Last Call

by Laura Pedersen

  “I mean,” Hayden continues, “if you want to give me your number—”

  “There’s no telephone here.”

  “Oh, well, then I’ll give you my address—”

  But Sister Rosamond is already shaking her head from side to side indicating that this is also forbidden. She carefully rearranges her habit before exiting the car. Beyond the tall iron gates the warm summer sun can be seen dipping behind a tomb of dark gray clouds.

  “Then I guess it was nice meetin’ you,” Hayden calls through the window on the driver’s side. He’s surprised to feel so disappointed at being turned down, the sting of the no-sale compounded by the personal rebuff. But really, what’s the point? He’s dying, she’s dying. And to top it off she’s a nun. They’re as different as chalk and cheese.

  “Thank you so much,” she says through the open window. “For a few hours I forgot about all my woes and felt like a schoolgirl during recess.” The simple daily routine of the convent is supposed to free one’s mind to concentrate on God. Yet Rosamond can’t remember feeling so exultant as when the batter hit a surprise home run during the final inning and hundreds of spectators collectively gasped before bursting into wild applause. And Hayden reached around and squeezed her shoulder as if they’d known each other forever.

  However, this unexpected surge of emotion only increases Rosamond’s sense of being a complete failure as a nun. On the twentieth anniversary of taking her vows she’s not coming at all close to fulfilling her calling, to achieving a state of exhilaration in her love for Him and progressing toward grace through the power of contemplative prayer and devotion. Instead, she feels spiritually bereft, with a heart like a dried-up riverbed. And now this terrible disease, certainly meant as a test, is muddling her faith worse than ever rather than providing the focus and clarity she so desperately craves.

  “So long,” he and Joey both shout as Hayden slowly turns the car around in the narrow gravel driveway lined with tall dark elms. The onset of dusk makes the chinks of remaining light that filter through the trees appear as if gold dust is falling to earth.

  As they pull away Joey glances out the back window. “Hey, Grandpa, stop the car. The nun is chasing us!”

  And sure enough, in the rearview mirror it appears as if a diminutive Darth Vader complete with flowing black cloak is awkwardly dashing after them through the deceptive shadows of twilight.

  “It’s Attila the Nun!” Hayden rolls down his window.

  “Perhaps you can pick me up on Friday at ten?” she asks breathlessly. “I’ll say it’s a doctor’s appointment.”

  Hayden nods in agreement, but before they can make further plans she turns and runs off again. Rosamond hurries through the hedge and back toward her world without television, newspapers, radio, movies, fashion, or men, except for Father Edwin, who comes to administer the sacraments and hear confession. Back to a place where the passing of time is marked by the changing colors of the altar clothes, and the vitality of someone such as Hayden MacBride is noticeably absent. Rosamond briefly stops in front of the permanently open but empty grave located at the entrance to the chapel, an ever-present reminder of the rich reward that will be hers after death.

  A nun’s time on earth is negligible to what awaits her in heaven, and thus she’s not supposed to fear her demise. Only now that Sister Rosamond is actually faced with the prospect of death, she cannot bring herself to acquiesce so easily. In fact, she finds the very idea of her life ending so early to be nothing short of terrifying.

  The station wagon merges onto the expressway and they ride toward the setting sun. Hayden is quiet, which is unlike him after an exciting game, since he usually enjoys recapping all the high points and errors. But this evening his mind is far away, pondering all the strange turns that his life has taken since Mary’s death—the encounter with his neighbor Bobbie Anne, being diagnosed with The Cancer, and now meeting a nun who likes baseball.

  In the tranquil atmosphere Joey decides it’s the perfect moment to ask about something that’s been on his mind lately. “Grandpa, what do you do if a girl tries to kiss you?”

  Hayden laughs and checks his rearview mirror before changing lanes. “Well, if she’s a sweet lass you close your eyes and you let her. Why? Was the Sister trying some funny business while I was in the loo?”

  “Grandpa!” says Joey, making sure Hayden knows that this time he’s well aware that he’s being teased. “It’s just that yesterday this girl at the funeral snuck up and kissed me.”

  Hayden goes directly into his repertory of Scottish folk songs, thumping the steering wheel while crooning “Sing the praises o’ my dearie” from “The Peerless Maiden.”

  “Cut it out. She is not my dearie!”

  “And why not? A girl doesn’t peck a boy on the cheek if she doesn’t fancy him.”

  “I ran away.”

  Hayden slaps his right hand on the top of the headrest and then pats down his ungovernable mane with his palm. “Good heavens! So she wasn’t exactly the kipper’s knickers then?”

  “She was awright, I guess.” Joey looks out the window. “At my old school the guys used to say that Mom is sexy.”

  Hayden chuckles as he does a mental review of the supporting evidence—the eyelash extension on the dresser that he swatted mistaking it for a giant fly, the early pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom ledge that he thought was a science project belonging to Joey. Diana’s appeal to the opposite sex is more than a bit disconcerting even to him. When she was an outgoing and eye-catching young girl with red ribbons tying back luxuriant hair that was like crushed black velvet he was thrilled that his daughter was destined for beauty, radiance, and intelligence. And of course it’s a blessing to have a sexy wife. But a full-grown sexy daughter?

  “I’m sure what they meant was that your mum is very attractive, which she is—gets that from your grandma. There’s no need coming to blows about it if another lad feels the need to pay a compliment.”

  “Sometimes I wish she was like all the other moms.”

  “And let me guess, all the other boys say they wish that they had a sexy mum like yours.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what they say. How’d you know?”

  chapter nine

  The house is quiet the next morning. Too quiet, decides Diana, as she prepares to leave for the start of her second week as a receptionist at a nearby medical center. Her father was usually the first one up, unless of course he’d snuck out of the house the night before and drunk with his friends until all hours.

  She fixes a tray in the kitchen and then tiptoes into Hayden’s bedroom and gently closes the door behind her so as not to disturb Joey, who’s still asleep in the next room.

  Hayden’s eyelids pop open at the sound of the old wooden door meeting the slightly warped frame. “Jayzus, you gave me a fright! Was dreamin’ about the day I married yer mother and then I see her comin’ through the door.”

  “Sorry, Dad. It’s just that you’re normally up by now and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Diana hands him a glass of freshly squeezed carrot juice and puts a dish of sliced grapefruit on his bedside table. Her hands possessed a curious authority, but not calmness. They were constantly in motion, nervous fingers searching for tasks to perform and objects to dust or straighten.

  Hayden tries to recall if maybe he forgot to close the front door or made a lot of racket when he crept in at four A.M. But his brain is foggy, and to be perfectly honest, he doesn’t even remember climbing up the stairs or getting into bed.

  “Was the hospital supply store showing a late-night double feature on broken hips?”

  It was no use trying to hide the fact that he’d been out late. Somehow she knew. Instead Hayden moves to Plan B, and gaily attempts to gloss over the matter with humor. “I went over to Alisdair’s to help him alphabetize his liquor cabinet. He has trouble with his B’s and P’s. And then, before you know it, he’s making mint juleps with peppermint schnapps instead of bourbon.” Hayden squints critical
ly at the juice glass that’s been planted in his hand and at the bowl holding the grapefruit. “What’s all this?”

  “Breakfast!”

  “Breakfast for a jackrabbit! And I’m not bedridden yet, if you don’t mind. I’ll go to the diner for some griddle cakes.” But obviously hungover, he doesn’t make any attempt to rise from the bed.

  Diana dismisses the subject of his breakfast plans with a roll of her eyes. “Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”

  “If it’s about that nasty herbal tea you’ve been trying to get me to quaff, it would frighten the French.”

  “No, no. It’s about the neighbors.” She sits down on the edge of his bed.

  “Did Paddy go off on another bender?” asks Hayden. “Ha! I warned him not to retire from the transit authority. The sobriety tests kept up his consciousness—in that he was conscious a lot more.” Hayden laughs at his own joke and then trails off coughing. He takes a sip of the violently orange carrot juice but this only serves to make him gag and gasp even more. “Oh, me bagpipes for a Bloody Mary. Can’t you leave me to my own vices?”

  Diana ignores his dramatics and sly wordplay. “No. And I’m not talking about the neighbors behind us. I mean next door on the left. That Ellis woman.”

  Hayden immediately stops coughing, wipes his mouth with his pajama sleeve, and visibly stiffens. He knows what she’s about to say and preempts her. “Her name is Bobbie Anne and she’s a good lass tryin’ to raise two wee ones by herself.” His brogue always becomes conspicuously thicker when he goes on the defensive, which doesn’t escape Diana’s notice.

  “So then I take it you know that she’s a . . . that she turns tricks while her children are at day camp.” Diana whispers this as if someone might be trying to listen in from the hallway.

  Hayden pulls himself up to a full sitting position. “Do’an’ say it like that! The husband died during a peacekeeping mission off in some godforsaken place where Jayzus lost his sandals and the government do’an’ give her enough to get by on.”

  “So then why doesn’t she get a job like the rest of us single mothers?”

  “Because her daddy didn’t pay for her to go to six years o’ college, for one thing.”

  Diana feels her face flushing with anger but refuses to let him lay on the guilt about her constantly shifting college major, which added two years to a four-year liberal arts degree. She looks him straight in the eye as if to say “That’s no excuse and you know it.” However, Hayden had signed the limestone town house over to Diana just the week before and thus she knows what’s next in his arsenal—daughters being handed paid-for homes with no monthly rent or mortgage payments.

  Diana rises and glowers at him before turning to leave. She may have inherited entirely too much of her mother’s artistic disposition, at least in Hayden’s opinion, but she also picked up a good deal of her father’s quiet but fierce stubbornness, a gene passed down from generations of rugged Highland farmers and fighters.

  Hayden is quick to note that he needs one final thrust to confirm his victory. In a more conversational tone he adds, “She had a job selling wedding gowns at some fancy boutique on Madison Avenue—left at six every morning and arrived home at night after her kids were in bed and her entire check went to baby-sitters and commuting costs. She couldn’t even pay her taxes.”

  “Maybe she could work from home, start a day care—”

  “Diana!” he says sharply. “Mind yer own business, will you please?”

  “It is my business, Dad. I don’t want my son growing up next to a whore—”

  “Do’an’ say that Diana. I’m warning you!” He swings his arm out to point and practically knocks over the juice glass. Tall patches of Scottish accent erupt once again. “Bobbie Anne is nothin’ of the sort. She just offers neighborhood men a bit of comfort. For all we know it stops them from worryin’ an unwillin’ wife or gettin’ drunk and hittin’ their young’uns.”

  “I can’t believe this. You’re defending a prostitute.”

  “Now I told you not to use such language. It’s her home and her body and it’s a free country. And by God, where else is she going to make two hundred dollars a day tax-free and be able to stay at home and raise her little girls?” Hayden realizes that he’s made a serious error by quoting an exact figure, which is not likely to slip past Diana. Her eyebrows are already heading north toward the ceiling fan.

  “Or whatever she earns,” he hastily adds. To further the distraction Hayden attempts to rise but takes a deep breath, coughs, and collapses back onto the bed. It’s impossible to tell if it’s the hangover, his liver, or whether he’s simply feigning some sort of a spell in an effort to divert her attention.

  “Oh, Dad!” Diana’s caretaker instincts overwhelm her argumentativeness. She reaches to help him but he pushes her away. Diana is wracked with guilt by Hayden’s illness, his willful self-destructiveness, and most of all, her inability to get him in for treatment. She understands that what the doctor has suggested is experimental and there are no guarantees, but he won’t even try.

  Hayden insists that such quackery is simply a scam either to drain his bank account or else to test a new generation of drugs that could eventually be patented and sold for millions. And so in his opinion they were looking for victims, not volunteers. Hayden knows from the way he feels inside that his cancer is much too far advanced to be stopped, even by an organ transplant.

  If only her mother were still alive, thinks Diana. She’s certain he would have tried the treatment for Mary’s sake. “Then will you at least please stop drinking?”

  “I’m fine.” Hayden produces another convincing cough, just to be on the safe side. “And if I really thought the liquor would kill me I’d have a lot more o’ it, believe you me.”

  Without a doubt Diana brings out the best and worst in Hayden. She reminds him so much of Mary and he loves her so completely that he never wants her to be hurt by life. Likewise, it drives Hayden mad (and often to drink) that he can’t prevent her from making what he considers to be bad choices, especially when it comes to men and managing money.

  “Then get dressed and come downstairs and I’ll make you some apple cinnamon pancakes before I go to work.” When would she ever learn? It was no use arguing with an insurance salesman. Her mother was the only one who could ever best Hayden in a verbal duel. Or else properly lay on the guilt to bring him around.

  Hayden’s cough quickly subsides and his sea-change green eyes light up. “Pancakes?” His brogue recedes. “The way your mother used to make them?”

  “Of course.” She smiles back at him and heads downstairs to the kitchen.

  Before rising Hayden takes a deep breath and savors the lingering aroma of Diana’s fragrant perfume, which has recently replaced the chronic household odor of burnt toast and stale tomato soup. Yes, it was a brand-new day. And he actually has a date lined up for later in the week! Okay, she’s a nun. Then again, it made sense to befriend someone who believes in an afterlife, seeing as they don’t have much time left in the current one.

  He walks over to the window and looks out at Bobbie Anne’s postage stamp of a backyard. She’s hanging wash on the line, as she does every morning about this time when it’s not raining. Hayden breathes a sigh of relief that Diana didn’t pursue the subject of his intimate knowledge of Bobbie Anne’s rates. Besides, he can’t ever tell her the truth anyway.

  chapter ten

  Five months earlier, the week before he’d been diagnosed with The Cancer, Hayden had paid a professional call on Bobbie Anne. It was the one-year anniversary of Mary’s death and Hayden felt so wretched that he was preparing to get extremely drunk and start the car with the garage door closed in order to join Mary, wherever she was. Or at the very least, escape an anguished existence without her. She had been his compass in life. And though he’d been tempted several times throughout the years by attractive female coworkers and clients in distant cities, where he could have easily had a fling, he was never unfaithful.r />
  While swigging scotch and fashioning the garden hose into a suicide apparatus he’d seen the fresh-faced and curvaceous Bobbie Anne in the adjacent backyard shaking out some rugs, her gorgeous hair that appeared reddish-gold in the sunlight hanging loose about her shoulders, and making for a striking contrast against her creamy complexion. In the neighborhood it was rather common knowledge that she saw men between ten and two. And so with his mind clouded by grief and whiskey he’d put down the hose, crossed the yard, and requested an appointment.

  Bobbie Anne smiled pleasantly, as if Hayden was asking to borrow a cup of sugar. And in her friendly southern drawl she instructed him to arrive at eleven the following morning and confirmed that her fee was indeed two hundred dollars in cash.

  Hayden immediately abandoned the hooch and hose and worked himself into a complete panic over the upcoming “date.” He picked up the phone to call and cancel a dozen times but was too nervous to even dial her number. And standing in front of the bank teller was the first time in his life that he wished he had accepted one of those plastic cards that enables a customer to enjoy the anonymity of an ATM. Hayden was convinced that the woman behind the bulletproof Plexiglas partition knew exactly what he wanted the money for, because in all his twenty years at that branch he’d never withdrawn more than a hundred dollars in cash during a single visit to the bank.

  Having lived as a bachelor for a year Hayden was also afraid that his appearance had deteriorated, much like the backyard, which since the day of the funeral had been slowly overtaken by weeds and undergrowth. At work his secretary regularly arrived with Tupperware containers filled with food for Hayden to take home and instructed him to get more rest. She was suspicious that outside of work hours he’d abandoned himself to alcohol and disarray. And a visit to the town house would have proved her instincts to be correct.

  To be on the safe side Hayden went to Gus the barber for a haircut.