The Oldest Sin (5 page)

Isaac didn’t move. Instead he whispered, “Where
is
your father?”

“He’s out on the balcony,” said Hugh, looking confused. “Why?”

Isaac took a few steps farther into die room. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

“What about?” asked Hugh.

“About what happened this afternoon!”

Adelle assumed by his tone that her presence had already been dismissed as meaningless. As a woman in the church, she was used to being invisible. Stepping over to the bar, she quickly selected a bottle of twelve-year-old Scotch, pulled up a bar stool, and poured herself a drink. She might as well be comfortable as she watched this latest drama unfold.

“Just keep it down and tell me what happened,” said Hugh, perching on the edge of die desk. He was a large, barrel-chested man, much taller and heavier than his dad.

Isaac lowered his voice. “Your father talked to a woman named O’Malley here at the hotel this afternoon. He insisted she give him the meeting room for the Sabbath festival free of charge. She left a message for me which I received as soon as I got here. She was ready to cancel die entire event!”

Hugh put a hand on the back of his shaggy gray mane. “I don’t believe it.”

“He’s going to ruin us,” said Isaac, sinking into a chair. “He can’t pull a stunt like that and expect people to just go on as if nothing’s happened. You can’t bully people into believing the way you do.”

“I agree,” said Hugh, narrowing his eyes in thought.

Adelle had seen her husband’s concerned act before — and she wasn’t buying it “Say, Isaac,” she said sweetly. “Did Hugh tell you what his father did last week?”

Hugh shot her a cautionary look.

“No. What?” said Isaac.

“I don’t think we need to hear that right now, Adelle.” Hugh gave her another hard look.

Adelle ignored him. “He walked into a car dealership in Glendale and demanded that the owner give him a brand new luxury sedan. He is, after all, the head of God’s church on earth. When the man said he’d call the police if he didn’t leave, he stood his ground, cursed the dealership, and threatened the man with eternal damnation.”

Isaac closed his eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Be sick somewhere other than our bathroom,” said Adelle, adding some club soda to her drink. If Isaac was going to treat her as if she wasn’t in the room, she was hardly going to view
his
discomfort with much sympathy.

“I won’t accept that there’s nothing we can do to put a stop to this kind of behavior,” continued Isaac, erupting out of his chair.

“What behavior?” demanded a voice from the balcony. Howell Purdis pushed through the French doors just as a crack of thunder rumbled across the sky behind him.

Yup, thought Adelle, watching him drip water onto the carpet. No sense at all.

Both of the younger men attempted to excise the guilty looks from their faces.

The strained silence was finally broken by Hugh. “Well, ah” — he stammered, smiling at his dad — “it seems one of the deacons in St. Louis has been creating some problems. Isaac was just asking me what he should do about it.”

“Problems?” repeated Purdis, easing his elderly frame onto the sofa as if he were trying it on for size. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV.

“He throws temper tantrums,” said Adelle with a completely straight face. “And he’s obnoxious. He goes around threatening people.”

“Sounds like a matter for the ministerial committee,” said Purdis absently, switching to one of the shopping channels. “Point him out to me at Sabbath services.”

“Will do,” said Isaac, jumping visibly as the phone on the desk next to him gave a sudden, jarring ring.

“I’ll get it,” said Hugh. He picked it up and said hello. Listening for a moment, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s for you, Isaac.”

“Me? That’s odd. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming up here.” He took the receiver, turned his back to the room, and walked toward the balcony doors. “Yes,” he said, his voice regaining some of its confidence.

Adelle sipped her drink, retreating into her own thoughts. She couldn’t help but conclude once again that ministers were a strange bunch. Since she’d spent her entire life around them, she’d had a lot of time for intimate observation. Early on, when she was a student at Purdis Bible College back in the early Seventies, she was much too awed by the thought of their spiritual status to even view them as human. But, over the years, she’d come to the conclusion that they were very human indeed. Some of them were good, some bad. Some weak and some strong. Some committed to the work, and some,
more
than a few, embarrassingly lazy. Yet to a man, they all craved flattery, attention, and when they could get it, even adoration. If they had an Achilles’ heel, that was it.

“Speak up,” said Isaac testily. “And slow down. I can’t understand you.” He stuck a finger in his other ear and lowered his head.

Popping a pretzel into her mouth, Adelle wondered who was on the line.

“No, I don’t. And this isn’t a very good time for —” He paused, listening. After almost a minute he said, “I see. Yes, I suppose you’re right.” As he turned around, Adelle noticed a slight loss of focus in his eyes. “Yes … I, ah, won’t forget.”

Everyone was now watching him.

“No, that won’t be necessary. You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.” Nervousness rose off of him in waves. “We’ll have to continue this conversation later. Yes … thank you. Goodbye.” He replaced the receiver in its cradle.

“Problems?” asked Hugh curiously.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” said Isaac. “Just a little local church matter. Nothing to worry about.”

“Good.” Hugh smiled.

Isaac reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket and wiped the sweat off his face. “Well, I guess I’ll get going. I suppose I’ll see you both tomorrow. Everything’s all set for the beginning of the festival on Saturday.”

“Thanks,” said Hugh, nodding cordially.

“Night,” called Isaac as he got to the door.

“Good night,” repeated Howell Purdis from the couch. “Oh, and one more thing. I want that limousine kept at my disposal for the entire weekend.” His attention was so caught by the jewelry being advertised on the shopping channel that Isaac’s rather sudden departure had barely registered. Still, he had enough brainpower left to issue an order.

“I’ll see to it,” said Isaac. He gave Adelle a last, uncertain look, and then left in such a hurry, he forgot to shut the door.

Lavinia Fiore struck a dramatic pose in front of the mirror in her hotel suite, critically appraising the evening dress she was planning to wear to the opening ceremonies of the Daughters of Sisyphus Society’s annual Upper Midwest convention tomorrow night. Her mahogany hair was piled carelessly on top of her head as she gazed admiringly at the lush image she would present. As founding mother of the organization, and author of the best-selling
D.O.S.S. Cookbook
, she was expected to give the keynote address. Lavinia wasn’t the least bit concerned about the speech. She was a good public speaker. Some might even call her inspirational. Yet tonight she felt jumpy, a ball of unfocused energy.

Normally, when she felt agitated, she would try on every piece of clothing in her closet just to get her mind off her problems. Eyeing the graceful lines of the hand-dyed silk gown, she did feel better. She smiled at her stylish image, knowing the dress she was wearing was one of her own creations.

After graduating from Purdis Bible College back in the early Seventies, Lavinia spent a short time as a secretary in the registrar’s office. Every morning she would attempt to squeeze her square-peg mind and body into a very uncomfortable round hole. And every night, she came home to her tiny apartment, bruised and depressed. Finally, after a particularly nasty run-in with the assistant registrar, a man whose hair always struck her as so bizarre that the only way she could figure he achieved the look was by sleeping with a funnel on his head, she switched off her typewriter, threw the report she was working on in the trash, grabbed the jelly doughnut she was hiding in her bottom desk drawer, and stomped out. Forever. In a matter of days she was packed and on her way back home. Lavinia was a New York woman, born and bred. California, with all its crazy inhabitants, might have seduced her temporarily, but they could never keep her permanentiy. Still, it was a big step. She’d not only left her job behind, but for all practical purposes, her faith as well.

After knocking around Manhattan for a few months, she enrolled in a fashion-design class at NYU. From that day forward she never looked back. Fashion became her passion. She worked her way through several New York houses, her brain soaking up every last detail of the business. One basic fact became apparent quite quickly. A fat woman was never going to get hired as a fashion designer.

The year her aunt died and left her a hefty inheritance, she took a dangerous leap and started her own small design shop. Everyone predicted immediate insolvency. Lavinia persevered. This tiny hole in the wall was going to be her ticket to the big leagues. As she failed, as her designs were rejected, she learned. Eventually, her ideas began to catch on, to command attention. Today, the House of Fiore was internationally known and respected.

Lavinia’s special interest, since she was a large woman herself, had been the creation of a fashion line especially suited to the so-called larger woman. In fact, the most compelling reason she’d gotten into the fashion industry in the first place was because she loved fabulous, gorgeous, outrageous, extravagant, beautifully designed clothing, but no matter how hard she looked, she was never able to find the kind she craved in a size that fit.

In 1984, Lavinia and a handful of other overweight women began to meet one evening a week at her apartment to discuss their success — or lack thereof — with current dieting fads. She was living in the Village at the time. Her longtime friend, Barbara — Bunny — Huffington, was finishing her doctorate in American Studies at Columbia, and would attend when she wasn’t buried under a mound of schoolwork. Dining that summer and the following fall, some startling, even life-changing conclusions were reached by this small cadre.

To each of the women, eating and then dieting had taken on the quality of obsession. They were so fixated on food, and their failure to control their appetites and thus achieve the proper female image in the world, that most of them went around in a permanent state of gloom.

Bunny was the first one to connect this struggle with women’s equally profound struggle for identity in the last half of the twentieth century. As women moved from the home into positions of power and authority in the world, the ambivalence they felt over their newfound status, and the anxiety they experienced over their equally newfound responsibilities, were often played out in their relationship to food. Always the philosopher at heart, Bunny wrote several papers — eventually even a book — on the issues of overweight, food addiction, and society’s physical expectations of women. After all, as she pointed out, at least ninety-two percent of the anorexics in America today were female, and one out of five college-age women supposedly suffered from bulimia. Clearly, women were in a life-and-death struggle with their bodies.

Lavinia read the papers with interest, yet her approach to the matter was far more pragmatic. Theory might be great, but why not start a support group for women who refused to fight the battle any longer. The image of Sisyphus, that sorry man in Greek myth who spent his entire life pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back down again, instantly sprang to mind. The boulder, in Lavinia’s scenario, was dieting. Hence, the organization became the Daughters of Sisyphus Society.

Lavinia wanted to emphasize personal acceptance. She told women, through speeches and in the pages of her now famous cookbook, that they needed to look at themselves in the mirror and love what they saw. Fat or thin. Tall or short. Young or old. They were all beautiful and unique. And even more important, she encouraged women to grow and develop their talents and skills. Only through accomplishment would they come to love and appreciate themselves fully. There were no overnight successes in her book, only hard work.

While Lavinia made it clear that it was important to be as healthy as possible, fad dieting was public enemy number one. She urged the women of the country to throw away their diet books and stop fixating on every last morsel they put into their mouths.

Finally, Lavinia insisted that, in our efforts to be trim and healthy, we’d lost something fundamental from our lives. Eating was one of life’s greatest pleasures. Pleasure was good, not bad. To infuse the simple act of eating with such guilt, with such convoluted mental and emotional anguish, was draining our society of joy. And the loss of joy, she pointed out with a fervor bordering on a holy crusade, was a far too terrible price to pay.

Unzipping her gown, Lavinia slipped it off and then sat down on the bed. She felt a sense of pride when she thought of what she’d created. The D.O.S.S. had grown from a membership of seven to just over seven hundred thousand women worldwide. And it was still growing. To be sure, many were now joining as a means of networking with other like-minded, aggressive, achievement-oriented women. Housewives, mothers, poets, cabdrivers, businesswomen, athletes, academics, anyone and everyone interested in a better, more satisfying relationship with food and their own bodies, had become a part of the organization — some, no doubt, for the sheer pleasure of thumbing their noses at society’s feminine imperatives. But whatever the reason,
The Daughters of Sisyphus Society Cookbook
and the first D.O.S.S. chapter in New York City had captured the imagination of the nation. And Lavinia, from the first, was at the head of the parade, leading the battle charge.