The Art of Forgetting (9 page)

              “And the right message is, ‘Hands off!’”

              Erin shook her head. “If you could just see your sad puppy-eyes... ” Erin placed a fist on her hip and wagged a finger in Lloyd’s face. “If you mess on the rug I’ll have to swat you on the rump with a rolled up newspaper. That’s the message.”

              “What the hell –”

              “I won’t be disrespected Lloyd.”

              Lloyd kept staring in her eyes because it was the only thing he could think of doing to retain some dignity. She caressed his cheek precisely where it stung the most and said, “You know, for a moment I caught a glimmer of that little boy I knew from North Mason. Just for an instant. It was nice.”

              Lloyd was speechless. He couldn’t understand what had just happened. The mortar of his confidence was crumbling. He felt like a wily gunslinger that had just had the Colt 45 shot out of his hand by a novice in britches.

              Erin winked and said, “You better check the meat before they get back.”

              Lloyd looked down at the bulge in his crotch.

              She erupted in laughter. “The steaks, dummy.”

              For the remainder of the lunch Lloyd was reticent, stealing glimpses of Erin when he thought she wasn’t looking. Erin, who looked breezy and relaxed in her lingerie as though she were lounging under a large beach umbrella in her chic bikini on the Côte d'Azur. Who winked at him devilishly as she sipped from her wine glass after laughing at Mark’s retelling of a yarn Lloyd had heard at least a half-dozen times.

              Lloyd was the first to leave the lunch party, citing a freshly conceived but plausible excuse that he needed to prepare a presentation on his research. Erin said he’d walk with him inside the house; anyway, she had to check on the clothes in the dryer. Monica pressed a cool hand on Mark’s thigh as he was about to stupidly offer to do it for her, then planted a peck on his cheek as he finally smiled with understanding.

              “I’m glad you came,” Erin said, as they walked through the kitchen.

              “Yeah, well… Mark’s my friend.”

              “I hope you don’t feel we somehow got off on the wrong foot,” she said. Lloyd kept walking, his eyes focused on the front door at the end of the hallway.

              When they arrived at the foyer he turned and said, “Look, I’m really sorry about the blouse.”

              “It was a really nice blouse.” She puckered her lips. “I shouldn’t have poured water on your lap.”

              “
Iced
water.”

              Erin smiled. “Pretty cold, wasn’t it?”

              Lloyd wondered if she was referring to the temperature of the water or the boldness of her action. They looked at each other in silence.

              “It was nice to meet you,” Lloyd said.

              “Yeah, it was a real splash.”

              Another awkward silence. At last Lloyd offered his hand. He meant it as a way of saying good-bye but it came off as a cloddish offer of a truce. Erin straightened her spine, lifted her chest with a deep breath and shook his hand with a hokey formality, beaming a teasing smile. She was taunting him, relishing the way she was able to fluster him.

              Lloyd pulled the door open and turned to leave when Erin said, “Lloyd?  Aren’t you forgetting something?”

              Lloyd stopped, turned and studied her expression. She stood with her arms folded, her weight shifted on one hip, that devilish smirk still on her face. His cheek tingled with the memory of the slap she had doled out, the image of a rolled up newspaper flashing through his mind. He took a half step towards Erin, leaned forward and timidly kissed her cheek.

              “That was very sweet, Lloyd. But I was talking about your shirt. It’s still in the dryer.”

              Chapter 7

             
O
nce or twice a month Lloyd made the trek north to the village of Des Plaines to have dinner with his mother. Ellen Copeland lived in a yellow-brick split-level with an unattached garage, smack in the flight path of O’Hare International. Back yard conversations in this neighborhood were suspended every seven-and-a-half minutes by the sound of jet engines growing to a thunderous roar before mercifully subsiding.

              In her early fifties, Ellen still exuded the girlish allure she beamed as a St. Patrick’s Day Queen on a chilly March day some thirty years ago. Strawberry blonde hair, pale brown eyes, a button nose and freckled cheeks prone to dimpling, she wasn’t a traditional beauty that intoxicated at first sight, but she possessed a mesmerizing quality that made men want to turn to take a second look.

              When at the age of thirty-three she was unexpectedly widowed, the consensus was that after a reasonable period of mourning, she would certainly re-marry. So her family members were dismayed (almost as much as when she informed them that she was marrying a man twelve years her senior) when she announced that she would never wed again.

              Within a couple of years the suitors started calling, but to every proposition Ellen would shake her head with a rueful smile and say, “My book of love has already been written. I had a wonderful romance – short but exquisite.”

              If her husband’s grisly death, the closed-casket funeral, the hushed voices behind her back in the neighborhood supermarket left her emotionally frail, she showed no sign of it. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy she displayed a bold determination as she fought for full survivorship benefits with the bureaucracy of the Chicago PD. At first the department demurred (her claim that Andrew Copeland’s death was a service-related fatality was specious) but eventually they acquiesced when pressure from the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago culminated with a phone call to the police superintendent from someone in the mayor’s office.

              When she finally received the written assurances she demanded, she sold the bungalow on North Mason Avenue, and with her ten-year-old son in tow, headed northwest, away from unwanted suitors, away from the scrutinizing eyes of indiscreet neighbors – far, far away. She never returned to the neighborhood of cops and firemen and city workers that had been the only home she knew.

              Today was one of those perfect early summer days which drew Chicagoland residents outdoors like moths to a patio lamp. Gossamer clouds hung in a robin egg sky and the wisp of a breeze from the west carried the scent of freshly cut grass and burning charcoal. Too nice a day to pass up a ride on his motorcycle, Lloyd thought, even at the risk of upsetting his mother.

              “Don’t bother calling me the day you break your neck,” he could hear her say. But earlier today she sounded almost giddy on the phone. She’d be unable to hold a grudge for too long.

              “I have such a surprise for you,” she had said when she called him.

              “You know I hate surprises.”

              “Oh Lloyd, must you always be such a crepe hanger?”

              “I don’t even know what that means, Mom.”

              When he pulled onto the cracked driveway on the west side of her home, he noted a spotless, white Toyota Camry parked just a foot outside the closed garage door. Ellen hardly ever drove her three-year-old compact. He couldn’t imagine her having bought a new car. So the surprise must be a visitor.

              He pressed the button on the handlebar to kill the bike’s engine, lowered the kickstand, grabbed the helmet he hadn’t worn from the hook on the side of the bike, and tousled his hair to make it look as if he had. When he rang the doorbell, he heard the muffled voice of his mother who, moments later, opened the door with a girlish grin. She looked thinner, Lloyd thought, but he noticed a smattering of rouge on her cheeks, freshly applied lipstick, even mascara.

              Seeing the helmet in his hand, she placed her arms akimbo and twisted the corner of her mouth in a scowl. “You just do this to aggravate me, don’t you?”

              “Isn’t that what crepe hunters do?”

              “Crepe
hangers
. Look it up in the dictionary.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, shut the door as soon as he crossed the threshold. “No matter. I’m not going to let you ruin this day for me.”

              Lloyd stepped onto the coffee-colored braided rug which covered the entirety of the small foyer. He turned on his heels to face his mother, put his free hand in his pocket and blocked her path through the entryway. She looked at him with a mix of puzzlement and anticipation.

              “Why don’t you have a seat in the living room?” she said with feigned innocence.

              “I have to go to the bathroom.”

              She spun him around and gave him a shove. “You’re doing it on purpose. Walk your butt to the living room, young man. The bathroom can wait.”

              “I’ll just wet myself then.”

              “Fine. I still have your old clothes. I’ll get you a clean change of underwear. Now go.”

              Lloyd chuckled and ambled casually to the living room. Standing next to the faux fireplace, nursing a glass of red wine with gracile fingers, stood a man with pale green eyes, chiseled facial features framed in impeccably groomed salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a short-sleeved black shirt with a white clerical collar.

              Lloyd stopped and gaped at the man. The priest smiled broadly, carefully set his wine glass on the wooden mantelpiece and stretched his arms in front of him, palms up.

              “Dear Lloyd.”

              “Uncle Roy”.

              Lloyd dropped his helmet on a love seat and rushed towards the priest. The two embraced then stared at each other, their hands clasped together.

              “You don’t seem to age do you, Father Roy?”

              “It must be all the olive oil.” They shared a chuckle.

              “So how are things at the Vatican?”

              “It’s the most beautiful corner on Earth.”

              “And Herr Ratzinger?”

              “Well I hardly ever see the bishop of Rome.”

              “Hardly see the Holy See?”

              “No Lloyd. The Holy See refers to the episcopal jurisdiction in Rome, not to His Holiness. Who taught you catechism?”

              “I thought you did.”

              “Well, let’s drink to that. Can I pour you a little Montepulciano?  Or maybe not, you’re on a motorcycle?” Roy looked at the helmet that rested upside down on the love seat.

              “Relax Roy. I’ll be here a while. And if I get smashed you can always give me a medal of St. Christopher and I’ll be fine.”

              “It doesn’t quite work that way,” the priest said. He grabbed the bottle of wine and a fresh glass from the coffee table and started to pour.

              “How long have you been living in Italy now?” Lloyd asked.

              “I left just a few months after your medical school graduation.”

              “Boy, it’s been way too long.”

              They raised their glasses.

              “
Cin Cin
,” said Uncle Roy.

              “Bottoms up for the rest of us,” Lloyd said.

              Ellen had moved to the doorway of the kitchen and gazed at the scene with glistening eyes.

              “Ellen, how thoughtless of me,” said Roy. “What can I get for you?”

              “Oh, nothing. You just don’t know how happy I am, seeing the two of you together again. My boys...”

              She turned and hurried into the kitchen. “I better check on the lasagna,” she said in a quavering voice.

              Roy followed her with his gaze before turning to his nephew. “What a wonderful sister-in-law. What an amazing mother you have.”

              “Let’s not count our blessings until we taste her lasagna,
padre
.”

              “Come now. I remember her cooking. It’s not half bad.”

              “That was before your palate got used to the lunch counter at St. Peter’s. You might want to look up ‘last rites’ in your pocket reference of Catholic rituals.”

              Roy chuckled. “Oh stop.”

              The two sat on a well-worn dark green sofa with embroidered throw pillows.

              “So, Lloyd. How are you doing?”

              “Couldn’t be better.”

              “Really.” Roy held a thin smile and looked impassive.

              “Oh great, we’re already having a talk. Did she put you up to this?” Roy said nothing. He just gazed in his nephew’s eyes with a well-practiced patience. “So, what do you want me to say?”

              “Lloyd, you know how much I care for you. When your father passed away I tried to be there for you, as much as I could.”