Last Call (25 page)

“I’ll take you camping, Joey,” Rosamond interjects. “I may not be able to cook but—”

“That’s not true . . . anymore,” says Diana.

“I used to camp in the North Woods with my dad,” explains Rosamond. “He taught me how to track bear and deer, and I even know how to shoot with a bow and arrow.”

“Really?” Joey’s amazed that a woman, especially one who was a nun when he met her, is in possession of such worthy talents. “Can we sleep outside and cook over an open fire just like cowboys?”

“Sure. We’ll go up to the Adirondacks and explore some caves and look for Indian arrowheads.” Though Rosamond wonders if she’ll live long enough and be well enough to undertake such a trip.

After the men have been served their Dundee cake Diana tells Joey it’s time for bed and kisses him good night. Joey kisses Rosamond on the cheek and she runs her fingers through his hair as she gently brushes her lips across his forehead. Being kissed by Rosamond almost makes going to bed so early bearable. Joey imagines that her kiss probably feels the same as the feathery touch of an angel from heaven.

“You’d better put on your headphones,” Diana says and nods toward the battle cries and beating of a snare drum coming from the next room. “And stop sleeping with Ginger on your pillow and that big baseball mitt underneath your mattress.”

“It’s a catcher’s mitt,” Joey specifies.

“I don’t care what it is, if you don’t take it out you’re going to be an asthmatic humpback!”

chapter forty

W
hile the men’s voices rise and fall in the next room, contingent upon which side is prevailing in the blood-soaked battles, Rosamond and Diana sit across from each other at the kitchen table. Diana places her fingers on the roaming piece in the middle of the Ouija board and moves it to the center. “Didn’t you do this sort of thing when you were growing up?” she asks.

“A girl used to bring one to school for playing at recess. But not having any siblings I didn’t own board games. Dad and I used to whittle at night—slingshots and knife handles and that sort of thing. He wasn’t very talkative. I think he missed my mother a lot. And then, after he finally remarried, my stepmother had enough conversation for the three of us.”

Diana and Rosamond rest their fingertips on the plastic triangle. “Now ask a question, and then we wait for an answer from the spirits, or in this case, the F train.”

“All right.” And with a twinkle in her eye Rosamond says, “Will Diana go out on another date with Hank?” After a few moments they feel a slight rumble underground and the pointer slides in the direction of the zero.

Diana grimaces and then removes her hands from the triangle and places them over her face. “That’s correct, definitely a big zero with a zero chance.”

“I thought we were supposed to let the spirits answer,” says Rosamond.

“I think they just did. Don’t get me wrong, Rosamond, I know Hank is a friend of yours, and he’s a very sweet man, but if the spirits had experienced how he kissed
they
wouldn’t go out with him again either.”

“He kissed you?” Rosamond is surprised. “On the first date?”

Diana laughs at her friend’s innocence. “Uh, Rosamund, these days a good-night kiss on the first date is considered pretty conservative. Some of those movies we watch are from the 1950s.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“Now it’s my turn,” Diana says and puts her hands back on the triangle, opposite Rosamond’s. “Will Rosamond kiss Dad?”

Rosamond stares down at the Ouija board and attempts to avoid eye contact with Diana. But her cheeks flare with color and she feels her heart thudding in her chest until it’s overtaken by a subway train thundering into the nearby station and the silver pointer slides to “maybe.”

“You wouldn’t mind?” Rosamond asks almost shyly.

The men’s voices rise in the next room as Rob Roy MacGregor ambushes the king’s soldiers.

“Of course not.” Diana smiles at her. “You two should have a good time together. I never thought I’d be able to handle the thought of Dad having feelings for another woman, other than Mom, but . . .”

“But what?”

“You’re . . . you’re good for him. I mean, you’re a terrific person in your own right.” Then she leans over as if they’re co-conspirators. “And I’ll tell you a secret, Dad’s a terrific kisser. Mom always said so.”

“Oh dear,” says Rosamond with alarm.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m . . . I’m just afraid I might be in the same boat as, well, poor old Hank. My first and last kiss was in high school.”

“I see,” muses Diana. “When I was a teenager Linda and I used to practice kissing, you know, with our pillows. We practiced some other things, too, but there’s no need to go into that now.”

“Has kissing really changed that much?”

“It’s not that it’s changed.” Diana smiles with encouragement. “It’s just that
we
change as we get older. It’s hard to explain. Why don’t you try? Put your lips together like this.” Diana demonstrates from her position across the table. “Now Hank was doing the teenage throat plunge with too much inner lip, tongue, and suction.” Diana again demonstrates as if she’s looking in a mirror. But Rosamond only seems confused.

“Do you know any poems?” asks Diana.

“Not really. I mean, I used to,” says Rosamond. “But now I only know a lot of prayers.” Though she doesn’t see the connection to kissing. Maybe Diana means poems about kissing or love, like Shakespeare’s sonnets. “Wait a second . . . I remember ‘Trees’?”

The word
trees
doesn’t immediately call up an image in Diana’s mind. She’d always been a fan of the romantics and the French symbolists.

Rosamond recites the first stanza.
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.”

Diana has a flashback to the many Arbor Day celebrations in elementary school, standing around a newly planted tree and reciting the Joyce Kilmer poem. The words rise from the dusty recesses of her mind, back where the Pledge of Allegiance is stored along with the Lord’s Prayer and her mother’s recipe for sugar cookies—the first thing Diana was allowed to bake on her own.
“Poems are made by fools like me,”
she recites, going directly to the last lines.

And then Rosamond and Diana finish together:
“But only God can make a tree.”
They giggle at this shared remembrance and Diana almost forgets why she brought it up in the first place.

“Oh yes,” says Diana. “A kiss is like a poem without words. Or maybe you can say the same thing about a prayer.”

“A prayer without words?” Rosamond sounds even more puzzled.

“Here, stand up.” Diana rises and stands in front of her. “The adult kiss is soft, see . . .” She delicately wets her lips with her tongue and then parts her mouth very slightly. “You don’t lock lips and shove your tongue into the other person’s mouth like a dentist’s drill.”

Rosamond faces Diana and copies her. She wets her lips and opens them ever so slightly.

“Then you just close your eyes and put your lips between each other.” Diana opens her eyes and exclaims, “Oh, this is impossible. Here.” She leans over and kisses Rosamond.

At that moment the black Irishman Paddy Fitzgerald clambers into the kitchen for another beer, slightly tipsy, advantageously using the refrigerator door handle for ballast. “Delicious Dundee cake, Diana,” he says while opening the door and then does a double take when he registers the women kissing. But he only shakes his head as if he’s had either too much or not enough to drink and walks back out mumbling, “Absolutely delicious. Just like Mary used to make.”

“Thanks, Paddy,” Diana says to the retreating broad back and confused nodding of the head that Paddy shaved every day to give the overall effect of an even baldness.

“Yes, I see the difference,” Rosamond says. “Thank you.”

Then they hear Paddy in the living room saying, “The girls are kissing in the kitchen. Do you think that’s a bit peculiar?”

Diana and Rosamond look at each other and cover their mouths to stifle giggles.

But Alisdair, Hugh, Duncan, and Hayden are well into their cups and it’s the scene of the final duel between MacGregor and the British noble, so they all sloppily hush Paddy and cheer for Rob Roy.

chapter forty-one

D
espite drinking and falling into bed well after midnight, Hayden rises early the next morning. Much to the delight of Joey and Bobbie Anne’s daughters, he’s been putting his sheep farming experience to work by teaching Joey’s little poodle to herd ducks. Every morning Hayden supervises Ginger as she moves a quacking mob of mallards from the edge of the pond across the street and into their backyard for some bread crumbs and mash, and then returns them to the park.

A side benefit of these morning maneuvers has been the frightening off of all the rabbits destroying Mrs. Trummel’s garden, which in turn has considerably cut down on calls to the police about the boisterous nights of the Greyfriars Gang.

Hayden employs the Gaelic commands that his father used with their border collies, which were specially bred and trained to drive sheep. He explains to the children that the name of the breed of dogs known as collies, the best herders, is actually the Gaelic word for “sheep.” And how it was often said that without border collies there’d be no sheep at all in Scotland.

Between shouting what sounds like gibberish and a tiny orange poodle halting traffic as it chases a group of zigzagging and loudly quacking ducks across the street, Hayden appears quite the eccentric, even for Brooklyn. This is especially true on the days he wears his green, blue, and black plaid MacBride clan kilt to lend an air of ceremony to the proceedings, and Alisdair stops by to accompany the drill on his bagpipes. Hayden’s parade begins at nine o’clock sharp and by the start of the second week it attracts a regular crowd. Even the ducks honk and leap up with giddy anticipation when they see Hayden approach the pond or hear the first few notes on Alisdair’s pipes. They know that at the end of their march a reward will be forthcoming in the form of a homemade breakfast.

The community newspaper runs a story titled “Highland Fling in Prospect Park,” in which Hayden is quoted as saying that animals feel better when they work at a job and earn their food by using their minds and bodies. “It’s the same with people,” he adds, hoping that Diana’s ex-boyfriends will read the article.

Ginger the poodle is equally enthusiastic about duck herding and has a natural aptitude for it. Hayden shows the children the webbed feet on the little poodle and explains how they were bred as hunting dogs and being able to swim enabled them to go fetch a grouse out of a pond. The word
poodle
, he tells them, is derived from the German word
Pudelin
, and means to splash about in the water, which the little girls think is very funny.

“I’m surprised no one has made duck herding into a circus act,” Joey comments as a particularly large crowd forms to watch the show. “People would pay good money to see this.”

“Perhaps you’ll become a famous breeder of herding poodles, eventually training some to move large gaggles of toddlers through preschools. Now thar’s a business!” says Hayden. “And just wait until I get Rosie to teach them the Stations of the Cross. We’re going straight to the Vatican.”

“I’ve decided that I want to be a subway conductor,” says Joey. Hayden has recently introduced his grandson to the boyish pleasure of riding in the front car and watching for the signals to change from red to green as they hurtle through the dark twisting underground tunnels.

Upon completing his duck march on this particular day Hayden checks to make sure that Diana has left for work. When he’s sure that his daughter is gone, he takes Joey over to Mrs. Trummel’s for the self-defense lessons he organized with her daughter who works as a local police officer. Once Joey is set up next door he tells Rosamond that he’s off to see an old colleague. When Rosamond offers to accompany Hayden he insists that it’s better he go alone since his friend is getting senile and the daughter doesn’t think it’s a good idea to bring any strangers along as it might upset the man. Hayden is a good liar but not that good. Rosamond can’t help but wonder if it’s a woman friend whom Hayden is going to visit, since it’s rare that he ventures off without her.

Hayden quickly heads over to the cemetery sculpture garden for a prearranged meeting with Hank. “Well,” he demands, “what in tarnation went awry?”

“Nothing,”
says Hank. “I mean, Diana doesn’t like me.”

“Why do you say that? Did you make a pass at her? Not that such a move should cause a problem, from what I gather.”

“
No!
I kissed her good night. Just one kiss.”

“That’s all?”

“Heck, Hayden, it sounds as if you want me to throw her over my shoulder and carry her up to the bedroom.”

“Probably not a bad idea. Diana’s a very romantic girl from what I understand—probably has a bunch of kids out there that she do’an’ even know about.”

Hank appears startled until he realizes that Hayden is joking.

They sit on a bench next to the garden and the sprinkler makes a sputtering noise as it starts up and they both laugh, recalling the circumstances of their earlier visit to this spot.

“You must not ha’ kissed her right,” Hayden eventually says.

“Oh shut up! What do you know about women—stealing virgins out of convents!”

“I’ll have you know that nothing untoward has passed between the lady and myself. Besides, I refuse to kiss a woman who can catch more fish than I,” Hayden declares with pride. “But to answer your question, I do’an’ know anything about women. However, I do know someone who does. Come with me.”

chapter forty-two

D
iana arrives home from the grocery store to the plaintive strains of Dan Hill’s “Sometimes When We Touch” coming from inside the house, quite the contrast to Hayden’s Highland reels and spirited Scottish folk songs. She finds Rosamond alone in the dining room intent on polishing all the silverware and a tea set. This is the one domestic chore where Rosamond far outshines Diana. Apparently the convent has a trove of urns and crosses that are in constant need of buffing.

“You don’t have to do that,” says Diana. But then she notices the tears like pear-shaped diamonds sparkling on her friend’s cheeks. “Rosamond, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”

Rosamond sets down her rag and dabs her face with a clean paper towel. “No, no, it must be an allergy to the silver polish.”

The sound of the front door opening can be heard and Joey enters the dining room, having arrived back from his lessons at Mrs. Trummel’s. Though he dutifully reports that he was using the swimming pool at the Y, just as Hayden had instructed him to. One needn’t be a mind reader to know that Diana wouldn’t approve of lessons in how to fight.

Joey notices that Rosamond is wiping what appear to be tears from her eyes. “Do you want an ice cream float?” His voice fills with concern. “I have some Pop Rocks we could mix in and make it explode.” Some days it’s just too much to consider that his two best friends in the world are condemned to death for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand. How can God allow good people to get cancer?

“Thanks, sweetheart. A glass of water would be nice. To be honest, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Rosamond looks up at Diana and Joey and continues with forced cheer, “Just feeling a bit weepy, I guess.”

Joey goes to the kitchen and pours Rosamond a glass of water and drops in a few maraschino cherries in an effort to raise her spirits. He reasons that if she’s unhappy then she might leave, and that would be a disaster. Hayden would return to his funerals and suicide manuals and Diana would have more time on her hands to monitor Joey’s pulse and blood pressure. And worst of all, it’d be the end of their fishing trips and future plans to go camping in the Adirondacks.