing on the lips, but it’s nothing you haven’t done before. I’m sure you could be very convincing,” I tease.

  He sighs and once more looks over his shoulder, then leans down and kisses my left cheek. After a few seconds of contact, he straightens and starts to pull away but then reaches out to run his fingers through my hair as if he wishes he could do more.

  “Nice touch,” I tell him.

  “Normal people don’t live like this,” Roarke mutters through his teeth.

  “If we do this, you won’t be a normal person anymore. You’ll be rich. The rules are different for them.”

  “Don’t you mean that the rules are different for you?”

  I take a step back and begin to turn away. “I’m not rich. My parents are. But I think it’s time that changed.”

  I wave longingly toward him and then move in the direction of my house. Earlier today I bought a charger for Margot’s phone and I want to plug it in. Niles Jenkins, who runs the only electronics store in town, looked at me suspiciously when I bought it. He knows Daddy is a vocal critic of Apple’s CEO and boycotts any company that actively supports, or is run by, “the gays.” I told him I accidentally broke Lily’s charger and was just replacing it, that I didn’t think Daddy would mind because the Bible says “thou shalt not steal” and breaking the charger was the same as stealing it in a way. He nodded thoughtfully and I paid cash.

  I expect Mother to be waiting for me when I get home, but I do not expect her to be waiting quite so close to the front door. I almost run smack into her as I walk into the house and instinctively I back away, as you would from an unfamiliar dog.

  Her eyes flash, but she waits until I shut the front door before she says, “What did you think you were doing?”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask innocently.

  Mother places a manicured hand on one hip and tells me, “You were seen with Roarke Richards. He kissed you in public, for heaven’s sake!”

  I think, Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things.

  Instead I say, “He kissed my cheek, which you previously indicated is within the bounds of decency.”

  “For someone you are dating, yes.”

  “Am I mistaken in assuming that you intend for me to marry Roarke Richards? Isn’t that why his parents came to the house last night? Isn’t that what you meant when you told me you had found a husband for me after all?” My mother says nothing, so I continue, “Except you hadn’t. I ran into Roarke after baseball practice and it turns out he was going to tell his parents no. He’s a person. You can’t just expect him to go along with what his parents say because that’s what you raised us to do. Not every family is like that.”

  Mother gives me a measured look and says, “I trust that the problem is taken care of?”

  I swallow and try to sound confident when I say, “It is.”

  “All right, then. I’ll give it a few hours and call Suzanne. I’m thinking we should aim for an Easter wedding. With any luck, we can have the details hammered out after church tomorrow. That will leave one week before spring break. It should give us just enough time to stage some scenes of you two falling in love before you leave for Havana.”

  “I think Roarke should come with me.”

  “On the trip? I don’t think so.”

  My face falls. With Mother it is better not to put up a fight. Instead I say, “I just thought it might be nice to show that Roarke is involved in our mission. It’s not as if we won’t be chaperoned. But if you think it’s best for me to go alone, I understand.”

  I begin to climb the stairs and have nearly reached the top when Mother says, “I’ll think about it.”

  I turn back to thank her, but she is already gone.

  When I get to my room, the first thing I do is text Libby that she needs to tell her lawyer to be ready for a meeting tomorrow, assuming that Roarke decides to follow through. It will be Sunday and short notice. There’s a good chance that she won’t come. But I think if Libby communicates to her just how important her help would be, both tomorrow and in the future, and how appreciative we would be, there is more of a chance that this lawyer will say yes. I’m sure she will understand that this means a hefty paycheck. I hope it is eno
ugh. Now all I can do is wait.

  * * *

  —————

  The next morning the gospel is from Matthew. The passage, where Jesus is tempted in the wilderness after fasting for forty days and forty nights, is one of Daddy’s favorites. Every year during Lent he opens one of his sermons with the line spoken to Jesus by the Devil: “All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.” He is dressed simply, without robes, in a light gray suit and a blue tie the color of a robin’s egg, when he climbs into the pulpit beside the altar. He faces the congregation, and on the large screen on the wall behind him you can see that the tie exactly matches the color of his eyes. Mother must have chosen it. He wears a darker blue for photo shoots when he is standing next to her, to compliment her own eyes, but at church at least she knows that he stands up there alone.

  He looks out calmly over the sea of more than a thousand faces. With Easter approaching, attendance is on the rise. Even the back pews are full. That’s where Roarke and his family usually sit, but today they are front and center. Mother saw to that. As soon as Suzanne Richards arrived, Mother captured her arm and held tight to Mrs. Richards’s hand, leaning her head in conspiratorially, flashing her perfect white teeth at everyone who greeted her as she and Suzanne Richards walked down the long center aisle. Leroy Richards and Roarke trailed behind, looking somewhat lost, while Mother guided the entire family into seats in the row just behind our own.

  I can practically feel Mrs. Richards trembling as Daddy prepares to speak. The sun brightens behind the stained glass and casts rainbows over the white altar cloth and Daddy turns to look appreciatively at the window depicting Jesus’s ascent into Heaven.

  “We’re not quite there yet,” he says with a smile as he turns away from the window to again face us. The screens throughout the nave project his image for those too far away to truly appreciate his boyish dimples. “Soon, though,” he promises and lifts his hands, palms forward, to quiet the laughter.

  Then he looks grave and his mouth forms around the words uttered by the Devil as Jesus stood starving in the desert, his lips cracked, his skin burned, his belly hollow and aching to be filled. Then Daddy’s voice changes and is filled with sympathy as he says, “Each one of us gathered here knows what it is to want.” Behind me there is a restrained susurration as the flock affirms what Daddy has just said, a whisper only. They understand the need for buildup, that the shouting should come only at the end.

  “And when I say that word, when I speak of want, you know that I am not talking about trinkets or baubles or even about the new Halo that comes out on Xbox in three weeks.”

  He is rewarded by another tinkle of laughter and points into the crowd and says, “I know that feels like want to the teenagers out there, but it isn’t. Real want comes from someplace deeper, someplace baser. Someplace that speaks to the Devil himself, and that is why it can be so hard to resist, to cast him off, to stand in the light as God intended.”

  There is more about what temptation looks like in the modern world. Amazingly when Daddy talks about fame and fortune, he does so without a trace of hypocrisy and the crowd leans in toward him and then falls back when he throws a hand out, fingers splayed, as if the Devil himself were insinuated within the masses and needed to be cast out. When Daddy’s hand shoots out, heads all around me are thrust back, chins raised, mouths open, and a moan rises up, quietly at first and then growing in volume until the whole church is keening. Hands are joined together and somewhere to my right a man stumbles into the side aisle and begins speaking in tongues. He falls forward and is caught up in a sea of arms, embracing him, drawing him back toward the surface.

  Above the din, Daddy’s voice rises in intensity and my heart beats faster and I feel the familiar pull, the desire to surrender myself to the spectacle. Today, though, I also feel Roarke’s eyes from just behind my left shoulder and then Daddy is beseeching God Almighty to protect his flock from sin, from pride, from adultery and fornication, but most especially to protect us from the filth of homosexuality, since that path leads to the flames of Hell. My eyes move from Daddy to the cross and the shame burns across my chest. Roarke’s hands are on the back of my pew, his knuckles white, and I place my own hand on top of his in apology, but I know that it is not enough and I do not blame him when he pulls his hand away.

  I turn and try to catch his eye, but by then Daddy is announcing the anthem and Mother is pushing me toward the stage in front of the choir. I am confused for a moment and then remember that I am expected to sing. I hurry to take my place between the musicians, careful not to trip over the wires running to the instruments. There are several bars of introduction and the organ’s chords rise hauntingly from the pipes above us and are joined by the cello first, then the guitars. The violins come in last, just as I take a breath and begin the song. The text is based loosely upon the Beatitudes, and when I sing the section about those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, my eyes find Roarke and he meets my gaze with a look that is blazing with defiance and I see him nod, a gesture that is meant just for me, his answer to my plea.

  * * *

  —————

  After the service, Mother ushers Suzanne and Leroy Richards into the refectory and personally serves them coffee and cake. Roarke looks around the room and it occurs to me that he may have never been inside this space, never penetrated this far into the fortress. There are children everywhere. They laugh and scoot under the folding tables laden with snacks and sweets. The purple cloths billow as their small bodies crawl from beneath one table to the next and small hands sneak up in search of cookies and then disappear again.

  Mother is introducing Suzanne Richards to my brother Daniel and his wife, Hillary. The youngest of their five children is among those under the tables and the other four are presumably lost somewhere in the crowd. Not far away, Jacob is talking with Daddy while Jacob’s wife, Lucie, bends down to wipe chocolate off one of my nieces’ cheeks. Jacob and Lucie met while they were both at Sewanee, which was a bit liberal for my parents’ taste, but the campus looked lovely on camera and the young courtship played well with the crowd. Together they run the church’s music program, with Lucie serving as organist and Jacob as choirmaster. Their three girls are always dressed in matching outfits, and today is no exception. This time it is a frilly concoction of pleated pastels that is my sister-in-law’s idea of adorable but which makes the girls, who have been known to pull the legs off frogs and other small animals, look like they might have murdered nursery rhyme characters for their clothes.

  Matty, my oldest brother, is all the way on the other side of the hall, still wearing a beaded necklace presented to him by members of the tribe in Kenya that he and Daniel recently visited for filming. He looks ridiculous, and I am reminded of the summer we visited Wall Drug and Mother bought the boys enormous Indian headdresses and he and Caleb went whooping through the parking lot all the way back to our van. The memory actually belongs to Lissa; I was still in a stroller then. But over the years she told the story so often that I came to believe that I myself had seen how the feathers shivered when Matty dragged them through the air. That day my sister had wanted a simple dreamcatcher on a chain, but Mother shook her head and called it gaudy and said Lissa shouldn’t be trying to draw attention. It wasn’t becoming of a young lady. Lissa said she had responded by picking a chewed piece of gum off the armrest of a bench and popping it in her mouth, but I don’t think that part of the story was true.

  As Matty talks, his wife, Lilith, is nowhere to be seen, but I suspect she is in the kitchen, directing the volunteers. Their three boys and two girls are standing in a group of children who are not much younger than I. Matty says something in Swahili and the crowd that has gathered around him claps and he takes a bow. I roll my eyes and feel Roarke come up beside me.

  “The gang’s all here,” I say.

  “Not all,” he answers.

  I shrug. “I th
ink people stopped expecting Lissa to show up a long time ago.”

  “I meant Caleb,” he says. “Is he somewhere campaigning?”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “He hasn’t officially announced that he’s running for anything.” I pause, then tell him, “He and Naomi are visiting her family. It’s her aunt’s fiftieth birthday.”

  “What are their kids’ names again?”

  I turn to him and say, “You’re really doing your homework, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what most girlfriends expect.”

  I nod appraisingly and tell him, “Millicent, or Millie, is the oldest. Actually, I got to name her. They had narrowed it down to a list of three and Naomi let me pick. Naomi’s the closest thing I’ve had to a sister since Lissa left. Anyway, after Millie came Nathan, or Nate. And there’s one on the way. They’re right on schedule. One kid for every year of marriage. If they hit the jackpot and have twins, then they’ll catch up to Matty and Daniel in no time.”

  “Is it a contest?”

  “Of course. Everything’s a contest. Especially when it comes to this. Go forth and multiply. Mother and Daddy made it clear to all the wives beforehand that they were expected to breed.”

  “Those must have been interesting conversations.”

  “They were,” I agree. “I thought Naomi would faint from embarrassment. She always strikes me as being kind of frail, but she’s certainly held up her end of the bargain, or so it would seem.”

  “And you really all just sit around the living room and talk about things like that?”

  “Oh, no. Of course not. Mother sits down with the girls in private and I listen in. If I didn’t, I’d probably be as brainwashed as the rest of them. I have Lissa to thank for that. She taught me that I need to look out for myself.”

  “How did she do that, exactly?”