As the summer winds down and the quicker pace of what church professionals are wont to refer to as the “program year” arrives, the increased demands on a rector’s time and energy do not originate solely from the parish, but from the diocese as well. A cleric of Miles Coverdale’s experience and standing, to say nothing of his undeniable gifts, is virtually certain to be serving his bishop and the larger church in a number of different capacities. When
One of these diocesan commitments was membership on the ad hoc Committee on Vision and Structure. The bishop had appointed it the previous summer in response to a resolution from the annual diocesan convention expressing anxiety over staffing levels in the diocesan office and the percentage of the budget that was consumed by personnel costs. If Chase Landry were less confident in his own political and leadership skills, he might have taken the resolution as a backhanded vote of no confidence. He was, however, astute enough to realize that the impetus to reform perceived stagnation and bureaucracy is a cyclical occurrence in the life of an organization, and is especially common at what people sense is the approximate halfway point in the tenure of a leader, and Landry was indeed at about that position in his episcopate. When the committee was formed, Miles tacitly understood his charge to be that of acting as the bishop’s eyes and ears on the ground, and reporting back dutifully, though informally, to his old friend; this was a role he approached with some relish. Given the strain that had descended on their relationship during recent weeks, however, he saw the whole project in much more mundane terms, and with considerably sedated zest.
The regular September meeting of the committee was held mid-month, on a Friday afternoon, in the western suburb of Oak Brook. The committee’s chairman, Len Stillings, was a founding partner in the accounting firm of Stillings & Latimer, which occupied two floors of one of the office towers that sprang up in that corner of suburbia during the 1980s, and which boasted a handsome conference room, and was centrally located for the committee members, and obviously convenient for its chairman. At this point in their project, they were poring over job descriptions of diocesan staff members. It was uncomfortable work, to say the least, because they were dealing not just with abstractions, but with real people with names and faces, people whom they knew and, for the most part, liked, and whose jobs they were now examining under a mandate to consider reallocation of resources.
It was a few minutes past four o’clock in the afternoon when Len Stillings announced a halt to the day’s work, and called for his seven cohorts—two other men, both of whom were priests, and five women, two ordained and three lay—to pull out their calendars and nail down the date of their October meeting. When that chore was completed, and Father Coverdale, at the request of the chairman, had led the group in a closing prayer, Oksanna Brown, one of the lay female members, inquired in a slightly chirpy tone, “So, where are we eating?” Since the formation of the committee, some combination of between four and six of them had always constituted a spontaneous dinner group following adjournment. As it happened, only one of their number actually had a domestic arrangement involving a spouse and children, with corresponding dinnertime obligations. The others were either single, like Miles, or empty-nesters with a fair degree of flexibility. (Moreover, two of them drove in from outside the
On this occasion, however, the dinner group had a difficult time taking shape. Chairman Stillings never participated because he only lived a couple of miles away from his office. Paul Simpson, rector of a parish in
Much to both his surprise and his delight, she smiled back. “Well, one must eat, mustn’t one?” In barely more than a trace of an accent, her voice betrayed the fact that she was the immigrant daughter of Slavic parents, raised in
Others began to assemble the various accoutrements of their committee service and move slowly out of the conference room and toward the bank of elevators a few feet away. This allowed Miles to approach the subject at hand with both more seriousness and more grace. “I know about an hour from now I’ll be definitely needing to eat, and I assume you will to. But…” He hesitated a moment. “…are you sure haven’t got….”
He allowed his pace and tone to trail off in the hope that Oksanna would fill in the blank. She obliged readily. “I know this makes me sound pathetic, but I really haven’t got anybody to report to or check in with tonight, and if you don’t find the thought of eating just with me instead of the usual group to be totally depressing, then I’m definitely up for it.”
Miles tried intentionally to respond with a casual demeanor. “Great. Let me think. Where shall we go—I mean, some place that would be relatively on the way for both of us? You’re in
“Yup,” Oksanna replied. “Do you take the tollway to go home?”
“I do.”
“Then how about some place near Woodfield Mall? That’s right before we’d go our separate ways. Hey, I know just the place—that is, if you like comfort food. I haven’t been there, but it’s gotten good reviews, and I’ve been wanting to try it.”
Miles smiled, and responded in a slightly teasing tone, “Comfort food? I don’t know if I want to unpack what you mean by that just yet, but sure, that sounds great. Let’s do it. Where is the place?” Oksanna gave simple but thorough directions to The Shadows, just off Route 53 in
It was about a thirty minute drive from Oakbrook to Schaumburg late on a weekday afternoon, when the rush hour was just beginning to assemble the elements of its energy, but was still a full sixty minutes from its peak force. As he drove north toward Interstate 290, the expressway that would turn into Illinois 53, trying to keep Oksanna’s BMW in view, Miles found himself, much to his consternation and embarrassment, experiencing a sense of anxious euphoria that he was unable to keep at bay—a feeling he was still able to associate with first dates when he was in high school and college. Yet, clearly, his dinner plans with Oksanna did not constitute a date. She was, after all, a married woman, and he still considered himself “recently” bereaved—for that reason alone, among an entire host of others, not an appropriate target of Cupid or Eros or whoever it was that generating these unwelcome—yet so very welcome—feelings he was trying to cope with. “Observe and detach,” he reminded himself. He was practiced at detachment, that basic element of spiritual awareness and discipline. Don’t fight it, but don’t hold on to it. Receive it, name it, and then let it go. And if it doesn’t go willingly? Then it might need a gentle but firm kick. Yet, Miles knew he wasn’t in a kicking mood, and the only context in which he could frame “Go away!” in the imagination of his heart was “Go away a little closer.”
He managed to stay just a few car lengths behind Oksanna’s vehicle for the entire trip, and as he guided the Coverdale Grand Marquis (wishing suddenly, for some reason, that he was still driving his old Jetta) into the parking lot of The Shadows, she was standing by the rear of her car, grinning broadly at him. Oksanna was, by any standard, a well-preserved thirty-eight years old, with rich auburn hair that did not yet show any gray, and a figure that many women half her age would covet for their own. She waited for Miles as he closed the distance between them. “Gosh, you’d better like this place, or I’m never going to live it down! What could I have been thinking—to recommend it when I haven’t even eaten here?”
This was, of course, a cue for him to say something reassuring, and Miles did not blow his line. “Don’t worry. If it’s a bomb, you have my word as a gentleman that I will never mock you in public. Besides, how bad can it be? They seem to be doing OK?” He gestured broadly at the amply full parking lot as he made this observation. By this time they were in the door and at the hostess’ station, as Miles signaled with his hand to reinforce his “Two for dinner, please” request. (He was wearing a charcoal gray suit with a black shirt and the classic Anglican “dog collar;” yet, as had nearly always been the case when he was out alone with
For a few moments, their attention was devoted to the dinner menus that had been handed them as they were seated. Presently, however, their server introduced himself and inquired as to their drink orders. They looked at one another, each of them trying to divine what the other was thinking, not wishing to order a drink if the other was inclined not to, and vice versa. Two colleagues dining together on a weeknight after a meeting might plausibly abstain. A man and a woman on a date, conversely, and a first date at that, would be more likely to want to lubricate the proceedings. This was not a date. Nonetheless, Miles broke the impasse, with slightly more conviction in his voice than he actually felt (a sort of extended application of Luther’s aphorism, “Sin boldly”). “I believe I will have a vodka and grapefruit juice, on the rocks, please.”
Oksanna instantaneously flashed a broad smile; Miles had apparently guessed correctly. “Could I have a rum on the rocks with a splash of Coke, please?” After settling the matter of preferred brands of liquor for both drinks, the server left them to contemplate their dinner order.
“So this is what you call ‘comfort food’?” Miles inquired, with what he hoped was a playful twinkle in his demeanor. The menu contained the requisite balance of meats, vegetables, and starches to qualify for such a category, but the descriptions of its items read like they were composed by a frustrated English major who had yet to publish a novel or get hired as a copy writer for one of the trendy mail-order clothing catalogues.
Oksanna looked up from her menu as she brushed her hair away from her eye with her hand, laughing gently. “Well, if your favorite magazine is Bon Appetit and you spend your evenings watching The Food Network, this would definitely be comfort food!”
“Excellent point! Anyway, it all looks good, and I can see three or four dishes I’m going to have to come back for.”
“Maybe we can talk the rest of the gang into coming here after our next Vision & Structure meeting, huh?”
“Definitely,” Miles concurred. But for the moment he was quite content that he was not at The Shadows with a gang of any sort. He was quite content with the company he had.
The server returned with their drinks, and then took their dinner orders. Miles selected a meat loaf that was several rungs upscale from anything his mother would have ever made, and Oksanna opted for a fried chicken concoction that would probably never be featured at a fast food outlet. When the server had departed, they both simultaneously raised their glasses as if to offer a toast—though they were each then momentarily startled that they’d both had the same idea; actually, it was more of an impulse than an idea, as it did not spring from any consciously pre-meditated intent. This time it was Oksanna who nudged the evening along. “To spontaneity and flexibility. This is just what I needed, Miles. Thank-you for wasting time with me.”
“Now you’ve put me in an awkward situation,” he countered, “because I would normally want to say something like ‘You’re quite welcome.’ Only I don’t accept your premise. This is not a waste of time. And I’m the one who’s grateful.”
“Oh, so we’re going to play ‘Who’s more pathetic?’ Give it your best shot, because I’ve got you beat!” Oksanna parried with another smile.
“You think so, do you?” Miles thought to himself, ‘If she only knew.’ For a tacit moment, he was tempted to unburden himself completely. It was the vodka, he surmised (although there had hardly been time for the couple of sips of alcohol he had taken to affect his judgment), and resisted the urge. Instead, he lapsed into an all-too-familiar pastoral mode and began to draw Oksanna out. “Well, I’m game. But my mother raised me to be a gentleman, so…you know…ladies first.”
Oksanna took a generous draught from her rum and cola. “OK, let me see. For starters, how about…I’m thirty-eight years old and a generally nice person, but all I’ve got to go home to is an empty house.”
“That’s the best you can do? All I’ve got to say is ‘ditto.’”
“What?” she queried with a furrowed brow.
“Ditto. Same here. An empty house. Oh, wait a minute. There’s a dog. Does that count?”
“That most certainly counts! I haven’t got a dog. I haven’t got a cat. I haven’t got so much as a hamster or a goldfish. How pathetic is that?”
Now Miles could not contain his curiosity, and it seemed as though she were virtually begging him to inquire further. “No hamster of goldfish, huh? Well, what about a husband? Isn’t there a fellow named Hugh Brown who fits into this picture somewhere?”
Oksanna’s affect became more serious, but also warmer. “I’m sorry. I led you into that one, didn’t I? Hugh and I are separated. He moved out about six months ago. Got a condo in that new highrise by the
“Wow! Now who feels like a fool? I’m really sorry, Oksanna. That was a dumb thing for me to say.”
“Stop it!” she responded sharply. “Don’t be silly. I obviously set you up for it. Not on purpose, of course. I hope you believe me. Please believe me! I didn’t bring you here to cry on your shoulder.”
Miles moved q uickly to reassure her. “I know that. But I’m still sorry. If not for having brought the subject up, then for your sake, because it must be really painful to be in the place you’re in.” He was trying to walk that fine line between probing for information and simply opening himself to receive whatever his dinner companion might wish to share.
Oksanna sighed deeply. “Thank-you. Of course…you’re right…it is painful. I do a pretty good job of covering it up, even to myself, most of the time. But it’s scary, and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.” She looked at Miles for a response, but he remained silent, looking directly into her eyes with an expression that he hoped signified the empathy and availability that he felt within himself. She raised her glass once again, and this time, all but drained it. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say what exactly has gone wrong between us. It’s just a bunch of little things. We’ve been together eight years, and finally the little things have caught up with us. Part of it’s the biological time clock thing, I guess. Hugh has grown kids from his first marriage, and I used to think I was OK with not having any of my own, but a couple of years ago I started to change my mind, and I guess it freaked him out. Can’t really blame the guy. I’m sort of a child bride for him; he’s almost 55 years old. ‘Been there and done that,’ you know? Can’t really blame him. Maybe it’s the age difference thing.” She paused briefly, playing with the ice in her glass with a straw. “God,” she mused softly, “it sure worked for a while, though. It sure worked for a while.”
As Miles digested Oksanna’s soliloquy, he also attempted to parse his own interior state. Did he want to be “Father Coverdale,” and turn dinner into a pastoral counseling session? Did he want to be “just Miles,” a friendly colleague, and provide a friend’s listening ear? Or did he want to give sway to his inner fifteen-year old, who was presently clamoring to see the light of day, because he was infatuated with the girl down the block whom he had just discovered, and wanted to impress her more than any of her other potential boyfriends might be able to impress her? It was a tough call. The fifteen-year old was in a strong position, but “Father Coverdale” did not yield easily. “I’m so sorry, Oksanna. What a mess. What are you doing to get through this?”
She laughed. “Doing? Not much. I’m trying to concentrate on being.”
“Good plan,” Miles offered.
“Yeah, a good plan. If I could only follow it!” She laughed again. The alcohol was clearly beginning to take effect. “I’m also into diversion and denial. Or is it denial and diversion? Which is it? Oh, hell, whatever! I let things like”—here she assumed a tone of mock officiousness— “the Bishop’s Ad Hoc Committee on Vision and Structure distract me from how messed up my life is.”
Miles grinned broadly. “You call it distracting. I call it sleep-inducing. But, hey, if it works for you…”
“I just try to take life as is comes, from one minute to the next.”
Just then, their server arrived on the scene. “Folks, your dinners should be up in just a couple of minutes. Ma’am, would you like another drink?” he inquired, noticing Oksanna’s empty glass.
She hesitated only a moment. “Sure, why not? Yes, that sounds good.” Miles waved off the waiter’s non-verbal query as to whether he wished to follow suit. The priest and the adolescent were still jockeying for position, and it was the latter’s turn to surge ahead, eager to know where he ranked against his competition. “Do you talk to Hugh very often? How are things between you?”
Oksanna looked away toward the wall fountain is if to collect herself before responding. “At first, we talked almost every day. Moving out wasn’t his idea; I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression. I’m the one who asked for it. He called me all the time, or found an excuse to stop by. He wasn’t taking it well. But since then—I couldn’t say quite when—anyway, things are different now. We’ve sort of flip-flopped. He seems to have adjusted to the new order of things, and I’m slowly falling apart. I haven’t heard from him in more than three weeks now. And before that, it was ten days.”
“Oksanna, what is it that you want? Are you in touch with that?” The priest was back in the lead, for the time being.
Her new drink arrived, and she fortified herself before responding. “What I want, Miles, is to be happy with myself, to be comfortable in my own skin. Somehow, I think that if I could manage that, relationships would take care of themselves. It might not fix things between me and Hugh, but I’d be able to deal with it, however it turns out. Is that too much to ask?”
Miles continued to nurse his own cocktail, now down to melting ice cubes. “Have you ever thought of becoming a shrink? You could make money with lines like that!” Oksanna laughed heartily; then he continued. “It may not be too much to ask, but it’s a lot to actually have. Trust me, in my line of work, I know about these things. Very few make it to that level.”
“What a shame! Isn’t that a shame? So much unhappiness all around. I know you guys—you clergy guys, I mean—you see it all the time, all in a day’s work. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I don’t know how we do it, either. Pure grace, I guess.” He reached for a piece of bread and rubbed it in the olive oil that the waiter had poured on an adjacent plate.
“But what about you? I look at you and I see an incredibly well put-together personality. If you tell me you haven’t reached that level…you know…where you’re happy…not that everything goes your way—God, I know they haven’t for you lately, and forgive me if I’m out of line here—but do you know what I mean? Not that everything goes your way, but that you’re basically happy with who you are, with the kind of person you are. Does that make any sense? Because, if you tell me you’re not, I think I’m going to cry just out of disillusionment!”
This was exactly the opportunity the fifteen-year old had been waiting for, and he exploited it without hesitation, but not before also exploiting that fact that he was inhabiting the body of a forty-nine year old, so he flagged the server who was passing by right at the moment and ordered another vodka and grapefruit. Then, in his best (but not very good) impression of a country drawl, he warned Oksanna, “Well, grab ‘hold of your napkin, darlin’, and get ready to cry me a river, cause I’m about as damaged a piece of goods as you’re gonna find anywhere on the loadin’ dock.”
Oksanna giggled. “Miles, I hate to break it to you, but you have no future as an Elvis impersonator!”
“Damn! There goes my early retirement.”
“So let’s have it. Show me your feet of clay, Father Coverdale!”
Miles resisted the impulse to exploit her invitation along the lines of “You’ve shown me yours; now I get to show you mine”—the implied double entendre was more real than he was yet prepared to consciously acknowledge. The server placed his second drink on the table at about that time, so he bought himself a few moments to collect his thoughts by taking a generous draft. In due course, he commenced his narrative. “Let’s see…where to begin? A year ago, I had wife who I thought was in the peak of health, a happily-married daughter who can melt hearts and start fires with her piano playing, a son who was a rising star in the business world, making more money in a year than I see in a decade, a thriving happy parish, an easy relationship with my bishop—who was a close friend before he became my bishop, and what looks now like an impossibly naïve sense of security about who I am and my place in the church and in the world. Life was good.”
It was Oksanna’s turn now to simply encourage the flow of self-disclosure. “And….?”
“And now it seems to have all gone up in smoke.” Their waiter arrived with their dinners, so they were distracted momentarily by the standard warning about hot plates, and the standard inquiry as to whether they lacked anything (both declined the offer of wine). They instinctively made the sign of the cross on themselves, and Miles offered the simple table grace, “May the Blessed One bless. Amen.” As Oksanna took the first bite of her meal, Miles continued. “You know about
“Yes, of course. I hope you know how many people all over the diocese were holding you in their prayers while
“Yes, I am. It was incredibly humbling.”
“And I hope you know, Miles, that I was one of them. I prayed for you—I prayed for
This was a clearly open door for Father Coverdale to put his pastor’s hat back on, but the fifteen-year old boy would have none of it. All he could see was a set of wide-open green eyes reflecting the flickering light of the candle on their table as they peered at him, laying open the depths of his soul, so he felt. So he charged ahead. “Oksanna, I’m so touched by that. I don’t even know what to say. Thank-you! That means so much to me.” With that, and without any premeditation, he extended his arm across the table and squeezed her right hand—gently, but with resolute firmness. Her lips broadened only slightly in the direction of a smile, but her eyes glowed as she continued to fix her gaze on him.
As they ate, Miles proceeded to lay out the details of his own unraveling life in chronological order: the residue of the gently dysfunctional morphology of his marriage to Sharon rising uncomfortably to the surface as he cleaned out her closet, the lightning bolt of Brian’s drug problems leading to the loss of his job and legal issues, the bombshell of Rachel’s separation from Greg and the ensuing revelation of her abuse by her childhood piano teacher and her naming of her father as the chief responsible party, the cooling of his friendship with Chase Landry, his inability to work up passion over pressing administrative concerns in the parish, his disastrous counseling session with Tracy Lindholm and her filing of sexual misconduct charges against him. They passed on the offer of a look at the dessert tray, but somewhere en route to that decision, Oksanna ordered a third cocktail.
As the waiter laid the vinyl wallet containing the check discreetly equidistant between the two diners (he must have sensed somehow that they were not an “item”), Oksanna removed the cloth napkin from her lap, shook it toward the floor, and dropped it ceremoniously on Miles’ side of the table. “I’m throwing in the towel,” she announced.
“Throwing in the towel?”
“Yes. Throwing in the towel. You win.”
“I win? Win what?”
“Oh, come on! Are you going to make me say it?”
Miles beamed with playful warmth. “You have me at a disadvantage, madam. What is it you’re wanting to say?”
“You know. Our ‘Who’s more pathetic?’ contest. You win. I thought I had a sob story, but I’m nothing. I can’t even come close.”
Without conscious intent, the playfulness of Miles’ affect was transfigured seamlessly into surprassing sweetness. “I won’t argue with you, Oksanna. I am definitely the winner. You’ve listened to me. My God, I didn’t even know how badly I needed to have somebody just listen to me. It’s not that anyone’s refused; I haven’t tried. You’ve listened, and for that, I’m the winner!”
The fifteen-year old removed a credit card from the forty-nine-year old’s wallet, and placed it with the dinner ticket. A gentleman pays for his date’s dinner, after all. Oksanna registered a pro forma protest, but did not press her point. A lady lets her date buy her dinner, doesn’t she?
After the server removed the credit card to execute the transaction, it suddenly dawned on Miles how much alchohol Oksanna had consumed. He’d had two drinks himself—or a drink and some fraction thereof, as there were definitely some yet drainable dregs in his glass. With his frame and body chemistry, he knew that he was not impaired for driving purposes. He was considerably less certain about his companion, however. She soon removed any doubt. “Miles, forgive me for being indelicate, but I have to use the ladies’ room, and I’m not even sure I can walk straight! So be patient with me, and get ready to pick me up off the floor if I need you to, OK?”
“That’s a deal,” he assured her. “Do you want me to walk you down there?”
“No, but thank-you. I need to try and salvage what dignity I can. So, here I go—one… two…three…and up.” She rose in one steady motion, but then steadied herself with a hand on the table. After a few seconds, she walked away in a manner that would not necessarily have drawn attention to itself, unless, like Miles, one was aware of her condition. He watched her until she disappeared around the corner. He was euphoric. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t know what to think about what had transpired during the course of the evening (which was, he realized, still quite young; they had gotten an early start, and it was still barely eight o’clock), as that he had not the slightest desire to think at all. He did not wish to risk spoiling what he was feeling by subjecting it to any form of reasoned analysis. All he knew was that he was devastatingly enamored of Oksanna Brown. The combination of the romantic ambience of The Shadows and the cathartic experience of mutual self-disclosure, gently marinated in his case by two jiggers of fine vodka, served to produce in him a sense of deep connection, a profound bond of a sort that cannot be casually dismissed. As Oksanna returned two minutes later by the same route by which she had departed, Miles felt fleetingly self-conscious that he had not averted his gaze from that pathway. She held up her arms as she approached him, grinning broadly, as if to say, “Look at me, I’m walking straight.” What she actually said as she arrived, and Miles rose to meet her, was, “There’s a bit of a problem.”
“Oh? What sort of problem?”
“You see, as I’ve just demonstrated, I can fake it quite well walking. I’m not at all sure I can fake it driving, though. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“I do indeed. Here’s the solution: I drive you home. Tomorrow morning I’ll pick you up and bring you back here to get your car. I haven’t got anything scheduled; it won’t be a problem. I suppose it’s a bit of a risk for your car, but this is a really busy area pretty much all night long, and it’s well lit. No arguments now. Is there anything you need out of your car?”
Oksanna paused for a moment to think, then shook her head side to side. “Nope. I’m good to go.” Miles offered her his arm—an offer which she readily accepted—as they made their way without any particular haste to the parking lot. He opened the passenger side door of his Grand Marquis for her, and saw to it that she was comfortably settled before shutting it firmly. As he guided the vehicle northbound onto the expressway, they both fell silent. Miles was accustomed to having a silent partner while driving.
If Oksanna realized the degree to which he was disgusted with himself, she concealed it. “Miles, whatever could you mean? What have you done that you could possibly regret?”
“Maybe ‘regret’ is the wrong word; maybe that’s too strong. I just hope I haven’t…well… burdened you with my personal baggage. It probably wasn’t very considerate of me to lay that all on you.”
“Miles Coverdale, if you weren’t driving, I’d tell you to look me straight in the eye. But don’t! Keep your eyes on the road. Just listen.” As she said this, she turned and placed her hand gently on his shoulder, a simple gesture which, for whatever reason, sent a shiver of excitement from one end of his body to the other. “I will always consider what you shared with me tonight as a … something absolutely sacred. I am so incredibly honored to be the one that you told all that stuff to. Plus, you did me a favor; you got me outside myself and my own problems, petty and otherwise. You’re not the only winner. I was just trying to be nice when I said that before! I’m a winner too. I’m a big winner.”
Once again, Miles was deeply and genuinely moved, and all he could do was sigh deeply. He did not consciously intend to drive twenty miles under the speed limit—definitely not his wont—but when he realized what he was doing, he made no attempt to alter his behavior; he did not want the moment to end. After they passed over the Northwest Tollway (which Miles would have ordinarily entered to speed him on his way to
Miles looked at his watch, as if to seek justification for what his leaping heart already told him his answer would be. “You know, it’s amazingly early still, considering all the ground we’ve covered tonight. I would love some coffee!” He started to follow her to the door, but after a couple of steps, she stopped and turned toward him (he barely avoided bumping into her) with a smile that he was sure could have melted a glacier. “Miles!”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you want to…”—she gestured toward his car—“you know…turn your engine off? I mean, it will take me a while to brew the coffee, you know!”
“Ah! That would be a good idea, I guess.” It was with some difficulty that he took his eyes off of her, but he managed to accomplished this small chore with due dispatch. She waited for him to catch up with her before proceeding toward the front door, keys in hand, activating a porch light with her movement in doing so. Once into the the entry way, Oksanna motioned toward her right as she moved toward her left. “Why don’t you have a seat in there. I’ll put the coffee on and then come and join you.” Miles obediently stepped into the living room, which triggered soft indirect lighting to come on, revealing a retro art deco ambience that contrasted sharply with the pragmatic eclecticism of the Coverdale home. He took a seat at one end of a long couch opposite a flat-screen television monitor mounted on the wall. Glancing behind him, he noticed small speakers attached discreetly to the top of the wall near the ceiling, telltale evidence of a top-drawer home theater system. He could hear Oksanna puttering in the kitchen, and unconsciously resented the soft-spoken inner voice that was calling him to take this brief opportunity to get his bearings, to take a quick reading from his moral compass and get himself re-centered.
Oksanna’s reappearance relieved him of the impulse to wrestle with his conscience. “Coffee’s on. It’ll just be a few minutes,” she announced brightly as she headed toward the couch, pausing briefly to glace at the stuffed chair that was positioned at right angles to it, at the end where Miles was seated, as if trying to gauge the atmospheric conditions in the room before deciding where to sit. By opting to change course a few degrees, angling away from the chair and walking around the coffee table on the other end of it and planting herself on the couch right next to Miles, she took the next step in the delicate dance that had begun, entirely without their knowledge, nearly four hours earlier in the Stillings & Latimer conference room.
Miles turned toward Oksanna, resting his arm on the back of the couch. He smiled warmly toward her, and wondered how she could be even more devastatingly beautiful in the dimmed light of her living room than she had been in the restaurant. Suddenly, she leaned forward and in one darting motion kissed him squarely on the lips, and then just as quickly backed away. “That’s for being such a sweetheart,” she explained. “You’re an exemplary gentleman. First, I dragoon you into having dinner with me, and then I go and drink so much I can barely walk, so you drive me home. What a guy!”
“Ooh,” Miles objected. “I wish you hadn’t been so quick to call me a gentleman.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because I think I’m about to do something rather ungentlemanly.”
“How exciting,” she purred before curling her lower lips in slightly under her top teeth, a move that had the effect of crumbling Miles’ defenses even further. “What might that be?”
“It might be this,” was his answer as his left hand reached behind her neck and pulled her toward him. He kissed her with unmistakable resolve and undeniable tenderness until they both literally needed to come up for air. “Wow!” Oksanna gasped. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
Miles said nothing. His only response was an unaffected countenance that was one part smiling and three parts simply glowing. Both their hearts raced, and they both felt predictable responses in the nether regions of their bodies. Oksanna continued, in a tone barely above a whisper, “Say, do you suppose there’s more where that came from?”
“I do so suppose,” he replied without hesitation. He edged toward her with the intention of backing up his supposition with action. But she gently stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “You know, eager as I am for a reprise of what just happened, I have one small favor to ask.”
Miles obligingly pulled back, continuing to fix his gaze on her, this time with an expression that tacitly invited her to elaborate. With her forefinger, she tapped on his clerical collar. “Do you suppose that could come off? I know it’s silly, but…”
He interrupted, “I was just thinking the exact same thing myself.” He stood and took off his suit coat and laid it neatly across the nearby stuffed chair. Then he reached to the back of his neck and undid a small brass-plated pin, one of two that fastened the acetate-lined linen collar to his black clergy shirt. He removed the collar and tossed it onto the coffee table. As he was doing this, Oksanna rose and stood before him. She slipped her arms behind him; being several inches shorter, the height differential between them allowed her to grasp both his shoulder blades as she drew his lips once again toward hers. Their kiss was unabashedly intense, but at the same time light and sweet. They parted, caught a breath, and then resumed, pressing their bodies ever more tightly against one another. As he held her, Miles allowed his hands to drop slowly lower, then out to the sides of her torso. In retrospect, he would realize that there was a critical point at which the denoument of the evening was effectively fixed. There were certainly more directly and dramatically telling developments in the unfolding plot—her subtle tug on his belt buckle, his taking hold of the zipper on the back of her dress and pulling it down only an inch or two, to say nothing, a few minutes later, of her grasping his hand and leading him into her bedroom. But the moment he would later recognize as the point of no return was when his hands found that precise point where her waist began to flare outward on a curvilinear path toward the furthest extension of her hips. There was something liminal and transcendent for him in that particular configuration of bone and skin and tissue. In any case, long before the entryway clock struck ten, Miles Coverale had slipped into something quite comfortable, quite comfortable indeed.
The couple lay silent in each other’s arms following their coition. Neither wanted to let the moment end. In their embrace, there was nothing to dilute their euphoria. Yet, they knew that, beyond the walls of Oksanna’s suburban home, there was only messy ambiguity, at best, and quite likely anxiety beyond their present ability to measure. They also knew that they could not literally lie there forever, as appealing as that prospect might seem. So there was peace to make with real life. What they had allowed to happen that night would surely complicate both of their real lives in unforeseeable but undeniable ways. If either of them had been accustomed to one-night stands or other sorts of casual trysts, they might have been less apprehensive about simply falling asleep and letting the morning light bring what it may. But they were not so accustomed. The events of the last several hours were well beyond the bounds of their experience. It was intuitively evident to both of them, then, that Miles would go home, and not spend the night. So Oksanna was, as the saying goes, “shocked but not surprised” when he whispered in her ear, “It’s time for you to kick me out.”
“Fat chance of that,” was her reply as she ran her finger along the bridge of his nose. “But I do understand that you need to go.” He kissed her once again, then rolled out of the bed and got dressed. Oksanna threw on a robe and followed him back out into the living room. “Oh, my God, the coffee!” she exclaimed as she ran into the kitchen to unplug the unit, hoping the condensed and completely untouched contents had not ruined the carafe; she was relieved to find that there was still enough liquid left that it would be cleanable. After completing this chore, she stepped back into the room to find Miles donning his suit coat. He gazed down at his clerical collar, and for the first time that evening, she noticed an expression of uncertainty and tentativeness on his face for a moment. He reached down and retrieved that emblem of his priestly identity. But instead of putting it back on, he simply slipped it into the side pocket of his jacket. Oksanna strode over to him and buried her face in his chest as she wrapped her arms around him. There was nothing to say. A great deal had already been said, and there would be plenty more to say in due course, but there was nothing to say right then. They held each other for nearly a full minute before Miles kissed her once more—this time tenderly on the forehead—and re-entered the real world in his mind before he was even all the way back to his car.
In the thirty-five minutes it took for him to drive back to
As he laid his head on a pillow for the second time in the same night—this time, however, his own pillow in his own bed—Miles, according to his years-long habit of sincere piety, traced the sign of the cross on his forehead and repeated the opening petition of the office of Compline: “The Almighty and merciful Lord—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—bless us and keep us. Amen.” It felt neither strange nor disintegrating for him to do so. There was no lack of sincerity in his mind as he offered his prayers. He fell asleep promptly and rested in peace the whole night long.
Miles was wakened by Belle’s restlessness shortly before seven in the morning. It was an hour or so earlier than he would normally have preferred to rise on a Saturday. Today, however, he ministered to the dog-that-was-not-his without the customary residual resentment; he was eager to face his day. Oksanna would be wanting to retrieve her vehicle from that parking lot at The Shadows, and he was a key player in that endeavor. As soon as he had released Belle from her leash following their walk, he headed into the den to find the phone. But wait…was it too early? She may not be feeling completely herself—most people can handle three drinks over dinner without any ill effects the next day, but some cannot, and he was not sure which sort Oksanna was. Best to give her some extra time. So he went back upstairs for his own morning ablutions. After he was showered and shaved and dressed (no clericals this time—a dark green polo shirt and khaki chinos), it was within striking distance of eight o’clock, so he grabbed the phone with excited determination. With his right index finger poised to punch in her number, he froze. What’s her number? With mild horror, he realized he had never had occasion to phone her before. His horror turned into frustration which turned into anger which impaired his ability to think clearly. Should he call Directory Assistance? What if she were not listed under her own name? If he asked for Hugh Brown, he would no doubt be directed to the one person he did not want to have a conversation with. And God only knows how many Browns there are in the
Miles entered the seven digits and sank down into the couch. She answered on the beginning of the third ring. “Miles Coverdale, I presume?”
He was momentarily flustered, but quickly deduced that her phone was equipped with Caller ID. “Hey, how’re you doing?”
“Not bad, all things considered. I’ve been known to get a little queasy drinking the way I did last night, so….not bad. I’m doing pretty well.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. To be honest, I was just a teensy bit worried about you on precisely that score. So I’m glad.”
“Of course,,,,”—Oksanna paused for effect—“I’m still horizontal. I haven’t tried to stand up yet!”
“Oh no! I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Not at all,” she reassured him. “I was just lying here…was just lying here…uh, nothing. I’m ready to get up.”
“Nothing?” Miles inquired with deliberate open-endedness.
“Well, not exactly nothing. But I’m not precisely sure what. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”
“Speaking of which, I presume that you’d like to make sure your very expensive car is still somewhere within the state of
“Can you give me like an hour or so? It takes me a while to put myself together in the morning.”
Miles was disappointed, but he concealed his reaction. He also concealed his temptation to say something along the lines of, “I’m glad it doesn’t take that long to take you apart at night.” Instead, his response was cheerful and compliant. “An hour it is, then. But don’t try to foist any of last night’s coffee on me. I expect a fresh pot!”
She laughed. “See you in a bit, then, OK?”
“You got it.” He rested the phone back in its cradle, picked up the combination Prayer Book and Bible that lay on the end table, and within two minutes was reciting the office of Morning Prayer for a Saturday morning in September. He was somewhat surprised that he did not find in inordinately difficult to pray. He did manage to avoid inquiring directly as to the Almighty’s precise opinion of his behavior—he knew, of course what the answer would be, so he didn’t have to ask—but he was not crippled by guilt. As a matter of mind, will, and intention, he was remorseful. He had violated a moral standard that he fervidly believed in, a standard he had taught and counseled during his entire ordained ministry. With palpable sadness, but with no hint of rebelliousness, he realized that there could be no repetition of last night’s events. It was something he and Oksanna were both going to have to put behind them. Yet, at the same time, he was elated. Their liaison—the totality of what they had exchanged, from the soulful sharing of one another’s woundedness over dinner, to the sealing of that sharing in sexual intercourse— was exciting and fulfilling at an unspeakably profound level.
After praying the Divine Office, it was time for Miles to begin his return trip to
“I believe I owe you a cup of coffee, sir!”
“Indeed, you do, and I have come to collect,” Miles affirmed.
She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. (He could not help but notice that this involved some of the same body language by which she had invited him into quite another room about twelve hours earlier.) Miles took a seat at a round glass-topped breakfast table with a wrought iron base—it might just as easily have been found on a patio or a desk—in the corner of the room, facing back into the main body of the kitchen. Oksanna placed an empty mug in front of him, then inquired, “So how do you take your coffee?”
“Black. Straight up, thanks,” he responded with a warm smile. Oksanna poured his mug full, then repeated her action with another mug directly opposite Miles’ position at the table. “Me too,” she announced—a delayed response to what Miles had last said. “Somehow cream and sugar seem dishonest. I drink it for the caffeine, anyway, not the taste, so why try to pretend?”
“Exactly,” acknowledged Miles. But he really wasn’t interested in a allocating any more oxygen to a discussion of coffee drinking habits. “Hey, you mentioned something on the phone…” He paused briefly, not quite sure where he was headed.
“Hmm?” Oksanna encouraged him to continue.
“When we talked on the phone before I came over. Remember?”
She was taking her first sip of coffee when, so it was three or four seconds before she was able to respond. “I’m sorry! This stuff hasn’t had a chance to kick in yet?” she answered, holding her mug in her right hand and pointing to it with her left.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. It’s no big deal, really. It just sounded like you wanted to tell me something, but then you changed your mind and said you’d save it for when I got here. That’s all. You certainly have the right to change your mind again.”
“Of course. Yeah, I remember that. Listen, like you say, it’s no big deal. I was just feeling a little…Oh God, this more awkward than I thought it would be!...I was just feeling a little…well, not guilty. Does that make any sense? No, I suppose not. Let me try again.”
This time, it was Miles’ turn to remain silent, and urge Oksanna to continue simply by taking a sip of his coffee. She obliged promptly. “What we did last night—I’m referring, of course, specifically to what we did in the last hour or so of the time we spent together last night.” This clarification was punctuated with a demure smile.
“That much I could have figured out,” he countered with gently benign sarcasm.
Oksanna took a deep breath and composed herself. “What we did last night…well, it breaks all sorts of rules, am I right?”
Without breaking eye contact with her, Miles confirmed this assessment. “You are indeed right. We broke all kinds of rules.”
“So here’s the thing. I don’t feel guilty. I know I am guilty, but I don’t feel guilty.”
“How, then, do you feel?” His voice was so soft it bordered on a whisper.
“I feel lots of things,” Oksanna replied. “Maybe guilt is in there somewhere, but if it is, I haven’t found it yet.” She took another sip of her coffee and continued, “I feel confused. I feel… euphoric! I feel somehow more alive than I was twenty-four hours ago. I feel scared. I feel disconnected from what my real life is supposedly about. I feel . . . more than I can say. So much more than I can say.” Then she looked right at Miles with an expression of seriousness that was not in any way confrontative, but not at all playful either. “What about you? What are you feeling?”
Miles felt his cheeks flush. He spoke slowly and softly. “I could probably use most of the words you just used about yourself, and be completely honest. I have to admit, I do feel some guilt. But not enough to bring me down very far—not yet, at least. And I’m scared and I’m confused—that’s for sure. I’m also higher than the crowd at a Rolling Stones concert, and I haven’t even broken any laws!” They both laughed with abandon. “Mostly, though, I’m just taking delight in…you. You have lit up a life I didn’t even realize was dark. Whatever happens, wherever we go from here, I’ll always owe you for that.”
Oksanna reached across the table and grasped his hand with her own. “You will owe me exactly…nothing! If anybody owes anything, it’ll be me. If I’m a flashlight, you’re a floodlight, Miles. I mean that.”
Miles beamed at her and placed his other hand on top of hers. It was at that moment when they both knew they were warming up for a reprise of the very encounter that was the instigating factor in their present conversation. But it was more than a reprise; it turned out to be the main event, for which the previous night was only a prelude. What had been done earlier, in the dark, with the assistance of a romantic dinner and an effective quantity of alcohol to lower their inhibitions, was now accomplished in the full light of day, cold sober—not in a frenzy, but at a deliberate, even langorous, pace—with no mitigating circumstances except their intense mutual magnetism. On the plush living room carpet, they explored one another’s bodies with almost clinical thoroughness, delaying their coupling until there was nothing left to do. In wordless dialogue, they negotiated an agreement to enjoy one another’s fulfillment serially, rather than aiming at a contrived simultaneity. As Oksanna reached her peak, instead of closing her eyes in reverie, she kept her gazed fixed on her partner. Miles found this intensity at the same time sweet beyond telling and almost intolerably crushing. More to the point, it was a completely novel experience for him. In a quarter-century of marriage to Sharon, their climaxes were nearly always perfectly synchronized, but—he now realized this for the first time—they may as well have been in separate rooms, because, they were, in effect, in separate worlds, doing the same thing in the same place at the same time, but never really together. Now, with Oksanna, a woman with whom he’d had only a casual working relationship only a day earlier, he felt as though he were being allowed into the depths of her soul as succeeding waves of gratification washed over her, with her eyes wide open. It was a moment of pure transcendance such as he had never before known. Presently, it became his turn, and as he delivered the consummation of his erotic energy into the most intimate environs of Oksanna’s body, he also kept his eyes open and peered deeply into hers. It felt to him like he was leaving behind his own distilled essence—not just a bodily fluid, but the very template of his own unique identity. “And the two shall become one flesh”—this he knew as he had never known it before.
