“No and no,” I told him, uncomfortable under his very direct blue gaze. River St. John was quite possibly the most handsome guy I’d ever seen in my life. His skin was perfectly clear, and with his chiseled features he resembled a marble statue of Apollo. When he took off his windbreaker, I could see he was thin but muscular. His faded T-shirt bore a photo of earth as seen from space.
“Do you have friends in the area?” he asked. “What brought you here?”
“I don’t have any friends.” I saw fit not to answer the second question.
“Where are you from? Don’t you have any family?”
“I’m from Pennsylvania,” I said, thinking that answer was vague enough and not untrue. “And no, my parents died almost a year ago.”
“And you have no place to live?”
“Stop interrogating the poor thing,” Diana said. “Can’t you see she’s still unwell?” She gave her brother a look that communicated something very directly, although I couldn’t say what. The two of them slipped out together to another room.
Maria set the table with mismatched plates, silverware, and glasses. She put a steaming bowl of brown rice on the table and the wok full of stir-fried vegetables on a broken trivet. “Let me go see where they went.”
I sat alone in the kitchen for what felt like a very long time. I knew the three of them must be talking about me and that River might be objecting to the presence of a strange person in his home. What if he wouldn’t let me spend another night? But I didn’t think Diana would let him toss me out on the street, especially now that it was getting dark. And they were locals; they could tell me where I might go to find a bed for tomorrow night.
When the three of them came back into the kitchen, they said nothing, but Diana had a small, satisfied smile on her face. River spread a paper napkin across his lap and folded his hands. Taking their cue from him, Maria and Diana did the same. A heartbeat later, so did I. “Bless this food to our use and us to Thy service,” River said, and then dug in.
The food smelled good; I spooned some rice onto my plate and ate a little to steady my stomach. The chipped and mismatched dishware and the creaky chairs we sat on somehow made the room feel more, not less, comfortable. Diana and Maria joked and talked about their day. From what I could gather, Maria worked in the law library at Yale and was taking a night class in German literature with a professor she called Herr Bachmeier. Diana was looking for some kind of work that was better paying and more satisfying than her waitressing job, but she’d been a philosophy major and couldn’t quite decide what direction her life should take. And River, who was studying to become a minister, put in long hours as a volunteer at a soup kitchen. I was cheered by this last bit of news; certainly he would be able to point me in the direction of a shelter and maybe even put in a good word for me there, if such a thing would help me get a bed. I waited until River had all but finished his beer and seemed to have loosened up a bit.
“Tell me more about the soup kitchen,” I said. “Is it far from here? Can anyone eat there?”
“It’s a couple of miles from here. We serve anyone who shows up.”
“And do most of your clients have homes, or do they live in shelters?”
“There’s a mix,” River said in his serious way. “Some are the working poor who make barely enough to pay their rent, much less buy food. Others are homeless.”
“And is the kitchen affiliated with a homeless shelter?”
“Not affiliated, no. But there’s a shelter a few blocks over. A lot of people come to us from there.” Then he started telling stories about his day — the men he’d served, the conversations he’d had with them. I noticed, though, that Diana was watching me as her brother spoke. When there was a break in the conversation, I dared another question.
“Can anyone stay in the shelter?”
River piled his plate with seconds. “If they get there early on any given day. They often have to turn people away.”
“Can women stay there as well as men?”
“Yes,” he replied. “But the men outnumber the women two to one.”
“Can I change the subject for a moment?” Diana asked.
“As if we could stop you,” River said, his tone a bit lighter than before.
Diana cleared her throat. “Well. Jane, the three of us were thinking —”
“We have this room,” Maria cut in. “It’s really more of a closet.”
“We tried to rent it out,” Diana said, “but nobody wanted it. It’s too small, and it has only one very tiny window, and we didn’t like any of the people who came to check it out anyway.”
“So Diana was wondering,” Maria said. “Well, actually, we were all wondering…”
“Would you like to live in it?” Diana said.
I sat there dumbfounded for a moment, filled with intense relief and the feeling that somewhere out there I must have a guardian angel or a fairy godmother. “How much?” I asked finally.
“It wouldn’t have to be much,” Maria said. “You should see the room. You might not even want it. River keeps his bicycle in there now.”
“But… you know I don’t even have a job yet,” I said. “I’m looking for one, and I’m sure I’ll get work soon, but I don’t know… I can’t promise…”
“We can’t let you stay in a homeless shelter!” Diana exclaimed. “You seem too nice.”
“Nice people stay in homeless shelters all the time,” River said. “Jane, my sisters say you won’t tell them anything about yourself — where you come from, what brings you to New Haven. That concerns me.”
Could my silence be a deal breaker? “I have my reasons.”
“Maria thinks you’re running away from an abusive husband,” Diana piped up cheerily. “Or maybe you’re fleeing a cult. Or you’re married to a mobster and want to escape.”
“Nothing so glamorous,” I said, and immediately realized the truth I was hiding was even stranger than the fictions that the sisters had invented for me. For a moment, I wished I could share my story, if only because I knew it would amuse them. “I can tell you I’m hardworking and honest, and I’d try to be a considerate roommate.”
“Of course you would,” Maria said. “We can tell.”
“How would you feel about working at the soup kitchen with me?” River asked. “It would be volunteer work. Meaningful work.”
The question took me by surprise. “Volunteer work? Don’t you want me to be able to pay rent?”
“You answer first: how would you feel about working at a soup kitchen?”
It occurred to me that I was being tested. “I would like that,” I said, which fortunately was the truth.
River seemed satisfied. “If you volunteer for a while, I might be able to help you find a paying job at one of the nonprofits where I’ve got connections. In the meantime, you can stay here rent free. We’re not really using the room, and the soup kitchen always needs more volunteers — regular ones, that is. Not the kind that come and go on Thanksgiving.”
I allowed myself a sigh of relief and thanked them profusely. “You’re saving my life.” I meant it literally. Now I would have work and a place to stay. I wouldn’t be alone.
After dinner, Maria and Diana took me to look at the room, and I saw that they hadn’t been exaggerating its size. It was barely a room at all; I might be able to fit a twin bed into it with some space left over, but I’d have to crawl into it over its footboard. The small high window overlooked an alley behind the house. I could see broken glass, tall weeds, an abandoned mattress. “It’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.”
“We’ll have to clean it out,” Maria said. “And you’ll have to get a bed somewhere.”
“In the meantime, you can keep sleeping on the living room couch,” Diana added. “Fergus seems to like sharing it with you.” She indicated the fat tabby cat twining itself around my ankles. “River says to tell you you’ll need to be ready to go by ten tomorrow morning. I’ll give you a ride to the church — where t
he soup kitchen is. Unless you want to ride on River’s bike handles.”
“I’ll take the ride. With you, that is,” I said. “I don’t even have an alarm clock.”
“I’ll wake you. And tomorrow I’ll take you out to get the things you need. We could probably find you a bed at the Salvation Army.”
“I do have some money. Not much, but some. I can pitch in, buy some groceries for the household. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“Aw, cut it out.” Diana reached down to scoop Fergus up into her arms. The big cat purred and shut his eyes, looking blissful. “Mi couch es su couch.”
The next morning, I followed Diana’s directions to the nearest post office. It was a good half mile from the apartment, and the streets I walked through weren’t particularly well kept or welcoming, but I had an important task to accomplish. At the counter in the back of the post office, I wrapped my cell phone in tissue paper, packed it in a cardboard box, and sealed it. Then I made up an address — 35 Oak Street, Sacramento, California — and wrote it on the box. I put down a made-up return address. This was my solution to the cell-phone problem, dreamed up late the night before when I had been too restless to sleep. I had considered carrying the phone to the far reaches of New Haven and leaving it in a garbage can, but even that seemed too risky. If, in fact, cell phones could be traced, I didn’t want Nico to know what city I was in. There may or may not have been a 35 Oak Street in Sacramento, but I hoped the phone would wind up in a dead-letter file, unclaimed. I couldn’t imagine Nico, even with his money and resources, tracking it down that far away. And perhaps he didn’t want to find me anyway. I’d deserted him, after all.
I thought of my phone in its white tissue-paper shroud, the last link to my old life, and had a powerful urge to break open the box, dig it out, and put it right back into my pocket. It took all my willpower to give the box to the postal clerk, who punched in my invented address to find the ZIP code. But my good luck held; there really was a 35 Oak Street in Sacramento. I quickly handed over my money. I needed to head back to my new home as fast as my legs could carry me; Diana would be waiting to drive me over to the Ebeneezer Baptist Life Center, where I would begin my working life anew.
CHAPTER 23
At the soup kitchen, River put me to work cubing meat and peeling potatoes for beef stew to feed about 150 people. I joined an assembly line of cooks who greeted me warmly and chatted with each other in a meandering stream of conversation. River supervised; I noticed that though the other volunteers responded quickly to his commands, they seemed fond of him, half jokingly calling him “Captain.” When River thanked a skinny blond man for organizing the pantry full of donated food, the man beamed as though he’d been given something rare and valuable.
At noon, the soup kitchen opened its doors, and a line of people began filing through to pick up trays and food. I ladled stew into their bowls and gave each comer a square of corn bread. I tried to talk to some of them as they came through, but the line had to move fast; there was barely time to say hello to the men and women who passed by my station. I couldn’t help thinking how easily I could have been in their place, accepting food instead of dishing it out.
When the line had tapered off and the last of the stew was gone, out of the corner of my eye I noticed somebody hovering just behind me. It was River. “Now we need you out back to clean up,” he said. I complied, scouring pots and soaking the front of my shirt in the process. I noticed that the other workers had started to clear out; the large, brightly lit kitchen was getting emptier.
“So, Jane” — it was River again; one minute he was nowhere to be seen and the next at my side — “satisfying work, right?”
I nodded. It certainly was simple work — useful and clear-cut. Less fortunate people needed something, and I had helped to give it to them.
“So do you think you’re up to doing this on a daily basis?”
“I’m up to it,” I said, and was on the verge of asking him how I could get back and forth without always relying on Diana to drive me, when a bright female voice cut in.
“Hey, River.” It was the young woman who had dished out apple crisp at the other end of the serving table. She looked about my age. Tall and slender, with creamy brown skin and the longest eyelashes I had ever seen, she smiled engagingly at River, who blushed deeply.
“Hello, Rosalie.” His gaze fell to the industrial green tile under his feet.
“How was your summer? Did you get away at all?”
“My summer was fine. I took classes and worked here at Ebeneezer.” I waited for River to follow up with a question about the young woman’s summer, but he was silent. Undeterred, she volunteered the information anyway.
“I had the most wonderful vacation. My family and I went up to our summer camp in Maine, and then we took a month on Naxos, you know, in Greece. But as gorgeous as it was, I missed this place and my friends here.”
From the tone of her voice and the eager look on her face, I guessed that “my friends here” really meant River. As she spoke, she leaned in toward him and twirled one of her loose, glossy curls around an index finger. River stood stiffly, not knowing where to put his hands. First they landed in his pockets, then they dropped to his sides, then his fingers interlaced. As hard as she tried, he refused to meet her gaze.
“So I decided to do service work again this semester and asked to be assigned here. I’ll have to take a summer course to catch up on all my requirements, but it’s worth it to help people, don’t you think?” She giggled. “Of course you do, or you wouldn’t volunteer so many hours here yourself. I tell my friends you’re the most selfless, committed person I’ve ever met.”
“I doubt that’s true.”
“Well, it is. And now they all want to meet you. They’ve heard so much about you. So I was wondering, would you like to come over on Saturday night? My roommates and I are having a little party, very low-key.”
“I don’t go to parties. I need to stay focused on getting my course work done.”
“And you are very focused. Anyone can see that. But it would only be a couple of hours, and everybody needs a little fun now and then.”
“Thank you for the invitation. I’m sorry I can’t make it.” River’s words were clipped, as though he were in a hurry to cut the conversation short.
Until that moment I would have sworn that Rosalie hadn’t noticed my presence, but then she turned to me. “What do you think? Shouldn’t River take a break and come to my party?”
“A night out every once in a while is probably good for everyone.”
“You see? Your friend agrees with me.” Rosalie extended a hand and introduced herself. “You’re new here, right?”
“Yes. I’m Jane.”
“You work on him for me, okay?” She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and jotted down a phone number and an address. “The party starts at nine.” She handed the information to me.
“I think my powers of persuasion are limited,” I told her.
“Try anyway.” She held out a hand for River to shake; he barely touched it. “See you next week, River.” And she was gone.
Slowly, River’s composure returned. We were the last to leave the soup kitchen. As he locked up, he offered to help me find my bus stop. We walked in silence. I wanted to ask about Rosalie — why he was so standoffish with her when their mutual attraction was so obvious. His response to her certainly wasn’t indifferent; his stiff posture and bright blush gave that much away. Either he was painfully shy, or he held some kind of grudge against her. At any rate, I knew better than to mention it.
That night, though, when Diana got home from her shift and Maria and River were still out of the house, I tried to feel her out on the topic. “Have you met a young woman named Rosalie who works at the soup kitchen?”
“Rosalie? Is that the one River complains about all the time?”
“Complains?”
“He says she’s a rich party girl who only does volunteer work because it will
look good on her résumé. Of course that’s probably true for nine-tenths of the college students who work at the soup kitchen, or do any volunteer work, really. For some reason, she grates on his nerves. Last spring he complained about her all the time. What’s she like?”
I was surprised at this report but decided not to give away too much of what I had observed. “She seemed very friendly. She tried to talk him into going to a party at her place Saturday night.”
“River at a party?” Diana laughed. “Can you imagine?” And I had to admit I couldn’t.
Living and working side by side with River, I soon got to know him better. Not that we made a lot of idle chitchat; he tended to focus like a laser beam on the things he found important — his studies, the soup kitchen, and his plans for the future. I found out a great deal about that last subject when one night over dinner I asked what he planned to do when he finished his studies.
“Haven’t I told you already?” River’s handsome face grew animated. “I’m surprised I didn’t mention it. I’m moving to Haiti to help rebuild a school in one of the poorest communities you could imagine. The place was in rough shape before the earthquake, and now it’s just devastated. You wouldn’t believe the suffering, the lack of clean drinking water, the disease…” He soliloquized on the topic with a passion I’d never heard in his voice before.
“You big geek,” Diana said fondly when she could get a word in. “Look at the sides of Jane’s head. See anything missing?” And when he looked up, puzzled, clearly caught off guard, she said, “You’ve talked her ears off.”
Still, it was clear that Diana and Maria doted on their big brother and were proud of his idealistic bent. The quieter and more serious of the two, Maria also admired him more openly. She once told me over coffee that she and her sister had always considered themselves ordinary compared to River. “Diana and I are average,” she said, without rancor or jealousy. “But we’ve always known River would go on to do something important. Mom says he’s destined for greatness.”
And I had to admit that River’s sense of purpose and intensity of focus were extraordinary, even if he had some difficulty relating to people in a regular, day-to-day way. I couldn’t say whether he liked me, but as time went on, it became clear that he approved of me. After I’d put in a few months at the soup kitchen, he came home from class one night eager to talk. “There’s a position opening up at Open Doors, the shelter up the street from Ebeneezer. They’re looking for someone to run the office and write grant applications. I told the director about you, and she’d like to give you an interview. Would you be interested? It’s a paying position.”