CATHEDRAL - Patrick Sean Lee (best books for 8th graders txt) 📗

at Volume 10. Wake up, Jack, you crappy mouser. Geschlicht

Santa Monica

                                                  

Isabella

 

 

“It’s delicious.”

“I’m glad you like it. Really it’s easy to fix. Do you want the recipe?”

Annie and I are sitting beneath the lemon trees at the table. In the small space between the tips of the tree’s branches and the roof of the house I can see dark, dark blue, and a few of the brightest stars. An offshore breeze has come up and wiped the heat away, sending it out into the San Gabriel valley to the east. The candle flickers now and then. The lemons smell tangy. The dinner was delicious and everything is peaceful, as though providence has smiled on me this evening. We’ve nearly finished the bottle of wine she brought, and my stomach has the warmest glow. I’m waiting for her to change the subject from the boutique and the food to Brad.

Annie smiles and says no to the recipe offer, she’d probably never find the time to prepare it. She’s thin as a rail, even though she eats tons of Marie Callender frozen dinners, frozen pizzas, frozen quiches, frozen potato patties, everything frozen and then thawed and nuked in the microwave in her apartment. She’s going to die of a heart attack by age fifty. She is wearing a plain white tee with bold, black letters flowing across the front at her chest. Geschlicht Ist Gut. I don’t know much German. Something is good. Maybe gaslights…or some sort of Mosel Valley wine. I don’t know.

My cell phone rings—Heartless; Kanye West ringtone. I pick it up and glance at the name lit up on the screen. It’s Brad, again. I have a little wine left in my glass, and so I lay the phone back down and reach for the stem of the glass instead of answering.

“Aren’t you going to pick up?” Annie asks. She reaches for the bottle and asks another question with a movement of her eyes. Do you want more? I lift my free hand and wave it off, then reconsider.

“Yes, please. No, I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.”

“It’s him, right?”

I nod, yes. Annie pours half of what is left in the bottle into my glass then empties the remainder into hers.

“Is! Just answer.”

It’s too late anyway, the call has already gone to message.

“No. He calls nearly every hour. What’s the point? I know what he’ll say.”

She sips from her glass, her eyes fix gravely on me as she tips it.

“He called me a couple of days ago, you know,” she says.

“What!”

“Yes. He asked me what was going on. Would I help him. I don’t know what he thought I could do, but he was pretty torn up. I told him I’d try, but not to get his hopes up. He said he felt like jumping off a bridge. Good thing we don’t live in San Francisco, hmm? That was about it.”

“He’ll be crazy for awhile. I can’t help him through this. He’ll survive.” A screwy thought hits me, and I say without thinking, “Annie, why don’t you take up where I left off? You two always hit it off. You know…”. I want to retract that. Too late. She stares at me coldly for a moment.

“What kind of stupid suggestion is that? This ain’t high school, darlin’. He and I are just old friends, and only that because of you. I’m not attracted to him at all that way. How could you ask me to do such a thing?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. You’re right, it’s ridiculous—it’s just that he won’t let it go, and I’m getting desperate. His calls are driving me crazy. Why can’t he just face up to it?” My hand shakes a little as I pick up my wine glass and down what’s left in it. The liquid flows cool and vaguely biting down my throat. It relaxes me a little. I want to apologize to my best friend, but instead I reach for the bottle, shake it a little to see if maybe anything is left. In the soft candlelight I can see a tiny dark wave moving inside is all. We need another bottle. I need to relax more. Brad is getting to me with his incessant calls.

“I’m going in to grab another bottle. I’ll be right back.”

Annie says nothing, but she’s tapping the edges of her glass side to side on the tabletop. I rise and walk across the lawn to the kitchen door. The dog must be standing with his nose against the fence a few doors down, now. He begins his barking. I want to yell at him to shut the fuck up. Just everyone, shut up.

Inside I open the refrigerator and pull out the first bottle in sight. Stanfield is up, standing down the hall looking in at me. I go to him, a little dizzy, and give him a pat.

“Hi, buddy. You hungry again?” He raises his rear and tail up, then when I’m finished stroking his back, he sits back down with a weak little meow. Not hungry, I guess. I glance at the house phone on the table a few feet away. The message light is on. The number “two” is on the screen. Probably pleas from Brad, but I punch the button and listen to them anyway. The first begins with the now familiar line, “Hi, Is. It’s Brad…”. I hit delete and go to the next.

“Hello, Isabella. This is Matthew. Umm…sorry. I called information for your number…sorry. It…umm. Well, I just wanted to say hi. Yeah. Lots to tell you—I’m writing twenty-four hours a day! It’s good stuff, really good, I think. Umm…maybe give me a call?” Matthew’s voice stumbles into a pause, and what follows is in a softer, very sure tone. “I miss you. Come back. I’ll get the ticket. I miss you. Call, okay? My number is three one o, eight three six, two nine o three. Give me a call, huh? Come back.”

I begin to reach automatically for the receiver, but stop. What am I thinking? I have problems here. I don’t need anymore. Now I’m shaking. He wants me to drop everything and…No. I don’t miss…the wine is making me want to call, but the sensible side of me warns me not to. I leave the phone and walk back out to join Annie again.

She is leaning back in her chair, expressionless. I wonder where the coming conversation will take us? I can’t help but notice the three-word blurb on her shirt, and as I fill her glass, then mine, I ask her. “What is geschlicht?”

“Sex. It’s good, right?” She grins. The message makes perfect sense on her chest. From what I know of her personal life I wouldn’t say she’s exactly loose, but I’ve seen a lot of guys wander into the boutique asking for her. She always seems pretty…satisfied, I guess, in that department. The last time Brad and I had sex—yes, that’s what it was. Not making love. I miss that—the last time, I got up immediately afterward and walked to the bathroom.

I smile at her but don’t respond. I simply agree with a smile.

We drink more wine and reminisce about some of the better lovers in our lives for a while, laughing. Thank God Brad doesn’t come up in our list. He made love to me; he was the best, once. Past tense. I wonder, as she tells me about some guy she sees every now and again, what kind of lover Matthew is? I quickly push that thought out of my head and focus on Annie’s tales of those intense, no-holds-barred encounters with her guy.

Later.

“I’ll call you a cab.”

She flubs her full lips with an “are-you-kidding” ruffling as she exhales. “I’m jus’ fine…”

“No you’re not. We’re both pretty high. Let me call a cab, Annie.”

I can see her being hauled into the drunk tank, and I am insistent. “Either I call you a cab or else you take the bed in the guest room. No arguments.”

She finally agrees. She would rather have the cab, though. No clean clothes here, she says. That’s fine, and so I leave the candle burning and we get up and go inside, leaning against one another, laughing and giggling like two high school kids. She plops onto the sofa and makes a woo-ing sound. Yes, the wine was outstanding. The sex was pretty good, too, in a vicarious way.

I leave her and grab the yellow pages to look up a cab company. The lit message light is still staring up at me on the cradle’s screen. I thumb down the list of cab companies, find one, and make the call. Afterward I gaze at the little red light that’s begging me to click “listen”. I walk unsteadily into the living room, sit down beside my friend, and hug her.

“I love you, Annie. Thanks for coming.” I blurt the next part out and don’t know exactly where it comes from. “I might have to leave you in charge of the boutique for a while, again.”

She’s passed out and doesn’t hear a word of that. The cab will be here shortly, but instead of trying to get her out the door and into it I think it would be much better just to go get a blanket and let her sleep it off here on the sofa. I stand, get my balance, then go to the linen cabinet. I also find her purse and take the keys in case she wakes up after Stanfield and I have closed my bedroom door and gone to sleep. I return to get her laid out on the sofa. She slides into the cushions without much effort on my part, and mumbles something I can’t make out. I cover her up and kiss her forehead. Goodnight.

I call the cab company, tell them not to bother, then lock my eyes onto the red digit glowing on the cradle for several seconds. Damn me. I push “Listen”, grab a pencil and a piece of paper, and jot down the number.

 

The Call

The Lodge

 

Matthew

 

     Ah! A gorgeous evening and I’m sitting at my desk in a brand new room, looking out the window at a hundred million stars in the black sky. I’m pretty damn close to heaven here. I stopped writing a few minutes ago, turned the lamp off, then clicked the screen on my laptop off so that I could really take in the overwhelming beauty of this Colorado sky. It’s