Beowulf for Cretins

by Ann McMan

  Abbie seemed to consider her answer. “Not. A. Single. Word.”

  “Well, thank god.”

  Abbie laughed.

  “But that’s where you met CK?” Grace clarified.

  “No. I didn’t meet her there. But I was impressed by her speech. So, when I saw her in the bookstore, I introduced myself.”

  “I’d have loved to have overheard that conversation.”

  “She’s very devoted to you.”

  “Really?” Grace raised an eyebrow. “And my name happened to come up because?”

  Abbie shrugged.

  “Oh, come on. You don’t get off that easily, Williams. Dish.”

  Abbie looked down at the carpet. “After we made our introductions, I told her that I’d heard her speak before. She seemed surprised by that, but went on to say she knew a bit about me, too.”

  Grace closed her eyes. “God . . . I’m sorry Abbie. CK is my best friend. I didn’t tell her about us to boast. She could see I was miserable and she knows me well enough to . . . to . . .”

  “Interpret the algorithms?” Abbie suggested.

  Grace nodded morosely. “Something like that.”

  Abbie reached out to touch Grace on the knee. “It’s okay. I’m not upset. I’m . . . glad.”

  “Glad? I doubt that.”

  “Don’t. It’s true. It makes me happy you have someone you trust to talk with about . . . things.”

  “Yeah. Things.”

  Abbie squeezed her knee. “I mean it. I wish I had someone like CK to confide in.”

  “You don’t?”

  Abbie shook her head.

  Grace tentatively placed her hand on top of Abbie’s. It felt every bit as warm and solid as it had the other night when they sat together at her kitchen table drinking cognac. It was raining like hell that night, too. Grace wondered if the weather’s instability was an omen for their prospects.

  “I’m sorry about that, Abbie.”

  “Me, too. But I have no one to blame but myself for living such an insular life.”

  “If it helps, I’ll be happy to share CK with you.”

  “I’d like that. She seems pretty special.”

  “Special?” Grace laughed. “Yeah. She’s definitely . . . woke.”

  “Woke?” Abbie quoted. “Is that the same thing as lighted?”

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you mean lit?”

  “I always get those colloquial expressions wrong. I’m such a nerd.”

  “You’re adorable.” The words were out before Grace could keep them back.

  Abbie looked at her.

  Time stood still. They stared at each other while the rain continued to thrum against the roof and the Chicago Symphony began to work its way through the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. Grace didn’t miss the irony. She felt like she was finally waking up from her own stupor of repressed longing. And its object wasn’t the product of some manufactured fantasy—it was the Word become glorious flesh. And the whole human enchilada was seated right in front of her in all its quick and vibrant glory.

  The question was what she was going to do with it. It was a colossal mess.

  And it was tying her invariants up in quantum knots . . .

  She smiled at her own musing.

  Abbie noticed and gave her hand a tug. “What?”

  “It’s . . . nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing.”

  “I was just thinking about the irony of both of us taking advice from CK.”

  “Would that be a bad thing?” Abbie asked.

  “Bad?” Grace thought about it. “Not bad. But definitely messy.”

  Abbie seemed intrigued. “Messy? She seems a bit eccentric, I’ll grant you. But otherwise pretty well put together.”

  “Not that kind of messy,” Grace corrected. “I mean the kind of messy that requires a half-gallon of Resolve and a drop cloth.”

  Abbie blinked. “I have no idea what that means.”

  Grace let out a long, slow breath. “Tell you what—let’s make some dinner and I’ll explain it to you. Then we can listen to the symphony concert. Maybe things will be clearer with a small dose of curry and a big dose of Mozart.”

  “At least our sinuses will be clearer, even if our understanding lags behind.”

  “Such an optimist.” Grace stood up, but retained her hold on Abbie’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go sling some hash.”

  Abbie got to her feet, too. Once again, Grace was struck by how much taller she was. She stared at Abbie with the open-mouthed awe of a tourist gawking up at all six feet, six inches of Mary in Michelangelo’s Pietà.

  Yep. Into the hand basket and straight on to hell . . .

  She dared to allow herself a fleeting hope that her own prospects might be a tad brighter than the Blessed Virgin’s.

  Fat chance.

  “Come on.” Grace led the way to the kitchen. “You can open the wine.”

  # # #

  Anne-Sophie Mutter was killing it.

  Even with the herculean level of distraction that accompanied sharing her medley of curried chicken and vegetables with Abbie, some still-functioning part of her mind managed to be blown away by how great Mutter’s performance was.

  Abbie seemed to read her thoughts. “I love this concerto. I once heard Isaac Stern play it, and although I was very young, I recall being mesmerized by his musical gymnastics.”

  Grace was impressed. “You heard Isaac Stern?”

  “My grandmother used to take me to performances by the Montréal Symphony.” Abbie smiled. “I was only eight years old when I heard him, but I’ll never forget the experience.” She took a sip of her wine. “Mutter is playing this superbly.”

  “So, you grew up in Montréal?”

  “Near there,” Abbie explained. “In Québec City. I lived in Canada until I finished college at McGill.”

  “So, you grew up speaking French?”

  “And English. My parents are both committed Francophiles, but I was determined to become proficient in both languages. And McGill is an English-speaking college.” She smiled. “They weren’t particularly happy with my choice.”

  Grace was intrigued. “Why not?”

  “Before his retirement, my father was a professor of economics at Laval. He was determined for me to attend one of the province’s French-speaking universities.”

  “But you didn’t share his enthusiasm for that idea?”

  “Not in the least. I found that level of cultural sophistry offensive. So, after grad school at Chicago and Princeton, I just never went back.”

  “Until now?”

  “Well—my parents are a lot older, and I’m their only child.” Abbie shrugged. “This seemed close, but not too close—if you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Where is your family?”

  “My mother is in Wilkes-Barre. My brother, Dean, lives in Plattsburgh—the headquarters of his home improvement stores.”

  “What about your father?” Abbie asked.

  Grace refilled their wineglasses. “He died when I was a year old.”

  “Oh, dear god.” Abbie’s jaw dropped. “That’s terrible. May I ask what happened?”

  “The flood.”

  “The flood?” Abbie repeated.

  “I’m sorry. The Susquehanna Flood of ’72,” Grace explained. “In three days, tropical storm Agnes dumped eighteen inches of rain on the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. The river rose more than a foot per hour. When it finally crested at forty-one feet, the dikes just couldn’t hold it back. It overran its banks and nineteen feet of water roared through all the little towns in the valley. My dad was one of the unlucky ones. He drove a delivery truck for the Sanitary Bakery in Nanticoke. He got caught in flood waters while trying to move the truck to higher ground.”

  “Oh, my god. How horrible.”

  “Yeah.” Grace shook her head. “He died trying to save a load of spice cakes. Most of the other fatalities
were people who drowned trapped in their cars, too. My mom managed to get my brother and me to our grandparents’ house in Ashley—but, oddly, our house was one of only three on our street that wasn’t destroyed. I don’t remember anything about the experience, of course. But Dean says he remembers the smell of mud and oil—how it hung around the whole area and seemed to cling to everything for years. He’s a big bubba, but to this day, he won’t change the oil on his own truck. He says the odor makes him sick.”

  “I don’t doubt it. What did your mom do after your father’s death?”

  “She stayed. It’s what people did. They pushed the mud and debris out of what was left of their lives and they went on. Eventually, she got married again, but it didn’t last long. He was a shift supervisor she worked with at the garment factory—but it turned out his real life’s work was perfecting his role as a drunk and a womanizer—quite a change from our sainted father, whose worst excess was overindulging on his beloved Polish spice cakes. Mum later said that since her new husband chose to spend more time at the VFW hall than he did at home, it made sense to pack up his stuff and drop it off over there. I remember riding along with her in our old, beat-up Ford station wagon.” Grace smiled at the recollection. “She was so calm. Like dumping all this guy’s shit out on the sidewalk in front of a bar was the most natural thing in the world. Afterward, she took me to Howard Johnson’s for ice cream.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” Grace repeated. “When Agnes is done with something, she’s done. No second thoughts. No apologies. No going back.”

  “Agnes?” Abbie asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Grace explained. Just like the storm. She smiled. “It’s no accident that Agnes shared the same name. That bit of irony regularly conspired to compound my escalating load of Catholic guilt.”

  “That parallel must’ve been interesting to grow up with.”

  “Was and is,” Grace corrected. “It’s no accident that I ended up with a job more than four hundred miles from home.”

  “You said your brother lives in Plattsburgh?”

  Grace nodded.

  “I suppose he feels the same way?”

  “Hell no.” Grace laughed. “Dean is her fair-haired boy. He can do no wrong. I’m the black sheep in the Warner family.”

  “You?” Abbie seemed surprised. “Why?”

  Grace raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Surely not because you’re gay?”

  “No. Not because I’m gay.” Grace leaned over her plate and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Because I’m something much worse than gay: I’m a lesbian.”

  “How on earth is that worse?”

  “Hell if I know. If I had to guess, it’s because the word ‘lesbian’ summons up all kinds of murky, seamy and vaguely foul-smelling unnatural acts. Gay men don’t much threaten staunch Catholic women. I mean . . . think about it: most of our priests are closeted gay men. But homosexual women? Nuh uh. They’re all up to something subliminal and corrupting. Why else would all those generations of nuns make little girls sleep with their hands outside the covers? They knew things. They didn’t want us figuring that shit out.”

  Abbie seemed confused. “I’m trying very hard to follow your line of reasoning here—but I’m having difficulty connecting these dots.”

  “Okay.” Grace sat back. “Let’s go at this another way. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you also were raised Catholic?”

  “You might say that.”

  “So, do your parents know about your newfound . . . curiosity about sexual relationships with other women?”

  Abbie sighed. “For starters, I wouldn’t characterize my attraction to you as a function of ‘curiosity.’”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it?”

  It was Abbie’s turn to lean forward. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I thought we’d established that.”

  “So, your question is part of some academic exercise?”

  Grace thought Abbie sounded a little disappointed. “No. It’s not.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Grace held up a hand. “Isn’t that what I just asked you?”

  Abbie tapped her fingers on the side of her wineglass. The gesture was in perfect syncopation with the allegro aperto of the Mozart concerto. “I forget,” she said.

  “You’re lying.” Grace called her bluff.

  “Maybe I just want you to answer first?”

  “Okay.” Grace sighed. “I thought I was trying to make a point about why Catholics view lesbians as a greater threat than gay men. But now it appears that what I’m really asking you is why you’re interested in me.”

  “Interested seems like a pretty benign term, Grace.”

  “It does?”

  Abbie nodded.

  Grace thought about what to say next. “Well, what term would you use, then?”

  “I think I’d have to go for something a bit more—visceral. Certainly, something thoughtful that implies greater emotional intensity and . . .”

  Grace wondered why Abbie was struggling to complete her statement. “And . . . what?”

  Abbie met her eyes. “Investment.”

  “Oh.” Grace didn’t have a ready response.

  “Is that okay?” Abbie asked. Her voice sounded uncertain.

  Grace nodded.

  “So,” Abbie continued, “maybe now you can answer my question. Why do you want to know?”

  Grace took her time. “Maybe because I’m emotionally invested in your answer.”

  “Are you?”

  “I think so.” Grace closed her eyes and shook her head. “Hell. I know so.”

  There was an ominous roll of thunder.

  Abbie sighed and looked at her watch. “Why did we have to wait to have this part of the conversation when I need to be heading back to St. Albans?”

  Grace looked out the front window of the cabin. The rain was coming down in sheets. It had been pouring like this an hour ago while she grilled their dinner. Abbie had stood there beside her on the tiny back porch and mused about when the system might blow itself out. Grace knew better than to say anything about her certainty that this storm wouldn’t be letting up anytime soon. By now, she was ninety-nine percent sure Abbie would be marooned on the island with her for the rest of the night.

  She waved a hand at the window. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Abbie followed her gaze. “I wasn’t . . .”

  “Trust me. You aren’t going anyplace by boat in this.”

  “No?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “But, Captain Polly . . .”

  “Captain Polly would be the first person to tell you to stay off the water.”

  “Should I text her?”

  Grace shrugged. “You could try. Sometimes, if you hold your mouth just right and manage to stand in precisely the right spot on the island during a solar flare, you can grab a stray signal.”

  “Great.” Abbie met her eyes. “So, I guess that means I don’t need to be out on the dock in twenty-five minutes to wait for her to fetch me?”

  “I’m thinking not.”

  “Are you . . . will you be okay with that?”

  “I dunno.” Grace pretended to mull it over. “Lemme think . . .”

  Abbie tossed part of a dinner roll at her.

  “Hey!” Grace caught it in midair. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

  Abbie’s chin went up. “You think you can take me?”

  Grace was no longer sure what they were talking about—which she quickly realized wasn’t much of a change from their normal conversations. “You mean in a food fight?”

  “I mean in any kind of fight.”

  “Why do I suddenly feel like we’re playing three-dimensional chess . . . again?”

  Abbie took her time before answering. “Maybe because we are.”

  “I don’
t want to play games,” Grace declared.

  “I don’t either. I want to bask in how much I’m enjoying this meal—and this company.”

  Abbie was right about one thing: the food had turned out better than Grace had planned when she cobbled together the makeshift marinade. But although it had come together nicely, she still regretted that the first and only meal she’d probably ever get to cook for Abbie would be so—forgettable.

  Oh, well. At least it didn’t totally suck. And the wine was great . . .

  Abbie raised another forkful of the curried vegetables to her mouth and made happy, moaning sounds—which made it hard for Grace to concentrate on anything but her memories of the other happy sounds she remembered hearing her make once.

  She made a valiant effort to distract herself. “It’s so amazing to me that we can listen to this virtuosic performance and recall that Mutter once cut off part of her finger while chopping carrots.” Grace wagged her pinkie. “I never trusted taproots, and after hearing that story, I knew my suspicions were well-founded.”

  Abbie laughed. “Right story. Wrong musician. That happened to Salerno-Sonnenberg, not Mutter.”

  “My bad. I always get them confused.” Grace shook her head. “It’s those damn hyphens. They invariably portend the certain onset of something ominous.”

  “Really?” Abbie raised an eyebrow. “As in the case of Bryce Oliver-James?”

  Grace was surprised. “You know about him?”

  Abbie nodded. “Of course.”

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “Why, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know.” Abbie speared a slice of grilled chicken. “Maybe I did my homework and researched the faculty.”

  “Uh huh. Or maybe a little sprig of Clover got stuck in your ear while you were hiding from Pierre Paul?”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “Abbie. You know you cannot get involved in this.”

  “I’m already involved in it.”

  Grace felt a surge of panic. “Not yet you aren’t. And after today, you won’t ever have reason to become involved.”

  “Meaning?”

  Grace sighed. “You don’t really need me to spell this out for you again, do you?”

  Abbie avoided her gaze.

  “Abbie?” Grace tried again. “You know it’s impossible. You know we can’t.”