From the Heart Page 10

  “Yeah, it’s that bad. I am bone weary of being alone.” She was whispering, which to regular people would be an “outside” voice. “I needed something alive when I got home, something to snuggle. Adoption was the answer. I’m not going to tell Lulu, that’s her nickname, until she’s older that she’s adopted. I’ll figure out the right time. When she’s old enough to handle it.” She made some kind of clucking sound. Then said in a normal voice, which meant booming, “Besides, Jane, your grandfather left me high and dry. Probably out with some woman half his age.”

  “Try a quarter of his age.” I didn’t mean to make her scream.

  “That hurt, Jane. You are not funny. He isn’t returning my phone calls and the e-mail isn’t accepted; it keeps bouncing back when I put a return receipt request on it. I sent a certified letter to him a week ago, and he still hasn’t retrieved it from the post office. I even had the local Carlsbad city police stop by his house. He refused to answer the door. I know he’s alive and kicking someplace, Jane, because you would let me know if he wasn’t. Would you?”

  “I would.”

  “So I found a replacement.”

  “A replacement? Are we talking about a barking trinket?”

  “She is challenged in the size, okay, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a full blooded D-O-G.”

  Did she actually think that midget ragamuffin could spell or be offended? “Can we talk about my problem now?”

  “Still my turn.” She took a deep breath and said, “I was going to get a male dog, call him Henry. Didn’t want to have to find a doggie psychiatrist after I’d had him neutered. So Lulu is now my entire life, and your grandfather can take a flying leap and stick his head where . . . ”

  I didn’t give her the opportunity to continue what he could do after he took a flying leap or any head sticking, but yelled into the receiver. “Stop. It’s my turn.” Then I told her about Gramps’ crises, the emotional, physical, and spiritual ones. I told her exactly where he was and what he was doing.

  The weirdest thing happened next. If I hadn’t been part of the conversation, I wouldn’t have believed it. Gerry was blubbering. I felt like dirt. “Oh, sweetie, shouldn’t have told you everything straight out like that.”

  “Jane, I figured you knew.” Snorting and nose blowing followed. “I love your gramps even if I’m wrong for him. Your little grandmother, who had a disquieting resemblance to June Cleaver, was his world. Not to take her place, but I thought maybe I could become his wife anyway. I’m too loud, I’m too aggressive, and I’m fat. Boy, am I fat. And keep getting fatter.”

  “Put a sock in it, you are perfect.” I meant that.

  “Yeah, then why doesn’t the man know it?”

  “Just shut up for a second and let me tell you why I need you to put on your super-sleuth tights and cape and scrounge information.” I spilled my tales of woe, including Harmony, the dog Tuffy, and Pastor Bob’s admiration for a woman who was selling “guarantees” and policies to return illegal and immoral adoptions from inhumane orphanages in Poland.

  “I thought serving on the energy commission was vexing.” She blew her nose, and then made some goo-goo sounds. “I don’t know anyone, at least I don’t think I know anyone, in the World Health Organization or Mental Disability Rights International, but my name isn’t Senator Geraldine English, commonly called ‘That Big Ol’ Trouble Maker on Capitol Hill’ for nothing. Give me a few days, honey, and I’ll see what I can dig up. You know this gal likes nothin’ better than a good shake-up, especially when too many fat-cat bureaucrats are up for reelection. We’re talking fun on Capitol Hill. It sounds like Cheney is in the baby business for the wrong reasons. I’m adopted, you know.”

  “No, you are?”

  “Mom told me when I was about three how I’d been chosen. I liked that, because she’d chosen Dad. Never knew what happened to the birth parents. To me the chosen ones were the real thing. All twelve of us were chosen kids; being adopted was the norm at home. My story can’t come close to some hoochie-coochie beauty from Poland, who is probably as big as a dime, in today’s money.”

  “Cool your jets.”

  “You don’t know Henry’s real feelings, girl, or you wouldn’t be in such a tizzy.”

  Was my grandfather ever going to return to himself, or would he be lost in cowboy heaven forever? “What should I do, Gerry?”

  “You’re asking me? Is this about your senior pastor’s adoration for a crook that is managing to swindle unsuspecting women and men and hurt babies? Possibly being an accomplice to child endangerment and manslaughter? And human trafficking? Or about the child who is living with you, and her little dog, too, who is probably anorexic or maybe was abused in the foster home? Or a little matter of the Dancing with the Vegas Stars gala event you’re suddenly heading up? Wait, what about the District Council’s visit?”

  “Friday. They’re coming to meet with me privately.” The sentence came out with a squeak at the end. “I love you, Gerry, but you we need action, not tears.”

  “Put a lid on it. That was Lulu. She doesn’t like whiners. I told you’d I’d do some checking on the crook, the Cheney woman. Gotta go. Lulu just did go and I have to get paper towels.”

  I sat with the phone cradled in my hand for long enough to numb my bum, then waddled to my cubbyhole office, where I sat for the longest time, maybe ten minutes, without thinking of chocolate or coffee. I snapped my laptop shut, slipped it in my briefcase and headed for Starbucks.

  Once more that day, I stood in line, drooling over which chocolate chip muffins behind the glass showcase would come to Mama. I heard my name, and Carl Lipca touched my forearm. Like in some stupid commercial, his eyes sparkled as brightly as his professionally whitened teeth.

  He didn’t jump back or throw the little couple in front of him to save his manliness from a Pastor Jane Angieski attack. Could I have been mistaken, and he didn’t really have a look of lusty longing for one Petra Stanislaw? He winked and I inhaled, then he rubbed that same eye. Whatever was I thinking? Was I thinking? That doesn’t require a response, thank you very much.

  “Small world.” He chuckled. Our eyes met because we were the same height. “Been meaning to call you.”

  “Me?” Did that really come out as desperate as it sounded? There’s never a way to make sure, especially after the fact.

  “Yeah, you know I’m with the Journal, the Vegas paper.” I saw his mouth move, but I wasn’t listening. I was with a futile attempt to get grown-up and professional thoughts back in their upright and locked position, rather than thinking arm candy and lustful fantasies.

  He spoke straight over the tiny twosome between us. They didn’t even pretend they weren’t listening; the woman actually craned her neck forward as Carl said, “Let me be frank.”

  “Carl’s a really nice name,” I responded, still in my fantasy world of a drive-through wedding chapel with Carl the Cutie, since I’d instantly moved past arm candy to “I take thee for my lawful husband.” Caffeine deprivation was the only thing I could blame. I shrugged, returning to earth.

  “No, I want to be frank about why I wanted to talk with you.”

  “Oh.” Nix the wedding. Glad I wasn’t mentally picking out what to include in my bridal registry.

  He smiled at the husband and wife. Then said, “I’m doing an article on Cheney, and I heard from a viable source your church and Pastor Bob Normal were darned cozy with her. What’s the story on that?”

  I ordered a jumbo-sized coffee and a jumbo-sized chocolate chip chocolate muffin. I needed fuel if I was going to get VBS going and solve eight or ten other problems that had entered my sheltered little world. Now I was going to be asked about Cheney.

  “Ask Pastor Bob. You know I’ve only been on staff a few weeks, taking over for the other youth pastor while she’s on maternity leave.”

  “I did a Goog
le search on you because something was whispering to me when you were introduced. I mentioned it when we met, I think, but then I did some more digging.” He slipped a twenty on the counter and paid for my stuff and the coffees for the couple between us, too. Then he grabbed an espresso and motioned me to a table.

  A smart, normal woman might have skedaddled at that, but I wondered what he knew about the Cheney woman and PSA. Okay, I’ll tell the whole truth and nothing but it. Carl was a nice accessory with my coffee, and a girl can pretend.

  I took a mega bite of muffin and mumbled, “You know Delta?”

  “Not well.” He slugged back a good measure of scalding java without a flinch.

  “But you want to get to know her better?” Cat and mouse had begun.

  “Yes, I do. How about you? What do you know of her?”

  I sipped the Brazilian brew of the day. “I’m just filling in, you know.” I took another sip and added, “She’s respected here in Vegas, right?”

  “Depends who you ask.” He took out a notebook and jotted something I couldn’t see, then held it in a way that concealed the writing. “Who should I ask?” He frowned. “Your minister seems to know her well.”

  “My minister? Pastor Bob? Why?” I knew my foot was jiggling beneath the table at the same beat as my pulse, which was far too fast. “Lots of people like her and yes, Pastor Bob seems to be part of her fan club.” Better jiggling the foot on the floor than in my mouth.

  “Jane,” he said and again touched my forearm. The fingers were cold.

  This wasn’t a sensual caress, but a way of telling me he was concerned. Or I could have been way off base, or I was being played as a fool. The votes came in that it was the last on the list. “Yes?” I pulled my arm away. I could feel his fingers on me and while I didn’t hate it, I was not naïve. People in all walks of life, especially journalists, use whatever talents they have to get information or to get something. Maybe this was the beginning of flirting with little old me to get whatever real facts and assorted info I had on Cheney, which was nil, in order to do whatever journalists and writers did with tidbits that could be turned into innuendos. Even rumors make good stories. Hey, look at TMZ.

  “Can we talk off the record?”

  “I’m a minister, Carl. I’m sworn to keep all my conversations that do not do any bodily or emotional harm to anyone off the record. So shoot.”

  “I’m curious about this.”

  “What is ‘this’?” Was “this” something that involved my senior pastor? He might have too many irons in the fire, which meant that he delegated a lot, even stuff that shouldn’t be, especially since I was to “captain” the dance and had only one day, excluding the weekend, to put together Vacation Bible School. But basically, everyone seemed to think Pastor Bob was an okay guy.

  “You already know.” He looked at me and then down at the table.

  If I were older I would have attributed the heat on my cheeks to a hot flash, or if I were younger, to girly mortification. Now I just squirmed and felt warm. “I do?” Then it dawned on me as I remember the lustful longing look Petra had given him at that dance class. She had feelings for him. Serious ones. Was she somehow using him, with her womanly charms, to find out about the PSA’s work or even to muddy the PSA’s reputation if a respected journalist did a story on the organization? Had she told Carl what she’d told me? How naïve to think I’d been her only confidant. Could he know about the scandal, pondering if breaking this story would get him a Pulitzer for scooping the crime story of the decade? Or snuggled in the arms of his ladylove?

  “So you know why Petra is here in Vegas and her link with PSA? How she’s vowed to ruin the organization?” I said, watching his eyes become squinty slits, then get bigger. And bigger. Then his mouth opened. There should have been recognition in his mannerisms, rather than shock just hanging there. I stopped breathing. I don’t know how you feel about the Rapture, but at that second I wanted it. Then. Right then.

  “Actually,” he said, and I could almost see him willing his hands to be steady as he brought out his notebook again and inched his chair closer to mine. “What I wanted to talk to you about can wait now.”

  “What?” My fingers covered my lips, covering the trembling. “Tell me what you wanted to talk about,” I managed, with a demand that came in a whisper.

  “It’s . . . well, it doesn’t matter now. Okay, I heard that you were heading up the ‘Dancing with Vegas Stars’ and I was assigned to do some goody-two-shoes feature on charities.” His knuckles were white, the only giveaway to any person with eyes that I’d just stepped too deep into you-know-what.

  “Oh.” I was attempting to think fast. Never my forte.

  He took a slug of the muck at the bottom of his cup. “Sure, I heard the rumors that the faith-based service might be involved in money-back guaranteed adoptions. What does the Cheney woman have to do with this? It’s the national level PSA, isn’t it?” Now he was whispering, but the words hurt my ears.

  “Wasn’t it in the paper today?” I looked around; we were nearly alone. The baristas were busy flirting, and the few other customers were on their cells.

  “Nothing on this. Tell me why Petra is involved.” His hand was on my bare forearm, clamped on. We both looked at it and then at each other.

  “Then it has to be the TV news? Terrible things going on in our world.” My voice came out in a squeaking flutter.

  “Not on the news.” Then he released my arm, exhaled, and put his face in his hands. I saw him sigh, a ragged one.

  I couldn’t even reach for the coffee. Everything stopped. The secrets Petra had confided in me had now been blurted to a newspaper reporter, albeit the man with whom she was smitten.

  “I thought there was more. Thought there was a real reason,” he said in a whisper, as if he were talking to himself. He seemed to be trying to smile, but the corners of his mouth pulled down.

  “What real reason?”

  “Petra doesn’t trust me. She’s involved. She’s kept this whole thing from me because she does not have faith me.” He looked straight ahead. “I know she’s stunning, smart, and worldly. I’m the guy who thinks a good time is a six-pack of beer, pretzels, and onion dip along with a football game. When I’m wild I get pizza delivered. She likes the opera and ballet. She knows about books and goes to lectures. For me, camping is a vacation. I worked three jobs to get through college, a state college, on a low-income loan, and only made it because, oh, man, I’ve tried to live this down. I’m a halfway decent bowler. Imagine going to college on a bowling scholarship. That’s below any geek status. She didn’t have to come right out and shout that she doesn’t trust me. She asked for your help, didn’t she? What’s the Bible say about actions speaking louder than words? Or is that Bruce Springsteen?”

  “I offered to help Petra.”

  He grabbed my arm again. I’d have to make a mental engraving to keep it away from him, and why, oh, why didn’t eligible men want to grab my arm or all of me, instead of those who were distraught.

  “Listen, Pastor Jane. Tell me the truth. You’re a minister, you don’t lie, right? You wouldn’t lie to cover stuff up, would you?”

  I wanted to plead temporary insanity, be dragged away muttering the ingredients to banana nut bread, because I’d just spilled the beans and the goo was so thick, it oozed into my lap. I blinked and I was still in Starbucks. “What do you need to know?”

  “She’s using me, isn’t she? Digging for info on the PSA? Getting me to snoop? Hey, don’t get me wrong, Jane, I’d do it if I thought that there was dirt to dig on Cheney or the adoptions weren’t legit. But there’s nothing I have seen. Oh, you don’t need to say it. Petra’s just using me. It’s true, I can see it in your eyes. What an easy con I’ve been.”

  “Carl, don’t be a brainless twit.”

  “Could I be more of a jerk than I alread
y am?” He slapped a hand on the table. “Petra was the first woman to ever look at me like she does. I’m a dork. I fall over myself when I’m with women unless I’ve got this dumb reporter’s notebook in my hands. You want to know what’s ironic? The first time I felt like this in my whole stinking life, and I had to do it with someone who saw me as a big fat sucker. I’m usually the one who uses women, but forget that. Petra flirted and I gobbled it up. Just so I’d look into the PSA.”

  He started to get up, but no way was I going to let him go.

  “Stop it. Drop it. Listen up.” I pulled his arm this time. Good and hard, too. He wasn’t leaving Starbucks until we straightened this out. “I’ve seen her looking at you when you were not looking at her. You can’t fake that gooey glow in her eyes. The girl likes you. So stop being a jerk on this, will you?”

  “You think she does?” A glint? Anticipation to know? I had to fuel it.

  “I know that look, my friend. I don’t know everything that happened to Petra or what the entire situation is—I just learned about it—but let me tell you something. I know love. I’ve been in love. I’ve seen it on the faces of couples I’ve married, seen it on the faces of those who are afraid to take that step. You cannot pretend to be in love, or the beginnings of it, as Petra is with you.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she tell you?” He stood, looked me up and down and not in a good way, and you know what I mean. I thought he was going to try to leave, but then he shook his head. “Get you more coffee? Anything? You ate that muffin pretty quick.”

  I shook my head. Of course I ate it in three bites. Which made sense at the time since with a muffin in my mouth there was less chance of me saying more stupid things. “I’m a minister. People trust me. Here’s a news flash, Mr. Reporter. Why don’t you see if she’ll tell you her whole story, everything she told me? Don’t blurt it out over the cell phone or in a public place, but just the two of you alone. Talking. Ask her why she’s really here in Las Vegas.”