Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  “What on earth, Phyl? Are you okay?”

  She flung herself down on the cushioned bench opposite me and grabbed my hands. “The tackiest—you are never going to believe—” Out of breath, she nevertheless managed to succumb to a giggling fit.

  “For the love of Mike, Phyl, spill the beans!” I urged, giving her hands a squeeze.

  “Okay, okay. Wayne proposed to me!” She enjoyed my dumbfounded expression for a second before barreling on. “He proposed to me today at lunch at a hot dog stand.”

  Recovering my voice I said, “There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t know where to start.”

  “I know,” Phyl laughed. “When I called Joanie, I could barely get her to understand. I tried to call you, but your phone was dead, as usual. Wayne proposed! At lunch! At a hot dog stand!”

  “You’ve only known him a couple months,” I wondered aloud. “He even beat Roy to the punch. Did he bring his mom along? And what did you say to him? No, or hell no? Give me details.”

  “To make a long story short, I said no,” Phyl began.

  “Come on, Phyl. Make a long story long—start at the beginning,” I insisted.

  “Well, okay. He messaged me at about ten o’clock and asked if I could have lunch today at Seastar, but I had a meeting at 11:00 and another one at 1:00, so I didn’t think it could happen. But he must have promised himself he was going to ask me today because he wouldn’t let me beg off. All we had time for was the hot dog stand on the corner by my office. So there I am, loading up on the Gulden’s Spicy Brown, when all of a sudden he grabs my hand off the dispenser pump and says, ‘Phyl, I’m in love with you. You’re the girl I’ve been waiting for. Will you marry me?’”

  I clapped my hands, thrilled. “Go, Wayne! Imagine—he couldn’t even wait till you were spooning on the onions. Is it too late to change your mind? Lesser men would have aborted the mission when it got moved to the hot dog stand, but not our man Wayne.”

  Phyl giggled. “I’m not sure he even noticed. Probably his mom told him to ask me at a nice restaurant, but when he had to go to Plan B he probably didn’t think it would matter.”

  “Nor did it, in the event,” I pointed out. “Were you sorry to say no? Even the littlest bit?”

  She weighed this for a moment. “You know, Cass, I was! You know how I’ve been kind of lukewarm on him all along—lukewarm at best. He’s nice-looking and employed and kind and even interesting, once you get him talking—did I tell you he’s a World War II buff?”

  “You don’t have to sell me on Wayne, Phyl. As Elizabeth Bennett said to her sister Jane, ‘You’ve liked many a stupider person.’ Jason, for instance. And Daniel, for another.” She looked sheepish, and I asked hesitantly, “If you think he’s not so bad after all, do you think you could learn to love him? We really don’t know him very well, at this point, but he seems to be a quality guy.” She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders. “You didn’t turn him down because of…of Daniel, did you?”

  “No-o-o,” Phyl answered unwillingly. “I still like Daniel—I can’t help that—but he’s clearly not interested in me, and I’m not just going to pine over him the rest of my life. I just wish Wayne were a little more exciting. The whole engineer thing, and the dutiful son thing just don’t do it for me. I can always guess what he’s going to do or say.”

  “That is total bunk, Phyl,” I protested. “You had no idea he was going to propose to you so soon—today—and the hot dog stand was pure bonus unpredictability.”

  “Good point,” she amended. After a pause Phyl asked, “Troy did engineering, didn’t he? But you didn’t think he was boring.”

  “He could be vastly boring, if he was talking about one of his work projects,” I said encouragingly, “but I could bore him right back when I talked about my dull days staying home with a baby. For every exciting milestone Min hit, there were lots more hours spent talking about what brand of diapers I liked, or what my friends had read about baby food, or Min’s sleeping habits. Life has a lot of boring in it. Maybe the trick is marrying someone with your sense of humor, so that even when you hit all the boring, you can joke about it. Troy and I could. Didn’t you find with Jason that marriage was at least 85% companionship?”

  “Not really. Being married to Jason was about 85% fighting and 10% sex and 5% companionship.”

  I winced. “Ooh, that’s bad. And I bet if you married Daniel it’d be 85% sex, 10% fighting, and 5% companionship, until he dumped you.”

  “I could go for those ratios,” Phyl grinned incorrigibly. “Until he dumped me, that is.”

  “So did Wayne go away completely demoralized, and you’ve seen the last of him, or is he asking to keep seeing you?”

  “To keep seeing me,” Phyl answered slowly. “And—I didn’t even tell Joanie this—after I said no, and he said he was going to keep trying, if I didn’t mind, he grabbed me, hot dog and all, and kissed me in front of everyone.”

  I whistled appreciatively. “Wow! I’ll hardly be able to look at him this Thursday without blushing.” I teased. “And think—next time you see Jason, you’ll have some bragging rights. When’s the last time Jessica kissed him over a hot dog?”

  • • •

  When Joanie got home we hashed through it once more.

  “Cass thinks I shouldn’t rule him out until I get to know him better,” Phyl concluded. “What do you think?”

  “Quality people improve on acquaintance,” I explained. “Flashy people like Jason get worse the longer you know them. I think Wayne falls in the first bucket.”

  Joanie considered. “Well, dear Wayne is probably never gonna set the Thames on fire, even if you know him for years—”

  “Who wants a husband who sets the Thames on fire?” I insisted. “Thrill-seeking guys do not make good husbands. They dump you right off, like Jason, or they dump you when they hit their mid-life crisis and run off with the first aerobics instructor who compliments their receding hairline.” Joanie and Phyl didn’t look entirely convinced. Flustered, I continued, “I’m not saying boring is beautiful—I’m just saying that thrilling is overrated. Troy and I had humor and mutual respect and compatible outlooks on life…If he hadn’t up and died on me, I think we could have gone the distance.”

  Hearing my voice tighten up a little, Joanie put a hand over mine. “Aw, Cass…”

  “It’s okay, Joanie,” I said quickly. “All I mean to say is that Wayne is a good man, and he has serious long-distance potential, Phyl. Don’t rule him out.”

  • • •

  My conversation with Nadina and Wayne’s proposal made it difficult to fall asleep that night. After an hour or two of staring up at the ceiling, I found myself praying before I realized it. When it did hit me what I was doing, I stiffened and tacked on a surly, Don’t think I’ve forgotten about what You did to me—I’m just praying because I told Nadina I would. But after a space of time I even dropped that. Fine. I’m praying. Who else am I going to ask? And there was so much to ask for Nadina: I prayed she would dump Mike and move back in with her mom; I prayed she would be able to stand up to him and keep off the hard drugs; I prayed for the people around her to make good choices; I prayed for wisdom and self-control when I spoke to her; I prayed she might begin to think about her life and what she was doing on earth.

  Prayers for Nadina drifted into other prayers, for Phyl, for Perry and Betsy, for Kyle, for myself. Maybe what I had told Nadina was no longer relevant: sometime in the past few months I had gotten back in the car. My Bible still sat gathering dust on the shelf, but I occasionally flipped through Joanie’s or Phyl’s, if they left it lying around.

  In church, too, I had begun to invest again. I now recognized many faces at the early service and even made chitchat with those who regularly sat around me. This group included Louella Murphy, whose bright appliqué jacket I had spied one Sunday from up in the balcony and whom I gravitated toward thereafter. Along with the faces, the hymns had grown familiar, and I began to sing again because I
had always loved to sing. There were still the services where I was out of sorts and would spend the hour trying not to burst into tears, but they were getting less frequent. If Louella would catch me on one of those mornings, she would reach over and squeeze my hand encouragingly. Once when she did this she whispered, “I miss my Frank, too.”

  “How—how did you know?” I gasped under my breath.

  “Nadina told Sonya, and Sonya told me,” she said simply. “I’m sorry about your little girl, too—oh! Shhh…it’s okay.”

  Really, though, those days were getting fewer and farther between. As I drifted off to sleep, one final prayer flitted across my mind: You’re still there, I guess. Thank you.

  Chapter 16: Virgin Territory

  “You want to try it again, Cass? You’re getting that hitch in your voice.”

  Murray’s own hitch-less, dry voice came over the headphones, and despite his long-suffering tone I knew he was impatient with me. I was perched on a stool, the script on a towel-draped music stand in front of me, surrounded on three sides by jury-rigged walls covered in geometric, acoustical foam. A microphone hovered in my face, covered by a pop filter to catch any overexuberant “p” or “b” or “s” sounds. When I had jokingly recited “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” to test it out, Murray didn’t even give a perfunctory laugh. But it wasn’t Murray or my strange setting that was throwing me.

  After one more unsuccessful take, I pulled off my headphones and said, “James, you’ve got to go. You’re throwing me off.”

  “Who, me?” he protested, grinning. “I’m not doing a thing.” Murray and I had been doing just fine getting some of the one-off lines down, including that ridiculous, “Die, Varlet!” But then James had let himself into Lockdown, cup of coffee and clipboard in hand, drawn up another stool not ten feet from me, and proceeded to observe, a half-smile playing about his lips.

  “These lines are corny enough. I absolutely can’t say them when someone is watching me,” I insisted. “So buzz off, or at least go sit by Murray where I can’t see you.”

  Instead, he pulled his stool closer. “Cass, where’s your professionalism? Pretend I’m not here.”

  “If you wanted a professional, you should have forked out the money to hire one,” I retorted. “You hired someone who’s only been in high school plays, so go away.”

  James laughed but threw up his arms in surrender. “Fine, fine, I’ll go away. But I thought you invited Kyle to come and watch. What are you doing to do when he gets here?”

  “I’ll tell him he has to sit by Murray.”

  “Speaking of Murray,” said Murray loudly, “Can we respect Murray’s time here and get back to recording?”

  James and I smiled sheepishly at each other, and he shot Murray a Cub Scout salute. “Need anything?” he whispered before he left. “Drink of water? Snack?” Shaking my head, I watched him slip out. His movements were always so quick and precise; he reminded me of one of Lewis’ animated characters in Tolt—the Elf Archer, maybe. Not that I would ever say that to him, though, men not generally liking to be compared with elves.

  With James gone and only the dour Murray’s voice in my ears we made more progress, and when I finally emerged from the recording booth, it was to find that Kyle had been there quite some time. He was sitting beside Murray, wearing identical goofy headphones and responding to Murray’s murmured comments monosyllabically. Trust Kyle to cotton on to all things technical instantly. He pointed to one of the thousand knobs on what looked like a black dashboard in front of Murray and asked a question I couldn’t hear. Given how unexcited Murray had been at the prospect of having an observer, I was astonished to see him nod and launch into a lengthy explanation. The two of them reminded me of the Sorcerer and his apprentice brewing up some dark magic together.

  When I was right next to him, Kyle looked up at last and nodded. I heard him say, “Thanks, Man,” before removing his headphones.

  “Peace,” answered Murray, barely glancing at me as we left.

  After I shut the door behind us, I burst out, “Sheesh, Kyle! How did you ever manage to charm Murray?” He looked at me questioningly. “I couldn’t get two friendly words out of him all afternoon, and there he was talking to you and showing you things!” Kyle only gave his usual shrug, and I added resignedly, “I guess it was all downhill after I asked him what some of the ‘doodads’ in the recording booth were. He seemed offended by my technical jargon. Come on, you want to get coffee with me?”

  “James said to grab him when we were done,” said Kyle tonelessly.

  “Oh, okay then,” I agreed. We didn’t even make it as far as James’ cube, however, because we found him crammed in Riley’s, where the two of them were having an animated discussion.

  “Dude, everyone knows there’s no sound in space,” Riley exclaimed, holding up a hand to greet me. “You put sound effects in the spacewalk sequence, and nerds around the world are gonna flame us in their blogs.”

  “Ri, you can’t have an extended silent sequence,” objected James. “Everyone’s going to think their console or their TV or computer is on the fritz. It’s a convention to have sound effects in space. Think of every space movie you’ve ever seen. Even nerds suspend their disbelief. It’s like when you call someone—you know the ringing sound you hear has nothing to do with the ringing sound the physical phone generates. Kyle, you with me on this one?”

  Before Kyle could respond, Riley blurted, “Think about it, Bateman. It’s not a battle scene—it’s a spacewalk sequence. You know, the astronaut’s got to fix the friggin’ mirror that isn’t pointing the right direction anymore and that kind of crap. What do you want, power drills and hammering?”

  “Silent,” judged Kyle.

  James threw up his hands in mock despair. “Overruled by a 15-year-old. Who’s mentoring this kid anyhow? He should be fired instantly.”

  “How about music?” I suggested. “Floating-in-space kind of music. Fixing-mirrors-and-tightening-screws-in-space kind of music.”

  Riley gave a loud guffaw. “God, Murray will be all over it. All his crap-o music sounds like synthesizers falling into bathtubs—perfect background music for spacewalks.”

  “Or you could do loud, in-helmet breathing,” I went on. “You know, the spacewalk from the astronaut’s perspective. I could record some breathing sounds for you.”

  “No way,” said Riley. “If we put in girl-breathing, the game won’t get an ‘E for Everyone’ rating. On the other hand, if we could get Jeri to record the breathing, it would be more androgynous.” Predictably, Jeri’s hand appeared over the cubicle wall, flipping him off.

  “Riley,” I protested, “no one can tell the difference between girl- and guy-breathing—and I didn’t mean panting breathing, you pervert.”

  “We’ll give Murray the final say on the sound,” said James, cutting off any further debate. “But there will be some kind of sound. Let’s get some coffee. You coming, Ri?”

  • • •

  The coffee break was a riot. Riley and Kyle got into a big argument over some bit of Star Wars arcana that I couldn’t follow, even after the hours of research I put in on my novelization, with James throwing in his two cents’ worth from time to time without measurable results.

  “You hide your nerdiness well,” I remarked to James, when Riley and Kyle escalated to drawing dueling diagrams on the unbleached paper napkins. I couldn’t recall ever seeing Kyle this lively.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you saw me in high school,” James answered easily. “It’d be another few years before I finally grew into my head, got contacts, changed the wardrobe. A girlfriend made me over freshman year in college.”

  I smiled. “It’ll do. You could pass easily now for someone who did tennis team in high school.”

  “You mean it? The marching band and Academic Decathlon don’t show anymore?”

  “Not a bit. But tell me how the Ducati fits in—all the nerds I knew in high school didn’t tool around on any cool bi
kes.”

  “Yeah, my motorcycle interest was something I had to hide from my friends and my enemies, since they both would have given me grief for it,” James admitted. “Lucky for me my parents wouldn’t let me have a bike in high school. Riley and the guys still give me hell for it when I get it out in the spring—it’s like I bring up bad memories for them of being stuffed in lockers.”

  “Stuffed in lockers?” I gasped. “It’s hard to picture Riley ever being able to fit in a locker, even with some determined jock pushing on him.”

  “You may be right about Riley,” James conceded, “but I was the perfect size to stuff in a locker.” When I groaned and covered my eyes in dismay, he added laughingly, “I’ve told Kyle he doesn’t know how lucky he is to be tall—if he ever got folded into a locker, he could at least see out the vents at the top.”

  Hearing his name, Kyle looked over, his rare smile lighting his face. He was having a grand time. If he hadn’t been sold on the mentor program to begin with, he was a true believer now. Suddenly dispirited, I wondered if James had ever had a knock-down, drag-out fight with Kyle like I had with Nadina. Doubtful. On the other hand, it was equally difficult trying to imagine them talking about God and prayer—not James so much as Kyle. For all Nadina’s volatility, she plainly had a deep streak to her that she would let me glimpse occasionally; it was like staring down into a crevasse and seeing something bubbling down there. But Kyle was such a hard read. What would James use as an analogy for faith?

  Riley slammed his hand down on the table to make some point, jarring me from my reverie, and I was surprised to find James’ eyes on me, a troubled expression on his face. When I raised my eyebrows questioningly, he suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable and, fumbling for his cell phone, said abruptly, “Oh, I think that’s Murray, wanting to know where we went, Ri. We’d better get going. Cass and Kyle, great work today. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Tell Murray to keep his wig on,” said Riley without budging. “I’m on coffee break.”