Chapter Sixteen
My miracle doesn’t take long.
The next morning, as I’m leaving to go to the gym, I find Patty’s yellow Porsche parked in front of my house, Patty asleep at the wheel. She is in her clothes from the night before. A white halter dress with a big Coke stain right on the front.
Classy.
“Are you okay?” I shout.
Patty shakes herself and groggily rolls down the window. “Freaking tired. I stayed up all night and then, just to cover all my bases, went to the sunrise Mass. I’ve been waiting for you.”
There is the niggling question as to whether she stayed up all night with Todd, but I don’t dare ask.
“Get in.” She leans over and opens the door.
I get in, leaving my gym bag on the sidewalk. Jorge, having made it as far as my front step, eyes us with suspicion. Once again I’m going someplace and not taking him.
Patty’s car smells of fine leather, coffee, and mint gum—Patty smells.
“I wanted to make sure I caught you, but I didn’t want to call and wake you up. So I parked here.” She covers a big yawn. “I think I know how you can buy the house today.”
This is my friend Patty. She never stops scheming. “Are you serious?”
“It might work. It might not.Todd’s not so sure.”
“Todd?”
“Yeah, he hammered out the details with me until the wee hours.”
Therefore, she did spend the night with him.
“He loves you very much, Genie. He wants you to be happy and he’s willing to do whatever it takes. Also, he feels guilty for blabbing to Nick about how Steve popped your cherry.”
“Thanks.” I love my brother, too.
Taking a healthy sip from her white Starbucks cup, she says, “All you have to do is stop by the house around eleven forty-five when Cecily’s Realtor’s showing it to a couple of doctors. Dress nice and keep your mouth shut.Todd and I will do the rest.”
“What’s your plan?”
“I’d rather not say. It might be”—she pauses—“somewhat illegal.”
“Oh, brilliant.” Great. First I fake an engagement and now I’m scamming property. How the mighty have fallen. “If it’s too much of a risk, we can forget it, Patty. I don’t have to own this house.”
She plunks down the coffee. “Yes, you do. It’s your destiny.”
“It is not my destiny.”
“Of course it is.Yesterday you ran into two people—Tracy, the real estate agent, and Nick—both with crucial information about the house.That’s the Holy Spirit, baby.”
“No it’s not. It’s coincidence.”
Patty slaps her hand on my knee. "Oh, honey. There is no such thing as coincidence. I keep trying to tell you that. Everything, and I mean every little thing, happens for a reason.”
“It’s nice to believe, Patty, but it’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. The Holy Spirit is the most powerful force in the universe. Praise God. God is great!”
Okay, I’m not going to get in a religious debate with her on a Sunday morning in her Porsche. I will smile politely and wait until she’s done giving testimony and then be on my merry way.
“Do you know,” she says, shifting in her seat to look at me, “that when I wake up in the morning, I say three things? I thank God for giving me another day to live on this planet, basking in His love and asking for His help in returning the favor.Then I say Jabez’s Prayer.”
“I dread to ask.”
“‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. Amen.’ ” She crosses herself.“It’s from the Old Testament, First Chronicles 4:10. I say it because it reaffirms for me that all I need is to do my best and trust in God and all will be well. He never lets us out of His sight, Genie. Never.”
“All right,” I counter. “If God never lets us out of His sight and wants us all to prosper, then how do you explain starvation and murder? How do you explain wars and AIDS and children in Third World countries who are slaughtered in front of their mothers?”
Patty slaps her steering wheel.“It’s that damned free will.Why do you think I pray? So that He’ll intervene once in a while.
Frankly, I just don’t know why He doesn’t take free will back.The world would be so much better off.”
“Also, more boring.”
“True.”
Patty and I sit there, staring at nothing, thinking about free will and destiny.
“What’s the third thing?” I ask.
“Pardon?”
“The third thing you say every morning before you get out of bed.”
“Oh, that.Yeah. Filing deadline. I pray that I haven’t missed a filing deadline ’cause that could lose me a case. Man, the law can be one nitpicky bitch.”
I have known Patty for almost twenty years and still I haven’t figured out how a ruthless lawyer who swears and drinks and sleeps around and breaks the speed limit whenever possible can also be such a devout Catholic.
When she’s not praying or going to confession or attending Mass or donating wads of her personal income to charities, she’s cursing the male-run, hierarchical nature of the Church to which she is devoted, body and soul. It’s a contradiction I don’t understand.
I don’t ask; I just accept.