“Thank you, but right now I have trouble agreeing. I was asking for information. When you saw her on the sidewalk she talked to you then? She was saying those prayers?”
“I don’t know what she was doing. I can’t remember a thing.” There, Zoe thinks, a whole sentence. I said it. I must be okay. And she moves the ice pack to her other hand, the ice pack she has been holding on the back of her head. Walt gave it to her, running back into the office to tell them that Chico was coming. Chico and friends to the rescue. Walt had decided to keep the wash open. Then he had gone to his refrigerator and reached in and got this for her. An ice pack. Ice blue. And she hadn’t even told him there was a bump. She feels like crying just thinking of Walt with his starry blue eyes and his blue-blotched white shirt, his blue ice pack, late for his son. She feels like crying when she thinks of their window fiasco, which she can’t look at right now. It’s behind her, she knows, she does not want to turn. What if she looks and that voice starts talking again. The voice in the glass. Her window mistake, which has turned on her with a vengeance. Now all those people on the sidewalk staring into it. What do they see? Or maybe hear? That they too are fine? Wonderful? Maybe superb? She doesn’t feel fine at all. Can she take an aspirin? she wonders. She feels the beginning of a headache. The lights are coming at her so strongly she must cover her eyes. Luz moving toward her, now creeping behind the couch, slips her hand under the ice pack and cups Zoe’s head.
“Ummm,” Zoe says, “that feels nice.”
“Luz, ask permission to touch,” Josefina says.
“I’m just petting the bump.”
“Ladies,” says Father Bill, “I’m taking you home.”
“I’m going home too today,” Zoe says.
“I meant all of you,” says Father Bill. “Zoe, you are in no condition to drive.”
Father Bill taking her home. Luz’s hand on the back of Zoe’s head. Zoe closes her eyes. Her eyelids flutter. She drifts, rises. There is a shower of gold like oak leaves in autumn. Don’t fall for me, I’m bad news, Michael said. But it was too late. “Don’t close your eyes,” Father Bill says. “You can’t go to sleep. You might have a concussion. Stay awake.”
“Okay,” Zoe murmurs. She should really avoid autumn, the season of their love. Just never go back to Cold Spring.
Father Bill says her name. Luz repeats it. The word is irrelevant, efficient. Zoe, Zoe, Michael called, like a hoot owl, called from the top of the too-gold old oak. Out of the long golden past.
“Luz, take your hands off of Zoe’s head. You are making her sleep.”
“I’m awake,” Zoe says. She comes to with a jolt. Michael is falling and falling straight through the branches.
“Sewey, you saw Luz kneeling? You sat beside her. What do you remember?”
“Ah,” says Zoe who is struggling to subtract Michael from the moment, to attend to Josefina and her important question. Not Michael but Luz. Luz kneeling beside her. Yes, first Luz was kneeling, then she got up. Why not tell them the truth and be rid of it? “I remember the words.”
“What words?” Father Bill asks.
“Very nice ones.”
“Who said the nice words?”
“The window, I think.”
The room grows quiet. What has she said? Luz holds her excitement deep in the pouch of her throat. “Was she so pretty? Was she wearing the cape and the crown?”
“Luz!” Josefina says, “you are impossible. Zoe is not in her mind. She is hurt. She fell. You think Zoe saw Our Lady in the window?”
Be quiet, Luz thinks. “She could.”
“Don’t do that, Josefina,” Father Bill says, “Don’t put ideas in Luz’s head.”
“Just please can she tell me one thing?” Luz says, her finger on Zoe’s cheek.
Ah, that little finger, Zoe thinks. Luz close enough for Zoe to feel the gold of her, the sweetness.
“Was she beautiful? What was her hair?”
“No hair at all.”
“No,” says Luz, “that’s not true.”
“No face, hardly a voice. Oh, Michael, why did you leave? Don’t you know how wonderful I am?”
“The Felangela is not right in her head.”
“Does she have to go to the hospital?” cries Luz.
Father Bill curses to himself. They are having a field day with him today. Every last one of these women.
CHAPTER 29
Father Bill feels the tension move through and claim him, the movement in his will that wants to take charge. It is difficult this new way, giving Luz back to God. Now who is the dangerous one? Is it Zoe? Is it Luz?
“We’ll take Zoe with us. I’m going out to get Chico and get those people off the sidewalk. Then we will leave.”
“Tell them the Virgin has already done her damage for the day. We have one person who cannot think straight,” Josefina says. “When you fell down, Sewey, do you think you passed out?”
“Not out. In.”
“You are nauseous or dizzy?”
“No. I feel great. Even my headache is already gone.”
“Does Zoe have to go to the hospital?” Luz asks.
“I don’t think so. Tell me if the headache comes back. Now sit still, Luz,” says Josefina, frowning at the flecks of tuna fish and bread still under Luz’s lip, the faint stain from the forbidden soda above it.
“Do you know what they do with saints, Zoe?” Josefina asks. “They take them away from their families.”
“Saints?”
“They put them to live in a cell. A very small cell. They give them food without taste, no strawberry pie, and to drink only water. And from going crazy in the cell the saints do terrible things to their bodies. Do you know this, Sewey?”
“Why are you saying these bad things?” Luz says.
“Saint Michael takes souls to Heaven. I remember that,” says Zoe.
“And who else?” Luz asks.
“I’m not sure.”
“Zoe, the one with all the animals . . . remember?”
“The big horn sheep? The Mojave tortoise?” says Zoe.
“No!” Luz laughs.
“Be quiet, Luz, you think it is funny? It is my turn to teach Sewey. The saints beat themselves and make themselves bleed because they are so miserable. That is the life of a saint. You want this for your future, Luz?”
“I am not listening. I am hungry. I want the strawberry pie.”
“Saints don’t eat pie. Get used to it Luz.”
“You just want to be mean. I can’t help about my feet. That’s not a saint.”
“You can help your feet.” Josefina puts her rough hands around Luz’s skull. “Look at me, Luz. Repeat: The brain tells the feet. That is the way the mind works.”
Luz narrows her eyes, pulls away from her mother’s hands.
“Maybe we send you to the Franciscans down the road. Maybe they give you a cell to be a saint.”
“I want to go home with the Felangela,” says Luz, and the sound of the word sends a shiver running down Zoe’s spine. She has become the Felangela, a creature not quite of this earth. “Zoe knows how to be nice. She is going to buy us a coconut cake.”
“Be quiet, Luz,” Josefina says. “The Felangela is not driving to the A&P today.”
“Why not?” Luz says.
Father Bill opens the door.
“Let’s go,” he says. “Right now.”
“I am ready,” says Luz and she stands up. “Zoe?” she asks. “We are going.”
“Did the people leave?” asks Zoe.
“I’m afraid not.”
“We don’t leave either,” says Josefina.
“What’s wrong?” Father Bill asks.
“You think we are finished?”
“I am finished,” says Luz. “I want to go home.”
“Tell that to your people that are waiting for you to go back on that cushion.”
“They are not my people. They belong to themselves.”
“And you belong to me. Don’t forget it.”
“No,” says Luz, “I belong to God.”
“Luz,” says Father Bill, striding through the office to the couch. “Don’t argue with your mother.” His prize pupil, his sweet little girl who won’t meet his eyes, the one that he must completely let go. He is helpless with these females. They are tearing him apart.
He takes Josefina by the arm, none too gently. He must remind himself she is not a well woman. She seems plenty well to him now—the Josefina of old, fiery reckless, and forceful. “Come with me, please, Josefina.” Now he takes her hand and leads her away from Luz, to the window where he can eclipse her from Luz with his own blue-shirted back. He looks down at her and tells her to be quiet. He looks into her eyes. He is roused like a boy. She is glorious. He knows what it’s like to inhabit her body, the devastated body of this woman. He simply adores her. Life could be simple, he thinks. He could live as an uncontrolled man. And why not? He is halfway there now. Never with such clarity has he felt this. Could have been simple. No longer. She is sick, he reminds himself, his love. Her chances of transplant are nil. And she is stubborn. She does not understand the contagion of the crowd, the infection of hope that these things instill. Luz must be removed from this place. “You cannot let Luz stay,” he says.
CHAPTER 30
“Please,” says Josefina, “just leave now. Go to the church for your feast day. Those people do not concern me. Only my daughter. I am not through here yet.”
“Why aren’t you through? Why aren’t we going in Father Bill’s car?” Luz demands.
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to be a saint on a cushion.”
“I don’t want to go back on the cushion. I hate the cushion!”
“That is a very good sign. Because saints must always do what they hate. See how I will already help you to become what you wish?”
“You don’t help me. You don’t even listen. Zoe listens.”
“What did you say?” Zoe asks.
“Stop it, both of you,” Father Bill says. “Josefina, don’t play games with her.”
“I am not the one who is playing.”
Luz slides off the couch and stands with her hands on her hips. So powerful and defiant Josefina cannot help it. Her heart, looking at this child, it is going to combust with frustration and love. Here is the child her father had warned her would arrive one day, a child like herself. Equal in stubbornness.
“Go ahead,” Josefina says, dismissing Father Bill. “Go for your business. We have given you enough trouble. You are free. You can leave.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“I don’t need a car. I’m not going anywhere.”
“No va,” says Zoe. “I still have the Dart.”
Chico opens the door and steps into the fray. “Are you ready for me yet?” he asks. “There are customers.”
“Just a minute, Chico. We’ve got a problem,” says Father Bill.
“Come in,” said Josefina. “Just who I need is Chico Platz.”
Father Bill walks wearily to the front of the office, where Chico and two of his black-clad friends whose names he should know now stand blocking the door. He must ask them to move in order to lock it. They peer down at Luz, who has curled next to Zoe on the couch, looking just like a kid settling in for a nice round of morning cartoons.
“How’s it going?” Chico asks Father Bill.
“Zoe fell down.”
Luz calls out in answer, “But it isn’t my fault.”
“Is Luz okay?” he asks Josefina, who has left her daughter and is standing uncomfortably close to him now. Too close for the comfort of the friends.
“Look for yourself. Go ahead,” Josefina tells Chico. “Go down and look at her. Tell me what do you see? Does she look like a saint?”
The boys swallow and look away. Chico promised there would be zero contact with Luz.
“Leave them out of this,” Father Bill says. “Boys, just relax. We’ll be done in a minute. Then the car wash is yours.”
Josefina is through with Father Bill. She turns her back to him. She puts her hand on Chico’s arm. “We are going to need things. Find something to write it all down.”
“What are you doing?” Father Bill says.
“Go ahead, Chico!”
Chico glances at his friends who are wishing they were still outside. His friends know all about Luz from Skye, Chico’s girlfriend. Know why the priest is wearing Walt Adair’s too-small shirt. Luz is a freak who can do things to people. Chico is unfazed, even worse he’s intrigued; he has theories, planes of existence he believes in they don’t have a clue about. Chico reads things, thick books with hard covers. The English assignments. Science fiction from second-hand stores. Chico believes some new species of kids are being sent down to live on the earth now. Kids with weird psychic powers sent here on missions to save the whole human race. Now Chico goes behind the counter like he already owns the place, reaches for a notepad and pen. Chico can always find what he needs.
“Shoot,” Chico says.
“First, call your mother. Please tell her Josefina is asking can she use the nice big umbrella from the patio, or maybe a little tent for our heads. You have a tent, Chico?”
“Sure. You planning to camp out?”
“That depends on my daughter.”
“I said, what do you think you are doing?” Father Bill interrupts.
“I am warning you,” Josefina says. “If you can’t take it, then go. Don’t make this more hard for me. Keep writing, Chico. Also we need big hats. Two of them. Sunscreen. Water and ice. I am going too fast? You and your friends go drive and get them. We need it right away.”
“Why an umbrella?” asks Luz, who has heard everything by straining.
“So we don’t faint from heatstroke from that sun beating down on our heads.”
“It’s not heatstroke,” says Zoe, “I fell.”
“Yes, we know,” Josefina replies. “Luz, be useful. Make sure Sewey keeps the ice on her head. Chico, tell her also to give you a cheat, a big flat one.” Chico looks at her quizzically. “You know, for the bed.” “Ah, a sheet.” “A cheat and a cooler of ice. Write also three chairs, not two. You are getting all of this? Nice ones that go back. Sewey, you can sit with us. I will make sure you don’t fall again,” she says, looking to the wall-leaning boys dressed in black. So skinny. So frightened. She must reassure them by smiling.
“I won’t allow you to do this,” says Father Bill, who is finally beginning to understand.
“Then how do you stop me? Call, Chico, now!”
When Chico makes the call, the boys mumble and go stand outside. Luz crosses the floor to go close to her mother and glare. Her mother glares back. No one can stop her mother when she becomes like this. Even today with her bandage and the hole for the tube. Her mother in her pink uniform and her hair that is a mess because Luz did not go to Father Bill’s Mass. Because Luz did not get on the summer school bus.
Luz, the child, with no memory of what awaits her on the sidewalk, of how easily she will slip back into the majesty that she is, Luz the child who has not for a moment forgotten that dented white box with whipped cream on pie still on the floor near the side of the couch, whose mouth fills with saliva just thinking of the taste, whose feet strain to play the ball-jumping game, whose whole body is yearning for the party at Our Lady of Guadalupe, for the games and the noise and the white strings of icicle lights. This Luz does not remember—not now, in the beginning, and for several days to come—this thing that she is. Does not understand why her mother who thinks Luz is lying makes her return to the place where the voice and her feet made her go.
“Why are you crying? You should be happy. With all of those misguided people waiting to watch you, and waiting with patience for the face of Our Lady to come to that window.”
“What will it take to get through to you?” Father Bill says. “Do you know what they will think if you take her back out there?”
&nbs
p; “That is not my problem what they think. Luz needs a big lesson. I am going to make sure she gets one.”
“Give it to her a different way.”
“This is the way.”
“I want to go with Father Bill. I want to help with the Feast of Our Lady.”
“You had your feast. Tuna fish from Bobbie from the diner.”
“I’m not even going to the feast of Our Lady? I have to. Tommy Platz is my partner for the ball-jumping game.”
“No Tommy for you and no Feast of Our Lady. Remember for next year. Today since this morning you chose to be the saint of Infidelity you will stay a saint all day.”
“No, I won’t. I will be Luz.”
“Okay, then be Luz. But whoever you are, you are punished. For frightening me two times nearly to death with running away. For not taking responsibility from your feet. And who knows? After today maybe Lydia Darrow fires me from my work. Then we have two poor saints in one house. I am sorry for your tears, but it will not change my mind for you. We are going to sit on the sidewalk. We will stay for as long as it takes. You will never, do you hear me? You will never want to walk on those feet like this again.”
CHAPTER 31
Father Bill misjudges a step and stumbles onto the walkway, righting himself just in time. Then he hurries to where the crowd waits, moves awkwardly through them, stands with his back to the window, squinting through the light at the faithful, the diner folk, the mothers in their bright summer clothes (some with kids on their laps), the overflow customers from the car wash and the curious, whose faces and names he does not know. And though he knows what he’s going to say—For the sake of the child, I am asking you to leave now—when he starts to speak, he cannot say the words. He must wait, ask for guidance, say nothing until he is prompted, a course of action his vocation has long accustomed him to.
The words he receives are simple and clear. Call Hope Merton, a woman he has not seen or spoken with in nearly six years. These are not the directives he’s waiting for. He notes it then closes his eyes, waits some more. The people on the sidewalk hold their breath.
When he opens his eyes, he looks from face to face, meeting the eyes of the thirty-two sitters and standees, looking at them or through them, or deep into their being in a way, they would later exclaim, that was sufficient reward for hours on that sidewalk, even considering the sweetness of the day. There was some place within them Father Bill seemed to touch with that look that made people glad to have lived just to know that they had it. Whatever it was. Beheld, his people called it. Seen to the core and then some. The moment he had only intended to ask them to leave he gives them the thing that made many want to remain on that sidewalk to see what else they might get. One hundred degrees on the Joshua Freeway, the fifteenth of August, the day of Our Lady’s Assumption, the cars whizzing by, the lunch crowd gathering across the road at the diner, Luz and her mother and Zoe Luedke with the missing felangela and a possible concussion preparing themselves to come out.
Our Lady of Infidelity Page 16
