I admit to feeling some relief when the front doorbell rang and interrupted their overly polite conversation. Though it was early, when I opened the door I expected to see Rafael standing on the welcome mat. Instead, it was Father John, wearing his white cassock and looking quite angelic.
“Come in,” I said. “This is an unexpected pleasure. We’re just sitting down to lunch. Will you join us?”
“I rarely say no to a meal.” He followed me through the house to the backyard, commenting on the jumble the place was in at the moment. “Was there an earthquake I missed?”
“Looks like it,” I said. “What brings you?”
“I need a favor,” he said. “Beto was going to take all the food that the hungry ghosts and hungry friends didn’t eat at the party last night and deliver it to the soup kitchen. I’m counting on it for lunch tomorrow. But he called me a bit ago to say that he had to take Bart to the hospital in the middle of the night and is still with him.”
“What happened to Bart?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Father John said. “But it looks like he’ll be okay. I told Beto I would go by and see him later. But in the meantime, Larry, my fine cook and backup delivery boy, is nowhere to be found, again. Beto suggested I borrow your truck to pick up the leftovers and get them to the church basement.”
“Sure. My truck’s in the shop but we have a van,” I said. “Do you need help loading the food?”
“I’d appreciate that,” he said. “And there’s one other little thing.”
“Why am I suddenly quaking in my boots?”
He grinned. “I don’t drive anymore.”
After lunch, Uncle Max, doing a bit of matchmaking himself, volunteered his and Guido’s services to Father John so that Jean-Paul and I could have our last few minutes alone. Before they left in the van Guido rented at the airport at Max’s behest, we picked everything out of the garden that was ripe and sent it along.
The silence that followed the three of them out the door felt loaded, as if a bomb were about to drop inside the house.
“It was an interesting weekend, yes?” Jean-Paul slipped his hand into mine and walked me into the living room. Looking weary, and still holding my hand, he dropped into an easy chair.
“Interesting, yes,” I said, perched on the arm of his chair. “It isn’t every weekend that I dance in a couturier gown one day and get shot at the next. Or make love on a bed of rose petals.”
“Ah, the damn rose petals.” His cheeks colored from chagrin. “I was afraid I would bore you.”
“You, bore me? Dear God, Jean-Paul, you may be the least boring man I know. I was afraid that the chaos of this weekend would frighten you away.”
“I don’t frighten easily.” He canted his head to one side and quietly studied me for a moment, pensive.
“Maggie, you know that my wife, Marian, and I were very happy, as I know you and Mike were. I have missed her so terribly these last two years. Between us, everything was so-” He searched for the right words. “Peanut butter and jelly. I don’t know how else to say it. Comfortable, I suppose. Sometimes, you remind me of her.”
Last thing I wanted to hear: You remind me of my dead wife. Perhaps reading my reaction, though I tried not to show anything, he smiled in a self-deprecatory way, acknowledging a flub, and I relaxed.
“About the rose petals,” he said, pulling me across his lap. He swept some loose hair from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. “I was trying so very hard to be a dazzling French lover; it is expected of my countrymen, is it not?”
“You do your nation proud, Jean-Paul.”
“Tu es très gentille.” With his palm against my cheek, he looked deep into my eyes. “You reminded me this afternoon that a small, spontaneous gesture can touch one’s heart more profoundly than the most elaborate grand geste.”
“Did I?”
“Without any hesitation, you wiped my face with your shirt and then carried on as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for you to do.”
“It was. There was tomato juice on your chin.”
“It was a gesture between intimates,” he said. “Something I have missed very much.”
“Yes.” I put my hand over his, happy, comfortable, yet wary: Where were we headed?
“What I tried to say and got all muddled up earlier was that Marian always took whatever was thrown at her in stride-no fuss. It is a quality I cherish in you as well.”
“Oh, I can make a dandy fuss,” I said.
“No doubt. But when I stupidly did not tell you that evening attire was required for the reception Friday, you never complained, and on short notice found a solution that turned heads. Maggie, if you had shown up Friday wearing this stained shirt…” He tugged my shirttail. “You would have turned heads.”
“I’m sure I would have.” I laughed, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I can hear them now, ‘Who’s the babe with the imprint of the consul general’s face on her shirt?’”
“Exactly.” He kissed the top of my head. “Natural, like peanut butter and jelly.”
Rafael arrived before that conversation could walk us further into the woods than we were ready to go.
Jean-Paul went upstairs and quickly changed into slacks and a dress shirt for the flight to Los Angeles. Because he would only be gone for a day, he took nothing with him except a book he found in Dad’s den.
George Loper must have heard the Town Car pull up because he was on his front porch, standing watch, when I walked out with Jean-Paul.
Jean-Paul eyed him warily over my shoulder. “How long until Max and Guido are back?”
“Any time now.”
When he made no move to get into the car, probably thinking of some way he could stay, I said, “Go. And hurry back.”
I watched the Town Car disappear around the corner before I turned to go inside. George Loper was still on his porch. When I went in, I turned both of the new bolts on the door, hearing a very satisfying pair of clunks when they shot home.
I took advantage of the few available moments before the next wave of people arrived to gather myself. I found a bottle of good pinot noir in the stash Mom left behind for me, uncorked it, poured a glass, and to avoid the racket of the locksmith’s drill, carried it out to the backyard. It was early maybe to indulge in wine, especially when there was so much work to do, but it was summer and the afternoon was warm and sweet-smelling. I took a few minutes to do absolutely nothing except savor the day and sip my wine and walk around the garden. I felt buried beneath stuff, old family stuff, and not all of it was of a physical nature. It could just wait a little longer, I decided. I took out my phone and called Beto.
“How’s your dad?” I asked.
“He’ll be okay,” Beto said. “Looks like he woke up in the night all confused, didn’t know where he was. He went walking around in the dark and took a pretty good tumble. The docs are keeping him overnight again to check him out. They’re talking about doing a brain scan tomorrow.”
“He got overtired getting ready for the party.”
“Probably,” Beto said. “You saw how he was. He had a little fit during the party and I sent him to bed. I probably should have asked Doc Saracen to put down his beer and his egg roll and come inside to take a look at him right then. Twenty-twenty hindsight, huh?”
“I’ll hope for the best.”
“Hey, did Father John get in touch with you?”
“He did. My uncle is helping him.”
“Our old friend Larry was supposed to do the delivery, but he flaked out.”
“You weren’t bothered that Larry was coming to your house to pick up the leftovers?”
“Why should I be?” he said. “That was then, this is now, if you know what I mean. We deliver bread from the deli to Father John’s kitchen every morning. I’ve always had one of my guys make the run so I wouldn’t risk bumping into Larry. But after talking to him, I know that was just stupid on my part. The man atoned; time for all of us to move on.”