communion

it was easter sunday and she had a date to church. robert picked her up outside her apartment in a cab at ten o clock, his tie hanging limp around his neck, a cup of coffee in his hand. she was wearing the most authentic st. patricks easter sunday costume she could muster-- a white strapless dress with a pale pink shrug, and heels so high it ached to walk. they hadnt kissed yet, they had only met two nights before, and he was too old for her, too obviously looking for a wife, for someone to bring back to georgia, to show off, to give him babies that looked like him (she imagined a christmas card photo of a family of poodles, all wearing plaid). he was unashamed of that need, proud almost, and there were times the night they met that she laughed out loud at him as he described his "plans." he wasnt attractive- sparse, weak facial hair, eyes too far apart- but she had been broken up with, in the most vicious of ways, just weeks before, and she was feeling brave.
they arrived at st. patricks to find a line wrapping around the block. people in jeans, with cameras. tour groups and school groups and children all holding onto a rope, dressed in the same t-shirts. she wondered if anyone actually went to church there, and how they must feel at the sight of this. robert's friends were inside already, he said as an aside to her as he started dialling his cell phone. it was hot and her feet were throbbing already, and the sight of him in the daylight was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable.
"i'm going to go see if we can get in. wait here." he handed her his half empty cup of coffee. minutes later he returned and said, "theres another service in an hour and a half. lets go somewhere for a while and come back when this line has cleared out."
she said ok and threw his coffee in the garbage can, and he took her hand and led her to a hotel across the street. the dining room was white table cloth fancy, speckled with little blonde heads picking at french toast and couples reading the times, oblivious to one another. they sat, he asked if she was hungry.
"not really. i could use a bloody mary though."
"as could i. 'scuse me sir? could we get a menu?"
the waiter brought back a menu and robert said, glancing at her briefly,
"you know actually i think we just want two bloody marys."
"i'm sorry sir, we don't serve liquor until after noon on sundays."
"oh, ok. well then a cup of coffee for me"
"and one for me"
"very well"
they looked awkwardly at each other.
"well! happy easter then!" she said, taking a deep breath.
"yeah! happy easter."
a long pause. everyone around her was eating silently. even the children were quiet.
"so are you very religious?" he asked.
"no. not particularly. i like to say im spiritual and all of that, but its so cliche i can barely let the words out. but i, you know, believe in god. you?"
"yeah. my familiy is pretty into it all. we're catholic, obviously."
she wondered why he added the obviously, then thought it must be a reference to st. patricks.
"oh, right. well. howd that work out for you?"
"excuse me?"
"i mean, how do like being catholic? or, just being religious and stuff?"
"its fine. i havent really got a choice."
she opened her mouth and took a sharp inhale, was about to say, "well actually, in most circumstances, its one thing in life that you absolutely get a choice about" but the butler brought their coffees and distracted robert, so that her saying it would have seemed more pointed than she intended it to be. they drank their coffees- hers black, his with milk and two lumps of sugar.
"you like it sweet, huh?"
"yeah." he didnt meet her eyes and she began to wonder if he even liked her. was he trying to convert her? was he trying to set her up with one of his friends, one of those friends that was already in the church? but he had taken her hand while they crossed the street...
"so lets finish these and go get a drink somewhere."
"sounds great." she swallowed her coffee in three big, boiling gulps as he waved down the waiter. the bill was twenty four dollars, and he paid, grumbling, though she offered.
they wandered around the block until they found an italian restaurant with a bar, which was setting up for brunch. the door was locked but robert knocked, and a tall girl with very black hair opened it.
"i know you probably aren't open yet but i was hoping we could get a drink?"
she turned around and yelled "hey! eleven yet?" and then turned back before anyone answered and shrugged. "sure."
they were both so relieved that he turned to her and shook her gently by the shoulders, and she wondered if maybe he wasn't as ordinary as she thought.
they had two bloody marys in rapid succession before rushing back to st. patricks. they got in and sat in the middle of a row towards the front. it was grand, as she knew it would be, and the music was spine tingling but unsentimental. they sat very close to each other, his arm around her shoulders, and she wondered what it would be like to have sex with him. she tried to picture it, him on top of her, making those terrified primal noises, and the thought made her shudder and close her eyes. he squeezed her shoulder and said it was time to go up for communion. she stood up with him, and he pulled her closer and whispered "i dont think youre allowed."
she looked at him in disbelief.
"excuse me?" she said, standing beside him, holding up the rest of the row from exiting into the isle.
"you have to be catholic" he said the last word so softly she wouldnt have heard except she already knew exactly what he was going to say.
"well, i'm going. i want to take communion and i think that should be enough."
he shook his head in an amused way, as if his saying anything at all had been a test and she had passed, and motioned for her to go ahead of him. her heels made noise as she walked to the front of the church, where two sets of nuns were standing in front of each section. they walked to the set on the farthest right hand side, and he went first. when it was her turn she emulated his motions, the bow, the reverence, the eyes closed. she wanted to receive something that she believed in, like all these other people got to do. she wanted to be given something that made her feel healed and worthy and good. she believed in god and she knew that god would want her to do this. so when the nun, who was short and stocky and had a deeply lined, grey face asked her "catholic?" she nodded and kept her head bowed. and when the nun asked again, in that accusing, sharp way "catholic?" she looked up and caught her yes and said "yes." the nun gave her the wafer and the nun next to her gave her a sip of wine from the goblet. she walked back to their row and robert was standing at the end of it, waiting for her to go in first like a father would. she sat next to him and waited for the service to be over, holding back tears and wishing she hadn't come.
after it was over they met up with his friends on park avenue and 33rd street at an overlit, high ceilinged restaurant with giant flowers pained on the white walls. he showed her off like she belonged to him and she smiled simply and answered their uninspired questions. there were three other couples and all the men looked the same- blond, red faced and slightly overweight. the women varied a bit- one was tall and blonde and strikingly pretty, one had short sandy blonde hair and looked like a mother, and the third was a tiny brunette girl with bird bones. they were all exceedingly southern, januntily recounting stories about growing up, their families cocktail hours that started at 4:00, fishing at the lake and getting drunk in the bed of pickup trucks. she found herself laughing and enjoying them all, and pretty soon she was drunk.
she excused herself to the bathroom and once she was there she locked the door and started to cry. her mother was sick and she hadnt told him, hadnt even thought to, but she realized as she sat there with him, with them, that it wouldnt have been ridiculous at all to mention it. he would have listened to her, and stroked her hand, and he would have felt sorry for her and he would have said that he knew everything would be ok. the thought of it made her cry even harder and she decided to leave.
she walked briskly out of the bathroom with her purse in hand and her head down, the back of her hand under her nose. outside was brutally sunny and everyone around her was dressed up, in pairs, with children in white shoes. she started walking back the way they came, uptown, and within a few blocks she had taken off her shoes and started to run. she hadnt run or worked out in months and it felt good to sweat, though her dress was sticking to her and was tight around the ribs so that breathing deeply was painful. people were looking at her, she knew, but it didnt bother her or make her want to stop-- she decided about ten blocks from the restaurant that she would just run all the way back to st.patricks, back to 51st and 5th. churches were always open, weren't they? she could sit and relax and be alone. all the tourists would be gone and she could sit in the cool damp silence and breathe.
but once she got there she saw that it was still teeming with tourists outside taking pictures. she walked in and there were more of them, walking around the cathedral, taking more pictures though she felt sure that wasnt allowed, whispering to each other. two children chased each other up and down the isle and there were people kneeling in the rows, praying with beads. she was audibly out of breath, still barefoot, sweat making her hair stick to her forehead. she was also drunk, and wondered if she stunk of vodka. a family with sweatshirts and fanny packs on turned to look at her and then looked away, as if she was yet another clean quiet sober tourist, just here for the sights.
she thought briefly about trying to find the nun, to explain or confess or cry, but got sidetracked when she found the side stairs leading up to the balcony. she padded up them and gasped at the emptiness of it. this is what she had wanted. still, sacred silence. she sat on the very back row and tried to catch her breath, but she couldnt. she was almost wheezing and her dress was drenched. she put her purse and high heels on the pew beside her and unpeeled the shrug from her shoulders. the air on her wet skin was like food when youre starving. without much thought she bent her arm behind her back and wiggled it up to the zipper. with her eyes closed, her back arched so she could reach it more easily, she unzipped the dress down to her bottom and let it fall around her waist. she had no bra on, for fear of her straps showing, and she sat there half naked for minutes, just trying to breathe normally again. once she could, she stood up and let the dress fall to the floor and then she lowered herself to lay down on the cool wooden pew, her face towards the vaulted ceiling.
she was glad she hadnt told robert about her mom. he would have fed her platitudes like he had fed her bloody marys all day, all easter sunday, and they would have satiated her for a brief moment and then left her feeling even more alone than before. and she was glad she took communion. whether god had wanted her to or not.
what is more sacred, she wondered, what could be more holy, than knowing what you need.

the almost wreck

she went there only twice a year- back home, back to the familiar streets and her high school, back to the people who knew her the best, the ones who had carved places for themselves there and who had settled in deeper than she could ever imagine being. she went there because she was truly fond of the place, of the trees and the hairpin curves that led up to her old school, the streets she used to fly down, the streets she used to own. she missed that most of all, the aimless driving- it was a way to be with someone when you had nowhere to be, it was the perfect venue for real conversation, the kind that could get awkward with other people around, the kind that necessitated long periods of silence, where connecting with someones eyes signified something. she had no car in new york and the pleasure of driving was forever bloodied by los angeles, where her car was the ball and chain that kept her attached to those sad streets. when she drove around back home she refelt the knowledge of growing up, of being sixteen and aware that life was happening, and was only going to happen more and more and more. it was wistful of her, and often she would play the songs that defined her then, just to be plunged into that hope even further, but it left her awake, inspired almost.
but mainly, of course, she went back to see them. to be a part of them again, to feel known, recognized. to laugh like she used to- unfettered, genuinely free.
when she came in town marianne stayed with her best friend. her parents had moved away as soon as she went to college, so she had no real home there besides carla's two bedroom, backyarded, flowerboxed house. it was all she needed. they ate pizza for breakfast, they smoked pot on her screened in front porch, they walked her dogs to the park and complained about the heat. they got drunk on whiskey and looked out of the corners of their eyes at boys from their past that wafted in and out of the bars like traffic. it was a modified version of what they did when they were 13- walking to excerds to buy cadbury creme eggs, making prank calls on the pay phone, watching the sex scene in "mermaids" so many times that the tape got scratched. they loved being together because they knew each other. there was a complete absence of effort, of pretense, of self-consciousness. it was one of the most refreshing parts about going home, marianne thought, the total lack of judgement.
one reason marianne loved riding in the car while carla drove, and since marianne always flew into town this was the way it worked, was that she could look for people she recognized. it wasn't a small town, far bigger than any other city in the state, but every single time they left the house they would see someone they knew- a kid two grades beneath them that used to write carla songs and slip him in her locker was the new bagboy at the piggly wiggly. a girl who got expelled for bringing pot brownies to school when she was a senior and they were in 8th grade, drove by in a mercedes station wagon with a baby in a carseat in the back. their 10th grade biology teacher, who gave them a vague sense of the creeps but who introduced them to "one flew over the cukoo's nest", jogging through crestline. it was like being on the ride at disneyworld, its a small world after all. she just floated through the city, wide eyed at the fact that nothing at all had changed, even though everything was different.
she loved running errands with carla for this reason. the bank, the grocery store, the drugstore, the cleaners. these things took up so little of her time in new york- she lived mostly off of take away food and 1.50 slices of pizza, she had no clothes that needed dry cleaning, and her bank was in the same building as her office. it was novel to her, and yet the bank and the stores were familiar, more familiar than anywhere in new york.
it was the middle of july when carla and marianne pulled up to the CVS parking lot.
'thats nathan atwood.' marianne grabbed carla's forearm and carla stopped the car to look.
'where?'
'dont stop. shit.'
carla pulled her SUV into a place two spots down from where nathan atwood and his brother sat, rummaging through a bag in the same beat up old honda they shared when marianne was 15 and dating nathan. there was duct tape over the back left window, and a small portable fan affixed to the dashboard.
'i want to say something...'
nathan started to pull the car out, hastily, when marianne jumped out and half ran, half skipped over to them, waving. nathan bent down to look past his brother, scott, sitting in the passenger seat. her heart was beating.
'hi!' she said, though the window was still down. their car was diagonal across two spaces. scott rolled down the window and said "heeeey" in that thick southern accent, all mock sincerity and old spice.
'hi! its marianne elliott! from church?'
nathan opened the door and peered at her from over the top of his grey, rusty car. after a second he said,
'of course i know who you are!'
she didnt know what to do with her hands, so she sort of flicked them up as if to say, yes! its me. he came around the side of the car and she saw how gauntly thin he was. and he had a brace on his right arm. he came to give her a hug, and when he did he did it tightly, without moving his hands or patting her back, like people sometimes did.
'how are you?' she said as he pulled away. his eyes were so light blue they were almost clear, colorless, which made his big pupils stand out even more.
'im good, im good. you know.' he looked back to his brother and marianne wondered what carla was doing. she was expert at seeming normal and inconspicuous in these siutations. marianne waved to scott and he sat there, with the window down, smiling toothily at her and nodding.
'how the hell are you?'
she remembered how he smelled, like cigarettes mixed with something more acidic. she remembered how much she wanted to hold him, to see him cry, to crack him and then glue him back together. she remembered this face, even skinnier than it was back then. there were lines around his eyes, and his teeth hadnt been brushed. she began to tell him a little about new york, about grad school, but his gaze was so intense, like he had to consciously tell himself to listen and to nod. she began to traiil off.
'wow, that sounds really great.'
'oh, thanks.'
she thought for a minute about asking him more about what he was doing, but she knew that would only be awkward, so she said,
'i think you remember carla? from school? anyway, shes inside so i better so find her.' he still looked at her with those eyes, that clenched jaw. 'i just wanted to say hi. its...been so long.'
'yeah, yeah. sure has.'
she smiled a closed-lip smile and touched him on the shoulder, nervously. he smiled.
'ok. well. bye.'
'yeah! good seeing you!' scott waved as he rolled up the window and picked back up the bag they were looking through before, obviously glad to be done with the pleasantries. nathan started to make his way back around his car as she dashed towards the store, ready to be away from their view.
'hey marianne!' nathan called as she was about to open the door. she turned around. 'looks like the lord's doing some pretty good stuff for you.'
she nodded, alarmed, and tried to smile.
marianne was shaking when she told carla what happened, although she couldnt have said exactly why. after marianne told carla about their exchange, carla, her hands full of lip gloss and concealer, said 'you dodged that bullet alright.'

they went to a bar called the oasis that night and sat on the back porch with a group of friends who always seemed to be on the back porch of the oasis. they drank for free and laughed until nearly dawn. carter, a friend since kindergarden, insisted on giving them a ride home although he was probably no more sober than the rest of them. marianne settled into the front seat, a familiar place, and thumbed through his cds as carla laid down in the backseat. she told him about nathan atwood, a name he remembered well.
'he was just so fucked, marianne. like, from what i know there was some pretty serious shit going on in that family.'
'i know...i mean, i honestly don't know the extent of it. i know he was addicted to some serious drug. like heroin or something. and i know that his dad was really sick. and i know that when he was little he used to line all of his shoes up in a neat little row.'
carter was quiet for a minute. there were no other cars on the road and carla was asleep, breathing heavy.
'howd you know that?'
'we used to go to church together. i remember when i was like 12, so he would have been...16? in sunday school the teacher said at the end of a lesson one day, 'dont forget to pray for the atwoods.' and then later, years later, after i had dated him, i ran into that sunday school teacher somewhere....a restaurant or something, and we talked for awhile, and i mentioned nathan. or maybe he brought it up. but anyway, we talked about how sad it was, though i still didnt know really what 'it' meant, and he just shook his head and he said 'the first time i went to their house he was probably 5 years old, and in the midst of all this shit his shoes were in a perfect line and all his toys were tidy.' isnt that sad?'
they drove on for awhile, up niazuma road, past an old apartment building that one of their friends lived in, past their headmaster's house, past the school. they talked about carter's new job, working for the newspaper, and about all their old friends. some of them moved away, lots of them stayed. some of them graduated college, some didnt. carter was her most nostalgic friend.
she sat back and he played her favorite song, 'the obvious child.' she sang along: 'sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself/ how its strange that some rooms are like cages'
'i love being home. i can sing as loudly as i want to you and youll still like me.'
'you say that. but sometimes i swear to god you hit the exact same note that paul simon does.'
she smiled and closed her eyes and sooner than she can start singing again the car came to a screeching stop and carla's body hit the back of her seat.
'holy shit!'
'what the fuck?!'
they looked up and twenty feet in front of them, completely perpindicular to the road, was a old man in a cadillac, staring, slightly slack jawed and terrified, from his window.
'i have no fucking idea' carter said, mystified. 'i thought he was going to keep going but he just stopped. stopped and stared.'
marianne turned around to carla.
'jesus christ. are you ok?'
'yeah im fine. i was dreaming about racoons. what a way to get woken up.'
'carter should we get out and ask him if hes ok?'
'yeah maybe.'
marianne opened her door but before she got out of the car the man, as if he just removed his foot from the brake, floated to the other side of the road.
'do you need help!??' she yelled. he looked back at her, at them, and then slowly kept driving.
she got back in the car and looked at carter.
'we really almost got in a wreck.'
'i know.' he laughed, like one does when they are in disbelief. 'i know.'
they waited for a minute, got resituated in the car.
'ok.' marianne said, looking ahead. 'well im really glad we didnt'
john put the car back in gear and turned the music back on, and he drove them, more awake than before, home.