“Despite the way I was raised, I believed for a long time that people were fundamentally good. That life might be hard but it was full of promise and reward. My mother gave me that. With her, I felt like I was hiding in a corner with her protecting me with one arm and with the other pointing to a place beyond where we were now, where it was good. Where things were possible. After she died, I still believed in that promise. After I went to ’Nam, I didn’t believe it anymore.” He grows quiet, a bitter flame reignited; he’s sure she can hear it in his voice. She lies still beside him.
“I’ve seen the devil and the devil is all of us,” he tells her, finally.
“I believe you,” she says. “I think that, too, except that I would say that the devil is all of us and the angels are, too. And life is nothing if not having to choose who’s in charge.”
“Sometimes you don’t get a choice.” His voice is louder now.
“Maybe sometimes you don’t see it.” Her voice is even. “Maybe sometimes you need to purposefully focus on all the beauty around you.”
He picks up an orange peel and lays it just below her collarbone. “Can you smell that?”
“Yes. So?”
“So maybe you’re right, and now we can talk about that beautiful scent rather than the time I was hacking through the jungle, first guy on the line, and the kid behind me comes up and says, ‘Let me do that—you’re beat.’ I was beat, and I fell back and let him do it. Two more steps, and he’s hit by a sniper. His best friend runs over to try to help him and he gets taken out by a claymore. It sounds like a shot, but then there’s a massive explosion, big red fire cloud. And I’m standing there with M&M’s in my rucksack that I’d intended to share with those kids that night, I liked those kids. As it was, I ate them alone. They weren’t there, so I ate them all.” He holds the peel under his nose. “But. The scent of an orange! All better.”
“I didn’t say that,” Iris says, and now he sees her anger mounting. “Don’t belittle me.”
“What did you say, then?”
“I guess I said there are alternatives to certain ways of thinking. And there are people who want to help.”
“Oh, Iris. Don’t try to help me. Please don’t do that.”
She sits up and reaches for her clothes. He puts his hand firmly over hers.
She turns to face him. “Let go of my hand.”
Now they are two different people.
He lets go of her, looks down. “I’m sorry. I only don’t want you to go quite yet. I’m sorry.”
She stands to dress, says nothing. Slips on her sandals. Heads for the door.
“Iris,” he says.
She goes outside. He hears the car door slam and the ignition turn over, then cut out. Then, nothing. He imagines the stars looking down on her, saying, rightly, Leave. Get away from him.
He goes to the kitchen and sits naked at the table, lights a candle.
And she comes back in.
“Iris,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have asked you so much about it.” There is nothing but calm in her eyes. Women are always the brave ones. John’s been feeding a cardinal couple sunflower seeds he buys at the hardware store. Always, it’s the female who comes first to the jar lid he’s nailed to a fence post near the place where John likes to sit. The male will watch nervously for a while, like an avian Don Knotts, until he finally ventures over.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you to talk about it,” she says.
He rubs one eye hard, leans back in his chair, and smiles up at her.
“Do-overs?”
She comes to sit opposite him. “It’s just that I want to know you. I really do.”
For this he has no answer. The flame gutters, then grows tall and steady, and they both regard it as though it, too, has spoken.
“Let’s go back to my house for a while,” Iris says.
Everything in him lines up to say no. Nope! But look here: he stands, then looks down at himself. “Might be better if I go dressed. And I got a new comb yesterday, so I’ll give it a try-out. Have some tea while you wait, Iris. Make yourself comfortable.”
“I am comfortable,” she says, looking right at him.
“I’m glad for both of us then,” he says, but the truer mouth that is his brain says, Ah, no. Don’t be. You won’t be for long.
The conversation they have in the car on the way to Iris’s house is a kind of walking on ice; it’s careful that way. But it is kind. And hopeful.
“How are the baking classes going?” he asks.
“Oh, tomorrow is a really popular class: homemade dog biscuits.”
“Really?”
“Really. We have three varieties: peanut butter, bacon, and peanut butter and bacon. And a nice variety of cookie cutters, too. A bone, of course. But also fire hydrants and balls and all kinds of dogs.”
“No cats?” John asks. “Or rolled-up newspapers? Or slippers?”
“Not yet. But that’s a good idea. In the morning, Nola will write the copy; she likes to do that. ‘Fluffy will flip for these!’ That sort of thing. For tonight, I need to make up some sample biscuits. Want to help me?”
“I’m your man.”
Well, too much, that one. They ride the rest of the way in silence.
* * *
—
After John leaves, Maddy and Iris sit on the front porch. “I like John a lot,” Maddy says, and Iris says, “Umm.”
“You do, too, right?”
“I don’t know. I guess I do. Yes. I do.”
“Nola’s nuts about him,” Maddy says. “I kind of love that they went outside and lay in the backyard together.”
“You didn’t worry?” Iris asks.
“What do you mean?”
“It didn’t make you nervous that she was alone with him?”
“They were right in the backyard. Which is fenced. I could see them out there. He was showing her constellations.”
Iris nods. “Okay.”
Now Maddy straightens and faces her. “Why? Were you worried? Is there something I should know? Should I not let Nola be alone with him? Oh, my God, you should have told me!”
“No, no,” Iris says. “It’s not that. I think he really loves kids. They certainly seem to respond to him. It’s just that…he is complicated.”
“In what way?”
“He’s pretty damaged—let’s just say that.”
Maddy laughs, a bitter sound. “Yeah, there’s a lot of us in that club.”
Iris looks over at her. “Are you…Is there anything you want to talk about?”
“I found out today that Nola has been secretly talking to Matthew. On Link’s phone.”
“Really? Why on Link’s phone?”
“That’s what I asked her. She said it seemed like I didn’t want her to talk to Matthew. I said that wasn’t true, that I didn’t mind her talking to him. She said, ‘Well, you’re always listening, like prison, and your face gets all frown-y when I talk to him. And I don’t get any privacy. Even if you leave the room, you listen. I see your shadow. And some things are just private.’ ”
“Like prison?” Iris says, and laughs in spite of herself.
“Yeah,” Maddy says, and she, too, smiles. “I guess she’s right. I do worry about her talking to Matthew.”
“What are you afraid of, do you think?” Iris asks.
Maddy sighs. “That he’s given up on me. And he’s just waiting for the right time to tell me.”
“You need to be honest with him about what’s going on with you,” Iris says. “You’re not being fair.”
“I know that. I owe it to him and I owe it to Nola, too. Matthew’s not Nola’s biological father, but he’s her father anyway.”
“Then tell him, Maddy! Tell him
you want to move back here!”
“Well, I called him today to do just that and he didn’t pick up on the house phone or the cell. Called him a couple of times more and then I left a message and he didn’t call back.”
“Oh,” Iris says. “Well. That doesn’t mean he won’t.”
“Right.” Maddy stands up. “It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
“Me, too,” Iris says. She and Maddy go into the kitchen and see the light in the kitchen next door go off. For a moment, they both stand there. Then, “Has Link said anything to Nola?” Iris asks.
“You mean, about his mom?”
Iris nods.
“Not that I know of. I think she’d tell me if he did. I think she’d have some questions.”
“Don’t we all,” says Iris.
Eeenie Meenie Miney Mo
When Iris awakens, she sits for a while at the edge of the bed. The house is quiet; she guesses Maddy and Nola have gone out. She’s thinking about the turn the conversation took with John when they were at the farmhouse. She’s not sure these kinds of things won’t happen more often, his mood descending into a place where she can’t reach him. It’s an uneasy, disappointed feeling she has, and the level of her disappointment makes it clear how invested she is in him. In them. But then she reasons that no relationship is perfect, and he certainly has justification for being the way that he is. People overcome things. Love heals. She believes this wholeheartedly.
She showers, dresses, eats a light breakfast, and then sits at her desk to answer emails and place orders for her baking classes: the requisite flour and sugar, more bars of baking chocolate, a large bottle of vanilla paste, nonpareils. There is an email from Tailwaggers, a rescue site she went to last week, just to see what dogs were available. She loves her cat, but she has wanted a dog (as well as every other animal under the sun) since she was a child. Why not get one now? She works from home; her cat, Homer, gets along with the dog next door and there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t adapt to a new member of the family. Maddy, Nola, and Link would all help her with walking. The email is informing her that a new litter of puppies is now available for adoption. The puppies—there are seven of them—are a Great Pyrenees mix, and each is cuter than the last: brown-and-white, freckle-faced, fluffy coats, gigantic paws, that endearing look of puppy dopiness on their faces. Iris goes downstairs and grabs her car keys: she’ll go and just look at them. On the way, she’ll stop at a pet store, because who does she think she’s fooling? She’ll have time to get a harness, a leash, some toys, and puppy food. Surely some of the puppies will still be there when she gets to the shelter. Nonetheless, her tires squeal backing out of the driveway.
* * *
—
Two and a half hours later, Iris carries the puppy she chose—a female the shelter had named Angel—out to her car, wrapped in a soft blanket. She uses the seatbelt to anchor the crate she bought on the seat beside her, then puts the puppy in it. The dog immediately lies down, her nose on her paws. Iris guesses she’s tired; she and two of her littermates spent a long time playing with Iris before she finally chose Angel. It is in the back of her mind to come back and get the other two tomorrow. If not later tonight.
She heads toward home, but then turns the car around to head to the farm. She’ll show John first. She’ll let the puppy play on the open land.
When she pulls up to John’s house, she sees him coming out the door. She leans her head out the window. “Hey!”
He raises his hand.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Not anymore.” He walks over to the car, sees the crate. “Look at that,” he says, smiling. “Is it yours?”
“I just got her,” Iris says. “Okay if I let her run around?”
“Of course!” He opens the side door to get the puppy out of the crate and lowers her gently to the ground. She stands looking up at him. He pets her, then takes a few steps back. The dog follows. Then he turns and runs, and the dog follows. Iris laughs, and the joy she is feeling seems caught in her throat.
“Angel!” she says, and the dog runs to her.
“That her name?” John asks.
“That’s what the shelter named her.”
“Hm.”
“Got a better idea?”
He looks at the dog. “Not yet.”
He lies on the ground and the dog is all over him. Nothing like a puppy to make you young again, Iris thinks.
“You’re not going to keep her in the crate, are you?” John asks.
“Not all the time.”
He says nothing, and Iris says, “Why? Do you not like crates for dogs?”
“I don’t like crates for anything.”
Iris nods. She doesn’t, either, actually.
“Let her out every couple of hours, take up her water a bit before she goes to sleep for the night, you’ll house-train her in no time. You don’t need a crate.” He leans forward deferentially. “Of course, she’s not my dog. It’s just my opinion.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get. I’ve never had a dog.”
John frowns. “Never had a dog!”
“Nope. My mother wouldn’t let me have any pets.”
“People have burned in hell for less.”
Iris laughs.
“I’ve had a lot of dogs,” John says. “I can teach them tricks fast as Jimmy’s ashes. You want this dog to learn to sit in five minutes?”
“Yes!”
“Did you buy some treats?”
“Yes! In fact, they’re called ‘Train Me.’ ”
“All right, we’ll teach her ‘sit.’ And we’ll teach her ‘come’—that’s important. No more for today; you can’t overload them. But I’ll tell you, growing up, I taught my dogs to fetch the newspapers, to roll over three times, to wait for their dinners, to smile. I taught them to pray!”
“How’d you teach them to pray?” Iris asks.
“Oh, that’s easy. Tell them to sit. Front paws up on a chair before them. Then nose down to the paws, eyes raised up imploringly.”
“Do you think they liked doing it?”
“Well, their tails would be going a mile a minute. Dogs live to please you, Iris. Just don’t ever take advantage of that. And never hit this dog—you know that, right? Not with a newspaper, not with your hand—don’t ever hit her.”
“I…Okay. I mean, I wasn’t planning on it.”
“You never have to hit. You never have to yell at them, either. They’re sensitive creatures, like most children are. They’ll love you no matter what.” He shrugs. “Kind of breaks your heart, really.”
Like most animals are, Iris thinks he means, but she doesn’t correct him.
He gets up, brushes himself off. “All right then, Angel. Are you ready for lesson one?”
The dog tugs at his shoelace, and John picks her up. “Ah, we can do better than shoelaces now, can’t we?” He walks toward the backyard, and calls over his shoulder for Iris to follow.
When they reach the pasture fence, John rolls up his sleeves.
“There were two of her littermates left,” Iris says.
“Were there?”
“Yup. Think we should add to the family?”
John’s demeanor changes as suddenly as if cold water has just been poured over him. He stiffens, takes a step back. His shoulders hunch and his hands slide slowly into his pockets.
Now I’ve done it, Iris thinks. Now I’ve done something.
“Just kidding,” she says, and John nods. Then he reaches out for the bag of treats Iris is holding.
“First thing is, you give them a sample of what they’ve got coming,” he says, and offers the puppy a treat. She gobbles it down, then looks up at him. Barks.
“Smart dog,” John says. Bending down toward the puppy, he says, “But we’re doing ‘sit’
now. We’ll do ‘speak’ later, okay, lassie?” He looks up at Iris. “You can’t rush things.”
“No,” Iris says. “I know.”
Do You See What I See?
“All right, I’m just going to say it,” Dodie says. “I might be dating an exhibitionist.”
Silence at the table. And then Joanie says, “What?”
“Well, maybe I should give some background first. Even though it’s pretty embarrassing.”
“The background?” Toots asks. Then, because the women are beginning to talk among themselves, she says loudly, “Order!” Then, again, to Dodie, “The background is embarrassing?”
“Right.”
“Not the fact that you’re dating an exhibitionist? Is it a real one?”
“Let her talk!” says Karen. “After I get more wine. Wow, I can’t wait to hear this one.”
“You’re a preacher’s wife!” says Rosemary.
“Right,” says Karen. “Emphasis on wife, not preacher. I am my own person, you know. Everybody always forgets that. I am not my husband. And I actually am interested in…all kinds of things!” She runs to the kitchen for another bottle of wine, then comes back and says breathlessly, “Go ahead.”
Dodie takes in a breath. “Okay. Does anyone here watch The Bachelorette?”
A few women murmur assent.
“I never watched it until recently. But now I am absolutely addicted. I would never tell anyone but you all this, but I get positively enraged if I get interrupted when I’m watching.”
“You should tape it,” says Maddy. “Then you can pause it.”
“I watch it on demand,” says Dodie. “I can pause it. But I get aggravated if I have to pause it!”
“Wow,” Maddy says.
“See what I mean?” Dodie says, and no one says yes. She continues, “I started watching it as a kind of joke. I’d heard about the Becca disaster, how this young girl was dumped in such a humiliating way by her fiancé. But now she was coming back to the show and this time she would be the one choosing, and I thought, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, they put the most ridiculous things on television these days.’ But I’m telling you, it’s like hypnosis. I get positively transfixed. I love the outfits, especially those sparkly evening gowns that nobody wears anymore. I like to see where they go on their dates, and—oh!—When they have the rose ceremonies? I’m on the edge of my seat. Literally! Once I leaned so far in, I spilled my wine all over my rug. Red wine, too! But I get so involved! That episode where Colton went home, and he kissed Becca’s hand when he said goodbye? Oh, that poor boy. I just bawled, watching him sitting in that limo trying to pull himself together. And the fact that he was a virgin! A professional football player who’s a virgin? Imagine! I mean, I had to ask myself: Is that an attractive quality or not? Wouldn’t it get tiresome having to teach him everything? Or would it be the sweetest thing that he hadn’t ever done it? He would come with a clean bill of health, STD-wise. But anyway, the point is, because of that show I am having the weirdest fantasies. I even fantasize that they come up with a version for seniors, and I get to be on it. I’m the Bachelorette!”
The Confession Club Page 12
