Women's Intuition

by Lisa Samson

  “Give me a minute.”

  She sat back up. I looked over and saw no tears coming out of her eyes now. That forced me back to my usual mode of caregiver.

  “Were those tears before because you were afraid to tell me?”

  She nodded. “You’re the last person I wanted to keep this secret from, Prisma.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “I guess if nobody else knew, it would be like it wasn’t true.”

  I pulled her onto my lap anyway. “You were wrong, baby.” And then I held her small face in my big, rough hands, and I said, “You are loved so well by so many, Lark. I wish you’d realize that.”

  The stars outside my window demanded little of me. I saw only the Lord.

  “Jesus, we got us a big problem.”

  “I know, My girl.”

  “If I weren’t so upset that that scoundrel is still alive, I’d be furious with Lark.”

  “Lies never solve a problem.”

  “I’m glad she could confide in me, Jesus. Although, what am I supposed to do now? Well, I suppose I’ll just lean on You and hope against hope nobody gets hurt too badly.”

  “My yoke is easy, My girl.”

  “And You always show me the way.”

  “I always have. And then again, My girl, you’ve always listened to Me. People like Lark sometimes have stuffed-up ears. Stuffed up by fear or guilt or anger or even just plain selfishness.”

  “That’s not Lark though, Lord. The selfishness one, I mean.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, maybe not, Lord. Not if You say so. But the other three … I’ve seen those for years now, Jesus.”

  “I know.”

  “The good thing is she came to me, Lord. She stepped out of her outer space and sought some help.”

  “Of course she did. It’s time, you know.”

  I sighed. I can’t wait for heaven someday.

  “Be strong, My girl, and of a good courage.”

  “You got that right, Lord.”

  “Oh, I always do, Prisma. But you know that.”

  Prayer is a wonderful thing. To someday see Him face to face really keeps me going. Ever since I found out about Him, all I want to do is see fit to do good, just to make Him smile at me.

  Tonight I am thankful for the happy home my Jimmy and I made for so many years. I am thankful that Lark doesn’t have to face her troubles alone. I am thankful.

  Lark

  MARSHA AND FATHER CHARLIE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE I really know here at St. Dominic’s. Other than Babe, of course. Three people. After all these years. Four ball bearings in a five-pound coffee can. I don’t fit in among the Catholics at large, and church shopping presents a problem because the only Protestant church in the area that’s far enough removed from the Catholics is really a synagogue in disguise. No pork. No nothing. But I bless the day Marsha invited me to St. Dominic’s after the Stride Rite incident. For so long I’d heard about “the Lord” at my parents’ church, but He seemed so elusive. They didn’t want to talk about the messy stuff, the blood down His back and face, the gore on the wood of the cross, what His robe, the only garment He had, must have looked and smelled like after days and days of wear. But the Catholics don’t mind the mess. They don’t sweep it under the carpet and pretend it never happened. So Jesus became very real to me, and the Bible that Prisma had given me for my twelfth birthday revealed even more.

  The organist job followed a year later.

  And I’m still just the organist. After ten years.

  Did I really expect everyone to fall all over me, to invite me to bingo or something?

  Well, maybe I did.

  But Father Charlie reaches out. This week after Saturday’s seven o’clock mass he convinced me to stroll down the street with him for some Chinese food at Fast Wok. Since it’s on the way home, I agreed.

  He walked hands-in-pocket up to the counter. “Kung Pao chicken, number ten on the spiciness.”

  I whispered to him that I wanted a vegetarian lo mein and an order of egg drop soup.

  He ordered that too.

  “I didn’t realize priests ate spicy food,” I said as we sat down in the Melamine booth.

  He emitted a giant laugh. “Oh, Lark, you tickle me.” And he slid in, telling me about his last trip back home and how ornery his father is getting. “But in a comical way.”

  Mo the Friendly Drunk walked by and waved.

  We both waved back.

  “What do you think about him, Father Charlie?”

  “Mo?”

  “You know his story?”

  He shook his head. “But I should, being the priest around here.”

  “I don’t know. How do you ask someone how they ever got to that point?”

  “Numba foh-two-nine ready, eh?” the lady behind the counter called, and Father Charlie jumped to his feet. I watched his broad back as he paid for the order and then headed over to the condiment bar for the soy sauce. Dedication exudes a certain confidence, a true north. What happened in his life? What entered in, filled him enough to determine a set course? A holy wind? A miracle? God’s voice?

  “I got some tea, too.” Placing a little stainless-steel pot and a tiny cup in front of my place, he winked one great deer eye. Then we bowed for a quick “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.”

  “So, tell me where you’re at, Larkspur Summerville.”

  He forked a large bit of Kung Pao into his mouth.

  Father Charlie proclaimed himself my spiritual mentor five years ago. He must think he’s failing miserably is all I can say!

  “Well, I guess I’m coming along as well as can be expected.”

  “See now, Lark, there’s the problem!”

  “What?”

  “Low expectations. Remember that old Dickens book everybody has to read in junior high?”

  “Great Expectations?”

  “Exactly. Remember that old lady who lived in that big old house with the putrefied wedding feast? Remember her?”

  “Of course I do, Father Charlie.”

  “Well?” He sipped his tea, a spice-induced sweat breaking out on his broad forehead.

  “Well, what?”

  “Who do you feel more of a kinship with, the old lady in the house or the young man going off to do all sorts of things?”

  I remind myself of an overcooked pound cake at times like this. Guess I should read some of those books Flannery keeps trying to get me to read. “I guess I should have seen where you were going with that one right away.”

  “That’s okay. Some are slower on the uptake than others.”

  “Gee, thanks. But if I’d been quicker, I might have said something like A Christmas Carol.”

  “Oh, believe me, that one fits too.”

  “I am not an Ebenezer Scrooge!”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t have to be nasty to be an Ebenezer Scrooge.”

  I pointed at him and allowed some uplift on the left side of my mouth. Father Charlie never once meant any harm to anybody during any part of his fifty-five years of life, I’m guessing. He grew up in the country, over on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

  After I finished my soup I said, “Flannery says God burned down my house. Do you think that?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think. Besides, I don’t think God does stuff like that much.”

  “Really, you don’t? How come?” Guess Father Charlie and Prisma had theological differences.

  “Well, Lark, let’s face it, bad things are always waiting to happen, right around the corner. Your wiring needed attention, and you didn’t give it.”

  “So it really is my fault.”

  “Well, sure. But now comes the God part. He could have made that wiring hold awhile longer, but He didn’t. So He didn’t burn your house down. He let things take their natural course.”

  “But why?”

  I knew the answer to that, but I wanted to hear it from Father Charlie.

  But he surprised me. “Because He
knows you’ve got potential!”

  I so love that man!

  “But I’m serving Him, aren’t I? Aren’t the things I do good things?”

  “Yep. They sure are.”

  “And Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t have done those things.”

  “Got to agree with you there.”

  “Isn’t God pleased with those things?”

  “Yep. He is. As much as a musician is pleased with the instrument and some sheet music.”

  I sure followed that reasoning.

  “So what you’re saying is He’s ready to start playing now?”

  “Well, that’s funny you should ask that, because while my analogy is good in some ways, it doesn’t go all the way through. See, instruments don’t usually have a choice whether they want to be played or not, do they?”

  “No.” I slurped another bit of tea. “Can we change the subject now, Father Charlie?”

  “Sure, Lark. I’ve said everything I felt led to say anyway. Now it’s up to you to mull for a while.”

  A few days ago before practice while getting my tea at the 3 B’s, I ran into a man who started coming back to church this spring. Marsha introduced us, and that was pretty much it. But when he came into the restaurant he actually seemed happy to see me.

  Odd.

  “You’re Lark, right?”

  I nodded. “Uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh.” I nodded more. I couldn’t remember his name. I couldn’t remember his name.

  Think, Lark. Think.

  “Hi-ya, Deke!” His attention turned away, praise God.

  Think, Lark. Think.

  “Hi-ya, Johnny.”

  Johnny. That’s right. Okay. Okay.

  Breathe in.

  Johnny what?

  He turned back. “Gotta tell you. You did a great job last week at church.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah. Love organ music!”

  “You do?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “But you’re under sixty!” I blurted.

  He smiled. “Not much under, I hate to say.”

  That laugh was as good as a can of ant spray or something.

  I’m not kidding.

  Johnny shrugged. “Can’t explain it myself, but hey, you like what you like, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve always said.”

  I have? When have I ever said that?

  Weird. So weird.

  I looked around me. Had the rest of the world frozen in place? But there stood Babe at the head of a booth full of postconcert Sweet Adelines. Deke scratched his chin as he eyed himself in the mirror over the grill. And outside some giant boom box disguised as a blue car inched by.

  And Johnny stood there and smiled at me.

  He just smiled at me with this warm grin spread over crooked teeth surrounded by fuller lips and a curly beard and mustache with every color hair known to man growing there. A bright Berbered patch of graying facial hair that caught the sun coming in the window. He wore hospital scrubs, although “construction worker” oozed from his aura. Probably worked as a tech or something.

  “How long have you been playing?” he asked and then caught Deke’s eye. “A coffee to go? I’ve been on all night.”

  “You got it, Johnny.” Deke turned away from the mirror.

  “Thirty years.” I gave that nervous little laugh I always do even though nothing comical lived inside that statement. I hate that chuckle. So self-conscious and pathetic. Somehow, those women wearing suits and perfect shoes on Monday through Friday and tights on Saturday when they zip through the country in those SUVs with bags of mulch and mums in the back don’t at all strike me as the types that strangle out those stupid little laughs.

  I deserved to have my house burned down if I couldn’t even make decent chitchat at the 3 B’s.

  “Did you start when you were born, Lark?”

  After examining his wrinkles, I could see he was probably close to sixty. Blueberry eyes recessed into the soft folds of age, Indian corn teeth, jowls blushed like an apple. All he needed was a cornucopia around his face and he’d make a darn nice centerpiece. Beautiful in its commonness, really. A living piece of Americana.

  I still can’t explain what happened next. I freaked at his compliment and my own close examination of his face. I just freaked. I snatched my plastic foam cup of tea and steamrolled out the door and up to the church without ever once looking behind me.

  The organ cradled me, and I burst into Bach, thinking that a little Bach always cures what ails me. Or at least provides a Band-Aid.

  And it did. I forgot about the world and lived within the music, plastering my heart and soul upon the page before me, grafting the run of notes onto my aching spirit.

  Not until I arrived home did I realize the tea had sloshed over the edge of my cup and burned my hand.

  “Hello. IPRAY4U.”

  “Hey, Prayer Lady, it’s Gene.”

  “Gene! It’s been awhile. You doing okay?”

  “I sure am. You’ll never guess what? I got the promotion!”

  “I knew you would, Gene.”

  “Well, without your prayers, Prayer Lady, I don’t know if it would’ve happened. There were three guys in the running for this position. One guy accepted another offer, and the other backed out for reasons unbeknown to me.”

  “Prayer sure can’t hurt, I know that!”

  “You’re right.”

  “So when do you start?”

  “Next week.”

  “Maybe you’ll meet a nice girl there. I mean after all that happened with Christy …”

  “I know. You prayed me through that, too.”

  “Hey, it’s an honor. So what do you want me to pray about this week?”

  “Just that I’ll do a good job. It’s hard starting all over again, you know? New floor. New people and all.”

  “Gene, you have no idea how much I understand!”

  “Well, hey then, maybe I’ll do some praying for you this week.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to that.”

  “Okay, well, gotta go. Need to buy new loafers.”

  “Take care.”

  I called up Marsha that night.

  “Do you know that Johnny guy from church all that well?” I asked.

  “Johnny guy? This is Baltimore, hon. You need to be a little more specific.”

  “Big guy, bald on top, multicolored beard. He had on a set of scrubs when I saw him.”

  “Oh yeah, sure do. That’s Johnny Josefowski. He’s neat, isn’t he? Why, do you like him?”

  “Marsha!”

  I swear all the women in my life are in cahoots.

  “I saw him at the 3 B’s today.”

  And so I got the scoop. Marsha dishes up some good scoop. I pictured her there on her waterbed with cotton balls splaying her brown-and-serve toes, a green exfoliating mask stuccoing her face. Definitely painting her toenails as we talked.

  Johnny Josefowski. Doctor Johnny Josefowski.

  Figures.

  Someone capable of labeling me a certified nut case.

  Oh, great.

  “What kind of a doctor is he?”

  “A cardiologist.”

  Praise God! Not a psychiatrist. “Oh yeah?”

  “Real nice guy, isn’t he?”

  “Actually, yeah. Sure doesn’t look like a doctor though.”

  “Nah. Not from your typical medical stock, I can tell you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Nope. Grew up next door to him right here in Hamilton.”

  “No kidding!”

  “Nope. Heartbreaking story, Lark. Had this wigged-out mother who was in and out of institutions ever since I could remember …”

  Oh, great.

  “And his dad worked all the time trying to make ends meet. Johnny delivered the Sunpaper, groceries, you name it. He was on his bike from the time he woke up until well after suppertime. Except for school. He was a great student, which explains the doctor thing and all. Never married, if you can believ
e that. So did you get much of a chance to talk to him?”

  “No. I got scared and ran out.”

  No use pretending with Marsha.

  She sighed into the phone and said, “Oh, honey.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, if there’s a more understanding soul in the world than Johnny Josefowski, I have yet to meet him.”

  Not that it would matter.

  The next Sunday morning I closed up my organ after eleven o’clock mass. Johnny Josefowski sauntered up the aisle, right toward me.

  Marsha, where are you when I need you? And what happened to Prisma? She picked a heck of a time to use the bathroom.

  He hunched over and whispered. “Do you take requests?”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Marsha says you can play anything by ear.”

  “And you believe everything Marsha says?”

  “No. But I have a feeling she’s right about this one.”

  “How? Men’s intuition?”

  He laughed. “Hardly.”

  “An ear for music?”

  “Can’t play a note. Can’t sing on key.”

  Blue jeans covered his lower half. A Ravens World Champions T-shirt covered the upper half. A very big Raven. An XXL Raven, if I had to guess.

  In fact, as I scrutinized him, I realized that he bassed my treble. Male, tall, heavyset, smart, nonmusical. Successful and altruistic if Marsha told the truth.

  I breathed in.

  Some men just smell good, you know? That clean, “I shower a lot” aroma wafts about them. No perfumes or scents, just soap and skin. His hair smelled fresh too. Johnny Josefowski sprouts that thick, porous kind of hair. Well, where it grows anyway. The top of his head reflected the lanterns overhead.

  “So what do you want me to play?”

  “ ‘I’ll Be Down to Get You in a Taxi, Honey’?”

  “The ‘Darktown Strutters’ Ball’?” My turn to smile arrived. “In church?”

  “Why not?”

  I spotted Marsha by the back door, this Howdy Doody grin threatening to split her Scots-Irish face in two. When she flipped me the double thumbs-up, I turned my face away as quickly as possible before this man beside me turned to see what had caught my attention.

  A double thumbs-up!

  Oh my word!

  Suddenly the keys became real interesting, and I threw my fingers into a tailspin, playing the request.