Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

“Exactly how I feel about Memphis.”

“How long have you been there?”

“A long time, now. I went north out of high school. College in Boston — not Harvard.” The smile widened. “Went to seminary in Saint Louis, and then down to Memphis.”

“Your family still in Biloxi?”

“My mother died three years ago,” he said. “My father lives in Little Rock. I have an aunt here in Washington.”

She leaned toward him and murmured, “The, um, senator’s press secretary wants to know if you’re married.”

He looked down the table toward Senator Norland and Janice Layne. “You mean Ms. Layne.”

“The very lady.”

He grinned. “Divorced.”

“I’m sorry. But she’ll be glad to hear it.”

“Not interested.”

This occasioned a pause, and they watched the others talking and sipping their wine. She thought she might have stepped over some line. He was gazing at the room, evidently far away now, hands folded at his chin.

She said, “Did you like Biloxi?”

And he seemed to come to himself. “I did. Very much. Yes.”

Another pause.

“How about you?” he asked. “Does the senator’s press secretary want to know if you’re married?”

“Janice was just curious,” Natasha told him.

“I was joking.”

“She was, too — a little.”

He grinned. “Actually, my former wife is getting remarried. It’s happening in the next couple of days.”

“How’s that make you feel?”

“It’s — as we say — in everyone’s best interest.”

Natasha nodded, unexpectedly on edge now. She thought of excusing herself. But there wasn’t anywhere to go in this place without being seen leaving. She watched the senator talking to a big florid man about Virginia horse country and drank down her wine. It left an almost-syrupy aftertaste.

“I never feel comfortable at this kind of gathering.” Father Faulk spoke softly, only to her.

“I can’t help seeing it all as a series of gestures,” she said. “Makes me feel judgmental.”

“Not us. We’re too cool.”

It was pleasurable to be included in that way, even jokingly.

“Want to talk about Collierville?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He waited.

“Do you like bluegrass?”

“Don’t know much about it, but I like it.”

She described summer evenings when people would gather in the charming old town center to play music.

“I have seen that,” he said. “Wonderful. I like the antiques shops, too, and the old train station museum. I should go out there more often.”

“I guess it’s different if a person lives there.”

“You couldn’t wait to get away.”

“No,” she said. “Not really. It was just — you know — it was home.”

He had an appealing weathered look. Realizing her own growing interest in him, she experienced a surprising stir of anticipation. It had been months since she had felt much of anything but weariness. She sipped the ice water before her, and her hand shook a little when she set the glass down. She wanted more wine. He was talking across the table about the Rembrandt to a narrow-faced middle-aged woman who had spectacles hanging from a little chain around her neck. “I joked about all the cracks in the original painting,” he told her, “you know, going on about them to this fellow who — doesn’t seem to be here now. Hope I didn’t frighten him away. I told him that I have one just like it that has no cracks at all in it and that I bought it at Walgreens for less than five dollars. He was not amused. I’m pretty sure he thought I was serious.”

The woman across the table was not amused, either.

“Forgive me,” Natasha said to her. “I didn’t get your name.”

“I’m Mrs. Grozier. My husband is on the board.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Grozier. I’ve worked with your husband.”

Mrs. Grozier nodded civilly and then turned her attention to the other end of the table.

Father Faulk turned to Natasha and said, low, “I keep thinking it was funny about the Rembrandt.”

She smiled. It was as though the two of them were in cahoots, looking at all the others. She felt herself calming down. She saw warmth in his eyes, a sort of reassurance radiating from them.

“What about you,” he said. “You still have family in Memphis?”

“My grandmother. She’s responsible for my having this job. She worked in the mayor’s office in Memphis for years, and she knew a lady who came here to work for the senator.”

“Is the lady still working for him?”

“Retired a couple of years ago and moved to California. Somewhere near L.A. I didn’t know her very well.”

“And your grandmother? Do you still go to Collierville to visit her?”

“We moved into the city the year before I left home. A little house in the High Point district. I visit her there, of course.”

“I know a woman in High Point who used to work in the mayor’s office. Iris Mara.”

This gave her a pleasing little jolt. “That’s my grandmother.”

“I worked with her on a project to make books available to schoolkids in some of the poorer neighborhoods. Iris Mara from the mayor’s office. Retired. Right?”

“Yes. All that — but she never mentioned a project.”

“She comes to my church now,” the priest said.

“Church?” Natasha said. “Iris?”

Grinning, he said, “Hmm.” Then: “Yes. The very lady.”

“We talked on the phone two days ago. We talk a couple of times a week. She’s never said anything about going to church.”

He was silent.

“Well. I’ve been away so much since I left for college.”

At the head of the table, the senator stood and clinked the end of a fork against his wineglass until the room grew silent. He thanked everyone for attending and introduced some of the principal organizers of the event. He congratulated Natasha for her work on the project. Then he sat down, acknowledging the polite round of applause.

Faulk turned to her and said, “I didn’t know you were so important.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Sarcasm in a priest.”

His face betrayed no sign of amusement. “I wasn’t being sarcastic. Honestly.”

After a pause, he said, “So Iris didn’t mention going to church.” And they both laughed. There was something so incongruously familiar about the remark. His soft baritone voice when he laughed rose wonderfully to another register.

He held up his water glass and offered it, as for a toast. She lifted hers, and they touched them and drank.

“I’m probably slandering her by my reaction,” Natasha said. “But she’s always been so secular.”

“She’s been coming for several months now.”

“You notice when someone starts coming to your church?”

He gave forth another little laugh. “In her case, yes. She came to see me first.”

“It’s so strange — Iris going to church. She never went to any church. We never went to any church. As far as I know, my parents never did either.”

“You say as far as you know.”

“They died when I was three. I never knew them.”

“Oh, Lord — forgive me,” he said. “Of course. I should’ve remembered — I knew that Iris lost her daughter and son-in-law.”

“And Iris just goes on through the days being Iris.”

“She’s a brave lady.”

“I can’t wait to talk to her about you ,” Natasha said. “And church. I’ll spring it on her. Be fun to hear her reaction.”

“Please don’t tell her I’m as stupid as I must have seemed just now.”

“Don’t be silly.”

The man on his left began talking to him loudly about the unseasonably hot weather in the south. And then the waiters were circling the table, pouring wine in everyone’s glass. Each held a bottle of white and a bottle of red.