After we dispensed with the paper plates, I popped a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne as Mary Catherine brought over the cake she’d baked.
“How many is it, Father?” I said, filling his glass with bubbly. “How many cases of candles are we going need to light this puppy up? Should I call LaGuardia to warn the air traffic controllers?”
“Please, no candles-and especially no numbers. Not today,” Seamus said. “That can be my present from you, Michael. No mention of any numbers.”
Jane cleared her throat.
“Before we sing happy birthday, Gramps, we wanted to share with you the top ten reasons why having a priest for a grandfather is great.”
“Oh, no. I should have known,” Seamus said, shaking his head in mock despair. “First roast chicken, now roast grandpa.”
He wasn’t fooling anyone. The old man couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear as the kids stood with their index cards.
“Number ten: extra-special ‘God bless yous’ when you sneeze,” Jane said.
“Number nine: front-row pews on holidays,” said Shawna.
“Number eight: last rites before the more treacherous amusement park rides,” Eddie chimed in.
“Number seven: Roman collar provides excellent grip on horsie rides,” said Chrissy.
“Number six: top-notch pet burials,” said Trent.
“Number five: reminding Gramps that you’re an innocent child of God easily gets you out of trouble,” Fiona and Bridget said in unison.
“Number four,” said Ricky. “Fear of excommunication is a really great incentive to floss teeth.”
“Number three,” said Brian. “Sanctity of confessional box keeps Dad in the dark forever.”
“Number two,” said Juliana. “Lots of chances to wear nifty YOUR GRANDPA LIVES IN FLORIDA BUT MINE CAN EXORCISE DEMONS T-shirt.”
“And number one,” I said, standing.
The last zinger was mine, of course. Seamus winced.
“Nonstop sermons,” I said. “Every darn day of the week.”
AFTER THE BIRTHDAY dinner, the kids took Seamus to the most recent summer blockbuster while Mary Catherine and I cleaned up. We’d wrapped up the leftovers and were breaking down the tables and chairs when I spotted something.
“Hey, what’s this?” I said as I saw something gold at the bottom of an ice bucket. I put my hand into the freezing water and pulled out a second bottle of Veuve Clicquot, which I’d forgotten about.
“Look, a straggler,” I said as the ice-water droplets tickled the tops of my flip-flopped feet.
“We can’t let this go to waste,” I said, putting the music back on. My iPod was jam-packed with fifties and sixties music these days, all the doo-wop crooning and violins and melodies and sweet, soulful love songs I could download off iTunes. I had been playing the songs during the party, to Seamus’s delight.
We took the bottle over to the southwest corner of the roof, where we could look out over the West Side and the Hudson River. As we arrived, “Up on the Roof” by the Drifters soon started floating through the warm summer night air.
Millions of tiny lights sparkled in the dark water as the Drifters sang about being up above the bustling crowd and having all your cares sail away. I peeled away the foil on the Veuve Clicquot and untwisted the wire. When the cork popped, it ricocheted off the terra-cotta rim of the building and went spinning out into the night.
“That’s a long way down. You think we hit anyone?” Mary Catherine said, looking over the railing.
I stared at her blue eyes and fine-lined face, uplit in the soft glow of the city lights.
“No chance,” I said, smiling, as I looked down. “But even so, I’d certainly take a Champagne cork over your usual New York City ‘airmail’-the kind delivered by pigeons, high-rise construction sites, and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.”
When I passed her the bottle, she gave me a soft kiss on the cheek.
“What’s that for?” I said.
“For celebrating Seamus, Mike. It was really wonderful. The kids love you so much. They love seeing you happy. They’ve been worried about you. So have I. I know how hard it’s been for you since losing your buddy Hughie.”
I looked down at the tar paper between my flip-flops.
“I’ve been pretty pensive lately, haven’t I?”
“‘Pensive’ is a word,” she said. “‘Silent’ is another one.”
Unable to deal with where the conversation was headed, I cha-cha’d her around a rusty AC unit as “Up on the Roof” was replaced by Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem.”
It seemed like music from a different world. It was as though the tune came from a different planet-a simple, happy one, where young people longed for adulthood and love.
I knew that getting older meant being skeptical about the music of a new generation, but what I heard on the radio these days was truly new territory. How in fifty years had the human race gone from popular music in which young men sang about things like buying their girl a ring and getting married to popular music in which young women boastfully sang about how much they enjoyed hard-core, dirty sex?
“They’re not worth that much,” I said, twirling her around.
It was maybe another thirty seconds before we heard footsteps behind us.
“Hello? Anyone up here?” a voice said.
We turned as Petey Armijo, the pudgy super of my building, stepped over, swinging a set of keys.
“Hey, Mr. Bennett, if you guys are… eh… done here, I’d like to lock the roof door.”
“We just finished, Petey,” Mary said, walking over and turning off Ben in mid-croon before hitting the stairs.
“Exactly, Petey. All done,” I said, grabbing a couple of folding chairs. “Your timing is impeccable.”
CHAPTER 30
BY THE TIME I made it back downstairs into the apartment, I heard the dishwasher and the washing machine going. Mary Catherine was in full cleaning mode, which by now I knew meant that she was feeling anxious and emotional, and we’d probably shared our last dance of the evening.
My relationship with Mary Catherine was obviously complicated. So complicated, in fact, that even I didn’t know what was going on half the time. There was something deep and special between us, but every time it seemed like we were about to make a solid connection, something-life, the world, one of New York City’s unending supply of murderous maniacs, or, most often, my big mouth-would get in the way.
Thankfully, I noticed we’d run out of milk and eggs and bacon for Sunday breakfast, so I grabbed my keys and went out for a breath of what passes for fresh air in New York. Outside my building, I immediately walked over to the NYPD cruiser on the near corner.
“Don’t shoot,” I said, with hands raised, to the stocky young black cop behind the wheel as he rolled down the window.
The department had assigned nonstop protection to me and my family ever since I’d collared Perrine. And with good reason. In Mexico, during his reign of terror, Perrine had had dozens of cops,
“I’m hitting the deli, Officer Williams. You need anything?”
“No, I’m fine, Detective,” the soft-spoken, affable Afghan war vet said as if he were coming to attention.
“At ease, Private Williams,” I said, smiling. “Half-and-half, one sugar, right?”
