Tiger Lillie (15 page)

And he reaches down as Tacy breaks the suction for the sleeping infant, then whisks her away, back to the lacy white bassinet in the nursery off their bedroom. Tacy tucks herself back in and I feel so young.

Rawlins sticks close by the rest of the day, so I can’t ask Tacy how she feels about Mom and Dad’s decision to move back to the city with me. But the chicken is delicious, and he makes me a peach soymilk shake. And every once in a while a look of desolation, or what I perceive to be desolation, passes over Rawlins’s face in a quick, fly-buzz of an instant, and I find myself feeling sorry for him.

I hate that.

Tacy

Rawlins finally came home to me, bearing a gift. I was reading the Bible in the living room when he slipped the present out of a box, a waterfall of white silk, a nightgown, and he slowly took off my street clothes, one piece at a time, kissing my body as each part appeared, telling me how much he loved me and how he wanted me close to him.

“Never leave me again, Anastasia,” he muttered into my neck. And even during the heat of my body’s betrayal, that feeling his hands conjure, I thought, “I never did. You left me.” But his mouth found mine, and it felt different, almost needy. Before he took me completely, he slid the gown over my head, then he picked me up in his arms, those arms I loved to caress for their beauty alone, and he carried me to the deck, under the stars. I felt this wild abandon, hating him and needing him at the same time, as if my anger fueled my passion. And I clawed him and beat upon his back, and he roared with pleasure. He never loved me that intensely, or needed anything I could give him. I had waited so long for that. Something almost human resided in him, but as soon as we were finished, he saw me tucked into bed and left the house.

The next afternoon Pastor Cole called to welcome us officially into The Church. “Now make sure you are reachable at all times, Anastasia. A word from the Lord can come upon me at any moment, and I like to deliver them immediately.”

“All right. Do you have Rawlins’s cell-phone number?”

“Of course.”

And that was that.

Perhaps the end is near. I seem to have been rolling for ages, but I am peaceful now in the love of Christ.

“Your love is more delightful than wine.”

Oh yes, my God. You fill me, heart, soul, mind, and spirit. You fill me completely with the wine of your love. I delight in you. I delight to know that you have set me apart as your bride. That in you I find joy and satisfaction, in you I delight myself, and that you look upon me with favor. Oh, my wonderful, beautiful God, that you can see beyond my sin, my stain, my stench, the utter baseness of my humanity, and still reach down to me in my moment of tragedy, astonishes me. Burn within me, ignite me with your fire and refine me for your presence. Your are like a refiner’s fire, burn me, my Savior, until all sin is gone and only you remain.

Lillie

On my singular visit to Tacy and Rawlins’s church I thought I’d stepped into an episode of that time-travel show. Only watched the show once, and it gave me major creeps for some reason. Cristoff said it almost threw him into a seizure the time he viewed it.

The Temperance Church of the Apostles consists of twelve families. No more. No less. Ever. It’s supposedly been in existence for more than one hundred years, but I’m not sure I believe it. More likely, that Alban Cole quack started it himself.

There’s a waiting list, believe it or not. Not that any family has left in the past few years. But once or twice a decade, a family moves away from the area. I’m not sure what they do for church once they relocate. Nobody talks about a family once they move on.

Insert freaky theme song of your choice here, folks.

Tacy and Rawlins were the last family to join, and I’ve always suspected the church allowed their membership because they needed a better meeting place. When Rawlins offered to redo the barn, he and Tacy were given “full membership status.” I guess full membership status is all they’ve got. Nothing halfway about The Temperance Church of the Apostles.

The Sunday I visited—the Sunday they dedicated the new sanctuary—I was told to sit just beyond the doorway. I felt unclean, like a leper or something, only without medical excuses. I was just unclean because I was just me. Or maybe it was that I wasn’t them.

But even from my folding chair in the vestibule I could see the chapel. Rawlins spared no expense, that’s for sure. Stained-glass windows fixed into the freshly paneled walnut walls glowed. Six on each side, one apostle in each window. Up at the front, a window with imagery of the Trinity broadcasted frosted colors on the thick white carpeting. The members had lined their shoes up neatly in the vestibule. It gave me some small comfort to at least see various styles zigzagging down the line.

Twelve backless benches, six on each side of the center aisle, attested to the alertness each member was expected to achieve during the service.

No real altar. Just a big, simple chair stood on the platform at the front, a chair for Pastor Alban Cole.

Come to save the world.

Each of the twelve families, good-looking specimens of vigor and beauty, all Caucasian, sat on its own bench, each bench carved with the name of an apostle. Tacy and Rawlins sat on the Matthias bench at the back left.

Alban Cole, seated in the chair, talked about consecration of the heart and the body that day as they consecrated the sanctuary, which still smelled of new carpet, fresh wood, and stain. I agreed with everything he said, could find no theological fault; nevertheless, I left feeling unwanted, out of place, and dirty, like a bum watching a white wedding from atop a deserted, windswept hill.

“Who is this guy, Tace?” I asked my sister before I left, before the church fish supper began on the lawn surrounding their house.

She shook her head, eyes still glowing at being included in such a gathering. “Rawlins says he began his ministry here on the East Coast up in Hanover years ago. He appeared one day in the streets and began preaching and healing, Rawlins says. He brought Rawlins to the Lord years ago.”

“What does he do during the week?”

She just shrugged and gave me a kiss good-bye. I’ve never asked her that question again or anything like it. Because Tacy still won’t know the answer.

That night I accompanied Cristoff to his church on Erdman Avenue. When an obese lady got up with her accordion and sang, “I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows,” I wept so hard Cristoff put his arms around me.

But really, if that song were true, I think there’d be a lot more flowers around.

Tacy

For my third anniversary I asked for a baby again, and Rawlins said, “Anastasia, I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

He rarely slept with me anymore, just on special days like Christmas Eve, my birthday, and when Pastor Cole was out of town. I didn’t know what the connection was there. I still don’t. But some nights, he’d come home from Bible studies and would remain so silent I couldn’t budge more than a few words from him. I knew not to ask him about it.

For my fourth anniversary I didn’t ask for a baby. Neither did I for my fifth or my sixth. My days joined together in an unending string of sameness, one day like the next and the next. I began cross-stitching, which seemed to be accepted by the church ladies, and then moved on the embroidering vestments for Alban Cole. As his priestly garments grew more fine, the congregants’ church clothing became more and more plain, almost like a uniform. He told us, as we were all blessed with material wealth, that to lay aside our finery when coming into the sanctuary would warrant more blessing from God.

The next New Year’s Day, Rawlins told me it was time to start our family. We received the blessing of the church, the congregants praying over us at a special service in the barn sanctuary, Alban Cole’s face set like cement, unreadable as always.

Mom and Dad visited the next April to make sure I was well and to offer their congratulations. I still could hardly believe I was expecting a baby. I waited so many years. Rawlins, I’d ask, please. Not tonight. Please…don’t put a condom on tonight. Didn’t he realize the shame I felt? Didn’t he realize that I knew he wouldn’t give me himself? But that was behind me and new life just around the corner. If Rawlins never approached me sexually again, I think it would have been fine. October, I prayed, find your way to me as quickly as you can.

Spring and summer floated by on the thought that I was bringing a child into the world. Perhaps it wasn’t the best of worlds, that fake world “the master” created around me. Three servants, two cars of my own, antiques, gold jewelry, silk, crystal, Rolexes, and designer wallpaper. My Master McGovern.

And yet inside me a child grew. My own baby. More mine than my master’s for I nourished this baby, I fed this baby with my body and my blood. I would give all for this baby.

I will give all for this baby now.

I search within me. Deep within me for that place where I met with my God again and again when I sought a greater contemplation, an all-consuming fire. I sought to experience Him who created my soul to commune with Him, to dance with the Divine. To enter into His glorious light. And the more I entered in, the more I found, the more I found, the more I sought. Oh, to know Him, to fellowship in my Lord’s sufferings, to joy in His holy presence. Jesus, You are all in all. Lover of my soul, my Master, I am Your bride. I am Yours. Even now.

Rawlins didn’t touch me, except for good-bye kisses and the occasional brush of the arm, during the entire pregnancy. He said the church believed a pregnant woman to be unclean. I searched the Scriptures for such a doctrine but could find nothing. I believed my marriage over, but moherhood would surely be enough. Sad enough to say, that was exactly what happened.

11

Lillie

I love Sunday evenings. Especially because we take Mondays off at Extremely Odd. This is my night with Cristoff. We usually eat pizza, rent a movie, cry at the sad parts, marvel at how easy life inside a picture tube is, and applaud actresses who allow themselves to appear like regular human beings on screen—messed-up hair, weight gain, wrinkles—human and beautiful in the dignity surrounding their commitment to playing a role with integrity, serving the part itself, the work as a whole.

Okay, so Cristoff says that. I just say, “Looky there at that Meryl Streep.” Or Jessica Lange or Farrah Fawcett, believe it or not. “What a gal. What a woman of the people!”

I am, however, thoroughly offended that the Bridget Jones actress acts like getting up to a whopping 124 pounds is akin to turning into a bovine. Is she serious?

We go retro tonight and watch
Lawrence of Arabia.
I’ve got to tell you, there is nothing in the world so beautiful as the eyes of Peter O’Toole. I love that man. I love that man. It can get a little boring at times, but I just watch Mr. O’Toole and imagine what it must have been like in those days, when he was young, to have been his wife, to have been caressed by him and loved by him.

Singlehood is so depressing.

The phone rings and we pause the VCR. Pleasance. “Girl, I’m designing you the perfect outfit for Tuesday’s meeting with the Remington boys.”

The Remington boys. That’s her name for them.

“I was just going to go with the brown pantsuit.”

Snarf.

“Come on, Pleasance. It’s not that bad.”

“Compared to what? Sackcloth?”

“Hey! I
could
wear something orange.”

“Pick me up at eleven thirty tomorrow morning.”

Notice the lack of a question mark.

Tacy

When I held Hannah Grace in my arms the first time, oh, well, even now I can feel the feelings, see that blotchy little face. Even now my heart bloats with that deep-rooted, primal affection only a devoted parent experiences. That tiny life, that spark of divine creation issued forth from me, so unworthy a vessel. And God was kind.

Oh, Lord, be kind to Hannah now. Surround her with so much love for all of her days.

The day Daddy told me why he went into the priesthood coincided with the day I lied to my parents. I told them they couldn’t come inside the house because it had just been fumigated, a stupid fabrication, because Hannah Grace was sleeping up in her crib. But I didn’t want to share my little haven with anyone just then, for lately God had begun wooing me to a place I needed so desperately, a place of such devotion and calm I knew it was His gift. I hated being pulled from where I’d been called to go, but there they were on the front porch telling me they wanted to see their granddaughter. I knew Rawlins would be furious that I didn’t clear it with him first, so I told them to go around back and I’d meet them on the deck. For some reason Daddy got on a “don’t waste your life” topic, one I had a hard time figuring out because I didn’t know what it had to do with me, really, especially as I had become a mother.

But nevertheless, he told me why he went into the priesthood. I knew he had a brother who killed himself, years ago. Daddy was only nineteen at the time and on a very rough path. Doing whatever kind of drug they had in the ’50s. Opium? I didn’t want to ask. Drinking a lot, running around with the guys wreaking havoc on their small town. Like something out of Steinbeck, I guess. They called him “the bad seed” and “James Dean” and I could hardly imagine Daddy like that Daddy! Just unbelievable, this blind priest was the bad seed.

Everybody thought he was the one who “should have” died like that. Not Robert. Carl was the upstart. Carl was the one who ran fast and loose. Carl was the one destined to be plucked from earth like a weed. Well, it jarred something loose, he told me. And it was then, even though he hadn’t been born into a religious family, that he found himself inside the local parish, praying. Even before he knew God initimately, before he knew Jesus had died for him, he knew he was called to serve.

It took some time for his lifestyle to follow suit, and maybe a good dose of Kathy Bajnok. Yep, he ran from God for a while, but when God’s got plans, he told me, it’s best to get with the program. Sooner than later.

And there he sat on my deck, ready to retire, blind and learned and still sassy and still in love with his Lord. Daddy and I had so much in common by then, spiritually speaking, and I had to push him away.

I wanted to tell him I had no way out, really. That if my marriage and family weren’t God’s program, what was? I wish he’d have just come right out and said what he wanted to say. Maybe we could have put our heads together. Maybe I wouldn’t be rolling down this hill right now.

Lillie

Monday noontime finds me and Pleasance at the discount fabric outlet over in Eastpoint. Although why she had to drag me along, I still can’t say She springs like a lithe cricket from table to table, picking up and unwinding the bolts, touching and rubbing the fabric against her brown cheek.

I point to a length of navy blue something-or-other, and she just waves me away saying, “You’ve got to wow them, pow them, and show them Lillie Bauer means business.”

“Gee, Pleasance. I thought navy blue
was
business.”

“Not our kind of business, Lillie Pad. We need romance, imagination, pizazz.”

“Panache?”

“Oooh yeah, I heard that! Besides, you already have a navy-blue fancy dress.”

I swear she has the contents of my closet memorized.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to get this outfit done by tomorrow morning?”

I don’t know what possessed me to ask that. I don’t want to wait around for the diatribe. “Let me know when you’ve decided. I’ll be over at McDonalds getting a Coke.”

Pleasance doesn’t answer because she’s already rushing over to a cart two clerks are just wheeling in from the back. When she literally cries, “Oh baby!” at the sight of a raw silk in a deep mustard color, beautiful, no doubt, I exhale a wary sigh and hurry out the door before she grabs me.

Mustard. Just great.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky. I love so many people. Mom, Dad, Tacy, Hannah Grace, Cristoff, Pleasance, Peach. And Gert’s a sweetie, too. I enjoy watching her and Peach interact. They work comfortably side by side, their wide derrières swaying with their steps, and when she starts softly warbling some old tune, he joins right in. They usually stop the words at the same place and just keep humming. Peach seemed so isolated down there before, but now Gert’s with him and she’s taken on the role as receptionist as well. And she likes it.

Well, there you go. Things really do work together for good, I guess, So as I sit in the booth at McDonald’s and sip on my Coke, I pray for a lot of things. But I pray about the meeting tomorrow, that we won’t blow this one chance to get Extremely Odd going big time.

Pleasance joins me half an hour later. “I put the fabric in the car.”

“The mustard one?”

“You color blind?”

What did I say?

“Ready to go?” she asks.

“Back to your place?”

“Yep. I’ll measure and draw the pattern while the soup cooks.”

“Soup? What kind.”

“Don’t know yet. I’ll see what I have in.”

Boy, I wish I was more like Pleasance.

Pleasance and I met at The College of Notre Dame in an elective course. Children’s Lit. We discovered a shared penchant for Madeleine L’Engle and spent hours at the study lounge discussing the time-travel series. One night she invited me over for stew cooked on a Bunsen burner. Clothing designs papered the walls of her studio apartment, a room containing a scarred set of wooden bunks, a daybed, a dinette set, and some bookshelves. This small apartment in the poor section of Towson was all she could afford at the time, but in her way, Pleasance had combined her skills with the offerings at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. I’d never seen a place like that before, a small Aladdin’s cave with one rule—don’t you ever be turning on that overhead fluorescent light! Juney, and Pleasance’s younger son, Stefan, sat wide-eyed on their bunks, eating their stew as we talked about Meg and the gang from
A Wrinkle in Time
, about which of the cherubim was our favorite.

Something clicked that night, whispering long after the boys slept beneath their quilts, and the dream of the business began when I told her about my first bungee jump with The Extreme Delights Sporting and Adventure Club. She asked what I wore, since it was a formal occasion and all, and when I told her about the prom dress I dug out of my bedroom closet, well, her face took on a horrified expression the likes of which I’ve never seen in real life. My dark-blue chiffon evening gown, the standard bungee gown for eleven years now, resulted.

Pleasance is my friend and I love her. I wonder if I’ve ever told her that so plainly?

Tacy

Rawlins was mad at me again for letting my parents stay without calling him.

“What about ‘honor thy father and thy mother’?” I said in a moment of bravado.

“Don’t throw Scripture at me, Anastasia. I know more about Scripture than you do.”

I wanted to say, “Yeah, Scripture the way Pastor Cole interprets it.”

But I didn’t. God help me, I just couldn’t.

I only said, “I’m sorry.”

“You know you’re supposed to clear all visitors with me first.”

“But they’re my parents.”

“All visitors, Anastasia.”

“But—”

And he grabbed my arm. “Are you questioning me?”

Yes! Yes!

But I just hung my head and told him I was sorry yet again. He let go.

Did Rawlins worship the same God as I? The God of love and freedom, grace, mercy, and forgiveness?

He only knows God’s laws and His justice.

“I am responsible for you before God. Do you really want me to have to answer to Him someday for your disobedience? Your…your subterfuge?”

Subterfuge? Right now, as the Rover bangs against a tree, the word tickles me.

I was chained to my own home.

“I am the head of this household, Anastasia!”

“I know.”

“Go to bed, Anastasia, I’ll be up soon. Wear the white nightgown.”

Oh, dear God, no. Not now.

I left the kitchen and halfway up the steps he called to me from where he stood at the bottom. “Anastasia, turn around.”

I turned. Of course I did.

“If they come again without notice you are not to answer the door.”

“Yes, Rawlins.”

“Do you understand me, woman?”

“Yes, perfectly, Rawlins.”

Woman. He called me woman.

After he took me—I didn’t cry that time—when he slept, for he sleeps so lightly, I tiptoed down to the hammock on the deck, wrapped myself in my quilt against the fall chill, and I found God again. And I asked Him why and He only said, “My grace is sufficient. You are cared for, you are loved. By Me.”

I poured out my soul to You then, dear God, as I do now, and I asked You to be close to me. To show me Your goodness, to reveal my freedom in You, to realize that no matter what man can put upon me, I am Your child, Your beloved, and no one, not Rawlins, Alban Cole, or Satan himself can ever take that away.

“You shall be free indeed.”

And I am free. I hear a great crack, taste metal, and I am released.

Cradle me. Cradle my child, Hannah Grace.

Lillie

We drive back to Pleasance’s apartment after the trip to the fabric store. She drags out the Bunsen burner for old times’ sake and spins a Shirley Bassey album while she heats up some chicken and stars. By the time the boys arrive home from school, she’s cut the pieces out with those zigzag scissors and begins setting up the sewing machine.

I clear my laptop off the kitchen table so the boys can do their homework. “Are you sure about that mustard color on me?”

“First of all…mustard? Lillie, this is
caramel.”

I examine it more closely. And shut my mouth if she isn’t right. Well, that makes it all seem much more acceptable. I love caramel candy.

“I considered making you that all-occasion little black dress, Lillie. It’s time for that. But when I saw this fabric, I just couldn’t let it go.”

“Sleeveless?” I ask. Dear God, please don’t let it be sleeveless. Not with these ugly hams I call arms.

“Of course not! Tight three-quarter sleeves, scooped neck baring your shoulder bones—”

“Are you serious?”

“I certainly am. Your neck and shoulders are gorgeous. Now stop interrupting. Cinched waist and a full skirt with a petticoat underneath it.”