The Monk Upstairs

by Tim Farrington

  He already had a cigarette lit when she sat down beside him on the top step. Rebecca glanced back over her shoulder at Mary Martha’s bedroom window and was relieved to see no sign of her daughter. When Mary Martha caught Mike smoking, she often heaved her window open and started shouting grisly antismoking facts down at him. Rebecca suspected that even if it had not yet stopped Mike, a number of the neighbors might have quit by now.

  Mike took her hand as she sat down. The evening was clear, the sun still well above the ocean. They sat quietly for a time. Mike’s silence was almost palpable, a distinct thing as real as an egg. He was not morose but definitely brooding, keeping that egg of silence warm, cradling it at the heart of his attention.

  A mockingbird swooped across the backyard, lit in a treetop next door, and launched into a prolonged and vigorous medley.

  “You tell ’em, buddy,” Mike said.

  It constituted an opening of sorts, and Rebecca took the opportunity to say, mock-brightly, “So, how was your day, honey?”

  Mike shook his head and smiled, acknowledging the humor, but said nothing. He was often like this after a death, and Rebecca knew that it just took time. For a day or two or sometimes more, he would spend more time in the attic at prayer, or with Phoebe, talking their private underwater talk, or with Mary Martha, which clearly was simple and healing for him. The house often felt like a monastery at such times; Rebecca would find herself speaking in lowered tones, moving around more quietly, slowing down in general to the point where the telephone was jarring and the TV seemed like a nightmare in a box. She had wondered, when she married Mike, how he would adjust to the pace of the world, and at times she had feared—as she knew he had, and did—that the world’s demands would somehow dilute or even defeat that thing in him that she loved so much, the inner stillness that so often startled her into her own best self, and the discipline and single-mindedness it took to cultivate that stillness. But what she had found was that in many ways Mike let the world, de facto, adjust to him: there were so many things he simply did not do, did not even seem to miss doing, that they not only were not distractions, it was as if they did not exist.

  Like going to birthday parties. Rebecca was steeling herself to bring it up when Mike said, “How’s Phoebe, today?”

  “Good,” Rebecca said. “I guess. She actually ate something at lunch. We only made it about five blocks on the walk, but she seemed okay with that.” She hesitated, then said, “It’s so weird. She’s so at peace with everything right now, and I find myself getting sucked right into it.”

  Mike laughed.

  “No, I’m serious,” Rebecca said. “I mean, isn’t it my responsibility to help her fight? And she hasn’t got an ounce of fight left in her, it seems. I always thought that if anyone was going to rage, rage against the dying of the light, it would be my mother. But she seems to want to go out like a lamb.”

  “Phoebe’s a lion,” Mike said. “No matter how she stays or goes.” He finished his beer and dropped his cigarette butt into the empty bottle. If the usual rhythm held, Rebecca knew, he would either get himself a second beer immediately or plead existential extremity and disappear into the attic for several hours to meditate on death and eternity.

  Before he could do either, she took a breath and said, “Mike, it’s Bonnie’s birthday.”

  He caught her tone at once, and said, carefully, “Uh-huh.”

  “There’s a party.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  Mike groaned, frankly, and Rebecca saw him for a moment as just a guy, her guy, tired, grumpy, and recalcitrant. It was actually a relief. She could deal with guys. No one knew how to deal with saints. If he was really a damn saint, or even trying to be, he should have stayed in the monastery where it was safe. The world was the world. St. Francis had hung out with lepers; the least Mike could do was go to a birthday party.

  She said, steadily, “It’s been on our calendar for a month.” And, as he said nothing, “It’s her birthday, Mike. My best friend. Her fortieth, a huge one, and she’s as excited about it as a little girl.”

  This was shameless, she knew, the subtle equation with Mary Martha. But at least it let him know she was serious here.

  Mike was silent for a long moment. His beer bottle twitched once in his hand, and she knew he had almost sipped at it before remembering it was empty. It was interesting, Rebecca thought: how long she had known him now, and how deeply, and yet she had no idea what he was going to say. This was new territory for them, a renegotiation of the marital-monastic charter.

  “I’m not going to get any more beer tonight unless we go, am I?” Mike said at last.

  Rebecca smiled, trying not to look smug, and shook her head.

  “Well, then,” Mike said. “I guess we should bring balloons.”

  The Schofields’ home was decked out with streamers, “The Big Four-Oh!” banners, and, inexplicably, three lava lamps. A disco ball spun lopsidedly from the living room ceiling, where several couples were boogeying languidly to a CD of Greatest Love Songs of the 80s. The bulk of the crowd was in the den, where Bob stood behind a bar mixing Bonnie Bombs, the drink de soir, a potent mix of vodka, cherry schnapps, cranberry juice, a touch of tonic water for fizz, and more vodka. He waved gaily as Rebecca and Mike came in and handed them two premade drinks in big plastic cups. Mike took one sip of his, set it down discreetly, and slipped away to try to find a beer. He was trailing a large red and yellow balloon that said Happy Anniversary, which was all they had been able to find on short notice at Andronico’s on the drive over, and he seemed reconciled to his fate. Rebecca just hoped he would last until the cake was cut and the presents opened. She had told him he could smoke as much as he wanted and she wouldn’t tell Mary Martha.

  Bonnie was nowhere to be seen at first. Rebecca found her at last in the kitchen, chopping asparagus and looking gloomy.

  “What’s wrong, birthday girl?” Rebecca said, after giving her a hug.

  “Nothing.”

  “Hey, sweetheart, it’s me.”

  Bonnie glanced at the door; they were alone for the moment. She said, “Not a big deal, really. Just a little tiff.”

  “With Bob?”

  “He’s been stressed out about the pasta. I mean, like, snappy.” Bonnie shook her head at herself. “What a stupid thing to fight about, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Rebecca said. “Mike and I only fight about really important things, like the wording of the Nicene Creed, and whether he puts the toilet seat down.”

  “I told him, Bob, it’s just noodles. But it’s not just noodles to him, it’s—shit, I don’t know. Art. Cuisine.” She checked again for privacy, then leaned closer to confide, “Becca, I hate to say it, but he can be such an ass sometimes.”

  Rebecca resisted an urge to look at her watch. Fourteen months, two weeks, six days, and eight hours, more or less, since Bonnie and Bob had first met at a beach party in Marin the previous summer, and this was the first time Bonnie had ever intimated that Bob might be anything less than spectacularly wonderful. Not a bad run, as honeymoons went; but it was definitely a relief that the moratorium on criticism might be ending.

  “Bob?” she said, with an over-the-top incredulity that was its own comment.

  Bonnie smiled in wry concession, as if to say, Yeah, yeah, don’t rub it in. It was as if she had known all along that Bob’s exemption would eventually expire.

  Rebecca said, offering tit for tat, “At least he’s throwing himself into it. Mike is here by the skin of his teeth.”

  “I’m amazed that he showed up at all,” Bonnie said, mildly enough. “I thought you guys were never going to get over here.”

  Rebecca got her point: Bob wasn’t the only one who’d been enjoying a waiver of sorts. She said, “It really hasn’t been personal. The guy barely functions after dark. We chant vespers right after dinner and go to bed.”

  Bonnie shook her head sympathetically. “We watch Seinfeld, ER, and the eleven o’clock news. God for
bid we should fall asleep without knowing tomorrow’s weather.”

  “Ain’t married life grand?”

  “On the whole,” Bonnie allowed, and they smiled at each other. “Oh, hey, speaking of married life—did you see today’s Chronicle?”

  “I haven’t had a minute. It seems like all I do anymore is hang out with Phoebe.”

  “Well, your ex is a hero.” Bonnie crossed to the kitchen table and found the newspaper. “See?”

  It was the local section, and there was a big picture of Rory and three adorable kids above the fold. He had apparently saved each of their lives in the last month or so, and the city had given him a medal.

  “Wow,” Rebecca said. “I hope his parole officer sees this.” But she realized that beyond her deeply ingrained disinclination to get too built up about anything positive Rory did, she was actually pleased, and even vaguely proud. Somehow, against all odds, she and Rory were on the same team at this point in their lives. Maybe even for the first time. She was sincerely rooting for the father of her daughter. How strange, that that should be a revelation.

  “Do you want that copy?” Bonnie asked.

  “Yes, thanks. Mary Martha will be thrilled.” Rebecca shook her head. “Bonnie, it’s so weird. Mike is more like Rory than I ever imagined he would be, and Rory is like God-knows-who now. Phoebe is talking about dying like it’s a trip to the store. I can’t pay our health insurance. And yet somehow, something in me is telling me it’s all okay.”

  “Your deep self,” Bonnie said knowledgeably.

  “Maybe. Hopefully. But what if my deep self is just clueless?”

  Bonnie laughed and went back to the counter, where she picked up her knife, took a sip of her wine, and got back to work. Rebecca took a matching sip of her Bonnie Bomb, realized that it was terrible, and dumped the drink down the sink. Bonnie’s glass of wine was right there, and she picked it up to get the taste of the sugar and vodka out of her mouth and realized that Bonnie’s wine was grape juice.

  Her brain skipped a beat, and then another. Bonnie was looking at her with an odd half smile, a bit expectantly, as if it were a test of some sort.

  Rebecca said slowly, “Okay, either you’ve gone on the wagon or…”

  “Or,” Bonnie said.

  “Really?”

  Bonnie nodded happily. Rebecca threw her arms around her. “Oh, my God, sweetheart! This is fantastic!”

  “Fantastic hardly even begins to cover it,” Bonnie said.

  Rebecca released her and peered frankly at her belly. Bonnie laughed. “It’s only at about five weeks, Becca.”

  “The, uh, technical solutions worked?”

  “We managed it the old-fashioned way, actually.”

  “That’s best of all.”

  “Yeah,” Bonnie said. She was glowing, her gloom long gone. “Bob’s going to announce it tonight, I’m afraid. I’d rather wait for a month or two. I mean, what if I lose it?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone about Mary Martha until I was so far along that store clerks were commenting on it. Tell Bob to keep his big mouth shut.”

  “I did,” Bonnie said. “You know Bob.”

  Their eyes met. Rebecca felt a warm rush of joy. The Step-ford Bonnie was definitely gone. Her best friend was really back.

  “Boys will be boys,” she said.

  “You got that right,” Bonnie said. “I’m chopping the asparagus at my own damned birthday party.”

  The party was a good-natured success, despite the rubberiness of Bob’s rotini. The cocktail hour’s generous portions of Bonnie Bombs had left everyone in a receptive mood in any case. Rebecca noticed that Mike even had seconds on the noodles—rather heroically, she thought—which clearly pleased Bob. Rebecca kept one ear tuned to the two men’s conversation, a bit uneasily, as Bob had a tendency to bait people sometimes, but they spent most of the dinner talking about the Giants. Mike had somehow maintained a passable fluency in sports talk despite going twenty years without seeing a World Series or Super Bowl. Bob had strong opinions about the Giants’ bullpen; apparently they were misusing their middle relievers. Mike couldn’t have agreed more.

  Rebecca found herself talking with the other women about the fact that she was remodeling her kitchen. She hadn’t even realized that was what she was doing until Bonnie brought it up, but it sounded so wonderfully suburban and appeared to delight everyone, and it led into all manner of shared sagas and ordeals. One of the women even wanted the name of her contractor, but fortunately just then Bob stood up and tapped his knife on his glass.

  The room fell silent, and Bob made a long and lovely toast to the birthday girl, to much applause, and followed it up with an announcement of the pregnancy, to gleeful cheers. Bonnie blushed prettily through it all, though she managed to roll her eyes briefly at Rebecca at one point, below the general radar. The cake was brought in with forty actual candles burning, and Bonnie blew them out with much exaggerated huffing and puffing, to more cheers and jokes about Lamaze breathing.

  As the cake was cut into pieces and distributed, people wandered off with them to spots around the house to lounge and chat, the party moving naturally into a more diffuse wind-down stage. Rebecca began to help clear the table. She had more or less relaxed about Mike and Bob, but as she was stacking plates to haul away she realized that the tenor of conversation at that end of the table had changed. Bob was talking about genes for some reason, making some complicated case about the difference between men and women, with a certain amount of uncontextual passion. Mike was nodding, apparently humoring him, but when his eye briefly met Rebecca’s his look clearly said, I love you and wish to please but I’m leaving soon whether you do or not.

  Bonnie had appeared at the kitchen door, also alerted by the music of the conversation. Rebecca took her stack of plates to the kitchen and paused beside her friend.

  “Don’t mind Bob,” Bonnie said. “He just read some book about selfish genes and he’s a little fired up. A chicken is just the egg’s way of making another egg, that sort of thing. Men want harems, women want a good provider, but we’re all just here to reproduce.”

  “I think Mike just hit his bedtime.”

  “He’s been so sweet. Get him out of here before he decides he never wants to come back.”

  “You’re okay with the cleanup?”

  “It’s my birthday,” Bonnie said. “Every woman in the place is already helping.”

  Rebecca put the plates into the dishwasher, but by the time she returned to the dining room, Bob had moved on to making a case that monasticism was unnatural, a subversion of the genes’ agenda.

  “You got out just in time,” he told Mike cheerfully. “For twenty years, your genes were screaming in protest.”

  “I wondered what all that noise was during compline,” Mike said.

  “Bobby, lighten up,” Bonnie said, moving in from the kitchen door.

  “It’s all in good fun, honey. Just an intellectual exercise.” Bob turned back to Mike. “See, that’s where Jesus missed it, in my opinion. All that Sermon on the Mount stuff, turn the other cheek, the meek shall inherit the earth, sure, it’s all great, in theory, but it flies in the face of the truth of the genes. It’s an evolutionary, uh, aberration.”

  “Not to mention getting nailed to a cross,” Mike said.

  “Exactly! Before having any children! Talk about a selection event!”

  “Would you like some coffee, Mike?” Bonnie asked.

  “Thanks, no, Bonnie.” Mike glanced at his watch, and then at Rebecca. “Actually, I think we—”

  “I mean, what if I tried to take your woman?” Bob said.

  “Bob!” Bonnie said.

  “It’s just a scenario, honey. To make a point.” And, to Mike, “Come on, Brother Michael. I’ve grabbed Rebecca’s hair and I’m dragging her off. What would you do, as a Christian?”

  “For God’s sake, Bob, knock it off,” Bonnie said. “Mike, just ignore him.”

  “It’s okay,” Mike said. “But it is gett
ing late—”

  “I’m truly interested,” Bob said. “Humor me, for a minute. I really want to know what you would do.”

  Mike arched an eyebrow at Rebecca, who shrugged: his call. He turned back to Bob. “Well, assuming Rebecca hasn’t already broken your arm herself, I would say, ‘Bob, thank you for a lovely evening, but you’ve had too much to drink. Let go of Rebecca’s hair.’”

  “I have had too much to drink!” Bob persisted. “That’s the point. My genes are running the show. So I ignore you, and just keep dragging her away. What then?”

  Bonnie would have stepped in at that point and perhaps hauled Bob himself off by the hair, but Rebecca put a hand on her friend’s arm to stop her. She was interested in the answer, she realized. Maybe it was perverse, maybe it was her own genes assessing her partner’s fitness. Who knew? But she wanted to hear what Mike would say.

  Mike had noted Rebecca holding off Bonnie, and he gave her an amused look. “Well, obviously the dynamics would be complex, if you tried to haul Rebecca off to your cave,” he said to Bob.

  “No, no complexity. It’s Malthusian, it’s the jungle, my genes against yours.”

  “The complexity is inevitable,” Mike said. “My genes somehow led me to spend my prime breeding years grappling with the truths of the gospel, with the fact that Jesus said to resist not evil. To judge not, to love your enemies, and to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s.”

  “I’m not talking about the overlay of Christian ego, I’m talking about your inner primate male,” Bob said. “And I’m almost out the door with your woman, here, buddy.”

  “Well, assuming that Rebecca is not Caesar’s, and that basic social decorum has truly and completely failed,” Mike said, “I suppose that at that point my inner primate male would be forced to kick your sorry ass.”