“I let them live. I let them go free and find their way.”
“See, I couldn’t stand that. That’s like going through life as a basset hound.”
“I love basset hounds. What’s wrong with a basset hound?”
“But I don’t know if you want to be a basset hound. Kind of wrinkly and all jowly. You’re not really a basset hound, Jack.”
“What am I, then?”
“Oh, maybe a sled-dog type. I’m not sure. I don’t know you well enough yet.”
“Are you one of those clipped poodles?”
“I hope not. I’ve always seen myself as a Labrador retriever.”
“You are definitely not a Lab. Labs are easygoing and happy with a dirty tennis ball in their mouths.”
“I’m easygoing. I do draw the line at dirty tennis balls, though.”
A little later, a man came in carrying a box containing a statue of the Virgin Mary. He had bad teeth and a hard face; his hands appeared heavier than any hands I had ever seen on a human, with dark, spatulate fingers connected to a palm as thick and purposeful as a hammerhead. He wore a red kerchief around his neck, but he was not a priest. He set the box on the end of the bar and asked us, and the bar in general, if we wanted to say a prayer to it. I had never seen anything quite like it: it had been made from a packing crate, covered in chicken wire, and he had fashioned a small spotlight behind the topmost frame, so that it appeared the Blessed Mother had been transfixed in a beam of celestial light. Constance, I knew, would have flipped over it. But if the bar owner or any of the other patrons found anything unusual about the box and the scene of the Virgin Mary, her palms turned out to welcome the world, her heel pinning a serpent to the earth, they showed no sign of it.
“Do we pay an offering?” Jack asked the man in English.
The man nodded.
“How much?” Jack asked.
“As you like,” the man answered.
Jack dug in his pocket and gave him a few coins. Then he turned to me.
“Do you pray?” he asked.
“Not in a long time.”
“I don’t often pray, but tonight I feel I should. It’s not every day the Virgin Mary walks into a bar.”
“Sounds like the start of a bad joke.”
“I worry that God might be lonely.”
But then to my surprise, he closed his eyes and prayed. I examined his beautiful profile, his solemn expression, and I tried to join him, but I couldn’t. When he finished, he crossed himself and nodded at the man with the boxed Virgin Mary. The man nodded. It was late at night, and the man seemed to understand the need for prayers.
17
I climbed into bed with Amy at dawn. It was good to be in a warm bed. She turned when I slid in, mumbled something in her sleep, then fell back into whatever dreams she pursued or ran from. Her feet moved for a moment, pedaling, then she stopped and began breathing steadily. I watched her face for a time and tried to imagine what she had been through. But I was too tired to do a good job of it.
Constance woke us near midday by appearing at the foot of the bed, coffees and bread and croissants spread on a tray in front of her. She had brought tiny plates and white, starched napkins, and she set them out for us on the bedspread. I pulled myself up against the pillows and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. The coffee smelled amazing; the croissants resting between tubs of raspberry jam and white bricks of butter reminded my stomach it was hungry.
“Your mother called me twice, Amy,” Constance announced, pouring coffee out in the cups for us and adding cream. It was precisely Constance to turn the breakfast into a tea service. “I told her I would let you sleep until noon, then wake you. It’s now past noon.”
“I have to pee,” Amy said. “Give me another half hour before I have to think about Mom and all that.”
She shot out of the bed but returned in a few minutes. She had combed her hair and brushed her teeth. She climbed back in bed and fluffed her pillows behind her.
“I cannot think of a single thing I want more in this world right now than a cup of coffee and a delicious croissant,” Amy said. “Thank you, Constance. You’re a lifesaver.”
“I got it from the dining room downstairs. It’s surprisingly swanky, you know? The dining room, I mean. I guess this is a better hotel than we realized.”
I waited for Constance to finish fixing me a cup of coffee. She handed it to me. I put both hands around it and cuddled it against my chest.
“Okay,” Amy said, her voice rising in fun as it used to before losing her papers and cards, “let’s go over the scoreboard. Who’s in love?”
Constance flushed but did not look up. She continued stirring coffee and adding cream. I felt my neck go red as it always did in these moments.
“Wow,” Amy said at our silence, “that means you both are. Jesus, it’s really happening. No kidding? You two are not kidding me right now, are you?”
“Falling in love, maybe,” Constance said, her voice soft. “Maybe. It’s all too soon to say. But I like him a lot. I like him terribly.”
She finished preparing her own coffee and raised the cup to her lips. Her eyes shone above the rim of the cup. She was happy and in love, or falling in love, exactly as she said, and it showed.
“You’re going to end up on a sheep farm in Australia, and I can’t freaking stand it!” Amy squealed, her eyes wide. “You’re his little Sheila. How dreamy! How ridiculously dreamy! What do they call them? Not farms … stations. Sheep stations, don’t they call them that?”
“I have no idea,” Constance said.
“Oh, yes, you do, you little fibber. You’ve already dreamed it all out. The wind blows and the kangaroos hop by, and it’s all red dust and sheep, but you’ll have white tablecloths. Won’t she, Heather?”
“If anyone will, Constance will,” I agreed.
“And you—you’re just as bad. Jack, Jack, the lumberjack! Okay, so I’ll need two bridesmaids’ dresses, unless you can figure out a way to get married at the same time—a joint wedding, a double wedding! That’s what we’ll do. It will save money all the way around. Now somebody tell me why I am destined to be the bridesmaid in all this? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!”
“You might be rushing things just a bit. Jack can be superior and a bit judgy. That’s a report from the front.”
“Can he now?” Amy asked, glancing at Constance with a twinkle in her eye.
“He’s very bohemian. At least he thinks he is. Aspires to be, I guess. He’s dissing my plans to work for Bank of America. Says the corporate types are not alive to the world.”
“Oh, that’s just something he says. He’s just posturing,” Constance said. “He’s crazy about you. Anyone can see that.”
“One minute he’s so sweet and sincere, and the next minute he’s on his soapbox about how life should be. He’s all carpe diem, let’s go explore, let’s not worry about tomorrow—”
“You are in love,” Amy said and laughed. “You wouldn’t care what he said if you didn’t have a boner for him.”
“Girl boner,” I said.