The Good Luck of Right Now(31)

“How did you get this address?” Wendy said to Father McNamee.

“Your mother gave it to me.”

“Why?”

“I asked her for it.”

“Why?”

“We were concerned—Bartholomew and me. When you left so quickly—”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling well earlier.”

Father McNamee raised his bushy white eyebrows.

“Why don’t you come upstairs and meet Adam,” Wendy said.

“Adam, you say. That’s the lucky guy’s name? Adam?”

“It’s really not such an unusual name, now, is it?” Wendy said, and then forced a laugh. “Come on up and meet him.”

We followed her up an iron spiral staircase into a kitchen/dining room. A handsome man in sky-blue doctor’s scrubs stood when he saw us. He looked like he was my age—at least ten years older than Wendy. On the table were two plates and two glasses of wine. They were eating red meat, radishes, and asparagus.

Adam had blue eyes, brownish hair cut respectable but shaggy like yours, Richard Gere. Wendy introduced us. When he shook my hand, he squeezed really hard, hurting me a little.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said. “Sorry about your mother.”

I nodded and then stared at my brown shoelaces. I don’t think Wendy was supposed to talk about our sessions with anyone else because it violates counselor-client privilege. I began to feel like I shouldn’t have told Wendy anything about myself at all.

“Would you like a drink?” Adam said.

Soon we were seated at a large wooden table with wineglasses in our hands.

I sipped and the wine tasted expensive, or maybe I assumed it did, since I know next to nothing about wine.

“So . . . to what do we owe this honor?” Adam asked, in a way that suggested he’d rather be eating his red meat and radishes, which is exactly what he started to do. “Don’t want to let a good Kobe steak get cold,” he added, as if he could read my mind. “If I’d known you were coming I’d have—”

“We’re concerned about Wendy,” Father McNamee said.

“Why?” Adam said as he chewed, looking completely nonchalant.

“Maybe because it looks like she went ten rounds with the current heavyweight champion,” Father McNamee said, “whose name I cannot recall, but he must be able to smash up faces and make Wendy’s look like it currently does.”

“You know Wendy. Anything a man can do, she can do better—and don’t tell her otherwise. No, she will play softball against all men, and that’s that!” Adam said and then smiled at Wendy. “She’s so competitive that she knocked down a line drive on the hot corner with her face. No ducking for her. Admirable. You have to admit.”

Wendy smiled back but didn’t say anything; she looked stiff as a cardboard cutout of herself.

Adam said “admirable” in a way that made me believe he was telling the truth. It was like watching a television program. He looked like the lead on the show—the good guy—like everything he said would be followed by a laugh track of hundreds who loved this man. He was that type of person—the kind who could make you want to believe in lies, the kind who makes you feel stupid and ugly and too tongue-tied to express your own ideas, no matter how sure you are that you are right and he is wrong.

Father McNamee stared at Adam for a long time—it was almost like Father McNamee had entered into a trance.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Adam said to Father McNamee. “What are you doing?”

Father McNamee opened up the whirlpools in his eyes, and the whirlpools began to suck.

“Okay. Stop that. You’re starting to freak me out.”

You could feel the power.

I half expected the plates and silverware to begin sliding toward Father McNamee.

I averted my eyes.

“What’s with these guys?” Adam said to Wendy, and then downed his wine.

Father McNamee kept staring into Adam’s eyes.

The whirlpools were really starting to scare Adam, you could tell.

The whirlpools were sucking the color from his skin.

A giant pink elephant had filled the room and was crushing us against the walls, making it increasingly difficult to breathe.

“Stop staring at me,” Adam said to Father McNamee.

Father McNamee leaned forward and kept staring.

“You told me the big guy was crazy, but you didn’t say the priest was nuts too,” Adam said to Wendy.

The angry man in my stomach started to rage with great fury.

“I never, ever used the words crazy or nuts!” Wendy said to me.

“Listen,” Adam said. “Why are you staring at me?”

Father McNamee kept staring.

“Stop staring at me!” Adam said. “Stop it!”

Father McNamee stared so intently, he started to tremble a little.

“Horrible,” Father McNamee said. “Horrible what must have happened to you when you were a boy. I’ve counseled many abusers, and they were all abused. You learn it, and you must unlearn it too.”

“Get the hell out of my house!” Adam said.

“Horrible,” Father McNamee said as he tilted his head. “You’re broken.”