If You Can Get It

by Brendan Hodge

Jen shrugged. “Um, okay. I’ll see you later.”

  Katie had already turned away and was pulling up Paul’s number on her phone as she walked inside.

  Jen continued working down the walk, planting bulbs. Just as she was finishing, Paul’s truck pulled into the driveway and Katie came rushing down the walk, dressed and made up. She leaned in the driver’s side window to give Paul a long kiss, then ran around the truck to climb in the passenger door, and they were gone. Jen stretched, took off her gardening gloves, and went inside. It was time to pour herself a glass of wine and put her feet up.

  The next morning, Paul arrived shortly before nine rather than after noon. Katie rushed out to the truck and was gone until nine o’clock that night. She brought back with her a little icon of the Virgin Mary, which she hung in the kitchen, next to the liquor bottles, on the stretch of wall between the countertop and the wall cabinets.

  “Don’t you want to have that somewhere nice in your room?” Jen asked.

  “No. I want it in here where I can see it when I’m cooking,” Katie replied.

  “Isn’t it kind of weird to have it near the alcohol?”

  “No. Sheesh, I’m Catholic, not Baptist.”

  Jen’s initial fear had been that Katie’s sudden return to religious practice would result in her becoming even more quiet and reclusive than she had been the last few weeks. Instead, this seemed to mark something of a return of the old Katie. Monday morning, when Jen came into the kitchen to grab breakfast on her way to work, she found Katie already there, frying bacon and eggs.

  “You’re starting early,” Jen observed.

  “I thought you’d like a hot breakfast.”

  “It smells great.”

  “Coffee should be ready too,” Katie said, gesturing toward the maker.

  When Jen got home that night, Katie was again in the kitchen. The stereo was blasting dance music, and Katie swayed to the beat as she ladled out French onion soup into a pair of bowls.

  Other changes were more peculiar. Katie had purchased a package of little votive candles and would occasionally light one in front of the icon in the kitchen. That Sunday, passing through the kitchen, Jen noticed that the candle in front of the picture had been left lit. She blew it out and thought no more of it until that night, when Katie came back, pulled a beer out of the fridge, popped it open, and then squawked, “What? You put out my candle?”

  “Um, yes,” replied Jen, from where she sat in the living room with her laptop. “You left it burning.”

  “It was supposed to be burning!” Katie objected, coming into the living room and planting herself in front of her older sister.

  “What are you talking about? You weren’t even here.”

  “Exactly. I lit it in front of the icon before I left so that if I was tempted while I was gone, I would remember that Mary was watching over me and stop.”

  “You lit a candle in front of a picture so that the Virgin Mary would make sure you didn’t get in trouble with Paul while you were gone?”

  Katie nodded firmly. “And you blew it out. Why can’t you leave my stuff alone?”

  “Katie, that’s weird. No one does that.”

  “What do you mean ‘weird’? I had a roommate in college who used to put a gold Buddha in the center of the room and smoke pot while listening to Pink Floyd. How is lighting a candle weird compared to that?”

  “Lots of people do weird things with pot,” Jen stated. “No one lights a candle in front of a picture so they don’t go too far with their boyfriends.”

  “Well, I do,” said Katie defiantly, taking a swig of Little Kings. “And next time, I’ll thank you to leave my candle alone. It’s not hurting you.”

  Late that night, after she had retired to her room, Jen called Dan.

  “Please tell me,” said Jen, after the usual greetings had been exchanged, “that when you started becoming religious you didn’t start acting insane.”

  “Um . . .” said Dan. “Perhaps a definition of ‘insane’ would be in order?”

  Jen described the incident with Katie and the candle.

  “Well,” said Dan with evident mirth, “I think I can promise you that I’ve never lit a candle in front of a picture of the Virgin Mary—whatever other ‘insane’ stuff, to use your evocative phrase, I may have done.”

  “I make a joke of it,” Jen said, her tone turning serious. “But with Katie having a boyfriend and turning religious, it’s really lonely. Sometimes I feel like everyone else is just crazy, but other times it’s like being blindfolded while everyone else is sightseeing. Everyone is talking about things that I don’t have any experience of.”

  “That doesn’t entirely change,” Dan said, his tone sympathetic now. “I’ve often heard people talk about religious experiences that are completely foreign to me. Even aside from faith, some people just feel and respond to symbols and words more than others.”

  “So, if you don’t have all kinds of religious feelings, what made you go back to being a practicing Jew?”

  “Ask an easy question, why don’t you?” said Dan with a wry laugh. There was a pause, and Jen was on the point of withdrawing the question with apologies. “I guess the best way I could describe it is: I became convinced that there was something out there beyond just me that I had to acknowledge, something more than my everyday. And not just something abstract, but something that cared about me. And at the same time, I had this inescapable feeling that being a Jew was something that wasn’t just a matter of chance. It was something in my blood and in everything I’d been brought up to. Like the way the language you’re brought up speaking is the language you always think in even when you learn another language. I realized that when my parents and grandparents went to temple, they were talking to that . . . whatever it was that was out there. And that as a Jew, the only way I could acknowledge it was by going with them and learning to be a better Jew. I know that probably sounds pretty irrational, but it wasn’t exactly something I reasoned my way into at first; that came later. At first it was just something I knew.”

  “No, that’s . . . Thank you,” said Jen, surprised and slightly uncomfortable with the honesty and completeness of Dan’s answer.

  Silence stretched on for several seconds, and at last Dan broke it with a lighter note. “So, the last time we talked, you were talking about settling down with a Nice Catholic Boy. How’s that going?”

  Jen found herself laughing wildly for a moment.

  “What?” Dan asked.

  “The Nice Catholic Boy, that’s right . . . The Nice Catholic Boy is the guy who’s dating Katie. He’s the reason she’s become all religious.”

  “Your sister stole the guy you were interested in?”

  “Or he stole her. Take your pick. Somehow in all my plans, I missed the point that he might have ideas of his own. Says a bit about my own self-involvement.”

  “Well . . . are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Jen felt a lump rising in her throat but swallowed it down. “My interest in Paul was just . . . just one of those crazy ideas one gets from time to time. I’m not upset about it. He and Katie are happy, and they seem to be good for each other. Watching them, I don’t think Paul and I would even have got along. The only thing that’s hard is that I see so much less of both of them now. The way it always is when a couple gets together. Though I’m seeing a lot of my parents now, and that’s good.”

  “It must be nice to be back near family.”

  “It is. I hadn’t thought it would mean much to me, but it really does. I miss all of you back in California, though. I know I was always pretty selfish about my social life—only showing up for things or calling people when I needed company. But I hadn’t realized how much I relied on the circle of acquaintances I had out there. The new job is great. I really love it after Aspire and AppLogix. But it seems like everyone my age is married and talking about their children. The single people are all kids right out of college. And I don’t know anyone else. I didn’t think about it at first, bec
ause I was busy and I had Katie around for company. But with her spending all her time with Paul now . . . I miss all you guys.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, even without having uprooted and left everyone, I miss having you around.”

  “Thanks.”

  The call soon wound to an end. Once she had changed and gone to bed, lying under the covers in the dark, Jen couldn’t help dwelling on the closing exchange.

  It was Lent, and Katie threw herself into it with the enthusiasm of the neophyte. She fried her own fish on Fridays, because she had judged that the parish fish fry was too commercial. She went to the Stations of the Cross with Paul on Friday nights. She placed an Operation Rice Bowl carton on the kitchen counter and trimmed the food budget in order to stuff it with change. She stopped making desserts except on Sundays, the change that Jen found hardest to adjust to, despite the minor satisfaction of seeing her morning consultations with the scale confirm the accusations she had long leveled against Katie’s baking.

  As Easter neared, the preparations for it began to take over increasing amounts of Katie’s time. Easter dinner was to be at their parents’ apartment, and Jen, Katie, and Paul were to be in attendance. To the same extent that Katie’s new religiosity had led to a certain asceticism of cuisine over the last few weeks, Katie was determined that Easter should be a notable feast. To this end, she seemed at particular pains to discover dishes that would require the maximum amount of preparation in the days before. Jen volunteered to bring wine and a salad and considered herself fortunate to be spared further worry, though, as she saw less of Katie, she began to wish that she had agreed to become involved in projects such as pickled eggs and homemade ravioli, if only in order to be included.

  The Thursday and Friday before Easter arrived, and Katie seemed to spend virtually all of the evenings either away at church or going about somberly with a book by the pope about the life of Christ.

  Work provided no effective source of diversion for Jen. Half the office seemed to have taken vacation. Brad wandered into Jen’s office at three o’clock on Friday and advised, “It’s dead around here. Unless you’ve got something really important you’re working on, just clear out and get a start on your weekend.”

  She drove home with a feeling of anticipation. An early weekend, the long week of preparation finally giving way to the celebration itself. Perhaps Katie would be in the mood for pizza and a movie or some other girls’-night activity after her long week. Or, if preparation was still in full swing, Jen could at least join in her mixing pie dough or stuffing ravioli or whatever task might provide some hours of camaraderie in the kitchen.

  At home, however, she found the house empty. The kitchen counters were clean, and the dishwasher quietly murmuring to itself. A note from Katie stood folded by the liquor cabinet, near Katie’s icon with its burning votive candle: “Headed off to church and then to spend time with Paul. Sorry to leave you to get dinner by yourself. Don’t forget it’s Friday!”

  The last sentence seemed inexplicable, until it fell into place with her sister’s newfound enthusiasms. Did Katie expect her to keep up her meatless-Friday kick when she was off hanging out with her boyfriend and couldn’t even bother to be home?

  What had seemed a yawning chasm of another evening alone suddenly filled itself. She was going to go find a great steak dinner, tender and rare, and have a bottle of expensive wine all to herself. That would get the weekend celebration started properly.

  The Easter Vigil did not, in itself, hold a great allure for Jen, but it was a relief that she would at least be included in the main event of the day along with the rest of her family. Katie and Paul were going out to dinner together before the vigil, and Jen had invited Pat and Tom to have dinner with her, both for company and so that her mother would not have to cook amid the elaborate Easter preparations already underway. Thus, late afternoon found both sisters getting ready for the evening.

  “Do you have a cardigan I can borrow that would go with this dress?” Katie asked, bursting into Jen’s room without knocking as Jen was standing in her bra and slip, contemplating the relative merits of two dresses.

  “There’s a light pink one that might go. Second drawer down on the right,” Jen said, her head disappearing into her own dress. Once dressed and adjusted, she turned back to Katie to see her rooting through her makeup drawer. “Wrong drawer.”

  “I found the cardigan. I just thought maybe you’d have some lipstick that matched it.”

  “Feel free,” said Jen, shaking her head but smiling at the same time.

  “Oh hey,” said Katie into the makeup drawer. “Hmm. No. Not that.” Sounds of more pawing around followed.

  “Are you seriously wearing those scuffed old flats?” Jen asked, surveying Katie’s outfit more critically.

  “I don’t want something really high,” Katie said, contemplating the shade of coral lipstick she had just applied.

  Jen disappeared into her closet for a moment. “How about these?” she said, reappearing. “Kitten heels. The shade matches your dress better. And they look new. I liked them but I don’t have anything to wear them with.”

  “Oooh. I like those. Okay. Hey, can I use this eye cream?”

  “No. That’s for wrinkles, and it’s really expensive.”

  “I might get wrinkles someday. I used the face wash of yours from the same brand, and it felt really good.”

  “You work yourself up some wrinkles and let me know. Now get out. I want to finish getting ready.”

  “Okay, okay. Thanks for the shoes. And the sweater.”

  Jen shooed her out and shut the door behind her, feeling as if she was back at home after a long absence.

  Dinner with her parents was a quiet affair, and at their insistence, they left for the church with plenty of time to spare to be assured of getting a good spot. Mass was to begin at 10:00 P.M., but there was already a significant crowd gathering at 9:30, when they arrived. There was, it seemed, to be some sort of blessing of the Easter candle outside before the Mass started, and so the congregation was assembling on the patio in front of the main doors, enjoying the unusually warm April night air.

  They had been standing there for only a few minutes when she heard an excited squeal of “Jen!” and turned to receive a sudden, fierce hug from Katie.

  “Look! Look what—Paul—look!” Katie, who was almost bouncing up and down in her excitement, disengaged enough from the hug she was giving Jen to show her left hand, which sported a slim gold band holding a tiny solitaire. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Katie asked.

  Jen’s first, if quickly suppressed, thought was how much smaller it was than the diamonds she was used to seeing on women at the office, but she assured Katie that it was beautiful and asked how it happened. Katie, however, had already turned to show the ring to her parents.

  Paul ambled up, smiling proudly though looking somewhat awkward.

  “Katie was just telling us,” Jen said. “Congratulations!” She gave Paul a quick hug. “And on Easter. Was she surprised?”

  Paul nodded, his smile approaching a grin. “I thought, feast of eternal life, starting a new life together, you know . . . I asked your father for permission last week, but he said he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “You asked Dad for permission to propose to Katie?” Jen asked, without thinking to prevent her disbelief from sounding in her voice. “What did he think of that?”

  Paul shrugged and shifted from one foot to the other. “He seemed a little surprised. But I think he was pleased.”

  At that moment Katie seized Jen by the shoulder. “Jen! Come here. I want to tell you and Mom how it happened.”

  Discussion of the engagement, in one form or another, took up all of the Nilsson family’s attention until Mass began.

  The Mass was long, and for the first half of it, the church was lighted only by candles. A whole sequence of readings traced biblical history from the seven days of Creation to Jesus Christ. By turns, listening to these and looking over at Katie
—who was so obviously trying hard to pay attention yet continually drawn to look at Paul or at her ring—Jen found herself thinking back over her own recent history.

  Last April, she had been busily working toward the PocketDJ launch, with her only thought of Katie and her parents being that she would not have time to make it to Katie’s graduation in May. Katie’s unexpected arrival. Two new jobs. China. Moving back to Illinois. Christmas with Katie and her parents. Paul. And now Paul and Katie engaged. The hopes of a year ago now seemed remote. And yet the news that made it seemingly impossible for Katie, sitting next to her, to stop smiling even as she tried to look piously attentive to the Mass, was for Jen the final step in returning to the old way of things. Katie would move out, and once again Jen would be alone.

  When Katie had first arrived, it had seemed a temporary disruption in the organized and satisfying life that Jen had created for herself. Now the prospect of Katie’s leaving seemed like the breakup of a family. Katie would go on to form a real family, living in the broken-down old farmhouse Paul was fixing up, and probably having lots of babies. And Jen would be left with . . . what?

  She looked over at Katie. Happy in love and deeply involved in the liturgy going on before them. Having all the things I lack. Things I’ve shied away from or just never found.

  How was it that with Katie, a sister so much younger that they had barely known each other as children, she had at last created this deep attachment?

  Twice in her life, she had picked someone to live with who seemed just the right partner for her life, a decision made over many dates and conversations and careful thought on her part. And each of those relationships had slid gradually into a fatal blend of frustration and indifference. Yet somehow a series of chance happenings—Katie’s sudden phone call, Paul’s handyman ad, and the faster-than-expected sale of her parents’ house—had created a household that she would miss far more.

  Had the necessity of getting along with someone familiar but unchosen somehow been the key to forming a relationship when trying so hard to choose just the right person had failed?