This Benediction Thing
It’s taken me a while to notice, so thrilled have I been, so wrapped up in my newfound skills—but: Carlos, Stephanie, Maggie and her “occasional boyfriend,” Lyle (whose existence makes me sick with jealousy)—all treat me with a hesitant politeness and weird respect. Of course the regulars and newcomers are deferential. Last week, old Mr. Downey and old Mr. Hedlund actually declared they would retroactively pay full price! But I said, no, no, eighty percent from now on was plenty.
[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
For a while there, Carlos approached me as if on bended knee. But he’s adjusting. After each show, he hugs me gently, tells me how fantastic I was, and always asks, Can he do anything for me? Would I like him to stick around?
“For what?” I laugh.
Once, after an especially ecstatic performance, I remember, Carlos kissing me and marveling in a choked voice. But oddly ever since, his presence, his gaze, even his touch barely register. Only when I asked him to handle the RWR’s finances, and of course, the shop’s too, did we seem to be on the same wave length.
“Are you sure?” Carlos asked. “Because, you know, I’ve got plans.”
And I in my separate, all-absorbing, little world, said, “Right. I know you’ve got plans. So hire an accountant.”
The money, the crowds, the blinding awe envelope me. I have to calm down. Or else, I’m too giddy to travel from here to there. And I do, after all, have business to attend to.
At six am, I bless the bread dough before an audience. Some thirty people show up to watch as I knead it vigorously for five or ten minutes. And then at ten am and four pm, I do this little benediction thing where I drizzle chocolate on éclairs, which are then passed out to everybody in the store. They wait and watch while I eat mine first.
(Click here to read the next episode)
