The Lesson (30 page)

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“It’s nothing I want to talk about over the phone,” said Gina. She paused. “And not in front of your roommates, either.”

“Are you pregnant?” Bonnie whispered into the phone, her voice pregnant with curiosity and alarm.

“No, I’m not pregnant!
Sheesh, Bonnie. Can we talk about this in person? Can you come over after church tomorrow? I’ll fix lunch for you and the kids.”

“Sure. Lunch tomorrow. See you right after service.”

Gina hung up the phone, irritated that she had to wait until tomorrow afternoon to hash things out with Bonnie. Almost as bad, they’d have to talk things over while dealing with endless interruptions from Benjamin and Sarah. Gina made up her mind to come up with some distraction for the kids so the girls could have at least thirty minutes to talk. Ah, balloons! Cheap and easy, a sure kid thrill. They didn’t require as much adult involvement as reading a picture book and they were smear proof. She’d buy some balloons somewhere on the way to church. She was ridiculously pleased at her clever idea.

Sunday morning arrived. Gina awoke with a feeling of doom. When the phone rang around seven-thirty, she ran to it out of habit but then just stood there, watching it
brrring, brrring
until it stopped. She had no way of knowing who was calling, but only one person ever phoned her on Sunday mornings. She would let him think she had left early for service.

On the way to Mountain View she detoured
at the Ben Franklin 5 and 10 near Homestead Road and Lawrence Expressway and bought a package of balloons. She looked at her watch as she got back into her Austin. If she dawdled a little more she’d be several minutes late to church, which is how she planned to bypass Kevin. Crossroads had only one Sunday service.

She arrived at the entrance of the gymnasium-sanctuary five minutes after worship service started. From the back of the cavernous room she saw
Kevin, standing near the front and facing forward toward the altar, singing gustily with the rest. Officially he was still a member of Los Gatos Christian, but she knew he’d be here this morning. She slipped into the back row. When worship was finished and Pastor asked everyone to sit down, she slouched down behind the man seated in front of her. Every once in a while she put her head up, like a gopher popping up from its hole to scan for hawks, to see what Kevin was doing. Once she saw him turn and look around. She knew he was looking for her. She slunk back down into her gopher hole. Being five foot eight had few drawbacks. Trying to hide in a crowd was one.

When Pastor dismissed service she was one of the first people to step into the foyer. She was making a beeline for the exit to the parking lot when someone grabbed her arm.

“Gina dear.”

Gina recognized the scratchy voice of Sister
Vredenberg, a revered elderly minister with snow white hair who had once hosted a radio gospel ministry. Gina was in a hurry to beat Kevin to the parking lot, but she couldn’t possibly be rude to dear Sister Vredenberg. The woman was a saint. She dressed like one too. Plain dark skirt well below the knee, shapeless white blouse, sensible shoes over thick, opaque stockings.

Gina didn’t ever want to preach that badly.

“Sister Vredenberg, how are you?” Gina forced herself to keep her eyes on Sister’s face instead of scanning the foyer for the interception that was on its way.

“Fine, fine dear. The Lord is good.”

“Yes.”

Gina couldn’t resist a quick dart right and left. No Kevin yet.

“I had a dream about you, Gina. Last night.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It was most interesting. I went to bed early—I don’t have the energy I did in my early days. We used to stay up all night, you know, tarrying, waiting on the Lord. Oh those prayer meetings were the most anointed. How the Holy Ghost would fall!”

“Yes, Sister
Vredenberg, I’m sure it was wonderful.” Gina hoped Sister wouldn’t start a prayer meeting right there in the foyer. Gina needed to get to her car.

“Sister
Vredenberg, you said you had a dream.”

“Oh yes. Well, I dreamed that I saw you, and you were reading a letter.”

“A letter?” What could be the significance of that?

“And as you were reading the letter, I saw something fly over your head, like this.” The old woman lifted her arm over her head and swung it in an arc. “It was a bouquet of flowers. Like a wedding bouquet.”

“Are you sure?” said Gina. Furtively she scanned the foyer for Kevin’s face.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then what happened?”

Gina was relieved, but only briefly, that Kevin still had not made it out of the sanctuary into the foyer. Worshippers were visiting and blocking the foyer instead of exiting in an orderly way, which made it slow for those who wanted to go straight to the parking lot. Normally this annoyed Gina, who was always in a hurry. Today she was glad for the delay. But she wouldn’t be safe until she reached her car.

“Then the dream ended.”

“I was reading a letter, this bouquet flew over my head, and then poof!
the dream ended?” asked Gina.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“No words, no messages, nothing?”

“No dear. Just this letter, and then this flying bouquet.”

Gina pondered a moment.

“I thought you’d like to know, dear.” Sister
Vredenberg patted her arm. “You pray about it now.”

“Yes, I’ll certainly do that Sister
Vredenberg. Thank you for sharing with me. I’m sorry to run off, but I have to be somewhere right now.”
Out in my car with the doors locked.

“Yes, yes dear.”

Gina gave the dear lady a peck on the cheek and a quick hug, said good-bye, and ran out the front exit to the parking lot. She didn’t feel comfortable running off so abruptly but her mind was preoccupied with things that made her even more uncomfortable than violating the dictates of good manners. Because she had arrived late, her car was parked far from the front door, close to Miramonte Avenue.

She got into her car as fast as she could, turned on the ignition, and raced toward the parking lot exit. Old ladies dreaming. Flying flowers. Her life was a psychedelic trip, but without the beads and free love. Was it a coincidence? Did it mean anything? She was afraid to contemplate.

Gina drove straight toward her apartment. Once there she busied herself making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Benjamin. She cut the sandwich into four triangles and arranged them, pinwheel style, on a small plate. For herself and Bonnie she heated some refried beans in a pot on the stove, and while they plopped, plopped, releasing little steam farts, she warmed flour tortillas directly on the gas flame. Pilar had told her once that it was the fastest way to heat tortillas if one didn’t have an iron griddle. Pilar was right. After Gina had assembled a few burritos from the plain beans and tortillas, she put them in the oven on a plate to keep them warm and started blowing up balloons. They would have green grapes and milk with their lunch, so there was no cooking left to do. It was a simple meal, too simple. Gina was embarrassed that she had no salsa or sour cream for the boring bean burritos, but it would have to do. In short order lunch was ready and a dozen colorful balloons skittered around her living room floor like frightened bunnies every time she walked by.

“I’m glad you got here quick,” said Gina as Bonnie came through the front door carrying Sarah in an infant carrier. She was half asleep, bottle still in her mouth. Bonnie was her usual coifed and put together self today in a stylish, long sleeve yellow dress with black patent leather belt and heels to match. The weather was getting warmer. None of the three wore a jacket. Benjamin dragged behind, absorbed in the antics of a winged black beetle flitting up and down along the sidewalk. He squatted down on his haunches to get a closer look.

“Come on Benji. We got balloons,” said Gina, standing on her stoop, holding out a blue balloon and trying to be patient. “See? Balloons are better than bugs.” Gina screwed up her face. Bugs. Yuck.

Benjamin
looked up at the balloon, unimpressed, then back at the bug. “Birdie,” he said, pointing at the disgusting little thing crawling near his sneaker.

“Yes, birdie,” said Gina. She shouldn’t encourage ignorance, but she wanted to talk to Bonnie and she didn’t feel like giving a biology lesson this afternoon. “Birdie is hungry. Birdie has to go home and eat his lunch.
Now
.”

“You should have bought a box of live beetles and scattered them about your apartment,” said Bonnie matter-of-factly from the kitchen. She put Sarah, still in the carrier, on the floor near the table. The tot was now fast asleep.

“Come on Benji. Lunch time. I made you a peanut butter sandwich shaped like a flower,” said Gina.

Benjamin paid no attention. Gina wondered how mothers of preschoolers kept their sanity.

“Birdie is eating my feets,” said Benjamin. He giggled as he watched the enormous beetle crawl along the toe of his shoe.

Bonnie came through the front door about then, marched down the sidewalk, flicked the beetle off his shoe, and picked up Benjamin. “You can play with the birdie after lunch,” she said.

Gina followed behind while Bonnie carried the boy into the apartment and sat him on her lap after she took a seat at the table. He was too little to perch safely on a phone book and Gina didn’t have a highchair. Gina pulled the burritos from the oven and the three started their lunch.

“So, what’s happening?” asked Bonnie.

“I let him kiss me,” said Gina. The silence that followed screamed with significance.

Bonnie stopped pouring milk into Benjamin’s cup and looked up. “You little hoyden. Kissing gets girls into trouble. I’m proof of that,” she said, nodding toward Benjamin.

“Don’t say it like that. I told you I’m not pregnant. I haven’t even been fooling around.”

Bonnie made a face.

“Though if I were pregnant, it might be simpler. At least when you’re pregnant you know how you got there and you know what’s coming. A baby is tangible. You just feed and diaper it. I have no idea what I’ve created here. And I certainly don’t know what to do with it.”

“You said there was nothing sexy about him. What changed?”

“Nothing changed
.
That’s the problem. If my feelings had changed about him I’d feel better about what happened. But I don’t even know what happened. It just happened. And I just kind of let it,” she added. “We went out to dinner and I invited him in for ice cream and then … well, you know how these things go.”

“Gee, I don’t know, Gina. He’s tall, nice looking, good with kids, is obviously crazy about you, believes the way you do, and has a steady job. You could do worse. Am I missing something here?”

“I’m not in love with him, that’s what’s missing. I told myself and told myself I wouldn’t encourage him, just be friends. Kissing seems to lean toward the encouraging side. It was a huge mistake.”

“Anything physical tends to make them buzz around like yellow jackets on an open soda can,” said Bonnie.

“Except Kevin was buzzing around before he kissed me. I just made it worse.”

“Well did you pop the top of the can? Even a little bit?”

“No! Stop it, would you? This isn’t funny.”

“Sorry. Just teasing. Oh, speaking of yellow jackets, pull my wallet out of my purse there, will you?”

Bonnie’s lap was filled with chubby Benjamin, who was dropping sticky crumbs of jellied bread on the floor with each fistful of sandwich, so Gina leaned over to the floor and pulled Bonnie’s wallet from her purse and handed it to her. With one hand Bonnie expertly fished through the paper money section and pulled out a slip of printed paper.

“Look at this,” said Bonnie as she handed the paper to Gina.

“Wow! Three hundred dollars! Where’d you get it?” Gina stared at the gift certificate from Macy’s in awe. She’d never spent that much money in a department store in her life. She doubted if Bonnie had either.

“David. Bzzz
, bzzz. Do you think he misses me?” The girls giggled. “It’s not the marriage counseling I’ve asked him for, but it’ll do for now. First the new car, now this. Too bad he couldn’t find the money for these things when I was with him.”

Gina nodded supportively, stared at the zeroes on the gift certificate a moment longer, and then handed it back to Bonnie.

“I can’t wait to go shopping. Just gotta find a sitter. He shouldn’t have spent so much—but it’s a gift certificate so the money’s already gone. You won’t see me shedding any tears over it.” She slid the certificate back into her purse. “Now tell me about the kiss,” Bonnie said. “Every detail. How did it all happen? He must kiss good or you wouldn’t be obsessing so much.”

Bonnie picked up her burrito with one hand while she gripped her arm around Benjamin’s middle with the other. Suddenly Gina felt like the
dinner floor show, and she wasn’t comfortable with the role at all. She was too conflicted about the events of last night to speak of the details with any relish. Further, she was annoyed that Bonnie had sized up her reaction to Kevin’s kiss so on target. She was obsessing, just like she always did. She’d always known that the least, most innocuous form of physical contact with Kevin would whet his appetite for her and complicate the delicate balance of friendship she had tried hard to maintain. What had not occurred to her until last night was the effect his kiss would have on
her
. Now that Bonnie was sitting in her kitchen, ready to listen as Gina had hoped she would be, Gina discovered that Kevin’s kissing ability and the white hot sparks they’d lit inside her weren’t something she wanted to share, not even with her best friend. Her feelings about Kevin had changed. Revealing secrets about Kevin and his amazing kissing ability didn’t feel right. She skirted the issue.