Backcast (22 page)

“Why do you say that?”

“You disagree?”

“I don't know that I agree or disagree. I never really thought about it.”

V. Jay-Jay didn't reply.

Darien struggled with whether or not to follow-up on V. Jay-Jay's revelation that she'd read two of her books. She suspected that V. Jay-Jay was waiting for her to ask—no doubt so she could give her a blistering review. She knew it was in her best interest to keep silent.

She also knew that stuffing Pandora back into her tidy box of blissful ignorance was impossible.

“Can I ask you something?”

V. Jay-Jay looked at her. The light was fading fast now. Darien could hardly make out her features. “Of course.”

“Did you like my books?”

Oh god.
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. She sounded like a pathetic teenager. But it was too late. Her weakness and vulnerability were all out there now—just like one of Quinn's bad casts. She knew as soon as she let her question fly that she'd overshot her mark by a mile.

V. Jay-Jay took her time replying. That didn't do much to ease Darien's discomfort.

“I liked them just fine.”

“You did?” Darien wasn't sure she'd heard her right.

“Did you think I wouldn't?”

“I guess so.” Darien shrugged. “I mean—they're not exactly Wiener-whosis.”

“Wiener-whosis?”

“That guy you mentioned earlier.”

“Wittgenstein?”

“Yeah. Him.”

V. Jay-Jay shook her head.

“What?”

“You're too hard on yourself.”

“I thought you wanted me to be hard on myself.”

“I think you could push yourself more when it comes to your writing. That's not the same thing as beating yourself up.”

“I don't beat myself up.”

“Yes, you do.”

“What happened earlier doesn't count.”

“The fact that you think your reaction to seeing that man today doesn't ‘count' is a perfect illustration of my point.”

“Vee? Don't start this stuff again, okay?”

“Let's step back and reconnect the dots here. Didn't you ask me for my opinion?”

“Of my books.” Darien held up a clarifying index finger. “Not my past.”

“To be fair, it would be impossible for me to express an opinion about your past since I don't know any details about it.”

That much was true. Well.
Mostly
true. Darien had certainly cracked open a door on all of that with her performance at Hero's Welcome deli earlier. She decided to turn the tables on V. Jay-Jay.

“Why do you wanna know?”

V. Jay-Jay looked confused. “Why do I want to know what?”

Darien spread her arms. “The world according to me. Why do you care? Nobody else does.”

“I doubt that's true.”

“Trust me. It's true.”

“I disagree. What about your adoring fan base?”

“What about them? They don't know anything about me.”

“They don't?”

“No. Like you, I don't write under my real name.”

“Darien Black isn't your real name?”

Darien shook her head. “Black is my real last name, but ‘Darien' is just a name I borrowed from a poem I liked in high school.”

V. Jay-Jay was silent for a few moments. Darien could tell she was racking her brain to come up with the reference.

“Keats?”

Darien nodded.

V. Jay-Jay smiled. “You chose well.”

“Yeah. I liked the irony of taking a name that was universally associated with one of the biggest literary blunders of all time.”

“I think this is a nuance that will be lost on most of your readership.”

“I didn't pick it for them.”

“So, what is your real name?”

“Why do you wanna know?”

“Tit for tat, right? If memory serves, I told you mine.”

Darien drummed her fingertips against the smooth surface of the rock.

“As I recall, that was part of an information exchange.”

“And your point would be?”

“If I tell you, then I get to ask you another question, too.”

V. Jay-Jay sighed. “Fine.”

“Okay. It's Jimmie. Jimmie Dean.”

“Really?” V. Jay-Jay's voice was tinged with suspicion.

Darien nodded.

“Your parents named you after an icon of social estrangement?”

“No.” Darien rolled her eyes. “That's
James
Dean. My parents named me after a country singer who became a sausage magnate.”

V. Jay-Jay started to chuckle. Then her chuckle turned into a laugh—and not just any kind of polite, garden-variety laugh, either. It was a full-throated, shiver-your-timbers kind of laugh that spread out, wrapped up, and shook every part of her glorious, compact frame. The sounds she made were bright and musical. The sweet, strong, happy noise swirled around their heads like a stray zephyr of mirth.

V. Jay-Jay's lapse of composure was stunning, but it was also infectious. Darien found herself beginning to smile. It was impossible not to. How had she never seen the humor in this before? It
was
ridiculous. And funny. Soon she was laughing just as hard as V. Jay-Jay, and the two of them were perilously close to losing their hold on the rocks and slipping into the water.

Darien reached out and took hold of her arms to steady her. To steady them both.

To steady us against what?
Her head was spinning.
Against falling?

Were they falling? If they were, it wasn't into a place Darien was unwilling to go. She knew that now.

They swayed and held on to each other as their bodies continued to shake—now with something different from laughter—something that inhabited the other side of laughter.

It was too much. Holding on to where they were was too much. It wasn't sustainable. Not any more. They slid off the rock into the lake. The shock of it was incredible—a blinding contrast to the heat of V. Jay-Jay's body. Cold water washed over them and penetrated their clothing. Darien wanted to cry out—but she didn't. Her understanding of
the differences between pain and pleasure, hot and cold, liquid and solid grew hazy. Uncertain. Everything around her dissolved into a crazy confluence of sensation.

It was night and the water was fathomless—dark but full of light—familiar but unknown. Realities melted away from them like forgotten punch lines from jokes that no longer mattered.

Old things had passed away, and all things were becoming new.

Essay 7

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”

How many times had I heard that? How many times had I recited that in the quiet of my cell, over and over—like a talisman against failure? I clung to the words like a lifeline that would lead me off the path of perdition and back into the safe harbor of God's grace. Over and over I punished myself with the words. Like a flagellant wielding a slender bough of birch.

Countless times. Endless nights. Forever and ever, amen.

“The decision to follow God is not an easy one.” That's what the Abbess told us as we all knelt before her in our short, white veils. “Many are called, but few are chosen. Some of you will persevere, but others will fall away. For this, we must all be prepared.”

Prepared? Prepared for what? For failure? For mortification? For ostracism? For a lifetime of disappointed hopes?

What kind of affirmation was
that?
What twisted brand of encouragement was
that?

We were young and scared. We were vulnerable and naïve. We had given up everything before we even understood what everything meant. We needed love and encouragement, not odds and prognostications about how many of us were headed toward certain failure.

Even then, I had issues with authority. That alone should have convinced me that this path I had chosen to walk would not be an easy one. A life in the church
was all about subjugation—about bending your will to another's. And not just to
one
other—but to a sequence of others. All the way up the food chain to the man at the top. Because in the church, as in the rest of life, there was always a man at the top.

“Have many friends,” they taught us. “Have many friends, but not one.”

Not one.

She wasn't like me. She was smaller. Meeker. She didn't question authority. She didn't question anything. Coming here was never a choice: it was a destination. She belonged here and she knew it. Living a life by rule and method wasn't suffocating to her, it was liberating. Empowering. It was everything.

Have many friends, they said.

Many. Not one.

After morning prayers and breakfast, we worked together in the washhouse. We'd spend hours upon hours bleaching, washing, and ironing. Folded stacks of stiff, white cotton would rise around us like columns in a pagan temple. As we worked, we prayed. We prayed that God would open our hearts to love others as we were learning to love each other. We prayed that we might persevere and take our places among the chosen. Mostly we prayed that the heat and longing that closed in around us like the soft, moist air of the clothes press would dissipate if we remained true to our vows.

Many. Not one.

She held out longer than I did. She had a deeper faith. A less forgiving nature. A greater willingness to embrace the teachings and the strictures of our order. When I would try to talk with her about what was happening—about what I was feeling—she would ignore it. She would recite the Psalms of the Divine Office. Her chanting and humming would go on and on until I would surrender and concentrate on my work.

At night I would return to my cell awash in loneliness and misery. My insistent prayers for release from this torment went unanswered. Because I could not touch her, I began to touch myself. The ecstasy and release I experienced only served to increase my feelings of isolation and hopelessness. The hours until I was reunited with her inside the solitude of our white prison were torturous. My days and nights were now marked by the ticking order of a different Office.

It wasn't until I called her by her real name that she relented.

It was Friday, the day we took in laundry from our sister house in town. I had been running sheets through the clothes press for hours when the unit jammed. This wasn't uncommon. The thing was antiquated and badly in need of servicing. When I bent over it to try and dislodge a thick wad of twisted fabric, the rollers lurched forward and the sleeve of my tunic got caught. I couldn't pull it out and I couldn't reach the stop switch. I pulled back with all my might, but I was being dragged by my habit into the machine.

“Help. Help me,” I cried. “Felice—you have to help me.”

She was at my side in a flash. Without a second thought, she yanked the power cord from the wall and the unit rolled to a stop. My arm was only centimeters from being crushed.

“My god. My god.” She was practically crying. “What happened?”

“It jammed,” I explained. “I got caught trying to fix it.”

She was staring down at the sleeve of my tunic. “We have to get you out of this.”

“I know. Should we cut it?”

“No.” Her voice was full of trepidation. “We can't ruin your habit. Sister Agnes would be furious about the waste.” She met my eyes. “You have to take it off.”

My heart began to race. “Take it off? How?” I waved my free arm. “I can't.”

“I'll help you.”

I didn't reply because I couldn't trust myself to speak. So I nodded.

When she unpinned my veil, I noticed that her hands were shaking. Then she moved behind me to reach the buttons on the back of my tunic.

“Lean forward.” Her voice was low and husky. I felt warm, moist air move over my back as she separated the folds of the rough serge fabric. Her hands slid beneath the tunic and pushed it away from my shoulders.

“I need you to turn toward me so I can free your arm.”

I was sweating. I could feel water dripping down my forehead from beneath my short hair. Moisture was running along my arms and pooling between my breasts. And those weren't the only places I was getting wet. All of my guilty fantasies about her were roaring to life. I closed my eyes tight to shut out the memories of all the things I'd imagined doing to her. With her. I was afraid she could sense it. I was terrified she would know what I was thinking and would recoil from me. That she would rebuke me and leave me there, half undressed, unmasked in my shame for Sister Agnes to find.

But she didn't.

When I turned to face her, she pulled my tunic away. I was wearing only my thin, white chemise and I should have been embarrassed to be so revealed before her, but I wasn't. I allowed myself to meet her gaze.

“You called me Felice,” she said.

I nodded.

She took a step closer. I could see moisture gleaming on her nose and along her upper lip. “How did you know my name?”

“Because I know you.”

“How can you know me? I don't even know me.”

I wanted to move closer to her but I couldn't. I was still a prisoner of the machine. I was a one-armed creature, trapped in a web of my own making.

I raised my free hand and laid it against her chest. I could feel her heart beating beneath my palm.

“I know you.” I said again. This time, the words were liquid, like the soft, sloshing sounds of water against the granite sides of the ancient washtub. “I know you.”

She closed her eyes. Then she took hold of my hand and moved it down to cover her breast.

“Free me.” I implored her. “Free us both.”

I'd never been with a woman. I'd never been with anyone. But when she touched me, I knew that this was the absolution I'd always sought. She released me from the tangled confines of my habit, and allowed me to do the same for her. I unwrapped her slowly, like the great, mysterious gift she was. We didn't speak. Not with words. We didn't have to. Within the starched, white confines of our fabric prison, we discovered an explosive new world filled with sensation and color.

Somewhere along a twisted path of my subconscious, I understood that this loss of innocence came with a price. That my life as part of this enclosed community would never continue as it had been. But as we lay together atop our bed of broken vows, I didn't care.

When finally we disentangled ourselves, I dislodged my habit from the machine. We dressed in silence. I could sense the change in Felice. She was somber. Her eyes were dark. Lifeless. She wouldn't meet my gaze. When I reached out to help her with her veil, she shrank from my touch. I tried to conceal my hurt. My panic.

“It's all right,” I said.

“No,” she replied. “It isn't. It won't ever be.”

She strode to the door to leave. I stood in stunned
silence and watched her go, surrounded by all the toppled columns of wash that had borne silent witness to our loving misdeeds. But when Felice turned the knob, the door wouldn't budge. She shook the knob and pulled at it. Her attempts grew more frantic with each failed attempt.

“It won't open!”

I hurried over to try and help her. Surely the door was just stuck? It, like everything else at the abbey, was ancient. Slow. Uncooperative.

I tried to turn the knob several times. It was hopeless.

“It's locked.” I met her eyes. “From the outside.”

Felice backed away and wilted to the floor. “It's her. She
knows
. She
saw
us.”

She meant Sister Agnes.

“You don't know that.” I tried to reassure her, but it was pointless. In my heart, I knew she was right. Sister Agnes was the sacristan of our order. She, alone, held all the keys.

Have many friends
, they said.

Many. Not one.

We heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door swung open.

Sister Agnes filled up the opening like the agent of an angry god. She would not look at either of us. She turned sideways and pointed a long, thin finger up the rocky hill toward the main house.

“The Abbess is waiting for you both. Go. Now.”

I followed Felice on that last, fateful climb. She never looked back at me. I watched her small, straight back disappear behind the large, paneled door that led to the Abbess's office. I was instructed to wait outside. I never saw Felice emerge. I never saw Felice again. Ever.

I had already made my decision. I knew my life in the church was over. Many were called. I would not be among the chosen. I had made certain of that.

I had no idea what Felice would decide. Or what the Abbess would decide for her.

The next morning, I packed my small, cardboard suitcase and walked the three and a half miles into town. I couldn't go home. I had no home to go to. I had only a heart full of pain, and the soft, sweet, tender memory of a timorous and ill-fated first love that would never fade.