Tiger Lillie (19 page)

16

Lillie

When Gordon said his mother tipped the bottle with verve, he wasn’t kidding. I haven’t seen her sober yet, and we’ve been in England for three days. Of course, we’re always up well before dawn with the brutal time change, breakfasting down in the pub on the previous night’s special, shepherd’s pie or roast beef with a gravy made from Gordon’s grandfather’s recipe. We leave well before Roberta arises and, home by six that evening, find she’s already tied on more than a few.

Roberta Remington is a quiet drunk. She sits at the bar, smoking cigarettes, cooking to a looser and looser consistency, starting out a dried strand, ending up spaghetti, arms limp and fragile. She wears little makeup and plain skirts and blouses. By eleven, the bartender carries her upstairs to her bed. Night after night.

I’m not sure why Gordon wanted me to see this, really, unless he wanted me to know exactly where he came from. See, I see him in paint-spattered clothing and driving a decrepit International. But he’s a darling in his own peculiar world. And no wonder. His artwork pulls your breath right out of your lungs. I can’t call it realistic, yet it’s not abstract either. But color and life and the love of life play with exuberance across his canvases. I’ve watched him in his studio, and let me tell you, it is unbelievably sexy to see him lose himself in his work like that. To be honest, there are times I believe I would give myself to him. I’m thirty-two and a bundle of yearning. But no, I’m his white lily, by gum, and he’s going to do nothing to mess that up. I’m glad, honestly, but when his hands caress my back and sides and move just a bit too close to my breasts, I want to scream, “Just do it!”

And then they move away as softly as they approached and more than not, he gets up and fixes a cup of tea.

Englishmen.

God love him.

Perhaps I’m here in England because he respects his mother still, after all these years.

So it’s early, early Christmas morning. I can’t believe I’m already awake at six fifteen a.m. Nothing stirs here in the apartment over the pub, except the cat. I hear her jump down onto the wooden floor from whichever perch she has chosen. She’s a tiny, little black creature named Holiday.

I wonder if Mom and Dad are back from midnight mass yet? Tacy always spends Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Rawlins and the church people, it being a holy day and all. Tomorrow, Aunts Babi and Luca will visit my house, whip out the paprika and sour cream and celebrate with a good wine and perhaps a viewing of
Miracle on 34th Street.

I miss them.

They’re probably back from church by now, so I throw back the covers, slip on my robe, and sneak out to where Gordon sleeps on the sofa. I slide his cell phone out of the charger on the lamp table.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

His eyes remain closed.

“I’m stealing a cell-phone call from you. I didn’t want to wake you. In fact, keep your eyes closed. You look beautiful in repose.”

“Oh dear. How poetic.”

“Well, I do have my moments.”

“More of them than you think.”

I don’t deserve this affirming man. Not one bit.

“Keep them closed.” I kiss his lips, then his eyelids. “I’ll be right back.”

“Nobody’s awake. We could make out for a while.”

I laugh. “I want to be the first to tell my parents Merry Christmas.”

“Go, then, stick-in-the-mud.”

But he’s smiling and before I even raise my derrière off the couch, he’s back asleep.

I hurry down the steps and into the pub. A lone bulb above the bar mirror lights my path in the dim room. I slide into a booth near the window and begin dialing.

“Merry Christmas to all!”

“Daddy!”

“Lil!”

“Merry Christmas.”

“You’re up awfully early.”

“It’s Christmas, Daddy.”

He laughs. “Oh, right. Miss Up-at-Four-A.M.-Christmas Morning! You wouldn’t believe the food they have planned for tomorrow, Lil. They’ve invited everybody in the neighborhood.”

“No.”

“Yes. Even Cristoff’s coming down to this one. After church down on Erdman Avenue, of course.”

“How’s he doing?”

“All right. Lonely.”

“Oh, Dad. How do you pray in a situation like this? I mean, in order for him not to be lonely—”

“You pray for God’s sufficiency. It’s all any of us can pray for. Even marriage can’t fill that kind of hole.”

There you have it. The grace of God may not always seem to be enough, but in the end, it is.

A gentleman ambles by the window, large terrier at the leash, for an early morning constitutional. “I miss everybody.”

“We miss you.”

“How’s Tacy?”

“Fine, I suppose. Making excuses as to why she can never come and see us. And here we sit, our granddaughter getting older by the day. I don’t understand it.”

“Have you talked to Rawlins?”

“Never returns my calls.”

“Figures.

“Let’s not ruin Christmas with talk of that guy. I’m rejoicing in the birth of the Savior. What about you?”

“Well, I’ve only been out of bed for five minutes, Daddy.”

His warm chuckle bears up almost as good as a hug. “Then I’m even more thankful for the call.”

Gordon slips into the seat opposite me. “I’ve got your coffee on,” he whispers.

“So are you having a good time, Lillie?”

“The best. We’ve seen all the sights you’d imagine.”

“Tower of London?”

“Check.”

“Westminster Abbey?”

“Check.”

“Houses of Parliament? Buckingham Palace? Saint James Park?”

“Check, check, and check.”

“Great! Saint Paul’s?”

“Oh, Daddy! That was transcendent. God bless Christopher Wren.”

“Amen.”

Gordon whispers, “Amen,” too and reaches into his jeans pocket.

“I saw it before I lost my sight,” Daddy says. “I think that’s helped me accept my blindness. I remember so many beautiful sights.”

Gordon takes my hand and I feel so happy.

“British Museum yet?”

“No, that’s tomorrow.”

“Going out to the Cotswolds?”

“We’re just doing London this time around. Gordon knows this city so well. He says he can’t claim to be a country boy.”

Daddy laughs. “Well, to be honest, if you’ve seen one Cotswold village, you’ve seen them all.”

“Give everybody my best,” Gordon whispers.

“Gordon sends his best.”

“And ours back.”

Gordon squeezes my hand and before my eyes, he slides a square-cut diamond onto my finger.

Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Oh my gosh. Wow.

“Lillie?” Daddy’s voice sounds farther away than Maryland.

I can’t say anything, I just stare at Gordon, knowing my mouth yawns open like a garage door.

“Lillie?” Daddy says again.

“Well?” Gordon asks. “I’d get down on one knee, but with this leg…”

I exhale a great breath. “Wow.”

“Lillie, dear? What in the world are you doing?”

“Daddy, I just got engaged.”

Gordon sags in relief. “Yes, then?”

“Oh yes. Of course yes!”

“Right now?” Daddy asks. “As in, right this moment?”

“Right now.”

“You’ve got to go, Lil! Call us later after you’ve kissed that man with all the soundness a bride-to-be can muster! Your mother will be thrilled.”

I lay the phone on the table and practically throw myself across the tabletop, colliding chest to chest with Gordon. I hit my nose on his collarbone, but I don’t care.

The pub celebrates our engagement, all the regulars slapping Gordon on the back, saying, “It’s about time, mate.”

Roberta pulls me into her pickled arms, giving me a pickled kiss and a pinch on the cheek. “Lovely,” is all she says. “Simply lovely.”

Hey, if Gordon’s dealt with all of this, God bless him. I’m so overjoyed, even the prospect of a drunk mother-in-law doesn’t daunt me in the least. The fact that she lives here in England probably has something to do with that. I’ll never really know her. Oh, I’ll try. But in the end, she’ll die “in her cups” as they say. Somehow the fallout will descend on my shoulders because Gordon can’t have come to complete terms with something like this. But right now, I’m rejoicing.

Fitz, Stan, and Ursula, too, toast to our future and we sit down to a bona fide Christmas goose and plum pudding, and how cool is this?

Tacy

The last Christmas should have been the happiest. And in some ways it was. My greatest gift was Hannah Grace. We went to church in the barn, sang carols, and listened to a sermon. No gifts were exchanged and no tree, of course, it being of pagan origin. But I sat on the bench and praised the Lord of heaven and earth, the sweet baby Jesus, in my heart. And I felt so thankful.

When we had all been dismissed, Pastor Cole told Rawlins to come with him back to his house. He had things to discuss. The flicker of disappointment across my husband’s eyes comforted me, but he obeyed. He always did.

He came, home at two the next morning and wouldn’t tell me a thing.

Lillie

I love my basement pad. Darn it if Cristoff and Mother didn’t redecorate the entire room during my absence. Pleasance helped out despite the fact they had two weddings to deliver. Gert wielded brush, Peach wired track lighting. They really don’t need me. Not at all.

I am a genie in a bottle. I love it. Truthfully, I’m feeling rather more like Pollyanna these days. Great living quarters, business doing wonderfully, Mom and Dad here—Daddy working furiously on his cozy mystery, having decided he didn’t really have a violent bone in his body from which to draw a proper crime story, the world being what it is these days. I’m engaged with a fat whopper of a ring to a man who says he loves me just as I am, extra thirty pounds (okay, forty-five) and all, a man who says, “Honestly, Lillie, Reubens has always been one of my favorite painters.” That’s a remark at which a girl could laugh or cry. I choose to laugh. And pass the butter, baby!

The hubbub of the holidays has calmed down, and during it all, not a flicker from Tacy.

Well, it’s been a long day preparing for Stan’s wedding. Permits to obtain, agents to contact regarding the celebs in the wedding party. All the drudge work the others hate. Thank God for Gert. Now there was a good deed well rewarded. Maybe I’m needed after all.

I slip off my jeans and sweater, roll into some sweats, and head upstairs for my nightly cup of hot milk with Mom and Dad. They’re already sitting at the kitchen table. Mom hops to her feet. “I just put your mug in the microwave.”

“Thanks.”

The air seems weighted with a discussion pushed suddenly in the deep freeze. “What’s wrong?”

Daddy shakes his head.

Mom says, “Rawlins called here.”

“Why?”

“Well, the baby’s cough is getting worse, so I made an appointment for her at Dr. King’s office. I called Tacy this morning and told her I’d be up and we’d go out to lunch. I figured I could talk her into the appointment over a sandwich at The Fusion Grille.”

“She’s always liked it there,” Daddy says.

“So, what happened?”

“Well, I talked her into it. And we drove over to the office. Let me tell you, every time that child coughs it sounds like rusty bedsprings. It’s horrible.”

“So what did the doctor say?”

“We didn’t even get in the door. Rawlins followed us there.”

“No!”

Daddy rubs his eyes. “It’s true. Apparently one of his thugs called him on the cell phone and out he came.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice him.” Mom shakes her head. “There was quite a scene in the parking lot. I’ve never seen eyes like that, Lillie. I didn’t know what to do. He pulled Tacy to him and ushered her to the car. They drove away and there I stood. I should have just taken that baby from her arms and run in with her!”

Daddy felt for her hand, then wound his fingers in hers. “Don’t blame yourself, Kathy. I’m sure it all happened so fast.”

“It did!”

And then Mom broke down. I have never in all my life seen my mother cry. Curse that man! Curse him, and his pastor and his “god.”

“To make matters worse,” Daddy says, “Rawlins called here an hour ago and said he has forbidden Tacy to see us anymore. That she had disobeyed his authority, and before God, he cannot knowingly put her into situations where she will stumble into sin.”

“Seeing her own parents?!”

Mom nods and wipes her nose. “Maybe I went too far, but, Lillie, you’ve heard Hannah Grace. Something’s wrong with that child! She’s wheezing now, too.”

The clock above the oven says eight fifteen. “Mom, put the milk in the fridge. I’m going out.”

“To Tacy’s?”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Be careful,” Daddy says.

Mom nods. “He scares me.”

Daddy sets down his mug. “Let me go with you.”

“I’ll be all right, Daddy. What can he do to me?” I kiss their cheeks. “Don’t wait up.”

Dad sighs. “As if that’s a possibility.”

Well, I’m praying my head off, I can tell you that, because there’s something about Rawlins that scares the breath out of me, something that has always said, “Don’t cross me.” He’s one step away from insane. I mean, if you have to keep yourself behind bars under lock and key twenty-four hours a day, what’s hidden inside the cell? And is that padlock as strong as it seems? Would it take just the right pair of snippers to spring it open?