Follow the Dotted Line (13 page)

“No. I don’t know. But I’d love to be enlightened. You baptize dead people?” she prompted.

“Well, my church—my former church—likes to baptize non-Mormons after they die in hopes they will choose to be Mormon in the next life.”

Andy had no idea what he was talking about and wondered why the subject had not been fully covered in the Broadway musical.

“It’s kind of a postmortem proselytizing scheme. If you can’t get them in this life, try to get them in the next.”

“You’re serious?”

“Very. It’s called a proxy baptism. A living Mormon, in this case—me, is fully immersed in a baptismal font as a stand-in for the dead person.”

She stared at him in amazement.

“I know. It would be funny if it weren’t so, well,
not funny
,” he continued. “Especially when you consider who we’ve been trying to convert in the afterlife.”

There was an unrelated explosion of laughter from the other end of the room. They both looked to see Joey flying a toy helicopter around the chip bowl with a remote control. Andy leaned in closer to Mike; he had her undivided attention now.

“Who were you trying to convert?” she asked.

Mike leaned closer, as well, as if he had no desire to broadcast the conversation. “Jews from the holocaust,” he said.

“I’m sorry. Did you say . . .”

“I said, we used the names of people who died in concentration camps. As far as I know, the Church probably still uses those names.”

He saw her look of disbelief and pushed forward. “I know it sounds surreal, but it made complete sense to me at the time. In fact, I felt good about it. Exalted. I was barely twenty and imagined myself gathering in all these souls for the Lord. I convinced myself that I had ‘saved’ eight people from the fires of hell.”

Andy strained to wrap her mind around the theology here; somebody somewhere deserved an Oscar for Best Adaptation of a Sacrament.

“So what happened?” she asked. “Why did you change your mind about the baptisms?”

“Well, one day I woke up and realized that all these people we were trying to save had already been through the fires of hell. And it was all because they were Jews. What we were doing, the whole point of our proxy baptisms, was to take their Jewishness away from them all over again.” He stumbled for an instant, and she could tell he was choking a little on the words as he tried to get them out. “I couldn’t believe how arrogant we were. How arrogant I’d been.”

The pain was seeping from his eyes. She searched for something comforting to say.

“I don’t believe the Mormon Church has a corner on arrogance, Mike.”

“No. But I felt this enormous sense of . . . shame. You know?”

She nodded, thinking what an oddly courageous moment she was witnessing, particularly for a cocktail party.

“And after that I quit,” he said. “And I’ve never returned.”

He sank back into the sofa, not looking all that satisfied with what he’d said. She waited to see if there was more, and—when there wasn’t—all she could think to say was, “Would you like another beer?”

But he apparently didn’t want her to give him a way out. Instead, he forced himself to get to the point. “What I wanted to tell you,” Mike finally said, “was that I actually remember the names of all eight of the holocaust victims I was the—the, ah, proxy for.”

“Oh,” Andy said.

“I find them very hard to forget. One of them was a man who died at a camp near Bessarabia on the Black Sea in the Ukraine. Do you know Bessarabia?”

“I do,” said Andy. A little chill inched up her spine. “My family is from there.”

“His name was Emanuel Bader.”

“Bader,” she repeated.

“Lil once told me that’s your mother’s maiden name.”

The tingling sensation now seized her entire body, but she wasn’t exactly sure why. Was it the serendipity of the young man’s story colliding with her own or the fact that she might have a history she hadn’t imagined?

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “Bader. I use it as my middle name. They sailed from Odessa. But no one ever said—I mean, I don’t think we were Jewish.”

“Maybe not,” he agreed. “But lots of people don’t think they were Jewish.” He finished his thought with one of those impish grins that said, ‘because lots of people don’t want to admit we’re all drinking from the same gene pool.’

Andy returned the grin. It was true. Most people in the U.S. knew almost nothing about their family history and might be upset by it if they did. Because a great many families intentionally cut their histories short the minute they boarded the boat for the New World. Coming to America had always been an opportunity to discard any baggage weighing you down, Andy had to admit, like a criminal record or a bad marriage or a god who upsets your neighbors.

“Anyway, I just thought it was interesting,” he said.

“It is,” she said. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“And, of course, there’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” he teased. “She’s pretty Jewish. Maybe you’re related to her.”

Andy pondered the possibility of adding a Supreme Court Justice to her unadorned family tree. Not bad. And talk about a woman who knows how to stay relevant.

“I could find out more information, if you’d like me to,” Mike offered. “You know how we Mormons are about genealogy. Do you know much about your family history?”

“Not really. But I know someone who does. At least she knows as much as anybody.”

“Lil’s sister, Samantha, right? The historian who lives in Scotland?”

“I’ll give you her email. Thank you, Mike. For . . . you know . . . bringing all this to my attention.”

He sank back into the sofa again. This time his anxiety had completely dissipated. “I’ll take that beer now,” he said.

Andy fetched them each a drink and returned to sit down next to him.

“I’m glad you took this so well, Andy.”

“Were you really that worried?”

“You never know.”

He was such a nice human being. Guileless in a way she, or any of the children she raised, could never be. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t help herself. “Yeah, well, I’m always a sucker for a good joke.”

He was about to sip his beer but stopped. He looked genuinely flustered. “A joke?”

She put a reassuring hand on his knee. “It’s unavoidable, Mike, given the situation.”

This seemed to confuse him even more. His pale skin reddened. “What situation?” he asked, alarmed.

“You know, the one where a Mormon walks into a cocktail party and turns some unsuspecting gentile into a Jew.”

She watched him for a long moment, wondering if he were so earnest he might actually miss the funny part. Then a slow, rich smile dawned, and he raised his glass in salute.

God, she sighed in disgust, I really am shameless.

Cheeky Bastard

She returned to her southern California townhouse late Sunday evening, after nearly a week with the wild ones, carrying an emotionally mixed bag. There was something exhilarating about the unfettered energy of the boys. Kids made it easy to feel needed. And even easier to feel loved. But it was also exhausting. And mind-numbing. Especially for someone like Andy, who lived so much of her existence inside her head.

Most people have a narrative voice that accompanies them throughout their day. Andy had a chorus of them: cheering her on, pointing out her faults, offering up competing opinions on everything from how much she ate to how little she mattered. They were interesting voices, to be sure, sometimes illuminating and, just as often, partly cloudy. With age she had learned to control them, or maybe her maturing hormones had simply toned them down. Whatever the reason, she had made a satisfying peace with them and, in the quiet of her condo, enjoyed living with them in a way she never did in her youth. The boys had the power to drown them out, and now she couldn’t wait to catch up on what they had to say.

Andy pulled into the garage, parked the car, and opened the door to a warm pool of midafternoon sun spreading across the kitchen floor. The southern exposure of her two-story plate glass windows made the entire downstairs feel like a gigantic, welcoming bath. She was imagining a wine spritzer in the wicker chair on the patio, when she stopped mid-step. Something was polluting the moment. She froze and surveyed a landfill of unwanted debris. Open beer bottles on the counter, smelling of sour yeast. Bags of chips stuffed into the trash, filling the air with
eau de
Dorrito. Encrusted bowls of salsa on the table. Pizza boxes carpeting the floors. Melted chocolate, shriveled olives, globs of gum, dried and discarded pots of cheese fondue. And hovering over it all, a pungent cloud of sweetness that was unmistakable to anyone raised in the ‘60s.

As she stood staring at the aftermath of a truly epic party, she knew she should feel violated. She did. But more than that, she was wickedly curious. Could this possibly be Harley’s doing? She had seen his Jekyll. Was she now witnessing the consequences of his Hyde?

“Harley!” she called out. Only an eerie silence answered.

Bravely, she ran the gauntlet of garbage, including what appeared to be abandoned paper plates of food, all the way through the living room and up the stairs. She stood at the closed door to Harley’s room, put her ear to the wood, and listened for the sound of breathing.

“Harley?” she whispered. No answer. She opened the door.

Her catatonic nephew lay on his bed, looking like a teddy bear with rigor mortis.

She moved closer and tried again, “Harley?”

He opened his languid eyes and turned them slowly upward. She had never seen such wonderfully pathetic pupils.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Andy,” he blubbered.

“That’s a start,” she said, evenly.

“You saw the kitchen?”

“And the living room and the family room—”

“I have been betrayed,” he said, cutting her off.

To be fair, Andy had been relishing his explanation; it only seemed fair that he should come up with a killer. ‘I have been betrayed’ was not really what she’d been hoping for.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The prayer meeting.”

He made a feeble attempt to sit up but evidently couldn’t hold the position under the weight of all he had suffered.

“I’m going to need more than that,” she said, plopping down next to him. “You better tell me what’s going on.”

“I put up some flyers on campus. I called it A Midsummer Night’s Liaison with the Lord.”

“Catchy.”

“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

“Just go on, Harley.”

“Well, the flyer was supposed to be sort of an open invitation for Friday night. I posted the address and said I would take donations at the door.”

“Donations?”

“You know, to share the burden. Of the refreshments. It’s what people in a community of believers do.”

“Yes, I noticed that many of those donations are currently ground into my carpet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go on, please.”

“Okay,” he said, getting up on one elbow to indicate how hard he was focusing on the task at hand. “So a lot of people showed up. I mean, a lot. Kids I didn’t really know. I think they thought it was a party or something.”

“Friday night. Hard to imagine. Tell me how many.”

“I think maybe a 100 people showed up.”

“A
hundred people?!
”

“I said, I was sorry!” he bellowed defensively. A lagoon of liquid began to fill his eyes.

“Okay. Okay. Just go on.”

He swallowed back the tremble in his voice. “They kept coming in the door. I couldn’t stop them. They brought liquor, you know. Bottles of it. And other things—”

“Other things?”

“Marijuana. I think.”

“You
think
?”

He covered his head with his hands. “I didn’t inhale any of the smoke. I swear.”

From peons to presidents, Andy thought, it’s still the defense of choice. “Whatever,” she said, shaking her head. “Sit up, Harley.”

He obeyed to the best of his ability.

“Now tell me what happened next.”

He shrugged his droopy shoulders and looked away. “You know what happened next.”

“Oddly, I don’t, Harley. And you damn well better tell me.”

“I called the police.”

“You what?” she barked, grabbing his face and forcing him to look at her.

“I dialed 9-1-1.” He was flushed, confused by her sudden attack. “I figured if I didn’t, one of the neighbors was going to,” he explained.

“The police were at my house?” she seethed. “The Valencia police?”

“Actually, the city doesn’t have its own force,” he rattled on. “They use the County Sheriff’s Department for domestic calls.”

“Really? I had no idea,” she mocked. “Probably because I have never had a patrol car at my condo before!”

Harley struggled to understand what he had done wrong. “But the police were great, Aunt Andy. Really great,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Police are never great,” she pronounced.

“But these guys were,” he countered. “I explained about the prayer meeting. I mean, about the poster on campus and the open invitation. And they understood. Everything.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Yes, they did! They really did. I told them how it got out of hand. And they understood me. In fact, they
thanked
me. And then they came in and helped me clear all the people out.”

Andy’s worry lines and crow’s feet swelled with indignation. “You let the police into my house?!” she yelled. “Did you learn nothing from watching all those crime dramas on television? You let the police in my house?!”

Harley held up his hands to deflect her onslaught. “But they didn’t arrest me. In fact, they didn’t arrest anybody. I swear! They just sent everybody home.”

“And that was that?” she demanded. When Harley didn’t answer, she instinctively waited for the other shoe to drop kick her in the ass.

“Har-ley?”

Something new had come over him. His lips were trembling.

“What else did the police do?”

“Nothing.”

“Harley!”

“It’s not the police, Aunt Andy. It’s not the police.”

“Well, then, what is it?”

“I told you,” he said, as his entire body began to shake, “I’ve been betrayed.”