The Next Queen of Heaven: A Novel by Gregory Maguire

Author:Gregory Maguire [Maguire, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-06-202371-1
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2009-01-12T07:00:00+00:00

19

TABITHA’S MOTHER PRESENTED herself on Thanksgiving morning ready for church. She had draped a lacy bureau scarf over her head and attached it with plastic clothespins, and she carried her Bible in a plastic Price Chopper bag. Around her neck hung a homemade lei: strung popcorn interspersed with the occasional pitted black olive. Tabitha guessed this must be an imitation rosary, since a cross cut out of a Visa card dangled down the front.

“Can you do this run?” asked Tabitha of Hogan.

“No. Why don’t we give Kirk the keys and tell him to teach himself to drive? With luck he’ll have a fatal crash and solve two problems at once.”

“Exceedingly funny,” called Kirk from the bathroom where he appeared to be flossing his eyelashes. “I’m not going to church either.”

“Hell in a haltertop,” said Tabitha, which had been her mother’s worst expression up until this month. It sounded corrupt coming out of her own mouth. “Okay, Mom, I’ll take you, but I’m waiting in the car. You’re on your own.”

The parking lot between the churches was full to overflowing this morning. Radical Radiant Pentecostals and Roman Catholics alike needed to get the worship business over with early so they could go home to shove turkeys into the oven. Who knows what anyone had to be grateful for in November 1999, with Y2K and the end of days on its way?

Mrs. Scales needed help getting to the church door. But which one? Tabitha couldn’t advise, though she hadn’t given up on some sort of a holy miracle to knock some sense back into her mother. The Radical Radiants? Tabitha didn’t think much of Pastor Jakob Huyck; he seemed hard to read. Then again, she’d never been much of a reader. The Catholics? At least the vestments of the Catholic priests were outward signs of their inner weirdness. They were like grown-up Goths.

Mrs. Scales twisted her elbow and led Tabitha toward the Catholic door. Tabitha pulled away until she remembered that Caleb’s fiancée was Catholic, and what if she was dragging Caleb here and trying to convert him? If they were going to get married, Caleb must be spending time at the brainwashing sessions. He was probably in there right now, gargling some archaic oath to dead popes or dead Kennedys, or both.

Mrs. Scales apparently didn’t want to attend mass. She went back downstairs and found her favorite spot at the foot of the old Kelvinator. It was the one place that she seemed at peace. Whatever depths of hatred and disgust Tabitha was finding within herself, she was glad to see her mother calm for a few minutes. Mrs. Scales closed her eyes and folded her hands on her bosom as if she expected someone to place a lily there. She looked like she was practicing to be a corpse. “Violent night, holy night,” sang Mrs. Scales, rather tunelessly but at least softly. “Falling bombs, all is bright. Disney version, other and child.”

“You’ve been practicing in your head,” said Tabitha. “Nice.”

“Holy infant so mental and wild.

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