Fat Soul Fridays

Part 55 (The Last Chapter): A Toast

2011-08-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

Love is from the infinite and
will remain until eternity.

Alex Moore’s voice wavered almost imperceptibly. But she noticed it. His wife of four decades noticed the subtle change in pitch, the glistening eyes, the near catch in the throat when he recited the poetry of Rumi by heart. “Love is from the infinite and will remain until eternity . . . ” When spoken by Alex, this was more than a beautiful line; it was a soulful caress.

Madeline blinked away tears as she watched Alex toast the couple, George and Felipe, at the reception following their commitment ceremony at the church. It was the last toast. Alex had asked Pablo, Felipe’s brother and best man, to offer the first toast. Pablo had stood and tossed out a few jokes on his brother and wished the couple well. Then, Alex spoke as George’s best man. It, too, started out light.

“George, you are one in a million—you really are—and I don’t think anyone in the room will deny that you have the best chinos in town . . .”

It went on from there with escalating laughs. But now the crowd was somber as he closed his toast with Rumi—the poet of the day. Alex, who had undergone a life-changing experience when he suffered a heart attack, spoke with a particular depth of feeling. But his voice held more than a feeling; it held truth. It held yearning, and it revealed the deep spiritual nourishment that fed his soul.

She thought about the change in him. Little things no longer bothered him, not even the “Vultures,” his greedy step-family who were waiting around for his ancient father to finally pass out of a lingering Alzheimer existence. Now, after a visit to his father, who had even his “good days” now and then, Alex would return home smiling instead of angry and depressed. “You know,” he would say, “Marcela’s grandson, you know, the one with the curly hair who’s always keyed into those daft video game? Well, today, I actually pulled him away to the tennis court and we played a set. Not a bad kid. I’m going to talk to him about college next time. . .”

It was like that now. It was as if life was too short, from his new perspective, to let anything but love and laughter and beauty dominate the landscape of his mind.

And it was rubbing off on her. No longer worried about her husband, she opened wide the door of possibilities for a rich and on-ongoing future together—a future created by going back to the past, back to their beginning at Van Gelder’s Tea and Books. Re-opening the shop. Renovating a space to recreate their lives. Returning, like a pilgrimage, to the place they had first felt the transformation of love. A love that began in 1968—a love that would remain until eternity.

Alex lifted his champagne flute. “So here’s to you, George and Felipe—and to all who believe that love is at the core of things, at the heart of all that matters.”

The toast brought both cheers and tears, for there was Felipe wiping away a tear alongside a wet-faced George. Next to George sat to a Kleenex-clutching Irene Saunders, who, since her reunion with her son, had become something of a human waterfall.

* * *

When the party was over and the guests began to trickle out, the Fat Soul Fridays crowd gravitated to the Greeter’s Corner, the little alcove surrounded by books of poetry—Madeline’s favorite area of the shop, the place where Fat Soul Fridays was usually held. Today they simply stood and hugged and wished George and Felipe a great trip, as the couple was headed for a two-week honeymoon in Hawaii. Felipe left shortly to talk with his brother, Pablo, but George remained.

“Thanks, guys.” George blushed and shifted his weight. “Oh, man, I can’t even express it. I mean, I hope this doesn’t sound corny, but it’s the happiest day of my life. I mean, Felipe and I are so happy. And my mom being here . . . it’s just totally cool, that’s all I can say. Except that I love you guys.”

With this declaration, he began his round of hugs—Alex, Darcy, Geraldine, Madeline, Lucy, Elena. He paused when he got to Andrea as if to say, Oh, yeah. You. But the momentary pause passed as he hugged Andrea and she hugged him back as if they were best friends.

Madeline was last. She squeezed him, feeling the pin in her rose corsage start to prick. “I’m so happy for you, George. So proud of you. But you’re leaving, and your mother . . .”

“I think she’s going stay in the house while we’re gone—we’ve asked her to, anyway— and when we get back, we’ll find her a place to stay near us. It’ll give us time to get acquainted again, you know. Ten years. It’s like starting over.”

“So, she’s going to be staying here in Laguna . . . for good?” Madeline wished she hadn’t added the last part. The Saunders’ marriage was none of her business.

“For now, anyway,” said George. “She needs a break, and I told her she could come in here while I’m gone and talk things over with you. She really likes you.”

Madeline smiled. I’ll bet, she thought with an inward chuckle, Irene would prefer to talk things over with Alex and his charming British accent. But she said, “We’ll take good care of her while you’re gone, George.”

After waving goodbye to George and Felipe and their entourage of family and friends, Madeline turned back to see the Carol the Caterer, hands on hips, staring daggers at Socrates, who had decided to venture out from behind the books to nibble on crumbs from a recently vacated plate. He back paws were secured on a chair while his front paws pushed around bits of a left-over chicken salad sandwich on the plate, as if testing to see if it was alive or dead.

“This is so unsanitary,” said Carol. “I’d lose my catering license if anyone saw this. Shoo!” she said to Socrates, now purposefully pushing the remains of the sandwich off the plate and onto the floor, so he could take his sweet time with it.

“Carol,” said Madeline, trying to contain her laughter and her consternation at anyone who would dare say “Shoo” or “Scat” to her cat, “It’s okay. I’ll take Socrates upstairs and feed him properly. Thanks for helping out today.”

The caterer turned toward Madeline, but did not speak. As one who preferred to lodge complaints with her green eyes, she flashed them at Madeline, as if to say, Wait until you get the bill before you thank me. Then she turned on her sturdy patent leather heels and continued her clean up with a fury, albeit, a professional and tidy fury.

Madeline sighed. She wondered if Carol the Caterer might just add a special “cat-induced mental anguish fee” to the bill. But it didn’t matter. Nothing could dampen her spirits today. She hoisted Socrates to her shoulder and toted the little one-eyed creature upstairs.

* * *

Madeline left a purring Socrates upstairs with a half can of tuna and returned downstairs to a nearly empty room. She joined the little knot of hangers-on: Alex, Darcy, Elena, Lucy, and Lucy’s new boyfriend.

“What happened to Geraldine and Andrea?”

Darcy laughed. “Well, Geraldine had some kind of sudden psychic flash that Andrea was about to meet some ‘interesting young man’ tonight at Las Brisas, and suggested the two of them go there for a drink. She said, ‘and if I’m lucky the young man’s father—or better, grandfather—will be with him.’”

Elena picked up the story. “So, Andrea got excited and rushed Geraldine out the door, and by now they’re sipping margaritas at the Las Brisas bar.”

“Las Brisas is a great place to meet someone special,” said Lucy, smiling at her new Match.com boyfriend. “Look who I fell for over Mexican food—although I don’t really remember the food.”

“I’m Jeff,” said the athletic-looking man, stepping forward to shake Madeline’s hand. “Sorry I missed the ceremony. I was working with a client.”

“He’s a personal trainer,” said Lucy with pride in her voice. “And we knew we were the perfect match when he told me about his struggle to find the right sweetener for his pre-workout green barley drinks. Then we got to talking about gluten—”

“Sounds terribly romantic,” said Alex with a wry smile, always ready to tease Lucy. “Have you made your brownies for him, yet?”

Before Lucy could answer, Elena said, “But you’re not the only ones who found romance at Las Brisas. Darcy and I were just great friends . . . until the magic of Las Brisas.”

“You look so happy, all of you,” said Madeline. Now go. Go now, and find Andrea and Geraldine, and make sure they don’t go off with some young man and his father—or grandfather. And save us some places.”

“Order me a Mexican hot chocolate,” said Alex, as he escorted the two smiling couples out the door.

While he said this, a business-like Carol and her assistant, Maria, were lugging their catering supplies to the car. Alex stepped in to help, even though they didn’t need any. That small act seemed to thaw out Carol enough for the briefest of smiles. Madeline had to admit, they had cleaned up nicely, and in record time. Within minutes, the two women were out the door and peace rested, once again, on Van Gelder’s Tea and Books.

As the room descended into the twilight of the early evening, with romance still hovering in the air, Alex took Madeline’s hand and pressed his lips to it.

She suddenly felt the old weakness in the knees; she smiled into his twinkling brown eyes.

“Shall we join them?” he said.

She nodded. But when she heard the jingle of the bell above the door, she stopped, turned, and looked back, as if the little shop was trying to say something to her.

The mellowing evening gave the vacated tables almost a painted look, as if the glass tops were brushed with gold leaf. The used volumes of books in the wooden shelves were wrapped in the ripening chiaroscuro of late afternoon amber, giving them an even older and more valuable appearance. Even with the shadows of dusk, the room seemed to vibrate with something. What was it? Love. Life. History. A way of being in the world. Happiness.

THE END

54: Socrates Joins the Party

2011-08-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

After the commitment ceremony at the church, Madeline made a bee line for her Volvo in order to get back to Van Gelder’s Tea and Books ahead of the crowd, just to check on the caterers. She smiled when she opened the door to color and light and the smell of baking scones. The chilly rain had cleared up and the sun decided, after all, to make an appearance in the late hours of the afternoon. The final rays made the most of it, igniting the rainbow colors of Gerbera daisies at the center of every table, refreshing her color-starved eyes.

Not that she didn’t appreciate the elegant black and white ceremony—it was tastefully original—but the reception demanded something else: a letting go to the wild natural colors that made up life and love and letting go. And they would let go today, she thought, celebrate to the hilt.

The only black and white in the room was the professional waiter’s uniform—complete with bow tie—worn by the stiff and starched caterer, Carol, who was coming from the kitchen to greet Madeline. Carol, of Newport’s Nouveau Caterers, was a friend of Geraldine and was the caterer of choice for the high-end affairs in Newport Beach. She was expensive but flawless in both presentation and quality, Geraldine had said. They were lucky to get Carol for a relatively small affair—a high tea for around thirty guests. But, Geraldine had said, “between you and me, with this bad economy, Carol is willing to do just about anything.”

Madeline felt a slight rebuff at the thought that this reception for George and Felipe fell into the category of “just about anything,” as if Carol were an out of work actor doing backyard birthday parties. But Madeline had perked up when Geraldine insisted on paying half the bill. Madeline and Alex would pick up the other half. This would be their gift to George and Felipe. And not a bad deal, she reasoned; this way, she and Alex could be what George needed them to be today—not his employers, but badly needed surrogate parents.

Except that something incredible had happened. There was the drama—the shock—at the end of the ceremony when George spotted his long estranged mother sitting in a pew behind Andrea. Madeline had suspected she might be his mother, and George had confirmed it. When George called out to her, the tall woman, Irene Saunders, had moved out of the pew and rushed to her son. They embraced, squashing to pieces ten years of estrangement in a moment.

General shock and awkwardness and joy made up an interesting cocktail of feeling in the air. The crowd looked like it didn’t quite know what to do. Darcy, still standing in the chancel in his black robe and white stole flashed an enormous smile. Alex, too, smiled knowingly and began the applause which became instantly contagious. When Madeline left, the clapping was still going on.

“Is it all right? Not too many flowers?” Carol asked.

“It’s perfect. Today is not the day to be stingy with flowers—or color. And what about the food? Any problems with the ovens?”

“Not a bit.” She paused. “But, did you know about the cat?”

Madeline froze. “What cat?”

“He looked a little . . . well, tattered and nearly hairless, and had”—she winced—“only one-eye. An ugly little creature. I wondered if he got in when my assistant, Maria, and I carried in our food prep supplies. We first tried to shoo him out by—”

“You didn’t let him outside, did you?” Madeline reflexively looked back at the door, and beyond the door to the heavy traffic on Coast Highway. Within half-second her imagination saw Socrates darting in and out of traffic and . . .

“Let him?" said Carol with short laugh. “He wasn’t eager to go out. No. We gave up after several tries. He finally jumped on the bookcase over there”—she pointed to the California Authors section—“and he’s been huddled back there behind those books ever since. You can’t see him, but he’s back there.” She looked at Madeline with a puzzled expression. “It’s not your cat, is it?”

“Yes, he’s our cat—Socrates is his name—and he’s never supposed to go outside,” she said a little defensively, moving to the book case. “He’s strictly an indoor cat.” She moved the Raymond Chandler display book and peeked into the darkness behind the books, catching a glimpse of the one tattered ear. A feeling of relief shot through her. She tried talking to him in a low, soft voice, but there was no budging a cat who was determined to stay put.

“You let him just . . . roam the shop?” asked the woman, with a tone of disapproving curiosity.

“What? No. Not except for Friday afternoon after closing. No, I locked up Socrates upstairs in the apartment myself before I left—“ Then she remembered that, at the last minute, after Alex was already downstairs, she left the door ajar to run back for her umbrella.

“Well,” Madeline said to the cat, who sat staring up at here with his one eye. “As long as you’re here, you might as well stay for the party.”

Carol didn’t say anything, but her widening green eyes spoke for her.

* * *

When the guests began rolling in, Madeline felt the joy of simply being one of the crowd, not the one in charge. Geraldine, Andrea, Elena, Darcy, and Lucy were huddled in a corner—with the addition of a new face, Lucy’s boyfriend from Match.com. They were laughing about something. Madeline’s first inclination was to join them, but then she heard George’s voice from behind.

“Hey, Madeline, there’s someone here I want you to meet.”

She turned to see George with one arm around the shoulders of the tall woman with yellow hair and a smile that smoothed out every line around her mouth.

“Hello! It’s Irene, isn’t it? I’m Madeline.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” said Irene. “George has already explained about the job and about you and Alex.” She stole an admiring glance toward Alex. “He’s got such a beautiful accent.”

Madeline laughed. “Yes, I know. Irene,” she said more seriously, “I’m really glad you’re here. We’re all glad you made it. Especially George,” she said looking at George, who was beaming back and forth between the two women.

“Madeline, Darcy told me,” George said with soft eyes.

“Told you? About what?”

“About Alex’s happiness experiment and how Darcy and Alex went all the way to Tulsa to find my parents. I can’t believe anyone would do something like that for me. My own mother. She’s here. I still can’t believe it. And she’s totally cool with all this. You guys are so rad.” He leaned in to kiss Madeline on the cheek, a sweet gesture that moved her. She smiled back at George, but felt a stab of guilt, as she knew—but would never tell—that she had tried to stop Alex from going to Tulsa.

“Yes, we owe you all. Thank you,” Irene said, holding her chin high, as if trying once again to contain her emotions. “I’m proud of my boy, and I’m here. I’m glad I’m here, too. Even if—”

She broke off, unable to finish what Madeline knew to be an “even if” her husband would not come. At least Madeline assumed that was the case.

As Irene went for another Kleenex, George took her arm. “It’s okay, Mom,” said George. He looked up at Madeline. “Dad didn’t come, but I don’t care. I’m totally proud my mom right now.” He caught Felipe’s wave from the corner of is eye and turned to his mother. “I think Felipe’s family wants some time with you.” He gave a last smile to Madeline and whisked his mother off.

At the head table, Carol was now discussing with Alex the problem of another place setting.

“But it won’t work to add another place at this table,” Carol said to Alex. “It would put the guests too close together and ruin the symmetry. And this new guest did not even RSVP. That’s why we have RSVPs, Mr. Moore, so we know how to seat our guests. It makes it very hard. There’s symmetry to think about. But we can put her over—”

“The extra guest,” Alex interrupted with impatience, “happens to be George’s mother. And none of us knew for sure if she was coming. It’s not a hardship, Carol. Quite the opposite, it’s a miracle.”

“A what?” Carol looked confused.

“Just make it happen,” said Alex with finality.

The woman’s offended green eyes again spoke volumes.

Madeline smiled at the scene as Darcy sidled up next to her. Without his robe and stole, he looked just like another guest, with dress pants and a white shirt and buoyant energy pouring out of every gesture. He held a champagne glass.

“So we’re already drinking?” Madeline said, suddenly aware that Maria, Carol's assistant, was serving drinks from a tray. a

“Fake champagne for me. They’re offering the real stuff or Martinelli’s for nondrinkers,” said Darcy. “I’m too wired right now for alcohol. I’m still a little light headed over the whole thing. I mean, look at that.” He gestured with his glass toward George’s mother, who was getting the VIP treatment at the head table. They watched as Alex pulled out a chair the for Irene, who was —despite the appalling lack of symmetry—seated next to Felipe’s mother, Rosalie. Irene beamed. She especially beamed at Alex, who stood talking to the mothers.

“But who sent the invitation to Irene?” Madeline asked.

“It was Alex’s idea to send the invitation. But I didn’t think it would work.”

“No?” said Madeline as the champagne tray came to stop in front of her. She took a glass of Martinelli’s herself and thanked the smiling assistant. “So why didn’t you think it would work?”

“From my experience with women like Irene,” said Darcy, “I surmised that she’d just take the invitation and cry over it and not do anything. Too indirect. You can tell by spending five minutes with Irene that she’s a woman who needs—or thinks she needs—strong direction. She’s programmed that way, thanks to her bully of a husband. So when Alex came by my office to check on the guest list, I dialed up the Saunders house during the day—when George, Sr. was not likely to be home—and put Alex on the phone. But we still didn't know if she'd come. She never told us one way or the other.”

“But why have Alex call, and not you? You’re the minister, the professional in these matters.”

Darcy laughed. “Why Alex? When we were in Tulsa, Irene was so taken with his British accent and charm that she hardly noticed I was in the room. I felt like a bug on the carpet. No, I felt that if she were to make such a monumental decision to go against her husband’s strong arm, we’d need to bring out the big gun: Alex’s suave British accent.”

Madeline laughed. “So I take it Irene will not go home to an understanding husband.”

Darcy took a sip of Martinelli’s. “To say the least. It might mean separation or even divorce—that is, if their church allows divorce. But, I think, even if that were the case, she’s so disillusioned with that whole fundamentalist faith of hers, she might just take the leap.”

“You mean, just leave her husband and her whole dependent way of life?”

“Oh, I know. It would be tough for anybody, but especially for Irene who seems pretty beat down psychologically. But there are success stories. I’ve seen them, and I think Irene is going to be one of them. She’s a strong, courageous woman underneath—or else she wouldn’t be here. And if she has to choose between her strong-armed husband and her son, she’ll choose her son, hands down. She’s at that point. Of course, it’s possible that George Sr. will come around, and that their marriage might survive on some new level. But to be honest, I can’t see that happening anytime soon. I think she’s going to make it though. Just look at her now. Yeah, she’ll make it.”

Madeline studied Irene, who already looked more solid and steady than she did a few moments ago. “This might just be her chance, her one big chance, to find her own power.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Darcy, taking another sip of his sparkling cider. “We’d better find our seats. Looks like that sour-faced caterer over there is either going to serve right now or implode.”

* * *

Carol the Caterer, despite her sour face, was as flawless as Geraldine had promised. A lavish high tea was served. A variety of gourmet scones—poppy seed, lemon, blueberry, and orange zest—along with watercress and chicken salad sandwiches were set off by sprigs of mint and sculptured radishes. Powdery white wedding cookies and neat squares of richly iced petits fours in a rainbow of colors completed the decadence.

Madeline felt her blood sugar soar just looking at all the goodies, but succumbed to taste most of them—for she needed to try each one; they might use some of these recipes for their shop—at least that’s what she told herself as she felt the waistband of her skirt tighten.

While indulging in one last wedding cookie, Madeline noticed Carol pushing the tea cart of empty plates back to the kitchen. On the bottom shelf of the cart, something caught Madeline’s eye. She took a double take, and then let out a choking sound, which caught the attention of the others at the head table. Alex, Pablo, George, Felipe, Felipe’s mother, and Irene followed Madeline’s discreet hand gesture. There, on the bottom shelf of the tea cart sat Socrates, the feline hobo, hitching a ride to the kitchen. His big ears stood alert, while his one eye spanned the crowd, as if enjoying the scenery of faces staring back at him as he glided by. While the head table stifled giggles until the tea cart disappeared into the kitchen, there was a sense that something more was about to happen.

And it did. First, a woman’s scream from the kitchen, and then, “Scat! Scat!”

Socrates, as if chased by a pit bull, bounded back into the dining room, leaped from chair to bookcase, and scrambled back into the safe haven behind Alex’s prized Raymond Chandler book.

The guests laughed, but George—Socrates’ former nemesis-turned-best-friend—let out the biggest hoot.

Alex stood, pounded his spoon on the table for attention and said, “I’d say,” said Alex, “that old Socrates is trying to tell us to get on with the toast. He lifted his champagne glass. Prepare your glasses for a toast . . .”

53: George's Big Day

2011-08-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks after Darcy and Elena had their first date at Las Brisas, another Fat Soul Friday member, George Saunders, was living his own dream-come-true, with a minimum of mishaps—and only one errant “Crikey!” . . .

George Saunders and Felipe Fuentes stood tall and proud and resolute before the robed officiate, The Reverend Darcy McDermott. The church sanctuary was hushed and reverent, with expectation and emotion rippling through the cool, rainy, late fall air seeping through half-cracked windows.

The need to move the commitment ceremony indoors was, at first, a disappointment to everyone, but now it seemed just right, at least to Madeline Prescott Moore. The church sanctuary seemed to her just that, a sanctuary from not only the elements outside, but the stormy legal and political vicissitudes surrounding gay marriage in California. But here, in this sacred space, existed a pure moment of love and celebration that no legalities or appeals or hateful anti-gay signs could touch.

The Rev. McDermott—Madeline thought of him at this moment as The Rev. McDermott, rather than Darcy—began a moving reading of a love poem by Rumi.

. . . “Lo, I am with you always" means
when you look for God
God is in the look of your eyes,
In the thought of looking,
Nearer to you than your self,
Or things that have happened to you . . .

Madeline sat in the front church pew basking in the beauty of Rumi, but also hoping George would remember to relax and not lock his knees, which could lead to fainting. It would be just like George to faint, she thought with both a sigh and a tug of affection.

. . . The Moon
The full moon is inside of you.
There's no need to go outside . . .

She glanced about her to see the guests who had gathered in the church. Felipe’s family, a large and grinning bunch ranging in age from a curly headed five-year-old to an octogenarian aunt with a cane, took up the first two pews on the right side of the sanctuary. His father was no longer living, but his smiling mother looked quite at home in the church, surrounded by family. Friends from the art scene filled the pews behind his family.

The left side of the sanctuary was supposed to be for George’s parents. But, in their sad and maddening and utterly irresponsible absence (in her view), Madeline sat proudly with a white rose pinned to her black and white silk dress. These were not her best colors—black and white—but she conceded for George’s sake. In their own arty postmodern style, Felipe and George had chosen colors of black and white for their commitment ceremony, and encouraged their close friends to wear these colors. Felipe looked handsome in an inky-black turtle-neck and deep charcoal gabardine pants. That was Felipe, looking like an artist, which was appropriate given his connection to the Laguna art world.

George, in striking contrast, wore a white Mexican-style wedding shirt with matching white pants, a departure from his usual olive colored kakis. A casual, but interesting choice. Tuxedoes would have fit their color scheme beautifully, she thought, but that would have been too traditional for these two originals. On each side of the wedding party rose graceful pedestals bearing elegant black sculpted vases, out of which sprung sparsely arranged white lilies—the new “give each flower its space” concept.

. . . A fig grows in the silence -
Let your speech become that fruit . . .

To George’s left, stood the most handsome man Madeline had ever laid eyes on: her husband. Alex Moore, with his naturally elegant looks, fit the wedding tableaux to a tee, his gorgeous head of white-gray hair standing out against a dark gray suit.

Madeline never quite got over how someone who looked like Alex could have, back in 1968, fallen for such a basic looking person as herself. Not exactly plain—not with that head of extraordinary red hair, but still not some Miss America type that usually attracted men gifted with Alex’s good looks. But they were soul mates from the beginning of their romance. And, thanks to the quick emergency action of a flight attendant on Southwest Airlines, she and Alex should have many years ahead of them.

. . . I need a mouth as wide as the sky
To say the nature of a True Person -
Language as large as longing . . .

Standing with Felipe, to his right, was his brother, Pablo, a thinner and less muscular version of Felipe. Pablo wore glasses and Madeline thought she’d heard that he was a science professor at UCI in nearby Irvine.

She imagined George’s eyes about now—most likely full of tears, given the power of Rumi’s poetry and George’s general tendency to tear up. But she couldn’t see his face from where she was sitting, only the back of him. The irregular waves of his blonde hair caught the overhead lights, giving a halo effect. She smiled to herself, as if her own son were being married. George was like that—like a son. Her hand went to the soft white petals of the rose pinned to her black and white silk dress. George had pinned it on himself, with nervous fingers.

“Oh, man, I’ll never remember my lines,” he had said, fumbling with the pin.

“Lines? Be careful. Here, let me help,” she said, fearing pain and blood spots on her new dress. “You sound like you’re auditioning for a part on T.V., George, these are your vows. You will remember them. Or, if you don’t, then improvise. Ouch!”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just so nervous.”

“I know,” she said, patting her rose corsage in place. “It’s normal. Just go with it, George. Don’t worry about anything. Forget about the guests behind you. Just think of speaking to Felipe all alone.”

“Thanks, Madeline. Thanks for . . . for being here. For me, I mean.”

Yes, she thought, half-hearing the beautiful Rumi poem, George had no one else. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Besides herself and Alex and Darcy, his other Fat Soul Friday friends were all in attendance, right next to her. They fanned out to her left in the same pew, all expectant and proud and dressed in the requested black and white. The row of them looked a like a string of black and white pearls held together by their love and support for George.

Geraldine Nash’s lacy white skirt and black silk blouse was accessorized by a heavy white shell necklace. Madeline wondered briefly what was going through Geraldine’s odd, psychic mind. Was the reception at Van Gelder’s going to be a success? Would it include any particular disasters, since envisioning disasters seemed to be Geraldine’s speciality.

Next to Geraldine sat Lucy Wu. Lucy wore a knee length black dress with an Asian fringed white scarf—and dramatically dark red lipstick. It was unusual for Lucy to wear makeup, but this new edgy noir look might be due to something other than dressing up for the wedding. Madeline had inside information that her new boyfriend, someone she met through Match.com, would be joining them at the reception.

Elena Velasco looked gorgeous as usual, even without her signature yellow. Her black and white polka dot dress, reminiscent of the 1950s, was something that only a very slim and striking young woman could pull off. Elena looked particularly radiant, and Madeline knew why. Darcy couldn’t keep that kind of joy to himself. Finally, she thought with a swell of the heart and a memory of Rilke, ah, yes, these two solitudes have met and touched and greeted each other . . . And even though, unlike Geraldine, Madeline possessed zero psychic powers, she predicted that someday, in the not so distance future, Darcy would need to find a minister to marry the minister.

On the other side of Elena sat Andrea Ballentine in a skin-tight, thigh-high black dress with a plunging v-neckline. She had no white that Madeline could see. And was she chewing gum? At a wedding? This thought was answered by a loud SMACK! in the delicate silence between perfect lines of poetry. Oh, for God’s sake. Madeline threw a reflexive glance in Andrea’s direction. Andrea looked back and smiled innocently with her neon white smile. There was the white after all, Madeline thought, her overly bleached teeth.

Each woman—well, except for Andrea—wore something else, too, just to add a little whimsy to the occasion. They had conspired to wear their own pair of TOMs shoes, the ones George had picked out for them. Of course they didn’t go with the style or color of their clothing, which made it even more fun. And noticeable. Hopefully, people would comment on the odd shoes and they could tell the story of George’s generosity, and about the needy children helped by the purchase TOMs shoes.

Andrea, who had finally received her own pair of TOMs shoes from George (an oversight, he had said), did not take to their style. She said she wanted them to help support the kids, but would never be “like, caught dead” in them. Typical, thought Madeline. Andrea, in her black stilettos, never ceased to be irritating. But then, every family had someone who had to be endured.

And this was family, she thought with a sudden stab of emotion, yes, a family. Her family. Family was not a matter of DNA, but of the heart and soul. The larger one’s soul, the larger the family . . .

She brought her attention to the comforting tones of Darcy’s voice as he finished reading the poem:

. . . The body is only a device
To calculate the astronomy of the spirit.
The truth is - God is speaking through this body.
Say yes -
Say, YES.

Madeline wanted to yell “Yes!” simply to affirm that today, of all days, was a great big YES.

* * *

Just as the vows were about to be exchanged, there was a rustle in the isle, not the center isle next to Madeline, but on the outside. Annoyed that anything would disrupt this moment, she glanced discreetly down the row, expecting that Andrea was doing something ridiculous.

But Andrea sat innocently enough. Instead, Madeline watched a tall, middle-aged, blondish woman with wrinkles around her thin mouth and a stooping look of embarrassment sidle into the pew directly behind Andrea.

Darcy was now explaining the symbol of the ring.

A circle is the ancient symbol of eternity, and of the sun and the
earth and the universe. It is a symbol of perfection and of peace . . .

Madeline had trouble concentrating, as something about the latecomer snagged her attention. Something about her cheek bones, the facial structure, the eyes, the wave of the hair. Something.

. . . In these rings is the symbol of
unity, in which your lives are now joined . . .

Good Lord, Madeline thought, her imagination spinning out of control. Surely not!

. . . so that wherever you go, you will always return to one another and to your togetherness . . .

Darcy now turned to George and said, “George, as you have written some personal vows, you may now share them with Felipe. Tell him what is in your heart.”

The pause between the minister’s prompt and George’s vows stretched out into an awkward silence. Madeline closed her eyes while critical thoughts raced and collided chaotically in her mind, like bumper cars. Had George frozen up and forgotten his “lines”? Was the woman behind them George’s estranged mother or was it her imagination tricking her? If it was George’s mother from Tulsa, how could she have known about the commitment ceremony? And what about his father? No, it was probably just a woman who loves to cry at weddings. Some poor, unstable wedding crasher. Sure, that was it. George’s anti-gay parents would certainly not be attending this ceremony.

Then Madeline focused her attention on George who had, much to the general relief of the guests, began speaking:

“The moment I saw you,” said George, looking at a beaming Felipe, “I realized you were the one, the true love of my life . . .”

As George went on, only half-audible as the microphone was not working properly, Madeline’s attention was drawn back to the tall woman behind Andrea. She stole a sidelong glance and could see the woman with a Kleenex in hand, dabbing at her eyes.

Darcy gave a motion to someone in the back of the sanctuary to turn up George’s lapel microphone.

“And so,” said George with the microphone volume suddenly surging, “my life is now complicated with you—I mean complete with you. Sorry.” Felipe gave a chuckle, along with the guests. Darcy smiled at George and nodded for him to continue.

The woman gave a little laugh and then went back to dabbing her eyes.

Felipe then offered his own beautiful, flawlessly delivered vows, declaring his love for George. This was followed by the “repeat-after-me” ring vows. Madeline knew that George would be great at this, as he only had to repeat short lines. But first, the ring must be handed over from the best man, Alex.

Darcy looked ceremoniously at Alex, who then handed George a gold band. George took the ring and promptly dropped it. But he made a quick recovery. Spinning on his heels, he lunged to stop the rolling ring with his shoe. He bent to grab it, held it up victoriously to a giggling crowd, and returned to position.

“George, will you now place the ring on Felipe’s finger and repeat after me? . . . I George, take you Felipe, to be my partner in life and love . . .”

Madeline, trying to focus on the ring vows, was now distracted by the sound of soft sobs. She glanced back to the mysterious woman who now seemed overtaken with emotion and searching her handbag for another tissue. The only person Madeline knew who cried that easily was . . .

She forced her attention back to the ceremony, just in time to watch Pablo, Felipe’s brother, give a ring to Felipe. After Felipe's vows were said, he slipped the ring on George’s finger.

The ring ceremony was over and the lighting of a unity candle began.

. . . .The joining of two candles into one symbolizes the strength and the unity of two joining together to become one, expressing George and Felipe’s belief that together they can become greater than each could be alone . . .

Darcy’s voice floated over the cool air like fine silk on skin, and she realized how perfectly suited Darcy was to the ministry. His voice alone held a gentle but deeply spiritual quality:

At the end of the ceremony, Darcy said with his most endearing smile:

George and Felipe, today is the public affirmation of all that you are to each other. Seemingly your relationship will be as it has always been, yet there is a power in the spoken word. May that power bring you, George and Felipe, all the warmth and closeness, security and comfort, joy and happiness that this world has to offer.

There was brief kiss and the two men turned to face a clapping, hooting audience of friends, family, and well-wishers.

With hands clasped in renewed solidarity, the two young men scanned the audience with looks of wordless appreciation, love, and joy. But just then, George’s radiant face fell. It fell hard, with a jolt, like the suddenness of a California earthquake. His eyes were riveted—frozen—on one particular spot, one particular person.

Felipe, puzzled, followed George’s gaze. The clapping stopped and everyone’s eyes moved to the object of George’s shocked expression.

“MOM!” George cried into the silence. “Crikey! Is that you?”

52: Love at Las Brisas

2011-07-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

In the resort town of Laguna Beach, Las Brisas, a brilliantly whitewashed beacon of Spanish colonial sophistication, held the legendary position as the most favored ocean view restaurant for tourists and locals alike. Positioned high and stately on the famous Laguna cliffs, no one visited the seaside resort town without a meal at Las Brisas. For an afternoon break, you could sit outside in the Mexican tiled café and enjoy margaritas and nachos with a majestic view below. Inside, through the polished glass floor-to-ceiling windows, diners basked in the wide blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean through manicured palm trees. Between the restaurant and the palm trees lay the famous rose garden with roses as large as salad plates in a riot of colors. In short, Las Brisas was the most romantic restaurant in town.

Here, by one of the picture windows that captured all the color and romance of Laguna Beach, sat Darcy McDermott and Elena Velasco, studying their menus. The sun was just on the cusp of giving up the ghost, shooting indiscriminate colors of amber and rose and crimson across the clean canvass of sky. Elena’s silver and gold earrings caught the light in sudden bursts of dazzle. Her pale yellow sweater seemed almost orange in the light. And her face—her face absorbed the warm radiance of the sun in a way that drew out her inner glow—the soulful beauty that was even more attractive than her outer beauty.

Darcy was fully aware that he, too, must be glowing—just a fact of being in her presence. Of course, Darcy knew he was too romantic for his own good. Too idealistic. And entirely too emotive for what society deemed allowable for a male heterosexual. But at times like these, he was glad for who he was. Even his name, Darcy—a silly name he had thought of changing so many times—seemed right. He was the end-of-the-novel Mr. Darcy, finally winning the heart of the lovely Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. No longer the shy, clumsy, misunderstood character, but a real, desirable man . . .

Wait. Wait, you idiot! Darcy shook off his mental excursion into romance. He had not won anyone’s heart. He was not here on a date, so forget all that romantic nonsense. He was here to help a friend. That was all. He had agreed to come along with Elena so they could spy on Lucy and her new Match.com boyfriend in some odd, pre-arranged scheme between Lucy and Elena.

He looked surreptitiously over his menu toward the north wall of the large room, near the glowing fireplace, where sat Lucy Wu, dressed in white pants and a pretty red top and looking quite cozy with her “match.” He was a tall, well-built, square-jawed healthy specimen of a man in a blue golf shirt—probably a P.E. teacher, Darcy thought. Lucy, being a teacher, would surely match up with another educator. And this one looked serious and athletic—quite unlike himself, Darcy McDermott, who was never referred to as “athletic.”

Darcy loved baseball, but only as an occasional game. He really needed to work out more, he thought, sitting up a little straighter in his seat and remonstrating himself for both his romantic ideas and athletically impoverished body. Elena would want someone like that guy, like a muscle man, he thought with a sudden stab of insecurity. She was way out of his league, as they say. He always hated that old adolescent line, but it just popped into his head. Out of my league.

“I think I’ll have the seafood enchiladas,” said Elena. She looked up from the menu. “Oh, but would it offend you?”

“Why would it offend me?”

“Well, you’re a vegetarian—and I’m going in that direction, too, but I can’t resist seafood enchiladas.”

“Have them,” said Darcy. “Enjoy them. I’m going for the avocado and cheese enchiladas myself.” He leaned in. “Hey, Elena, what do think about Mr. Match.com over there?”

Elena’s eyes stole a glance in the direction of the couple near the fireplace and said with that same mischievous look he had noticed at Van Gelder’s. “Well, I don’t know about him, but look at Lucy’s face. She’s jabbering away and laughing more than usual. I think she’s either really nervous or having a fabulous time.”

“Or both,” said Darcy.

“Or both,” said Elena with a smile. “I doubt she’ll be needing my rescue during dessert.”

“Rescue? You have a rescue plan?”

“Doesn’t everyone? Usually it’s the cell phone call at an appointed time. The person on the blind date–or match.com date, whatever—can either ignore the call or use it as an “emergency-sorry-must-go” line, depending on how they’re liking the date. But that’s getting to be too obvious these days; it shows up in every romantic comedy. So we have to try a new strategy.”

“So what, then? Ear pieces? Secret wires?” Darcy couldn’t help but laugh.

“No. Back to low-tech basics, really. When she goes to the restroom, I’ll follow, and she’d let me know how it’s going. If she needs rescue, I’ll suddenly appear at the table and act like we’ve not seen each other in ages and insist that they join us.”

“Us? They might join us at our table?” His heart took a dive.

“Well, only if things are going badly. That will speed things up, and the guy will surely leave early or get the message that she’s not interested. Either way, she won’t have to endure a bad date alone.”

“Wow,” said Darcy, as the waiter appeared to take their order.

After the waiter left, he said as casually as he could, “So, Elena, as long as we’re here . . . I mean as long as we have this time to talk, I have a question for you.”

“Sure.” She took a sip of water from the goblet and then gave him her full attention.

“I can’t help but notice that your ring is missing. Feel like talking about it?”

Elena looked down at her ring-less hand and rubbed the finger nervously. She didn’t speak for what seemed an hour to Darcy, but was probably only fifteen seconds.

“I was really angry with you,” she said. “At least for awhile.”

Darcy looked at her, searching her eyes, but Elena looked away.

“Angry? Why?” he asked.

“Because you wouldn’t give me any advice about Rob. I was counting on you, Darcy. I told you everything, things I wouldn’t tell anyone else but Lucy. I told you the whole sordid affair about the flautist and Rob’s infidelity, and I didn’t do that for some cathartic need to talk. I needed help. Advice! I trust your opinion, you know.”

“Why is that? Because I’m a minister?”

“No. Because I just trust you. I know you. We have the same values, except that you’re a vegetarian and I’m not—yet.”

Darcy warmed to this theme. “Yes, we do have the same values—like helping old people who need some laughter and stimulation in their lives. I love the way you and Lucy went out to perform your tap dancing routing. I just wish I could have been there. You should have called me.”

“You were gone. I didn’t feel like texting you anymore, but we did try to call. I don’t know where you were, but the church secretary said you had the weekend off. Anyway, it’s not my business where you were. I was too miffed at you to track you down.”

Darcy’s heart swelled with the thought that she had tried to call. And with the thought that she was miffed. That meant there were . . . feelings there, maybe not the ones he wanted. But still, feelings.

Darcy took a gulp of his own water; his mouth felt as dry as a California desert during a drought. “Elena, I just couldn’t sway you one way or the other,” he said, once hydrated. “You don’t need advice on something like that. It has to come from your own heart. We act on that anyway—on our hearts—no matter what people advise. In fact, the most rational and wise advice sometimes only works in reverse, because people rebel against any advice contrary to their heart’s desire.”

“But the heart gets all mixed up, she said. The heart sometimes, well, lies.”

“How so?”

“Well, the heart disguises itself as love, even if it’s really just an addiction to a feeling. Like being addicted to love, you know what I mean, Darcy. You know all about this from your counseling people. Sometimes we need someone to help us take off the layers of deceit that we mistake as pure, eternal love. We delude ourselves, just like an alcoholic who thinks she can take just one drink. Everybody needs support, Darcy, someone we can call—or text—at least, someone we trust. Just like Lucy over there. She wants another perspective—someone to look out of for her, namely, me. She might be so wrapped up in his charm that she misses the gun pointed at her under the table.”

“The what?” His head whipped around to look at the P.E. teacher.

“I’m speaking figuratively,” she said to a blushing Darcy. “I mean we miss things that might be hazardous because we’re all wrapped up in a massive ball of feeling that has no windows to reality. I knew I needed help to sort things out. Lucy, well, she’s always someone I turn to. But I also needed you. Your male perspective, I mean. You know the whole male psyche better than we do.”

“I’m sorry I let you down,” he said, lowering his head rest on his hands. He then realized his elbows were fully on the table—something his mother said was an anathema—and put them down with hands on his lap. He felt awkward. He felt ridiculous. He felt his freckles turn a burnished shade of red. But, God help me, here goes—

“Look, Elena, there’s more to it than that.”

“There is? What do you mean, more to it?”

Just as his courage had risen above surface of insecurity and caution, the waiter brought their Cesar salads and sat them down before them and turned to retrieve the pepper mill. Darcy sighed inwardly and glanced outside at the darkening sea. The silky colors of the sunset were gone, leaving only a heavy gray dusk. His chance had come and gone. It was like a dolphin, splitting the water with a glorious leap and then back down into the sea. Darcy didn’t know if he had two jumps in him.

The presentation of the Cesar salad with an interminable twist of the black pepper over each salad until they said “when” completely destroyed their line of dialogue.

Or so Darcy thought.

“Back to what you were saying,” said Elena, with a tentative stab at the salad. “You said there was more to it?”

Darcy gulped down his forkful of salad, and took a sip of water. “Well, yes. But it’s complicated.”

Elena motioned with her fork toward an animated Lucy and the P.E. teacher. “Looks like they’re going to be here awhile. I’d say we have all evening to sort out complications. I don’t foresee a foursome tonight, do you?”

Darcy looked over at the seemingly happy couple and smiled. He then set down his fork and repositioned himself in his seat.

Elena looked at him curiously. “What? You, the vegetarian, don’t want your salad?”

“I’m not much hungry for salad tonight.” He shoved back his plate and rested his clasped hands on the table. Not elbows, just hands. Surely this was all right. “Elena, first I need to know exactly where you stand with Rob. Is the engagement off or not?”

Now Elena set down her fork, as if her appetite also suddenly took a nosedive. She met Darcy’s gaze with bold confidence. “Yes. It’s off. I never want to see that jerk again.”

Darcy sat back as if being hit by a strong wind. “Oh.”

She nodded. “I realized—with no help from you,” she said in mock aggravation, “that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a man who was fundamentally incapable of being trusted. In fact, I think I was more in love with his cello than with him.”

Darcy laughed. “In love with a cello?”

“Well, you know what I mean. I love music so much that I guess when I heard him play the Elgar cello concerto with the Pacific Symphony, I was dazzled. I fell in love with how he played. And maybe with Elgar. But not with Rob. No, that was my mistake. I couldn’t separate the romance of his playing with the romance of him.”

“But that’s amazing, Elena. I mean, that you were able to see that. I’m so . . . so proud of you.”

“You are?”

“I am. Look, Elena”—he paused for a breath—“the reason I couldn’t give you advice is because I couldn’t be objective. It would have been wrong to—“

She cut in, “What do you mean, you couldn’t be objective?”

“Okay, I’ll just say it, then. I was jealous of your cello player. What I mean is, I adore you, Elena.”

Elena’s eyes flew open wide. “You do?”

“Look,” he said, realizing he’d already crossed the line and that he may as well go for broke, “this may be totally inappropriate since you’re just coming down from a broken engagement, but . . .” He bit his lip for courage.

“But?” encouraged Elena.

“Would you, by chance”—he paused dramatically—“like to have dinner with me?”

“I believe I will,” she said, smiling as if both happy and relieved. “How about Las Brisas—tonight?”

They laughed—they laughed exuberantly. Nervously.

The laughter seemed to clear a space for sober silence. Elena and Darcy looked at each other over uneaten Cesar salads—their eyes locking in a moment of significance and revelation and truth. It was as if they had never looked at each other before. In that instant, something seemed to burst open between them, and what flowed after was an evening they would remember the rest of their lives. Their first date.

Intermission

2011-07-22T01:00:00.001-07:00

From Melinda Neal's collection of inspiring quotes . . .

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

--Albert Schweitzer

We're nearing the end of the story! Conflicts are resolving--but still, more to come. Darcy's dinner with Elena will be coming up next . . . Thanks for following this on-line novel, not an easy task, especially with all these "intermissions." Once Fat Soul Fridays is properly edited and published as an entire novel on Kindle, I will give my you, my readers, credit. Thank you for keeping my sparks rekindled!

Fat Soul Fridays will return next week (July 29). So if you need time to get caught up, this is your chance. (Note: the comment section of the blog is not working for some reason. However, you can still post comments on the Fat Soul Friday facebook page or e-mail me at pafarmer@aol.com.)

51: Darcy Gets a Surprise . . . Make that Two

2011-07-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

When George casually asked Darcy McDermott to report on his happiness experiment, Darcy smiled—first at George, and then at Madeline, whom he knew would be worried. And she did look nervous, her blue eyes wide and wary. And was she holding her breath? He gave her a reassuring nod. To Madeline’s knowledge Darcy’s only happiness experiment was the one he shared with Alex—the trip to Oklahoma to reunite George’s parents with their estranged son, something that was still on the Mums-the-word list. But Madeline did not know the whole story. Neither did Alex, or anyone at the table.

“George, I’d be glad to report, but I’d like to be last, if that’s okay. I mean, Madeline can go first and then I’ll tell mine.”

Madeline looked taken aback by all this secrecy, but smiled. “That works for me. You see–”

“But why doesn’t George have to report?” interrupted Andrea. Except I guess he’s just the help, not a real member of the group.”

Darcy was about to retort, but Elena beat him to it.

“How can you say that, Andrea?” said Elena, her beautiful dark eyes flashing with indignation, a new side to the woman Darcy could not get out of his mind. Was this Strong Elena a result of standing up to her unfaithful cellist boyfriend? Whatever it was, Darcy liked it.

“Yeah,” joined in Lucy, “I mean, come on. The help? What—”

But Elena wasn’t finished. “Not a real member of our group?” She threw up her hands in an exaggerated gesture of disbelief, as if she’d had enough of Andrea for the day. Insulting the entire table with Rescue-the-unattractive! make up samples was one thing, but this seemed too much for Elena and Lucy, who continued to exchange words with a defensive Andrea. George, meanwhile, looked like he was enjoying a tennis match, snapping his head back and forth between them.

Geraldine chimed in with a few remarks about how she was at a loss to account for the lack of manners these days. "Back in my day . . ."

It was somewhere in that exchange, in Elena’s gesturing, that Darcy noticed her ring finger—an empty ring finger. He suddenly forgot all about George and the insensitive Andrea. His mouth began to feel like sand paper and he gulped a couple of times. So, he thought. So. For two weeks there had been utter silence between them, as Elena had finally given up her attempt to get his advice. Should she forgive Rob or break it off? Darcy’s heart sank each time she texted, knowing that he could not be objective. She would have to figure it out for herself. Finally the texts had stopped. But not his prayers.

Her engagement to “Vibrato Rob”—was it really off? But why would she keep this news secret? Was she angry at him for not helping her to decide? Emotions and doubts collided until he was aware that his mouth was hanging open. He promptly shut it and tried to regain composure.

After a few minutes of chaos, Madeline’s hands went up in a HOLD EVERTHING gesture. “This is not how I pictured our meeting today,” she said with both authority and volume. “Andrea,”—she paused, turned her head, and looked squarely at Andrea—“George is an important member of the group . . . just like you are.” (She said this last with less conviction, thought Darcy.) “But George has already reported his happiness experiment,” she said. “But we didn’t call it that because it was the first one. He’s the one who gave me the idea that we should all try it. His generous actions—”

“I know,” said Andrea. “Tim’s shoes.”

TOMs shoes,” retorted George.

Madeline’s hand went up again, this time turning her stern look toward George. “What is this? A meeting of Fat Soul Fridays or Lucy’s fifth grade class? Now . . . may I continue?”

Everyone at the table fell back into a sheepish repose, except for Alex, who sat straight as an arrow, looking at his wife from across the long table with mirth in his eyes and a curl at the edges of lips. Once again, Darcy envied the couple—so in love. It was as if he were silently saying, This isn’t important, all this. After having a heart attack, nearly dying, I know this is not important in the scheme of things. And God, how I love you.

“I’ll be brief,” said Madeline in a more even tone, “since it’s getting late. I chose something that fits my own ideals about community and justice. It’s a passion of mine—that every person has a right to have their basic needs met. Like food.” She gestured at their empty plates of scones. “I’m not talking about scones and tea, but about getting down to basics. Basics that people, in these hard economic times, can’t take for granted. Like a hot meal. A nutritious meal.”

Darcy’s mind, cluttered with personal thoughts, suddenly cleared. What was she saying?

“So Darcy, your church kitchen, the one with the fixed plumbing, but the hideous stove—well, something had to be done about it. I took a tour of the church kitchen when you were gone, and the stove looks like a reject from my girl-scout camp-out days.”

Darcy felt his face disappear into a smile he could not control. “So, you’re donating a stove from the shop?”

“No,” she said. “Not one of ours. I can’t spare one from here. No, I bought I brand new one. A commercial six burner, gas, and it’s being installed tomorrow. I’ve been in contact with the president of your congregation and she’s handling the logistics.”

“Oh, Madeline,” said Darcy. “That’s incredible! My dream of serving meals—vegetarian, of course—to the homeless has been put on hold so long, that I’ve almost given up the idea.”

“And don’t forget the vegetarian cooking classes you had in mind,” said Madeline. “I think I could use a few lessons myself.”

“Me, too!” said Elena. “I’ve been wanting to go vegetarian, but don’t know where to start.”

Geraldine said, “My doctor says my arthritis would benefit from a vegetarian diet. Count me in.”

Lucy said, “Well, you know my thoughts on it. It’s proven to help your heart.” She looked at Alex, as if as if he were her new health-nut project.

Andrea said (in her usual wet blanket style), “But what about carbs! There are, like, totally too many carbs in a vegetarian diet."

Madeline, blithely ignoring Andrea's comment, smiled and said, “Needless to say, I believe my happiness experiment will create more happiness in the world—or at least, a few less hungry people—and it has certainly added to my own sense of well-being to be part of it. Of course it’s not just a material gift. I’ll also be on hand to help cook, serve, and clean up when the church approves the program. But let’s not dwell on my project.” She glanced at a still radiant Darcy.

Darcy took it as his cue. “Okay, I’m ready to tell mine.” He turned to look at George. “George, my happiness experiment involves you.”

“No way!” said George, flashing his boyish smile.

The sound of clattering china distracted the group. Madeline’s teacup had turned over, tepid tea spilling onto the glass top. “Sorry,” she said.

Darcy glanced around the table with a playful grin. “Can you guys hang on? I need to make a call.” He waved a hand. “No, this is part of my report, trust me. Just hang on.”

Silence ensued. Not so much as an ill-timed remark from Andrea filled the silence.

“Hello, Felipe?” said Darcy, smiling into his phone. “Yeah, it’s time.” Darcy handed his cell to a wide-eyed George. “Felipe wants to say something.”

George, puzzled, took the cell phone. “Hey,” said George into the phone, focusing hard on what Felipe was saying. "What?" Finally his eyes gleamed understanding. “No way! Cool . . . That is so rad. . . . Okay. . . . Love you, too. Bye.”

He ended the call and handed back the phone to Darcy, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you would do this for us.”

“Do what!” interjected Lucy. “Come on, you guys. Talk to us!”

Darcy said, “Well, it’s something Felipe and I cooked up. As you all know the same-sex marriage legalities are all tied up in in Sacramento, appeals from the right, etcetera, etcetera . . . and there is nothing we can do about that right now. As Madeline said earlier, some things are out of our control, but we still have room to be creative. Felipe and George have wanted to have a real marriage ceremony for . . how long, George?”

“Ever since we got our domestic partnership papers. And that was great and everything, but so cold. No ceremony, no friends. Just a piece of paper and brochure called Your Future Together. I think it’s in the back of some drawer in the kitchen.”

“So,” continued Darcy, making eye-contact around the table, a couple of weeks ago, I had coffee with Felipe and threw out an idea. ‘Why wait?’ I told him, ‘I mean, why wait to celebrate your life commitment?’ Felipe and I talked about this, about the importance of making their life commitment public, inviting friends and . . . co-workers and all.” Darcy coughed, realizing he almost said Friends and family. “So, we thought, why not plan a ceremony and worry about the legal license later? If two ceremonies are necessary, so what? Lots of people do it—have a religious ceremony with a minister and a separate civil ceremony. It’s very European,” he laughed. “So Felipe and I have been secretly planning a commitment ceremony for the two of them.”

“When? . . . and where?” said an exuberant Madeline.

“Two weeks from tomorrow. Heisler park—overlooking the ocean. We could do it at my church, but we agreed the park this time of year is so beautiful. The invitations are ready to go out tomorrow—that is, if George accepts the offer.”

“Do I accept the offer?” George said, looking on the verge of tears. “Of course I do. This is so rad,” said George fighting tears. “Totally rad.”

* * *

After the meeting broke up with hugs and thank-yous, Elena drew Darcy aside. “Can I talk to you? Are you in a hurry?”

“No. What’s going on?” He tried to look innocent, as if he had not noticed her ring-less hand.

“Lucy.” She smiled at her friend who was in rapt conversation with Alex about the evils of saturated fat. “She’s got a date.”

Darcy’s shoulders sagged (along with his spirits). “Okay,” he said.

“It’s like this,” she said conspiratorially. “She met someone on Match.com. They’ve decided to have dinner and meet, you know, in person. So they’re having dinner tonight at Las Brisas.”

“Good place,” Darcy said, wondering where this was headed.

“But Lucy wants me to go with her.”

“On the date?” Darcy laughed.

“No! I mean, I would sit across the room at another table, and well, size him up. She wants my opinion, you know, from my own objective observations.”

“You mean you’re going to be a spy?” said Darcy.

She didn’t answer but stifled a smile. Her eyes seemed to light up with a wild sparkle of pure mischief—another fascinating side to Elena that he’d never noticed. It was a like a painting of a beautiful woman had come to life. She was stepping out of it and, much to Darcy’s amazement, the animated, sometimes angry, and a little mischevious Elena was much better than the painting.

“I want you to come with me,” she said. “Please, Darcy. I can’t eat at Las Brisas alone. It would look funny.”

“So I’m a prop?” he asked, still amused.

She laughed. “I didn’t mean that. I just mean I’d love to have your company. I need a guy’s perspective, too. Please, Darcy, would you have dinner with me?”

50: Happiness Experiments Unveiled

2011-07-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

And why were you in Phoenix anyway? I never got that. Was it something to do with your happiness experiment? George’s ingenuous question lingered without an answer as he continued to refresh cups with pu-erh tea—specially brewed for the benefit of Alex’s cholesterol. Alex looked uncomfortable and repositioned himself in his chair.

“As a matter of fact, George, I was—as usual—on the hunt for rare books, and the Raymond Chandler book I have on display over there was the result. And as for my own happiness experiment, let’s just say that it’s still in progress. I’m not ready to report, not yet. Who would like to go first?” He raised his eyebrows in a desperate attempt to get George’s attention turned to someone else.

“I’ll start!” said Andrea, raising her hand like a student—a junior high student. “Can I?” she asked, looking to Madeline, the de facto leader of Fat Soul Fridays.

“Sure,” said Madeline.

“Well, I didn’t, like, really understand what we were supposed to do. I know it had something to do with George buying all those Tim’s shoes—

“That’s TOMS shoes,” said George irritably. “TOMS, not Tim’s.”

“Whatever,” Andrea said. She spoke directly to Madeline, ignoring George. “I know the shoes are supposed to help little kids who don’t have shoes. And I know it made George happy and you thought that was good. And you wanted us to do something like that, only different, right?”

“Well, yes. I asked each of you to try something novel, something out-of-the-ordinary to make a difference or to make someone happy. To really go outside yourself, expand your soul in a concrete way. Then, you were to take note of not only how you increased another’s happiness but how this, in turn, increased your own happiness–or if it did not increase your happiness. We are empirically testing a philosophical theory about happiness. Is happiness like a pie that, when you give it away, you have less? Or is it more like George’s metaphor of a boomerang, in that it comes back to you and makes you happier than you were, thus increasing the total amount of happiness in the world? It’s the difference between the Kantian approach of doing things for others strictly out of duty, with no thought to oneself vs. the more relational approach of doing things that increase happiness in everyone, including the giver. Simple, really. Simple—and hopefully fun.”

Andrea’s eyes were glazed over. “If you say so. But I have to go out to my car first. So wait, okay? I’m parked out in front. I really want to go first. I’m so excited!” She rose and trotted out to her car—a white Camry, and was back within a minute, carrying an armful of pretty little packages, all uniform blue and white striped with white tissue paper peeking through.

Everyone looked mildly pleased, but nonetheless wary, as she passed out the sleek cardboard packages with the Estee Lauder logo on the front.

“We’re having this promotion at Nordstrom’s,” she said. “And you’re not supposed to get one of these gifts unless you buy a certain amount of product. But, like, since I work there, I was able to get all these totally free.”

“Samples?” said Elena. “I love getting samples!”

“Hey, we guys didn’t get anything,” said Darcy with mock irritation.

“Oh, you will.” Andrea pulled out of yet another bag, a simple black bag containing three little tubes of something. She gave one each to Darcy, Alex, and finally, to a dubious-looking George.

“It’s a special night gel. They call it that because men won’t put on anything that says ‘night cream’—too feminine, I guess. So they came up with night gel. Now for you gals, I’ve got samples of lipsticks, eye shadows, eye-make up remover and even a little nail polish in two colors, one with coral undertones, the other with blue. It depends on your skin color. And the samples come in a cool bag that can be your make-up travel bag. Isn’t that just, like, perfect?” She clapped her hands like a child.

“Thanks, Andrea,” said Geraldine, who never failed to be polite. “I think I can make use of this heather coral lipstick. Very pretty.”

“Yeah, thanks,” said Elena, examining the eye shadows. “This will be fun to play around with.”

Lucy, who never wore make-up, tried to look enthused, but could only muster a curt, “Nice.”

“This was thoughtful, Andrea,” said Madeline. “And I can tell by the look on your face that giving these gifts has made you happy.”

“Like, totally happy!" said Andrea, "Like, you know, just to think how improved you all will be after using these products. It is my professional opinion that you all need help—bad. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but . . .” She paused and shrugged as if words could not express the degree of unattractiveness around the table. “Now, as for you guys—your skin!—you all look like dressed alligators.” She gave a little shudder of disgust. “You totally need the night gel, trust me. “And Darcy, it might even do something for those freckles. They could use some lightening, that is”—and here she giggled—“if you want to attract the ladies.”

Darcy turned a bright shade of red, accentuating those very freckles. He glanced woefully at Elena, as if caring only about her reaction. But Elena was staring wide-eyed at Andrea with an uncharacteristically piqued expression. Madeline felt mortified on behalf of Darcy. She knew he struggled with self-confidence, especially around Elena Velasco. And would he ever notice that her engagement ring was missing?

Andrea continued. “As for you gals . . .” She looked around with a look of professional despair. “Now Elena, you just need more eyeliner, that’s all. But the rest of you . . . oh, you need help, and you need it fast. I’m just glad I could help get you started. Yeah,” she said in a concluding tone, “it makes me happy to try to improve the looks of my friends.”

Everyone widened their eyes in a united reaction of shock, for it was not every day that you were told how utterly hopeless you looked. Lucy bit her lip as if struggling to keep herself from saying something she would regret. Alex and Darcy began touching their faces, as if not sure how hideous they might, in fact, look.

George, holding an empty teapot in the air, shook his head slowly. Then he said with squinting, incredulous eyes, “I can’t believe you just said that—”

Madeline glanced quickly up at George, giving him a strong warning that he needed to take care of the tea, bring more scones—anything, just get out before he and Andrea got into it again. He rolled his eyes and wheeled his cart back into the kitchen, murmuring under his breath.

Noting everyone’s pained and piqued expressions, Madeline began to despair. The happiness experiment was not getting off to a good start. Yes, Andrea had made someone happy: herself. Everyone else felt just a little less happy with themselves, and since the ratio of unhappiness to happiness was about 6 to 1, Madeline calculated that happiness had taken a bit of a hit. “Let’s move on,” she said, setting her bag of samples on the floor. “Now, Geraldine. Let’s hear about your experiment.”

Geraldine set aside her Estee Lauder bag and took a quick sip of tea, as if for courage. “Well, let me just say that this was a good experience for me because I was on the verge of doing something even before you brought up the whole happiness experiment project. But, because of one thing or another, I kept putting it off. The happiness experiment kind of nudged me to do it, and now I’m very, very happy. Yes. I think the experiment worked well for me.”

“But what did you do?” asked Lucy with childlike impatience.

“Well, I don’t know if you realize this, since we don’t talk about our families much, but I’m a great-grandmother.” She waved off the smiles around the table. “But, that’s the problem,” she said. “I never see all these beautiful children. They live so far away—spread out across the country. One even lives in Singapore. What I’m trying to say is that I’m often . . . well . . . lonely. So, my church in Newport Beach has been asking for volunteers to help out with an afterschool program, to help children with their homework, you know, helping them with their English and so on. Many of the children of immigrant families need a little extra help sometimes.” She took another nervous sip of her pu-erh tea.

“So I kept putting it off,” she continued, “thinking how poor a job I would do. Why, I haven’t done school work for about, let’s see, half a century is it?” She gave a deprecating laugh.” So I didn’t feel adequate. Me, an old lady, trying to help children? But you said,”—she looked at Madeline—“ to do something that stretched us a little, like in our yoga class when we don’t think we can do a particular pose but try it anyway. And so I volunteered.”

“And?” pressed Lucy, who taught fifth grade.

“Well,” said Geraldine, looking her usual unsure self, “Oh, I’ll just say it. I’m loving it. Really loving it. And I’m learning along with the kids. I’d forgotten my California history, and I’m having a ball re-learning everything. And . . .” Geraldine paused.

“And what?” ask Madeline, gently.

“Well, I’m not so lonely anymore. I have about six young friends, ranging from fourth to sixth grades, who cozy up to me like I’m their long lost grandmother. They greet me every single day with hugs and smiles. Oh, it does me good, that’s all I can say. It just does me good. So, yes, I think I have increased the amount of happiness in the world. George,”—she caught him as he came back from the kitchen—“your boomerang theory is correct. At least in my case.”

George smiled and Madeline felt like clapping. Everyone looked pleased for Geraldine—except for Lucy, who looked oddly troubled.

“Lucy?” asked Madeline, “I’m sure you, of all people, appreciate what Geraldine’s doing.”

Lucy nodded. “I do. If there were more Geraldines out there, my job as a teacher would be a cinch. But—I feel ashamed to say it—I’m a little jealous. I didn’t have the same result with my happiness experiment.” She looked at Elena. “I’m sorry Elena. I see how happy Geraldine is—like she’s lit up from the inside—but for me, the whole experiment was just a bust.”

“What do you mean?” asked Elena.

Madeline said, “It’s okay, Lucy. Could you tell us about it? Did you and Elena try something together?”

You tell her,” Lucy looked at Elena.

“We did, Madeline,” said the beautiful Elena. “And for me, as for Geraldine, it was an incredible experience. Lucy and I went out to the Vintage Retirement Home. We talked with the woman in charge of activities and told her how we would like to perform a tap dance for the elderly people there—for one of the activities.”

“And you did this? You performed?”

“Yes, we chose a routine from our tap class, and then we went out on a Saturday and performed. They loved it. They clapped and clapped. And they wouldn’t let us go. They kept wanting more. It was wonderful—so rewarding! At least for me. It got my mind off my own problems, too. Personal problems." She glanced at Darcy, as if he might understand, and then went on more brightly, "Now I’m going to take my clarinet students out there next time. I’ve already set the date with the activities coordinator.” She smiled. “So yes, I felt like I was making a little difference in their lives. All they do is watch television and play bingo. They need stimulating activities and fun, and they’re all crazy about music and dancing. I had a ball! But Lucy . . .” She turned toward her friend with a puzzled expression.

Lucy looked down. “I’m sorry, Elena. I wish I could give the same report, but I can’t.”

“But why?” asked Elena. “You didn’t tell me you were upset about it?”

“No, not upset. It was all right, I guess. But what I feel right now is shame.”

“Shame?” Madeline said. What had gone awry in Lucy’s happiness experiment?

“Yes, because I didn’t enjoy it and I should have. It should have felt rewarding. I mean, I love to tap dance, everybody knows that. But I felt weird. I can’t help it, but I didn’t like interacting with the elderly like Elena did. She’s a natural with them. I was just exhausted and couldn’t wait to go home. I didn’t feel the happiness I was supposed to. So I feel like something must be wrong with me, I mean if the experiment works for everybody else and not for me . . .”

Madeline felt a stab of pain for Lucy and asked gently, “Can I ask you, Lucy, if performing at the retirement home was your idea?”

“Well, no. I let Elena come up with the idea since I’ve been so busy at school. I just went along.”

“Ah! But if you could have chosen your own experiment, what would it have been? I mean, if you’d had time.” Madeline used her skills as a professor to draw out the young woman.

Lucy blew out a huge sigh, her shiny black bangs fanning out from her forehead. Then she sat up straight, her dark eyes suddenly taking on life. “I love tap dancing, but I don’t enjoy working with adults or the elderly. What I would like to do—really—is to offer to help teach children how to tap dance. Children! I’d love to give free lessons or free tap shoes to some child who can’t afford such luxuries as lessons and shoes. That’s what I’d like to do!”

“Bravo!” said Madeline. “I hope you get the chance to do that, Lucy, and thanks for being honest. You’ve helped our experiment in that way.”

“I have? Like the time my brownies were a flop but made a good lesson?”

Madeline laughed. “Lucy, you’ve brought out an important point about the nature of happiness. You ‘went along’ with Elena but your heart was not in it. The well-meaning was there—helping elderly people—but the pleasure was not. In other words, in a relational world, you need to choose your happiness projects with two things in mind: 1) How will it help improve the well-being of another, and 2) Is it something I’m passionate about? Passion and meaning together create more happiness in the world. Otherwise it’s just the old cross-bearing ‘duty’ which most people find, as you said, exhausting and unfulfilling. Sometimes we do have to do things for others that we don’t like, but hopefully those times are temporary—”

“Like taking care of a sick family member,” interjected Darcy, “when we’d rather be out playing baseball.”]

“Exactly,” said Madeline. “Sometimes love demands a great deal of us, and it is exhausting, but hopefully those times are temporary, and they are not always within our control. So I’m only talking about the things that are within our control—the things we choose, like a life path, a career, or in this case, a happiness project. Choose something that not only makes the world better, but something you love. It’s the way a fat soul can get even fatter.”

Lucy smiled and everyone looked thoughtful—except for Andrea, who was filing her nails.

“Speaking of fatter,” said Alex, “can I have some clotted cream with my scone?”

“Yeah, if you want to commit suicide,” said Lucy with a teasing grin.

George, now free of serving duties, grabbed a chair and squeezed in between Alex and Geraldine, and declared, “I personally pledge to make sure no cream comes within ten feet of Alex Moore. And I want to hear what Darcy did for his experiment. What did you do, Darcy?”

49: Two Weeks Later, on a Friday Afternoon . . .

2011-07-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, thought Madeline Prescott Moore in one of her romantic reveries often brought on by a cup of tea, sometimes life is just too exquisite. She had reason to feel this way. Not only had her husband survived a heart attack and been given a clean bill of health—cerebral hypoxia, notwithstanding—but she had also seen Alex’s entire demeanor change almost overnight. No longer was he pale and tired and aging at an alarming speed; he had now regained at least 10 years with his full color olive complexion, lively eyes, and most of all, a renewed vivacity.

She sat alone and dreamy at her favorite table in the shop, the Rilke table, sipping steamy Oolong in the waning hours of a cool fall afternoon. Yes, she thought, Alex was a new man, thanks to the miraculous stent procedure. And to something else—something profound and mysterious and life-changing, to say the least—that had happened to him during the heart attack. His NDE (Near Death Experience) was something they were still processing. They had kept it between them for now; it was almost too private, too personal—even sacred. But Madeline had bought a couple of books on the subject and was urging Alex to write down everything that he had experienced during that ambiguous time between life and death.

“Maybe not for public eyes,” she said, “not if you’re uncomfortable. But just for yourself, Alex, so you can go back to it when you’re feeling low—you know.”

“I can’t imagine feeling low anymore,” he said with a laugh. “I just can’t.”

“Then write it down for me, she said. Please. My memory isn’t what it used to be. It’s just that it was all so . . . beautiful.”

She loved ruminating over beautiful words and images, and Alex had spoken so poetically about his experience. She wanted, in the privacy of her own heart, to mull it over. It was all so startling, puzzling, and yet invigorating to the mind and spirit. She realized that as a philosopher, an academic, and a spiritual person who had done her own share of philosophical theology, her own understanding of the ultimate aspects of life and death was about the size of a pea. There was always something new to challenge, and the NDE was one of them.

Oh yes, she was certainly intrigued; her curious mind was spinning into overdrive after hearing Alex’s story. And yet, she didn’t want to over-think it, that is, to make abstract philosophical conjectures, as her mind was so prone to do after years as an academic. That would be to take Alex’s experience and turn it into something impersonal and theoretical, requiring footnotes and cynics and counter-arguments. She needed—at least for now—to treat it as poetry, as a gift, as words and images on which to meditate with gratitude and mystery and hope.

She wished she could remember everything he had said in the hospital, and that’s why she wanted him to write it down before it got away. The part that she could remember, vividly, was when Alex—or rather, his wise grandfather in the NDE—said:

But what is happiness, but to be creators of beauty in the world?

The poet Rilke would agree wholeheartedly, she said to herself, smiling down at the table where she sat sipping the last of the Oolong from an antique teacup. She moved the delicate blue and white china cup and saucer to the side and studied the quotes winking back at her from underneath the glass. She had not changed the quotes or poems since they had opened the shop, but somehow they were different now, infused with fresh meaning—like the Rilke quote she was meditating on now.

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people:

that each protects the solitude of the other.

She understood the words now, for she wanted to protect Alex’s “solitude”; that was more important than hovering over him like an intrusive, annoying, overprotective—and yes, nagging—wife. She was learning to let go of her persistent fear of something happening to him. Now she would protect his solitude, his inner spaces, his soul: the person he was still becoming. This new sense of her evolving love for Alex was actually returning full circle to their beginning as a couple. At their wedding ceremony in Heisler Park, back in 1970, their dear friend, a hospital chaplain named Henry Graham, had quoted Rilke’s most famous words:

Love consists in this,

that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

Yes, she remembered Henry’s kind, sparkling eyes as he said it. Oh, if only dear Henry were here now! He would love a discussion on NDE. Love it. She remembered how, when she had been in the hospital, back in 1968, how Henry had inspired her with an “unorthodox” way of envisioning God, and how his influence still pervaded her life. Oh, Henry! If only you were here now . . .

Madeline’s rush into nostalgia was abruptly halted by the entrance of George and Socrates. They hovered over her at the tea table, George and Socrates—together. As one. Talk about miracles, she thought. George held the one-eyed Cornish Rex like a baby, teasing it with a shoe-string, its little paws grabbing and whipping the air as George pulled the shoe-string away. Evidently, in the few days they were in Phoenix, George and Socrates had bonded. Yes, there were Great Mysteries she simply could never explain.

“I think I’m going to get a cat,” said George, as if he had never called Socrates “that creature” and had not been sent to the hospital on account of the cat running under his feet and tripping him. George had evidently forgiven the cat, and possibly become his best friend.

“Felipe wants a dog,” he said, “but I want a cat. I suppose we could have one of each. Hey, do think they’ll have another cat like Socrates at the animal shelter?”

Madeline withheld a laugh. “Probably not. He’s one of kind, George. But you’ll find just the right cat at the shelter.”

“How will I know which one? They’ve got millions of cats there.”

“Just go and visit. Take your time. Let the cat pick you.”

George nodded distractedly as he went on whipping the shoestring in front of a wildly happy cat, teasing the poor creature silly.

“Ouch! Crikey, he’s got sharp teeth. Man, I’d hate to be mouse. Or a bug. Can you imagine what this cat would look like if you were a bug? Man, I’d hate to be a bug.”

“It would be hard to be a bug,” she said.

“Man, wouldn’t it? A cricket maybe. Wouldn’t it be weird to look up and see those fangs coming down on you?”

They continued along this line, discussing what it might be like to be a bug under the shadow of a cat. The mood was light and expectant, for they waited for the arrival of their friends. Today, Fat Soul Friday had a special task ahead: reporting on the happiness experiment.

* * *

Madeline did her best to “call to order” her chatty little group of friends—which now, she realized looking around, were more like family. Geraldine, eccentric and gifted in some psychic way—another challenge to Madeline’s thinking—was like a sister, an older sister, that is. The rest of the group, George, Darcy, Lucy, and Elena were like children, grown children on the cusp of something wonderful. Love, adventure. Life. And she and Alex were part of it.

Alex, listening patiently while Lucy soapboxed the evils of salt after a heart attack, sat at the other end of the table. Darcy was next to her on her left, while Elena sat next to Alex on her right, as if they had chosen to be as far apart as possible. Madeline wasn’t sure what this meant, but she did wonder if Darcy had bothered to take a closer look at Elena.

While Darcy looked too eager to stay in conversation with Geraldine and Madeline during the pre-meeting chat, Madeline had strived to bring Elena into their conversation, hoping the beautiful young woman might, at least, use some hand gestures. What Madeline wanted desperately for Darcy to see was simply this: Elena’s diamond ring was no more; at least it was not on her finger. While nothing was said—and should not be said unless Elena brought up the subject—it appeared that she had broken off her engagement to Rob, the cellist, who had broken her heart.

But one broken heart may lead to the mending of another, Madeline thought, with an inward leap of hope. Who knew?

And on that note, just as George was about to serve the oatmeal scones and refresh the tea, Andrea Ballentine arrived—her usual late entrance, her usual skin-tight dress. This time she wore royal blue spandex, the brash color matching her heavy eye-shadow. And with a fresh rinse of platinum blonde hair color and extremely whitened teeth, the overall image smacked of an Andy Warhol painting: crude, over the top, trendy, and yet, annoyingly enduring.

“I always forget about Fridays,” she said, chewing her gum with gusto, flipping her hair, and hanging her designer purse over the chair Madeline had offered. “Like, hey, Andrea, it’s Friday. Duh! Time for free tea and scones. Just kidding,” she giggled.

Madeline made room for Andrea between herself and Lucy. “Good to see you, Andrea.” She forced a smile, the one she kept in reserve for Andrea.

She kept forgetting that Andrea was part of the group and felt ashamed for it; she was the one member Madeline couldn’t quite feel comfortable with—the thorn -in-the-side member. . . . Yet wasn’ t that good? To be challenged by someone else’s presence was like being challenged by an uncomfortable idea; it kept one from becoming cliquish and closed minded and shallow—a shallow kind of harmony. Wasn’t that what Alex had said when recounting his NDE? We have to avoid shallow harmony, devoid of all dissonance and novelty. Well, Andrea certainly qualified for the dissonant part. Yes, the giggly, gum-smacking, platinum blonde who excelled at throwing wet blankets over shining ideas, was part of her Fat Soul Friday family, too, like it or not.

Madeline cleared her throat. “Let’s not wait until we’ve eaten to get down to business. We have a lot to discuss. We haven’t met for a several weeks, and I know you’ve each been working on your happiness experiment. Today would be—

“Hold on, Madeline,” said Darcy, holding up an index finger. “Before we get down to that”—he glanced at Alex—“I think we need to just say something about how thankful we all are that Alex is alive and well and”—he laughed—“as British as ever.”

“Quite so,” said Alex in his most exaggerated British accent, sending ripples of laughter around the table. “And I’m jolly grateful for all your thoughts and prayers and good wishes and psychic visions and such.” He touched Geraldine’s arm. “But let’s not focus on me. I’ve had quite enough attention lately, and I’m getting pretty bored with it. Let’s talk about the Happiness Experiment.”

“But what about your experiment?” said George, placing two oatmeal scones in front of Alex. (Madeline noted that everyone else was only given one scone.) “What did you do, Alex?” George persisted. “Oh, and by the way, I’m serving you guys pu-erh tea with the scones.” He glanced around and back at Alex. “You need to start drinking pu-erh, Alex. It’s really rad—my favorite tea. But I didn’t know how good it was for the heart ’til I read about it on the internet. It lowers cholesterol just like the oatmeal in the scones. No kiddin’.”

“But it tastes—and smells—like, ick!,” said Andrea, cup in hand (Madeline had given hers to Andrea until George could get another). Andrea, unable to move her botoxed brow, did offer an attempt at a scrunched nose—a nose which had been reduced and perked up by a local plastic surgeon, according to George. “I mean, it smells like a barnyard—yuck!”

“Does not!” retorted George. “It’s an acquired taste,” he said, stretching out the word “acquired,” as if it was a word he had just, in fact, acquired.

“Enough, you two,” said Madeline, wondering if this important meeting was already beginning to degenerate.

George gathered himself and topped off Alex’s tea out of a large oriental clay pot. “Anyway, like I was saying, we all want you to be healthy, Alex, so drink this tea every day. Maybe four or five cups. It’ll keep your cholesterol way down.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up with a polite show that he was duly impressed with George’s research. “Thanks, George. I’ll try it.”

“And no salt,” reminded Lucy.

“That, I can’t promise,” said Alex, “but I appreciate your concern, Lucy. And you, too, George. And could we please get off the topic of my health?”

George said, “Yeah, well, before I was so rudely interrupted”—he shot a glance at Andrea—“I was asking you about your own happiness experiment. Since we’re all so glad you’re okay and all, why don’t you start us off. And why were you in Phoenix anyway? I never got that. Was it something to do with your happiness experiment?”

Alex did not answer immediately. Madeline looked discretely at Darcy and saw his look of fleeting panic. How long could it be kept secret? Madeline felt a tug of empathy for Alex, a man who hated to tell a lie.

48: A Most Remarkable Death . . .

2011-06-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

“I’m afraid,” said Dr. Brice gravely, “that your husband may—in fact—be suffering the effects of cerebral hypoxia, but we can’t be sure until we do the tests.”

“But he’s asked for me—you said he did—so he must not have any memory loss.”

The doctor shook her head. “No, I don’t think that’s the problem, although, as I say, further tests are warranted.” She averted her eyes for a moment, as if searching for words. “At present, he keeps saying things that, well, simply don’t make sense—even before we gave him the sedative for the angioplasty. I think you’ll see what I mean. Don’t be alarmed, as it is very possible that it’s only a temporary phenomenon.”

“But—”

The doctor held up a hand. “You need to see for yourself. Just be prepared that he may not be exactly himself, partly having to do with the medication, and partly from the hypoxia. But as I say, it may very well be temporary.”

Madeline nodded, swallowed hard, and followed Dr. Brice to Alex’s room.

* * *

The room in the cardiac unit was cool and dark and clean and smelled subtly of disinfectant. Machines with lights of all kinds loomed at the ready, like the National Guard for the heart. An I.V.—the ever dutiful hospital companion—stood to the right of the bed. The bed itself, the only one in the room, was raised at the head, bearing a patient: a distinguished looking man who was beaming like an idiot.

“Madeline . . . Madeline!” Alex cried out from the bed across the room. He spoke with an overpowering, unfamiliar emotion, as if still drunk with the sedative.

Dr. Brice gave Madeline a look, as if to say, I warned you, and then left the couple alone.

Freed of the doctor’s restraining presence, Madeline rushed to him, letting the tears go wild across her face, and kissed him. “I’m here, Alex, and I’m never letting you out of sight again. You’re lucky to be alive, you know.”

“I am,” he said, a crack in his voice. “I am.” Then he looked up, away from her. Was he trying to get hold of his emotion? He seemed to be far away for a moment. But only for a moment.

“Alex?”

“Mad, please, I have to talk to you,” he said, looking at her squarely. “I have to tell you how much I love you.” He held her hands, both of them, so tightly that her wedding ring began to pinch.

She kissed him again. “And I love you so much,” she assured. “And you’re still affected by the sedative, you know.”

“It’s not the sedative,” he said. “It’ not. I just . . . love you, and I have so much to tell you.”

He was gazing up at her, his gorgeous gray hair half-matted from the pillow, his eyes shining with an intensity that took her aback. It was as if something were flowing from somewhere deep within him and out through his eyes. Something she wasn’t a part of. It frightened her a bit, this rush of something in him, something she’d never seen before.

“What is it? You can tell me.”

“I want to,” he said, “but you have to understand, Mad, that I’ve not gone round the bend,” he said. “Not like the doctor thinks. I tried to tell her what happened—it just burst out of me—but she looked at me like I was some blathering idiot. I’m not the daft basket case that—oh, what’s her name?—Dr. Brice thinks I am.”

“Of course you’re not.”

“It’s just that . . . “ He shook his head as if in wonderment.

“It’s just that what?” She sat lightly on the bed and squeezed his hand as if that might squeeze the words out of him.

“It’s just that I had the most remarkable death.”

She laughed out loud, partly because it sounded funny, and partly because it was just like Alex to say something like that. There was nothing wrong with her husband; cerebral hypoxia or not, as long as the sense of humor was intact, she knew he was going to be all right.

“I don’t mean it as a joke,” he said earnestly. “What I mean, Mad, is that something happened to me during the time I was . . .”—he inclined his head in the old familiar way—“dead. I was, you know, actually dead for several few minutes; they told me. And it wasn’t just some fanciful dream.” He looked at her, as if needing her affirmation of his veracity.

“Okay. I believe you. Tell me! Tell me what happened while you were . . .” She couldn’t say it, as it seemed too surreal. And far too disturbing.

“Dead,” he said, finishing her sentence. “But I wasn’t really dead, not like what we think of dead,” he said. “It was the opposite of dead. I felt quite more alive than ever in my life. Really I did. Even while everyone around me was going off their hinges.”

“What do you mean, Alex? How do you know what was going on during those few minutes? I don’t understand.”

“Oh, Love. I can hardly believe it myself, or I wouldn’t if it were someone else telling the story. I’ve never gone in for this sort of thing. Sounds like some of that silly New Age falderal, something Geraldine might go in for; but it’s not. It’s just something that happened. Something that happened to me.” He twisted his head, inclining it again on the pillow, a familiar gesture that she recognized to be wholly his.

“Go on. Tell me everything and I promise not to interrupt.”

“Or laugh.”

“Or laugh,” she said, trying not to smile. “But do you want some water first?”

He shook his head and began his story.

“First, I was on the plane reading a book—one I picked up at a little rare book shop in Tulsa. Darcy was sitting in the aisle seat, so we had a vacant seat between us. And then I began to feel sleepy, and so I closed the book and shut my eyes. Within a few minutes of dozing I felt a hard, violent pressure in my chest, and I knew I needed to call out, to get someone’s attention. But instead, I saw myself. Now I know that sounds daft, but I literally saw myself sitting in the airplane seat by the window, slumped over. I could see my head, the way my shirt collar was turned wrong in the back. It was if I were above my body, looking down.

“I know I said I wouldn’t interrupt, but I still don’t understand. How could you see yourself?”

He shook his head, as if unable to find the words. “Oh, I know it sounds wild, but I seemed to be, well, floating above myself. That’s what it felt like.”

“Floating? Like in a swimming pool?”

“Sort of, except everything below was not at all distorted like it would be in water, but crystal clear. I even looked down at Darcy, and I could see his panic, Madeline. I could see and feel his panic. He was white with it. I tried to call out for him not to worry, not to panic, that I was all right. In fact, I felt wonderful. Wonderful! The pressure was gone and I felt so light, as if I had a body, but it was not heavy body of aches and pains, but a sort of—I don’t know—a body of energy or something. There are no words for it, really.

“And then I saw Darcy taking my pulse and calling for help, and there were loud voices and lots of commotion. Someone screamed. But it faded, all this noise, and even their faces. It all faded away as I was swept up into an overpowering light—a ball of light—a light that seemed to break open over me and envelope me. It was so intense and brilliant and welcoming that I wanted to go with it—I wanted to go into that light!

“Oh, Madeline, the light! It was the most brilliant light you can imagine, and it became a sort of vortex, pulling me in toward even more brilliance . . . and then I saw her.”

“Who, Alex, who did you see?”

“My mum. She was there. It was as if she was just waiting for me. I know it sounds impossible, but I knew it to be her, even though she looked different, like some radiant being. She seemed to be talking to me, but not in a normal way. It was like I read her mind and she read mine. It was as if she was saying how happy she was to see me, that she loved me, that she was proud of me. Behind her stood her father and mother and brother and grandmother and so on. And they seemed to know me, and I seemed to recognize them, even though I had never met them. Never. I just knew they were the family Mum had lost in the war. In the camp, you know. Auschwitz. And yet they were whole and shining and they seemed to be saying that all was well, that they were now at peace.

“And then, in the midst of this happy reunion, my grandfather, the musician, took me aside and spoke to me. He looked very wise, and he said to me: ‘At the center of the universe, Alex, beyond the outer edges of darkness and evil and suffering and tragedy, beats Love. Love. It is the beating heart of God, this love. It suffers; it transforms; it improvises, like the music of Bach. That is what beats at the Center of things, Alex. We have to listen for it. We have to try and hear this Heartbeat in everything, in every moment, and create a melody with our lives around it.’

“And then I asked my grandfather what this beating Heart at the Center of things wants us to do with our lives. He said, ‘Love’s end is always beauty. It’s as if we are each a fugue of endless variations and themes and tragedies and passions and fragments of dissonance, unfolding across time toward something whole and transformative and beautiful. The goal of life—of Love itself—is to create acts of beauty.’

“But I thought the goal of life was to be happy,” I found myself saying.

“‘It is, but what is happiness,’ he said, ‘but to be creators of beauty in the world? And co-creators with God as well—a loving, suffering, creative God, who is always, always composing new movements for the world as the world responds—or fails to respond—to the heartbeat of Love.’

“But what exactly do you mean by beauty?” I persisted. “I’m no artist. I love music—especially Bach—but I can’t even play an instrument.”

“‘I’m talking about something much wider than art. Music is simply a metaphor. Think of Bach’s compositions. We might say they are the brilliant conjoining of two elements: harmony and novelty. It is the same with life. To seek harmony with oneself, with others, with animals, with nations, with the planet itself—oh, that is the goal; and yet, it cannot be a shallow, monotonous harmony, but one with complexity, every-changing novelty, zest, adventure, changes of key, even dissonance. That is beauty. And that is the greatest happiness we can attain.’

“That’s what my grandfather said, Mad. In those very words, and don’t ask me how I remember them, when I can’t even remember my bank account number. I just remember. And then Mum said, ‘Alex, dear, you have to go back now.’ And I said I didn’t want to go back, but she insisted. She was gentle, as she was in life, but she was also stubborn, like she was in life. I had to go back.

“Then I felt a great, uncomfortable heaviness. And this was followed by acute discomfort. I felt as though someone were beating me up, like I was a punching bag at the gym. And I realized that I was alive again, alive in the world, that is, and I could hear the strident voice of a woman who was yelling like a drill sergeant, and I felt a series of jolts, which later I realized was courtesy of the defibrillator. And then, there was a huge applause. People all over the airplane were clapping and whooping. I couldn’t figure it out. I finally opened my eyes . . .”

“And then what happened?” asked Madeline, who felt like clapping and whooping, too.

“Well, when I regained my wits, I saw Darcy’s tear-stained face in my line of vision, and also a young woman, who looked pretty exhausted—her eyebrows all knit up in worry, like she was about to collapse. I recognized her. It was the flight attendant with the strident voice. I looked back and forth between them and I said, with some confusion, “Sorry, did I miss something?”

“And that’s when everyone began to laugh.” I didn’t mean to be funny, but they laughed—like you’re laughing right now.” He smiled at Madeline, who could not help but laugh and cry and laugh again.

He touched her face. “Oh, Mad,” he said in his most intimate tone of voice, “I have to tell you that I’m no longer afraid of death. It’s been stalking me for ages now, this persistent fear of dying. But I’m not afraid, not a bit. But . . .”

“But what?”

“But I don’t want to die all the same. It’s as though life now has a halo around it—everything: you, the doctor, the nurse, the walls themselves, everything now has a nimbus of something shining out from it. I want to live, Mad. And I want to love you as I’ve never loved you before.”

47: A Reunion and Some Disturbing News

2011-06-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

Madeline arrived at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix early in the afternoon on Monday and was met just outside the secure area by her younger sister, Jilli. My little sister, she thought with welling emotion, so striking — if not annoyingly thin — even in her mid-fifties. In contrast, Madeline was suddenly self-conscious of her own disheveled appearance, lack of make-up, and screaming gray-roots. Her little sister, fashion mad from Day 1, would never dream of looking disheveled if her life depended on it. Jill had it all in the looks department: face, figure, and she had only to highlight her natural blonde hair to shoo away all hints of gray. But then, she had to look good. She owned an expensive dress boutique in Phoenix, catering to high-end clientele. Divorced, with two grown children, Jilli looked as though she had never seen a stressful day in her life.
The sisters embraced with wet eyes.

In the one hour Madeline had before departing John Wayne Airport, she had barely enough time to phone, in rapid succession, Jilli, Geraldine, and George: Jilli, to tell her sister what happened and to please get to the hospital ahead of her; Geraldine, to tell her that she was sorry for having doubted her; George, to tell him to open up as usual on Tuesday, and would he please feed and care for Socrates, starting today, even though this was his day off? The entire flight was filled with a tiny minutia of worries, little pin pricks of scattered anxieties. She hadn’t so much as a toothbrush, she thought with frustration, let alone an extra pair of underwear, for God’s sake.

But it had all happened so fast. Jeff, Mr. Customer Support, got her on the next flight to Phoenix, all right — she gave Southwest Airlines high marks for that — but she hadn’t realized what that would mean. On the one hour flight, she stared out the window as the fragments of worry played with her mind: She couldn’t remember exactly where Alex had put the spare key to the apartment, but George assured her he would find it. Was it in the cash register drawer? . . . Would Socrates freak out at the sight of George, his nemesis in the human world? . . . All these disjointed bits of mind chatter whirled like dervishes, spinning endlessly as she stared out over the wing of the airplane, into the misty nothingness of the wide white sky.

She took a deep breath and uttered a silent prayer for her husband—seeing him in a cloud of love, feeling her love, feeling God’s love — not feeling alone! Oh, when would they get there! She checked her watch. Twenty minutes. And then she returned, despite herself, to the mindless minutia inside her head. Now it was the Volvo. She had left the Volvo in the Visitor’s parking, when she should have moved it to Long-Term parking . . .

Stop it! she had told herself. She wondered why — why she was worrying over ridiculous things at a time like this?   It was as though she were climbing a steep mountain, and all these tiny crags and crevices of worry were necessary so she would know where next to put her feet and hands — and, of course, to keep her from looking down. Down to the great chasm below.

Alex. Alex was in the hospital in Phoenix. She had no idea of his condition, except that he was alive. Alive! Her heart seemed to leap forward, ahead of the plane, so that when they finally touched down, and she caught sight of the familiar face of her younger sister, she felt herself nearly melting with relief.

“But why are you here and not at the hospital?” Madeline asked her sister, brushing away tears.

“I was at the hospital, but I couldn't bear the idea of your taking a cab.” Jilli handed Madeline a Kleenex from her Gucci bag. “Maddy, it’s going to be all right. Darcy, your young friend, is in the waiting room.”

“Waiting room? So Alex is in surgery?”

“I need to explain. Come on,” She took Madeline — or Maddy, as she called her — breezily by the arm, as if they were about to go shoe-shopping at Nordstrom’s.   She nodded toward the airport Starbucks on their right. “We’ll get some tea down you first — and me, a cappuccino. Then, I’ll explain everything — everything that I know, anyway.”

“No!” said Madeline, breaking free of her sister’s arm. “I want to go to the hospital right now.”

“In a minute,” said Jilli, as if talking to a child. She again took hold of her sister’s arm and guided her into Starbucks. “You used to boss me around, and now it’s my turn. Just for minute, sit with me, Maddy. Over there, one table left. Let’s grab it.”

They sat down, but they had no tea or coffee.   Over the detritus of coffee spills and abandoned plastic lids, Madeline pressed Jilli for the most important information of her life, and damn it if she was going to wait for her sister to stand in line for drinks.

“Alex had a heart attack, didn’t he?” Madeline said.

Jilli put her hand on her sister’s and nodded. “Yes. He had a heart attack,” she said gently, “and they will have to put a stent in his heart — or, I guess an artery, not the heart. I don’t know much about all this, but I do know that it’s not particularly dangerous. And not even surgery — not like a bypass. More like a procedure, a procedure called angioplasty. That’s what the doctor called it. Angioplasty.” She said the word slowly, as if pleased at herself for remembering the medical term. “I got there when they had just wheeled him in for the angioplasty and, a little later, the doctor came out and told Darcy and me that they would put in this stent thing and he would be all right.” Jilli paused, crossed her legs, and added, “At least his heart will be all right.”

“What do you mean, Jilli? What else is wrong? Tell me.”

Jilli looked down and squeezed her peach-colored lips together. “Well, according to your friend, Darcy—he’s a minister, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he’s like a son to us.”

Jilli nodded. “He’s pretty torn up about this. Anyway, Darcy said that Alex . . . that he”—she twisted up her mouth like she used to as a child—“well, that before they could assist him on the flight, that he . . . ”

“That he what, Jilli? Don’t sugar coat.”

“Well, it seems that he . . . expired for several minutes. But Darcy wasn’t sure exactly how long—”

Madeline’s hand flew to her heart. “Expired? You’re saying Alex died? And what? They brought him back to life?”

Madeline spoke too loudly, and the people at the next table, three young men in business suits, stared at her with coffee cups hanging in mid-air.

“Seems that way,” said Jilli in a confidential voice.   “There was no pulse at all. Darcy checked. I don’t know how long Alex was . . . well, without oxygen. That’s the concern, Maddy, but that’s the only concern. There may be complications because of something called . . . what was it? Here . . .” Jilli opened her Gucci bag to pull out a card—her own boutique card —and turned it over, where she had jotted something down. She showed it to Madeline. “Cerebral hypoxia, that’s what the doctor told us. So they’ll have to do some kind of brain x-ray after the angioplasty.”

“You’re saying he might have brain damage? Is that what you’re saying Jilli?”

“No, of course not!” Jilli said, protesting too much.  “Probably just routine. I’m sure it’s routine. But there was some concern, you know, about that issue of his having—”

“Expired,” said Madeline, completing her sister's sentence in a tone of gloom. “What an odd euphemism,” she said, almost to herself. “Like milk gone bad rather than a human being.”

“I didn’t mean that, Maddy!” said a flustered Jilli. She had always called her Maddy since childhood, and now she looked as though they were back in the old Anaheim home, a thirteen year old, looking up with big blue eyes at her much older sister. She still had those big blue eyes — kept wide by regular botox injections, no doubt. “I don’t know the right word. I just don’t want”— she glanced around to see the business men leaving their table — “I mean, I can’t stand to see you upset, not when the end result is that they saved him. The flight attendant saved his life with those paddle things — what do you call it?”

“Defibrillator.”

“Yes, a defibrillator saved his life. Or I should say, the flight attendant . . . April Day is her name.” Jilli suddenly sat up straight and offered her sunniest smile, as if putting on her high-end boutique face, a weapon against all things uncomfortable. She patted Madeline’s hand nervously. “Isn’t that a pretty name — April Day?”

In that abrupt turn of lightness, Madeline should have been perturbed, but she wasn’t. She could see and appreciate and love the child she remembered, even if firmly lodged in a middle-aged woman’s body. She seemed to be trying hard — maybe too hard — and it touched Madeline, who had always sought to protect and comfort Jilli, especially after their only brother died in Vietnam, followed by their parents’ divorce. Her little sister was now struggling with her new role as the giver of comfort, rather than the old familiar role of the one receiving it.

Madeline grabbed and squeezed her sister’s hovering, nervous, unsure hand. “Thank you, kiddo,” she said, using the pet name from eons ago, as if Jilli were still thirteen. “Thank you for telling me the truth. And does Mom know what’s happened?”

“Mom? Oh, no. I haven’t had time. And besides, she’s on vacation with her old cronies from the retirement home. They took the whole group up to the Grand Canyon for the week.   I don’t think you’ll see her this trip.”

“Just as well. Look, I think I’m ready to go now. Let’s skip the drinks. I just want to get to the hospital — what’s the name of it again?”

“Good Samaritan.”

* * *

At the hospital entrance, Madeline paused, staring at the benign sign, “Good Samaritan Hospital.” But is wasn’t benign to her; no, it morphed into memories of another Good Samaritan Hospital, the one in Los Angeles, where Bobby Kennedy was taken the night he was shot back in 1968 — and how she, a young campaign volunteer, stood with her friend, Ben, on the grounds of the hospital with the other mourners, staring up to the ninth floor.

Suddenly the whole thing came back to her: the Ambassador Hotel, the balloons — or shots that she thought were balloons popping — and the screams and the man pounding the wall. And the dark, cold night of waiting in a state of utter shock . . .

And then, Alex. Alex had come to Good Samaritan Hospital in the wee hours, just to find her and take her home. It had been the decisive moment of a soul-bonding connection that was only later imbued with full-blown romance.

The sign on the hospital seemed fuzzy now through her standing tears. Something swelled inside her, rose up with a fury, and then broke into waves of emotion — a frothy mix of love, relief, hope, and fear. Alex had come to bring her home that night of tragedy. And now, she was coming to Alex, to bring him home. Would she, in fact, be bringing him home? Would there be complications? Would he be the same Alex?

“Are you all right?” Jilli said, flinging her arm around her sister’s shoulders for support. “Are you going to faint? Do I need to call someone?”

Madeline shook her head and gathered herself. “Just get me to Alex!”

* * *

When she saw Darcy’s face in the waiting room, his youthful freckles, his disheveled appearance, his serious look — not his professional ministerial look, but that of raw emotion — she went to him. He stood, and she embraced him like a son.

“Darcy!”

He kissed her wet cheek and then stood back, shook his head and bit his lip, his own emotions near to the surface.

“I wish I would have known sooner,” he said.

“Known what sooner?”

“That there was something wrong. I should have known when he dropped the book.”

“What book?”

“Oh, it’s a long story, and now Alex is having an angioplasty, and the doctor hasn’t been out yet. And I don’t know why I couldn’t see he was having problems. He didn’t grab his chest or cry out in pain or anything. But still, it wasn’t right, how he just dropped the book . . .” He rattled on, looking like a muddled child. Finally, as if realizing he was talking too much—a habit he was trying hard to curb—he simply stopped, dropped his shoulders, and said, “Oh, Madeline, we almost lost him.”

“But we didn’t,” she said. “We didn’t. I heard the story of how you checked his pulse and called for the flight attendant — what it her name? Something pretty. . .”

“April Day,” he said. “April Day saved his life.”

“But you were there,” she said. “You were level headed. You knew what to do.”

“But I’m sorry Madeline. So sorry. For you, I mean. Especially for you. And for me, too, for what I almost lost. He’s like a father to me, Madeline. Like a father.” Tears ran down his face, and he didn’t bother to brush them away.

“Nothing was your fault, Darcy. Nothing.”

They sat down while Jilli offered to get coffee from a machine.

“I’ll take sugar. I need sugar! Several packets,” Madeline said, turning back to Darcy. But before anyone could move, the doctor arrived.

Wearing her surgeons cap, scrubs, and dangling mask, the doctor looked tired and serious, dark circles shadowing her forty-something eyes.

“I’m Dr. Brice” she said. “And you,” she said looking at Madeline, without a smile, “must be his wife.”

“Yes. I’m Madeline Moore.”

“Everything is fine, Mrs. Moore. We did a PCI–that’s percutaneous coronary intervention. The blockages were in the . . .” Dr. Brice went on, explaining why two stents were necessary, using all the medical terminology that, for the most part, was new to Madeline. “And we’ll have to watch out for ‘stenosis’,” warned the doctor, “so he’ll need to be under your cardiologists care immediately when you get back home. But we need to keep him here for a couple of days.”

“A couple of days?”

“At least. We’re going to have to do some more tests, Mrs. Moore. As I told your sister and Rev. McDermott, a CAT scan and an EEG are protocol for these cases.”

“You mean because of cerebral hypoxia,” Madeline said, remembering Jilli’s card.

The doctor nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“When can I see him?”

“In a few minutes. He’s mildly sedated, but he’s been asking for you—”

“He has?” Her own heart flew wide and high, like a window flung open to fresh air.

“Yes. I’ll let you see him in a few minutes . . . but, I’d like to speak with you alone first. There’s something you need to know.”

46: Before Flight 230 Was Diverted

2011-06-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

On the flight from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Orange County, California, the Rev. Darcy McDermott sat in his isle seat reading a novel about WWII on his Kindle, feeling the need to escape from the worry over George, his parents, and the whole happiness experiment. Yes, they had tried to help reunite parents and son; yes, they had made huge inroads with Irene Saunders, who was ripe for the picking and ready to run to her estranged son and, despite her inculcated views against homosexuality, embrace him with pent-up and fervent motherly love.

However, he thought with a deep sigh, the man of the family, George, Sr., used car salesman and church leader, was not so inclined. And, unfortunately, due to their fundamentalist faith, the husband called the shots in the family.

Darcy gave a shiver of revulsion at the thought of such a faith. It seemed to him, more of a prison than a faith, like some small, bleak German prison with Nazis at the guard. Fear of everything from homosexuals to the government to illegal immigrants seemed to dominate the lives of so many Americans, especially conservative religious ones. His own belief was that the core of any good faith or religion—whether one was Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etcetera, was love. Love. Expansive, inclusive, compassionate Love. Was that such a hard concept?

But, he thought, fear tended to beat at the heart of fundamentalist faiths of every stripe. And there were always those who preyed on fear, who smelled it like a wild animal, and then went in for the kill. Maybe they didn’t even mean to; maybe they did it unconsciously, like the Saunders’ Pastor Dwayne, who was obviously at war with himself, battling against his own sexual orientation, even while preaching against homosexuality.

But what about life orientation? thought Darcy. One’s life orientation was far more important than one’s sexual orientation. Some people just emanated an aura of fear and meanness—George, Sr.,case in point—while others radiated love and compassion. Why was that? he wondered. Nature? Nurture? Probably some of both, he concluded thoughtfully.

Darcy thought of Alex as he read his novel, given that Alex’s grandparents died tragically at Auschwitz—that dreaded camp which signified for all time the ultimate consequence of fear-gone-mad. He glanced over at him now, sitting in the window seat—thankfully no one was between them on this sparsely populated plane—and noticed how happy the older man looked, so absorbed in his real book, as Alex called it, turning real pages, and reading real print on real paper. Darcy smiled to himself about Alex’s old-fashioned views and went back to his thinking about life orientation, his new phrase. Maybe he should prepare a sermon on it?

But some fear is necessary, he reasoned, like watching out for snakes while hiking in Laguna Canyon—something he wished he would have done on that last hike when he came face to face with a rattler. If someone had simply said, “Watch out for rattlers!” he would have worn heavy boots rather than Reebok walking shoes. But thankfully he had escaped—lesson in Hiking for Dummies noted and filed. (He would not put this particular example in the sermon). Yes, fear has its place. But now that humans didn’t have to constantly worry about wild animals tearing them from limb to limb at every turn, fear had taken on a life of its own. Fear, apparently out of work and not getting unemployment benefits, was a restless force of nature, currently being employed for purposes of greed and manipulation, and even brutality.

So then, he thought (his sermon gathering steam), some people are oriented toward small mean lives built around fear—fear of "the other" or of poverty or a changing world they cannot control; others build their lives around love and generosity of spirit and creative adaptation to the inevitable changes in life. And, in a relational world where everything affects everything else, there are huge moral consequences in which life orientation you choose.

Choose. Yes, he reasoned further, one’s life orientation isn't something you are born with, Darcy thought, not as with sexual orientation. No, life orientation could be changed if one really set out to do it. And to change to a more expansive orientation, one had to choose love over fear every single day—maybe several times during the day—or else be entrenched again in that small, mean prison of one’s own making.

But fear often proved victorious, especially during times of stress. Yes, stressful times, he thought, when one felt threatened by invisible wild animals like economic meltdown, the loss of a job, a divorce, or even an encroaching world view that threatened one’s cherished ideas about marriage or masculinity. These were, tragically, the times when often the supplies to the heart were cut off. Destroyed. Burned. Like the scorched earth policy he was reading about in his novel. In 1945, when the end was near, Hitler had ordered Albert Speer to carry out his decree of destroying all German infrastructure, including factories and roads and bridges and hospitals, gutting his own country to punish his enemies. But Speer refused, seeing the future and the utter futility such a scorched earth strategy would bring. Self-destruction, that’s what “scorched earth” was, thought Darcy. Some people were simply self-destructive: that was their life orientation.

And this, he felt, was George, Sr., all over. Mr. Saunders believed in the scorched earth strategy of parenting. He and Irene had won the victory of denying their son a single morsel of love—not so much as a phone call or a letter—for ten long years. They had used the euphemism of “tough love,” but there was no love there to be tough with. They had scorched all the love away, burned to a crisp the past familial bonds, leaving a huge, empty, painful landscape for their son to deal with. Why couldn’t the man just see it that way? Why? It was so irrational, so self-destructive, thought Darcy, but then people were a puzzle . . .

Yet, Darcy thought, putting down his Kindle in a contemplative burst, who was he to be so hard on George’s parents? He, Darcy McDermott, was no saint (and this part he could not put into his sermon). He had to admit that he often chose fear over love. Not that his whole life orientation was built on fear, but he had stubborn little fears that held him back, that impoverished his soul, that might even cause great pain to others if he didn’t face them. Like the fear of telling his friend Elena Velasco exactly what he thought about Vibrato Rob—her idiot, unfaithful, cello playing boyfriend. And, he thought, with a stab of emotion, he was a total coward when it came to his own true feelings about Elena. He could never tell her . . .

Suddenly his sermon-in-the-making (minus some personal parts) was interrupted by a thud. Something hit his foot. He looked over and saw that Alex Moore had dropped off to sleep, and his used book—a rare first edition, to be exact—had slid off his lap onto the floor, or more accurately, onto Darcy’s shoe.

Darcy picked up the book and held it carefully, turning it over to inspect the dust jacket for any damage. The dust jacket needed to be protected; that was the whole thing about these rare books, according to Alex. A rare book may be worth ten times more if the dust jacket is intact. Alex had said as much last night when showing off the new book.

After they had left the Saunders’ house on Jim Thorpe Avenue, they needed to debrief and get their bearings about the whole situation, so they had stopped at the coffee shop, which, Alex was quick to notice, was next door to a used book store that was about to close. While Darcy had ordered one coffee and one hot chocolate, Alex darted next door, and was back within minutes, carrying a small sack and looking like he’d just discovered gold in California.

And Darcy was not far off. Alex, a collector of rare books by California authors, had picked up his latest prize sitting in the window of the used book store: a first edition of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister.

“Chandler, 1949. Not mint, but good condition. Very good. And I got a great deal,” Alex had said with his hooded brown eyes lit up like a child on Christmas morning. “They wanted $300. I offered $250.00 and they took it. Can you believe it?”

Darcy couldn’t believe it—but not in the sense that Alex meant. Darcy couldn’t believe anyone in his right mind would spend that much on an old book. But of course, Alex was of a different generation—and a different economic bracket.

Darcy put the expensive first edition Chandler on his own lap for protection. There was turbulence, and the book needed to be kept safe. In fact, the turbulence was beginning to make Darcy sick at his stomach. He glanced again at Alex, whose head was inclined away from him on the seat. He looked too peaceful to bother.

He went back to his novel, or tried to, but the turbulence was too much. He closed the Kindle cover just as the the flight attendant walked by, hanging on to the back of the seats as she passed. "Fasten your seatbelt, please," she said to Darcy. Darcy refastened his seatbelt and, glancing again at his companion, he noticed that Alex had never removed his seat belt, so they were good. But still, who could sleep during this kind of rock and roll ride? But then, the man was in his late sixties—and didn’t older people need naps?

He closed his own eyes for a moment, so he might roll with the turbulence. He heard another thud. This time it was Alex himself. His head had fallen into the window, and then forward in an unnatural way. A sort of slump. Like a rag doll.

Like . . .

Oh my God, thought Darcy, in a flash of realization and shock that left him for an instant, immovable. Frozen. Disbelieving. Oh. My. God.

45: At the Airport . . .

2011-06-03T01:00:00.001-07:00

Approaching John Wayne Airport, still inwardly cursing Geraldine Nash—aka, Resident Psychic of Newport Beach and Surrounding Areas—Madeline Prescott Moore maneuvered her cream colored Volvo up the winding ramp to the departure area and wheeled into the parking lot across from the Terminal B. Thank goodness, she thought, it was a small airport. She could get inside quickly, find out, despite Geraldine’s “vision,” that all was well with Alex’s flight, purchase an overpriced chai tea at Starbucks, grab an Orange County Register, and wait. She would just be early, that’s all. That was her “vision” of what would happen, at least the one she hoped for.

She walked up to the Southwest Airline ticket counter, which was not busy at the moment, and probably never busy since everyone these days bought tickets on-line and used automated machines for check-in. She could have tried to find the big monitor that showed the list of arrivals and departures. It would at least say if a flight was on-time—and if it had crashed, would it have a big, blinking “CRASHED” sign where its arrival time should have been?—but she didn’t want to fool around with that. She simply wanted to talk to a real person and get a real answer. That simple. And then. . . oh, yes, then, she thought with an exhausted sigh, her life would make sense again and all would be well.

She smiled as she greeted the tall, straight backed brunette with a flawless, unlined complexion and heavy, angular, dark-rimmed glasses that said Despite my perfect complexion, tiny nose, and long lashes, I am a serious person.

The woman cracked a frosty smile, but her dark eyes under her serious glasses looked annoyed by Madeline’s presence.

“I’m here to check on . . .” Madeline sputtered, feeling foolish, “I mean . . . well, is flight . . .”—she unfolded the itinerary sheet in her hand—“. . . is flight 230 from Tulsa on time? I’m here to pick up my husband.” She realized that to this young, flawless, professional woman behind the counter, she must sound like a confused elderly woman—gray tufts at the hairline revealing her age—but why not go with it? The woman might be more solicitous to someone who was a little frail of mind.

The woman looked as serious as her glasses. “Just a moment, ma’am.” She turned to her computer monitor and stared with a robotic face.

“Yes. On time. 12:35 arrival. . . . You’re early, by about two hours. And you’ll have to meet him downstairs in baggage.” The woman’s voice was impersonal, flat, and mechanical. But it was also professional and highly competent. Just the voice Madeline needed to hear.

“I know,” Madeline said smiling hugely, like an idiot. “I know. Thanks.”

The woman looked at her oddly, but Madeline didn’t care. She turned away, feeling the weight of the world fall from her. She wanted to collapse in an airport chair with her overpriced tea and newspaper. And just take a few deep breaths.

“Oh, ma’am,” she heard behind her. The same mechanical voice.

She turned back.

“There has been change in the flight. Just now.” The woman’s serious glasses honed in on her computer monitor.

“Oh.” Madeline said, returning to the counter.

“It looks like it’s been diverted. Yes, flight 230 has been diverted to PHX.”

Now Madeline really was confused. “Where?”

“That’s Sky Harbor International Airport.”

“But where is it? What city? PHX. Is that Phoenix, then?”

“Yes, Phoenix,” the woman said. “Phoenix, Arizona,” she added, as if she were speaking to a high school drop-out who hadn’t gotten around to geography.

“But why? Why has it been diverted to Phoenix?”

“I’m not authorized to say.”

Madeline felt her cheeks burn red. “What do you mean, you’re not authorized? You drop a bombshell like that and expect me walk away?” She attempted a deep, yoga breath to calm and de-redden her cheeks.

The woman blinked a few times as if wondering how exactly to deal with an angry—possibly bi-polar—customer with gray hair sprouting out of a red head.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. But I’m not authorized.”

That was it. To hell with yoga breaths. “Well then, get authorized,” Madeline said, “because my husband is on that plane, and I’m not moving from here until I get some answers.”

This seemed to work.

“Just a moment, ma’am.” The woman picked up a phone next to the computer and spoke into it, still staring at the computer screen. Madeline couldn’t hear the conversation as a contingent of rowdy young men with sports bags slung over their shoulders sauntered by with outbursts of laughter and chiding and back slapping like excited young athletes on their way to a soccer game in another city. There was entirely too much soccer going on in Orange County, thought Madeline.

The woman hung up and turned to Madeline, still robot-faced and professional. “It’s been tagged as a medical emergency.”

“What?” Madeline’s heart dropped into her stomach. “What kind of medical emergency?”

“I can’t give out that kind of information, ma’am.”

Madeline made a conscious effort to lower her voice and speak slowly, with the authority and precision befitting a philosopher emeritus. “You will give out that kind of information, because—”

“I know,” the woman said, finally loosening her grip on the robot routine, “Your husband is on that flight. What is his name, please?”

“Alex Moore,” Madeline said quickly, in case the woman turned back into a machine. “His name is Alex—or Alexander—Moore, and he’s travelling with a young friend of ours, Darcy McDermott.”

“That’s his . . . real name?” The woman’s eyebrows shot up out of her glasses. “Darcy McDermott?”

“Yes, I know it’s an odd name,” said Madeline, trying to sound more relaxed. “His mother taught English and, you know, Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen . . .” She trailed off as the machine woman had totally lost interest and had returned to her computer as if to say in Dragnet style, Just the facts, ma’am.

The woman continued to stare at the computer—as if they were One—clicking and staring, staring and clicking. Finally a blink. Then, clicking and staring. Madeline wondered what in the hell the woman was doing—checking her Facebook page?

“Well?” Madeline said. ”What can you tell me . . .–she squinted to read the name badge—“. . . Kari?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Kari said coldly, disregarding Madeline’s first-name attempt, “but I’m not authorized—”

“Then who exactly is authorized?” Madeline said, folding her arms on the counter, as close to Kari the Robot as she could get. “I’d like to speak with your superior, please. . . . Now!”

The woman took a step back, but without losing a beat of professionalism. “One moment, please.” The woman walked away without any rush, the perfect employee.

Madeline watched the pretty machine called Kari walk stiffly away and disappear into a hallway, hopefully toward some official airline offices containing authorized human beings. Madeline’s stomach began to rage with acid. She took a deep breath. It helped. Slightly.

All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well . . .—the words of Julian of Norwich, the Catholic mystic, wandered into her head. These comforting words, along with the yoga breath, helped return Madeline to a calmer frame of mind as she reminded herself that the chances of the medical emergency being Alex was just too remote. There must be hundreds of people on that plane. Still, she wished she had someone with her—her sister, her elderly mother, a friend from Fat Soul Fridays. Even Geraldine, who suddenly went from being an irritating eccentric to a valued friend. She hated this being alone business when her world was teetering.

Finally, a serious looking young man in his thirties, wearing a white shirt and Southwest logo on his beige tie and carrying an old-fashioned clipboard, appeared at the counter. He looked at her in a more personal way. Warm, even. “Ma’am, I’m Jeff from Southwest’s Customer Support. Please, could you step this way?” He motioned for her to follow.

Madeline froze. Something in his manner, his words, his eyes, frightened her. She wished now for Kari’s impersonal, I’m-not-authorized presence. Something was wrong after all. He said as much with his “Could you step this way?” It was as though he were saying, Ma’am, I’m afraid we can’t let you scream or faint right here in front of everybody.

She followed the young man—and for God’s sake, why didn’t they have anybody older working here?—down a nearby corridor that led to the airline office.

“Please, have a seat.” He sat across from her and studied his clipboard. He was handsome, square-jawed and athletic looking, as if he had been forced to give up professional soccer for a real job. “Ma’am, your husband is Alexander Moore? Is that correct?”

“Yes. He just goes by Alex,” she said, even while realizing the irrelevancy of this information.

He nodded and looked down again at his clipboard, as if trying to decide how to say something.

Madeline’s heart nearly stopped beating.

Finally, he looked up at her, half apologetic. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there was an in-flight emergency shortly after take-off in Tulsa. It seems that passenger Alexander Moore—your husband—needed immediate medical attention. The flight attendants followed protocol, and we usually don’t divert unless absolutely necessary. But it was . . .” He paused.

“Yes?”

“Well, in cases like this—”

“Cases like what? Is he all right?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, her fury rising with her voice. “I’m wanting to know what has happened. And if my husband is all right. I have a right to know!”

He shook his head and looked duly sympathetic. “I’m very sorry, ma’am, but I don’t have any information on his condition.”

“But is he . . .”

The man’s hand went up in gesture of assurance. “He is alive or they would not have diverted. That’s the good news.”

She nodded, gratefully, for this crumb of hope and began to feel her heart beating in her chest again. Then, oddly, she wondered what they did with those who . . . didn’t make it.

“And I assure you that our crew followed protocol—”

“You said that already. What protocol?”

“All domestic flights are required to have a defibrillator on board with a crew trained in administering—”

“A defibrillator?” she cut in. “Aren’t those paddles used when the heart stops? Did he have a heart attack?”

“I can’t say exactly.” He crossed his legs as if trying to protect himself from litigious speculation.

“Then what exactly can you say?”

“I can tell you,” he said in a quiet voice, as if trying to calm an hysterical child, “that your husband’s flight lands in Phoenix in thirty minutes”—he glanced at his watch—“or rather, twenty-five minutes. Immediately after landing, he will be escorted by a waiting ambulance to Good Samaritan Hospital—the finest hospital in the nation when it comes to such emergencies. In fact, it’s the official hospital airline crews all over the country call. They speak 140 languages. I didn’t even know there were that many languages in the world . . .”

He rattled on, irrelevantly, infuriatingly. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tell the man to shut up, for God’s sake, and help her get to Phoenix. All she could think of was getting to Alex. She must get to Alex. Her keen mind kicked in to high gear. Jilli, her sister, lived in Phoenix. She could call her. Yes, Jilli could be at the hospital with Alex until . . .

“How fast can I get to Phoenix?” she said, interrupting the young man. “When is the next flight?”

“The next flight departs in one hour. We recommend you take it—a complimentary flight, of course. Let me make the arrangements. And again, I want you to know that our airline staff did everything in its power . . .”

44: A Philosopher on the Brink

2011-05-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

After a curt good-bye to her friend, Geraldine Nash, Madeline hung up the phone, closed her eyes and squeezed them so hard her eyeballs hurt. She tried to take a yoga breath to slow down her heartbeat, but even that was no match for the anger boiling up in her gut. Damn Geraldine and her psychic visions! She steadied herself by watching Socrates go after his seafood pate. 1-2-3-4-5 . . . she counted to ten.

Madeline, an academic, a philosopher, a rational person, didn’t hold much stock in Geraldine’s so-called psychic visions—though metaphysically, she realized it was possible. Anything was possible. Parapsychology was never of interest to her, but there were philosophers with cogent theories in parapsychology, philosophers she respected. Scientists, too, though they were usually studying paranormal experiences under the radar since no reputable institution offered grants for something they considered hooey.

And hadn’t Geraldine seen a vision of water during George’s catering debacle at Darcy’s church? She had been right. The church kitchen had flooded and Darcy had slipped and broken his arm. Other little coincidences–that’s how Madeline’s mind preferred to categorized them—had happened along the way, but Madeline had always shrugged them off with a smile.

But she was not smiling now. Geraldine had predicted some disaster on Alex’s flight from Tulsa. Danger, she had said. Something wrong. And so why wasn’t Darcy mentioned in your so-called vision? she imagined herself saying to her friend. Explain that, Geraldine. They’re on the same flight.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she said to the refrigerator, as she helped herself to the pitcher of iced tea, another part of her after-yoga routine. But it tasted bitter and her stomach roiled. She left the tea on the counter, grabbed her cell phone from the bedroom, and pushed Alex’s name on her contact list. She got his voice mail; but of course, he’d have his cell off if he were already in flight.

She went to kitchen table where sat Alex’s laptop. She searched the napkin holder next to the laptop, where he had left the folded printout of his itinerary. She read the flight number and time of departure, opened the laptop, and Googled Southwest Airlines. She dialed their number on her cell, but she instantly got an automated message that led to another automated message—which, then led to another . . .

She clicked "End" in frustration, left the computer, hurried to her bedroom, threw on some kakis and a sweater, ran a brush through her hair, and, oddly, noticed streaks of gray creeping into the copper coloring, just at the hairline. Why hadn’t she noticed it before now? It was bizarre, she thought, to think about her hair at a time like this, but the intrusive gray streaks were like unwanted customers in the shop. Like Andrea. She always winced inwardly when the blonde cartoon-like bombshell crashed Fat Soul Fridays. That’s how she felt about her streaky gray intruders.

But Alex! Great, she thought. This is just great. I’m worrying about gray hair and thinking of Andrea Ballentine, of all people, when my husband may be in mortal danger. She shook her head as if to get hold of herself, grabbed her purse, and headed toward the door.

Socrates stared at his frazzled companion out of his one eye, his tattered ear twitching in a splash of sunlight.

“I’ll—I mean, we’ll—be back in few hours. Don’t wait up,” she said to the little Cornish Rex whose nap time, extending to most of the day, was about to begin.

The door shut behind her. Socrates listened to the familiar sound of the metal key turning in the lock. He stared at the door with inclined head, as if expecting something more. And there was. There was the sound of the door unlocking. His companion came barreling back in, grabbed the flight itinerary from the table, and left again, cursing Geraldine Nash all the way.

* * *

On the way to John Wayne airport in Santa Ana–a thirty minute drive from Laguna—she turned on the radio. Nothing about a plane crash, thank goodness, but of course there wouldn’t be because it was all just Geraldine’s overactive imagination.

She turned off the radio and thought about what she would say to Geraldine next she saw her, how she would berate her friend for her careless “fuzzy” visions. But more to the point, what would say to the staff of Southwest Airlines? “Oh, my psychic friend thinks there is something wrong with my husband’s flight. She’s had a vision, you see, albeit a fuzzy vision, but you’d better check into it.” She shook her head. Not becoming of a philosopher. Not becoming at all. And the wild gray hair streaking out of her salon-preserved red hair would only add to her batty impression. She sighed. And now it was back to thinking of the gray hair? Odd, she thought, to be distracted by triviality. But it beat thinking of the wide gray sky.

She looked up at the steely marine-layer above and imagined a vulnerable plane, a tiny sliver of metal, piercing though the clouds—a trivial streak of silver in a huge, impersonal sky.

But it wasn’t impersonal, she thought. Not really. Madeline was no atheist. Granted, she did not believe in a traditional, all-powerful God, up there beyond the clouds, working out some divine scheme, like a puppeteer pulling strings—not always lovingly, but with some terrifying jolts and jerks to humanity below. No, she never could believe in that kind of medieval-style deity. But she did believe in Whitehead’s “poet of the world,” a God of love and suffering and presence, infusing even the leaden sky with light. She imagined now, Alex, all wrapped up in light, up there in the sky, all wrapped up and warmed with the comfort of a divine presence, a presence wholly on our side, wholly love, compassion itself, never willing any disaster . . .

Any disaster . . .

Oh, God, he must be all right! He must be all right, because she could not conceive of a world—or herself—without her Alex, her love. Her life.

43: A Woman and a Cat on a Mat

2011-05-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

On the Monday morning that Alex and Darcy were to return from their trip to Oklahoma, Socrates took it upon his feline self to assist his human companion in her daily yoga practice. As was his usual routine during yoga, he stretched out to his full length directly under the woman in the center of the blue yoga mat while she practiced the cat pose — aptly named — on hands and knees. For Socrates, it was like being under a sturdy table, all cozy and secure from all scary things in life. The woman’s cat pose was followed by the cow pose – still on hands and knees — which meant Socrates could stay sprawled and languid, even snooze for a few minutes, that is, until the woman collapsed onto the mat in the cobra pose, forcing his retreat to the far end of the mat. This was their routine, their daily ritual, and neither cat nor woman would change it for anything in the world.

Madeline Prescott Moore smiled down upon her little yoga companion, his tiny lithe body stretched out under her, eyes half-closed in some dreamy meditation of his own. On Monday mornings, when the shop was closed, Madeline normally went to a yoga class, a few doors down from Van Gelder’s, where she would meet her friend and Fat Soul Friday regular, Geraldine Nash. But today was different. She would be picking up Alex and Darcy at John Wayne Airport in a couple of hours, so her schedule was a bit tight. But even then, her twenty minutes of yoga with Socrates must not be hurried.

As Madeline completed her routine with an upward salute pose, she offered a little prayer, a secret affirmation that she had mouthed to herself every morning for years.

Today,

in some small way,

may I add to the amount

of happiness in the world.

It was a simple prayer that came to her one day after lecturing to a room full of undergraduate philosophy students. Her lecture was on Bentham and Mill who believed that the goal of moral conduct was to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Including oneself, she thought, since happiness boomeranged (to use George’s metaphor) back to oneself. It is, she thought, like the verse from the Gospel of Luke: “Give, and it will be given to you.” Or the words of the Dalai Lama: “. . . the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.” Or from Robert Kennedy — her and Alex’s special hero — who said “You’re happiest when you’re making the greatest contribution.”

So, buttressed by the wisdom of philosophical and spiritual traditions, this was her starting point for her “happiness experiment,” the little exercise she had given to her Fat Soul Friday group. Something novel, she had said. Do something novel — different from your normal routine — to help create happiness in another, and then analyze how it makes you feel. Happier?

Of course it seemed with a priori reasoning that helping others naturally creates more happiness in the giver and thereby increases the total amount of happiness in the world. But there was something about actually testing a theory for oneself with focused intention — a little empirical test, so to speak — like the lab portion of a science class. It was the kind of thing she would have done with her undergraduate philosophy class at Berkeley. Yes, she thought, it was a good experiment for Fat Soul Fridays — a stretching of the soul — she thought, now stretching her arms even further upward as she felt her spine tingle with the rejuvenation of blood flow.

But the real catalyst for the happiness experiment came from George Saunders when he gave away all those TOMS shoes on Fat Soul Friday, and by this act, helped many shoeless children around the world. That was the spark. That was it. And it came from the least likely person, the one member of Fat Soul Friday who had once balked at the idea of helping others as a path to happiness.

But George Saunders was not the same George Saunders Madeline had interviewed for the job of manager of Van Gelder’s Tea and Books. No, George was changing before her eyes, breaking out of a shell of insecurity and pain and moving into a larger space, as if his very soul were breaking out – maybe even bourgeoning, she thought (still in love with that word). Or ripening, as Rilke, the poet, might say. Yes, ripening. A ripening soul — that was George.

Except for one thing.

The shadow of George’s estrangement from his parents, a ten-year affair of deep and damaging silence, often darkened his bright blue eyes, creating a penumbra of past pain that would have future repercussions on his relationship with his partner, Felipe. And with everyone, really. Alex and Darcy, in their own stealthy way, were attempting to remove that one stumbling block to George’s happiness, as part of their own happiness experiment. At first, Madeline was against their going to Oklahoma to find his parents, feeling that family dynamics were too complicated for such an intrusion from the outside. But then Alex convinced her that it was surely worth the effort of trying. And, of course, he was right.

And yet . . . it was, after all, quite complicated, as family situations usually are. As she struggled to roll up her yoga mat with a stubborn Socrates hanging on for dear life (also part of their routine), she thought about the phone call from Alex. From his report, the results were . . . mixed.

She sighed and looked down at Socrates, who was now sitting on his haunches with an alert stare out of his one eye, his mangled ear so pitiful, so endearing. “What do you think will happen?” she asked the cat. He inclined his head as if thinking it over.

Alex had first relayed the good news that Irene, George’s mother, was ready for such a reuniting with her son. Something about a recent disillusionment with her fundamentalist pastor, and he would explain later. But her husband, George, Sr., had come in from a church meeting while they were still with Irene. Alex said he was angry and agitated by their presence and immediately ushered the two men out with self-righteous indignation and a few choice words, saying that George was a “fag” — a dated term, she mused, one that revealed the long history of his bigotry — and that until he repented and turned back (apparently to a fantasized heterosexual tendency) — that he, George, Sr., would continue to consider his son dead to him.

She shuddered at the thought of such a man, so fossilized in his homophobia that he had given it religious authority. And so it was left like that: one parent against another, wife against husband, religion against human feeling. Alex was particularly worried over having “stirred up a hornet’s nest that most likely lead to some terrible marital row.” And they both knew that in the religious fundamentalist world view, the man always got his way, while the woman was to be submissive. This made Madeline’s blood boil, to think that such people still existed, but there it was. If Irene had to choose between her faith and her child, her child and her husband, what would she do? And at what cost?

They would have to wait and see.

But she wasn’t going to stress over it. Nor was she going to stress over Darcy’s crisis with the beautiful Elena Velasco. Naturally, she couldn’t wait to hear how Elena was dealing with her jerk of a boyfriend, and if she would ever look at Darcy as more than a good friend. These things interested Madeline immensely, as she felt a part of a big family, a Fat Soul Friday family, in which she felt to be the mother over all the younger people in the group. A part she didn’t mind playing. In fact, she thought, smiling to herself, it gave her retirement a sense of heightened purpose and buoyancy — the contagious energy of youth.

And now she felt especially happy in anticipation of the results of her own happiness experiment. She couldn’t wait to spill the secret with the group on Friday, when everyone would share what they had done and the results. Her own experiment made her want to burst, like a child at a birthday party hiding a wrapped gift behind her back. Not even Alex was privy to it.

“Secrets can be fun,” she said to a cat who made it no secret that, after an exhausting yoga session, it was time for a mid-morning snack of Friskies seafood pate.

As she opened the pate, the fishy smell nearly gagging her so early in the day, the phone rang. It was Geraldine Nash — probably wondering why Madeline was not at yoga class.

“Madeline, dear, are you sitting down?”

“I hate it when people say ‘are you sitting down?’ Out with it, Geraldine. What’s wrong?”

“Well, something, I’m afraid. Yes, something is wrong. I can feel it and can . . . well, I can almost see it . . . ” She made a few hesitant noises, as was her humble way when trying to relay her self-proclaimed psychic visions — visions that Madeline had to reluctantly admit tended to be on the accurate side.

“Go on,” Madeline urged.

“Well, it’s still a little fuzzy—”

“What’s fuzzy?” Madeline pressed, rolling her eyes at Socrates, as if he, too, shared her impatience with an eccentric elderly woman.

“Something is wrong, dear. I’m afraid my radar on this is . . . well, a tad alarming.”

“For God’s sake, Geraldine. Tell me what’s on your mind — or rather, your radar. I’ll even sit down.”

She did not sit down.

“Well, I — oh, please, don’t shoot the messenger — I see . . . Alex.”

“Alex? What do you mean, you see Alex?”

“It’s sort of in and out, but I see him on an airplane.”

“I’m picking him up at the airport in a couple of hours. Of course he’s on an airplane. Southwest Airlines.”

“Oh,” said Geraldine quietly. “I think, dear, you’d better call the airline, then. I sense danger. Something is wrong on that plane . . . ”

42: Irene Saunders Gets a Surprise

2011-05-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

At the doorstep of Saunders’ home on Jim Thorpe Avenue, Darcy McDermott rang the bell. The routine was familiar. In his profession, the ministry, it was termed “calling” on people. It sounded a little Victorian to Darcy—people “calling” on their friends in drawing rooms—but Darcy didn’t mind that archaism. He liked “calling” on people, especially if they met him with a smile and a glass of iced tea. He liked listening to people. That’s what his version of “calling” was, at least pastoral calling: simple, compassionate listening.

But his mature and handsomely grayed companion, Alex Moore, was not used to calling on people. He stood unnaturally straight beside Darcy, beads of sweat glistening on his brow, as if he had been called on by a teacher to recite the Gettysburg’s Address in front of the class. Darcy had to admit that this was a stressful situation. George’s parents were strangers—and very possibly hostile, given the circumstances. Darcy, being trained and seasoned in awkward situations, was prepared for the worst, but hopeful for the best. Alex, on the other hand, was shaking in his loafers, and Darcy knew it.

Taking the lead, Darcy rang the bell again. And again. After three times, the two men looked at one another. Darcy thought he saw relief fill Alex’s eyes. However, Darcy reasoned, if the Saunders were not home, he and Alex would just have to return later on that night, so Darcy buzzed again, hopefully.

The door finally opened.

“Can I help you?” spoke a slightly husky female voice in a mechanical, almost weary manner. The woman speaking was hard to make out clearly in the shadows behind the screen door. She did not open the screen, but stood behind it as if it were a protective shield against a cold, unfeeling, threatening world. What Darcy could make out was that she was tall—possibly six feet—middle-aged, and light-skinned like George. Her short, straw-like blonde hair looked matted on one side, as if she had just woken from a nap. But it was her demeanor that made Darcy want to take a step or two back. Her expression—tight lips and cold eyes—gave the impression that life was hard, everyone was out to cheat her, and that she owned a handgun.

She moved slightly, and a ray of sunshine revealed blue eyes—like her son’s—a reddish streak in her hair, neatly plucked eyebrows, and—most striking, to Darcy—visible lines emanating from her thin upper lip. A chain-smoker, he thought. Her sallow, lined complexion added to the evidence. In fact, she looked prematurely wrinkled all over her face; either too much sun or too many cigarettes, he thought. Or maybe just too much trouble. She had once been beautiful, thought Darcy, for he could see George’s good looks in her defined cheek bones and blue eyes. Her eyes were not beautiful now, as they lacked liveliness and sparkle. They were cold, suspicious, tightly guarded blue eyes. Eyes that had onced looked upon her gay son with utter and complete rejection.

Darcy felt a cold shiver in her presence, as if she were infecting the air and the space and the people around her with all the sorrows and disappointments of her life.

He stood up straight and said, “Good afternoon.” His voice faltered and he sounded a bit like a frog. “Is this the Saunders’ residence?”

“Yes. I’m Irene Saunders. Why? Who are you?” She looked from one man to the other, flicking her steely blue eyes back and forth like she might be assessing which one to shoot first.

“I’m Reverend Darcy McDermott and this is my friend, Alex Moore.”

“I already have my church, thank you very much,” she said briskly, already starting to shut the door.

“But we’re not here on behalf of a church,” said Darcy.

Alex shook his head in confirmation.

The woman now looked at Alex with a flicker of interest at the handsome older man. She inclined her head, as if studying him. She spoke directly to him directly. “Then, what is this about? I’ve got things to do.”

Alex cleared his throat and took a step forward. “It’s about your son, Mrs. Saunders. It’s about George.”

With that, Irene Saunders opened her thin, wrinkled mouth as wide as she could and her neatly plucked eyebrows collapsed into jagged creases of pain. She stood there, looking shocked for several seconds. Then tears began to form.

“George?” she said, finally, in a smaller voice, as if the sound of her son’s name tore down a guarded gate. “My George?”

“Well, you see—” said Alex, but he couldn’t get very far.

Irene Saunders began to openly weep, brushing away the tears with the back of her hand. Darcy and Alex looked at each other.

“Could we come in?” asked Darcy. “Please.”

The tall woman unlocked the screen door and ushered the men in. She did not invite them to sit, as her emotion seemed to blot out everything. She fell onto a cushiony blue sofa, her tall frame melting into it. Then she seemed to utterly fall into her hands, sobbing.

“No!” they could hear her say in a muffled tone. “He can’t be gone. No!”

Alex looked confused, and it suddenly hit Darcy that Irene Saunders thought her son must be dead.

Darcy sat down beside her on the sofa, noting a faint smell of cigarette smoke in the room. “No, Mrs. Saunders, it’s not that.”

“Was it . . . you know . . . AIDS?” she asked Alex, as if not hearing Darcy. “I knew it. I knew he would get that disease if he went to California. Oh, George, if only . . .” Even with her large frame, Irene Saunders seemed fragile as she trailed off into some other world where she had already fantasized the worst for her estranged son.

“No!” said Alex, positioning himself on the edge of a Queen Anne chair across from Irene, leaning in toward her. His voice held the kind of authority and maturity that Irene Saunders apparently respected. Just as apparent, she seemed to write off Darcy as some half-baked, freckled kid compared to his older, more handsome companion. Darcy didn’t take it too personally, and thought it best to let Alex—a suddenly calm, cool, and collected Alex—take it from here.

“Mrs. Saunders,” Alex said, “you’ve got it all wrong. George is alive and well.”

She froze for a minute, shook her head as if confused and then sat up, looking at Alex with wide eyes, eyes that looked half-relieved and half-bewildered. Then she smiled. And when she smiled, Darcy noted the lines of age disappeared and she looked almost beautiful. She certainly looked less forbidding.

“Alive and well? George is alive and well?”

“Quite alive and well,” said Alex. “And I’m terribly sorry I misled you. He works for me, you see. He’s the manager of my shop, a tea and bookshop in Laguna Beach.”

“Is that in California?”

“Yes, it is.”

“But is that close to San Francisco? Don’t all the . . . well, boys like him go to meet other . . . well, you know.”

“No, San Francisco is quite further north,” said Alex. “We’re in Orange County, in Southern California, south of Los Angeles.”

“But, you sound English, like you’re from . . . England,” she said, puzzled, as if Alex did not meet her expectations of a Californian.

“I am, originally. London.”

“Oh,” she said, with admiration in her voice. “You’ve got a very nice accent.”

Alex offered his most attractive smile. Darcy, now enjoying his role as observer, knew Irene Saunders was putty in the Brit’s hands.

“So, tell me about George,” she said. “Tell me all about my boy.”

For a woman who had coldly and brutally disowned her son, this woman surprised Darcy. Certainly not what he expected.

“Well, as it happens,” said Alex, in his best British way, said, “He’s a fine young man. Doing well. Healthy. Doing well, yes.” He seemed to be stuck and flustered as to what else to say at this delicate juncture.

Darcy intervened, in hopes of getting to the bottom of things before the sun went down. “Mrs. Saunders, you said you already had a church. Do you want me to call your pastor?”

“I don’t have a pastor,” she said coldly, suddenly aware of the Darcy’s presence. She sat up very straight, turned to him with eyes that reverted back into hard steel.

“But . . .”

“Our pastor has been dismissed,” she said to a bewildered Darcy. “Fired,” she said loudly, as if Darcy were an idiot. “We don’t have a permanent pastor anymore.”

“And why was he . . . dismissed?” Darcy probed. He felt more like a detective than a minister, but he couldn’t help himself.

She relaxed into a resigned sort of slouch. “Oh, it’s a scandal. He was found sleeping with one of the choir members.”

Darcy looked at Alex, sharing raised brows, and back at Irene. “Sorry to hear that.”

“And that’s not all. It wasn’t just any choir member. It was a male choir member.”

“Oh,” said Alex. “Oh,” he repeated, almost to himself.

She looked satisfied at the shock value of her words and continued, “A young man. Looks to be about your age,” she said, looking at Darcy as if he were guilty of some terrible crime. “Turned out he, himself, was one of those . . . those gay people. After preaching against them, and convincing Mr. Saunders and me that”–she shook her head to ward off the emotion—“that we should look on our boy as . . . well as dead to us.”

Darcy shook his head in sympathy. “That must have felt like a kind of betrayal.”

She gave snort of a laugh. “To say the least. It was a terrible betrayal of our trust. We trusted him. Everybody trusted him. Hundreds of people trusted him. It wasn’t just us,” she said looking them both in turn, as if she had to convince them that they were not the only dupes. “And he betrayed us all.” She paused, fidgeted and blinked too fast, as if struggling for composure. “And I lost my only boy over it.”

“You have other children?” asked Alex. “George never mentioned—”

“I have two daughters from my first marriage,” she said. “They lived with their dad most of the time. The girls and George were never close.” She paused, giving Alex a questioning look. “But why are you here, then? Did George send you?”

“Not exactly,” said Alex. “We came on our own because, you see, George is pretty torn up over the estrangement.”

“Is that what he calls it? An . . . estrangement? It’s a big word for George. He was always popular at school, but not what you called . . . well, college material. But he was so good-looking. The girls were always after him. And so it was big shock when we found out about him, you know. Broke his dad’s heart. But, you say he’s torn up?”

Alex nodded. “Quite torn up. But I think he’s afraid to come home.”

A fit of emotion seized her. “He wants to come home?”

“What I mean is, Irene—is it all right if I call you Irene?—he’s afraid of trying to initiate a reconciliation. He doesn’t want to face anymore . . . rejection.”

At this, her cold, guarded eyes relented; feeling spilled through. She let the heavy drops roll down her cheek and fall off onto her blouse, as if giving in completely.

Alex looked uncomfortable. “Can we just talk a bit? I think it would make you feel better.”

She accepted a tissue from Alex's pocket. “Thanks. But it’s his fault.”

Alex sat back. “George’s fault?”

“No. No! Pastor Dwayne’s fault!”

Now this was getting interesting, thought Darcy.

“And even when we told George that he was . . . you know, dead to us . . . I only went along with it, thinking that it might shake George up and make him repent and come back to us. Pastor Dwayne called it ‘tough love.’” She snorted at this. “Yeah, right. Tough love. Sounded good. I didn’t want my only son to go to the hell. To burn for all eternity! Surely you can understand that?” She looked from one man to another.

Alex struggled with how to respond. Darcy nodded with his best show of sympathy, but inwardly finding it hard to imagine how a woman like Irene could be so duped by Pastor Dwayne’s medieval and bigoted version of religion.

She sniffed and looked down, talking to her beige slacks. “But he never did. Never came back to us. We lost track of him and every time I would fall apart over it, my husband–that’s George, Sr.—would tell me to go talk to Pastor Dwayne. I did. I went almost once every year, about the time of George’s birthday. I’d tell the pastor that I thought we’d made a mistake by being so harsh. But he always pulled out his Bible and read me passages and convinced me to hold fast. To believe that George would one day repent and return to the Lord. And to us.” She welled up, and then cried, “But he never did!”

Alex put his arm around her in a comforting way. “Irene, when did this thing—this scandal—happen with your pastor.”

“Three months ago,” she said, wiping her eyes. “And for three months I’ve thought of nothing but George. I wanted to find him and tell him I was sorry, that I was duped. And all this time, Pastor Dwayne was a gay person himself, which I still can’t understand.”

“A classic case of ‘Thou dost protest too much,’ said Alex.

Irene looked confused.

“Shakespeare. I mean that Pastor Dwayne must have been fighting against his own self with all that preaching against it.”

She nodded. “Yeah, and all that fighting within himself just hurt so many people.”

“Very sad,” said Alex. “Tragic, really.”

Darcy nodded, but invisibly so, as Irene was so fixed on Alex.

She looked up at Alex now with imploring eyes. “Look, I just want to see my son again. I want to say that I’m sorry. That I love him. And even if he is gay, he is still my son. I don’t know what I think about homosexuality anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters right now, but seeing my boy.”

Darcy nearly fell over. The work was already done. At least at this point—the emotional breakthrough—there was no need to try and convince Irene of a more educated and humane approach to understanding the Bible. That God was love. That being gay was not a sin. That Pastor Dwayne was a bigot wrapped up in sheep’s clothing. No need to wean her away from a charismatic egomaniac who evidently held pliable, feeble minds tightly in his grip. No, the work was done by Pastor Dwayne’s own doing—or undoing, as was the case. Through the cloud of disillusionment, her maternal feelings, pressed down for so many years, sprang up with a fierceness and urgency that made her seem actually human—sympathetic, even.

Just as Darcy was breathing a sigh of relief, the door opened and a large, red-faced, thick-necked man entered, wearing a dark tie and carrying a jacket over his shoulder. “What’s going on here?” he said gruffly. “Who are you people?”

“This is George, Sr.,” said Irene, unsteadily. She turned to her husband, drying her eyes with one hand. “They’ve come to tell us that George is all right. That he’s in California, working as a waiter—”

“Well, not really a waiter. More of a shop manager,” Alex said.

The man didn’t seem much interested in the clarification. He stood before them, wide and tall—even taller than his wife—and much more threatening. “I’m going to have to ask you gentlemen to leave. You’ve upset my wife. And we have no son.”

41: Searching for Jim Thorpe Avenue

2011-05-06T03:20:00.000-07:00

Alex Moore had always felt himself to be a rational man, yes, just an average British-American: husband, booklover, business man, patron of the arts, etcetera, etcetera—yes, as rational and sane as the next bloke. But now, for the first time, he questioned that view of himself. Here he was in a strange city, driving a rental car that smelled too strong of vanilla, lurching about in stop and go fashion, squinting at street signs for an elusive Jim Thorpe Avenue, and trying to ferret out people he had never met . . . complete strangers who would not welcome their visit in the least. Well, it boggled the mind. Was this rash behavior the beginning of some brain dysfunction due to the aging process?

He glanced furtively over at his companion—accomplice, perhaps?—the Rev. Darcy McDermott, whom he had practically dragged with him, hoping for . . . for what? Stamp of divine approval?

He also felt vaguely irritated at Madeline for having brought up the whole idea of the “happiness experiment.” She had suggested at a Fat Soul Friday meeting that they test what George had called the “boomerang” effect of helping other people. Did an act of goodness, kindness—even a sacrificial act—then boomerang back to create more happiness in oneself, thus creating more overall happiness in the world? Or was happiness more like a pie that, with each piece you give away, you have less for yourself? Everyone was supposed to do something novel, out of their ordinary routine, to help someone else and report back. If it weren’t for that meeting, Alex thought with regret, he wouldn’t have come up with the daft idea of trying to unite George with his estranged parents and would not be in this bloody awkward situation. At the moment, he was feeling quite unhappy, quite ridiculous really. The pie theory was bearing down on him. His old cynicism was fighting against his better self.

In the passenger’s seat of the white Camry, the young minister, Darcy McDermott, dressed in kakis and Hawaiian shirt under a scruffy jacket did not look much like the vicars of old, the stereotypical dark dress and white starched collar of the Anglican church of Alex’s youth. But times were different, and Darcy was his own man. Alex liked him for it; he just hoped the George’s parents would see him as equal in authority to their own Pastor Dwayne—he apparently had no last name as George only called him Pastor Dwayne—the fundamentalist minister who apparently swayed the Saunders into removing themselves from their gay son. Alex and Darcy’s goal, their mission (if Alex dared to call it that) was to somehow undo that damage.

The enormity of the task ahead simply defeated him. Beads of sweat trickled down his face. Silly, this, he thought, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. Utterly naïve. Wasn’t he supposed to be wise at his age? He seemed wise enough last night in the café, talking about overcoming fear. Ha! He felt ashamed that, within less than 24 hours, he had reverted to a coward.

Sighing heavily and shaking his head, he simply couldn’t go on. Darcy noticed his distress.

“What?” asked Darcy, wide-eyed, nervous, and on high alert as they searched for a street sign Jim Thorpe Avenue. “Something wrong?”

Alex pulled the car over to the curb, turned off the ignition, and said to Darcy—without making direct eye contact—“Look. I really have to tell you, Darcy, that I’m having some second thoughts about the whole thing.”

“Second thoughts? You have second thoughts?” Darcy’s eyes were wide and disbelieving. And, if Alex could read faces, slightly perturbed.

“Of sorts, yes. I . . . well, I wonder if I’ve brought you here for . . . well, for nothing. Nothing except a silly, naïve idea of mine that should best be abandoned. You, yourself, were not hopeful from the beginning, and I know you only came to humor me, an old man with silly ideas.”

As Alex spoke, his eyes scanned the neighborhood. A dog, a terrier of some sort, tethered to a young woman, caught his eye. The fussy little animal on a red leash pranced past them without so much as a pause, as if so sure of where he was going, who he was tethered to, and what he was about, that it seemed even a dog was more confident than Alex Moore, human being.

The dog looked happy; dogs always looked happy. He looked well-fed, too. Alex thought: I could have given a large bag of Puppy Chow to the animal shelter and be done with the so-called Happiness Experiment. The dogs would have been utterly thrilled. He also pictured the nice woman at the shelter beaming with gratitude. That would have been enough to satisfy his friends on Fat Soul Fridays . . .

“We could,” Alex said in a tentative tone, “just drive round and find out where they hide their independent bookstores, take in film, maybe a stroll downtown . . . you know, just make a nice weekend of it. Tulsa is a great city, after all. So much we haven’t seen . . . Indian museums and such . . .”

Darcy sat staring at Alex with gaping mouth. Finally, he said with exaggerated consternation, “Are you kidding me?” He fidgeted in his seat and then shook his head. “You’re the one who convinced me—quoting RFK, no less—and now you’re what? Chickening out?”

“Well—”

“No. No!” said Darcy, now unmistakably perturbed. “If Madeline were here, she would kick your royal butt.”

Alex flinched and then smiled. He’d never heard Darcy talk like this.

“You can’t do this to me,” said Darcy. “Or to George.”

“But George doesn’t know we’re here.”

“But Felipe does.”

“What?” Alex felt a stab of alarm. George’s partner would surely tell him.

“He won’t tell George, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as I can be. I swore him to secrecy, since we all know that if this goes South, George would never forgive our intervention. But I had to tell Felipe in order to get the information about the Saunders.”

“And how did Felipe take it? This cracked idea of ours?”

“To tell you the truth, Felipe was elated. Surprised—yeah, oh yeah. He couldn’t believe we would go to this kind of trouble for George. But he was so happy, Alex. If you think about it, he’s the one who is suffering the most from the estrangement. Felipe told me that if they are ever to have a solid relationship, then George has to somehow make peace with his family. Or make peace with not having a family. Either way, George’s suffering is—”

“Contagious,” said Alex, in an almost mumble to himself, remembering the long-ago conversation he and Madeline had had after RFK was assassinated. Violence in the world was contagious, she had said; but so was hope, he had rejoined. So was hope. And now they were working on the theory—testing it, really—that happiness was also contagious, that is multiplied rather than diminished when someone sacrificed something on behalf of another.

“Not only that,” said Darcy, “but how do you think I got the information on the Saunders? I had to talk to Felipe. Aside from looking them up in the White Pages for the address, I felt we needed more to go on. He told me what he knew about George’s family, confirmed where they lived, told me a little about them—”

“And you’re just now telling me?” asked Alex, turning fully to meet Darcy’s eyes.

“Well, it’s nothing that much. Really. Felipe only knows that Mr. Saunders, that’s George, Sr., owns a car company here in town—Saunders’ Used Cars, something like that. And that his mother is the book keeper for the same company. That’s it.”

“So now we have to go through with it,” said Alex, with more resignation and irritation than he actually felt.

“I’m going through with it, with or without you,” said Darcy with resolution in his voice. “Look,” he said more gently, “it’s not such a . . . cracked idea, as you say. You’re just trying to be part of a healing process, that’s all. I like to think that we’re”—he held out both hands looked at them as if they were new to him—“that we are God’s hands and feet in this world. You know, like when you used to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity. Same thing. Or like an athlete trying for a goal. We have to put in the sweat, Alex, if we really feel it’s important.”

“Breaking a sweat,” said Alex with a sigh. “Well, I’m breaking one right now.”

“I know you’re nervous. So am I. But, hey, think of athletes. They have to break out in a sweat to accomplish their goal.”

Alex thought about that. He said, “Jim Thorpe—the name on the street we can’t find. He was that great athlete of Oklahoma, wasn’t he?”

“Of Oklahoma?” Darcy nearly shouted. “Try the world. He was the greatest athlete of his day, maybe of all time.” He paused and said more calmly, “You know what his Indian name means, Alex?”

“You know these details?”

“I’m not that smart. I just read up on him in the hotel magazine. Thorpe’s life was so full of triumph and tragedy, stuff we all learned in school. But what I never knew is the meaning of his name. Not Jim Thorpe, but his Indian name. He was raised as a Sac and Fox, and his native name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which literally means, ‘path lighted by great flash of lightning.’ Or, simply, ‘Bright Path.’”

“Bright Path,” repeated Alex. “Sounds like there’s a sermon in there somewhere.”

“No sermon, just kind of a nice image, don’t you think? Light is often used as a metaphor for the divine in Scripture. So I like that: bright path. Like a path lined with the thoughts of God. Compassion, healing, suffering, too. But always lit up with flashes of divine urgings for the well-being in the world.”

“Divine urgings? Like the ‘lure of God’ Madeline always talks about in her process philosophy?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Like a divine urging in every moment, just a quick flash of light in our path, directing us to actualize that particular brightness in the world.”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .” said Alex, now feeling ashamed for his cold feet and sweating brow.

Darcy, ever the preacher, continued, “And you, Alex, had an idea, that—I admit—I was slow to come around to. But I’ve prayed and meditated on it, and I’ve come to see your so-called ‘cracked’ idea as one of those flashes of light. You shared it with me, and now I’ve got the same flash of light in my own path. And I think we need to follow it.”

“But can’t it happen without us? I mean surely there are others better suited to intervene—”

Darcy cut him off with a shake of his head. “If we don’t follow up on these sudden flashes of what-might-be, what-could-be, then nothing will ever happen. God needs us. That’s how God works. That’s how goodness works. . ."

“What-might-be, what-could-be,” repeated Alex.

“Which means," said Darcy, "we take risks, especially when it comes to people you love.” He paused, and added, “Someone you think of as . . . a son?”

Slightly embarrassed, Alex glanced away toward the trees and houses–backlit by the waning sun. What time was it? 3:00? 3:30? Time was slipping away. Darcy knew how to hit the mark, he thought. Of course George was like a son to him. So was Darcy, for that matter. That was the occupational hazard of having no children of one's own. And he had a point. What lengths does one go to for a loved one?

Darcy’s passion for his subject touched Alex, reminding him of Madeline in her youth, when they had first met. In the same way, he felt buoyed by Darcy’s youthful idealism; in fact, he felt back to his old—or rather young—self. Squinting into the bright afternoon sun, he pointed to the street sign only a few feet in front of them.

“There,” he said. “Jim Thorpe Avenue. Right in front of us. By George, I think we’ve got it.”