The community newspaper runs a story titled “Highland Fling in Prospect Park,” in which Hayden is quoted as saying that animals feel better when they work at a job and earn their food by using their minds and bodies. “It’s the same with people,” he adds, hoping that Diana’s ex-boyfriends will read the article.
Ginger the poodle is equally enthusiastic about duck herding and has a natural aptitude for it. Hayden shows the children the webbed feet on the little poodle and explains how they were bred as hunting dogs and being able to swim enabled them to go fetch a grouse out of a pond. The word poodle, he tells them, is derived from the German word Pudelin, and means to splash about in the water, which the little girls think is very funny.
“I’m surprised no one has made duck herding into a circus act,” Joey comments as a particularly large crowd forms to watch the show. “People would pay good money to see this.”
“Perhaps you’ll become a famous breeder of herding poodles, eventually training some to move large gaggles of toddlers through preschools. Now thar’s a business!” says Hayden. “And just wait until I get Rosie to teach them the Stations of the Cross. We’re going straight to the Vatican.”
“I’ve decided that I want to be a subway conductor,” says Joey. Hayden has recently introduced his grandson to the boyish pleasure of riding in the front car and watching for the signals to change from red to green as they hurtle through the dark twisting underground tunnels.
Upon completing his duck march on this particular day Hayden checks to make sure that Diana has left for work. When he’s sure that his daughter is gone, he takes Joey over to Mrs. Trummel’s for the self-defense lessons he organized with her daughter who works as a local police officer. Once Joey is set up next door he tells Rosamond that he’s off to see an old colleague. When Rosamond offers to accompany Hayden he insists that it’s better he go alone since his friend is getting senile and the daughter doesn’t think it’s a good idea to bring any strangers along as it might upset the man. Hayden is a good liar but not that good. Rosamond can’t help but wonder if it’s a woman friend whom Hayden is going to visit, since it’s rare that he ventures off without her.
Hayden quickly heads over to the cemetery sculpture garden for a prearranged meeting with Hank. “Well,” he demands, “what in tarnation went awry?”
“Nothing,” says Hank. “I mean, Diana doesn’t like me.”
“Why do you say that? Did you make a pass at her? Not that such a move should cause a problem, from what I gather.”
“No! I kissed her good night. Just one kiss.”
“That’s all?”
“Heck, Hayden, it sounds as if you want me to throw her over my shoulder and carry her up to the bedroom.”
“Probably not a bad idea. Diana’s a very romantic girl from what I understand—probably has a bunch of kids out there that she do’an’ even know about.”
Hank appears startled until he realizes that Hayden is joking.
They sit on a bench next to the garden and the sprinkler makes a sputtering noise as it starts up and they both laugh, recalling the circumstances of their earlier visit to this spot.
“You must not ha’ kissed her right,” Hayden eventually says.
“Oh shut up! What do you know about women—stealing virgins out of convents!”
“I’ll have you know that nothing untoward has passed between the lady and myself. Besides, I refuse to kiss a woman who can catch more fish than I,” Hayden declares with pride. “But to answer your question, I do’an’ know anything about women. However, I do know someone who does. Come with me.”
chapter forty-two
Diana arrives home from the grocery store to the plaintive strains of Dan Hill’s “Sometimes When We Touch” coming from inside the house, quite the contrast to Hayden’s Highland reels and spirited Scottish folk songs. She finds Rosamond alone in the dining room intent on polishing all the silverware and a tea set. This is the one domestic chore where Rosamond far outshines Diana. Apparently the convent has a trove of urns and crosses that are in constant need of buffing.
“You don’t have to do that,” says Diana. But then she notices the tears like pear-shaped diamonds sparkling on her friend’s cheeks. “Rosamond, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”
Rosamond sets down her rag and dabs her face with a clean paper towel. “No, no, it must be an allergy to the silver polish.”
The sound of the front door opening can be heard and Joey enters the dining room, having arrived back from his lessons at Mrs. Trummel’s. Though he dutifully reports that he was using the swimming pool at the Y, just as Hayden had instructed him to. One needn’t be a mind reader to know that Diana wouldn’t approve of lessons in how to fight.
Joey notices that Rosamond is wiping what appear to be tears from her eyes. “Do you want an ice cream float?” His voice fills with concern. “I have some Pop Rocks we could mix in and make it explode.” Some days it’s just too much to consider that his two best friends in the world are condemned to death for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand. How can God allow good people to get cancer?
“Thanks, sweetheart. A glass of water would be nice. To be honest, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Rosamond looks up at Diana and Joey and continues with forced cheer, “Just feeling a bit weepy, I guess.”
Joey goes to the kitchen and pours Rosamond a glass of water and drops in a few maraschino cherries in an effort to raise her spirits. He reasons that if she’s unhappy then she might leave, and that would be a disaster. Hayden would return to his funerals and suicide manuals and Diana would have more time on her hands to monitor Joey’s pulse and blood pressure. And worst of all, it’d be the end of their fishing trips and future plans to go camping in the Adirondacks.
Meanwhile, the ever-suspicious Diana glances around the room as if she’s looking for clues to a robbery. Her gaze settles on the portable radio in the corner that has been steadily wailing away and is now playing the Phil Collins hit song from the eighties “Against All Odds.” Diana marches over and flicks off the radio. “I’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong. You’re in love and you’re sitting here by yourself inhaling toxic chemicals and listening to syrupy ballads on Lite FM.”
“Lite FM?” Rosamond is apparently confused by the diagnosis.
Joey appears with the cherry-flavored water. His mother sends him back to the kitchen with orders to start unpacking the groceries. Then Diana heaves a great sigh, as if she just can’t be responsible for catching up another woman on twenty years of romance. “Rosamond, there are only two situations when a woman should be listening to love songs on Lite FM, and one of them is when you’re in a reciprocated romantic relationship, not pining.”
“And what’s the other?” asks Rosamond. Perhaps there was a category for distracted ex-nuns.
“The other,” Diana pauses as if it’s her ill-fated lot in life to have to be the bearer of bad news, “is after your boyfriend dumps you, or worse, sleeps with your best friend without first dumping you. And so you stock up on Mallomars and Rocky Road ice cream, pull the shades, get incredibly drunk, and play a continuous medley of Air Supply’s ‘All Out of Love,’ Foreigner’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is,’ and right before you vomit or pass out start ‘The Rose,’ by Bette Midler.”
Now that the radio is off Rosamond collects herself and takes a sip of the pink water. “I suppose you’re right, ballads do seem to have an unusual effect on a person’s soul, especially those bits about ‘I can’t live, I can’t live without you baby.’ No wonder the convent only sanctions madrigals from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And even that was without harmony or accompaniment.”
But what about love? Rosamond wonders what’s been holding her back since admitting to herself that she’s in love with Hayden. Perhaps being in love is the pursuit of pleasure for one’s own gratification, and therefore the same as self-love, and thus exactly what she’s been trained to guard against ever since taking her vows.
“You kn
ow, I could talk to Dad,” offers Diana. “The two of you are acting like teenagers a month before the prom—you agonizing over whether or not he’ll ask, and him worrying that you’ll say no. In fact, Dad’s so distracted that yesterday he was checking under the hood and almost poured oil where the antifreeze goes. Fortunately Joey stopped him.”
“He’s just fretting about The Cancer, that’s all.”
“Rosamond, I’ll tell you a little secret. You know that song Dad is always humming?”
“He’s always singing one song or another.”
Diana softly sings, “Kiss me each morning . . . if it don’t work out, then you can tell me good-bye.”
Rosamond nods to indicate that she indeed recognizes the melody, though she’s never before heard the words.
“I haven’t heard Dad sing that since before Mom died. He used to do this imitation of a famous sixties crooner Mom adored named Eddie Arnold. Dad could copy his smooth American accent perfectly and it made her laugh like crazy.” Diana smiles as she thinks back to her mother’s reassuring presence, and briefly notes that she should try to relax and stop worrying all the time, or else she, too, is going to have heart trouble. The first thing her mother had taught her about art was that you couldn’t always control every element—light, mood, space, hue—and thus after a certain point had to let go so the work could chart its own course. And when Diana was frantic with despair while in the throes of her first crush, at age six, her mother had said the same thing about love.
“Anyhow,” Diana continues. “How about I tell him that I spoke with you and—”
“Oh no.” Rosamond’s delicate hands flutter up to her face. “I mean, I’d be mortified. I wouldn’t know what to do. I’ll just pray.” She suddenly feels startled and overly warm, similar to when she awakes from the nightmares in which the men in red jumpsuits are attacking her.
“Suit yourself, as my mother used to say.” Then Diana realizes this probably isn’t the best time to keep raising the subject of Hayden’s departed wife. And sure enough, Rosamond visibly blanches. Diana immediately drops the subject. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and I’ll show you how to make poached salmon with chive mayonnaise sauce and a nice plum pudding?”
What am I doing trying to act as a matchmaker between my dying father and a dying nun anyway, Diana asks herself. Hayden isn’t going to try those treatments, not for anyone. And furthermore, since when have any of my romantic couplings ever met with success?
chapter forty-three
At the same time that Rosamond and Diana are talking together inside the town house, Hayden and Hank are locked in a heated argument at the end of Bobbie Anne’s driveway. Both men gesticulate wildly but are careful to keep their voices barely audible so that to anyone passing by it appears as if they’re engaged in an intense pantomime that at any moment will call for one to strike the other with an oversized plastic bat.
“I’ve fixed everything,” Hayden reassures his new friend. “She understands you need a tune-up so that you can get back into the courtship game on the level of a seasoned professional.”
Hank has a miserable expression on his face. “I don’t need any love doctor, and certainly not a . . . a . . .”
“Do’an’ say it. She’s a friend of mine. Just go in and meet her,” he urges, his brogue swelling. “You do’an’ have to stay if she isn’t to your likin’. Maybe you just do’an’ fancy women,” Hayden goads Hank. “It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
“Oh shut up! I do so fancy women. I’ll talk to her but I’m not going to do anything with her.” He’s vowed not to be another victim of all Hayden’s pent-up salesmanship that is currently without an outlet. How the business-savvy Mormons had failed to engage Hayden as a missionary would forever remain a mystery.
Hayden pushes a reluctant Hank toward the front walk.
“Isn’t there another way?” asks Hank.
“Sure. You can go off and date women for ten years and come back, but Diana will be long off the market by then. I had the electrician in for fifteen minutes last week and he sent her roses and calls practically every night after dinner.”
“If only she didn’t know that I’d been training to become a priest. If only I’d moved here from somewhere else as a regular guy . . .”
“Well, not even Jesus was a success in his hometown, but a few years later he was their big claim to fame. So just stick with the program here.”
Hank approaches the front door as if headed for his own crucifixion.
Bobbie Anne is waiting just inside and greets him sweetly. “Hey y’all. Come on in. Hayden has told me so much about you.”
Hank isn’t sure if that’s good or bad. “Let me be honest with you and say that I think this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.” He glances back through the screen door and spies a satisfied-looking Hayden standing at the end of the driveway with his arms folded victoriously over his chest. “And as soon as he leaves, I’m leaving.” With a swat of his hand Hank motions for Hayden to get going. But Hayden gives a friendly wave back as if he’s saying hello from the deck of a cruise ship.
“I see,” says Bobbie Anne diplomatically. “Then why don’t you at least have a glass of iced tea.” She turns and goes into the dining room without turning to find out if he’s following.
Hank does follow. He’s mesmerized by the sound of her voice, which has a peculiarly engaging quality. It’s deep and a little husky and he can hear the breath vibrating behind it as if every word seems to come right out of her heart.
Bobbie Anne pulls out a chair for him at the dining room table. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t I give you a quick little quiz and if you pass then we’ll just inform Hayden you’re an expert on women and there isn’t another thing that I could possibly tell you.”
But Hank’s soft brown eyes widen as visions of what a “love test” might include dance in his imagination. “That’ll probably be faster than waiting for him to leave.”
“We’ll start with the oral part,” she continues.
His look of alarm at the word oral registers with Bobbie Anne.
“I mean that I’ll ask you a few questions,” she clarifies.
“Oh, sure.” Hank attempts to convey a confidence he’s far from feeling. “Fire away.”
She pours them both a glass of iced tea and sits down next to him at the table.
“How old are you, then? Mid twenties?”
“Thirty-one, actually,” he replies tersely. It aggravates Hank to no end that he still can’t buy beer without being asked for ID.
“Question one. A woman can get pregnant the day after her period, the day before, or for a few days somewhere in-between?”
“The day before.”
“Wrong. In-between.”
He gives her a dismissive look that says, “Yeah, whatever.”
“Okay,” Bobbie Anne continues, “let’s say you want to talk to a woman about seeing her exclusively and having sex without condoms. What medical information should you bring with you?”
“I don’t know,” he answers irritably. “A breathing strip so I won’t snore?”
“Results from an AIDS test,” says Bobbie Anne.
“I don’t need an AIDS test! I’ve been celibate for the last five years.”
“Of course you need an AIDS test. And besides, it shows that you care. Next question. A woman’s breasts are least sensitive during her menstrual cycle because all the blood flows away from that area. True or false?”
“True.”
“False.” Her red-gold ponytail swings behind her neck like a whip of fire as if to reinforce his blunder.
“That’s a trick question!”
Bobbie Anne ignores him. “Last question. If you’re kissing a woman and things are heading toward making love and she informs you that she’s bleeding, the correct answer is: (A) let me know when you’re finished and I’ll come back; (B) can you temporarily stop it? or (C) why don’t we just get a towel?”
Hank ha
s a look of horror on his face. “Come back later?” he guesses.
“Hank, the female cycle is the life force. I would think that having studied for the priesthood you would have a greater appreciation for that particular miracle.”
“These are all trick questions,” mutters the aggravated young man. How did he ever let himself get involved in all of this insanity? He should stay in the Church. When you don’t have an answer you say that everything happens for a reason and then you pray with the person.
Bobbie Anne is getting ready to admit the situation is hopeless. “Hank, how many openings does a women have down there?”
“Two.”
“Three.”
He pushes his chair back and abruptly rises. “I don’t see why I need to know all this women’s stuff.”
“Hank, if you have a shiny new truck but you don’t know where to put the gas and oil or where the ignition is, how are you going take care of it? Or even drive it for that matter? And furthermore, how do you think you got here?” asks Bobbie Anne, now starting to sound somewhat annoyed herself. “The woman’s body is the fount of reproduction, don’t you see? We’re talking about the pope-sanctioned act of procreation. Women often feel extremely sexy when they’re ovulating or right before or during their periods.”
Every time she utters the word ovulation or period he flinches as if swallowing battery acid.
“Okay, you’re free to go!” She abruptly rises and pushes the two hundred dollars back across the table, picks up their empty glasses, and strolls toward the kitchen.
“No, wait a second. Come back.”
She turns in the doorway. “Why? I can’t teach you anything.”
“Sure, you can. I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “I want to know how the engine works, honest I do. It’s just that I had sex with a lot of girls in college and it went okay.”
Last Call Page 22