Give Me Space
Despite all the complaints the neighbors filed at city hall, Valerie and Andy were in their house by Halloween. They carved a grinning pumpkin to set on the porch and filled a bowl of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters, but not one child came to their door.
“They’ll come next year,” Valerie said, and asked me to help her plan Thanksgiving, our first holiday together as married couples. When it was just Valerie and me, the holidays were popcorn and a movie. Now we’re a little family unit of two couples; four people awkwardly attempting to start a tradition in a galley kitchen in a glass house. Whether we move in or not, there’s no question that the Glass House will become our hub for the holidays.
Wheeling through Safeway, we toss cans of pumpkin and cranberries, boxes of frozen piecrusts, and bags of potatoes and onions into our grocery carts with the wild abandon of children crunching fingers around all the candy they can fist in a bowl. We are deliberating over frozen turkeys when a commotion attracts the attention of the general manager. A man has run into the store, head bare and rain dripping off his hair, running down his face and soaking his shirt. He stands in a tight circle of people and says something that produces gasps and denials. The store manager questions the man and then walks with purpose to the front counter, flips a switch near the cash register, and picks up a microphone. It is clear he isn’t announcing a store special. Tears run down his cheeks. His voice breaks through the buzz and the pop of the public address system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have just heard that President Kennedy has been shot.”
R
President Kennedy died in an emergency room in Dallas, his bloodied wife Jacqueline by his side. Our grief is like a cloud cover that keeps the sun from breaking through to warm us so we can move through our days. Bundled up in our own thoughts about what the assassination of our young President means, it is as if we ourselves took a bullet that blew away our innocence.
I’ve suffered a lot of personal loss--my first husband Henry; my mother; even my Uncle Iban. As angry as I was that he waited until the last minute of his life to tell me that my twin did not die at birth but was very much alive, I remember only the good things; the way he welcomed me into his home after my mother died and the stories he told me about my father. But this is different. The horror of the jerky images of our collapsed President playing and replaying in every American home collapses our spirit of self-possession. If he could not be protected, how can we expect to be protected? What is it that we need protection from? How did this happen?
We have set our questions aside on this sober Thanksgiving Day. I help Roger add an extension to the table. It was Valerie who suggested that this year we expand our tight family unit to include Laura and Father Mike.
I take a moment to search each face around the honey-toned pine Shaker trestle table Valerie has chosen to set off the Philippine mahogany paneled walls. My Valerie is a girl of contrasts. Today she scurries back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room balancing bright orange and yellow Hellerware bowls and platters piled with food that should last us until Christmas. Andy sits at the head of his new table in his new house, looking very proud of his new wife. On his left, Laura sits with hands folded in her lap. Father Mike sits next to her, relaxed in a short-sleeved black shirt with a clerical collar. Beefy men like Father Mike never seem to get cold.
Roger and I have offered to help Valerie in the kitchen, but she shooed us out. She has very specific ideas about how she wants this production to go, so we take our seats across the table from our friends. The smell of bay leaves rides on a breeze blowing in from the patio behind Andy. I gaze toward the atrium where Puffy has found a potted fern to nestle under. This really is a lovely house, full of spicy fall scents that drift inside.
Valerie finally sits and smooths a cloth napkin over her knees. Always hungry, Andy picks up his fork. But at the arresting look from his wife and the zinger I shoot him from my eye, he sets it down again.
“Father Mike, would you bless our food?” my highly trainable son-in-law asks.
Father Mike extends both his hands to his companions on either side and we take the cue. In his deep, melodic voice that I swear has a touch of brogue, and he swears does not, he begins.
“Our Heavenly Father, have mercy on the United States of America in our times of sorrow, and comfort those who grieve.” Through my half-closed eyes, I notice the squeeze he gives Laura’s hand.
“We pray you will bring to justice those responsible for the death of our beloved President. We pray for peace in our nation and in our homes. We pray blessings on this house and all who will live here. Thank you for this food and the hands that prepared it. In the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.”
We make the sign of the cross, some more awkwardly than others, and dive into our food.
After dinner, the men insist on going into the kitchen and doing the dishes. The sound of clashing dinnerware and hearty laughter gives the house the energy of a symphony hall at intermission. We are anticipating a dessert that Valerie has been keeping a secret. Laura walks up the street to take Goldie for a walk, promising to return in time for dessert. Valerie and I wander around the house discussing furniture options.
“You are not allowed to bring your garage sale, saggy baggy couch.” Valerie plants her hands on her hips and gives me her schoolmarm look.
I haven’t told Valerie for sure that we will move in, but Roger and I agree that the apartment we chose in such a hurry depresses us. Furnishing it with thrift store castoffs did not make us feel like kids setting up their first home, as we hoped. It just makes us feel old and discarded. We want out in a hurry, but we want to take our time choosing a new community. Parking ourselves at the Glass House for a time seems bold and adventurous. Setting up a household to accommodate four adults will be complicated, but it’s the Sixties, conventions are being challenged, and these days I’m up for a challenge.
We are deep in conversation about coffee tables when the doorbell makes the kind of noise you hear on an airplane just before the captain announces fasten your seatbelt please. It must be Laura back from her walk. I trot through the atrium and throw open the door with a hearty greeting.
“You’re back!” But it’s not Laura.
R
“I’ve never been here before.” Kay Dold is standing on the other side of the door, a plate of frosted cookies shaped like turkeys in her hand.
“Oh Kay, I thought you were Laura! Come in, come in!”
Kay fixes her feet firmly on the doorstep even as she looks over my shoulder across the atrium.
“Oh, I can’t stay. I just wanted to welcome Valerie and her husband to the neighborhood.” Kay thrusts the plate of cookies into my hands. Her eyes dart to the interior of the house and then back over her shoulder to where young Lukas sits astride his bike, one foot resting on a pedal and one planted on the asphalt. Apparently, she thinks she might be in need of a bodyguard. I see an opportunity here.
“Well why not come in for just a second? Would you like to see the house?” Of course she’d like to see the house. That’s why she’s here.
Kay shouts instructions to her son to go tell his father that she’ll be home in a minute. She follows me through the atrium to the living room where the men are gathered in a cozy circle enjoying a brandy. I introduce Kay to Andy, who apologizes for Valerie’s absence.
“We’ve been barred from the kitchen. My wife wants to be alone with her experimental dessert. Can I offer you a brandy, Kay?” Andy puts an arm around Kay and moves her toward the bar cart. Kay reacts like a wallflower being guided to the dance floor by the prom king. Roger pours a dab of golden liquid into a goblet and places the glass into her hands. Two sips and she’s Chatty Cathy. I’ve never seen this side of Kay Dold before.
After old Mrs. Dold died, her son and his wife made some of the usual renovations people make to homes that were meant to be summer getaways, but ended up being valuable real estate. They added a Florida room. That’s why I was so surprised when Gunther led the attack on Valerie for what he labeled overbuilding the neighborhood. Kay stays in the background. Now she’s fraternizing with the enemy and having a great time. The doorbell sounds the seatbelt warning and this time Roger goes for it. A second later, he’s back. He gives Kay a big smile lightly spiced with regret.
“You are wanted at home Mrs. Dold.”
“Oh gosh, that’s right, we’re expecting company and I need to be there to receive my guests.” She sets her empty glass down on the bar cart. Her words trail behind her as she heads for the door, “Tell Valerie I’m giving a Tupperware party and to expect an invitation. You too, Dee. Have Valerie give me your address.”
Through the window, I see Gunther waiting for her out in the street. “One invitation will do, Kay. Roger and I are going to be living here with Valerie and Andy for a while.”
I can tell by the way her steps falter that she would love nothing more than to turn heel and get the full story, but leaving Gunther standing in the street is not an option.
“Okay, I’ll do that.”
By the time Andy rolls the bar cart full of empty glasses back to the kitchen, Laura has rejoined our merry band. Andy reappears and flips off the light Roger switched on a few moments ago. Valerie walks slowly from the kitchen carrying something that’s on fire. Beneath a tongue of flame, a bluish glow of light illuminates a white mound of something I can’t identify. It’s puffy. My brain is playing tricks on me. It’s not Puffy, it’s a puffed confection of a sort I’ve never seen before. The blaze dies quickly, and Valerie sets it on the table with flourish.
“Baked Alaska!” she announces proudly.
Oh my. This truly is new territory.
R
Roger and I move into the Glass House on the first of December. I’ve had my art supplies set up in the studio since Thanksgiving weekend and we are happy as clams in our corner suite. I let Roger have the bulk of the space in the mahogany bureau bookcase we found together. He can stash a season’s worth of clothes in the drawers below, stack his books behind cabinet doors above, and sit at the drop down secretary desk that separates the drawers from the cabinet to do his accounting. I take the closet, which has better light. Where Joseph Eichler’s designers have not installed glass walls, they’ve installed skylights.
For our sitting area, I chose low, white leather club chairs that swivel, and a Danish enamel-topped round table with an aluminum base. Mornings, we sit at this work of art with our coffee and the paper. Evenings, we settle here to sip a drink before dinner and enjoy our patio view. Valerie had a landscape crew group graceful white birch trees along the side of the house. From this spot, we let our eyes rest on the inviting double bed. We imagine the feel of the silky sheets underneath the tailored bedding; I chose a gray fabric with a hush of silver threaded through, a concession to the fact that I now live with a man. Despite Valerie’s disapproval, we put down a short shag carpet in soft sage. I like my toes to hit something warm when I get out of bed in the morning.
We’ve had no discussions about cooking or housecleaning. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. Many evenings, Roger and I go out for dinner to give Valerie and Andy some time alone. Tonight we’re in what Roger calls our cubby, dressing to meet Laura and Mike at The Echo.
I struggle these days over whether to address Mike as a parishioner or a friend. He’s practically the right arm of my friend Laura, and my own relationship with him has changed. I used to think of him as my counselor and priest, but lately I’ve started to think of him more as a friend. Maybe I followed Laura’s lead when she stopped using an ecclesiastic title that kept him at a distance. Or maybe I stopped when he lost his church.
Mike may have lost his church, but he hasn’t lost his calling. That’s what we are going to talk about tonight. Johnny himself greets us. Photographs of movie stars have started popping up on the walls of this neighborhood watering hole since Johnny took over. He shakes hands with Roger and Mike and turns us over to the hostess who takes us back to a creek-side table covered in white linen, set for four. We order a round of Manhattans to be followed by steaks cooked rare and potatoes baked in foil. We say yes to butter, sour cream, and chives.
“So tell me, Mike, what are your plans now that the city has boarded up Saint Matthew’s?” Roger takes a long pull on his Manhattan.
We are all so sad about this, but Mike is a roll-with-the-punches kind of guy. Swirling a stemmed cherry around in his glass, Mike is a man whose presence fills a room. He’s not loud, but as he begins to outline his plan I notice people at tables around us tuning an ear to what he’s telling us. As mealy mouthed as this community has been about defending the existence of Saint Matthew’s, Mike is a spiritual pillar people don’t want to lose.
“You know, Roger, I was a high school teacher before I entered the priesthood. I like working with kids, and these days it is pretty exciting. They are challenging everything their parents value. Kids have always done that; that’s part of God’s plan to pull ‘em out of the nest and grow ‘em up.”
Mike laughs and takes a healthy swallow of bourbon. “But this generation? The Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination, all that stuff has shaken them. They don’t feel safe anymore.”
“It’s like...” Laura holds up her hands in parentheses, “nothing is certain anymore.”
I realize for the first time that these two are team. I’m not quite sure what that means, but I think they’ve been a team for a while.
Mike nods. “So they are attracted by new ideas, new ways to express themselves.”
“I’ll say they are.” Roger points to his empty glass as the hostess comes by to check on us.
“The Beats have put it out there and the kids are picking it up.” Mike places his hand over the top of his glass and shakes his head. “There’s a reason this new group, the Beatles, are so popular. They have a joyful sound and a message that clicks with the impulses our kids have to break away from their parent’s expectations.”
“You say this like it’s a good thing.”
“Like everything, it’s both.”
The waitress brings our dinner and we dig into big New York steaks and flaky potatoes. As we eat, Mike describes the youth group he is forming and the need he sees to provide neutral ground where kids can talk freely in front of adults about their experiences.
“Young people aren’t coming into the church today, so the church needs to take our Lord’s message to them. We need people with space in their hearts and their homes for kids.”
“What about their parents? Shouldn’t that education take place at home?”
Mike levels his eyes at me. “Is that where you got your religious education?”
My face burns. No one knows better than Father Mike how little I knew before I met him, the sense of panic and loneliness I was feeling when he stepped into my life and helped me find my family and my God.
“But to answer your question, yes it should, but for all kinds of reasons it’s not happening. And, the kinds of people who are stepping into the void to help these kids find themselves are a mixed bag.”
Roger pushes aside the fresh drink he has barely touched. Mike has hit a nerve with him as well, the remote control parent who struggles to connect with his son. “How exactly do you approach these kids?”