Kristi Peterson Schoonover
For the three hundred and seventy-eighth day in a row, Neal tried to ignore the rapping at his mobile home door and focus on his request of God to bring his wife, Tresa, back from the dead.
The only person who ever came to see him at all, let alone daily, was Angela, a widow his age who’d bought the neighboring property some time recently. He’d been polite—once he’d even served her coffee on his screened-in porch—but even if it was the only contact he’d had since Tresa had passed, and he did find Angela pleasant, he never looked forward to the intrusion.
Especially since she had a knack for interrupting his prayers.
Rap rap.
Every day he hoped that knock would be Tresa’s, the one she’d always use when her arms were full: that Shave-and-a-Haircut-Two-Bits rhythm he had used at her window all those years ago, when they were teenagers. Before they were married, when she was still living with her parents.
Rap rap.
“Dammit.” He winced as he set his arthritic hands on the bed and worked his decrepit knees. “Coming!”
He hobbled to the back door and opened it.
Angela’s coral lipstick and delft blue eyes blinked beneath a lemon-colored sunhat. Today she harbored a lumpy paper sack. “Hi Neal! Haven’t you noticed your trees are bearing fruit? There’s so many out there they’re falling to the ground. I figured I’d pick them for you.” She held the bag out to him.
It was then he realized the bag was full of oranges—Teresa’s oranges—and he took a step back.
“I could even make you fresh O.J. My granddaughter just bought me a juicer for my birthday, and I can’t possibly drink so much by myself. Do you like O.J.?”
He wanted to slam the door and run—okay, not run, limp quickly—back to his room. Those were Teresa’s trees and he didn’t want anyone touching them. He’d spent many an afternoon in the Florida room, watching Tresa on her step ladder, picking the oranges, marveling at how she somehow looked as she had forty years ago.
Then she’d come in and juice them, and they’d drink, maybe add a little champagne, and do what they’d done many times, though not as well.
“Neal?”
“You should have left them there.”
Angela’s mouth formed a small ‘o’, and her face flushed. “I’m sorry.” She turned to go.
He realized he’d hurt her.
“Wait,” he said, instinctively reaching out, then catching himself and withdrawing his arm. “I mean, uh—I was going to go out and get them, I just haven’t gotten around to it. And uh, I can’t drink orange juice. It’s no good for my acid stomach and it conflicts with my pills.”
She stopped and considered him; her expression cheered a little. “Well, if it’s no good for you it’s no good for you. I wouldn’t want you to be tempted. My Charlie had diabites and those damn Snickers I let him have put him in his grave. I’ll just bring these inside, then, I brought something else! Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream! That shouldn’t bother your stomach at all.”
“Uh—” The woman had never been in his house before. No one had been in his house since Tresa had died.
But she was already making her way up the three Astroturf-covered steps; she stopped and looked around. “Oh, my, this is a nice place.” She moved down the hall and quickly reached the living room; she had no trouble with mobility. “You could use some lights in here, though. Well, aren’t these incredible!”
He followed the pungent scent of oranges in her wake. “Angela, I do appreciate your hospitality, but I’d prefer—” But when he reached her and saw what she was pointing to, he stopped.
It was a shadow-box frame on the wall; in it were Tresa’s dried-orange slice ornaments, which she’d made every year for Christmas gifts.
Neal had forgotten it was there.
Angela was touching the glass. “These are just exquisite.”
He couldn’t help it; he blushed with pride. “Teresa did those, and she made wreaths with oranges and shells, too. I have boxes of them in the closet in our bedroom.”
“Very good work, very very good work. You could sell those, you know, and get a pretty penny for them. They’re sorta like ‘Christmas in Daytona Beach’ things.”
She patted his arm, shifted the bloated bag, and hurried away. By the time he’d reached the kitchen, Angela had pulled the tub of Edy’s from her grocery bag. She swept open his kitchen cabinets and drawers and pulled out bowls and spoons.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten off any of those dishes in a year. “You might want to wash those—”
But she’d already wrenched the top off the Edy’s and plopped two large scoops of pale green ice cream into each one. She set them on the table, sat down across from him, and thrust her spoon into the scoop closest to her chest.
After a few bites, she eyed him. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Um, yeah.” He made a half-hearted motion for his spoon, knowing he couldn’t put anything in his mouth without thanking the Lord first. He watched her; she was busily mining for chocolate chips and didn’t seem to notice, at least for the moment.
Hastily, Neal closed his eyes, folded his hands, and said a silent prayer.
Her spoon clinked against her bowl. “Do you always say grace?”
Neal opened his eyes.
“I think it’s well-intentioned.” She took a bite of ice cream. “Oh, this is good stuff, good stuff. Edy’s really is the kind I like best. My grandchildren won’t eat anything but Breyer’s, but that’s because my son’s an investment banker and he can afford it. By the way, God can’t hear you that way.”
Neal frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Oh!” She laughed, and a tiny blob of ice cream shot out of her mouth and hit the vinyl fruit-patterned tablecloth, which Neal noticed for the first time was looking a little threadbare and faded. She put her hand in front of her mouth and talked around her mouthful. “God can’t hear us because of all the pollution in the air.”
It was Neal’s turn to almost choke on his mouthful. “What?”
“Of course!” She licked her spoon. “That’s what my church says. Think about it: all that pollution puts heavy layers in the air, and our little voices sound like mouse squeaks to God.” She happily dove back into her ice cream.
Neal considered this. She could be right. After all, he was sure he’d prayed in the past, long before the commercials with that crying Indian guy, and gotten results.
A light breeze blew through the screen on the kitchen windows, carrying the scent of oranges with it, and he felt hopeful.
“In fact,” she continued, scraping her spoon around her now-empty bowl, “I finally stopped messing around with those doom-and-gloomers at Our Lady and caught up with the times. I go to the First Silver Lining Church of God on Dunlawton Avenue, and they just make so much sense. They’ve built a special tower that rises above all the pollution and broadcasts directly to God.” She got up from the table, went over to the bag of oranges, took one out, and dug into the peel with her fingernails.
Neal shifted in his seat to look at her. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he smiled. “Really? It works?”
“Absolutely!”
Neal almost couldn’t control his excitement.
“Do you have something specific you’ve been trying to ask God?”
She blinked at him curiously as she split the naked orange in half. “Because, you know, it does cost a little money, but it’s worth it. I’ve never had a prayer not answered.”
He was on a fixed income, and his social security was just enough to cover his living expenses. He had his life savings, but he only dipped into it when something happened, which he hated doing—he was still reeling from the $4230 he’d had to spend last summer to replace the air conditioning unit. “How much?”
She pried a section of orange loose and popped it into her mouth. “Twenty-five dollars a word.”
Wow, Neal thought. He was already thinking about his prayers, and they were rambling, sometimes quoting lines from the Bible, sometimes begging, sometimes asking God to bring Tresa back three or four times in three or four different ways.
Well, he could keep it simple. He thought: Dear God, please find my wife Tresa in heaven and send her back to me. That would cost him $375. More than he spent on pills, doctor’s visits, food, and the electric bill combined. He edited, recalculated.
Please bring back Tresa. Neal. $125. Taking that out of savings would hurt, but it wasn’t unreasonable. At what price came happiness, after all?
Angela put the nude orange on the counter next to the sink and went to the table to retrieve her dirty bowl. “Are you done with this?” She asked of his dish.
He nodded.
She carried both bowls to the sink and ran the water, then put another slice of orange in her mouth and began to empty the dish drainer—which, sadly, he realized, hadn’t been emptied in a long time. She picked them up, examined them, made a face, and then put them all into the sink and began to wash. He noticed how comfortable she seemed, as if this were her turf. “It’s really quite brilliant, and if you can afford it at all you really should consider coming to church with me and doing it. It really is results guaranted. I mean, I sat around and prayed and prayed and prayed—” she set a now-clean and rinsed pot in the dish drainer—“for my granddaughter to reach out to me and nothing happened. Then I got smart and had it broadcast and she did, she sent me that juicer, and I only had to put that prayer up once and it happened.”
Neal felt as though the clouds had parted. He glanced over at the calendar on the wall to see how many days he’d have to wait until the next Sunday came around, but then he realized it was last year’s calendar. He looked at Angela, embarrassed. “Uh, what day is it?”
She wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “It’s Saturday, dear. I’ll come pick you up at eight tomorrow.”
* * *
“I hope you wrote down your prayer exactly as you want it.” Angela tucked her white clutch under her arm and they crossed the parking lot of the First Silver Lining Church of God. “I mean, you’ll have to fill out a special form, because the broadcaster has to keep very accurate records of who asks what and all of that, but—”
Neal tuned her out; he was busy beholding the structure that would save him.
The church building was an all-glass A-frame sparkling in the sun. Behind it rose a white brick tower with a beacon on top.
Angela was still talking. “They have a station where we can do all of that and even in the middle of the service they stop and they have petition time. It’s usually between the first and second hymns. Oh yeah, and they take checks and cash but no credit cards.”
Angela reached for the door, but Neal interceded. He watched her cross the threshold, her bright red patterned skirt swishing behind her.
The soaring atrium was crammed with foliage, and Neal was blasted by the overpowing smell of chlorine and coconut: several palm trees huddled around a waterfall and pool clear enough to see the round stones on the bottom. Birds chirped, and when Neal looked up, he saw a white cockatiel perched on a branch. He felt more peace than he had in a long time.
“Right over here!” Angela banked to the right of the oasis; when she noted Neal’s lagging, she turned and motioned with the clutch purse, slapping it lightly against her thigh. “Come on, come on! They’re taking prayers before the service today! Hurry!”
He hobbled faster despite the searing pain in his knees. They went to an oak and glass stand-up desk—it reminded Neal of the stations in banks where the deposit slips were kept—and he teetered as he struggled to pull out his wallet; it was fat with the cash he’d taken from the hole in the back of his closet and the things of Tresa’s he always kept with him: her driver’s license, membership cards, key to the locket that was buried with her.
“Let me help you,” Angela said cheerily.
A woman with a shock of unruly white hair and fluorescent pink lipstick looked up at Angela with approval and nodded. Great, Neal thought, this woman probably thinks I’m Angela’s new man. He was aware of Angela’s fingers working to retrieve the wallet.
“I got it,” he said, gruffly, waving her away.
She blinked at him, and he knew he’d hurt her. He was about to say he was sorry when the worn black billfold pulled free of his pocket, and he rummaged through it to get the piece of paper on which he’d penned the carefully-developed prayer. It’d ended up costing more than $125—it’d clean him out of $300—but when he’d been composing it, he’d marveled at his own foolishness, being cheap about so important a thing. What good was his money, after all, if he didn’t have Tresa? He needed to make sure every word was perfect so he’d get his expected result in one shot.
The paper was missing.
“What are you looking for?” Angela asked.
He thumbed past dollar bills and a movie ticket stub from the last film he and Tresa had seen together, but the butterfly-shaped memo page he’d written it on wasn’t in his wallet. He repeated the process, but still no luck.
“I wrote down my prayer. I was sure I’d put it in here.”
“Did you check your pockets?”
Neal did, and found nothing. He looked up hopelessly, and spied Miss Unruly White Hair turn away.
“Do you remember what you wrote, at least?”
Neal was devastated. “No.”
“We could come back next Sunday.”
Neal looked up at the atrium and noticed three small birds fluttering high above the trees.
No. He had been waiting long enough.
He felt the warmth of Angela’s hand through his short-sleeved madras shirt and was going to shrug it away, but he suddenly realized it was comforting. Angela’s expression was soft and earnest, and in her eyes he saw that her offer was genuine.
“No. I can do it.”
She patted his arm lovingly. “Just remember what I said, the phrasing is oh-so-very-important. Take your time. It’s okay if we’re late to the big service. Lots of people are because they have to make sure they’re wording their prayers correctly. I’m going to go over there and wait on the bench for you.”
She patted his arm again and hurried over to a bench under a couple of palm trees at the foot of the giant fountain-oasis.
His hands were hurting, and he was sweating. It was familiar, though long-ago, and he tried to remember when he’d felt this before, this stomach-wants-to-come-up-jaws-clenched-weak-light-headed feeling. And he did recall.
On his wedding day.
He reached into the plastic holder for one of the pens. It was one of those fancy, gold-trimmed pens connected to a sheath with a long chain, the ones that were always tough to clutch—and write with—because of his arthritis. He slid one of the sky-colored special PRAYER REQUEST SLIPS onto the counter and considered it.
Lettering on the bottom of the form said: PRESS HARD—YOU ARE MAKING THREE COPIES. WHITE—GOD’S COPY YELLOW—PASTOR’S COPY PINK—CUSTOMER’S COPY. There were little boxes on the right side of the slip for him to total up the number of words and the cost. PLEASE KEEP THE PINK COPY FOR YOUR RECORDS AND PLACE REMITTANCE WITH THE YELLOW AND WHITE COPIES IN THE ENVELOPE.
He glanced over at Angela. She examined her nails, then drummed her nervous hands on her small white clutch. Her fluttering hands reminded him of small birds.
Hurry up, he thought. Every moment you sit here thinking is another moment apart from Tresa.
God, what had he composed back in his kitchen? He’d worked it to perfection. Just focus on the words, you have extra cash in your wallet anyway, he thought. A good, specific prayer will guarantee a result, right? How about, I am sad without my wife Tresa. I know you want her in Heaven, but please send her back to me. Neal Blake.
He counted it up in his head. Ouch. $575. He’d only brought $400 with him.
Okay, how about: I’m sad without my wife Tresa. Please send her back to me. Neal Blake. He added it up: $350. He could do that. And he was satisfied; he felt it was clear, made his point, and identified him as Neal Blake, so surely, God would know that Mrs. Tresa Blake was the one who needed to go home. This would work. This would bring her back.
He clenched his teeth and grimaced as he clutched the pen and pressed as hard as he could. When he was done, he seized an envelope from the rack and pulled out a wad of money.
He grimaced as he counted out the bills and shoved them into the envelope; it was even more difficult to separate the white copy from the yellow copy from the pink copy.
When he went to tear the white copy along the perforation, it ripped.
Oh no! He’d have to do it again. Surely God wouldn’t answer his prayer or take it seriously if he was presenting it on any medium that was less than perfect. He chastised himself. How could he have been such a klutz?
He looked back at Angela. She was now twittering her thumbs, and he suddenly felt bad. Here she was, going out of her way to do him a favor, and with his terrible arthritis and everything it would take him at least another five to ten minutes to fill out the form.
Look, he told himself, God isn’t going to see this anyway. It gets broadcast to him. No one will care if the paper’s ripped.
He licked the envelope and deposited it into the oval slot in the locked center of the island. Then he carefully folded the pink slip, put it into his wallet, and went to fetch Angela.
The service was active, but no matter how many times the choir sang or he was called to recite The Lord’s Prayer or Psalm 91 from memory, he couldn’t focus. He was sure that within just a day or two Tresa would be home, and there was so much to do before then. Vacuuming, dusting, washing every dish in all of the cabinets.
He didn’t want her to see the condition of their bedding, the sheets and towels he hadn’t washed. And she’d need her keys and her pocketbook, which meant he’d need to pull it down from the tippy-top of his closet, which would mean getting up on the stepladder.
And even though the thought of all that work made his joints ache, he was sure that he wouldn’t need any aspirin, because he would be doing it with a cheerful heart.
* * *
Monday and Tuesday passed, and he wondered if the Broadcaster had telegraphed his message to God yet. He wondered if there were a way he could find out, because as Wednesday morning dawned, Tresa still wasn’t home.
He’d finished washing all the dishes and had managed to wash the windows.
He’d stripped the beds and thrown away all the threadbare towels. He’d even gone to Publix and chosen a new tablecloth to replace the one that had been on the kitchen table.
There was a knock. Tresa! He dropped the pink towel he’d been folding and rushed to the side door.
But it was Angela. Smiling, as usual, this time from beneath a wide-brimmed puca hat with a large parrot feather rooted in its brim. “We’ve something to celebrate!” She held aloft a ceramic dish that was in the shape of a pumpkin pie. “My prayer was answered, I’m on the Little Miss Orange Beauty Contest Committee, because you know I’ve been on it for years but I really felt it was about time for me to be chairwoman since that Edna Graham, she’d done it for ten years and it’s time for her to not get voted in again, I mean she’s done a terrific job but it is time for some fresh ideas and I’m one of the most personable people on that committee, and they just called! My prayer was answered! It was a unanimous vote and I’m the new chairwoman!”
Neal smiled thinly.
“What’s the matter?”
He didn’t know what to say. Now he knew that Sunday’s prayers had been broadcast.
And still Tresa wasn’t home.
Then he remembered the ripped sheet, and panic gripped him.
Angela didn’t wait for him to say anything. She burst into his house and headed toward the kitchen.
“Don’t.” Neal, cringing, followed her.
She stopped short, turned, and simply looked at him; then her expression changed. She cleared her throat and hurried to the counter. “I know this pie will make you feel better.” She went into the cabinets and pulled down two small plates, rubbing her index finger along them, seemingly amazed at how they were dust-free. She hefted two giant chunks of pie on the plates and set them on the table. “Sit.” She went into the drawer, retrieved two forks, and set them in front of him.
He stared at the pie. He didn’t want it. All he was thinking was that maybe Tresa was on her way, and how would she react if she came into the house and found another woman—my God—that he was eating pie with another woman.
“So,” she took a bite. “Has your prayer been answered yet? You know, the pastor says that generally they’re answered within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of Broadcast, and he’s never been wrong.”
Neal forced himself to take a bite of pie so that he’d be chewing, so that he wouldn’t have to answer, because all he could think was I ripped the receipt!
He’d have to do it again.
He dreaded dipping into his life savings again, but it had been his own fault. A fool and his money are soon parted. “I was thinking. I’d like to go back to church with you on Sunday.”
She took another bite of pie. “See! I knew it would work!”
* * *
That next Sunday when Neal stood at the podium and lettered the receipt, he repeated the message: I’m sad without my wife Tresa. Please send her back to me. Neal Blake. He went through the process, licked the envelope, inserted it through the slot, and went into church with Angela.
* * *
Three years after they’d retired and moved to Daytona Beach, Tresa’s oranges had been killed by an unexpected May frost.
He’d been sitting in his olive easy chair in the living room, watching a documentary on a rash of sinkholes that had opened up in nearby Indigo, watching as they, like giant mouths, swallowed houses and cars. It’d made him shudder.
And then he’d heard Tresa scream.
He’d bolted (he could still bolt, back then) from the chair and rushed to the patio door; she was outside. “Tessie?”
She’d stood beneath the tree, the branches and fruit of which glimmered with icicles. She’d clutched a bruise-colored orange, looking at it as though it were a thing to be pitied. “The frost! The frost has killed my beautiful oranges!”
He’d heaved a huge sigh of relief that she wasn’t hurt, that she hadn’t fallen off a ladder or anything like that, and he’d lumbered down the stairs gone to her side.
“No orange juice,” she’d said. “What a waste. I just hate it when I can’t have my own, fresh. I mean, Publix brand is fine, but it just isn’t the same.”
Across the street, one of their bathrobed neighbors had emerged, rubbed his arms, made his way to the curb to pick up his newspaper.
“I’ve got it!” she’d said. “Oh, I know, I know, I know!” Still clutching the orange, she’d gone back into the screen porch and come out with her large harvest basket, the one they’d bought at a Vermont apple orchard years ago. She’d set the basket down and reached for the lowest branches.
“What are you doing?” he’d asked.
“I have an idea.”
And there had begun the orange art. For the next several weeks, all the puffy rattan furniture in the sunroom, the painted concrete floors of the sun porch, all had been covered in drying slices of oranges, halves of oranges—orange rinds that she’d notched or shaped with her delicate fingers; he’d watch her for hours, marveling at how she could twist the rinds but they’d never snap or break. They’d reminded Neal of golf clubs. “What are those for?”
“These will be doll’s arms,” she’d said. “If I turn the ends, she can hold a basket, or make a teddy bear that she can hug.”
The memory filled Neal with a peace he couldn’t explain, a peace he hadn’t felt since Tresa had died. He watched Angela scan the menu, her coral lips in a closed smile. He thought that maybe he could do this with Angela more often. He was having a nice time, and it was almost like—
The waitress offered to take their order.
“Sunburn Shrimp,” Angela said.
Neal was mute.
“Aren’t you going to order, dear? Or did you already eat too many sweet rolls? You’re going to ruin your dinner.”
Neal mumbled, “Sea Scallops.” He’d never ordered them before.
The waitress hustled back in the direction of the kitchen.
“Now.” Angela sipped her Madras and reached for a sweet roll, split it in half with her thumb. “It seems to me you were saying you were wondering something? When we first got here? I just got completely distracted with the drink and the menu. What were you going to ask me?”
“I was thinking. I pulled out those ornaments of Tresa’s. I actually—I have a whole box of them. Maybe more, I think there might be another bag or two in the back of the closet.”
She buttered a corner of the roll and popped it into her mouth.
“I think it’s time to—let them go.” Had he really just said that?
She stopped mid-chew.
“I’d like to know what you think we could do with them. You said…you said something about I could sell them?”
She swallowed her bite, and a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Why, yes! Yes, you could, I’m sure of that. In fact.” She rubbed her fingertips on her cloth napkin. “I mean, I happen to know a whole lot of the local Mom and Pop gift shop owners around and they’re always looking for great local stuff because believe it or not, it sells, even those awful shell-Jesus statues they buy, and I’m sure I could talk to a few of them.” She set her hands awkwardly on either side of her plate.
Neal was shaking, but did it: he set his hands on top of hers, felt his nerves steady the second he’d done it: it felt nice, familiar, easy. “Would you come back to the house with me after dinner and take a look?”
Angela blushed. “Of course.”
The waitress returned with their meals, and though Neal had to admit the sea scallops were delicious, he wasn’t really interested in anything but watching her delve with pure delight into her Sunburn Shrimp.
* * *
Neal had, indeed, found three more bags in the back of his closet. He and Angela spent an hour going through them, and soon there were ornaments everywhere—they not only blanketed the kitchen table, they covered the counters and lined the windowsills.
“Do you really think we can sell all of these?”
“Why, yes! You live in Daytona Beach, dear. There’s a gift shop every twenty feet. I’m certain we’ll have no problem.” She moved next to him. “We’ll have to get some boxes and start organizing them so that each store will get a variety.”
They were close; he could smell her floral perfume. He felt a strange compulsion to…kiss her.
There was a rapping at the door.
Neal tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t…because he recognized it.
Shave-and-a-Haircut-Two-Bits.
© 2013 Rind Literary Magazine. All Works © Respective Authors.
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