“Yeah. But there’s not much of a paper trail, other than a few phone calls from Wintour’s cell phone to Dessaint. And with Peggy and Dessaint both dead, there isn’t much hope of ever getting all the details. I tell you what really bugs me.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We still don’t know how Peggy hooked up with Chris Dessaint.”
“I thought Malcolm was the one giving him orders,” Clare said.
“He was. But Wintour didn’t know him before. He claims his aunt fingered Dessaint, gave him his name and phone number.” He made a noise of frustration. “You can imagine how hard it’s going to be to get the conspiracy charge to stick.” He glanced around at the others, as if recalling that he wasn’t in a private conversation. “But to get back to Mr. Parteger’s statement…You can rest assured that the three surviving stooges will be going away for a long, long time.”
Emil smiled slightly. “You know, I don’t really care. Nearly dying has a way of giving you perspective.” He looked at his partner, the strained lines of his square face softening. “We all have only so much time. I don’t want to waste what’s left to me on things that aren’t important.”
Paul smiled back. “And that makes me think,” he said. “Clare, how did your candlelight vigil go?”
“Huh? Oh, it was great. More people than I expected.” Thanks to Todd MacPherson’s new friends from the Adirondack Pride team, she said to herself. She had spent much of the evening dodging their attempts to interview her. She wanted to do the work she needed to do, but she wasn’t interested in becoming their poster priest.
“What did your congregation think of it?”
“I think it boosted attendance the next Sunday. I actually had forty people in the pews.” She decided not to mention that half of them had wanted a “little word” with her about her activism.
“Good,” Paul said. He took his partner’s hand and breathed deeply. “Because Emil and I would like to ask you to marry us.”
Clare blinked.
“Well, I guess that calls for congratulations,” Margy said stoutly. Hugh and Russ glanced at each other. Hugh cleared his throat.
“Yes, congrats and best wishes,” he said.
Everyone looked at Clare. In the meadow beyond the overgrown lawn, cicadas were chirping their end-of-August call. The thick wineglass suddenly felt heavy in her hand. “New York State doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages,” she said, throwing out the first thing she could think of. “No ceremony is legally valid, no matter who officiates.”
“We know,” Paul said. “We can call it a commitment ceremony or a celebration of union. The important thing is, we want to stand up together and make promises in front of our friends and family. We want to say we’ll be together until we die.”
“The church I was raised in can’t do this for us,” Emil said. “But I have…reconnected to the fact that my belief in God is part of my life. I know that the Episcopal church is more liberal about these issues.”
“The church is in conflict about these issues,” Clare said, stressing the word conflict. “Some dioceses allow commitment ceremonies, or at least look the other way while individual priests perform them. But the bishop of Albany—my bishop—is a traditionalist.” Not wanting the bishop to come across as some sort of hide-bound old crank, she added, “I mean, he’s very much in favor of civil rights for gays and for including them—you—in the church community. Just…not…”
“Just not giving the stamp of approval to them actually living together,” Russ said.
She shot him a look. He should talk, Mr. I’m Uncomfortable Around Them. “Please try to understand,” she said. “I don’t have the authority to decide policy on my own. I’m part of a hierarchy, under the direction of my bishop, who’s under the direction of the General Convention. It’s not that I’m against it, but I…”
They were all watching her dig her own grave. Paul looked as if she had gotten up and kicked Bob and Gal. Emil’s face was sinking into lines of resignation. And Russ looked…disappointed in her.
You like to live on the edge, don’t you, Fergusson?
Make whole that which is broken.
“But I have to live as I believe Christ leads me. If that doesn’t sound too pompous.” She laid one hand on Paul’s arm and one on Emil’s. “Yes. Okay. I will celebrate your union.”
Dinner was a much more festive affair after that, although Clare had to work at ignoring what might happen to her if—when—her bishop found out what she had agreed to do.
Emil held up well throughout the meal and dessert, but by the time Paul poured them coffee, his face was gray and strained. “Paul,” he said, “I’m afraid I’ve overdone it a bit. Could you…”
Russ pushed his chair back. “We ought to be going.”
“No, no,” Emil insisted. “I need a little help, but Paul would love to visit some more.”
“Do me a favor,” Paul said, turning to Clare as he pulled Emil’s chair away from the table and guided him to his feet. “Take the dogs for a turn around the meadow. They haven’t had a chance to get much exercise since we’ve gotten home. I’ll be down as soon as I’ve gotten Emil all set.”
Russ glanced at Clare. “Sure,” she said. She looked around the glass-topped table at Margy and Hugh.
“Not me,” Margy said. “I’m going to sit here and digest that wonderful meal.”
Hugh smiled apologetically at Clare. “Can you manage without me, Vicar? I hate to sound like a weed, but I’ve got allergies on top of allergies. My medication’s holding them at bay, but if I go strolling through all that goldenrod, I’ll turn into a giant inflated sinus. I won’t bore you with the details. It would be too disgusting.”
Clare laughed. “That’s fine. You two save some coffee for us.”
The men scraped their chairs away from the table as she stood, and, as if they had been eavesdropping, Gal and Bob bounded over. Russ and Clare both called their good-nights to Emil, who was making his way with difficulty through the French doors.
“After you,” Russ said, sweeping his hand toward the edge of the patio. She stepped into the grass, the dogs dancing ahead. “So,” he said. “This Hugh seems like a nice guy.”
“Yeah.”
“You been seeing much of him?” He fell into step beside her.
“We met at Peggy’s party, that night I…the night you came to get me. He called me a few days later and asked if we could get together next time he was in Saratoga.” She shrugged. “So here he is. It’s our first time out together.”
“Oh.” He yanked a cluster of goldenrod off its stalk and flicked it, piece by piece, into the air. “You think this is going to go someplace?”
She looked him square in the face. “I thought,” she said, speaking deliberately, “that it would be a good idea for me to start dating. It doesn’t much matter with whom.”
He looked down, brushing the goldenrod fuzz off his hands. They walked on in silence. The dogs flushed a red-winged blackbird off its perch on a maple sapling and leaped about wildly, trying to catch it. “I understand you visited Leo Waxman before he went into rehab,” he said after awhile.
She welcomed the change of subject. “I felt like I had to apologize to him—for dropping him. You know the state’s fired him for not reporting the PCB contamination in the quarry pool. Although I understand there are hardly any traces of it now.” She tugged at a stem of Queen Anne’s lace and snapped it off. “They’ve confirmed it was planted there?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Do you have any idea who did it?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be able to tell.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I know it wasn’t my mother. If she had done it, she would have done it right, and stopped the project cold.”
She laughed.
“He’s going ahead with the construction. Did you know that?” he said.