Our Lady of Infidelity

by Jackie Parker

  “We’re long overdue.” Walt picks up the mug, takes a sip of his own good coffee.

  “Did you see Zoe?” Father Bill asks.

  “I did. She didn’t seem to want to join you. Maybe she doesn’t love the world.”

  He takes a swallow of his coffee. “Do you think she’s still around?”

  “Oh, she’s still here. Back on the field.”

  The men drink their coffee and listen to the singsong Spanish patter that fills the room now. Josefina and Luz playing a game.

  “I’d like to apologize for last night.”

  “Nothing to apologize for,” Walt says. “It was late. I intruded. I was upset about my kids.”

  The excitement is rising in Walt again, the thrill of all this: all of them here, looking so well. Soon, he cannot imagine how, they will be out on that sidewalk.

  “I’m not going to be able to do very much.”

  “Okay,” Walt says.

  “A lot of it is going to fall to you. Do you understand what I’m telling you? I can’t go out there with them.”

  Walt takes a moment. “All right.” He waits for Father Bill to explain. He does not. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “They are going to sit on the sidewalk for a while and see how things go. Josefina liked it. She liked it very much.”

  “Lots of people liked it.”

  “So I’ve been hearing.”

  “Their chairs are ready. The things she asked for yesterday are there again.”

  “I saw that. That’s good. Excuse me a minute. I need a refill. You?” Father walks to the coffee machine with his mug. Walt watches him, the bumpy, graceless gait, the still-heavy belly in spite of his drawn face. Walt’s heart opens to his friend. Amazing, he thinks. What could have happened to change his mind? Now Walt is able to pick up the chorus of the song Josefina and Luz are singing, el pequeño quetzal. What was “pequeño?” Walt wondered. “Quetzal” he knows. He has learned it from Luz. It is a bird, perhaps imaginary. The wings of the quetzal, that’s what Luz had told him yesterday morning, eight o’clock when she looked into the sky. Big wings, she had said. Walt hadn’t believed her. Maybe they’d been there after all.

  Father Bill returns with his refill; drops of it splash on the floor in his wake. He stands opposite Walt this time, on the customer side, a tourist in a green parrot shirt. He is being so careful, Walt thinks, weighing his words.

  “You seem to be okay with this,” Father Bill says.

  “Oh, I am more than okay. I’m very happy about it.”

  “Well, it’s certainly good for your business.”

  “It has nothing to do with my business.” Go on, Walt thinks, go on, William, step up to the plate—ask.

  “Did something happen for you with Luz?”

  “Excuse me?” says Walt.

  “Have you had any kind of experience?

  What kind of experience? Walt wants to ask. But the question would have been disingenuous. For a moment, just before he speaks, Walt feels thrust into darkness. With a single word he is going to put himself into the void.

  “Yes,” Walt replies.

  “Yes?” The priest makes a move as if he is going to take a step back, and it looks as if he has suddenly gone weak in the leg. Walt reaches across the counter and grasps Father Bill on the shoulder.

  “I’m fine with it, really,” says Walt.

  Father Bill looks at Walt, trying to gauge if Walt is telling the truth. “You’re full of surprises, my friend.”

  “Believe me, I’m pretty surprised myself.”

  “We’ll sit together sometime soon.”

  “No hurry,” Walt says.

  Father Bill covers Walt’s hand with his own, pauses for an instant, and that is that. He walks to his girls, says a few words in Spanish, then goes to the field to get Zoe.

  CHAPTER 41

  It is midafternoon before Zoe resolves to join Josefina and Luz and the thirty-two people sitting elbow-to-elbow on the sidewalk, slipping under Patty Platz’s market umbrella and onto her chair. “Finally!” Josefina exclaims as if Zoe has been caught in bad summer traffic and has just now arrived at the beach. The light has dispersed, the temperature dropped, and the air is blessed once again with the promise of rain. Luz sitting upright, eyes half-closed, looking half asleep.

  “Any luck?” Josefina asks, her voice thick and low, her eyes fixed on the window.

  Yes, thinks Zoe. The luck is that you are doing very well. And for a moment, in spite of all her doubts, Zoe lets herself believe something wonderful is happening for them. It may already have happened to Josefina. Does the how and the why even matter? “No luck yet,” Zoe says. “No Michael. Not a white van in sight.”

  “I am losing patience with that man,” Josefina says. “If I ever meet him in this life, I will give him a piece of my mind.”

  “Who’s Michael?” Wren Otto asks from his chair directly behind Josefina’s.

  “That husband of Sewey’s,” Josefina replies.

  Zoe is embarrassed. That husband of Sewey’s, as if everyone knows about Michael. As if she is one of their own.

  She turns her attention to Luz, gone to them. Just like yesterday. Worse. Immediately, Zoe is met with a surge of uncontrolled love. Is it for Luz or from Luz? Zoe can hardly tell which. Under the big white hat Luz’s mouth turns up at the corners. She is smiling, now she is nodding, her eyes barely open, the air around her turning grainy and golden, a diaphanous curtain, a gold that intensifies, until there is more gold than air, more gold than Luz. Beautiful, thinks Zoe, beautiful but dangerous.

  “Josefina?” Zoe whispers. “Do you see this?”

  “Shush,” Josefina responds, “no . . . talking . . . now.”

  “I was waiting a long time for you, Zoe Luedke,” says Luz, her voice clear and true.

  “What did she say?” asks Emily Otto. “Waiting?”

  No one replies, and Emily Otto does not ask her question again. The deepening gold on the sidewalk makes speech superfluous. It is perfection itself. Such eloquent sighs rise up from the sitters, as if a convention of grandmothers has arrived on the sidewalk to balance the sorrows and joys of life on a breath.

  “If you go back to the sidewalk, make sure you are doing it for yourself,” Father Bill had said to Zoe when he found her at last on the field. “Don’t do it for Josefina and Luz. It will be your experience in the end. Yours if you allow it.”

  He knows, Zoe had thought. He knows what it is. And then he thanked her for what she had done for Luz. What had she done? And what is the experience, Zoe wonders, as she settles back on the beach chair and once again finds herself falling, giving herself up to the gold.

  CHAPTER 42

  Luz Reyes surfaces, opens her eyes, and pulls off her hat. Her dark braids in disarray, one in the front, the other undone in the back, a bright-eyed little girl just awakened from an afternoon nap. There is her mother who Our Lady already made well. There is the Felangela, taking a rest. “Are you still little, Zoe Luedke? Do you still love the world?”

  As she pulls herself up through the gold and turns to face Luz, Zoe can feel a powerful heat emanating not exactly from Luz, more like through her. Bearable now, Zoe realizes, as yesterday it was not. Yesterday it had knocked her flat. What has Luz asked her? Does she love the world?

  What can she say? If Zoe answers truthfully, Luz is bound to think she has come back to the sidewalk because Zoe too believes she has been called by Our Lady. Who but Our Lady could perform such a reversal of Josefina’s hopeless condition?

  Luz waits (looking so much like the photo of her father, Dr. Raphael Reyes, that broad forehead, those intense dark eyes). The people seated nearby wait too. Oh, if Luz Reyes would turn and ask them if they loved the world, how happy they would be in this moment to answer.

  Zoe hesitates. This ridiculous world, Zoe thinks, and into her mind pops the eastern autumn whose beauty she can hardly endure. Cold Spring, New York, will she ever see it again, the place of her birth, the place she m
ay love perhaps most of all? The smoky cold air, the burnished trees, the unbearable thick-leafed gold of the oaks. And then there is Michael, who has brought her such joy, walking out the back door to their barn full of plans for the day, a white mug in his hand, sloshing coffee onto his boots. Michael, who has run from himself, from her. Can she still love the world when Michael has run from their love?

  What is her answer? Her experience of the world is so small, she knows only the smallest piece of it, and yet she loves it sometimes so much that she can hardly stand to carry it within her. Luz is waiting. Luz who might entirely misunderstand. But Zoe has only one answer. Only those two words: I do, Michael said, wreathing her hands in babies’ breath, holding them up so she would never hide them again. I do, said Zoe, marrying him against all good sense, against Michael’s own history. I do, said Father Bill, standing with her in his green parrot shirt on the field when Zoe had asked if he knew what he was asking—if he had accepted what Luz Reyes is.

  No matter what Luz will make of it, how can Zoe say that she does not love the world? Who could possibly deny it who had been blessed to feel in even the smallest of ways how beautiful and precious a thing was their experience of the world? And in her entire life, only Luz has asked her such a question, calling forth something Zoe has never dared say.

  “Yes, Luz, yes, I still love the world.”

  Luz nods matter-of-factly, then puts on her sun hat and turns back to the window. The big hat bobs once more, and all is silent on the sidewalk.

  There, Zoe thinks, after a few moments have passed. That’s all she needed. Not the big deal I made it at all.

  But a few moments later Luz whispers hoarsely, “Keep on! Keep on because then Our Lady will show us Her face.”

  “What did she say?” Emily Otto asks, moving to the edge of her chair and reaching over to rest her delicate fingertips on Zoe’s shoulder.

  Zoe does not answer. Everyone is having a different experience. Hadn’t Father Bill said that too? Don’t talk about it with Luz or with anyone, he had said. Don’t tell what is happening for you. A different experience. It is nearly a prayer. As close to a prayer as Zoe has known.

  CHAPTER 43

  Her daughter and Zoe have at last finished whispering their nonsense. Ay, what a question. How sweetly has the Felangela answered! But at least Luz asks something. At least she can still think and speak. (Though what were her last words? Josefina was too much in her own world to hear.) Now Luz is dreamy again, her eyes on that window. Josefina too looks, but still there is nothing. Where is the eye already? She was so looking forward to staring it down. To accusing it back. For three hours there is only the window. Was that eye peering out from the window only a phantom of her mind?

  Perhaps the great hand that swept through her body has cleansed not just her blood but also her penchant to see what is not. That black smoky eye so much like her own, like her daughter’s, the color of mud and smoke. She tries to remember its contours, the shape and the shading, tries to match it with eyes she has known. Who could it belong to? But the eye won’t cooperate; it has taken itself away.

  Now her stomach is growling. The cooler beside her is already empty except for six bottles of water, two small packs of chocolate-chip cookies. She has been eating constantly. What shall she cook for dinner? Pupusas, Luz’s favorite. Josefina’s favorite from childhood. A great deal of trouble but worth it. Does she have enough masa harina for the tortillas, the chicharrones to make filling? She has the bacon and garlic, green onions, tomatoes, the queso fresco and a nice log of cheddar, unopened, yes. Even a new jar of curtido for topping that is sour but that she and Luz both adore, but for Josefina curtido is forbidden, it is not on the list. Her mouth waters only thinking of how the pupusas will sizzle, perfuming her kitchen, the whole house! How many to make? How many will be at her table? The Felangela, of course, Father Bill. Maybe she will invite Walt, and the Ottos, so sweet and her neighbors. Won’t that be nice? A party for dinner. The first in the blue house. Does she even have enough chairs?

  Her stomach is growling, so loudly she is embarrassed. The good smells from the barbecue are drifting to the sidewalk, making it worse. When she can no longer endure one more pang of hunger, she sits up and reaches to Luz. “Mamita, let’s go for a snack. The meats are still cooking. It smells so delicious.”

  But Luz will not be roused. She shakes off the hand of her mother, as if she is stuck to the chair.

  “I must get up,” Josefina says to the sleepy Felangela. “I am starving. You will watch her?”

  “Fine,” Zoe replies after a pause, pulling herself forcibly back to the world. What a relief, Zoe thinks as she struggles to sit and face Josefina, whose summons has called a halt to quite an unpleasant argument. Pay attention, came that voice, just as Zoe had felt herself most pleasantly at one with the gold. You, in the first row, there’s going to be a test. All eyes on me! It was all Zoe could do to not get up and pound her fists on that window. And then she was caught, eyes linked once again to the window. Try someone else. I’m a rotten test taker. I fold under pressure, Zoe shot back in their perfectly unspoken language. And there it was, an actual face, quite familiar and plain, a maddeningly reassuring smile. Just make sure to listen, and you will do very well.

  At the moment Josefina called her, Zoe had been trying to make her mind blank, to will it to wipe out the face and that voice. Try it, the voice had responded, privy to everything, could Zoe not think one private thought in its presence? Contemplate the notion of zero. That’s just brilliant. In fact, I am putting it right on the test. Extra credit to all who succeed.

  Instead, with Josefina standing beside her and tapping on her knee, Zoe was already thinking of the opposite of zero. Infinity, Zoe had thought. But what was infinity? And how did this whole thing end with her thinking of her least favorite, her least successful, her doing-extremely-poor subject?

  Josefina has gone quickly down the walk past the line of Walt’s customers before Zoe has even managed to take off the big Chinese hat and shake out her flattened hair, what little there is of it, nearly nothing in the heat and the zero humidity of High Desert summer. Even with the cooler temperature, the silvery smell of the almost-rain, there is not an iota of humidity. She must look a mess. Doing very well hairwise? Zoe thinks, I don’t think so, but her eyes are on Luz now, who is still as a small marshmallow boulder. Lucky Josefina, thinks Zoe, escaped to the food tables. To the music and the kids in the mud. Why didn’t she think of it? Because she’s been otherwise absorbed. Being tested. Quite the experience today, Zoe thinks, reaching into the cooler Patty Platz has placed so considerately between her chair and Luz’s. She takes out a cold bottle, beads of water coating it like jewels. The bottle promptly slides from her hand and rolls toward the window, stopped by a vase of red roses.

  Luz whimpers. She squirms like a baby who is just waking up from a nap. Her eyes open wide, then without warning she shoots up from the beach chair. She is standing, the hat falling from her head to the chair, the braids tumbling around her. She gives a little cry, then half turns and stares at the crowd. Zoe hears a few gasps as several people teeter in their chairs, falling backward, the lucky ones saved by their quick-acting neighbors. One of the strangers seated close to the freeway is caught just in time before falling into the slow lane.

  Zoe navigates the rows of sitters, the chairs crowded together, no space to walk, reaching Luz in the third row. Luz has stopped beside a man with a beaming white face, his eyes closed in rapture, the sweetest smile on his lips. So at peace he seems hardly aware of Luz. It takes all Zoe’s strength to pull Luz from his side and guide her back to the beach chair. But the moment she’s seated Luz rises again. Her arms start to whirl, her torso to twist, her head whips around, braids shooting out like a spinning black lasso. Zoe steps back to avoid being struck. For a moment everyone is spellbound, wondering if Luz Reyes will spin straight up in flight.

  Father Bill has warned his parishioners not to react to what they see on the si
dewalk. “No matter what happens, keep silent; don’t move. Do not speak of your experience. You don’t want to influence others.” (Not even tell others of this? How will they keep it?) In less than a moment it’s over. Zoe rises. Luz stills and sits down, looking confused. Zoe smoothes Luz’s brow, walks the three feet to the window where the familiar face gazes, nonplussed, and picks up the water bottle, gives it to Luz. “Drink.” Luz swallows and coughs then settles back in her chair. As quickly as it started the whole thing is done.

  But not everyone on the sidewalk is a parishioner or a Hill district resident. These are the ones who stand up in awe, who cry out in wonder and fear. The ones who will tell it in the diner and again and again on the field.

  CHAPTER 44

  By the time Josefina saunters back to the sidewalk there is only the quiet and the prevailing calm. She is bursting from happiness, not to mention the honey-glazed chicken (smoky and crisp with thin rinds of orange), her mouth sticky and sweet from raspberry tart. Her hair is awry, her face flushed and damp (so many conversations in such a short time, so much laughter), careless and loose-limbed from dancing—how many years since she’s danced? Ten at least! And who would have guessed Walt could dance the Merengue? What hips! Luz should go to the field and exult in the fun.

  Luz and Zoe hold hands in the space between chairs, lightly dozing. How lovely they look, faintly gilded with afternoon light, this light, which has rendered the whole sidewalk golden: the sitters, the various umbrellas and hats, the coolers, the sidewalk, the shoes! (Ah, thinks Josefina, the sun has returned; we won’t have rain.)

  Josefina, strong in her breath and her walking, filled not just from food but also from kindness: from the women who insisted on making for her a plate so she could eat first when many were waiting in line. From Walt running out when he saw her so they could dance. And perhaps most of all from the children who kept calling for Luz.

  “I want to go,” Zoe mouths before Josefina can say a thing.