Bodies and Souls (39 page)

“Oh, Norma,” one woman said, and bent to embrace her. “I’m so sorry.”

But Norma pulled back. “Don’t cry yet,” she said. “Don’t be so sorry just yet. He’s alive. Is Bertha here yet? Did she bring my knitting?”

Peter drove home, thinking of Wilbur and what a loss it would be to everyone if he died. Wilbur provided a strong, solid streak of color in the pattern of Londonton’s people, and if he died, that particular part of the daily design of their lives would fade, would cause a rough and obvious absence. But maybe he would not die. Norma was a tough old soul, and he admired her for her staunch refusal to grieve a moment too soon. Peter had spent many hours in similar situations, trying to comfort a person whose loved one lay ill. He had thought, as a young minister, that it would get easier as he grew older and more experienced, that he would learn the right things to say and do. Well, he hoped he had improved, was less clumsy, more sensitive, more articulate. He was by now fairly good at comforting. But it never got any easier for him in the privacy of his own heart and soul. Remembrances of former griefs did not lessen the pain of new ones. Fear and pain were always the same: intolerable. And beside the hulking shadow of death, everything else paled.

So the cold metal of the gutter and the obdurate wood of his house were as satisfying to Peter’s touch as light and a cold hard floor to a man who has awakened from a nightmare. Peter climbed down the ladder and moved it along the house, then ascended once more, tossed down more crackling catalpa leaves.

“Dad,” Will called up after a while, finally bored with his passive job, “you know I’ve got a soccer game at three-thirty.”

“It’s not even three yet,” Peter called down. “You’ve got plenty of time.” Then, relenting: “Actually, Will, if you’ve got other things you want to do, go ahead. I’m just about done with this gutter, and I think the ladder’s okay by itself. I’ll get your mother to help me carry it back if you’re not around.”

“Great!” Will whooped, and raced off to the garage. He came out a second later, pedaling his ten-speed bike. “I’ll be at Sam’s for a while!” he yelled, and sped off around the corner.

“Be careful! Slow down! Watch where you’re going!” Peter called; it was an old habit, hard to break. If Will didn’t know how to handle himself on a bike by now, he never would. Still, Peter felt that old anxiety begin to throb in his breast, a pulse by now as natural and familiar as that which carried his blood, a pulse which began the minute the children left the house on their own and didn’t stop until they were all safe in bed, tucked in, asleep. Why couldn’t children stay home? Why had anyone been crazy enough to invent cars? Why couldn’t everyone just
walk
?

“Peter? Reynolds Houston wants you on the phone,” Patricia said, walking around the corner of the house just in time to be showered with a fall of crumbled leaves.

“Sorry,” Peter called. “I didn’t see you coming. Tell him I’ll call him back. I just want to finish this gutter.”

Patricia shook her head, trying to shake the leaves from her hair. She was wearing jeans and a bright red sweater. He loved her for that red sweater, that bright announcement of life.

“Well, he sounded worried. He said it was important.”

“Oh, great,” Peter grumbled, and began to climb down the ladder.

“I’ll finish for you,” Patricia offered. “I don’t mind.”

Peter jumped off the ladder and landed right in front of Patricia as she touched the wooden sides.

“Look,
don’t
,” he said. “Okay? Don’t climb this damned ladder today, okay? I’ll finish it after I talk to Reynolds. Just go on in the house and cook or something. I’ve got my hands full without your falling off a ladder.”

Patricia gave Peter her old squinty-eyed summing-up look. “You grouch,” she said. “You haven’t had lunch. You got out on this ladder right after going to the hospital. I’ll fix you a sandwich. Come in the kitchen and eat before you come back out. Do it for me; I hate it when you’re grumpy.”

“I don’t feel very hungry right now,” Peter said, and it was true. Every time someone in his congregation died, Peter lost his appetite, but although he fought a weight problem every day of his life, he never did appreciate this way of shedding pounds.

“Peter,” Patricia said.

“All right.” Peter smiled. He put his arm around her and pulled her to him. “I like your red sweater,” he told her. “You cheer me up.” They walked into the house together and Peter went to the phone, to talk with Reynolds Houston, whom he had missed talking
with after church because of the confusion during Wilbur’s heart attack.

Mandy and Michael were down by the river.

They had been there for almost two hours. After Wilbur Wilson’s heart attack and the ensuing commotion, Mandy had pushed her way through the crowd and out the high front doors of the church, meaning to chase after Liza Howard to return to her the leather gloves she had dropped and forgotten. But there was something about the sight of Liza’s statuesque figure, wrapped and protected by her thick mink coat and John Bennett’s embracing arm, which made Mandy walk less quickly after her, then stop altogether. How beautiful they were together, those two tall blond figures, and when they stopped by the long black Cadillac, they looked too good to be true, like an advertisement for champagne—or Cadillacs. Mandy bit her lip, pondering. She could envision herself, gawkily running down the walk, waving the gloves, intruding on the gorgeous intimacy of those two shining people—she couldn’t do it. She’d give the gloves to the church secretary. Mrs. Howard could stop by the church and pick them up herself when she remembered them. John Bennett got into the Cadillac and the car pulled off; Mandy went back into the church.

She stood for a few minutes just inside, taking in the scene, searching the crowd to see if Michael was there. She couldn’t find him; had he somehow already left? She panicked to think she might have missed him, and panicked again to realize how much it meant to her to see him. She moved then, heading for the door to the basement and Friendship Hall.

“Oh, hi, darling, here you are,” Leigh Findly said, coming out of the door just as Mandy was about to enter. “I’ve been looking for you. Are you all right? You look pale.”

“Oh, listen, Mom, I found these gloves Mrs. Howard dropped. I ran after her to give them to her, but she’d already left. I’ve got to give them to the church secretary.”

“I think she’s downstairs. Reverend Taylor’s going right on over to the hospital now, and so are a few others. There’s not going to be a regular coffee hour today, now, of course. Why don’t you go on down and give the gloves to Mrs. Allen, and I’ll wait for you here. It’s terrible to admit, after poor Mr. Wilson and all, but I’m starving for lunch. It’s such a treat to have you home, I thought I’d take you to the Long House for lunch.”

“Oh, Mom. That’s so sweet of you—but, well—Mom, there’s someone I’ve got to see. I mean there’s someone I’ve got to find and talk to. I mean, well, could we have
dinner
at the Long House? I was thinking maybe you could just go on home and I’ll walk home—pretty soon.”

Mandy looked at her mother, loving her for her love, and at the same time wishing she would disappear right now into thin air so that she could get on with her search for Michael.

Leigh looked at her daughter. “The color’s returning to your face,” she said, and smiled. “All right, dear,” she said. “I’ll go on home. Of course we can go to the Long House later. And we’ve got food at home if we want to be lazy. Call me if you want a ride. It’s colder out than you’d think.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek and left.

Mandy scouted through the basement, but found no sign of Michael. She did manage to get the gloves to Mrs. Allen, who was
so
glad to see Mandy again, and who wanted to know
all about
how she was liking college, and how did she like her courses, and did she feel homesick. Mandy wanted to scream, “I’ve got to go!” Instead she answered the older woman’s questions politely, and when she finally escaped, she was nearly in tears. The church was almost empty of people upstairs and down. There was no sign of Michael.

“Goddammit,” Mandy said under her breath. She wondered if she would have the courage to call Michael at his home. She went out the front doors, nearly ill with disappointment.

And there was Michael leaning against one of the high white columns, waiting for her.

“Hi,” he said. “I was looking for you.”

“I was looking for
you
,” she said, and she just stopped dead in her tracks, smiling, weak with relief at the sight of him. One last departing couple came out of the church just then and accidentally hit her in the back as they opened the door on her dumbfounded figure.

“Oh, excuse me,” Mandy said, and came alive again, moving a few steps toward Michael, gingerly, as if there were something between them that might break.

“Want to go for a walk?” he asked—and then something did break: the tension between them, the invisible wall of their mutual apprehension.

“Oh, yes,” Mandy said.

“Let’s go down by the river, then,” Michael said.

They walked side by side, not holding hands or touching.

“I didn’t know you were going to be home this weekend,” Michael said. “You should have let me know.”

“Well, I didn’t know myself that I was coming home until Friday afternoon,” Mandy said. “I just had to get away for a while.”

“So what did you do all day yesterday?”

“Just hung around with Mom. Talked and stuff.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“Well, I—I didn’t know if I
should
call. I mean, when I left for school, we agreed to keep in touch, but I didn’t know if you’d want me to call.”

“I want you to call,” Michael said. “That’s about all I do want.”

Mandy went light-headed, breathless with pleasure.

They walked in silence then until they came to the bridge where they had met that first time, and all the other times in the summer. The grass around it was now brown and brittle, but still high, and it made a rustling noise as they half walked, half slid down the embankment. Mandy’s coat caught on a high, prickly brown weed, and she stopped to tug her coat away, then turned back and, slipping on a muddy spot, she skated down the final few feet to the bottom of the hill, where Michael caught her in his arms.

She grinned up at him. “These are not the best shoes for this kind of walking.”

“It’s fine with me,” he said, and smiled back down at her, and they stood there, holding each other, looking at each other, inhaling the other’s presence like a long-desired, exotic drug.

And here they were again, next to the river, which ran bright and rapid over the pebbled bed. They were away from the town now. They were in
their
place. Michael kissed Mandy, and kept kissing her until a car passed over the bridge above them and a kid yelled out the window: “Whoowhee!”

“Come on,” Michael said. He hugged Mandy to his side, and she hugged him back as they walked along the rocks and sand of the river’s edge toward the countryside.

“I found out something,” Michael said. “I found out that I’m not happy when you’re not around. I’ve been miserable since you left.”

“Oh,” Mandy said. “Oh, Michael. That’s wonderful.”

“Thanks a lot.”

They smiled. “I haven’t been exactly happy myself,” Mandy said, and her heart raced.

It was difficult walking along the river’s edge. The sand was mucky and wet and Mandy’s shoes kept getting sucked down. The sky was still overcast, and a chilly wind swept by, but did not sweep any of the thick puffy clouds away. The world around them was cold and muted, as if all the heat, light, and grace in the world had been concentrated somehow into their bodies. Finally they came to a bend in the river where an arrangement of sloping bank and boulders made a kind of shelter, and they slipped inside the little roofless cave and settled themselves on the sand.

“Will you ruin your coat?” Michael asked.

“Oh, Michael, I don’t care about my coat,” Mandy said, and reached her arms up to him, and pulled him to her.

They kissed again, with the confident delight of children on Easter morning: searching, finding, searching, finding, here and here and here, treasures, surprises, sweet candy, joy, more and more and more of it. Mandy nudged her head into the navy wool blazer covering Michael’s chest and hugged Michael and felt her body hum with pleasure as he ran his hands over her, rediscovering all its swells and hollows.

They could not touch each other enough. They could not hold each other close enough. The wind blew above them, making the limbs of trees click and sway, sending occasional flame-colored leaves swirling down onto Michael’s hair, Mandy’s legs. The river poured by, silver, hurried, and now and then the wind caught in the rocks and buffeted and called out softly. There was no way they could make love, not in this cramped space on the cold sand, but there was an erotic novelty even in the impediments of sand, coats, sweaters, hose, wind, and cold.

“Oh,
God
,” Mandy cried out all of a sudden, without thinking, “Michael, I love you!”

Michael raised his head and looked at Mandy. They were both shocked by her words.

“Mandy,” Michael said, “I love you, too.”

Then they were embarrassed, and sat up, straightening their clothes. For a few moments they were very busy not looking at each other, as if they were both guilty of some inexcusable blunder. Mandy recovered first, and looking at Michael’s face, which was turned away from her so that she could see it only in profile, she saw, or thought she saw if her perceptions were right, signs of real conflict. He looked so troubled.

“Michael,” she said, gently putting her hand on his arm, “it’s all right. We can
love each other. That doesn’t mean we have to
do
anything about it.”

“But I want to do something about it,” Michael said, and he turned and looked at Mandy with such love that that moment, that expression, was one she would remember all of her life.

They leaned back together against the rocks then, and looked out at the rushing river, and talked about the things that they could do about their love. There were so many possibilities. They could do nothing, or they could start writing to each other, and seeing each other on weekends, or they could get married.