The Lesson

by Welch, Virginia

  “Terrible. Hot. Thirsty. Really tired. I think I have the flu.”

  “I think you do too. What have you had today? I mean to eat or drink?”

  “Nothing. I thought of going up to the bathroom on Hazel’s back porch for a sip of water from the sink but I could never seem to muster up enough energy. I’ve just been lying here, drifting in and out of sleep, praying for God to help me. In my wildest dreams I never thought He’d answer by sending a real angel.”

  “Don’t get ideas. My mother insisted.”

  “Sure she did.”

  Gina didn’t like the way this was going. Did he really think she was interested or was he just goading her because it was his nature to be a flirt and a hopeless tease? She couldn’t have been plainer last night. And why oh why was she stuck in another sticky wicket? She wanted to show kindness to the sick but she also wanted to get out of there. Her worst fears about how he would interpret her visit had come to pass, as she knew they would, but she wouldn’t just drop the soup and run. That would not be polite, and one could never be impolite. She needed to stay a respectable length of time, but at the same time, she wanted to make this conversation short. Every minute she sat with Kevin in that dilapidated garage, trying not to think about the gorgeous naked chest she had just seen, made her more uncomfortable with her own thoughts.

  “So. Let me pour you some soup, Kevin.” She unscrewed the Thermos top, which doubled as a cup, poured a little of the steaming broth, and handed it to him. The rich smell of fresh, hot chicken soup temporarily overcame the stale odors of tobacco ash and a closed-in sickroom. Kevin looked at the cup of soup in his hands and then at Gina. Her heart was warmed by the tender gratitude she saw in his eyes. Maybe she had done the right thing by coming. Maybe she shouldn’t see so much into this after all. He was just this nice but lonely guy and he was sick and had no one to care for him. She was the one who just happened to be available to help. She was obsessing over nothing.

  Quit being so melodramatic.

  Gina was still thinking these thoughts to try and calm herself as she sat back down on the lumpy bed across from Kevin. As she did she stole a glance at her feet to make sure they were still safe from unknowns under the bed. It was awkward to sit on the bed because her legs were long and the bed was low, and she was still wearing her church heels, which made her knees sit several inches higher on the floor than usual, so that it seemed she was looking between her knees to see Kevin across the room. The awkward physical position added to her overall sense of awkwardness in being there. She hoped her discomfort with the whole situation was not obvious.

  Kevin took a sip from the Thermos cup. “It’s good,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Gina was never comfortable with silence. She had to say something. “Heard any more drunk sailor jokes lately?” was all that came to mind. Now that was stupid. Of course he hadn’t heard any more jokes. He had left her at her apartment only late last night and gone straight back to the ship for his watch, and when it ended had driven all the way back to San Jose to awaken, sick, in his garage. Obviously he hadn’t had a chance to hear any drunk sailor jokes.

  “No, but I’m sure I’ll get plenty of material to make up my own when I get back to the ship.”

  He took another sip of soup while Gina fidgeted. All she could think about was the awful words she had spoken last night and his manly chest, and it certainly was bizarre to string those two incongruous things together in one thought. She’d told him last night, essentially, that she didn’t feel that way about him and now he was sitting up in bed just feet from her with his beautiful chest under that T-shirt and she was thinking, if not quite feeling, that way about him. This whole scene was surreal.

  Kevin looked at her thoughtfully over the top of his cup and his expression changed. He looked serious. He put the Thermos cup on the floor next to the telephone. The narrow space between the two beds was not wide enough for a side table. “Gina, I want to keep seeing you.”

  “We’re not seeing each other,” she said, challenging him. It had occurred to her that she was in trouble with Kevin a lot because she tried too hard not to hurt. If she showed the least bit of niceness it only encouraged him. What’s more, she felt guilty at times. She was too wishy-washy about their relationship. She would change that, starting now.

  “Okay. We’re not seeing each other. Then I want to keep not seeing you.”

  Another joke. Gracious, Kevin, can’t you ever be serious? “Kevin−” She paused to suck in a big breath and to gather courage−“I’m trying to be honest with you. I came out here today only because you’re sick. You don’t have anyone to bring you something to eat and there’s no kitchen here for you to prepare food yourself. I’d feel guilty if I led you on, to make you think there’s anything more to my being here than the concern of a friend. I came here because it’s the right thing to do. And that’s all.”

  “Well then," said Kevin, nodding his head slowly, "I consider you a first-class friend. And you certainly shouldn’t feel guilty.”

  No, she shouldn’t, but she always did. “Guilt is encoded in my genes. I may attend a Protestant church, but my DNA is Catholic. I’ve been confessing my sins to a priest every Saturday night since I was old enough to genuflect. I could say, ‘Bless me father for I have sinned,’” before I knew who Captain Kangaroo was. When I was in high school I spent so much time repenting that St. Justin’s gave me my own confessional box. They engraved my name on a brass plate above the door.”

  “You know you sound ridiculous.”

  “No, really,” said Gina. “When I was a little girl, St. Justin’s had a huge millstone—a real one—outside the catechism building, and next to it they engraved the scripture. That millstone makes me what I am today. Scared me out of a lot of worse sins. I used to imagine that thing around my neck, pulling me down, down into the depths of the cold, black ocean. I owe a lot to those people.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute about you.”

  Gina sighed audibly. “Then you don’t know me very well.” How quirky, Gina thought. She was being more serious about her past than he knew, but he thought she was wildly exaggerating, that she was making a big joke, which just went to show how he had her up on a pedestal. It was impossible to talk to Kevin when he viewed her as a fairy princess with a puffy pink halo.

  “Guilt is divine, a gift with a purpose. It’s supposed to drive you to God, but only when you’ve done something truly wrong that has separated you from Him,” said Kevin.

  “I know that.”

  “Then there’s no problem. You’re not capable of the things you suggest. Don’t worry about it. I don’t.”

  Gina sighed again. Nothing she could say would make him understand her mixed feelings about this relationship. And everything she didn’t say made her uncomfortable.

  “New Year’s Eve is coming up soon. I have liberty,” said Kevin, switching the subject. “Why don’t we go out and celebrate someplace nice? Just as friends, of course. So you won’t feel guilty.”

  She saw the smile in his eyes. He was impossible. So sure of himself. Gina wondered if he ever really listened to her. She was tempted to confront him, but she had an ironclad excuse for saying no this time. A legitimate excuse to say no was easier than confrontation. Besides, she’d been wishy-washy so many times. She was ashamed of herself. She needed to end this once and for all. But he always made it so difficult!

  “I already have plans for New Year’s Eve,” said Gina.

  Kevin cocked his head in a question.

  “My mother’s cousin, Pietro, is coming from Italy. Trabia, that’s outside Palermo in Sicily. Actually he’s my second cousin, but he’s as old as my mother so me and my sisters call him Uncle Pietro. My mom does a lot of Sicilian cooking at holidays, not just when he comes. Cannoli and other things. It’s a lot of work. I always help her in the kitchen.”

  “You’re going to spend the entire evening cooking?”

  “No. Later in the evening the whole famil
y is getting together at my Aunt Peaches and Uncle Joe’s place. Uncle Joe is my mother’s older brother. They moved into a mobile home park recently, on Monterey Road, and they have a clubhouse. They’ve invited all of my mother’s family to a New Year’s Eve party. There’ll be a buffet and music and all my aunts and uncles and cousins will be there. It will be mostly old people, but it’s family. When the whole group gets together we always have a good time. I like to see my cousins. I hope they all come.”

  In the back of her mind Gina was thinking that it might be nice to have a male friend escort her to the New Year’s Eve party. Now that she and her cousins were older a lot of them would come with their spouses, which she knew would exacerbate her sense of being alone at the party. But she also knew her parents were not ready to meet Kevin, even if he was just a friend. They were still so taken up with the recent loss of their shining son-in-law-to-be that they would unfairly compare Kevin to Michael and she would hear about it later. Besides, her parents didn’t understand how a girl could be friends with a guy and not have it lead to romance.

  Kevin didn’t understand that concept either.

  “Then why don’t I take you to breakfast on New Year’s Day? Town and Country Village on Stevens Creek has a twenty-four-hour place that serves a great breakfast. They squeeze their own orange juice in a machine on the counter. I go there a lot on weekends. After that we could go on a long bicycle ride out to Pulgas Water Temple.”

  Push, push, push. He never quit pushing. “Kevin, we need to talk.”

  He picked up the cup from the floor and leaned back against the pillow. “I’m listening.”

  “I told you the truth when I said I only came over here to bring you the soup because you were sick and there was no one else to help you. I’m not playing with you. I enjoy your company and I think you’re a great friend. But that’s all, Kevin.” She did her best to make her face look firm, even sharp, sort of like cheese left uncovered in the refrigerator too long. She had to make him understand that she was serious.

  Kevin nodded his head thoughtfully, but his face was inscrutable. When he didn’t respond she felt compelled to fill the silence. “When you start getting romantic and talking mushy it makes me upset. I get nervous and don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t feel the same way about you as you do about me, Kevin. I haven’t hidden that from you.” How cruel that sounded! She tried to soften the blow. “I do like your company, though. But I just want to be friends, nothing more.” Her heart was pounding loud enough for her to hear it. She hoped Kevin couldn’t. Then, for good measure, with contrived sternness she added: “And if you ever start in on that romantic stuff again I will refuse to spend any more time with you.”

  There, she’d done it. A line in the sand. After she’d been so harsh, surely he’d never step across it. She hated the thought that their friendship had to end on such a painful note. She’d been hard on him, and not having him around to talk to or take her places would be hard on her.

  “I see.” Kevin looked down into his soup cup, deep in thought.

  It irked Gina that she couldn’t see his eyes. It made it difficult to tell what he was thinking. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. “Well, do we have an agreement or don’t we?” she said.

  She wasn’t prepared for his silence. She would have preferred that he acted all offended. It would have made it easier for her to walk out and not come back if he had ended things in a roar of disgust. She was doing a bad job of this, she knew, but his silence complicated everything. She didn’t know what it meant or how to deal with it. Surely she had royally offended him—why was he just sitting there? No self-respecting man would put up with such a one-sided arrangement.

  “We have an agreement,” he finally said. His voice was flat and emotionless, but he gave Gina a strange, mirthless smile.

  She returned the smile, but worry nagged at the back of her mind. This seemed too easy. How was she to interpret this response? Discombobulated and not sure if she believed him or not, she decided it was best to leave. “I have some aspirin in my purse. Let me go get some water from Hazel’s back porch before I go. Aspirin will bring down your fever.”

  He agreed to that, so she rummaged around in the dark kitchenette until she found an old plastic cup, and then she left Kevin alone while she crossed the yard to the porch. She found only bar soap on the edge of the porch sink, and although the cup looked clean, it had been sitting in that awful garage likely for decades, so she used the bar of soap as best she could to remove anything microscopic that might be associated with toxic waste. After she’d rinsed it repeatedly, she filled it with cool water and brought it back to Kevin. She took two aspirins from a small bottle in her purse and handed them to him with the cup. He thanked her and downed the medicine.

  “I’m going to leave you the rest of this aspirin. You may need it.” She set the aspirin bottle on the floor near the Thermos. “I’ll pick up the Thermos later, or you can leave it by my apartment door when you’re feeling better.”

  “Okay.”

  Kevin seemed to be thinking, hard. Gina got the distinct feeling that he was stalling, that he didn’t want her to leave just yet. But she had to go. She’d made a mess of things, and if she hung around any longer she would be sure to say something even more stupid than what she’d already blurted. Then she’d have even more to feel bad about this evening.

  She was still flagellating herself when he suddenly spoke. “Gina, have you ever been aboard a U.S. Navy ship? Fleet Week is coming up in the spring. It will be the only time once a year that sailors can bring their families to see the entire ship. I’d love to show you around the Flint. See the shop where I work. The berthing space. The mess deck. The ammunitions magazine where we store the bombs. I could even take you up to the bridge and show you the wheelhouse. I have some friends I’d like you to meet too. We could make a day of it.”

  Whoopee! Inside Gina a little girl was jumping up and down on tiptoes, anxious to get on the big gray boat with its superstructure perched way above the cold green waters of the Pacific. She’d seen the majestic Navy ships tied up at the other big ocean port, Norfolk Naval Station on the Atlantic, when she was a little girl, when her father was stationed at Fort Eustis in Virginia. Her parents had taken her to many military parades, Armistice Day and other events, where she’d seen the rows of handsome sailors, their guns on their shoulders, their uniforms crisp and white, looking straight ahead, marching in step to glorious, stirring marches played by the Navy band. But she had never actually boarded a ship. The thought of going on an escorted tour of one of those grand gray vessels thrilled her. And to see the interior spaces too! She was sorely tempted.

  But she had just told Kevin, in so many words, that they needed to cool it. She still felt guilty about accepting his earlier dinner and show invitation when she’d had mixed feelings, and that had turned out, predictably, to be a disaster. It would not be appropriate to accept this invitation now. Doing so would make her ultimatum look less than serious. “I think, Kevin,” she said, measuring her words, “It would be better if we took a little breather. Please don’t call me until I call you, okay? I need to think.”

  Kevin nodded in agreement and then thanked her for coming and for the soup.

  Gina got up to leave. As she put her hand on the doorknob, she turned around to say good-bye. It seemed to her that Kevin slumped awfully low in the bed. Her heart hurt for him. He must be really sick.

  She hoped that’s all it was.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Toso Pavilion, Santa Clara University

  Beautiful, beautiful Santa Clara University.

  Gina ran her fingers along the bumpy whitewashed brick facing the gardens behind the mission church. Built in 1822, the thick adobe wall was the oldest structure on campus, an Indian-made relic of its Spanish mission past. It was too late in the year for delicate lavender wisteria blooms to drape themselves lavishly over the garden arbor nearby, but because of Santa Clara Valley’s ten months of sun a
year, she could still enjoy scattered blossoms among the gardens’ more than four hundred rose bushes. The towering olive trees, harking back to mission days, would be there all year round, a soft and shady place to read a good book or to sit on a blanket with someone special and talk.

  Michael’s graduation day was long past too—nearly two years separated Gina from that bittersweet day. But that didn't stop her from pausing here to reminisce as she walked in the shade of the wall on her way across campus to swim laps in Toso Pavilion.

  He had graduated in these very gardens. She gazed across the grassy quadrangle behind the mission church, in the center of campus, and imagined him there, his handsome face among the many excited law school graduates wearing the much-awaited black gown with the silly and hopelessly vintage, European topper. She could still feel the charge in the air and see the proud parents snapping pictures. She saw the uniformed waiters standing behind white-cloth reception tables lined with stem glasses, each with a hothouse strawberry bobbing in cool champagne. It had been an elegant affair on a perfectly sunny day in May, with speeches and music and lofty and moving prayers offered by various Jesuit officials.

  And she had been a part of it.

  They were not engaged then, not yet. But everyone knew it was coming. Already they were a couple; his family had invited her to all their social events in which Michael took part. When the graduation reception ended and all the family and guests hopped into their cars to drive to Mariani’s on El Camino Real for a celebratory lunch, everyone assumed she would ride with Michael in his new, sleek white Porsche, a graduation gift from his grandfather. She had driven off with him feeling like a fairy tale princess in her pumpkin coach, and so in love with her prince.

  Gina remembered that day with poignancy, but no tears came today, just an ache-y heaviness. Sighing audibly, she continued along the side of the mission church and onto Palm Drive, where the soaring palms stood like sentries in front of the main entrance to the university. Before she came to Walsh Administration she took a right to cut through the campus, which made for a convoluted path to Toso but avoided death-defying traffic on El Camino Real. She loved to walk through this part of the campus anyway. Everything she saw was leafy, green, historic, proud, red tiled, and above all, Catholic. Her heritage reached back deep in this place. It was hers.