I take the rings from his hand and slip them back on my finger.
“You know where to find me,” he says and stands up. “I need to get back inside. I have no idea how to say good-bye to you, so I won’t. I’m here if you need me.”
He bends down and kisses me on the top of the head and walks away.
I slouch back on the bench and look up at the angel above me.
21
“Oliver broke up with me because he’s secretly a priest,” I say when Lola answers my call.
“I’ll be right there,” she says, not asking for more details.
She finds me sitting in my car in my usual parking spot. She knocks on the window and holds up a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I get out and she hugs me.
“Cliché, I know,” she says. “But who doesn’t love ice cream? What are you doing down here? I went up to your place but you weren’t there. I almost went back home. You’re lucky I remembered you have a parking deck.”
“Mrs. Edlerman took Jack’s old space,” I say. “I guess that makes it official.”
“Let’s go inside,” Lola says. She takes my hand and leads me to the elevator, then down the hall, and inside my condo.
Inside, the condo is dark and lonely. The television is still on. I’ve never been much of a TV watcher, but the silence in this place is hard to handle and I’ve taken to turning it on for the sound of voices in the room. I think about turning it off, but don’t.
Lola goes to the kitchen to get bowls and spoons.
Outside on my patio at dusk, we sit and look out over the city. Lola heaps us each a bowl of minty escape, and we sit and soak up the night around us. Summer will be over in a few weeks, and Cassie will be back in school. I haven’t pressed the custody issue yet, but I’ll have to soon. I didn’t want to beg for my time with her, but it looks like she’s not going to come back on her own.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Lola asks, raising both eyebrows so high I think they’re going to lift right off her head. “Because I would really like to know. It’s August. I haven’t heard from you since July.”
“That was just a couple of weeks ago,” I say. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“I can’t remember two days passing without talking to you,” Lola says. “You haven’t called or answered for two weeks. I even checked with Jack to make sure you were ok.”
I pick a flower head from the pot of daisies on the table and throw it at her, but it’s too light and gets caught in the wind. It lifts up over the railing and sails off into the coming darkness.
“Oliver kept trying to tell me something and I didn’t want to hear it,” I say.
“Like a confession?” She smiles. “Sorry, that was too easy. Seriously though—what in the world?”
I tell her the whole story, and she tries not to interrupt too often with exclamations of disbelief and surprise.
“I cannot believe Orange Juice Hottie is going to be someone’s priest!” She flings herself back against the chair for added drama. “I thought priests had to be old and significantly less attractive.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Sounds like he must have known what he really wanted all along,” she says, leaning toward me. “I think you do, too. You’re just afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“All of it. To try and fail. To try and succeed.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” she says. “You gave up because things got difficult.”
I shrug.
“So, call him,” she says.
“I think he’s made his choice.” I scrape the edges of the empty bowl with my spoon. “And I don’t think I can compete with God.”
“I didn’t mean Oliver,” she says.
I look at her and shake my head. She points at the rings that are back on my finger.
“Jack?” I finally ask.
“Yes.” She shakes her head at me in exasperation. “Despite it all.”
“I thought you hated Jack.”
“I hate that you’re hurting, but I know you still care about him,” she says. “Am I right?”
“Of course I care about him. But I don’t know if that’s enough of a reason to try again.”
“What other reason could there be?” she asks.
She suddenly holds up one finger and I know she’s about to change the subject before I can comment further.
“I want to show you something,” Lola says in a hushed and hurried voice. “It’s a secret. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Chris isn’t happy about it, but I just feel like I have to do it.”
“I don’t think I can handle any more secrets,” I say, my head starting to swim. “You’re not secretly a nun, are you? Chris and I are going to have to start a support group or something.”
“Don’t be silly. That’s ridiculous.”
She reaches for her bag and starts digging around in it. She pushes a flyer across the table at me.
“I’ve signed up to go to Peru with this missionary group,” Lola talks quickly and passionately. “They’re rebuilding churches in areas of poverty, and they want me to paint for them. There would be me, this guy who works with wrought iron, and this couple who makes this amazing furniture.”
“Peru?” I ask, trying to measure in my head how far away that is, seeing it only as a color splotch on a map in some classroom in my mind. “I thought you said not to be ridiculous.”
“Yes, Peru,” Lola says, lost in her own excitement. “I picked up this flyer downtown about artists on a mission and they’re going to Peru. I signed up.”
I look at the flyer: Artists on a Mission. Ever wonder why you’re an artist? Feel like you could be contributing your
