Can I Get An Amen? (34 page)

“Hiiiii,” she crowed, zeroing in on Jill first. “I haven’t seen you in
ages
! You look
fabulous
.”

Jill shot me a look before she responded coolly, but politely, “Hi, Parker. Good to see you.”

“I didn’t know you knew Lynn and Ed.”

“I don’t, really.” She gestured toward Greg, who was standing in front of the bar, picking his teeth with a cocktail toothpick. “But my husband’s family has known them for years.”

“Oh,
right
, you married Greg Wadinowski.” Parker kept on her plastic smile while giving Greg an appraising look; then her eyes returned to Jill. “Well, Lynn is
great.
You should totally talk to her about joining her women’s group.”

“What women’s group?” asked Jill, with only a hint of mocking detectable in her voice.

Parker’s face became earnest and almost philosophical. “It’s just a chance for married women to get together. There are all different ages, so the older women kind of mentor the younger women.”

Though my presence had yet to be acknowledged by Parker, I knew that the qualifier “married women” was for my benefit. Exclusion was always Parker’s weapon of choice. As I stood there, I marveled at how little Parker had changed since high school. In my silence, I wondered if I had.

“Sounds great,” said Jill, in a way that indicated Lynn’s group had little or no appeal for her.

Parker then turned toward me, as if she had only just been alerted to my presence and was almost taken aback. “Ellen, it’s so funny to see you out of context.” She splayed her open palm over her heart. “I guess I’m just used to seeing you at the office.”

I laughed politely as I took my glass of wine from Greg, who had slipped up next to Jill.

“Parker, this is my husband, Greg,” said Jill flatly.

Parker immediately extended her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve known your wife for
years
.”

Greg, the toothpick still in his mouth, shook Parker’s hand. “Yeah. Good to meet ya.”

With the formalities out of the way, Parker again focused on me. “So, Ellen,” she began, “Philip says that you are seeing someone.” She glanced around the room with wide, innocent eyes. “Is he here?”

I imagined how this detail would have come up, if Philip would have offered it to Parker as some sort of insurance policy.
“No, actually we aren’t together anymore.” I did my best to sound brave and confident, reminding myself that it was
my
choice.

Parker’s face scrunched up in sympathy, her lips forming a little pout. “It must be
so hard
,” she said, “to be single and in your”—her voice lowered to a near whisper—“situation.”

Jill tilted her head and looked hard at Parker. “What do you mean
in her situation
?”

I shot Jill a warning look, begging her not to escalate anything with Parker. But Jill had been waiting for years to show Parker that she now had the backbone that neither of us ever had before. For reasons I didn’t yet understand, her resentment of Parker, of Parker’s family and everything they represented, was bigger than even she knew.

Parker was the only one who should have realized how deep Jill’s animosity ran. She should have seen the steel in her eyes. But instead of backing down, of minimizing her comment, she gave Jill a knowing look, one that pretended to beg for discretion, and gave Jill exactly what she was waiting for.

“I just think it would be
devastating
to face infertility,” she breathed, looking from Jill to me, and extending her hand to rub the top of my arm, her own pregnant belly mockingly swollen. “It must be so hard to start to date again.”

“Ellen has no trouble attracting men.” I heard the innuendo in Jill’s voice and looked at her again, begging her not to do it.

“I didn’t mean to imply
that
,” oozed Parker. “I just think that most men aren’t enlightened enough to get past that sort of thing. Even my Philip has said that starting a family was hugely important…”

“Yes,
your Philip
is quite the family man,” interrupted Jill, with a caustic smirk.

“Jill…,” warned Greg, sensing the danger of the ground on which she was treading.

Parker’s face spasmed as she tried to remain calm and in control. “I’m sorry, Jill—what?” She enunciated every syllable, the threat in her voice making it clear that the question was not to be answered. She had intended to intimidate Jill, but Parker no longer knew the woman who was standing in front of her, the woman who had been emboldened by unconditional love.

Jill raised her chin. “Let’s just say that Philip sure can be enlightened when he wants to be.”

“What are you implying?” hissed Parker. Greg wrapped his arm protectively around Jill.

“Like I said, Ellen has no trouble attracting men.”

With that, Parker’s face twisted free of its mask, and every muscle that had struggled to contain her hate, her humiliation, was now free. “What?” she demanded louder than was comfortable, her lower jaw jutting out aggressively. There was no answer but silence.
“What?”
she repeated, even louder this time.

Philip, now alerted to the exchange, came walking quickly up. “Parker, sweetheart, what’s going on?” Though his words suggested his concern was for Parker, his eyes darted nervously around the room, taking stock of who was watching, of who was present.

But Parker was now focused on me, her eyes boring into mine with unadulterated fury. “What is your fat fucking friend talking about, hmm? What did you tell her?”

Greg was trying to lead Jill away, but she shrugged him off. “She didn’t have to tell me anything, Parker.
Everyone
knows.” It was a cruel thing to say, and probably untrue, but Jill wasn’t concerned about fighting fair.

Parker whipped around, shaking with rage as she looked at
Jill, who up until now had been frightening in her calm. Only a hint of emotion crept into Jill’s voice as she asked, slowly and with clear purpose, “Married a guy just like dear old Dad, didn’t you, Parks?”

I took a reflexive step back, realizing immediately that something deep and poisonous had been unearthed. Greg said Jill’s name emphatically and took her hand. “Come on. Let’s go,” he said.

But Parker couldn’t be so easily contained. “Fuck you,” she spat, her eyes filling with acid tears as she looked at Jill, then at me. “Fuck you both.”

Murmurs erupted from the handful of couples around us as discreet glances were cast over shoulders. “Parker…,” scolded Philip through gritted teeth, as he firmly took her upper arm.

I stepped between Parker and Jill, resting my hand on Jill’s back to help Greg guide her out of the room.

“Stay away from my husband,” I heard Parker say, though I didn’t turn around.

Once in the foyer, Greg immediately took charge. “I’ll take Jill to the car. You go tell your mother that I’m driving you home.”

I nodded gratefully, then headed back to the living room, peeking through the door to confirm that Parker and Philip were gone.

Mom was still chatting obliviously, part of a large group on the opposite end of the enormous room. As I slid quickly through the crowd, past the absorbed conversations and engaged discussions, I realized that what had gone on between Jill, Parker, and myself was in actuality a quiet implosion, registering only with those directly around us.

I tapped my mother’s shoulder. “Mom.”

She turned around, her face pure light. “Oh, hey, honey!” The group parted slightly to make room for me, and my mother gestured to the tall man in front of her. He had gentle eyes and dark brown hair that was graying at the temples. It was Eugene White. I recognized him from church that morning. “Pastor White, this is my daughter Ellen.”

He reached out to shake my hand, grasping it between both of his. “Hello, Ellen,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The moment he touched my hand, I felt tears spring to my eyes. “You were overwhelmed by the spirit,” my mother would say. But I think that in Eugene White’s quiet confidence, in his strong but gentle nature, he reminded me of someone. Someone I missed. “You as well,” I managed before I turned back to my mother and he was reabsorbed into the fold.

“Are you all right?” asked Mom, scrutinizing my reddened eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said dismissively. “But I’m actually going to head out. Jill and Greg are going to take me home.”

“Well, all right, honey,” she said.

. . .

I flew through the front door and down the stone steps to the driveway, where Greg and Jill were waiting in Greg’s idling tanklike Mercedes.

I got in and fell against the backseat. None of us said a word for several minutes. Then it was Jill who spoke first.

“I’m sorry, Ellen.”

I paused. “What happened, Jill?” Jill knew that I didn’t mean tonight.

Her head rested against the cold glass window. “Remember when I went to Parker’s house in Nantucket?”

Of course I did.

They had been out on one of Parker’s family’s boats and were going to go water-skiing on the sound. “I had never been before, so I was nervous,” said Jill. “And Mr. Collins was being so nice.” Parker’s father wasn’t supposed to have been there that week; he was supposed to have gone back to New Jersey after the weekend, but he had stayed. “It was Mr. Collins, Parker and her two brothers, and her mother. Her brothers were both in the water, and I was going to go next.”

“Go grab a wet suit, Jill,” said Mr. Collins, pointing to a locker from his post behind the wheel. He was younger then, but his blond hair was still nearly white. He had those muscular calves you sometimes see on active middle-aged men and his chest hair peeked out from the neck of his navy blue polo.

Jill began digging through the thick black skins, trying to look like she knew what she was doing. She didn’t want the Collinses to know that she had never worn a wet suit. She didn’t want the Collinses to know that her summers weren’t full of clambakes and yachts and madras.

“I don’t think we have one that’ll fit,” said Parker. “Stephen and Chris both have the larges.” Jill felt herself redden, self-conscious enough already in the new bikini her mother had bought her for the trip.

Mr. Collins ignored Parker and hurried to help Jill, who heard the squeak of his boat shoes on the deck behind her. “Let me help you, sweetie,” he said.

He pulled out a short suit and held it up, then unzipped it and bent down, holding the neck open for Jill. “Just step right in,” he said.

Mr. Collins’s back was to his family, and over his bent form, Jill looked at Parker, who was eyeing her intently, as tense as a cat
ready to spring. Parker’s mother was staring deliberately out to sea, her blue eyes vacant and fixed on the line where ocean met sky.

Jill placed one foot, then the next, tentatively in the leg holes, and Mr. Collins jerked hard on the wet suit, pulling it up over Jill’s thick thighs. Jill grabbed a railing to steady herself. Holding the waist of the suit, Mr. Collins tugged it again and again, until it stretched over the lower half of her body. Then, as if checking for fit, he cupped his hand between Jill’s legs, holding it there for a moment, then slowly moving it back and forth. “Good,” he said, giving Jill a wink.

“It was like it was nothing,” said Jill. She stared helplessly at Parker, who just looked coldly back at her, watching their every move.

Mr. Collins then guided each arm into the suit with quick, efficient, no-nonsense motions. His eyes were on his work as, one at a time, he ran his fingers inside her bikini top and over her bare breast, pulling the fabric back into place like he was just making a minor adjustment before finally hauling up the zipper.

“And do you believe that I actually got in the water and tried to water-ski?” asked Jill. She didn’t know what else to do. No one else reacted, so neither did she. But the next day, after lying awake in her bed all night, petrified that he would come in, she called her mother and told her that she wanted to go home. She never told anyone what had happened.

“What do you even call it, what he did?” asked Jill when she had finished. Had he molested her? Had he sexually assaulted her? What was it that he had done, in full view of his wife and daughter? What?

Jill didn’t see Parker for the rest of the summer. Though Jill wasn’t aware of it for weeks, by the time school had started, Parker had already begun her campaign against her. I could see it
now, the way Parker’s mind had worked.
Who would believe that my father would touch that fat pig?
So the Jillie Jelly picture was circulated as a cruel, childish way to discredit anything that Jill might say. Jill had become a pariah so that she couldn’t become a victim.

Greg took deep, angry breaths while Jill told the story, and he was still unable to speak as he pulled up to my parents’ house. I imagined that he, like Jill, was incapable of feeling what I unexpectedly now felt: deep and unqualified sympathy for Parker. Parker, who watched her father touch her friend, watched her mother ignore it. Parker, who endured God knew what herself. Parker, who was desperately trying to become a fine Christian wife, thinking that maybe,
maybe
, if she was good enough, Philip wouldn’t stray.

From the backseat, I wrapped my arms around Jill’s neck. “I’ll call you, okay?”

“Ellen, I really am sorry. I know I screwed things up for you.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry.”

I took my time walking up to the house, opting to go around to the back and taking slow steps as I assessed the damage of the evening. There was no way I could continue working for Philip; that was clear. But that should have been clear days ago. I thought about Parker and Philip, and what, if anything, this meant for them. I suspected nothing. They were probably on their way home right now, riding in silence. Once at the house, Parker would go right to bed while Philip sat in his office, slowly draining a bottle of liquor. The next morning Philip would make pancakes for the kids while Parker slept late, and that would be that. Swept right under the rug.

As I walked in the house, I thought that the worst was over.

I
don’t know what made me knock on his office door. And I don’t know what made me open it when there was no answer. My father had left his desk lamp on, but on countless nights before I had walked past the dim light escaping from the gap above the floor without a second thought. Tonight, though, I turned the knob.