These days Reverend Strong says he is worrying intensely about the theological issues raised in the doctrinal negotiations with the Roman Catholics that have been going on for a year at the Vatican. He doesn’t want to be bothered with practical problems concerning community work; he has to think about abstract theology, it takes up all his mental energy. This is what he tells Lucy over their late lunch.
Lucy ends up suggesting solutions to their most pressing problem—fund-raising—and absentmindedly he agrees to them. So, she thinks angrily: time for another futile, pathetic garage sale… because who cares if we don’t have enough money to help out our poor neighbors? They don’t deserve it anyway! They were only given their one talent.…
The afternoon goes to helping Helena, and to calling all the local newsheets to announce the garage sale, and to visiting four families in El Modena with care packages, and to teaching Lillian Keilbacher how to assist in the office, keeping the records. That last part is actually fun. Lillian, her friend Emma’s daughter, is now being paid as a part-time assistant, which means she goes at it harder than most of the young people. Lucy really enjoys her company, especially after Anastasia, who must be just a year or two older.
“Lucy, I just hit the command key to get the mailing list and everything disappeared!”
“Uh-oh.” They sit down looking at the computer screen, which stays stubbornly blank no matter what they try. “You sure you only hit the command key?”
“Well that’s what I thought, but I must be wrong.” Lillian is cross-eyed with consternation. Then the screen beeps for their attention and starts displaying a brightly colored sequence of graphs and figures.
“Wow!” They laugh at the extravagance of it. “Do you think this disk is damaged?” Lillian asks.
“I hope so. It’s either that or the computer is haunted.”
Lillian laughs. “Maybe we can get the reverend to, you know, cure it.”
“Exorcise it, sure.”
It’s fun. A nice girl, Lucy says to herself after Lillian leaves; and that’s her highest praise.
Office in order and closed, home to start dinner. Lucy chats on the phone with her friend Valerie while she chops up potatoes for a new casserole she’s trying. Into the microwave.
Then Jim comes by. He looks messy, tired.
“You aren’t going to teach looking like that, are you?”
He looks affronted. “Looking like what?”
“Those clothes, Jim. You look like you came out of lower Santa Ana.”
“Now, Mom, don’t be prejudiced.”
“I am not being prejudiced.” As if she were some bigoted recluse! When was the last time he was in lower Santa Ana? It’s too much. But he doesn’t understand, he’s giving her the what-did-I-say-now look that she also gets from Dennis. They look surprisingly alike sometimes. Usually the wrong times. Lucy sniffs hard and collects herself while tending the microwave. “Anyway, you should try to look better. It would make you a better teacher.”
“I look like what I look like, Mom.”
“Nonsense. It’s all under your control. And it sends out signals about what you think of the people you’re with. And of yourself, of course.”
“Semiotics of clothing, eh Mom?”
“I don’t know. Semiotics?”
“What you were saying about signals.”
“Well, yes then. Go look in the mirror.”
“In a bit.”
“Are you staying for dinner?”
“No. Just dropped by to see if any mail’s come for me.”
Great. “No, nothing’s here.” And off he goes, hurrying a bit to make sure he’s gone by the time Dennis gets home.
This worries Lucy greatly, this growing rift between Dennis and Jim. She knows very well that it’s bad for both of them. Both of them need to have each other’s respect to be fully happy, that’s only natural. And when there are so many other forces in action to make them unhappy, it becomes more important than ever. It’s support, mutual support, in a crucial area… Thinking these thoughts Lucy picks up the phone and calls Jim as he tracks east on the Garden Grove Freeway. “Listen, Jim, can you come to dinner tomorrow night? We haven’t been seeing you often enough recently.” Not at all, in fact, since he and Dennis had that fight out in the driveway. They haven’t seen each other even once since then, and it’s been over a week, and Lucy can feel the resentment and anger growing on both sides.
Jim says, “I don’t know, Mom.”
Annoyance and concern clash in her. “You don’t just come by here and check for mail,” she snaps. “We’re more than a post office box. You come by and eat a meal with your father soon, do you understand me?”
“All right,” he says, voice sharp. “But not tomorrow. Besides, I don’t see what good it’ll do—he’ll just think it’s another way that he’s supporting me.” And he hangs up.
Only minutes later Dennis stalks in, in a foul mood indeed. Lucy decides that he needs distraction from work thoughts, and she risks rebuff to tell him about Anastasia and Lillian. Dennis grunts his way through dinner. She tries another tack. Get him to talk it out, not bottle things up. “What did you do today?”
“Talked with Lemon.”
Ah. That explains it. Really, this Lemon must be quite unpleasant, though Lucy has a hard time imagining it, given the charming man she has met at LSR parties. “What about?”
But Dennis doesn’t want to go into it, and he retires to the video room table to get out the briefcase and pore over papers. Lucy cleans up, sits down to rest her feet. She’s teaching the Bible class tomorrow morning and they’re doing a chapter of Galatians that is problematic indeed. Paul is an ambiguous writer, when you read him closely; conflicting desires in him, some selfless and some not, make for a somewhat incoherent output. She reads over the teacher’s manual again and worries about the class. She finds herself nodding off. Time for bed already; the evenings always disappear. Dennis is out there staring at nothing, head tilted at an angle. Probably thinking of their plot of land up near Eureka, dreaming of an escape. Lucy shudders at the thought; she didn’t like that desolate coastline, its immense distance from her friends, family, work, the world. In fact she has wondered guiltily if the fire that burned the land was somehow an unwanted response to prayer, God granting her least worthy desire as a peculiar kind of lesson or warning to her.…
They retire. Another day done. Sleepy prayers. She’s got to get Jim back up here. Work on that some more tomorrow. Important. After class. Or the session with Lillian. Or…
19
That Saturday morning the same old party is beginning at the spa when Sandy gets sick of it. It’s sunny outside and the spa with its plants, mirrors, spectrum slide walls, clanking Nautilus machinery, gym shorts, leotards, and the sweet smell of clean sweat, just isn’t big enough to do the day justice. “Ahhhhhhh! Boring!!!!” He lets the lat pull go and its weights crash down, then he fires off into the mall and comes back with softballs, bats, and a dozen gloves. “Let’s go! Play ball!” He dragoons the whole crowd and they’re off.
It takes them a while to think of a park big enough to play softball in, but Abe does and they track south and east to Ortega, where a large grass park surrounded by eucalyptus trees lies empty. Perfect. There’s even a backstop. They split into teams, lid some eyedroppers, and start up a game.