Tiger Lillie (14 page)

When I got home that night from the beach, I picked up my brush and wow! I stayed up all night painting! It was wonderful! I hadn’t felt like that in years. It was like dancing. And you know, I felt God’s Spirit with me. I really did. I felt Him breathing behind me almost as though He watched and rejoiced with we. I actually painted two canvases. There was something special there finally, something I’d lost years before, as though someone had found a precious childhood toy of mine on some unfrequented byway and sent it to me special delivery. And I knew all that wandering in the desert wasn’t wasted. Oh, the plans I had for the next day when I lay down at six a.m., tired but hardly out of ideas. The plans! The next morning; I called down to Towson Art where a friend of mine worked, and he delivered two stretched canvases at lunchtime so I didn’t have to stop. It felt more like play than work, that I’d tapped into something holy. I felt so free and wonderful! It seemed like the start of something big in my life. Something huge and wonderful.

Rawlins wouldn’t speak to me. He was so angry when he found out I went down to Ocean City. He told me I disobeyed him. That raised my hackles, and I almost called Mom, but then I realized, why bother? She was always so busy with Dad and was finally enjoying herself a little bit these days, what with Rawlins’s mom going up to the rectory for a cup of tea a few mornings a month. Rawlins told me he was going to start checking the mileage on my Rover just before he left town. If it was way too high upon his return, he’d know I went “roaming” as he called it. I told him, “Rawlins, I just needed to walk the beach. I love the beach. I wanted to take pictures to paint. You said I could paint. You should see the beautiful pictures I’ve done while you were away.”

He told me, “Not anymore.” He locked my studio door and took away the key. “If such fancies tempt you to evil, it’s my spiritual duty to protect you. From yourself.”

I cried and he just walked away.

Later that night I heard him talking to Pastor Alban and he said, “I did what you said I should do.” And I waited, for maybe tears or some show of emotion, just in case, because he seemed to lock the door on me so easily. They got into a discussion on Amos 3:3, where it says something like, “How can two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” I really thought the discussion would center on Rawlins and me. Hadn’t we agreed? Didn’t we say our vows? We agreed we were hardly walking together. I was at least ten feet behind, head bowed, in a burqua, the sand swirling between me and him and I was blinded and in all practicality, alone. But no, they talked about how their church must be separate from the world, and not only the world, but other Christians who didn’t see things as they. Sounded to me like a kid who wouldn’t share his best toys.

When Rawlins told me several weeks previous that we would have to be rebaptized to join The Temperance Church of the Apostles, I didn’t understand. If my baptism was acceptable to God, wasn’t that enough? But he said no, this would be a sign of our coming out of the world and into this church, of being pulled yet further from sin and into a glorious light of a more devoted, sin-shunning following of the Lord. Then, after what I did, he doubted we’d be allowed to join. I suspected though, had I been privy to our bank accounts, a sizable chunk would be missing, and not before we’d become full-fledged members.

On Pastor Cole’s dictates, Rawlins stayed away for a week. I still don’t know where he stayed.

10

Lillie

The Extreme Delights Adventure Club decided a catapult is a very interesting device and worthy of our consideration. Due to the overall medieval flair of this escapade, Cristoff wears hosen and a leather jerkin. Ack. This outfit hits a little too close to home, if you know what I mean. And yet, here we all congregate out in a field in Harford County on the ancestral farm of one of our members, so who’s going to see anyway?

I wasn’t about to buy some medieval garb, so I just wear running shorts, a tank top, and a bed sheet, toga style, over my shoulder. I mean, catapults go way back, right?

It takes the engineers of the group, three guys from Northrop Grumman, a good while to calculate how far away from the haystack to place the catapult in between flights. With each member of the club, the distance will differ, due to weight and all. Let’s hope they don’t have to move mine too far back, or I’ll be too humiliated to sit in that bucket.

They’ve been launching sandbags for hours now, which is more of a comfort than mere math could ever be.

So I’m enjoying a cup of tea with the others. We’ve achieved quite the civilized setup here. Wicker furniture, silver service, linens. Oh yes, we’re
extremely civilized
in the Extreme Delights Sporting and Adventure Club.

I decide to go first. After all, what do I really have to lose? If I die, well, there you have it. Everyone will be sad, but hey, life goes on in the Bajnok-Bauer clan. It always has. Besides, I’ll enjoy the rest of the day all the more. And as the only woman aboard, I do have something to prove.

Oh man, it was great! That initial thrust felt like nothing I’ve experienced before. One second you’re motionless, the next you’re shot forward so that you’re actually slowing down before your brain computes the initial movement. I loved it. I loved soaring. And all too soon, just after I reached the highest point of the arc, I gained full control of my body. I suspended myself in the usual swan dive position and located the large pile of hay. At the last moment, I tucked my head and shoulders and rolled safely to a stop.

“Did you like it?” I ask Cristoff on our drive back downtown.

“Hated it.”

“Oh.”

“I may be getting too old for this stuff, sweetie.”

“Never.”

I downshift, going into a hairpin turn.

Man, I love my car. It takes the Seven Sisters Curves on Harford Road like finger and thumb down a satin throw.

“I mean it.”

Yikes. “What?”

“Don’t you ever wish you were doing more with your life?”

“Usually I think I’m
too
busy.”

“No. I mean important stuff.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Oh, never mind.”

Truth is, I
am
following him, and I’m sorry for him. I tell him that God doesn’t see the difference between missionary or mason, preacher or physician, that a job well done is a job well done, and it all glorifies Him in the end. But he won’t listen.

Truth is, Cristoff was made for more than event planning. God’s gifted him to do something magnificent. Surely, time will bring it about.

Tacy

I asked him, “Why won’t you come home?” I didn’t know what was happening to him.

His voice sounded so far away on the phone, farther away than my canvases in my studio. “After your deception, I just need a little time away and you need to think about what you’ve done, Anastasia. There’s family penance to be done.”

Family penance? I had no idea what he meant.

“I promise I’ll never do it again, Rawlins. I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. Please, please forgive me.”

I know I compromised, but I couldn’t bear that lonely house anymore. I just wanted things to be the way they were before, hardly normal, but at least familiar.

“Pastor Cole will release me soon.”

“Release you?”

“I can’t talk about i.”

Rawlins was still gone when I began reading the Song of Solomon again. Daddy gave me a book by a seventeenth-century woman named Madame Guyon, a married lady who was eventually imprisoned for her writings because they were so revolutionary about spiritual things, I guess. The book was called
Song of the Bride.
The title itself spoke to me because, well, I didn’t feel like a bride anymore. Not after more than two years of that life and already feeling cast aside. But that first verse of Song of Solomon, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Oh, dear God. My dear Lord. My Bridegroom.

How I cherished that kiss, that union of your spirit to mine. Forever, I loved you then, and now in this moment as the darkness begins to settle in, I need your love more than ever before. I need you desperately in this sea of lonesomeness and chill. And maybe expectation.

Lillie

Confession time. I watch the Style Channel on cable television. Last summer Pleasance asked me to view a rerun of some show about fashion. It had been a particularly excruciating day for me, fashion-wise. Since June had arrived only a few days before, I figured the day justified something floral. After fingering through the hangers of my extremely disorganized closet, I found the last Easter dress ever given to me by Mom and Dad. Thinking the wide lace collar more than appropriate, thinking the stiff tulip-strewn chintz very summery, thinking the pearl buttons that followed each other like ducklings from the dropped waist up to below the collar a classy decoration that saved it from being completely pilgrimatic, I walked into the office only to have Pleasance Stanley cross her two index fingers in the international vampire-defense signal.

The ensuing conversation was just what one might expect. A lot of
what do you means
on my part, and even more
come on, Lillie Pad, you don’t honestly thinks
on Pleasance’s part. Finally, just to shut her up I agreed to watch the network and penciled the Sunday afternoon time slot in my planner.

So what began as a desperate attempt on Pleasance’s part for the fashion reform of Lillian Elaine Bauer became a source of amusement for the said same woman. Normally, I go about my day oblivious to other women and their looks. Tacy pretty much beats all, so growing up and comparing myself to her automatically put most women way down on the overall beauty yardstick, which pretty much tells you where
I
am: not in the measuring device aisle, not in the hardware store, not even in the dying strip mall the hardware store anchors.

On the Style Channel, however, it’s a different matter altogether. After hours of watching those models, acting so confident with those inflated, pouty lips, by golly, well, I’ve started my own version of
The Foot Book

It’s all in my mind, of course. But right now, a Brazilian girl with the biggest feet I’ve ever seen on a woman tops the list. And there’s a perverse part of me that takes pleasure in watching them strut down the catwalk, all thin and alive, lithe and graceful, and so very, very pouty, and I look down and…whoa! Look at those red satin T-strap river barges. It takes the phrase
sailing down the catwalk
to a completely new level.

Meow.

And just where do they find pretty shoes that big? Tell me that.

Tacy went through a phase where she wanted to be a model. I’d come home from my day at college, excited about a new assignment in my literature class or thinking up some crazy scheme to make money while fulfilling my marketing assignment, and there she’d be in front of her bedroom mirror, a high-school freshman made up like some torch singer, hair teased in B-52s style and some fashion magazine splayed on the surface of her dresser. She’d place her index finger on something, then look up at her reflection, then look down again and dip a makeup brush into a paint pot. And so on and so forth.

What was she thinking as she stared at her beauty? Did she view herself as a blank canvas, unable to express anything in and of itself? Did she view herself as a beautiful room, furnished and painted just right, only needing curtains and lamps and throw pillows to complete the already wonderful effect the architect and designer had given?

I don’t know.

I cannot comprehend owning such loveliness.

But now as then, I’m proud to walk alongside my sister and know that I helped raise this creature, helpless as she seems now that she’s given the keys to her psyche to that Rawlins McGovern, God save the king.

When I visited after Hannah’s birth, she looked every bit as lovely as the day she married that man. Because she’d dated him so all-consumingly, Tacy hadn’t cultivated many friendships, just with Barb and another couple of girls. I stood next to her glory on the day she uttered all of those vows, each word stabbing me in the stomach, the white of her garment, her hair, her skin, her pearls, beaming so wide a magnetism that anything nearby was sucked into its shimmering orbit. And that included me in my french braid, orchid headpiece, and pale-yellow organza bridesmaid dress. But her beauty is not so glorious now that Rawlins chooses the getups. Oh, don’t get me wrong, she’s classy all right, but absolutely
no
imagination fuels her ensembles.

Well, after church at Daddy’s—only two more Sundays for him and less than a day before the big meeting with Remington and company, I am scared to death—I drive out to Tacy’s house to get my Hannah Grace fix for the week. I’ve talked to Tacy on the phone every day since my last visit and she says she’s never been happier. She said that kind of thing a lot though, even before Hannah. Rawlins this, Rawlins that. He’s so great, great, great. North, south, east, and west, Rawlins, Rawlins, he’s the best.

Right.

I often wonder who Tacy’s really trying to convince.

I pull up to the gated entry of their house out in Baltimore County. They live near Loch Raven Reservoir, up Dulaney Valley Road and out Jarrettsville Pike. People like me think it’s kind of snooty up that way, people like me who grew up in a manse on the outskirts of Bel Air. But to each his own. I don’t want to admit to being a reverse snob or anything. And I’ve met my share of kindhearted wealthy people since starting the business. Perhaps I’m a little jealous as well.

I ride by the main pasture and the spotless stone stables, past the white barn with stone foundations, past the horse-jump things and all that equestrian stuff. Secretly, I’m glad Tacy is allergic to animals and hay and all, because she’d have probably thrown herself into that part of Rawlins’s world, forcing me to learn all about it.

The white fences appear new, though they aren’t, and the tidiness of the small farm angers me somehow. Beauty in its place.

Oh, Tace.

Mom and Daddy’s place sits empty and will remain that way. Score one for moi, Mr. Rawlins McYou-Didn’t-Win-This-Time, and ha, ha, ha! The reach of your net has been severely shortened.

Calm down, Lil.

Their farmhouse comes into view.

I’m not big into architecture, so I’m not sure how to categorize Rawlins and Tacy’s house. All I know is it’s at least 150 years old, stone, symmetrical and tidy, like something in old Civil War photos. Slate roof gleams, windows reflect the gentle blue of the Maryland sky, hearty pansies and mums vibrate in perfectly mulched, weeded, automatically-watered border gardens, not to mention the clean screens of the back porch that overlook apparently new decking, though Rawlins built the trileveled barbecue lounge palace, complete with understated green retractable awning, five years previous.

And there she sits on that very same deck, swinging on a hammock, baby at her breast.

I park near the steps.

“Come on up, Lillie!”

Wow. She looks tired.

“Hi, sweetie.” I lean over to kiss her cheek. “How’s the baby?”

“Perfect. She’s a hungry thing.”

“Did she just wake up from her nap?”

“Oh no! I feed her just before she goes in. That way she can fall asleep at the breast.”

Well, okay. I don’t know much about this stuff. “Sounds good to me.”

“Rawlins created our schedule. And guess what? She’s almost gained back her birthweight and she’s only two weeks old!” Tacy looks so proud.

I round my hand over the curve of Hannah’s skull. “She’s so pretty.”

“I know.”

Just then the porch door opens. “Hello, Lillian.”

“Hi, Rolly.”

“I’m marinating some chicken breasts. Will you share in our supper?”

“Don’t you have church here tonight?” I ask. Their church congregates inside their refurbished barn.

Rawlins leans against the railing. “Not tonight. Pastor Cole’s mother passed away and he returned to Oregon to officiate at the funeral.”

“Okay, then I’d like to stay for dinner.”

Tacy’s face lights up. “Oh, good!”

“Can I hold her when she’s done?” I feel as though I’m asking my dad for the car keys.

Rawlins stands erect. “I’m sorry, Lillian. But she always goes into her crib right after feeding. We’ll be rousing her in two hours for wake time. You may hold her then.”