With Zephyr warming her lap, Aglaia opened the Bible for the first time since it came in the mail three days ago.
She’d been right in her suspicions. François had written notes into the margins beginning at the first chapter of the first book. In formal lettering, he’d transcribed themes beside each book’s title, as she had done in her Bible at the same time, following Pastor Reimer’s spidery outline on the chalkboard in the church basement: Exodus, thirst in the desert; Deuteronomy, rock of salvation; John, light shining in darkness; Philippians, joy! But below these careful words copied on the onionskin pages were bits of scrawled commentary, some of it in French—François’s personal notations.
Beside the story of Noah and the flood, for example, he’d written arc-en-ciel. As he made that note, was he imagining his first sighting of a prairie rainbow, stretching unbroken from horizon to horizon without the interruption of buildings or light standards? She remembered the two of them lying on their backs in the damp summer grass, his quick gasp, his quiet awe.
“You know how the rainbow came to be, don’t you?” he asks.
That’s a straightforward question for a girl raised by parents who read the great stories of the Bible to her at bedtime.
But as she opens her mouth to answer that it’s God’s memento of promise, he interrupts her to tell how Iris, the cupbearer of the gods, lifted the waters of the oceans up into the clouds to connect heaven and earth, dressed in a rainbow woven by the Three Graces.
He sighs. She hasn’t ever heard a boy sigh for the sake of beauty, and the radiance of his rainbow shines inside her, too, so that she doesn’t correct him.
And again, here, where the nomads trod the ceaseless desert seeking the Promised Land, he’d written singing sand. He was thinking, she was sure, of the two of them standing on the crest of the dune out in the east pasture, catching the faint, far-away tinkling of the wind-blown sand, like bells or the call of a pan flute, wafting at the edge of their hearing. A few pages later he’d written windmill. What could he have meant but their drive to the north quarter that blistering day to put minerals out for the cows?
Mary Grace describes the mechanism to him. “So the wind turns the blades and rotates the gear to drive the rod attached to the plunger in the cylinder, which sucks the water through the sand point up the pipe, bringing it to the surface from below the dune,” she says, proud she doesn’t need Joel to prompt her.
She’s glad to be alone with François for once, out from under Joel’s protective eye. He can be smothering sometimes. Dad’s been too busy to notice her moods lately and, thankfully, Mom hasn’t yet figured out that François can make her spine tingle.
François’s eyes follow the pointing of her finger from the top of the windmill down the wooden structure to the large metal trough, where the dribble from the spout makes ripples on the surface of the water, cool and inviting.
“On y va!” he blurts. He bolts from the truck’s cab and yanks his t-shirt over his head and kicks the tennis shoes free from his feet despite her shouted warning to watch out for cactus. He startles the cows gathering around the blue salt blocks, and they scatter upon his whoops as he jumps, waist deep, into the icy pool.
She pursues him too closely and he slaps a handful of water up over her. Shrieking, she retaliates, and soon they’re wet to the bone with their teeth chattering in spite of the sun.
Aglaia flipped over half an inch of pages to Esther, where his unruly hand had circled beautiful young virgins and harem and concubines. Aglaia squinted to make out the letters of his comment: Had he written “Mary Grace” here? No, it said J’adore les Grâces américaines. She read it again, to be sure.
He loved the American Graces—plural? Aglaia leaned her head back on the couch, confounded. There was no denying that François had been a healthy, red-blooded young man. He must have been eyeing up all the girls in Tiege, and there were some cute ones. But somehow, back then, she convinced herself she was his sole focus. A niggling jealousy gave her a slight cramp in her belly all these years later. Just reading the disturbing sentence brought back teenage insecurities, but this was still early in the Bible, early in the summer. Perhaps he’d written it before anything got started between the two of them.
She turned a couple hundred pages till she came to Song of Songs—a book that captivated her long before she met François Vivier, introduced at a sleep-over with other girls whose mothers, like hers, checked through school backpacks to ensure that no romance novels entered their homes. They missed the sexiest one, right under their noses in their own Holy Bibles! Now it appeared that François, as well, found the poems of interest.
Aglaia saw she was correct in her assumption that she’d discover something informative in this book of love; François was a lover, and Song of Songs would have appealed to him. He’d underlined many verses: How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful!… You have stolen my heart with one glance from your eyes… Love burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. In the margins François had written Aphrodite, déesse de l’amour, the phrase likely meaning “goddess of love” in English. Aglaia knew all about her, this patron of courtesans—manifestation of the planet called Venus, the evening star—who maddened men with amorous passion as dusk fell. In the aphrodisiac of her own imagination, Aglaia pictured her now, adorned by her handmaiden Graces in twinkling jewelry forged in a furnace worked by the great Cyclopes.
She went on to read more of Solomon’s words: You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Here François had written at the spring. Aglaia’s mind flashed back and she closed her eyes to savor again her very first kiss.
Under the close cover of the night, with his palm coupling hers, they drift down to the spring-fed pond behind the barn where the prairie grass grows like wool and scratches her legs. The aspens, roots drinking deeply of the sweet, scarce water, tremble above them like guardians of her innocence, and the buffalo-berry bushes sigh in the breeze.
The moon-washed water, embossed with circles of insects alighting, reflects their two forms tilted towards one another, shoulders touching. She quivers, taut with anticipation. He hasn’t held her hand until tonight, hasn’t stroked her hair or touched her face. Now his breath is hot on her cheek as she turns to see his longing eyes.
“Graceful Mary Grace,” he whispers, and then his lips press on hers—on her virgin lips—and that’s all. But it’s enough for her.
Aglaia frittered the Saturday away between the sofa and her bed, leafing through the Bible, honing in on his faded lettering in Luke and then skipping back to Kings or Micah, reading at random and envisioning the scenes behind François’s comments. In other words, she spent the day at the farm with him. It made a confusing collage in her mind. Perhaps if she began at the front and progressed through the whole thing chronologically, she’d sort out the mayhem of memories that have for years now flitted around her imagination like impish sprites, shadows glimpsed and never laid hold of.
By late afternoon Aglaia’s ankle was almost normal, and supper was ready when Naomi rang to be let in. Her childhood friend deposited an overnight bag on the floor before wrapping Aglaia in a matronly hug. Her back had the soft folds of a more mature woman and her hair was over-processed, nothing like the lustrous tresses she kept as a girl, but her dimples were as deep as ever, her hazel eyes as quick to light up with cheer.
“You’ve lost weight again,” Naomi said. “Scrawny thing. How do you ever plan to catch a man?”
Aglaia opened her mouth to retort but Naomi went on. “I have good news from the doctor.” Aglaia had forgotten that Naomi was expecting some test results at her follow-up appointment today. “He says the biopsy showed no cancer after all.”
She clapped her hands in delight, her mouth open in a wide grin as though bringing news Aglaia must have been waiting in agony to hear. Naomi had never been as pretty as Aglaia, a fact she freely admitted as a teen. But she still wore joy on her face like a makeup.
“Congratulations,” Aglaia said with false optimism, cautious about celebrating. Naomi’s mother had died young and her own longevity was doubtful; her hope seemed ill founded. But Naomi was always so full of hope.
“Tell me all about your trip,” Naomi urged after she gave Aglaia an unasked-for update on her children’s progress in school and how she was thinking that maybe she should take them all out of class and teach them at home for a few years. “Your mother filled me in last week about how you had to rush your passport application through to get it approved in time. What have you sewn?” she asked. “Let me see it all!”
Aglaia protested that her bag was already packed, that she hardly had time to make anything new, but Naomi opened the suitcase and used the couch for her display rack as she spread the pieces out, one by one. She admired the khaki jacket, the sateen skirt printed with papyrus, and the hemp knit top. Aglaia’s little black dress made of silk velvet burnout, set off with cobalt-blue enameled Japanese buttons purchased at an estate sale, almost sent her into convulsions.
“Fabulous! With that neckline, you’ll have the Frenchmen drooling.”
Aglaia wanted only one of them to drool, but she didn’t mention this to Naomi. “I can’t imagine I’ll need anything so fancy, but it packs well,” she said. Naomi remarked on the obvious attributes of the clothing, such as color and sheen of the fabric, but of course she couldn’t appreciate the less visible quality behind the handiwork—the anchoring stitches holding seams to lining, the initials embroidered into a cuff. Aglaia smoothed out the white blouse collar of the shirt that went with her charcoal worsted blazer and pencil skirt. “I’ll wear this suit for the day I meet with the museum people.”
Aglaia expected to live in her jeans most of the time she was in Paris, but she recalled the memo from head office about arrangements for media coverage at the gallery. Montreal viewed the delivery of the costume as a great photo opportunity encouraging francophonic relations, not to mention the international advertising it afforded for Incognito. Her boss, however, was disgusted over the antics of headquarters to pander to the expectations of the snobs in France, but Eb knew what side his bread was buttered on, he said, so he didn’t air his opinions to his employers. Had it been left up to him, he’d have forgone personal delivery and simply sent the costume overseas by FedEx. He couldn’t be bothered with the fanfare but acted relieved by Aglaia’s interest in jumping through these hoops.
Eb’s Canadian overseers had been hounding him lately, and not just about the Paris enterprise. Eb was a deferential manager who didn’t enjoy—or employ—micromanagement. As she repacked her bag, Aglaia wondered what was up. It might have something to do with that movie he mentioned a few weeks ago. Incognito Denver occasionally contracted out its designs and labor for cinematographic projects, but most were local shoots that Eb supervised himself—happy enough to support the popular literature of the people in this increasingly illiterate world, as he said. The current movie, whatever it was, involved a larger film company from California, earning the special attention of the CEO in Montreal. When she returned, Aglaia would have to ask Eb about the movie and their role in it.
Meanwhile, Aglaia concentrated on Paris, and she was committed to doing Eb proud. The assignment confirmed her worth within the company. Her boss thought she was up to it, so she’d swallow her qualms and rise to the challenge. She had no idea about comportment in such grand circles, but she’d have to wing it. If only she had Lou’s self-assurance!
Dinner with Naomi started out well. Aglaia served a crisp Caesar salad and garlic bread alongside the bubbling lasagna, which was cheesy and spiced with nutmeg. But when Naomi insisted on praying before the meal, Aglaia thought it was a good thing she hadn’t opened the bottle of wine she’d picked up to have on hand. Something twigged in her memory about Naomi not touching alcohol these days for religious reasons, though that hadn’t always been the case. The unopened bottle sat on the counter. It was a red from the Napa that had attracted Aglaia because of its label bearing a sketch of the Three Graces, and named after one of them—Euphrosyne—which was fitting in light of that Grace’s personality as the embodiment of mirth and merriment. Well, she’d save the merriment for more appreciative company, she thought.
As the meal progressed, Aglaia realized afresh why she didn’t want to get too close to her old friend. The woman was too self-righteous.
“Isn’t it terrific how God has brought us back into one another’s lives?” Naomi’s question was predictable, the subject of God’s goodness being the evangelical fallback to any lagging conversation.
Aglaia replied tartly, “It seems to me you’re the one that’s brought us back together.” If you can call this together, she thought, a forced evening between the city mouse and the country mouse.
“Friendship is worth a bit of work, Mary Grace.”
There! On top of it all, Naomi persisted in calling her by the old name, left behind for a reason.
Throughout Aglaia’s childhood as Mary Grace, she’d heard the family stories about her namesake, Taunte Maria—that venerable missionary to the lost who forged inroads into the jungles of Bolivia with the voice of an angel, with songs that spanned the gap of misunderstanding between God and her transfixed listeners in loincloths. The elders at Aglaia’s church held Maria in high esteem. Her great-aunt had passed along to her the gift of song, they surmised; would she someday follow in her footsteps? These were big shoes to fill and Aglaia had wanted to fill them as a girl, until it dawned on her that she’d be trading the farm for even more remoteness—the isolation of the sanctified. As for her middle name, it was ludicrous. She’d always felt graceless, never more than as a teenager going through her clumsy stage. What had her parents been thinking? Altogether, “Mary Grace” was such a mouthful. There was no diminutive for it, no nickname.
The whole congregation called her rebellious when she refused to attend choir any longer, that last year at home when she was so alone. She was probably depressed.
She officially changed her name down at the vital statistics registry office as soon as she moved to Denver. The bureaucrat who processed her application stank of onions and leaned too close when he pressed her fingertips into the printing pad and rolled them, one by one, over the form as though she were a common criminal. It took months before every document was changed—birth certificate, driver’s license—but finally she was Mary Grace no longer. She’d purged herself, every official piece of ID now bearing her chosen name. The old was gone, the new had come! Until, that is, her mother mailed her a church bulletin with a prayer request for Mary Grace who was wandering as a prodigal in the wicked city, or she bumped into a schoolmate who failed to recall the day of reckoning—the day of Joel’s funeral—when in her heart Aglaia put to death her old nature.
“For dust you are and to dust you will return,” the preacher says.
She hunkers on the front pew, staring at the floor between her shoes and blocking out the singing around her—“Rock of ages, cleft for me”—and the drone of the pastor with his promises of resurrection, this so-called hope held out to Henry and Tina and Mary Grace. But when he says that God is gracious in this hideous act of His sovereignty, she can keep silent no longer.
She pushes away from the hard bench and faces the other mourners and presses her back against that casket holding the stone-cold dead, the stench of the flowers nauseating her.
“I am Aglaia,” she exclaims, the name leaping to her lips from some subconscious cavern for the first time, each word of the sentence deliberate and spoken loudly enough to disturb the fat Grossmama dozing in the back row.
Tina plucks at her sleeve, hisses at her to settle down.
“Don’t call me Mary Grace anymore,” she growls to the congregation. A pronouncement foams in her soul and forms on her tongue like a creed, and she fairly shouts it: “There is no grace!”
Her father stands then, his own rare tears dropping onto her hair as he takes her out to weep in privacy.
“ ‘Aglaia,’ ” Naomi said.
Aglaia regained her sense of time.
“I’m sorry, I meant to call you ‘Aglaia,’ though for the life of me I can’t get used to that name.”
“It’s okay. I go by either,” she fibbed, “now that I’ve recovered from my identity crisis.” Even as she said this, she knew it took more than an official name change to earn the graciousness and elegance she longed for.
“Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Recovered.” Naomi chased her salad around the plate with her fork. “You’re so self-sufficient here in your own apartment with your hoity-toity job taking you to exotic places. But for a while tonight it’s been like old times with you, sitting together and sharing, until your eyes go hollow and you zone out for a while.”
Now they were getting down to the real motivation behind Naomi’s visit, Aglaia thought—to harass her into the kinship they once had.
“It will never be like old times,” she said. She half wished she were wrong.
“I know people change, sometimes out of self-defense.” Naomi stuck a leafy forkful into her mouth and talked around it. “It’s just that you’re so pent up. Where did all the spit and vinegar go?”
“People do change, Naomi. They leave certain things behind them.”
“Like their family?”
Offended, Aglaia rose from the table, laying her napkin across her chair, and put the kettle on. Her family involvement was none of Naomi’s business.
But Naomi was never one for tact and wouldn’t let it go. “Don’t you ever miss the farm, your parents? Don’t you miss me?”
Aglaia’s fist clenched around the kettle’s handle. She willed herself to relax before turning back to Naomi.
“Do I miss you? Why, you’re here right now,” she said with unnatural lightness, seething inside. Was Naomi completely devoid of subtlety, of the ability to respect boundaries? What was it with these women in her life?
“But you’re not really here, are you?” A spark ignited Naomi’s eyes and one corner of her mouth curled up and she asked, “Don’t you ever just want to bust out and sing?”
She lunged to her feet then, threw her head back melodramatically, and opened her mouth like a baby bird for its sustenance. In that instant Aglaia knew what was coming, recognized the deep intake of breath and the posture they used to assume when they practiced out behind the spring, filling the skies with their melodious cries where no one but heaven could hear.
Sure enough, with operatic intensity Naomi began to belt out the clearest, craziest soprano Aglaia had heard since their youthful excesses.
“Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace…”
“Stop it,” Aglaia hushed.
“Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.”
“The neighbors will call the police, Naomi!”
But there was no stemming the flow once she got going. She cascaded all over the treble clef, grasping Aglaia’s hands and swinging her into a drunken jive in disregard of the ankle.
Naomi towed Aglaia out through the open patio door onto the deck, her frizz bouncing all around her flushed cheeks as she howled. Her musical laughter was so infectious that, near the end of the song, Aglaia started to weaken and almost joined in on the last line herself.
Panting, Naomi stood facing Aglaia in the duskiness of the overcast evening. A car door slammed in the parking lot three stories below and Aglaia heard the clapping of one set of hands. She and Naomi popped their heads over the railing to determine their audience. Lou, dressed in a crisp navy pantsuit, stood in front of her burnished BMW.
Aglaia withdrew from the deck’s edge. Lou must have seen and heard the whole thing, and now Naomi bowed to Lou in burlesque exaggeration. “A friend of yours?” she asked. “Let’s invite her up.”
“No, I’ll go down and find out what she wants,” Aglaia objected, averse to allowing both women into the same room at the same time, feng shui to meet rustic homestead. But Naomi was already yelling at Lou to join them, assuring Aglaia that the interruption wouldn’t be an inconvenience at all and that she was dying to meet any of her chic acquaintances. By the time Aglaia slid the glass door closed behind her, Naomi was halfway down the hallway cheering Lou up the steps as though she were a long-lost buddy.