I managed to not say anything to Florida or Stu, even though Stu rode home with us after the potluck, but I called Delores the minute I got home. “They’re cooling it, Delores! Does that mean I don’t have to embroider this quilt square?”
“What are you talking about, Jodi!”
“Avis and Peter—she said they’re cooling it.”
I heard Delores chuckle. “Oh. Do not worry, mi amiga. That is to be expected. How do you say it?—cold feet. Did she say why?”
No, she hadn’t said why, and I tried to call Avis after I hung up with Delores, but all I got was her voice mail. Humph. She better tell us at Yada Yada tonight—so we could pray, of course.
Yeah, right.
Amanda was hunched over the computer doing schoolwork while I made a birthday cake, but she gave it up for an hour—actually, I bribed her with the mixing bowl and beaters; anything for chocolate—so I managed to make two computer cards for the birthday Yadas, doing the “name” thing.Took me longer than I thought, though, because I had a sneezing fit right in the middle of accessing the Internet and waded through a pile of tissues before I got my runny nose and weepy eyes under control. Dumb cold better not be making a comeback. I took a decongestant and a couple of pain relievers for good measure.
Back on the computer, I checked out the meaning of Stu’s first name—Leslie—and it came up meaning, “From the gray fortress.” Huh? What could I do with that? So I looked up her last name—Stuart, which meant “Caretaker.” Hm. That seemed appropriate, maybe to a fault. But I stuck with the positive and printed out a card that said, Stuart: Old English for Caretaker. God bless you, Stu, as you make sure that foster kids are taken care of!
Ruth’s name was sweet: “Friend of beauty.” In spite of her brusque exterior, Ruth was intensely loyal, just like her counterpart in the Bible. Like the way she’d taken Yo-Yo and her half brothers under her wing. To Ruth, my computer card said, Friend of beauty. A beautiful friend ~ Happy Birthday! Love, Jodi.
Our ranks were thin at Yada Yada that night—only eight of us. Nony and Florida both stayed home with sick kids, Delores had to work pediatrics at the county hospital, and Edesa was babysitting the Enriquez kids because Ricardo and José were playing their new week-end gig at La Fiesta. But Adele showed up—her sister was back in town and able to take MaDear on Sundays again—in Chanda’s new car. A champagne Lexus. The whole group was standing out by the curb gawking at it when Hoshi and I drove up with Stu.
“What? You didn’t bring Denny?” Ben Garfield fussed, giving me a peck on the cheek. “What am I supposed to do while you ladies get holy? I need a beer buddy.”
Oh, please. I wasn’t keen on Denny being Ben’s “beer buddy,” so just as well. But I laughed airily and was just about to ask Ben if he’d sneak the cake from Stu’s car into the house while we were praying, when he gave me a wink and motioned me to follow him. Ruth was busy taking coats in the living room, so he hustled me through the compact kitchen of their brick bungalow with its single sink and bright mustard counters and opened the door to a tiny utility room. A large bakery cake sat in all its sugary glory on top of the washing machine, boasting, Happy 39th Birthday, Ruth!
He pointed to the 39 and snickered. “That gal’s been thirty-nine for the last nine years.” His large face broke into a mask of laugh wrinkles. “Had Yo-Yo make it. Just give me the high sign and I’ll bring it in, candles lit. Better have a fire extinguisher ready.”
I groaned silently. I never did get hold of Yo-Yo to tell her I was making a cake. Now what? Ben’s cake only said “Ruth” and we had two birthdays . . . well, maybe my cake could be for Stu.Not that we needed two cakes.
As I sank into a corner of Ruth’s flowered sofa on the tail end of the opening prayer, Avis asked for praise or prayer reports. I wondered if she would say something about “cooling it” with Peter—but knew she probably wouldn’t.And suddenly I realized how easy it was for Avis to hide behind being the leader. Yeah, there she went, asking Hoshi how her studies were going at Northwestern and if she’d heard anything from her parents. And then she’d ask someone else . . .
“I write every week,” Hoshi said, fingering the delicate oriental scarf around her neck, “and at first all my letters were returned. But lately they have not been returned.”
“Praise Jesus!” Chanda threw up her hands. “De parents be readin’ dem!”
Hoshi shook her head, the blue-black of her shoulder-straight hair catching highlights from Ruth’s table lamp. “I do not think so. Because I got a letter from my aunt this week. She says my mother gives her the letters unopened. But my aunt is reading them and, I think”—a small smile tilted Hoshi’s red lips—“telling mama-san what I say.”
Ruth nodded smugly. “A yenta, this aunt is. Good, good!”
Yo-Yo, perched on the arm of the overstuffed sofa, stuck both hands behind the bib of her overalls and grinned. “Now that’s bad.”
“It is bad? I thought good!” Hoshi looked flustered. “English is so confusing.”
Avis smiled. “God is at work, Hoshi. By His stripes we are healed—and that includes our family relation-ships too.”
Yo-Yo, next to me, poked me. “By His stripes what?” she asked.
I held up a finger and paged through my Bible to look for the verse Avis had referred to, even as she shifted gears. “Other praise reports?”
Stu waved a long envelope. “This! The parole board is giving us a hearing about Becky Wallace!” She read the brief letter stating the time: two weeks from Saturday.
A stunned silence greeted her announcement, finally broken when Yo-Yo said, “Man! Maybe the Cubs will win the World Series too.”
Chanda giggled. “If I live to be t’ree hundred.”
“Well.” For once Ruth was speechless.
“Lord God Almighty.”Adele heaved a sigh and shook her large, gold ear loops. “I never thought . . .”
“But it is what we asked for, correct?” said Hoshi. “You just said God is at work, Avis. For Becky Wallace too.”
“Well, yeah.” Yo-Yo wagged her head. “But getting a hearing don’t mean they actually gonna let her out.Them parole boards can be—”
“Yeah, we know, Yo-Yo,” Adele interrupted, squelching Yo-Yo’s descriptive language. Chanda snickered again.
I shoved my modern language Bible in Yo-Yo’s lap and pointed to the verse in Isaiah about the sufferings of Jesus bringing us peace and healing. She squinted at the passage, then shrugged as if to say, “Still don’t get it.”
“Tell you later,” I whispered. For some reason I felt excited to try to explain a familiar scripture I’d always taken for granted. Yo-Yo’s lack of “Bible-speak” made me think. I needed down-to-earth words for these truths too.
“Hoshi is right, sisters. God is at work. This is what happens when sisters agree in the name of Jesus and pray together . . . Mm-hm.” Avis lifted a hand into the air and closed her eyes. “Jesus! You are a mighty God! All authority—even presidents and kings and parole boards—is under Your dominion. Mm-hm!”
I thought Avis would take us off into a praise meeting then and there, but Stu interrupted. “The point is, who’s going to go to this hearing?”
Even though Avis was still “off ” praising, the rest of us jumped on Stu’s question. Several people bowed out; other names were suggested. The final list included me (it was our house that had been invaded), Hoshi (her mother was the only one wounded by B.W.’s knife), and Stu (because she was spearheading the effort). “What about Yo-Yo and Florida?” I asked. “Maybe all of us who’ve been to the prison should go.”
Yo-Yo grimaced. “I’m an ex-con. Don’t think that’s an asset. ’Sides, I wasn’t even there that night. Not one of her victims. Florida might wanna go, though.”
“What about Denny?” Stu grimaced. “Hate to say it, but the parole board will probably take us more seriously if a man goes.”
She was probably right. “I dunno. I’ll ask him.” How did he feel about this anyway? Poor Denny. His life had been a lot more complicated since he got tangled in Yada Yada’s briar patch. God, thank You for Denny. Thank You that he showed up unexpectedly that night . . . that Becky Wallace missed when she lunged with the knife . . .
I shook that thought out of my brain and reached for a brighter one, even though my brain was starting to feel a little foggy. “Uh, speaking of husbands, Delores told me that Ricardo and José and their band have a regular weekend gig at La Fiesta restaurant downtown. Ricardo still needs a day job, though she says he’s happier, drinking less.”
Faces lit up around the circle. “Way cool!” said Yo-Yo. “Guess the Big Guy Upstairs likes mariachi music.”
I started to laugh but had to stifle a huge sneeze building up in my head instead.
Avis smiled. “A good reminder to keep praying for the men in our lives. Florida’s not here, but I know she wants us to keep praying for Carl. Let’s include them when we—”
Even before Adele opened her mouth, I knew Avis had walked into her own trap.
“Speakin’ of the men in our lives,” Adele drawled, “isn’t it about time you told us what’s happenin’ with you and Mr. Peter Douglass? You been mighty quiet about his intentions, but we all got eyes, girl. If you can’t tell us, who you gonna tell?” Unanimous hooting and smart mouths greeted Adele’s declaration.
Adele was back, bold and sassy. It felt good.
Avis shot me a Didn’t-I-tell-you-not-to-say-any-thing? look, but I shook my head with angelic innocence. The only person I’d told wasn’t even there.
The wisecracks simmered away when Avis nodded in resignation. She did not look happy. “All right. To be honest, Peter and I are . . . well, we’re letting things cool off right now.”
We were getting pretty good at stunned silences.
Ruth frowned. “Joking, you must be! Bad for my heart.” Her yenta-ness didn’t like this at all.
“No. That’s it. I’m . . . we’re . . . well, still friends. But that’s it.”
Adele pursed her lips and studied Avis’s face. Avis actually squirmed. “I think, Avis, you need to trust us. What’s going on? What happened?”
The room got very quiet. Avis blinked rapidly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ben Garfield peek into the living room with a questioning expression. I shook my head imperceptibly.
We waited. Avis took a deep breath. “I . . . like Peter very much. He has brought a lot of joy into my life, especially since . . . since Conrad died. Yet recently he told me . . .” Another breath. “Recently he told me that he has loved me for many years, even while I was married to Conrad. He was Conrad’s college friend, you know.”
Her words slipped away, but no one spoke. Avis twisted her wedding ring. “I loved my husband very much. I still love him. After he died, when the loneliness was unbearable, I often thought about the fact that he is in heaven, waiting for me.” She grimaced, a half smile. “I know, I know. There is no marriage in heaven. And for a while, I did think that maybe God had sent Peter to fill the empty hole in my life. Though now . . . to learn that Peter loved me even while I was married to Conrad makes me feel”—her face muscles tightened—“like I’m committing adultery. Not that there’s been any physical intimacy between us—nothing like that. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that ‘anyone who looks at a woman lustfully’ has already committed adultery.” Her large, dark eyes flashed. “So I’m supposed to marry a man who’s been lusting after me for years, even while I was married to one of his best friends? I don’t think so!”
And there it was.We all just stared at her. I blew my nose, trying to clear my fogged-up brain.What she said made sense, in a slice-it-close-to-the-bone way. But inwardly, the part of me that loved Avis, that wanted her to laugh again and be loved again, was screaming, You nitwit! Grab that good-looking man who adores you, who loves God, who’s a match for you brain cell for brain cell, and run to the closest preacher!
It was Adele who broke the silence. “Avis.” She said Avis’s name like a kid sister who needed straightening out. “Maybe there’s somethin’ to what you just said;maybe not. It just doesn’t sit well with my spirit. If that man loved you all this time, and you just now finding out about it, I’d say he’s more of a man than I even figured him to be—and I’d already put him in the top ten of decent men I’ve met in my lifetime.” She leaned back in that Buddha pose of hers, arms folded across her chest. “Seems I recall you remindin’ us earlier tonight about agreein’ together in prayer.Well, for the record, I’m not agreein’ with you yet on this. I will do one thing, though: I will pray on it with you.”
Avis nodded, and it was Adele who led us into the prayer time.We poured out all the things on our plate—the meeting with the parole board, Hoshi’s parents, Ricardo and Carl needing a job, plus prayers for our sisters who were missing. When I sensed the prayers were winding down—a little sooner than usual, since Avis was pretty muted after her “confession”—I slipped out to Stu’s car and got the chocolate cake that had been hiding in the backseat, keeping chilled at least. Chanda was praying when I came back in, giving me time to sneak it into the kitchen, where Ben was waiting. “Didn’t know you got a cake for Ruth,” I whispered, “but it’s okay, because we have two birthdays! Ruth and Stu.” I beamed, trying to put him at ease. “A cake for each!”
“Ah! Great solution.” He handed me a box of birth-day candles. “Stick a few on there, like I did. They can each blow them out.”
We could hear the final “Thank You, Jesus! Yes! We thank You!” rising from the living room, so Ben and I lit our candles and carefully carried the cakes through the dining room to the archway leading into the Garfield’s tiny living room. “Happy birthday to youuuuu,” Ben boomed out—and I nearly dropped my chocolate cake. The man had a deep, velvety voice that could go onstage! But all the Yada Yadas chimed in: “Happy birthday to youuuu!”Ruth’s cheeks got pink with embarrassment. “Happy birthday, Ruth and Stuuuu . . .”
At that exact moment, I felt the stubborn old sneeze I’d been stuffing back into its black hole all evening come sneaking out, bigger and badder than the last attempt to erupt. And holding a cake in both hands, there was not one thing I could do about it. As Ben boomed out the last “Happy birthday to youuuuu” . . . I sneezed all over Stu’s chocolate cake and snuffed out the candles.
Literally.