Mourning Becomes Cassandra (19 page)

Needing to do something aggressive, I started ripping up the head of romaine. “That lawyer should be disbarred!” I finally exclaimed. “How can you be a divorce lawyer and hit on your clients? It’s conflict of interest! It’s—”

“Betsy said she’ll switch lawyers,” Perry said soothingly.

“Betsy!” I raged, tearing the heart of Romaine off the base, “Changing lawyers is the least she can do—don’t get me started on Betsy—what’s wrong with you, Perry? Why are you so calm about this?”

“I’ve had a couple more months than you to get used to the idea,” he explained. He had moved on to slice the carrots in a flawlessly uniform julienne. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m mad too, but I’ve been suspecting this was it since September. I just didn’t want to drop the bomb when you were down last month for Mom’s birthday.”

“Oh, Perry, I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly.

“Yeah. I mean, I know it wasn’t easy to be married to me. Though you’d have thought that meeting me in Cabo like she did, Betsy would’ve had a little more patience with a freewheeling kind of life, but she says she wants kids now and that I can’t seem to grow up myself.”

Nothing I hadn’t occasionally thought myself about Perry, so I had to bite my tongue again and just murmur sympathetically. Shouldn’t he, at 31, be getting a little sick of the self-important theater scene and of sharing apartments and medicine cabinets and refrigerator space with strangers he found on the internet?

“What do you think, Cass? Am I as hopeless as she says?” He paused in all his slicing and dicing to study my response. Having always been a wretched liar, I managed not to squirm, but a telltale blush rose in my cheeks. “You do!” Perry accused. “You think I’m hopeless! You would have divorced me, too.”

To mollify him and hide my own face, I threw my arms around him and hugged him from the back. “No, Perry! I mean, I wouldn’t have married you in the first place because you know how rigidly I had my life planned out. But Betsy married you with her eyes open.” I rested my forehead against his shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Perry.”

He turned and swallowed me up in one of his giant hugs, and I was appalled to see he had teared up—it reminded me of how he had looked after we lost Min. We were quiet for a long time, and then he gave me another little squeeze and released me. “It’s been a bad year for McKean marriages, I guess.”

I blew my nose. “You can say that again, even though I’m a Ewan. Did you tell Mom and Dad? Looks like it’s your turn to dominate the Please Pray For section of their church bulletin.”

“Why do you think I’m hiding out in Portland?”

To my surprise, Daniel was the first one home that evening. When he strolled into the kitchen he stopped short and glanced sharply at Perry, who was expertly plating the fricasseed chicken and showing me how to garnish it with fennel fronds, but his expression relaxed when Perry chided, “No, idiot, don’t put all the green in the same place on the dish.”

“Perry,” I said quickly, “This is my housemate Daniel Martin. Daniel, this is my brother Perry who’s up visiting for a night.” They nodded at each other, and I added, “Perry cooked the dinner tonight, and you’re just in time—in fact, you’re early. What are you doing home so early?”

He grinned at me. “Remember Josh, the one on family leave? He’s back. Looks like he didn’t sleep the whole time he was off, but he’s back.” Helping himself to a beer, he offered Perry one. “So how did Cass get the fancy Greek name, and you got named Perry?”

I snorted. “He actually got the fancier Greek name because Perry is short for Pericles.”

Smirking at each other, Perry and I added in unison, “Of Athens, not of Tyre.”

“Perry always used to say that to people when he was introduced,” I explained, “until I finally told him that probably only ten people in America had heard of either Pericles, and two of the ten were our parents.”

That evening was our first household dinner all together and almost alone since who knew when. Since I knew Perry was only staying one night and that Daniel didn’t mind, I could relax and enjoy having him around, and I’m sure Perry appreciated talking about something other than his impending divorce. Daniel also seemed glad of a male buffer, and he was the least tense he’d been around Phyl since the early days. We talked culinary school and Portland, since Daniel and Joanie had grown up there, Perry’s screenwriting efforts, and, of course, what was going on with
Waiters: the Musical
.

“That was so delicious,” Phyl said, at last, laying her silverware across her plate. “And beautifully presented, like in a restaurant.”

“Yeah, and not the restaurants Jason took you to,” cracked Joanie, pouring us each a last sip of pinot grigio to empty the bottle.

“Or Wayne, for that matter,” added Phyl regretfully. “Give Wayne one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, and he’s a happy man.”

Joanie looked skeptical. “You’ve gotta be kidding me—isn’t he a little young to like all-you-can-eat buffets, or is it his mom who’s hooked on the canned peas and mac-and-cheese?”

“Ooh! Ooh!” I broke in. “‘Canned peas and mac-and-cheese’—I feel lyrics coming on! Perry, does
Waiters: the Musical
have any songs about ‘Wayne at the all-you-can-eat bu-u-u-u-u-ffe-e-e-e-e-et?”

Perry punched me in the arm, but Joanie instantly began dinging her glass rhythmically with her knife: “Those tater tots really hit the spot/ jell-o mold, worth its weight in gold/ frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn/ just slice me up some honey-baked ham—”

“And there’d be a chorus line of 250-pound retirees crossing the stage—”

“Banging their canes and walkers, like a production of
Stomp—
”

“And the end of the song could be a spotlight on one guy in plaid golf pants singing, ‘Waiter, can I have the check, ple-e-e-e-e-e-ease?’” I finished. Joanie and I collapsed, cackling, and Phyl was trying not to laugh, to spare Perry’s feelings.

Perry, however, after aiming another smack at the back of my head, only laughed and said, “Yeah, so
Waiters
isn’t going to win any Tony Awards, but it’s not as bad as you two think.”

“You’re right, Perry, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as we think,” I agreed readily, sending Joanie and me into more gales of laughter.

He rolled his eyes at Daniel. “How can you stand to live with them? Cass has been cutting me down to size since she was six.”

“No surprise there,” said Daniel, smiling. “I’ve only known her a few months, and I can’t count how many times she’s given me the rough side of her tongue.” Though his tone was light, he gave me his usual wicked look, in case I might miss his
double entendre
, and I resisted the urge to stick that tongue out at him. Chuckling, he went on easily, “And we gave up on Joanie early on. Joanie will say what Joanie will say, or sing, as the case may be.”

Joanie made an apologetic face at Perry. “I somewhat apologize. I don’t really know you well enough to mock you, and I was presuming on Cass’s relationship with you.”

Perry nodded graciously, and Phyl piped up in her soothing voice, “And of course we would love to come down to Portland and see your show when it opens.”

“If you give us free tickets,” I put in.

“And reimburse our mileage,” added Joanie.

There was a general chorus of screams as Perry reached his limit of endurance and tackled me, knocking Phyl off the end of the bench. I kicked at him, but I was laughing too hard to fight effectively and had to cry “uncle” when he had me on lying on my side while he sat on top of me. “Remember this technique, Martin,” he advised Daniel. “If Cass ever gets too much for you, a little manhandling puts her in her place.”

Daniel’s amused grin widened when he heard my resentful huff. “I’ll make a note of it.”

There was a text in my email inbox Tuesday morning. Nadina had given up on texting to my phone, since it was dead half the time. With the practice I’d gotten from her cryptic messages and Riley’s emails, and some additional help from online glossaries, I came up with this respectable translation:

Since our fight and electronic reconciliation, things between us had been both better and worse. Better because we hadn’t had any other arguments, but worse because we had avoided any controversial subjects, meaning most of Nadina’s life. While I wasn’t sure what to do about it, I knew I didn’t want to force intimacy and trust on her.

Nadina’s friend Sonya had indeed decided to go away to rehab, but I knew no further details—not what it was, where it was, how long it lasted, anything. Throwing some butter on the counter to soften, I hoped that Nadina wanting to work on a care package together indicated she was ready to talk about it.

The doorbell didn’t ring until 3:30, and Nadina burst in without waiting for me to get it. “Cass, hey.”

“What happened to you? Did you get lost?”

“You’d be proud of me because I cornered Bateman after school and actually asked him for math help!” Nadina exclaimed, throwing her damp rain jacket on one of the cushioned benches and tossing me a bag of chocolate chips.

“Since you’re late, I assume Kyle said yes?” I asked.

“Yeah. You know what? He’s okay. I mean, he’s a smart-ass and doesn’t try very hard to talk to people, so they all think he’s full of himself, but he’s actually okay. I’ve been telling other people he’s cool.”

I stopped my clanging around with the stand mixer to go over and squeeze her arm. “Oh, Nadina, that’s great. Thank you!” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, to let me know I was being embarrassing and corny, but I also knew she wouldn’t have told me except that she knew it would please me.

Talk about school got us through the mixing of the dough, and I waited until Nadina was dropping the heaping tablespoonfuls on the cookie sheet to broach the Sonya subject: “So how far away are we mailing these suckers?”

“Not far. The place is only in Bellingham.”

“How long will she be there?”

Nadina shrugged. “I dunno. Henneman says it depends on the student. Maybe another few weeks? But like, she couldn’t even bring her cell phone, and there’s no computers. You can only mail things.”

“You mean you two can’t spend eight hours a day texting each other like you usually do?”

“Nope,” said Nadina. “She gets a little regular phone time once a week, but she has to use most of it talking to her mom and dad. For me she had to send a postcard.”

Taking the cup of tea I offered her, Nadina perched on the counter to dry dishes as I washed. “Dude, she says there’s a workout room and a game room and stuff, but they have to meet with all these counselors, and she says sometimes they try to get all religious on them.”

I paused. “Is Sonya religious?”

“Her grandma’s Catholic, or something,” Nadina answered carelessly. “They do religious stuff at our school, too. It’s fine. I mean I believe in God and everything; I’m just not very religious.” She was drying the same bowl without really seeing it, round and round the rim. “You’re not very religious either, are you, Cass?”

“Why do you say that?” I asked with some trepidation, not really wanting to hear her answer.

“You never say things like, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and you never talk about church and Jesus and stuff. I know you go to church, but that’s it. Sonya said her mentor Louella was always going on about, like, God this and Jesus that, and praying for different things and asking if Sonya wanted prayer and crap like that. Awkward.”

Awkward indeed. I was beginning to worry that my tombstone might read:
Well, she was no Louella Murphy
. “Nadina,” I said after a moment, “I don’t talk about prayer much because I haven’t been praying much, honestly. I used to pray all the time, but since Troy and Min died I’ve kind of been keeping to myself. But I am religious, if by religious you mean I believe in God. Believe that God made me and…cares about me. You know, the only reason I know you is because I couldn’t help it one morning in church, and I was praying about what to do, and I felt like I was supposed to be a Camden School mentor.”

She stared at me like I had lapsed into another language. “Seriously?”

I described the nudge I’d felt and the entire string of events that had led to her being in my kitchen that afternoon. “I guess I don’t talk about God or religion with you because I’m in such a weird place spiritually. It would feel fake. It reminds me of the time in high school when my brother Perry was trying to sell his car. He put an ad in the paper because there was no Craig’s List then, but when his best friend offered to buy it, Perry didn’t know what to say. I mean, it was an okay car to sell to a stranger, but you would want the car to be perfect, if you were going to sell it to a friend.” Cripe, now I was comparing God Almighty to a used car.

Nadina thought about this. “So you still go to church and believe in all that Jesus-God stuff, and you still think he talked to you enough to make you a mentor, but you wouldn’t want to sell me God because he let Troy and Min die?”

I smiled wryly. “That about sums it up. The car runs, and you’ll get where you’re trying to get eventually, but there’s no guarantee it’s not going to break down on you and cost a lot of money to fix.” Taking some cookies from the cooling rack, we sat down on the barstools to eat them.

Nadina took a big swig of milk before asking, “Where are you trying to get to? Heaven?”

I chewed meditatively. “To be honest, I never thought much about heaven until Troy and Min died. It was always about wanting to know God here and now. If He made me, and He loved me, like they told me in church, and He sent his Son to come looking for me—”

“What do you mean ‘come looking for you’?” she interrupted. “Isn’t He God? Doesn’t He already know where you are?”