Today Will Be Different

by Maria Semple

The sending money to my parents. The charity trips. The fund-raising. The twenty-six-hour flights to Kenya. The extra time I take with patients. The lifting weights at the WAC. The cute links I send Eleanor. The steam engine built with Timby. The showers before getting into the pool. Notes praising helpful customer-service people. Picking up garbage off the sidewalk. Trips to the e-waste center. Keeping the thermostat at sixty-eight. Not wasting dinner rolls. Letting other cars into traffic. Mnemonics to remember the names of the OR staff. Salt-free potato chips. Games of Clue. Colonoscopies. Giving Eleanor the better parking space. The weekly hardcover purchase at Elliott Bay. Resoling shoes. Tipping hotel maids. Refilling growlers. Punctuating text messages—

  Boom! The thud of a cannon going off on the field.

  Coming toward him down the tunnel: A bird of prey. Eye level. The real, live Seattle sea hawk, perched on its handler’s gloved arm. Joe locked eyes with the bird as he passed. The raptor held Joe’s stare, head gliding around, its penetrating gaze suggesting both wisdom and weariness.

  Joe’s shoulders jerked with tension. He stepped out onto the turf.

  The Sea Gals jogged up in formation and took their places, eight across, two deep, and began a lurid shimmy to “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” Makeup thick as tree bark, man-made cleavage, flesh-colored tights: a living affront to the natural world.

  Joe looked away.

  The Cardinals had the ball again; the ’Hawks must have gone three and out. The coaches and players were clustered at the far end of the field.

  Joe spotted Gordy at the fifty. Just the sight of the trainer brought Joe a tickle of relief: his people.

  Gordy was joking with the team “flexibility specialist,” basically a yoga teacher, a little guy with spindly legs who always wore a bandanna. He said something that had Gordy cracking up.

  Joe picked up his pace, eager to join the camaraderie.

  But then, in Gordy’s hand: a splint. The splint.

  Joe scanned the action. Their defense was getting into position. He found number 27.

  His back to Joe. DAGGATT.

  Joe’s whole body juddered in disbelief. He stormed toward the trainer.

  “What the fuck, Gordy?”

  Gordy turned. He knew how bad this was.

  The yoga teacher got out of the line of fire.

  “Vonte wanted to try a possession without it,” Gordy said, panic cracking his voice. “He was feeling good.”

  “Not your call.”

  “We’re cool,” said the yoga teacher.

  “No,” Joe snapped. “We’re not cool.”

  “He almost made the pick—” Gordy stammered.

  “What, you have him on your fantasy team or something? You have one concern: to make sure none of those men have a career-ending injury.”

  “I know.” Gordy looked on the verge of vomiting.

  “That’s his livelihood! These guys have ten years in them if they’re lucky! He has three daughters!”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t fucking know!” Joe got in his face. “Stop saying you know!”

  The yoga teacher got between them.

  “Hey, bro, relax.”

  “You don’t talk to me!” Joe bellowed.

  “Let’s dial this whole thing down,” the yoga teacher cooed. His orange bandanna was covered in a logo—

  GODADDY.

  Joe shoved the yoga teacher, hard.

  “The hell?” Gordy cried—

  The yoga teacher flew back and almost went down—

  But was saved by his remarkable balance—

  And sprang back up.

  Joe charged again, this time slamming the bewildered yogi to the turf. Joe drew back his fist and—

  From behind, a big pair of arms clamped him in a bouncer hold.

  “That’s enough!” Kevin, his friend, hustled Joe off the field.

  “They let Daggatt go out without his splint!” Joe raged.

  “Joe, man, pull it together!” Kevin shouted over the cacophonous 70,000.

  Joe looked back.

  A consternated ref was trotting over to Gordy and the dazed yoga teacher, who was now standing, one foot inbounds.

  Kevin stepped into Joe’s line of sight. “I’ll deal with it. Just go inside. Go!” Kevin gave Joe a hefty push toward the tunnel.

  “C’mon, man!” Voices. “C’mon, man!” Heckling voices. Hanging off the rail overhead and on both sides: potbellied, faces painted, green-Afroed, tongues out, drunk before noon. “C’mon, man!” Jeering at Joe.

  He reeled into the tunnel. Vertigo hit. The fact of what he had just done. It raised his head off his shoulders and made it wobble, left and right, around and around. He teetered against the cold cinder-block wall.

  “Need something, Doc?” Yet another guard, sitting and watching the game on a phone balanced on his big knee.

  A door. The press room. Empty now. Joe lunged for the knob.

  Pete Carroll’s lectern. Seahawks wallpaper. Rows of empty chairs. More chairs stacked, so high they seemed to sway. Joe closed the door behind him.

  A tomblike quiet descended.

  Joe, jangly, panting, his heartbeat on the fritz.

  He took it.

  He took it.

  Until he couldn’t take it.

  He slumped onto a bench and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

  Med school, dedication, integrity, restraint: all a cosmic sideshow. All a laughable, flimsy work-around. Over now. Undone in an instant.

  Joe moved his palms to his forehead and opened his eyes. He stared at the carpet tile.

  “It can’t be as bad as all that,” said a voice with a British accent.

  The crinkling of newsprint.

  Joe wasn’t alone.

  Sitting on a chair in the corner, legs crossed, reading the Travel section: a man Joe had never seen. Fifties with short gray hair and little round glasses. No ID badge. Hiking boots and a vest over a long white shirt.

  “Perhaps I can be of help.”

  And now, Eleanor across the lawn, the Space Needle at her back. They’d gone through so much together. They were about to go through more.

  Now’s the time, God was saying.

  Tell her.

  The Art of Losing

  The fact that Joe did not look caught or panicked or any of the normal emotions a husband might feel when totally busted: my immediate reaction was fury.

  I pushed myself off the rail and flounced through the café tables of people eating foodcourt. When I hit the path at the top of the hill, the pitch swept me into a jog. But with every step, I felt my anger falling away. Underneath that anger: fear.

  In the middle of one of her self-help phases, Ivy had once proclaimed that underneath all anger was fear. I’d long since wondered what, if anything, was underneath all fear.

  I knew then: If underneath anger was fear, then underneath fear was love. Everything came down to the terror of losing what you love.

  I ran to Joe and pulled him in. I pushed my face into his jacket and breathed in the wool and dry-cleaning. Joe’s height was always a narcotic for me, the way my head hit him at the chest. I dug my fingers under his shoulder blades and turned my cheek so my nose touched flesh. The dampness of his clavicle, the tickle of his chest hair. The smell of Joe. My man.

  “Hey!” he said. “Hello to you too.”

  Alonzo arrived and introduced himself.

  “A face to the name.” Joe shook Alonzo’s hand. A fluorescent wristband peeked from under Joe’s cuff.

  “Mommy and I have been looking for you all day,” Timby said. “We went to your office and they thought you were on vacation and then Mom drove your car on that superlong bridge that goes up a hill.”

  “Oh.” Joe’s eyes met mine and instantly dropped to the asphalt.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  Joe tightened his lips and looked at me. A deep breath.

  “I don’t want to know—” I started.

  “I fo
und religion.”

  “Religion?” I said. This was too weird. “Religion?”

  “Hunh,” Alonzo said.

  “What do you mean, religion?” I asked. “Religion in kettle bells? Religion in Radiohead?”

  “Religion in Jesus.”

  “Can I get a snack?” Timby said, no dummy.

  “I’ll go too,” Alonzo said, and hustled Timby off.

  It was Joe. My husband.

  “It was the last thing I expected too,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “But I flipped out at work.”

  “Okay…”

  “I came across a man,” Joe said. “An ordinary man. A pastor. He invited me to his church.”

  “And you went?” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “And that’s where it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were just people,” Joe said, “coming together. The collective humility overwhelmed me. Simon, the pastor, began his sermon. It was about Christ entering the Temple, the money changers, a story I’d heard a million times. But Simon put it in historical perspective. And it felt so relevant and even radical.”

  “Relevant to you?”

  “It spoke of the courage and wisdom of Jesus the man. I felt a thousand-pound weight being lifted off my shoulders and gently placed on the ground. The lifting was done by a human presence. I looked around and everything had changed. Nothing separated me from the people, the light, the smells, the trees. I was bathed—we were all bathed—in a radiant love.”

  “So you had a bad day,” I said.

  “I had a direct experience of God.”

  “Therefore you lied to me?” A bitter brew of betrayal and self-pity gurgled within. “When were you going to share this wonderful news?”

  “I know,” Joe said, rubbing my arm.

  I jerked away. “Just because you’re calmer than I am doesn’t mean you’re morally superior.”

  A family on a Segway tour of Seattle zoomed by, all smiles.

  “What do you think when you hear God’s plan?” Joe asked.

  “I think you’ve been talking to too many Seahawks.”

  “I want you to consider the possibility that we live in a benevolent universe.”

  “Consider it considered.”

  “Really consider it,” Joe said. “If the universe is benevolent, that means everything is going to turn out okay. It means we can stop trying to punch our way out of the gunnysack.”

  “Will you please admit that everything you’re saying is profoundly weird?”

  “It couldn’t be more sensible,” Joe said. “Instead of trying to impose your will on an uncontrollable universe, you can surrender to the wisdom of Jesus.”

  “Please stop saying Jesus. People might think we’re poor.”

  “I’m acutely aware that becoming a Christian is the least cool thing a person can do.” He looked at his phone. “Oh! They need me. We have sound check.”

  “Sound check?”

  “We’re singing for the Pope on Saturday.”

  “You’re what?” I said dully.

  “Singing for the Pope at Key Arena. A multidenominational celebration. My congregation is taking part.”

  I had to grab a tree for support. “You’re seriously putting together the words ‘my’ and ‘congregation?’”

  He gave me a hug. “I’m so glad it happened this way. You showing up like you did. See how it all works out when you let it?”

  “Is that what you call this?” I said, squirming to escape his mawkish embrace. “Working out?”

  “We’ll talk about everything when I get home.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his sport coat and disappeared down the steps to the Key Arena.

  Leaving me standing there, whacked.

  “You need a wristband,” the Key Arena guard said. He stood beside a metal detector and folding table. Beyond him, glass doors with more guards.

  “My husband has a wristband,” I said, my whole body hopping. “He just went in.” I was in a panic to get inside, to get Joe off this insanity.

  “Nope,” the guy said.

  At his side, a German shepherd. Embroidered on its harness, PLEASE DO NOT PET ME.

  A group of schoolchildren in matching T-shirts bounded up carrying giant Slurpees, their weary teachers at the rear.

  “You’re blocking the entrance,” the guard said to me over the racket. To the kids rushing toward the dog, “Read the harness.”

  “Just please?” I said, getting jostled by sugar-pumped munchkins. “My husband’s a doctor. I hit my head.” I lifted my bangs and revealed my bump. “See? I’m capable of anything.”

  “Except going inside.”

  “Do I look like a woman who wants to blow up the Pope?”

  He shot me a hard look. “That’s not something we joke about, ma’am.” He grabbed his clipboard and turned to a teacher.

  As he did, a sheet of neon-green wristbands fell to the ground. I bent down, pretending to tie my shoe, and tore one off. I palmed it and sprang back up.

  I hurried to the next entrance, flashed my wrist, and sailed through.

  Dim fluorescent lights gave off a sickly glow. Crew members hoisted colorful banners up into the rafters. On the third tier, cops led bomb-sniffing German shepherds from seat to seat.

  “One-two, one-two,” blatted a voice over the sound system.

  On the stage, union guys set up a forest of oversize foam-core happy people, ball-headed, arms raised in joyous Vs.

  On the floor, in folding chairs, groups of singers waited to rehearse. Tibetan monks, an African American choir, Sikhs in turbans, and, loosely assembled in three or four rows at the front, Joe’s group. I shot down the steps and slid in behind him.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said.

  Joe turned. “What are you doing?”

  “We all want to give up,” I said. “You don’t need Jesus for that. Look at me. I’ve given up all on my own.”

  “Is this Eleanor?” said an Englishman one row up. He had on a white tunic and a khaki vest.

  Joe introduced Simon, the Seahawks chaplain.

  “You’re the one who brainwashed my husband?”

  “It would seem!” he said, shaking my hand.

  “Simon leads the team in prayer before and after the games,” Joe said. “In between, he hangs out in the press room.”

  “It’s a good time to catch up on my New Yorkers,” Simon offered. “I have stacks.” He held one up, then turned back around.

  “So you’re on some kind of church kick?” I asked Joe.

  “It’s bigger than that,” he said. “It’s radical transformation.”

  Those are words no wife wants to hear.

  “Radical which includes me,” I stated or asked or pleaded. Whatever it was, my voice broke and my mouth filled with tears.

  “Of course it does,” Joe said, taking my hand. “We can talk about it when I get home.” He looked pointedly at those within earshot and nodded at me, as if the whole conversation were over.

  “But you were happy,” I said. “You are happy.”

  “Eleanor, I attacked a yoga teacher.”

  “I’m sure he deserved it,” I said.

  “For wearing a GoDaddy bandanna.”

  “Twenty years,” I said, “you’ve been telling me religion is for reality-dodgers. That no one with an education and an IQ could possibly believe in God.”

  “Do you hear your arrogance?” Joe asked.

  “It’s your arrogance!” I said. “You’re the big atheist.”

  “Call it a loss of faith,” he said. “I lost my faith in atheism.”

  “I like that,” Simon mused. “A lot.” He patted his pockets for a pen.

  “Atheism, skepticism, always having to be right,” Joe continued. “It was my way of staying comfortably numb.” He pointed to Simon and proudly added, “I’m sure he knows the reference.”

  “‘My hands felt just like two balloons’!” Simon said.

  Commotion broke
out on the stage. Crewmen shouted to clear the way for a forklift grinding up the ramp. It deposited a six-foot crate and spun around cutely before making its exit. Electric drills whined as the crate was unscrewed.

  “What does radical transformation even mean?” I asked Joe.

  “He’ll tell you at home,” bleated a woman, heavyset and with a flat affect. She could have worked at the DMV.

  Joe smiled and raised his eyebrows, as if that settled it.

  “No,” I said. “Now.”

  Everyone was looking at us. Black and white, old and young. To a person they needed moisturizer.

  “Okay,” Joe said. “I’m thinking of going to divinity school.”

  “Boom,” said the DMV lady with a chuckle.

  “Nothing has captivated me like Jesus Christ,” Joe said.

  “You have no idea how hard this is for me.” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s like you’ve just gone from the most interesting person I’ve ever met to the least interesting person I’ve ever met.”

  “Jesus was the most radical thinker in world history,” Joe said. “I want to learn everything about first-century Palestine. About the Temple culture of Jerusalem. I want to study the Gnostic gospels, the Nag Hammadi texts.”

  “Aren’t there podcasts?”

  “I want to be taught,” Joe said. “I’ve been working like a fiend on my applications—”

  “Hang on,” I said. “Is that where you’ve been the past week?”

  “At Starbucks, writing my essays.”

  “Which Starbucks?”

  “Does it matter?” he said. “The one on Melrose and Pine.”

  “That’s a good Starbucks.” One mystery solved. “What were you looking at with that spy thing on your desk?”

  “The spotting scope,” Joe said. “I was looking at the stars.”

  “The stars?” I said. “What stars? Oh, don’t tell me. God’s stars.”

  He didn’t argue. I sighed. All I could do was marvel at how wrong I’d been.

  Up onstage, the crate had been opened. In it, an object covered in bubble wrap. As a woman carefully cut away the multiple layers, a chair was revealed. A throne, in fact, with a crimson seat and high back.

  “There’s a whole lot of Pope going on,” I said to Joe. “Does this mean you’re Catholic again?”