Chapter Sixty-Nine
Ah, rain. More, more rain. You could feel it almost there. The spring. The Irish spring we always waited to come when we were kids. It just had a different feel, those few days before it arrived… I adjusted the hems of Puck’s dark church jeans into his yellow boots. He looked at me somberly…
“Do I look handsome?”
“Always… Don’t let it go to your head though.”
I explained to him about the senior pastor candidate coming to preach that morning, and then the congregational meeting and vote after that…
“I’m bringing your magic markers so you can draw pictures during the meeting. But not during the service.”
He seemed to understand the significance of the day. Maybe it was the fact that I was wearing my St. Louis on his horse necklace; that’s a pretty special indicator. Or maybe because I actually brought magic markers for him to use…
“This is the important conference of the United States, right?” he asked.
“It is an important conference of the United States.”
The rain watered the roads as we drove in. I knew what was going to happen that morning. I think pretty much everyone already did.
Church is sometimes like a… prospective mother-in-law wanting to make a good first impression on her potential future daughter-in-law. No. Son-in-law. Where before a few smudges on the fridge door handles, a chair turned askew, and maybe some fuzz in the corners wouldn’t really matter – at all – suddenly everything had to be fixed and changed. The color of the walls. The way you say hello. Maybe before you just said, “Hi”, now you might feel inclined to say, “Greetings”, or something weird like that. Maybe you change your accent. I don’t know. Point is, you suddenly don’t recognize where you are, or who you’re with. And, as predicted, the new visitor inspired the same reaction. Again. It may be harsh. But sometimes it’s ok to call a spade a spade. Although I quickly admit it’s easy to raise a soapbox without an audience. My job was just to keep Puck quiet while he unconsciously hummed “Jingle Bells” during the congregational meeting.
After the announcement of a new pastor likely to be installed in June, returning from New Mexico to his original stomping grounds, we drove back.
Carrie and Rose were finishing handmade tortillas – they really are much better – with hand-pounded refried beans, shredded cheddar, sliced chicken, and crispy lettuce to stuff it. We reviewed the service and meeting, as appropriate. Or inappropriate.
“Now let me make this very clear,” Dad interrupted the crazies towards the end of the meal.
[Keep in mind, he was addressing children ranging in ages from 18 to 28. And Puck, of course.]
“Your mother and I will be leaving for a birthday party this afternoon…”
“A three year-old’s birthday party,” someone mumbled.
“And the house is not, repeat, not to be any messier than when we leave.”
“Loophole! Loophole!”
Some heckling and further heckling… Rose was enjoying her new iPad with leather cover, also a hit with Puck. They laughed together over a few clips of Donald Duck in Brazil from that whacky old film we grew up with as staple – “The Three Caballeros”… Linnea ran up to the door sometime later. She had visited two churches with her volleyball pal, and something about visiting that pal’s twin baby cousins… I think…
“Why did you go to two churches this morning?” Dad asked.
I’m guessing most parents wished they had to ask their kids that. Linnea shifted into the old St. Louligans shirt. When Puck found out Rose was making plans to hit the deck for South America, Puck wasn’t sure what to think about it…
“That’s dangerous, Onion!”
“I know! I could be killed!” Rose replied. “I… probably shouldn’t have said that…”
Before we made official-official plans, The Bear rang in. Mediterranean beef kabob for dinner and Armenian coffee. He was sitting in the Bob Hope Airport waiting for his one-PM flight, about to study all the Greek he didn’t have time to look at during the week. So Mom and Dad left a few minutes before Joe drove off to be featured in a documentary filmed by German, presumably for class assignments… About three hours later, we still had a no-decision for Rose. She and Carrie and I went back and forth and around in circles through South America, the Mediterranean, Hawai’i, the Caribbean, and half a handful of other ideas that wouldn’t work because everything was booked up and crowded out. Rose waited for further information, Monday…
“I don’t want to go to Hawai’i…” she moaned. “That would be terrible.”
Only Rose… Mom and Dad were back after a little birthday cake. Candles were lit, the green window shamrocks fired up in the dining room. Small groups was meeting again with tea and coffee, soft lamps, Mom-style. People come over here and fall asleep. In a good way…
“It’s cozy,” they’ll say.
Or, “I just feel so much at home, I could take a nap.”
That sort of thing…
So I tucked Puck into Linnea’s bed for a few hours. I guess we could have avoided the whole midnight-pickup-The-Bear from the airport. But Puck likes the adventure, and we had waited five and a half days to see him, so I opted for the less convenient option. Rose sat, knees-to-chin, in the rocking chair talking about things that I half-heard until…
“…and the girl would send the boy a cantaloupe if she denied his request for marriage.”
“Wait. What?”
“In Mexico. It’s either a cantaloupe or a squash. But I like a cantaloupe because it’s a can’t-elope. Ha ha.”
Then she started talking about May West. Joe opened the dining room window for Snuggles to hop in while Francis drove off in my car for something or other…
“I’ll be back.”
There are times I just stop asking questions. There’s just too much going on. Jaya asked Joe to come over for the evening.
“Never mind,” said Francis, walking back inside for a different set of keys. “I’ll just take the van.”
Shelley roared through the muddy muck of the back yard. Francis found himself back inside to grab my keys instead, grinning grimly that he had “beached Shelley”. Joe walked back up the stairs from where the small group folks were gathered, triggering another almost-scatter. We kind of do that with visitors. I don’t really know why we do it. We just… do. In the middle of the girls trying to convince Linnea that she didn’t need any magnesium supplements, we heard a step on the stairs. I guess it is sort of like the confusion of a stampeding herd. We tumbled into Linnea’s room, laptops and all…
“What are you doing in here?” Puck asked, somewhat annoyed.
“You were so loud, Rose!”
“That was you!”
“Clodhopper feet!”
“It was you!”
“I’ll prove it was you! We’ll do a reenactment!”
“I know it was your feet. I’ve heard them too many times behind me.”
“We’re freaks.”
“It’s our Persian blood.”
The rain fell hard past the white window blinds as we four talked and snickered as quietly as possible in Mom’s and Dad’s room for another hour. Dad walked in once and scared us into the bathroom and closet.
“Look at the mice scatter,” he laughed. “You all are so embarrassing.”
But he thought it was pretty funny. I don’t think he saw Rose test out the emergency hide-out in Mom’s side of the closet behind her dresses though… But we eventually adjourned for cheeseburgers at nine. Dad made that pick-up. And I worked about a half-hour shoulder massage for Rose, who was tense from work. When we pulled Puck out at eleven, Carrie immediately claimed the cuddle. Twenty minutes with a fuzzy head leaning on her shoulder while she told “spooky stories”…
“What?” Francis interrupted. “Puck gets stories told to him and gets to go to the airport at midnight? He gets all the good stuff.”
“Francis,” Carrie smirked, “I’ll wrap you up in a blanket and tell you a story in just a minute.”
Finally. We got our long-awaited returned Bear. He met us about twenty after twelve, gifting books and hugs. It was a happy reunion. And… I’m about 92% sure I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I saw Matt Holliday get picked up by his wife at the Delta drop-off. Hey, he’s had the stomach flu lately and can’t play ball anyway.