James Aloysious Foley leaned back in his chair and studied the wooden fan blades doing slow circular laps around the high pressed-tin ceiling over his head. He sighed, then looked back at the woman sitting in the wing chair opposite his desk, who was waiting for him to say something profound.
“You see, Father James,” she began, dabbing nervously at her forehead with a crumpled tissue, “I don’t want a divorce. Divorce is a sin. I just want you to fix it so that Inky brings his paycheck home like he’s supposed to.”
“Mrs. Cahoon, please,” James said. “I’m not Father James anymore, remember? I’m out of the priesthood. I’m a lawyer. Now, from what you’ve told my secretary, you haven’t had much of a marriage for a long time. It’s time you ended it. Start a new life for yourself and let Inky get on with his.”
Denise Cahoon jumped from the chair, her face flushed beet red. In her early fifties, she was a good-looking woman by James’s standards; nice trim figure, sleek dark hair pushed back behind her ears, soulful gray eyes. Why she wanted to cling to some beer-soaked lout like Inky Cahoon was a mystery.
“That’s not true!” she said in a piercing voice. “Our vows are sacred. I don’t want a new life. I want my old one back. You make Inky do the right thing. Call his boss down at the newspaper and tell him Inky’s spending his paycheck on whores and liquor. Tell him they’re to send that check right to the house instead of letting Inky spend it all.”
James looked back up at the ceiling fan. Sometimes he swore he could see patterns in the dust motes as the blades cut through them. Running horses, majestic oak trees. Today, as Denise Cahoon implored him to salvage the unsalvageable, he swore the dust swirls looked exactly like the holy card of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the one that was pierced by a flaming sword and bound in chains. He shook his head and looked back at Denise Cahoon.
“Mrs. Cahoon,” he said, his voice taking on the gentle note of the confessor he’d been for twenty-four years (one year shy of his silver jubilee, he’d up and quit, turned in his cassock, surplice, scapular, and holy-water font), “Inky moved out five years ago. You told my secretary he’s been living with a girl from the composing room. They have a four-year-old child and another on the way. That doesn’t sound like a good sign for your marriage.”
“It’s probably not his kid,” Denise said belligerently. “That girl sleeps with anything in pants. I’ve seen her, the slut. Inky just wants to think it’s his. He always wanted kids.”
James reached into a tray on his desk, got out the divorce forms, handed them across the desk to Denise Cahoon.
“It’s probably for the best,” he said. “No children involved. Look over those papers, call me, and we’ll get them all filled out. We can file for the divorce; everything could be taken care of in six weeks.”
She stared at James as though he were an alien, beamed down there to that dusty little office on Factors Walk by whatever unholy forces had already been at work destroying her life for the past five years.
“That’s it? That’s all you can tell me? No counseling, no family therapy? Just boom, sign here, it’s over? Twenty-two years and now I’m no longer Mrs. Bradley R. Cahoon Junior?”
Her voice rose a little with every syllable she spoke, and her face got pinker, and she loomed higher and higher over James’s desk. It occurred to James that Inky had possibly been wise to get out while the getting was good.
“You can call yourself whatever name you like,” James pointed out. “But I’m afraid divorce is probably your only option now. If you drag things out, it’ll just cost you more money in legal fees. After five years and two children, it’s doubtful to me that Inky is going to have a change of heart.”
Mrs. Bradley R. Cahoon Jr. reached across the desk and snatched the papers out of his hand. “Never mind. I came here because your mother and my mother were friends. My mother was at your ordination, you know. Right there at the cathedral. I thought a priest would see the right thing to do. Ha! Bernadette Foley would roll over in her grave if she could see you right now, James Foley. Divorce! Shame on you.” She wagged her finger at his face. “Shame.”
James pushed his chair backward, away from that thin, fleshy finger. “Good-bye, Mrs. Cahoon,” he said.
He swiveled the chair around and looked out the dirt-streaked window at the muddy brown Savannah River.
A sleek black tanker glided by, its bulk seeming to dwarf the people and cars on River Street. Japanese registry. The name Shinmoru Sunbeam was painted on the ship’s bow.
He heard the door to his office slam. Good.
He’d had lots of clients like Denise Cahoon since he’d moved back to Savannah from his last church in Naples, Florida. People just wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. And he wasn’t in the penance business anymore.
The door opened again, and he smelled perfume—gardenias this month—and cigarettes.
“Christ!” Janet drawled. “That woman doesn’t get it, does she?”
James swiveled the chair around so that it faced the door again. The river mesmerized him. It always had. He couldn’t get any work done if he could see the river from where he sat. And there was work to be done. Thank God.
Janet had a stack of files in her arms. She piled them on top of the wing chair, then put a pink message slip in front of him on the desk. She ran her fingers through her short, wiry, gray hair, and the cigarette she’d tucked behind her ear fell to the floor. She tried to kick it out of the way, so he wouldn’t see it.
“I thought you were going to quit smoking,” James said, trying to look stern.
“Don’t start,” she warned.
Janet Shinholster was his secretary, oldest friend, and business manager. They’d dated all those years ago, back when he was a cadet at Benedictine and she was at St. Vincent’s. After he’d entered the priesthood, he’d seen her only occasionally until he returned to Savannah from Florida.
They’d had a tentative date or two right after he came back two years ago. There was even some fumbling around on the sofa in Janet’s apartment, until James reluctantly confided his suspicions that he probably wasn’t terribly interested in sex.
“You’re gay,” Janet had said, not acting the least bit surprised. “I understand, James. Totally.”
Her reaction annoyed him, actually. He’d never thought of himself as swishy, not in any way. At all.
“What makes you think that?” he’d demanded.
“You’ve been shut up in a seminary or a rectory your whole life,” Janet said. “Since you were eighteen. And then you quit the priesthood. Just like that. I figured, you know, finally. He’s ready to cut loose. Explore the alternatives.”
“Do I act queer to you?” he’d wanted to know. “Interested in boys? Is that what you thought? That I was one of those priests? A pedophile?”
“Never mind,” Janet had said, turning on the lights and straightening her blouse. “Let’s forget it ever happened.”
What annoyed him even more was that Janet was right. He’d started seeing someone, a year later. Not some faggy little boy-toy. Jonathan was a successful lawyer, chief assistant district attorney. It was all very discreet, except that Janet knew, the first time Jonathan came by the office to take him to lunch. Damned Janet knew everything.
“Weezie called,” Janet said. “She wanted to know if you were busy this afternoon.”
James smiled. His niece was the real reason he’d come back to Savannah. They’d always been close. “You’re the father I never had,” she liked to tease. “The mother too.”
“What’s Weezie up to?” he asked.
Janet shrugged. “She said she was going out to Beaulieu for a memorial service for Anna Ruby Mullinax. Wants you to meet her there, if you don’t have anything better to do.”
“Do I?” James asked, looking meaningfully at the stack of files on the wing chair.
“I think you should go,” Janet said. “Anna Ruby Mullinax knew a lot of people in this town. Influential people. People who need legal work.”
Janet took his blue blazer off the brass coat hook on the back of the door and held it out to him. “You’ll have to wear a necktie, you know.”
He shuddered. It was ninety-six degrees outside, the humidity at 100 percent, as usual.
“And don’t forget to take some business cards with you,” she added. “This is called networking, James.”