I Knew You'd Be Lovely (16 page)

“Oh,” Kelly said. “Free therapy.” Nash raised an eyebrow as if to say that free therapy from your mother is not something you want.

“How about your dad?” she said. Her own father was a molecular engineer, and was as honest and gentle as they came. He fell into a category of large-hearted
nonbelievers whom she privately referred to as the Christlike non-Christians.

“My father killed himself when I was eleven,” Nash said.

“I'm so sorry,” she said softly. She had the impulse to touch him, but her arms felt as if they belonged to someone else. “What was he like?”

“I consider him to have been a professional sloganeer. He always had these sayings, like:
Do today's work today
and
Neither hurry nor wait
. Or my mom's favorite:
Keep your words soft and tender, for tomorrow you might have to eat them
. I don't remember that much about him, to be honest. He used to read me Shakespeare's plays as bedtime stories. Then he would stub his toe and say: ‘Fie on't!' and I would laugh.”

“He sounds wonderful.”

Nash drained his glass. “Sometimes life just doesn't make sense, I guess.”

“But we only see partially,” Kelly said. “We don't see how it all plays out.”

“No, I can tell you how it played out: He's dead.”

“Right, but—”

He stood up and placed his hand on top of her head. “Sorry, kiddo, but I should hit the road,” he said, and before she knew it, he'd pushed open the door, swung a leg over his bike, and was pedaling away.

“I love him,” Kelly said. She and Gwen were having mochaccinos at an outdoor café and watching people pass by on their way to the independent movie theater or the
Armenian restaurant. “I want to take his clothes off with my teeth.”

“He still hasn't kissed you? Nothing?”

“Nada. It's like he's never heard of kissing. And I'm afraid to touch him. I can't tell if it would be welcome.”

“How often does he come over?”

“Once a week. For the past two months.”

“And he calls you every other day?”

“Yup.”

“And he's not gay?”

“Nope.”

Gwen stirred her whipped cream dispiritedly with a flat wooden stick. She seemed to be wearying of the Nash subject. “What do you even like about this guy?”

Kelly looked down at her coffee. “He has interesting observations. He doesn't care about unimportant things.”

“Like showering and shaving?”

She lifted her chin. “He stands a little apart from the world. I like that.”

“He seems a little broken, in my opinion.”

“We're all a little broken.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “Lucky for him you're drawn to the hopeless ones. You and your bleeding heart.”

Kelly knew she had some radical ideas concerning heaven. “I've heard that in heaven, my joy will be complete. And my joy will be incomplete unless everyone comes with me,” she told her priest. This was during confession, when she was supposed to be focusing on her own sins. She half-expected the priest to say: “Well, now that you mention it, little lady, you do have a point there.” He didn't. But neither did he protest.

It was Gwen who protested. “Even the bad guys get to go—the killers and the rapists?”

Kelly stood her ground.

“Even the people who don't, you know, believe in Jesus?” Gwen was not particularly religious, and her mouth always got a bit gummy when saying the word
Jesus
out loud.

“If faith is a gift, how can you punish those who don't have it?”

Gwen paused. “What good is heaven if everyone gets to go? What justice is there in that?”

“Mercy is greater than justice,” Kelly said. She believed it with all her heart.

On Sunday morning she went to church. She'd just learned the Spanish word for
mercy
and thought it was beautiful, found herself repeating it under her breath as she drove.
Misericordia, misericordia
. During the Gospel reading, the priest said, “May all who have ears hear,” to which Kelly quickly prayed, “Give everybody ears.” At the end of Mass it was announced that there would be a prayer vigil at five o'clock to end abortion. Kelly always wondered why they didn't have prayer vigils to end unwanted pregnancy, and had once put this idea in what she thought was a suggestion box but turned out to be a donation box for the world's poor. She stayed late, alone in the empty pews, and prayed. She felt Jesus close, as she often did—invisible but close. This was her life: always sensing him and missing him at the same time.

She wanted to pray about Nash, who indeed seemed
to keep separate from the world, and she was beginning to fear that she was part of the world he kept separate from. But she tried to be careful never to tell God what to do. Instead of praying for a Cubs victory, for instance, she simply said: “May your holy will be done.” Then later, she chastised herself:
Well, maybe you should have been a little more
specific.

“Make my heart your heaven,” she said. She lowered her head. “I give you my life.” She wished she had something better to give; she knew she was no model of blind obedience. “I offer you the lives of all the saints,” she said. She liked the way the communion of saints allowed you to share in the good works of others. “I offer you all the love of all time. Give me everything you want me to have, even if there's suffering involved.”

She had to admit, she had not yet learned the art of loving suffering. She realized she should; she knew suffering was proof of love. “Do you know that the saints in heaven would envy you?” she'd once read in a mystic's diary she found in her grandmother's closet. “Their time of sacrifice is over.” She thought she understood what this meant. Now, while she had free will, was her chance to show God she loved him more than earthly things. Nevertheless, she found herself avoiding sacrifice and seeking her own pleasure. She tried to override this tendency—the tendency toward self-satisfaction, when she could be trying to charm God—but it was difficult. Still, she knew God understood this difficulty. God understood everything.

• • •

“Hey, you,” Nash said, tapping her screen. It was Saturday night, and the setting sun had turned the sky into a Cheryl Wheeler lyric:
drop jaw red, Maxfield Parrish blue
. Three weeks had gone by since she'd last seen him.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “Where've you been?”

“No questions,” he said. “I want to take you somewhere. Come with me.”

Whole Foods was locked up for the night, but he had a key. While Nash led, she followed behind with her hands on his shoulders. Even in the dark, she knew what they were passing: Straight ahead was the table with gingerbread loaves and tangerine cookies; to the left were the shelves with sun-dried tomato pesto and imported cornichons; to the right were the goat cheese and salad greens.

When they reached the back of the store, he sat down on the mottled linoleum. “There's something I've wanted to tell you,” he said. His hands moved restlessly in his lap. As soon as she sat down beside him, he stood up. “It's hard to explain,” he said. In the light from the rows of refrigerated milk, his face looked almost pellucid.

“I went to my father's grave. I hadn't been there for a long time,” he said. “I was lying on the ground, right above where he's buried, when I noticed this stone angel on top of a monument, way up high. She was holding a horn in one hand, and her other hand was open at her side. And she's staring at the sky, like she's listening for something, or waiting for something.” He'd been pacing, but now he stopped. “Do you know what I mean? Like she's listening for a music she has yet to hear.”

“Maybe God—”

“No!” he said. “This has nothing to do with God. What I'm trying to say here doesn't have anything to do with God!”

She didn't know what to say. He'd never raised his voice to her before.

“It has to do with me,” he said.

Her eyes were fixed on the rows of milk. “I just thought—”

“Forget it,” he said. “Forget I ever said anything.” In his face she saw a hint of something else, and she wondered what it was she was supposed to forget. He turned and headed for the exit. “Let's get out of here.”

Kelly's disappointment emboldened her. “You always come close and then run away,” she said to his back, still sitting Indian-style on the floor. “Why is that?” Nash kept walking. “Why'd you even bring me here?” He was out of sight now, but she could hear the sound of metal on metal, and for a second it crossed her mind that he could lock her in for the night. But he wouldn't do that. Would he?

“Nash!” she said, addressing the idea of Nash, his wraith. “What is it you want from me?”

When she got up, she would discover that the door was unlocked, but Nash was long gone. She figured she had her answer.

So it was over. It was over before it began, which made it even harder to take. Kelly was surprised by how much it affected her. She couldn't concentrate at work; she avoided Gwen; she kept checking her messages for
the apology that never came. She didn't like to second-guess God, but considering how things had turned out, she couldn't help wondering what the point had been of meeting Nash in the first place.

It had been raining for days. Pouring. Fortunately, Kelly had recently had the roof reshingled, or there would have been a swamp in her living room. She brewed a pot of chamomile tea and pretended to ignore the banging sound of the loose drainpipe. Until she couldn't pretend any longer. She grabbed her coat and switched on the outside lights, not sure what her plan was but figuring she ought to do something. As soon as she stepped outside, she saw him. He was standing in the middle of her front lawn, in the rain.

“Nash,” she said. She was quiet inside, almost frightened. “What are you doing?”

“I'm thinking,” he said. “I guess you might call it praying.” His voice sounded different, and she noticed he wasn't wearing any shoes.

“Why don't you come inside?” she said. “You can pray in here.”

His eyes tightened. “I was just wondering
—praying,
” he said again, but he'd given the word a certain meanness, “how a benevolent God can allow so much
suffering.
” He made a sweeping gesture on the word
suffering
, and she wondered if he was maybe drunk. “It's a simple question, don't you think? And I'm going to stand right here till I get an answer.”

Pixel whimpered at her feet, wanting to run to him.
“We don't always get answers our way, in our time,” she said. “It doesn't work like that.”

“It does tonight.” He gave her a look that suggested he was ready to stand on her lawn for the rest of his life, and for a moment she imagined him there, patches of snow resting on his shoulders like a statue's, dandelions sprouting through his toes in the spring.

“God suffers the most,” she said. “He only keeps himself hidden out of respect for our free will.”

“Bull
-shit!
” Nash said, rainwater spraying from his lips. “You want a less-bullshit revolution? That's ironic. You are the queen of bullshit. And you know what else? Not only is it bullshit, it's the most milquetoasty, goody-goody, meaningless bullshit I've ever heard. Sometimes I'm amazed that you can say the things you do with a straight face.”

Kelly was stunned. To her, they'd always felt like a team, even when they disagreed, like those celebrity couples who argue politics on TV. It had never occurred to her that he was secretly repulsed. A flurry of comebacks flashed through her mind:
Why don't you stay home then? Why keep coming here if I'm so disgusting?
But the sting of his words left her speechless. She went back inside, slamming the door behind her as hard as she could. In her bedroom, she stood to one side of the window so he couldn't see her watching him. She knew she wanted him to come in after her. She also knew he never would.

By the time she went back outside, he was kneeling in the mud. He didn't look up when she said his name, didn't acknowledge her at all. She got down beside him.

“Nash,” she said.

When he lifted his face, it was laced with sorrow. “Why?” he said. His hands were fists in the grass. “Why why why why why why why?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't have all the answers. Sometimes I just like to act as if I do.”

He pulled an amber-colored bottle from his pocket. “Know what these are?” he said, rattling it. “These are the antidepressants I've been taking for the last, oh, ten years. They're supposed to dampen my desire to kill myself. And guess what? They also dampen everything else, if you know what I mean. Make it pretty much impossible.” He met her eyes. “Still feel like hanging around?” He stuck the bottle back in his pocket. “Allow me to answer for you.”

“Come on, let's go inside.”

“No,” he said. “Your God has some explaining to do. I've waited long enough. I'm tired of waiting.”

She didn't want to argue with him. She felt rather tired herself. Tired of the waiting, and the misunderstanding; tired for what's lost, and what's never held in the first place. Tired for all the music that slips by unheard. She put her fingers beneath his chin.

Across the street, the neighbors turned out their light, and a garage door slowly hummed to a close. In the end, there was no answer. There was no thunder, there was no lightning from the sky. There was just a woman, kneeling in her yard in the rain, and a man, lifting his face, waiting to be kissed.