Tuesday Night Miracles (25 page)

Phyllis is moving so slowly toward the pizza crust her movement could never be picked up on a hidden camera. She’s sniffing the ground and she’s certain there’s a hint of pepperoni left on the crust.

“Do you really think we have things in common?” Leah boldly asks Kit. “I feel as if I’ll never catch up to the three of you. I don’t even have a house. I really don’t have much of anything.”

Olivia is looking back and forth at the women. She’s afraid to move, afraid to say a word, afraid to pick up the leash. Surprisingly, it’s Jane who responds to Leah.

“You shouldn’t feel that way, Leah,” Jane tells her, wishing she could take it one step further and touch Leah on the arm. “Here we all are in the same class, and what you think we have might not be what you want at all. Looks can be deceiving.”

Now everyone turns to look at Jane. “What do you mean?” Leah so hopes Jane will answer this question.

“I have a house and a husband, but sometimes I think those are just things, you know? Husbands can lie and houses can just be buildings, and how pathetic is it that I’m so hard up for fun I was actually looking forward to coming to this grungy bowling alley.”

Leah is astounded. Jane lonely? She has no idea what to say, so she picks at her pizza. Would these women think less of her if she told them how she sometimes thinks about being alone and without her children? How she sits some nights and thinks about being all by herself?

Jane is suddenly embarrassed, and Olivia senses it right away and is now praying someone else will notice it and say something, too. All the women are staring at their food. If only she could tell them how lonely she is, how coming to the bowling alley was also at the top of her short list, how every single feeling they have is part of the process.

Grace looks up first, and directly at Jane. “I’m not one to give advice about husbands and marriage,” she admits. “But, Jane, it’s been my experience that making it work is like a full-time job. It’s easy to get distracted. For the love of God, I’m even terrified to go on a date again.”

Olivia lets out the breath she has been holding as all five of them laugh. By now, Phyllis has edged herself to the exact center of the table on the floor. She’s got about ten inches to go and her haunches are quivering with excitement. Just as Olivia is about to bend down and pick up the leash, Jane asks her if she’s married.

“Married?” Olivia responds as if she didn’t hear the question.

“Yes,” Jane says, “married.”

Olivia knows this was a possibility, these feisty women wanting to know about her personal life. She’s half tempted to blurt out her own life story and let them all faint into what is left of their beer and pizza. Ha! Beer and pizza as part of an anger-management class therapy session! Her supervisor would have a heart attack right on the spot if he saw all of them like this.
Olivia, what is wrong with you?

“I was married once, a very long time ago,” she admits. “That’s a story that might keep you up tonight with nightmares, so I think we’ll leave it at that. You girls have enough on your plates, which, by the way, are starting to get empty.”

Now all four of them are staring at Olivia and imagining everything from a lost love to a very bad marriage.

“That’s it?” Kit says, acting as if she’s angry. “You feed us that crumb and we have to guess?”

“That’s how it goes, Kit. I love being in charge.”

There’s another round of laughter as the women dive back into their drinks. Kit then raises her hands as if to surrender. “Hey, I shouldn’t argue with the boss,” she says. “We got to go bowling!”

Grace looks up and smiles. “Who would have thought it would be bowling that helps us get better?”

“No kidding!” This from Leah, who is now absolutely relaxed. “I see this whole adventure as an opportunity—on most days, anyway. That probably sounds weird because of what got me here, but I would never have met women like you. In spite of what you said, Jane, our lives are all so different.”

“I continue to disagree,” Kit says, motioning with her empty glass.

Jane can barely remember a time when she did anything like this. Something that didn’t involve dressing up, spending a ton of money, living large. Her friends are really nothing more than acquaintances or professional associates. And would she ever really call Leah, Grace, or Kit to go bowling or out for pizza? And why not?

Jane has so much to think about that her head is spinning, or maybe it’s the beer. Grace is dying to have another beer, and Kit wouldn’t mind spending another three hours at the bowling alley. What amazes her more than anything is how you can forget about bad things if you stay busy. Pretty soon the bad things all but disappear in the rearview mirror.

Olivia decides it’s time to leave. She can’t believe she has spent all this time at the bowling alley, and she’s determined to get out of there before someone asks her another question. She reaches for the leash and stands up just as Phyllis gets the piece of crust into her mouth.

“Ladies, please continue,” she says, pushing back her chair. “I’m going to go give Phyllis a bath as her punishment for being so naughty.”

Bath? Phyllis hears the word
bath
and almost drops her crust. She hates baths, and she doesn’t even know why.

No one knows what to say.

Finally Jane says thank you and asks Olivia if they should stay or if the assignment is over.

“That’s up to you now. See you soon,” she says with a wink. Olivia turns, waves once, and heads toward the door. She doesn’t see Phyllis walking behind her with pizza hanging out of her mouth.

All four of them put their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing out loud and sit back down, and they miss it when Olivia stops to chat with the boy behind the counter.

“That dog is absolutely adorable!” Leah manages to say. “That’s on my list, too. Someday I’m going to get the kids a dog.”

They all smile, and apparently no one knows what to say or do next.

“Do you want to talk about the other assignments?” Kit finally dares to ask.

Her question is met by silence.

“Is that too much?” she asks when no one says anything.

“It’s a little personal but at this point we know the worst, or at least one of the worst, things about each other,” Grace says, even though she’s not sure she wants to tell anyone but Dr. B. what she did or what happened or, especially, how it’s changed her.

“I kind of agree,” Leah says. “I mean, this is good and everything but maybe we should keep some things personal. I’m actually a little embarrassed about my assignment.”

This makes everyone wonder what in the world her assignment had been. And then, of course, they remember that they had two personal assignments and she only had done. And then, just like that, the party is pretty much over.

They decide not to share any more and Kit offers to give Leah a ride home, but Leah declines, saying that the van driver is expecting her. But Grace takes a risk anyway.

“This has been about five thousand times more fun than I even imagined when I got the letter and fell down laughing. I sort of feel like we’ve come over some huge mountain or something. It’s freeing to be away from the old building where we sometimes meet. I’m not sure how to explain it, but I’m praying for another personal assignment.”

But can one afternoon of bowling really change the world? Can four women, with four sets of issues, manage to walk down one mountain and back up the next one?

Dr. B. has no guarantees but she’s betting the house on it, and pretty much everything inside it as well. And she’s hiding down the street to see how long it takes for the women to file out of the building. “Please keep talking!” she whispers to Phyllis, who now has pizza grease all over her whiskers.

When everyone gets up to leave, the boy who helped them figure out how to keep score runs to catch them before they go out the door.

“Wait! Wait!”

The women turn in unison. Now what?

“I’m supposed to give this to one of you to read before you leave.”

Jane grabs it before anyone else has a chance to get near it. It’s a single piece of paper, and she unfolds it slowly, as if she’s a presenter at the Oscars.

“Hurry or I’ll get angry,” Kit jokes. “Maybe we’re all going on a cruise.”

I hope you enjoyed your afternoon. I surely did. Let’s meet on Tuesday and you can bring me your bowling scores and, oh yes, those happy thoughts you have been writing down as well. Sincerely, Dr. B
.

Leah, Ms. Optimistic, tells them they should all think of it as a life cruise. She can’t wait for the next meeting and, truth be told, neither can her not-so-angry companions.

Down the street, Olivia quickly darts into an alley when she sees the women walking from the bowling alley—one at a time.

“Well, old girl,” Olivia tells Phyllis, who can’t stop thinking about the pizza. “We had quite a time on that adventure, and I’d say it was a partial success.”

Phyllis looks up and hopes that Olivia has forgotten about the bath. She has no clue there’s a tiny piece of cheese stuck to her left ear, and that there’s no chance in hell she’s going bowling again anytime soon.

31

Limping Toward the Exit

D
r. Bayer can hear someone she assumes is Grace limping down the hall while she’s arranging chairs and feverishly trying to figure out how she’s going to start class this week. A part of her feels as if she has hopped on a runaway train and there is an endless set of tracks zigzagging up one hill, down the next, and then across a heat-seared open plain.

And there is no water in sight. Did the bowling help them bond? She crosses her fingers and hopes this will be a record-breaking evening.
Stop doubting yourself, Olivia. Progress!

Walk. Slide. Walk. Slide.

Maybe Grace’s foot hurts more than she let on during Saturday’s assignment. Olivia stops for a moment to compose herself and hopes that Grace hadn’t needed serious medical attention. She totally forgot to ask her during the bowling event.

In spite of the accident at Bob’s—and it really was an accident—Olivia thought it was an empowering evening. Grace didn’t get angry when she was shot. Leah jumped right in and then, without asking, Kit let her know that she would get Leah home safely. And the women were more than cordial to one another at the bowling alley.

Olivia is so hopeful this was a turning point that she didn’t even plan anything beyond her normal spontaneous, let’s-see-what-transpires, shoot-from-the-hip class structure, which is actually more like a well-rehearsed therapy session than it sounds. Sometimes when there is a group occurrence, as Olivia has taken to calling things like an arrow in the foot and a fun time bowling, it’s as if a miracle has occurred.

Once a construction foreman who had a habit of throwing his tools at employees who screwed up fell on the job and showed up the following week at anger-management class in a wheelchair. It was as if Jesus had walked through and healed the sick. Everyone was nice to him and, just like that, people started saying things they probably should have said in group therapy weeks before the wheelchair rolled in. Dr. Bayer wouldn’t be surprised if the entire group was now living together in the same apartment building. Talk about a lovefest. All things are possible. She believes this more than anything.

Grace limps into the room while Dr. Bayer is thinking how wonderful it would be if she just slipped out and bought a wheelchair to use as a prop.

Walk. Slide. Walk. Slide.

Grace looks a little haggard, a little tired, a little timid. There are dark half circles under her eyes and her shoulders are curved at a thirty-degree angle. She is sliding the injured foot as if she’s afraid to lift it off the ground.

“Hello,” Dr. Bayer says, moving toward a chair. “Sit down. How are you feeling today, dear?”

“I was doing fine until I slipped and sprained the damn thing,” Grace says. “I mean really, Dr. Bayer! I hurt it at work before we even went bowling, but I think it’s gotten worse. Sometimes that happens with sprains.”

“Are you serious? You didn’t seem to be limping too much at the bowling alley.”

“Yes. You know the wound wasn’t that bad. It was in one of those places where the blood is just dying to pop out the minute there’s the slightest cut. I think it’s all catching up with me. I am simply a doofus. We had an emergency at work and I took a corner going about eighty miles an hour.”

“Oh, dear! Perhaps you should slow down,” Dr. Bayer suggests.

“It was a cardiac arrest. Hard to slow down for those but, well, I know I thanked you the other day when you called to check on me, but thanks again for making sure I got home last week.”

Slow down? Grace is back to only imagining what that might be like.

Dr. Bayer dismissed Grace’s thank-you with a “forget about it” wave of her hand that is necessary, because Grace is now averting her eyes. This is probably not a good time to ask her how Evan and her daughter are getting along.

Kit comes into the room next, and Jane is right behind her. They are close enough to have walked in together, but apparently that was not a consideration. Olivia notices that these two women also look rough. What has been going on?
Please tell me bowling was the success I think it was!

She lets out a big sigh, nods hello, and then walks away, so that it looks as if she’s going through a stack of files she has on a small table by the window.

Of course, she wants to listen.

Kit talks first. She asks Grace how she’s doing, and Grace tells her about the sprain. Jane doesn’t say a word. What is she thinking about? At least she has on decent shoes. Dr. Bayer couldn’t help herself. She had to look when Jane came in. She’s wearing black ballet flats.

Jane and Grace are clearly not connecting for some reason, but when Dr. Bayer looks out of the corner of her eye it appears as if Jane is totally lost in thought. A small part of her would love to reach over and tap Jane on the head. It would be exactly like the nuns use to tap her in the head with a forefinger and thumb as if they were about to smack a marble. It was not a love tap and it hurt.
Jane, pay attention!

Dr. Bayer was hoping for something more positive than this, but there’s a lot of baggage in this room tonight already, and she fears it has nothing to do with bowling.

Leah actually comes running into the room as if she is being pushed by a gust of wind. Everyone notices right away that she’s wearing a new pair of black slacks, a lovely off-white blouse, and a long gold-and-red jacket that totally changes her appearance.

Now, of course, Jane talks.

“Wow, look at you,” she says, finishing off with a slight whistle. “You look great.”

“Lovely,” Kit adds, smiling.

Leah looks at Kit and smiles back. Neither of them says a word, but Leah would like to say more to everyone. She would like to tell Kit and everyone else how these are the first new articles of clothing she has had in five years. She would like them to know that for weeks now she has hand-washed the blouse she wore last week every night so that it wouldn’t smell in the morning. She would like to tell them how she let the other women at the shelter take clothes that she knew would also fit her because she didn’t feel worthy, didn’t feel as if she had a right to have anything nice, didn’t feel as if she should look like a woman who was changing her life one second at a time. But now, tonight, she feels as if she could skate on air.

“Someone dropped these off for me,” Leah tells them, as she sits down next to Grace and across from Kit and Jane. “I don’t know who it was.”

Leah pauses. She isn’t sure she should say something to Dr. Bayer. Maybe the other women aren’t supposed to know. Leah is absolutely terrified that she might make a mistake.

“There are wonderful angels everywhere, Leah,” Dr. Bayer says, sensing her hesitation. “There are also a lot of people who don’t realize how someone right down the street from them could be in need of something as simple as a warm dinner, a second chance, or a lovely pair of black slacks.”

Leah blushes and puts her head down.

Kit feels as if Dr Bayer is talking to her. The shelter location is kind of a secret because so many of the women who live there are victims of domestic violence and need a place to live where they can’t be found. It’s a huge home that fills up three lots. Years ago, when Ellington was nothing but a few stop lights, it was a boardinghouse. There are no signs, and nothing about the building looks institutional. Unless your daughter’s Girl Scout troop donated Christmas gifts to the shelter fifteen years ago, and you dropped off the gifts, you might never know where it was located.

Kit is struggling now to remember that afternoon. She had to call a phone number and a woman gave her another number to call. Then she had to wait while a second woman verified who she was by calling the Girl Scout office. Finally, Kit was given directions to the house and was flabbergasted when she saw how close it was to her own home. She had no idea.

She was also flabbergasted when she had to sign a release agreeing never to tell anyone the location. She never really got past the foyer, but there was a candle burning and she now remembers how it smelled like Christmas. The candle must have been pine-scented, and she hoped the women living there felt that way, too—as if they had finally gotten to live inside a real holiday.

And she meant to go back and volunteer or ask what they needed so she could keep them supplied with things that other women took for granted.

Things like a new pair of slacks.

Kit knows she has missed a lot. She so wants to keep filling her heart with compassion. Compassion and
joy
.

Joy for what she had that the other women didn’t have. Her own bathroom and a closet full of clothes, toys for her daughter, and never a doubt that there would be food for more than three meals a day, every single day of the week. A yard and the fort and a man who loves you even though you come from a family that is wild, boisterous, and occasionally as crazy as a pack of rabid wolves.

Kit looks at Leah and struggles not to run up to her and take her in her arms. Why haven’t the others reached out to Leah? Why hasn’t
she
reached out to her? Has she become so self-centered, so evasive of her own emotions, so frightened of what she might find if she stops to look at herself in a mirror that she can’t see beyond her own hideous mistakes?

When Dr. Bayer looks over and sees that Kit seems as if she’s about to fall off her chair, she has no idea what’s happening. Kit’s left leg is moving up and down as if it is attached to some kind of invisible motor, and her eyes are glued trancelike to the floor in front of Leah.

Something is going on, but Dr. Bayer also knows that people in these classes sometimes start thinking about things that often have no connection to the purpose of the class. In Kit’s case this could be the recent loss of her mother, which apparently triggered an avalanche of understandable emotion and, most likely, a mess of memories that have been buried for a very long time. It could also mean that she forgot to turn off the oven when she left for class.

“So, ladies,” Dr. Bayer begins, ignoring what she sees as the obvious. “It’s been several days since your bowling expedition, and I know you’re ready to keep moving forward.”

Everyone shifts a bit and all the chairs squeak all at once.

“Grace has survived, as you can see, and in spite of her newly sprained ankle is doing fine. I’m hoping the entire evening at Bob’s, and not just the mishap at the end, was something you found positive and enlightening.”

The chairs remain silent.

“And, of course, you all went bowling!”

Finally a smile, then another smile, a third, and then a forth.

“I’d like to start this week by talking about that and by you getting out your journals.”

Dr. Olivia Bayer is the queen of physical gestures. Most likely she’s been good at it her entire life, but it was in graduate school where her innate sense of motion and movement gave her more than a leg up in her chosen profession. She could almost gallop inside of a mind by simply watching the way feet moved, legs crossed, eyebrows arched, shoulders sagged, and breath shortened.

Her professors loved her physical analytics, which were usually, though not always, correct. Olivia already knew that without compassion and a well-examined heart of her own, simply knowing that someone made fists and then held them tight until her fingers went numb wasn’t of much use.

Still, it’s a wonder she was never recruited by the FBI. Although right now she’d rather be hunting serial killers than dealing with this gang. The tension in the room could almost straighten hair. Why? They obviously liked bowling. She must get them to talk.

“Do we have to read these things out loud?” Jane asks, digging into her purse for her journal.

“Does that worry you?” Dr. Bayer asks.

“Well, I didn’t think we would have to read them out loud, that’s all.”

“Would what is in there be different if you knew you were going to be sharing it with the entire class?”

Jane shrugs and the left corner of her mouth droops.

Grace instantly gets a headache.

“This is a place of safety, remember?” Dr. Bayer reminds Jane and everyone else, hoping they aren’t thinking about arrows and rifles at the moment. “I can’t stop you from talking about what happens in this class when you leave, but I want you to know what happens here, what we share, what pieces of ourselves we reveal, is almost sacred.”

Dr. Bayer wants them to know that Tuesday night is not a game or a place where they should lie and hold things back. This is one of the many things she tells them during the next fifteen minutes when she talks about change and living and reminds them that they are here to move forward and not backward. It’s all about rediscovery, she says, and it’s also so very much about forgiveness.

“You all seemed to connect and have lovely exchanges last Saturday,” she goes on. “I’m hoping you can move forward from that point, no matter what the days since have been like.”

When she gets going, it doesn’t matter how everyone is sitting, leaning, flinching, or swaying. Dr. Bayer has to tell them what she has to tell them—and it is their job to listen, damn it. And they are listening; she can tell. And she senses that what she is saying is something that they already know, or at least have learned in the past few weeks.