The Prayers in Rossford
Old is new again
Continued
“Okay,” Nell said, sitting down at the kitchen table, “the horrible news is Kevin’s in town.”
She looked at Fenn, Adele, Tom and Lee. “Don’t even think of telling Todd.”
“And don’t you think of telling Dena,” said Adele.
“Well…” said Nell.
“Well what?” Fenn looked up at her from his coffee cup.
“It’s too late for that. I told Dena. I didn’t want her to be surprised, and I can’t imagine Kevin not making his presence known.”
Tom looked disturbed, and Lee looked at Tom.
“Just,” Tom explained, “Kevin making his presence known is not always the best thing.”
“It’s never the best thing,” Fenn said. “When Todd was still a kid, Kevin seduced him.”
Lee looked the closest thing he ever did to amazed, and passing Dylan to Fenn, said, “Your husband… while he was your husband?”
Nell nodded, and then said, “But enough of that. That’s not very cheerful at all.”
“You have cheerful news?” Adele said.
Nell nodded.
“I met a wonderful man,”
“It’s about time,” Adele said, at the same time her brother did. They looked at each other. Nell looked reproachfully at both of them.
“Bill Affren.”
“Ugly Bill Affren?”
Nell looked at Fenn.
“Bill wasn’t ugly.
“He wasn’t pretty,” Adele said.
“Well,” Nell sounded flustered, “He’s changed.”
“Is this,” Tom interrupted, “Barb’s son?”
Fenn nodded. “We went to school together. Well, we went to Saint Barbara’s at the same time. He was a couple of grades ahead of me.”
“We went to school together,” Adele said, “And I remember he was something else.”
“Well, now he’s rich and successful,” Nell said. “And aside from that, incredibly fun.”
“One,” said Adele, “I am not surprised he is rich and successful. And two, I suppose he would be fun. He was always nice. But… is he cute now?”
Nell looked at her.
“Is he?” Fenn said.
“He looks like Bill.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” Fenn murmured.
“And I like it.”
“I don’t remember Bill looking good,” Adele said. “I do remember girls liking him, though.”
“You know what I remember?” said Fenn, running a finger around his coffee cup.
“I remember Bill has a wife and two, or is it three, kids?”
Nell frowned at him and said, “I didn’t say I was in love with Bill Affren.”
“You didn’t exactly not say it,” Tom noted.
She looked at him, but Lee said, “He’s got a point.”
Nell said, “Well, we’re just friends.”
“Didn’t really sound like that.”
“Fenn!”
“Fine,” Adele said. “Fine. But… just make sure you don’t screw up damn near twenty years living like a nun by giving up the boodie to a married man.”
“Adele—”
“Adele me as much as you want,” she said. “But just listen to what I say.”
Keith climbed out of bedand went down the hall. He could hear Dan Malloy snoring from behind the closed door, and so now he knew it was safe. He returned to his room, put on slippers and the old housecoat, and then, in his pajamas headed downstairs and turned the computer in the study on. He even went to make some cocoa, so that he would feel more normal, more like a priest writing a sermon.
Back and forth, while he microwaved and stirred, he waited for the computer to heat up, to connect to the Internet, to ask for his password. Dan had a commitment to poverty that extended to his casual disregard for the invention of the laptop or the idea that a computer not yet ten years old might need exchanging. It was a little frustrating, but Keith reminded himself that this was only because he was sinful.
He sat down with the hot chocolate, in the dim office. The computer was turned away from the door, and he was glad for that. The idea that Dan might wake up, walk in and see what he was doing would have been too unnerving. Already he was unnerved. His foot was beating against the worn carpet of the rectory floor, and his fingertips were drumming rapidly.
I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE. I DIDN’T KNOW IF YOU’D BE ABLE TO
Keith typed:
I DIDN’T KNOW IF I WOULD BE ABLE TO EITHER.
Beside the IM screen was a picture of a somewhat goodlooking man, in early middle age with his hair neatly trimmed all around, a little grey. He was more than good looking, Keith admitted. Looking at the pic sent blood rushing to his ears.
REARDONBUDDY75 wrote:
WE STILL ON FOR THIS WEEKEND?
When it was put like that, with not much beating around the bush, Keith McDonald’s mouth went dry and his palms turned clammy. He didn’t type anything for a long time; he just sat in the chair trembling and shaking until he thought he could never stop.
YOU STILL THERE?
Keith typed.
YEAH. I’M SORRY.
I JUST GOT A LITTLE NERVOUS.
A few seconds later, REARDONBUDDY75 wrote:
I KNOW. I GET NERVOUS TOO. BUT I REALLY WANT TO DO THIS.
ME TOO.
Keith waited, his heart beating almost painfully against his ribcage, and then REARDONBUDDY75 wrote:
SO WE’LL GET TOGETHER THIS WEEKEND?
YEAH.
WE’LL FUCK?
That made Keith hard and helpless. His dick was so heavy it felt like a lead weight between his thighs. He was in a bad way. What was wrong with him? He could hardly type on the keyboard properly.
YEAH
He wrote.
WE’LL FUCK…. HARD.
“I HEARD SOMEONE SAY,” Tara began while biting into her food, “that the rudest question he ever heard was, ‘what do you do?’ He said Americans ask it all the time. He was French or something, I forgot—and that he hated it.”
“That’s a good point,” Melanie was reflective before speaking. “I never thought about it. But I hate it when people ask me that right off the bat. I guess,” she poised her fork over her salad, “people ask it because they just don’t know what else to ask.”
“This man, in the interview, said it was because Americans are obsessed with money and with doing, and it pissed him off because he would say, ‘I’m rich. I don’t do anything.’”
“Remind me not to see this interview,” Melanie said.
Tara laughed.
“No, I think everyone should do something,” she said. “I don’t care what. I mean, he had to do something.”
“You know what, now that I think of it, he was an asshole. He was talking about how you had to be engaged in life, so he went down to the tailor, and he would spend all day, engaged in his tailor’s making the perfect suit, with just the right lapel. That’s what makes life worth living.”
Melanie screwed up her face.
“Was he gay?”
“No, but you know… When gay men act that way it’s because they’re pretending they’re rich men, or they want to be. He was already rich.”
“Well, I think it’s all disgusting. Half this planet fucking starving, and… You know what? I’d love to be rich, but there’s got to be something wrong with someone who doesn’t care that the only task for him in this life is to make himself happy.”
“I like you,” Tara discovered.
“Did you think you wouldn’t?”
“Well, you have to understand, I don’t really expect to like anybody. And I usually don’t.”
Tara stopped, and said, “What I meant by that is—”
“You know what? I think you meant exactly what you said. That’s all right,” Melanie put her hands on the table, “I haven’t liked anyone sense high school.”
“Oooh, I hated high school.”
“What I remember,” Melanie said, “was that I didn’t understand anything. Everyone who was popular—I couldn’t figure out why.”
“Thank you! But… to be fair, you know what? I still can’t figure out why.”
“I just wish people made sense. More sense. I wish I made sense.”
“I thought I was straight until I was almost thirty,” Melanie confessed. “Then I thought, well, now, problem taken care of. All you needed is a woman. And then I turned out to be just as bad at being a lesbian as I was being a straight girl. I think I got more action when I was still waiting for a man.”
“Never been with a man.”
“Never?” Melanie looked at her.
Tara shook her head.
“I always knew.”
“Well, then I admire the purity of your discernment,” Melanie said, clinically, with a small smile. “For me the dilemma is this: lesbians are just flat out fucked up and crazy.”
“Now that shit is the truth.”
“But men….”
“Are unreliable as fuck.”
“Yes. I had to take care of my baby brother when I was growing up. I swear, every man I ever dated was just like that. I did everything but wipe their asses and help them to the toilet, and with the last one I think I did both.”
“Once,” Tara said, leaning into the table, “I went out on a date with this bitch who was so crazy I had to sneak off to the bathroom and crawl out of the window.”
“You didn’t!”
“I was young and irresponsible back then.
“However, she found me out. She remembered my car. This bitch drove around the city until she found me. Anyway, one night I was sitting in my apartment and I got a phone call. From her. She was all like, remember me, such and such. In a calm voice I said, yeah. I thought about apologizing for sneaking out of the bathroom window. But then I thought—maybe she forgot—”
“Maybe she forgot?”
“I know. Anyway, the bitch says in this real polite voice, ‘Hey, I want you to look out your window.’ I do, and then she says, ‘watch this.’ And my car explodes. The phone clicks off. I never heard from her again.”
“That…” Melanie said, “was crazy.”
Tara nodded, “And that’s how I learned my lesson about not sneaking out of windows.”
“So you won’t be sneaking out on me.”
“Even the old Tara woudn’t have snuck out on you.”
“Well, that’s good,” Melanie said. “Cause even though I have many skills, bomb making isn’t one of them.”