Amazing Grace Page 18

  “Are you here to do a story?” Maggie asked him, and then they both spoke at once, in their excitement to see each other. “I'm sorry I keep missing your calls. I turn my phone off when I'm at work.”

  “I know … I'm sorry … I'm so glad to see you,” he said, and hugged her again. “I just came up to see you. I had so many photographs to show you, and I didn't know where to send them, so I decided to bring them up myself. I brought you a full set of everything I got.”

  “Let me put some clothes on,” she said, running a hand through her short, wet hair, smiling broadly.

  She was back five minutes later, in jeans, her pink Converse, and a T-shirt from Barnum & Bailey's Circus, with a tiger on it. He laughed at the incongruous shirt, which she had picked up on the donation table. She was definitely a most unusual nun. And she was dying to see his photographs. They walked a few feet away to a bench, and sat down to look at them. Her hands were shaking when she opened the box, and when she saw them, she was moved to tears several times, and just as often laughter, as they both remembered the moments and faces, the heart-rending times. There were photographs of the woman he'd watched taken out from under her house, after they had to cut her leg off to free her, others of children, and a huge number of Melanie, but far more of Maggie. At least half his photographs were of her, and she exclaimed as she looked at each one … oh, I remember that! … oh my God, remember him? … oh that poor kid … that sweet little old lady. There were photographs of the destruction of the city, the night of the benefit when it had all started. It was an exquisite chronicle of a frightening but deeply moving time in both their lives. “Oh Everett, they're so beautiful,” she said, looking at him with her bright blue eyes. “Thank you for bringing them to show me. I've thought of you so often, and hoped everything was fine.” His messages had been reassuring, but she had missed talking to him, almost as much as he missed talking to her.

  “I missed you, Maggie,” he said honestly, after they finished looking at the pictures. “I have no one to talk to when you're not around, not really.” He hadn't realized how empty his life was until he met her and then left.

  “I missed you too,” she confessed. “Have you been going to meetings? The one you started here is still going strong.”

  “I've been going to two a day. Do you want to go out to lunch?” A few of the fast food places on Lombard Street had opened. He suggested they pick up something to eat and walk to the Marina Green. It was a gorgeous day. And from there, they could look at the bay and watch the boats. They could do that on the Presidio beach too, but he thought it would do her good to get out, walk, get some air, and leave the Presidio for a change. She had been cooped up in the hospital all week.

  “I'd love that.” They couldn't go far without a car, but Lombard was within easy walking distance. She went back for a sweater, left the photographs that were his gift to her in her room, and a few minutes later they left.

  They walked along in comfortable silence for a while, and then chatted about what they'd been doing. She told him about what was happening in the reconstruction of the city, and her work in the hospital. He told her about the assignments he'd been on. He had brought her a copy of the earthquake edition of Scoop too, with all the photographs of Melanie, and they talked about what a nice girl she was. At the first fast food place they saw, they bought sandwiches and then headed toward the bay. And finally they sat down on the vast expanse of grass at the Marina Green. Maggie didn't say anything to him about Sarah's problems, because that had been told to her in confidence. She'd heard from Sarah several times by then, and things were not going well. She knew Seth had been arrested, and was out on bail. And she said they were selling the house. It was a terrible time for Sarah, who didn't deserve any of what had happened to her.

  “What are you going to do when you leave the Presidio?” Everett asked Maggie as they ate their sandwiches, and then lay on the grass facing each other, like two kids in the summer. She didn't look anything like a nun in her circus T-shirt and pink high-tops, as she lay on the grass talking to him. Sometimes he forgot she was.

  “I don't think I'll be leaving for a while, maybe not for months. It's going to take a long time to get all these people housing again.” So much of the city had been destroyed. It could take as long as a year to rebuild, or more. “After that, I guess I'll go back to the Tenderloin, and do the same old stuff.” As she said it, she suddenly realized how repetitious her life was. She had been working on the streets with the homeless for years. But it had always felt right to her. Now suddenly she wanted more, and she was enjoying hospital nursing again.

  “You don't want more than that, Maggie? Your own life someday?”

  “This is my life,” she said gently, smiling at him. “This is what I do.”

  “I know. Me too. I take photographs for a living, for magazines and newspapers. It's been strange since I went back, though. Something shook me up when I was here. I just feel like there's something missing in my life.” And then as he looked at her as they lay there, he spoke softly. “Maybe it's you.” She didn't know what to say in answer. She just looked at him for a long moment and then lowered her eyes.

  “Be careful, Everett,” she said in a whisper. “I don't think we should go there.” She had thought of it too.

  “Why not?” he said stubbornly. “What if you change your mind one day and don't want to be a nun anymore?”

  “What if I don't? I love being a nun. That's all I've ever been since I left nursing school. It was all I wanted as a kid. This is my dream, Everett. How can I give that up?”

  “What if you trade it for something else? You could do the same kind of work if you left the convent. You could be a social worker, or nurse practitioner with the homeless.” He had thought about it from every angle.

  “I do all that, and I'm a nun. You know how I feel about it.” He was scaring her, and she wanted him to stop before they said too much and she felt she couldn't see him again. She didn't want that to happen, and if he went too far, it could. She had to live by her vows. She was still a nun, whether he liked it or not.

  “I guess I'll just have to keep coming up to visit you then, to bug you from time to time. Is that okay with you?” He tried to back off and smiled at her in the bright sunshine.

  “I'd like that, as long as we don't do anything foolish,” she reminded him, relieved that he didn't press her further.

  “And what would that be? Define foolish for me.” He was pushing her and she knew it, but she was a big girl and could take care of herself.

  “It would be foolish if you or I forgot that I'm a nun. But we won't do that,” she said firmly. “Isn't that right, Mr. Allison?” she said, referring to the old Deborah Kerr‐ Robert Mitchum movie with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Everett said, rolling his eyes. “In the end, I go back to the Marines, and you stay a nun, just like in the movie. Don't you know any movies where the nun leaves the convent?”

  “I don't go to see those,” she said primly. “I go to the ones where the nun keeps her vows.”

  “I hate those,” he said, teasing her. “They're so boring.”

  “No, they're not. They're very noble.”

  “I wish you weren't so noble, Maggie,” he said gently, “and so true to your vows.” He didn't dare say more, and she didn't answer. He was pushing. And she changed the subject.

  They lay in the sun until the late afternoon, and could see building and reconstruction starting in the areas behind them. They walked back to the Presidio, as the air got cool, and she invited him to eat something in the mess hall before he left. She told him that Tom had gone back to Berkeley to close up his apartment. But many of the same faces were still there from before Everett left.

  They both had soup, and he walked her back to her building after they ate, and she thanked him for the visit.

  “I'll come up and see you again,” he promised. He had taken a few pictures of her that day, as she lay in the sun talking to him. Her ey
es had been the same color as the sky.

  “Take care of yourself,” she told him, as she had before. “I'll be praying for you.” He nodded and kissed her cheek. It was as soft as velvet. She had an ageless quality to her, and looked amazingly young, in her silly circus shirt.

  She watched as he walked away, and saw him leave through the main gate. He had the familiar gait she had come to recognize, in his black lizard cowboy boots. He waved once, then turned toward Lombard to find a cab to take him back to the airport, and she went upstairs to her room to look at his photographs again. They were beautiful. He had an extraordinary talent. But more than that, there was something about his soul that drew her to him. She didn't want it to be so, but she was powerfully attracted to him, not just as a friend, but as a man. That had never happened to her, in all of her adult life, since she had entered the convent. He touched something in her that she had no idea had ever been in her, and maybe until Everett, it wasn't. But it troubled her deeply.

  She closed the box of photographs and set it on the bed beside her. And then she lay down and closed her eyes. She didn't want this to be happening to her. She couldn't let herself fall in love with him. It was impossible. And she told herself it was not going to happen.

  She lay there praying for a long time, before the other nuns came back to the room she shared with them. She had never prayed as fervently in her life, and all she kept saying to herself over and over again was “Please, God, don't let me love him.” All she could do was hope that God would hear her. She knew she could not let this happen, and she kept reminding herself that she belonged to God.

  Chapter 13

  Tom got to Pasadena and his family a week after Melanie left San Francisco, and he called her as soon as he arrived. He had packed up his apartment in two days, put everything in his van, which had been miraculously unharmed, and drove south. He could hardly wait to see Melanie again.

  He spent his first evening at home with his parents and sister, who'd been worried sick about him during the earthquake. They wanted to hear all about it, and he had a very pleasant evening with them. He told his sister he was taking her to a concert soon, and then headed to Hollywood immediately after breakfast the next day. He mentioned as he left that he probably wouldn't be back until late that night. At least he hoped not. Melanie had invited him over to spend the day with her, and he was planning to take her out to dinner afterward. After having such easy access to her at the Presidio, he had missed her terribly once she was gone, and he wanted to spend all the time with her that he could now, particularly knowing she was leaving on tour in July. He had to get busy himself. It was obvious the job in San Francisco wasn't going to work out. In the aftermath of the earthquake, there would be long delays, and he had decided to look for a job in L.A.

  Melanie was waiting for him when he arrived. She saw him drive up, and buzzed him in through the gate. He pulled up in his van, and she ran out to greet him with a huge smile. Pam noticed him when she glanced outside, and she smiled too when she saw them kissing. And then they disappeared into the house, as Melanie showed him around. They had a gym, a pool table in a playroom downstairs, and a wide-screen TV with comfortable chairs to watch movies, and a huge pool. Melanie had told him to bring a bathing suit. But the only thing he was interested in seeing was her. He put his arms around her and kissed her gently on the lips, and time stood still for both of them.

  “I missed you so much,” he said, smiling happily. “Camp was awful after you left. I kept hanging around and bugging Maggie. She said she really missed you too.”

  “I have to call her. I miss her too … and I missed you,” Melanie whispered, and then they giggled as the cleaning service people came clattering down the stairs. She took him upstairs then to see her room. It looked almost like a child's room to him with the pink and white decor her mother had arranged. There were photographs of her with actors, actresses, and other singers, most of them very well known. There was a photograph of her receiving the Grammy, which her mother had framed for her. There were photographs of her favorite rappers and stars. He followed her back out, and down the back stairs to the kitchen, where they both helped themselves to sodas and then went outside to sit by the pool.

  “How did the recording session go?” He was fascinated by what she did, without being unduly impressed by her stardom. He had gotten to know her as a normal person, and he liked it that way. He was relieved to see that she hadn't changed, and was the same adorable girl he'd met and fallen in love with in San Francisco. If anything, they were even more in love. She was wearing shorts, a tank top, and sandals instead of the flip-flops she'd worn in camp, but her appearance was the same. She was no more done up or starlike than she had been when he first met her. She was totally herself, as she sat next to him on a deck chair, and then at the edge of the pool dangling her feet. He still had a hard time believing that she was the world-famous star he knew she was. It meant nothing to him. And Melanie could sense that about him, just as she had in San Francisco. He was entirely genuine, and oblivious to her fame.

  They were sitting at the pool, talking quietly. She was telling him about her recording session, when her mother drove into the driveway, and then stopped at the pool to see what her daughter was doing and with whom. She looked anything but pleased to see Tom. And her greeting wasn't warm.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly as Melanie looked embarrassed, and he stood up to shake her mother's hand. Janet looked unimpressed.

  “I just got back to Pasadena yesterday,” he explained. “I thought I'd come and say hi.” Janet nodded and shot a look at Melanie. She hoped he wouldn't stay long. There was nothing about him that appealed to Janet as a suitable escort for her daughter. It didn't matter to Janet that he was well educated, came from a nice family, and would presumably have a decent job once he got situated in L.A., that he was a kind, compassionate person, and loved her daughter. A nice boy from Pasadena was of no interest to her, and she made it clear without spelling it out that she didn't approve of his being there to visit her. Two minutes after she'd arrived, Janet walked into the house and slammed the door. “I don't think she was too pleased to see me,” he said, looking embarrassed, and Melanie apologized for her mother, as she often did.

  “She'd like it better if you were some half-baked movie star on drugs, as long as you're in the tabloids at least twice a week, and preferably stay out of jail. Unless it gets you really good press.” She laughed at her description of her mother, which he suspected was painfully accurate.

  “I've never been in jail or the tabloids,” he said apologetically. “She must think I'm a real dud.”

  “I don't,” Melanie said, as she sat close to him and looked into his eyes. Melanie liked everything about him so far, especially the fact that he wasn't part of any of the Hollywood nonsense. She had come to hate the problems she'd had with Jake. His drinking, going to rehab, winding up in the tabloids with him, and the time he'd punched someone out in a bar. Paparazzi had appeared on the scene in an instant, and he'd been taken away by the police while flashes from the photographers went off in her face. And even more than that, she hated what he had done with Ashley. She hadn't spoken to him since they got back, and didn't plan to again. In contrast, Tom was honorable, decent, wholesome, well behaved, and cared about her. “Want to go for a swim?” He nodded. He didn't care what he did, as long as it was with her. He was a regular, healthy twenty-two-yearold boy. In fact, nicer, smarter, and better-looking than most. He was someone with a future, Melanie could tell. Not the kind of future her mother wanted for her, but the kind Melanie wanted to be part of when she grew up, and even now. He was down to earth, and real, just as she was. There was nothing fake about him. He was as far from the Hollywood scene as you could get.

  She showed him to the cabana at the end of the pool, and the room where he could change. He came out a minute later, wearing a Hawaiian-style bathing suit. He had gone surfing there at Easter with friends, in Kauai. Melanie went into the c
abana after him, and came out in a pink bikini that showed off her dazzling figure. She had been working with her trainer again since she got back. It was part of her daily drill. As were two hours every day in the gym. She had been going to rehearsal every day too, getting ready for the concert in June. It was going to be at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was already sold out. It would have been anyway, but after the story about her in Scoop, about surviving the San Francisco earthquake, tickets had sold even faster than before. They were being sold by scalpers now for five thousand dollars a ticket. She had two, with backstage passes, reserved for him and his sister.

  They swam together and kissed in the pool, and then drifted around on a large inflatable raft as they lay side by side in the sun. She had put tons of sunscreen on. She wasn't allowed to get a tan—it looked too dark in the lights on stage. Her mother preferred her pale. But it was nice lying on the raft with Tom. They lay in silence for a while just holding hands. It was all very innocent and friendly. She felt incredibly comfortable with him, just as she had when she spent time with him in the camp.

  “The concert's going to be really cool,” she said when they talked about it. She told him about the special effects and the songs she was going to sing. He knew them all, and he told her again that his sister would go nuts. He said he hadn't told her yet whose concert it was, or that they'd be going backstage to visit her after the show.